the look on your face, you’re the one who’s fucked, my friend.”
Bane made a deep growling sound that made the tiny hairs on the back of Ryan’s neck stand up. “Shut up, Luke, or I’ll shut you up.”
Luke’s only response was more laughter.
Ryan paused, looking back toward the stairs behind her. She could escape down those stairs and out of the house and never, ever look back.
But Hunter Evans…she would not abandon him.
Meara leaned out of the last doorway on the right, at the end of the hall. “Are you coming, or is there something about looking and smelling like hell that’s making you happy?”
Ryan sighed, took one long, last look at the stairs, and then headed toward Meara.
She’d get clean, she’d get a closer look at Hunter, and then she’d get out.
Call the police if she had to.
Protect her patient.
Never, ever see vampires again in her lifetime.
Except…why did she hate that idea so much?
Chapter Twelve
Carter Reynolds, president of the Wolf Pack MC, stalked into the room, stared down at the battered and bound white-haired vampire lying in the middle of his clubhouse floor, and felt a killing rage rising inside him.
“Somebody better tell me, right now, who the fuck thought that breaking our treaty with the vampires was a good thing to do,” he roared.
The twenty or so of his pack who’d followed him into the clubhouse dropped to their knees when his power washed over them, but nobody even tried to answer.
He’d known, when they rode up and discovered the sentries unconscious on the ground outside and the clubhouse door swinging open, that it would be bad. He’d expected bad.
He hadn’t expected now we’re fucked all to hell.
His head started throbbing in reaction to the fury pounding through his skull. There would be blood paid for this. “Damn it.”
The vampire twitched, its face still hidden beneath a tangle of that pure white hair, causing the men nearest him to flinch and back away. The wolves all knew what vampires were capable of doing to anybody stupid enough to think a bloodsucker was down for the count.
They’d lost club members to just such stupid complacency in the past. But this—this wasn’t on them.
And Carter didn’t even know who this was.
“We didn’t do this to you,” he told the vampire. “If you’ll hold still, we’ll remove these chains, and—”
“I’d advise against it,” said an icy female voice that sent revulsion skittering down his spine. “Consider him to be a gift.”
The vampire’s eyes, which had been fluttering open, closed again, and Carter turned to face the warlock striding toward him. She was definitely a warlock, although she’d been able to mask the stench of her magic until she was almost on them, and that was a new trick that signaled bad fucking times in the future.
“It’s not my birthday,” Carter said dryly.
His second, Max, started to rise, but he shook his head at her. Nobody needed to get in the scary warlock’s path until he could figure out what the hell she wanted.
The warlock presented as young and beautiful like they almost all—male or female—did, whether they’d lived for decades or centuries, but Carter knew better than to trust appearances. His nose, even in human form, told a story of rot and death, not beauty.
“My name is Sylvie,” the warlock proclaimed, in the tone of one giving him a great boon. She stared at him as if she expected him to bow or kiss her damn hand.
She was in the wrong place if she expected bowing and scraping. He’d been the alpha of this pack since he was nineteen years old, and he sure as hell hadn’t gotten the job by backing down before predators.
He studied the face she wore. White skin, black hair. Black eyes, to match the blackened soul all warlocks carried, if they still had souls at all. Tall. Slender. Long legs. Just the kind of woman he’d give a second glance, except this wasn’t a woman at all.
Warlocks were pure evil wrapped in a skin sack. And it was bad fucking news that this one had apparently decided to take an interest in his pack.
Or in him.
“We’re taking over this territory,” she said. “We could have use for you and your wolves, if you do what you’re told.”
Some of his pack began to growl, and she glanced dismissively at them and then laughed. “Oh! Please! Please challenge me. I love to play with puppies!”
With that, she flicked her fingers at Max, who fell over, her body