Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,82
drinking beer, talking quietly, and watching the door for the unprecedented sight of a pack of werewolves walking into the Vampire Motorcycle Club headquarters.
“It’s going to be bad if the warlocks have already taken any of the wolves,” Luke muttered.
Edge nodded. “Carter Reynolds is a major strength, but his people don’t have any natural immunity to blood magic, like we do.”
“None of us but Bane have much, either, as we just discovered,” Luke growled.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” Bane said, hearing the bikes roar into the parking lot.
A few minutes later, Reynolds sauntered in, with a casual expression on his face like he walked into the middle of a dozen vampires every day and twice on Fridays. Behind him, several of his pack members, including his second, Max, followed him, belligerence and defiance an almost-tangible wave around them.
“We’re here. The party can get started,” Max called out, her cheerful expression and freckled nose belying what he knew about her deadly skill as a fighter.
Most of the wolves and a few of the vampires laughed.
“It was her role to break the ice,” Bane said quietly. “Now, we’ll see the show of power.”
Sure enough, a big guy who was built like a bulldozer crossed with a bear started snarling the minute he reached the center of the room.
“You don’t look so tough to me. Look like a bunch of wimps,” he growled, staring at Luke and then Edge, but careful not to meet Bane’s gaze.
Bane nodded to Reynolds. “Okay. We’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way. Can we talk now or do you need to pee in the corner first?”
A shadow of a grin crossed the alpha’s face, and then he returned Bane’s nod and motioned to his man to stand down. “Let’s do it. I’m a busy man. Things to do, people to intimidate.”
“I know I’m intimidated,” Bane said in his driest voice, and the werewolf laughed.
“I can see that. All right. What do you know?”
Bane nodded, and one of his club members walked behind the bar and started handing out bottles of beer to the wolves. He and Reynolds took seats at a table in the middle of the room.
“The warlock named Sylvie appeared in the middle of your clubhouse without anybody scenting her?”
The alpha’s eyes flared hot. “She knocked your vampire off his bike and dragged him to our place, and he couldn’t fight back?”
Bane shook his head. “I’m not trying to start a pissing contest, and I’m not casting blame on you or your wolves. This is a special fucking party trick from a necromancer. Ordinary warlocks can’t pull it off easily, if at all. Vampires can’t detect necros, either, when they don’t want to be seen or smelled.”
The alpha accepted a beer from one of his men. “Yeah. That was exactly it. Dropped your guy off and called him a gift. Then she left. I’ve been waiting ever since for the other shoe—or, in her case, spike-heeled boot—to drop.”
“No word?”
Reynolds took a long draw on his beer. “None. You?”
Bane filled him in on their encounter at the wildlife preserve. “Nothing since then, which doesn’t make sense. Usually, when they come in force, they want you to know. Warlocks are more like hurricanes than spring showers. There’s no way this Constantin and Sylvie came on their own, unless they were just scouting, but taking such aggressive action either means they have an army to back them up or—worse—they’re so powerful they believe they’re a fucking army all by their own damn selves. Have you dealt with necromancers before?”
“Never. My dad had, though, he said. When he lived in Louisiana. Baton Rouge. Took the entire combined force of all the supernaturals in the city to get rid of them—and that was for only two of them.”
“We have at least two here, and the master, Constantin, is extremely powerful. We took care of three ordinary warlocks, but Constantin and this Sylvie are clearly necromancers, which is a big fucking problem.”
“Zombie magic? Pulling up the graveyards?” Reynolds’s eyes narrowed. “That is some unpleasant shit, especially in an area filled with cemeteries like Savannah.”
Bane drained his beer. “Yeah. Zombie shit. This is going to get really bad before it gets better. We need to coordinate or she might take over some of your wolves.”
Reynolds leaned forward, his face hardening to stone. “My wolves are not—”
“Your wolves are incredibly tough, but even two of my vampires, who have at least a small amount of natural immunity to blood magic, fell