dragged me backward. My senses were coming back online. The pain receded as my body dispelled the effects.
A huge golden wolf attacked the super vamps spilling into the yard in a frenzy. Blood sprayed, howls ripped the air, and throats were torn open.
Grayson was in his own version of berserker mode, and fuck was he glorious, but he needed to stop. We needed intel. We needed one alive, and I knew just which one.
I grabbed Dean’s shirt by the collar and pulled myself to my feet as Grayson came to a standstill, his powerful golden body spattered with blood. Vamp parts were strewn around him. My pack growled and snarled in triumph as Grayson turned on the vampire crumpled by the van. His haunches bunched as he prepared to attack.
“NO!” I blur-ran, coming to stand in front of the super vamp.
Grayson’s jaws snapped closed inches from my face, his eyes wide with shock at what he’d almost done. He fell back, and I dropped down beside the vamp and grasped his jaw, forcing him to look at me.
“We’ve been looking for you, Kristoff.”
The vamps we’d been protecting were back in the garage, snug and safe. The dead bodies of the super vamps had been piled into our van, ready for disposal, and Kristoff was chained to the post in the pack house with the rest of us gathered around him. His spine had healed, so the chains were a necessary precaution.
“This is your hybrid witch-vamp contact?” Dean asked. “Are you sure? He isn’t what you described.”
Thin with a Béla Lugosi vibe? No, he wasn’t any longer.
He was bulky and muscular beneath his combat uniform, which strained against his biceps and thighs. They’d changed him. Whoever they were.
“He looks different. I mean, his body…It’s bulkier than it was before, but it’s him.”
Kristoff stared straight ahead, ignoring us.
Grayson stepped into his line of sight. “Who are you working for?” he asked.
Kristoff’s expression remained impassive.
“We should make him talk.” Bastian cracked his knuckles. “I’ll do it.”
Kristoff didn’t even flinch.
I joined Grayson in Kristoff’s line of sight. “I don’t think that’ll make a difference.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face, and he didn’t even blink. “I don’t think he’s home.”
“He’s in lockdown,” Cora said. “Some kind of shutdown.”
“She’s right,” Uriel said. “Those vamps were trained professionals, sent here with an objective, and that mission was compromised. This…Whatever it is that’s happened to him, must be some kind of failsafe. A way to prevent anyone getting intel.”
“Why not just put in a kill switch?” Dean pondered.
“Maybe there is one,” Grayson said. “Maybe it’s on a timer.”
“No.” Uriel crouched by Kristoff, his eyes narrow with speculation. “A kill switch would have been activated by now.”
“Maybe they’ll send more super vamps after him,” Dean said. “They didn’t get the cargo they came for. They could attack again.”
“They might,” Grayson said. “But would they risk losing more soldiers?”
“But they know we’re onto them now,” Dean said. “I doubt they’ll just let that go.”
He was right. “We need to fortify the house and call in the civilian pack to act as guards.”
“To guard refugee vamps?” Bastian snorted. “You think they’ll go for that?”
I pinned him with a glare. “They’ll do what their fucking alpha asks of them.”
As much as I wanted to run my pack as a democracy, there would be times when an alpha had to pull rank, and now was one of those times.
“I’ll send out the bat signal,” Bastian said.
Uri was still studying Kristoff. “If they don’t come for him, then he might reactivate at some point and try to run. Or maybe this is it for him. He’s been abandoned and will remain locked in his own head.”
But we needed the information in his head. We needed someone who could crack the code and get inside.
Shit. “We need Conah. He can read memories of the dead and the living.”
Cora nodded. “I’ll jump into the Underealm and find him.”
“No. It’s too dangerous with Mammon so close to Imperium. It’s safer to send a phoenix. It’ll find him, and if he can get away, he’ll come. In the meantime, contact Vi and see if there’s any witchy shit she can do. I’ll fly back to quarters and send the phoenix.”
“Fee?” Uriel said tentatively. “Do you know how to send a phoenix?”
Crap. “You better come with me.”
Grayson pulled me into a hug and kissed my forehead. “Stay the night.” He locked gazes with me. “If…if you want to.” He looked to my left to where