Logan had to know she wasn’t the proper, well-behaved hunter she was supposed to be. Everyone in the stronghold knew that. She’d gotten in more trouble over the years than all the other women combined.
At one time, Nathan and his friends had laughed over her antics. They’d stopped laughing years ago, and they certainly weren’t laughing tonight. Jayce and Asher both stared at her as if she were a ten-legged, alien cat who had dropped on their heads from a beam above. Nathan refused to look at her as he tapped his foot and ran a hand through his black hair.
She tilted her head back to look at Logan. Unlike the man on the balcony, Logan was definitely what most would consider handsome with his pine-colored eyes, light brown hair, and refined features. Unfortunately, his handsomeness did nothing for her. She tried to tug her arm free again, but his hold on her only intensified.
“Let me go,” she commanded.
“No.” The simple refusal set her teeth on edge.
Ronan watched the woman trying to break free of the man’s hold on her. He almost detoured to yank her away from the hunter, but there was no time for that, and the last thing they needed was a fight with the hunters tonight. Slipping through the shadows, he tracked Joseph to one of the back doors.
The expression on Joseph’s face was one of boredom as a human woman ground her hips against his while rubbing her breasts on his chest. Joseph’s head came up and a smile curved his mouth when his eyes latched onto Ronan’s over the sea of human heads separating them.
Bending low, Joseph whispered something in the woman’s ear before sinking his fangs into her throat. Joseph tore a chunk out of the woman’s neck and spit it out. The woman’s scream was drowned out by the beat of the music as she staggered back. Her hand flew to the wound as blood poured from between her fingers.
“Shit!” Ronan shouted. “Saxon, take care of her!”
He didn’t care if the woman lived or died, but if she somehow survived this, she couldn’t be allowed to tell the tale of the man who had torn her throat out with his teeth. If she died, she couldn’t do so with the evidence of a vampire’s fangs on her. It would only attract more hunters if she did.
Joseph spun and crashed into the back door, flinging it open and vanishing into the alley beyond. The woman slumped to the side and fell into him. Ronan steadied her as the coppery scent of her blood hit him. Ignoring the lure of her blood, he pushed her over to Saxon.
From the corner of his eye, he saw another door to the alley swinging closed. He glanced back to see the female hunter standing at the edge of the dance floor. Ronan hesitated when he realized they’d left her alone, but she didn’t show any sign of following her brethren out the door. Then, he spotted the man who had been holding her jogging toward the other exit. The man stopped beside the door and leaned against the wall before glancing back at the woman.
Turning away from them, Ronan didn’t look back as he followed Joseph out the door. The hunter woman was no concern of his; her relatives in the alley were.
CHAPTER 4
Ronan stepped into the alley, his eyes and ears attuned to his environment as he searched for Joseph and the hunters. Garbage pushed up the lids of the dumpsters lining the brick wall of the buildings across from him. The refuse flowing over the sides of the dumpsters helped to mask Joseph’s scent.
Declan’s and Killean’s booted feet thudded on the concrete behind Ronan as he turned to the left and started walking that way. A few lazy snowflakes spiraled from the sky. The club was close enough to the ocean that a shift in the wind brought the briny scent of low tide on the air with it. The alley was unnaturally silent; the predators lurking amid it had scared off the rats who resided within.
The end of his coat beat against his calves as the alley split off and he continued down another corridor. Tucked within the inner pockets of his coat were a couple of stakes and a small crossbow. However, he mostly relied on his hands and his fangs when in battle and didn’t like to weigh himself down with weapons. He also didn’t like to deny himself the pleasure of an up-close and personal kill. It was what kept the demon in him at bay after all.
He’d avoid killing the hunters if he could. He didn’t want to bear the stench of garbage and the increased vulnerability to the sun that their deaths would bring him. The hunters may not be entirely human, but their blood staining a vampire’s hands had the same effect a human’s did.
Although the hunters wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter any of them, he didn’t consider them his enemy, not completely. They were more of a nuisance that sometimes had to be stomped. The hunters meant well, but they didn’t know the difference between the vampires who killed humans for amusement and those who didn’t.
They’ve never known the difference, Ronan thought bitterly.
The hunters had killed many Savage vampires over the years, but they’d also destroyed some of the good ones. Thankfully, they hadn’t killed as many of the good ones as they had Savages. Vampires who didn’t kill tended to stay off their radar. They led peaceful lives, and unlike the Savages, they didn’t draw attention to themselves by leaving a trail of bodies or missing people behind them.
Ronan turned another corner, stopping instantly when he spotted Joseph at the end of the alley. Joseph stood before a ten-foot-high brick wall, studying the blockade before him. More garbage than before overflowed the dumpsters and spilled onto the asphalt. Most of the bags had been torn open and picked through by the animal scavengers and probably some humans.
Ronan clenched and unclenched his hands as he studied his old ally. Joseph could have easily cleared the wall and been out of here by now, so why did he remain?
Declan and Killean halted beside him as Joseph glanced over his shoulder at them. The grin that split his face revealed his lethal fangs as he turned to face them. The hazel of Joseph’s eyes briefly flickered through the red encompassing them as he gave a come-and-get-it gesture with his hands.
“Something’s not right here,” Ronan murmured to the others. “He’s trying to set us up for something.”
“What though?” Declan inquired.
“I don’t know, but stay alert.”
Declan and Killean spread out to the sides of him as the three of them prowled down the alley. Ronan didn’t know why Joseph had chosen to stay, but he wasn’t going to rush him until he knew what the Savage vampire had up his sleeves.
They had to approach this cautiously, but in his head, he heard the seconds of a clock ticking away. When they exited the club, the hunters must have gone the other way in the alley, but they would come this way eventually. They had to take Joseph down before the hunters arrived on the scene.
At one time, Ronan’s body would have been alive with the thrill of the impending kill. Now he experienced no excitement as he closed in on the fallen Defender. Joseph’s elongated canines sliced his bottom lip, and the scent of garbage grew stronger as blood trickled down his chin from the gash.
Joseph crouched down before launching himself at Ronan’s chest. It was a move Joseph never would have made before becoming Savage, but the increased strength he’d experienced with his kills made him far more brazen. Despite that increased strength, Ronan had no fear Joseph could take him down. It would take far more than Joseph alone to do so.