A Fang in the Sass

2

She rose from her chair and paced in front of the desk. Everyone who joined the clan knew taking blood directly from humans was forbidden. f**k, she was enforcing this for their own good. Thousands of years ago, Julian, one of her three mentors, discovered human blood aged a vampire quicker and kept their skin from becoming sun resistant.

If the damn vamps didn’t consume blood from the source, they could live forever. She wondered why that fact wasn’t told to all the clan members. Why was it a secret “secret”? If everyone knew what could happen to their bodies if they didn’t take human blood, maybe there would be less problems. Sounded logical as hell to her.

She sighed and reached across the desk for her phone. Finding the South clan’s second-in-charge’s number, she pushed the green button to dial. Tonight was as good a time as any to meet with them and get things back on track. There were nine hours before the sun set. Plenty of time to get everyone together.

She hoped the group wasn’t in cahoots with Filip. She’d hate to kill an entire clan.

She’d killed his pack. His family. All of them. Not Aria directly, but her predecessors. Her people. Trevan kept that thought in his head as he met with his vampire contact. This hole-in-the-wall bar was almost a second home to him the last couple months.

Didn’t seem that long ago when he and his two long-time friends, Roen and Alain, first walked in. They stopped at the shack to drink the dust from their dry throats. All day, they’d been traveling hard, getting closer to the prey they had stalked almost eighty years.

Then when meeting the prey the first time, holding her in his arms when catching her after she fell from a ledge, his thirst for revenge instantly morphed into a desirous passion to have her. Own her. She was his damn mate. f*****g hell. His life sucked sometimes.

Alain bumped him with his elbow. “That’s him over there.” He gave a head nod toward a corner of the bar. Roen, the third of the trio, stayed out with the truck to make sure nobody decided to take out a grudge on their only means of transportation. They learned that the hard way.

The two casually made their way to the vampire with a mug of beer, which he knew the creature couldn’t consume. What an i***t. In a room full of shifters, the fool wasn’t fooling anyone. The men each took a chair to fill the table.

Trevan cleared his throat, but he still felt the growl in his chest. “She’s mine and I want her. She will get what’s coming to her for murdering my pack.”

The vamp smiled. “Of course, my friend. We don’t plan on denying you that. We want you to take care of her.”

He smirked. “I definitely plan on taking care of her no matter what she thinks.” He almost laughed at the play on words between them. He hated lying, so this worked well. “What’s the plan?”

“She’s flying to the South clan tonight. You need to get your asses there and be ready to take her down when the opportunity arises. You know where the South clan is?”

He knew how to get there with his eyes f*****g closed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good. Your contact will meet you there.”

Alain drew his brows down. “How will he know us?”

The no-name vamp snorted. “You’ll be the only f*****g dogs in the area.”

***

After packing their clothes and other stuff from the cabin they had been staying in, the three piled into the pickup truck and headed south. Leaving now, they would be there before the sun set. That’d give him time to figure out what in the hell he was going to do.

“You gotta plan yet, Trev?” Alain asked. Roen sat in the truck’s full backseat, playing on his new iPhone. The man had been oblivious of the world since he bought it yesterday. Trevan didn’t expect any input from him.

“Been thinking about it. She’s damn strong—”

Alain grunted. “It takes two of us to take down one normal vamp. We’ll be hard pressed to get her with the three of us.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. I believe it’s time to bring out the big guns.”

Alain was quiet for a minute. “We don’t have any guns, Trev.”

“I don’t mean bullet guns,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I mean the tranqs.”

“Oh, those,” Alain said. He nodded. “That’s a good idea. How long do you think they’ll keep her down?”

“Couple hours, hopefully. Which means we need to find somewhere under two hours’ drive to hold her.”

“Siri,” Roen said from the back seat, “how long does it take to get from the South vampire clan to the Central Wolfe pack?”

Trevan glanced in his rearview mirror. “Who the hell are you talking to?”

“My phone,” came from the back.

“You’re talking to your damn phone—”

“Shhh,” Roen said. Next came a female’s voice. “The Central Wolfe pack is approximately one hour from the South clan.”

“Did you just shush me?” He wanted to reach back and slap his friend. Don’t make him stop this car.

Alain reached over the seat and snatched Roen’s phone. “No f*****g way. How can a phone know about the supernatural?”

Roen said calmly, “It’s Siri, man. She knows everything.”

Alain lifted a brow at him. “You know she’s not a real person, right?” Roen grabbed his phone back.

“Of course, I know that.” Since the guy’s cheeks were slightly red, Trevan wondered if Roen really did know. Trevan sure as hell didn’t know phones responded to questions. When did all that come about? He was seriously out of touch with that stuff. All his phone did was allow him to call people. Imagine that.

“Great idea, Roen,” he said. “Mason Wolfe is the perfect person to help with this. His mate and Aria are good friends.” Now the question became how to get her there and the three of them remain alive.