Dark Lies (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 3)

Jaxson

“What the hell, Jaxson?” Savannah screamed as I stood, the fight completely drained out of me but my anger still fresh.

“This is on you.” I threw the bloody stake to the side. “He would never have stopped. Just like the drugged-crazed bikers.”

I did what needed to be done. I’d done far worse to protect my sister, once.

“You don’t know that,” she snapped, dismissing her knife.

“I do,” I snarled, closing the distance between us in a single step. “The moment he had a taste, it wasn’t enough. Couldn’t you see the madness in his eyes, or were you too drunk with pleasure?”

She hauled back and slapped me. It was then that I noticed the bastard’s bloody fang marks marring her neck.

Fire burned in my veins as rage and frustration strangled me. “I told you not to give yourself over to him. Why didn’t you listen?”

She turned away. “We had a deal. I did it for the pack. Now he’s dead, and we still don’t have the finger bone, thanks to you. It was all for nothing.” Her voice was venom, and her body quaked with fury, which only added to mine.

“You shouldn’t have let him drink your blood!” I roared, stepping up to her. “I would have rather ripped my arms from their sockets than stand by while he fed on you.”

She backed away slowly. I was already walking a fine line between man and beast, and the way her fear and anger mixed with the intoxicating scent of her arousal was enough to drive me over the edge.

A knock sounded on the door. “Master Rivera, Mr. Bronte is ready for you.”

Fuck.

Savannah dashed toward the door, Alejandro’s blood staining her dress and arms. “Alejandro and I need a few more minutes,” she said breathlessly. “Come back in ten?”

The man outside grunted but turned and left.

Savannah locked the door and turned to me. “Now what?”

I reined in my emotions and focused on the shitfest before us. I’d deal with Savannah later. While she glared daggers at me, I pulled out my phone and called Damian. “We have a problem.”

“How big of a problem?” the fallen angel asked, his tone implying that he could guess.

It was all I could do to not shatter the phone in my hand. “Alejandro is dead, and we made a lot of noise. I figure this whole place is going to be on lockdown in about two minutes. Worse, we don’t have the bone.”

“Fuck. Then we need to get out before all hell breaks loose.”

“Not without the bone. Have you found a way in?”

“I’ve identified the location of his vault. We’ll have to hope the impending chaos will distract from a break-in. Are you sure you want to try this?”

“Yes,” I growled. Everything depended on that now.

“Meet me in the back of the garden.” He hung up.

I glanced at Savannah, who’d surely heard the conversation, and tensed. She was rubbing the bite on her neck. Images of Alejandro licking her throat pummeled me. I strode up to her, boxing her in against the door. “This conversation between us isn’t over.”

“Agreed,” she said defiantly, though her voice was shaking. “This is neither the time nor place. Now how the hell do we get out of here looking like this?”

She motioned to our bloodstained clothes. We’d have a dozen guards on us instantly if we took the stairs.

“The window,” I said, as I lifted a dresser and dropped it in front of the door with a thud. “This should buy us some time.”

“Shit.” She stepped around Alejandro’s body, looking away in revulsion. “At least we don’t have to worry about him cutting off our fingers. Or selling people.”

“Don’t mention that fucker again. Ever,” I growled.

Savannah narrowed her eyes at me and crossed to the window. I shoved it open and helped her out. She hitched up her dress, dug her claws into the stone, and scrambled down the wall.

With a final glare at the vampire’s corpse, I climbed out and dropped to the garden below.

Guards were posted at the windows, so Savy wove shadows to help obscure us from view as we dashed through the well-manicured plants.

“Jaxson,” Damian whispered from the darkness. “Over here.”

He was waiting by a foliage-hidden hall at the back of the building.

“What the hell happened to you two?” he asked once he saw our bloody clothes.

“Savannah took things into her own hands,” I growled, ignoring the way her body tensed with anger.

Damian held up his hand as a guard appeared around a corner and stopped in front of a door. The guard punched some buttons into a keypad, waited, and then turned and left.

“Let’s go.” He slipped into the hall.

Savannah stepped around me and grabbed my arm. “We’ll deal with your drama later, Jax, but right now, we focus on getting the damn fingerbone and staying alive. Got it?”

I glared at her and growled again. She was right, though. My mind and body wanted to rage, but we needed to focus on the task at hand if we were going to survive this party. “Stay close to me. And if I give you an order, you listen. Got it?”

“I’ll try.” Flashing me a look that could kill, she turned and headed toward Damian.

The door was made of solid steel, and the magic from its enchantments zinged the air around us.

“We have fourteen minutes before the guard checks the vault again.” Damian moved his hands in an arc, and a series of glowing runes appeared in the air. Like moving pieces on a chess board, he rearranged the symbols by touching and dragging them into position. I’d seen him do this once, and I’d heard rumors that he could sense objects like a Seeker.

“Then we move quickly,” I said.

The runes flickered and disappeared, and the door opened with a snick. I started my watch timer, and Savannah and I slipped through as Damian nodded and shut the door behind us.

Sweet citrus incense burned my nostrils. We descended a narrow set of stairs into a rock-hewn room lit by golden flames that licked out of dagger-like sconces arranged along the walls. Tendrils of steam rose from a central pool of dark water, wafting over the walkways on either side like fog.

Savannah paused and shuddered. “Are those bats?”

I followed her gaze to the ceiling, where I counted at least a dozen large creatures hanging motionless in the corner. A devilish cross between a bat and a monster, their feet were all claws, and two single talons adorned the edges of their wings.

“Something like that,” Damian whispered. “Let’s not find out.”

She nodded and started around the pool, moving quietly, then hissed, “Shit!” and staggered as her left leg bowed. I caught her waist before she landed on her knees, but something rolled off the walkway into the pool.

Plunk.

“Damn.” She felt around the steam that covered the floor and picked something up. She glanced over her shoulder at me, fear flashing in her eyes. “A bone. It looks like…part of a femur. Human?”

A few squeaks, and then the fluttering of wings reverberated above us.

I shoved her forward. “Go!”

Sharp pain sliced my shoulder blades as a heavy weight landed on my back. Reaching around, I ripped the hellish creature off me, but not before it sunk its talons into my arm. I snapped its neck and cast it aside as another swooped in.

Damian plucked it from the air and slammed it into the wall, knocking it out cold.

Ahead of us, two creatures dove for Savannah. She ducked under one and swung the bone like a baseball bat, hitting the other and sending it careening into the pool.

She glanced over her shoulder at us as I noticed darkness snaking in from the walls. “Run! I’ll draw my shadows.”

We slipped around her into the hall ahead, slashing the wings of two more bats, while she drew the darkness. I’d seen her weave shadows many times now. With each attempt, her skill seemed to be growing. In seconds, the room behind was pitch black, the light from the sconces blanketed by her magic.

She stepped out of the dark, her lips pursed in worry when her eyes landed on the blood dripping from the puncture wound in my arm. It was already healing.

The bats quieted in the other room.

A dozen chambers opened onto the hall, all barred with grated iron doors that buzzed with magic that allowed us to see inside.

Caged objects, prisoners as much as the artists in the auction.

Savannah peered inside several of the rooms. “Holy shit, he has a lot of stuff.”

Dismay darkened my thoughts as I glanced inside the closest chamber. Stacked to the ceiling along all walls of the twenty-by-twenty-foot room were Mesoamerican antiquities—ceramic masks, stone sculptures, and a giant circular astronomical relief.

“Damian?” I growled, frustration edging into my voice. “Where is it?”

The fallen angel’s signature pulsed, and he strode down the hall. For a moment, he hesitated, then stopped in front a door. “It’s here. But it’s going to take me a while to get in. A word of advice: don’t touch the iron doors. They have some sinister enchantments on them, and I don’t know what they do.”

He didn’t have to warn me. The strange magic vibrating off them made me want to retch.

This was an accursed place.

Damian knelt by the enchanted door and began to work his magic. I was about to join him when the astringent stink of rotting meat with fruity undertones drifted into the room.

Something wasn’t right.

My ears twitched at footsteps coming up behind. Ducking, I spun and blindly rammed into the attacker, my shoulder connecting with his gut. A shrill woman’s voice pierced my ears as I landed on her.

I pinned her arms down as she tried to claw my face, and that’s when I noticed her ashen skin and fangs. Vampire. And not the civilized kind.

“Jaxson, behind you!” Savannah screamed.

A blur moved down the hall. Fuck!

Gripping the vampire beneath me, I rolled onto my back and shoved her into the air. She collided with whatever the blur barreling toward me was, and both crumpled to the floor. They had a similar theme going—pasty gray skin, long, tangled hair, sharpened nails, and black, soulless eyes.

These weren’t typical vampires. What had Alejandro done?

Savannah gave a cry, and I shot to my feet.

Another vampire had her pressed up against the wall, her hands wrapped around Savannah’s neck. Savannah rammed her hands into the creature’s chest, and a crack of her magic ricocheted down the hall. The vampire flew backward and landed twenty feet ahead, arms and legs splayed out wide.

My mate has bite.

Damian was on his feet, a burning sword held out at his side, looking from one end of the hall to the other.

“Get the fucking door open!” I snarled. “We’ll handle the bloo—’

Two hissing fiends lunged at me, cutting my words short. I caught one by the neck and slammed her into the wall, but the other moved with lightning speed and grabbed me from behind, sinking her fangs into my shoulder.

Pain rippled through me, and I jerked backward, feeling her bones crunch as we connected with the opposite wall.

The other dug her razor-sharp claws into my arm. I tossed her sideways and tore a sconce off the wall, spinning and shoving it through her chest as she lunged for me. Clutching the weapon, she sucked in a sharp gasp and collapsed as her body desiccated and crumbled into dust.

What the hell?

She must have been half demon.

As I regained my footing, the second shrieking vampire leapt at my back. I spun, driving my elbow into her face, and then hurled her head over heels down the hall.

Behind me, Savannah was holding another vampire off Damian. I sprinted down the hall toward them, but the creature dodged and leapt onto the ceiling.

“I’m in!” Damian shouted as he pushed through the open door.

I whipped my head toward Savannah. “Help him find the bone!”

She looked at me for a beat, then slipped around me, her intoxicating scent sending urgency through me as I took up a position in the hall.

Protect our mate, my wolf snarled.

The two remaining vampires had regrouped and stood side by side, hissing. Perfect.

My fangs erupted as I released my claws. “Come and get me, ladies.”