“What are you? A parrot? Yes, us.”
“We’re a mess?” It was very hard not to smile.
“We were last night.” She ran her gaze over him from head to toe and sighed. “But we’re okay now. When you’re not tel ing me not to worry about you or trying to share your naked body with the world.”
“I share my body with no one but you, my crazy vampress. God. I adore you.”
“She’s coming!” Vash hissed, stepping closer to shield him. “If she sees your family jewels, I’m gonna have to kil her.”
“You’re nuts, you know that? Certifiably insane.” And he was crazy, too. About her. He shifted back and spun away from her.
When Himeko darted out of the house at a ful run, he directed her to scout one side of the yard while he handled the other. He sniffed out a dog buried in the far corner, which was confirmed by a little headstone, but he found nothing out of the ordinary. Himeko, however, whined and began scratching at the dirt.
He joined her, and they dug through fresh sod to find potting soil covering a layer of quicklime. Three feet down they discovered what was left of a child’s body, identifiable as such only by the size of the bones. They both leaped back in horror.
“Oh man,” Vashti breathed, her hand going to her stomach as the stench broke through the disrupted lime. “Fucking wraiths.”
Mindless, my ass, Elijah thought grimly. The burial was proof of intel igence and clear, cold calculation. He looked at Vashti, frustrated that they couldn’t converse while he was in his lycan form, a connection that could exist—if they were a mated pair.
Vash turned away and spoke without raising her voice. “Syre. Raze. Have the lycans check the backyards.”
He heard the quaver in her words and sensed her disquiet. She was horrified and disturbed by the discovery, shaken. He went to her, brushing gently along her hip in a gesture of comfort.
She scratched absently behind his ear. “How many wraiths would it take to wipe out a whole neighborhood? How much time would pass?
Because if it was more than a few hours, they’d have to be cunning to avoid detection and I’ve only seen one wraith who had any working brain cel s.”
Raze’s curse from across the neighborhood caused Elijah’s ears to twitch. “We’ve got a body in the yard. Damn it…it’s a child’s corpse.”
“Here as wel ,” Syre said harshly. “No sign or evidence of the parent—a single mother, I gather, from the mail and photos in the house.”
Elijah returned to the grave and began to dig deeper, growling at Vash when she tried to assist him. He couldn’t protect her from everything, but this, at least, was a grisly task he could spare her from.
In the end, he found three bodies, al children.
“Where are the adults?” Vashti asked, fol owing him over to the coiled-up water hose, which she turned on to spray him off.
Raze’s voice crossed the distance between them. “Nothing found on the next property. No children in the household. Looks like two males lived here. Neither body is in the yard.”
Elijah led the way through the house and back out to the street. He was moving on to the next property when Syre spoke. “I saw movement in a window here in my sector. Drapes are drawn, so I can’t see inside.”
Vash broke into a run. “Hold until we get there.”
Raze met them at the house. Without a word, he led his team to the side-yard gate and they slipped into the back.
Staring at the home from the sidewalk, Elijah watched the upper windows and saw the curtains shift softly, as if with a breeze, but he heard neither the hum of an air-conditioning unit nor a fan. He also didn’t hear breathing or movement, which raised his hackles. What the fuck were they dealing with?
“I don’t like it,” Vash muttered. “I’d rather smoke ’em out than go in. But the flames would bring fire crews, and then we’d have mortals involved.”
Syre surveyed the exterior. “My team wil take the upper windows. Your lycans can enter from the bottom floor. Ready?”
With a nod, Vash leaped onto the side of the house and scrambled up like a spider. Syre did the same. Elijah took one side of the house; Luke took the other. Himeko remained on point at the front, while Thomas waited in the rear.
“On three,” Raze whispered, his voice drifting on the wind. “One, two…”
Elijah lunged through the nearest window, entering the house in a shower of glass. He’d scarcely registered that he’d landed in a smal home office when he slammed into the closet door, unable to gain purchase on carpet slickened by a viscous substance. Shaking off the col ision, he registered what coated the floor—the black, oily residue left behind when wraith bodies decomposed.
Himeko’s frantic barking spurred him into action. He careened out into the hal way, skidding into the wal and denting it before finding traction in the unsoiled carpet. He leaped into a family room, where Himeko and Thomas were covered in wraiths. With a roar of fury, he lunged into the fray, grabbing a wraith by the neck and snapping it as he tossed the body aside like a dol ’s.
The repetitious report of a pistol cracked through the room as one of the vamps emptied his clip into the writhing bodies ringing the edges of the huddle. Raze waded in through the sliding-glass door, yanking wraiths up by the hair and severing heads with his blade. Elijah was tackled from the side. Fangs bit into his flank. Snarling, he kicked with his hind legs, his claws raking into the thigh of his attacker. The wraith lost its grip and fel away. Elijah turned and crouched to retaliate, aiming for the Navy anchor tattoo that decorated the pale-as-milk flesh over the wraith’s heart… “Vashti!”
Syre’s shout pierced Elijah like a silver bul et. Abandoning his attacker, he bounded up the stairs. He reached the second floor and hit a wal of wraiths, the teeming mass of gray bodies clogging the narrow space. A glint of light on a flashing blade drew his attention to the ceiling, where Vash clung upside down with a one-handed grip. Her free arm slashed a katana at the upraised hands that clawed at her, trying to pul her loose.
Fear for her made him frantic, sending him scrambling over shoulders and heads to reach her.
“Not so fast, Alpha,” a voice hissed. His rear leg was caught in a vicelike grip, and he was yanked into a room with the sickening crack of breaking bone.
He howled against the searing pain, his gut churning as the door was kicked shut, blocking him from helping Vash. Favoring the oddly bent limb, he faced his attacker. She tossed back silken strands of crimson hair and set her hands on black leather-clad hips. For a split second, Elijah thought he faced Vashti; then the differences came into focus through the fog of pain. The woman was too lean. Her features harsh and less refined.
And her eyes were lit with a sick, mad light.
She withdrew a gun from the holster strapped to her thigh and grinned, revealing wicked fangs. “Bye-bye, lover,” she crooned.
The door crashed in behind her, the paneled particleboard breaking free at the hinge and slamming into the vampress’s back. The pistol went off, the shot going wide. Vash leaped through the decimated door as Elijah charged the lookalike, catching her by the arm and snapping bone in his jaws, making her drop the gun.
Vash kicked at the wraith who ran into the room behind her, then grabbed the vampress by the hair and yanked her upright. There was a heartbeat of stunned silence as the two women looked at each other.