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“I appreciate the offer,” Chayton says to me. “But I’m sure Alarick is very much capable of using his vampire ability to assist us.”

“Would he be able to tell you they are human-turned vampires, and they don’t follow the rules of traditional vampires?”

All three men turn to the White Wolf.

Alarick shrugs.

Chayton sighs as he turns back to me. “Fine, you can come.”

chapter sixteen

Damn Vamps

Enzo

The vampire squats down at a particular bloody spot on the living room carpet. She runs her fingers over the blood on the floor and sniffs it.

We waited until night to go visit the crime scene. We wanted enough time for the cops to clear out.

“The wife was killed here,” she says.

“How the hell does she know that?”Chayton asks through our link.

“The scent of the blood. She can determine which spot belongs to who,”Alarick answers.

“You couldn’t do that?”I ask.

“No. I can trace every drop of blood in this house, but I couldn’t tell you which person the drop belonged to. That requires years of vampire skills.”

“I’m starting to think you suck at being a vampire,”Zyion says jokingly to Alarick.

“Screw you, Zyion,”Alarick replies.

We all laugh out loud. The vampire looks up at us before standing up straight.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s an inside joke,” I say. “Only amongst members of this pack.”

She rolls her eyes. I kind of miss the banter with her. Since I reminded myself why there can be no peace between me and the vampires, I’ve kept my distance. I wish I could say it was easy. For some reason, I found myself searching for her whenever I knew she was near. For instance, in the cafeteria today. Despite trying to ignore her, my gaze would find its way to her.

I tried my best to hear what she and her sister were talking about. She’s gotten better at keeping her voice low when she’s around me. I caught the end of their argument. Seems there is trouble in paradise.

“Does anything stand out to you about this crime scene?” she asks Chayton, ignoring my attempt to bait her into an argument.

Chayton looks around. “Not really.”

“Look at the blood splatter. This is gruesome,” she says lowly, causing us to turn and look at the walls.

“Isn’t that you guys’ MO?” Zyion asks.

She sighs. “When you hunt down deer to eat, do you toss the meat into the trees?”

“No. Of course not. That’s wasteful.”

“Exactly. Look around you. All this blood splatter is food. They weren’t feeding.” She looks around at the blood on the walls and carpets. It looks as if someone took buckets of it and tossed it around the house on every surface they could get to.

“This was a message.”