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There were, however, cars parked all along both sides of the street.

If the vamps had gotten Danny into one of the cars, I would probably never see him again. There was literally no way in hell that Danny would get into a car with a vampire thatwasn’tBryan, though. He’d fight like hell before he let that happen.

But if I turned left at the exit and around the corner, there was an alley that bisected the back alley behind the club, which was probably secluded enough for the vamps to feel safe feeding on a hapless victim.

Easy access and relatively private.

Or, at least, it probably would be for long enough to have a quick meal.

I walked further out onto the sidewalk and paused, listening. I tuned out the faint sound of music flowing out of the bar behind me. There, to my left, I heard the faint sounds of footsteps on payment, echoing off the windowless walls of the buildings on either side of the alley.

I scowled and bent down, pulling the gun from my ankle holster.

Then, hell-bent on protecting Danny—with my very life if that’s what it took—I followed.

CHAPTER FIVE || DANNY

It was everything I was afraid of.

In the middle of the alleyway, there was a large black van. The back doors were open and three humans—two men and a woman—were sitting in the back, doors open, staring into space with glazed, happy expressions on their faces. I’d seen it plenty of times before. I knew exactly what it was at first glance. They’d been put under a vampire’s hypnotic spell. I could’ve probably lit the van on fire with all of them still in it and they wouldn’t have moved a muscle.

The vampire following me had clearly read way too many Anne Rice novels or something, because he was literally dressed in a waist-length black frock jacket with frilly lace cuffs. I mean, could you be more stereotypical? He might as well have been wearing a cape.

But I had clearly misjudged the situation horribly.

Because apart from him, there were two others. One of them—a red-headed female dressed head-to-toe in shiny black vinyl—was obviously focused on maintaining the hypnotic spell. She was standing by the doors to the van, staring at the humans they’d captured, apparently completely focused on what she was doing because she didn’t even bother to look up at me as I approached.

The other vamp—a male—was in the driver’s seat, obviously the getaway driver. He didn’t pay us any mind either. He was too busy playing with his phone to look our way. They must have all been pretty confident that three vamps against one human stacked the odds pretty squarely in their favor.

Foolish of them.

Their plan was blindingly obvious: lure their victims away from the club and into the van, then take them to the nest, feed on them, and dump the bodies in the streets afterward.

It would’ve even been pretty smart, actually. Except for the body-dumping part, of course. If they’d just buried their kills afterward, they probably wouldn’t have ever attracted our attention in the first place. They might not have attracted the attention of the local law enforcement, either, for that matter.

Well, smart or not, at least that made things morally simple for me—these vamps werenotthe cuddly kind. They were very much the murdering-innocent-people-with-their-fangs kind.

Still, the van was alarming.

They were obviously more well-organized than most nests we’d encountered so far. They weren’t just impulsively snatching folks from the club, feeding, and then dumping the bodies, after all. They were luring their victims away and taking them elsewhere. They wouldn’t be doing that unless they had a damn good reason for it. As in, they were clearly the meal delivery team for their nest. That meant the nest was probably way bigger than we’d originally thought.

A large, organized, murderous nest of vamps. Pretty much never the ingredients you need for a fun time.

We’d planned to take on three, maybe four vamps, tops.

Yeah, I should’ve gotten Michael’s attention.

And why hadn’t I?

Oh, right. Because I’m a jealous fucking idiot. That’s why.

I’d spotted the female vamp luring one of the victims—the dumber looking of the two guys in the van—out of the club. He’d fallen under her hypnotic spell immediately, without putting up any fuss at all. And watching Michael dancing with the blond twink had filled every single goddamn part of my soul with rage. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go and tap my partner on the shoulder and loop him in that we needed to go slay some monsters, like I should have. Like I’ve done dozens of times before. Instead, I had stormed out after the vamp all on my own. And I had been followed. And now I was outnumbered.

Yup, I was a fucking idiot.

“Hey there, handsome,” the vamp behind me drawled in a thick southern accent. “Stop for moment, would ya?”

With pleasure.