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CHAPTERSIX

Jade

Brody stopped midstep and raised his nose, sniffing. “I’ve got it, I think. Did you…?” He eyed me out of the corner of his eye, fidgeting with obvious discomfort.

“Slayer powers,” I said.

“Ah,” Brody said.

One of the handier slayer powers was the ability to sense spilt blood.

While we could sense vampires, we couldn’t pinpoint their location. Our ability to home in on blood, however, was much more precise. If we could sense the presence of a vampire and spilt blood, it was as good as having a neon sign hanging over them.

Brody turned in a circle. “I think it’s to the south.”

I narrowed my eyes as I evaluated my own powers. “It is. You lead?”

Brody shook his head. “Nah—no. You have a better lead on it.”

I nodded, then reached for the daggers on my thigh holster—I was naturally a steel kind of girl. Guns were more typically a werewolf hunter thing. They were too loud for most contracts my family had taken—vampires usually lived in urban areas, and humans didn’t take kindly to random gunfire. Plus, while werewolves rampaged, vampires usually liked to gloat and monologue giving us plenty of time to react.

I held a dagger in each hand and slipped past Grove. Following the throat-aching sensation, I stalked a block down the new street.

When we started down the second block, Brody froze. “I hear something.”

I paused, and the werewolf shook his head. “Whatever it was, it’s quiet now.”

Shortly after we crossed the road to begin the third block, the squeezing sensation in my throat intensified and tugged me to the right.

At the same moment, my slayer senses lit up and I noticed a narrow alleyway on our right. “Vampire is near,” I whispered.

Grove shifted the strap of his satchel from one shoulder to the other. “Could it be Tetiana?”

“We’re the only ones from the squad downtown right now,” Brody said. “It’s gotta be a different vamp. Maybe they were feeding?”

I nodded and followed the throat-aching sensation of blood into the darkened narrow alleyway. It was hemmed in by a red brick building and an auto shop constructed with painted cinder blocks. A car was parked in the entrance—I’d need to turn sideways to shuffle past it—and a chain-link fence stretched across the back of the alleyway.

This is the perfect spot for a vampire to grab a quick bite—they could keep their prey hedged in.

It was illegal for vampires to feed on an unwilling participant. But that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Ravenous—starved—vampires were the worst offenders, and there were always vamps around who believed they were above all supernatural laws and rules.

The most maddening part was that regular vampires never had to drink enough to harm their targets—ravenous vamps were a different matter entirely. The O’Neil family still had work in modern times not just because occasionally vampires broke the law and would swipe any random human they found on the street, but because they also had the nasty habit of letting their victims bleed out and die.

I edged into the alleyway—still holding my daggers—and eased my way past the empty car. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darker shadows and lower lighting, and I glanced back to see Brody silently padding after me. Grove was following behind him—though the fae stopped to draw a heart on the car’s dusty back window.

“Radio,” I mouthed to Brody, exhaling the word.

Brody—with his werewolf hearing—nodded and unhooked his radio from his belt so he’d be ready to call for help.

I traced the sensation to the enormous dumpster pushed against the chain-link fence.

Of course, it has to be at thebackof the alleyway!

I motioned to Brody and Grove to stay back—this could be a trap, so I wanted them to stand clear—then edged my way towards the dumpster.

There was a drained blood pouch—the bagged alternative so vampires didn’t need to keep willing donors or starve—tossed casually on the ground in front of the dumpster. My senses told me the actual source of the blood was inside the dumpster.

I adjusted my grip on my daggers to a hold better suited for climbing, then half-scaled the chain-link fence and jumped from it to the dumpster where I balanced on the edge as I peered inside.