Page 60 of Bane of Hate and Silver (Primordial Inheritance #1)

Howling at the Moon

L uca was stopped just as he was approaching the front door of the Den. “Where have you been?” Ben demanded in a hushed tone.

“Around. My phone died.” Which was true in a sense. Its battery had died sitting on the seat of his Jeep.

Just then, the screen door opened, nearly hitting Ben in the side of the face. “Be forewarned, Carson’s very unhappy with you,” Kip whispered, poking his head through the open doorway.

“What else is new?” Luca asked, rolling his eyes.

“Luca!” Ben scolded. “It’s that lack of respect that has you on such rocky ground.”

“I think it’s a difference of opinion that has me in our Alpha’s crosshairs. The attitude is just a byproduct,” Luca half-teased.

Ben looked at him sternly. Apparently, he was in no mood for jokes, but he didn’t say anymore.

“You worry too much.” Luca clapped Ben on the shoulder and entered the Den.

Carson cornered him the second he walked through the front door. “You are my Beta. Being unable to reach you is unacceptable.”

“Dead phone. No charger.” He held it up as if to prove that it was in fact dead.

Carson stormed toward him, his face inches from Luca’s. “Next time, buy one,” Carson snarled between gritted teeth.

Luca didn’t back down. “What did I miss that was so important?” Luca asked, keeping his voice flat, unaffected by Carson’s threat.

Carson stared daggers at him, but still, Luca didn’t submit. The call to submit to the Alpha was difficult to resist, but not impossible for the Beta, like it would have been for any other wolf under Carson’s command.

Carson sniffed in Luca’s direction. “You smell like dead things and the ocean.” Carson backed up with a grimace. A clear cover to look like he’d won the standoff. He squared his shoulders and said, “now that you’re here, maybe we can start the meeting I called before noon.”

“Five minutes and I’m all yours.” Luca shrugged. “Like you said, I smell.”

Carson growled audibly.

“Thanks for the understanding,” Luca said with a smirk and then took the stairs two at a time, laughing to himself as he went.

Luca headed for his bathroom. In six minutes he was showered, dressed, and was walking back out of his bedroom door.

When he arrived downstairs once again, the pack had congregated in the family room.

Carson was pacing menacingly. “Well, now that the Beta has finally graced us with his presence, we can start,” Carson snapped as Luca took a seat on the dilapidated couch.

“Who has good news?” He looked momentarily, manically gleeful.

No one spoke.

“Are you telling me that no one has any information on the vampire problem?”

Luca looked away. Luckily, some of the others did too, out of guilt at being unsuccessful no doubt. Luca looked at the floor, hoping that his expressive face wouldn’t give him away.

“No one has found their location?” Carson asked, glowering at the group.

“That is unacceptable. This leader of theirs has evaded us once already. That will not happen again.” Carson’s tone confirmed that orders were going to be to kill Jules when they did catch her.

Fierce, fiery, and sexy as hell, Jules. His Jules.

If he could call her that. He nearly smiled but caught himself. Luca’s jaw clenched tightly.

Jed finally spoke up. “I’ve been unsuccessful at finding the coven’s location.”

Luca tried not to sigh due to the relief he felt.

“But I have ascertained that the red-headed female lives somewhere near the coast. Also, I believe she lives separately from the others,” Jed continued, turning Luca’s emotions upside down. They were too close to her.

“But I’ll keep looking.”

“See that you do!” Carson snapped.

Max sniggered.

Luca scowled over at him. There was no need for Carson’s temper to be indulged.

As the lack-of-progress reports continued, Luca had to bite his tongue.

He wouldn’t let them harm her. He would do whatever he had to.

To keep from giving himself away, however, he planted his feet on the floor and tried to keep the finger tapping to a minimum.

After what felt like hours of Carson’s subjugation and the pack’s pandering to their over bearing Alpha, Luca was convinced that, other than Jed’s information, no one had learned anything else he needed to know to keep Jules safe.

Carson’s rant, however, was dragging on.

“Now, who’s with me?” Carson shouted.

This got a rise out of everyone except Luca.

“We don’t have enough cause to attack. We have no proof that they’ve killed. We are rushing to uninformed conclusions,” Luca stated evenly.

His point was met with utter silence.

“They may not kill here in Aboit. But there were two more vampire murders in Fort Miles last night. That’s six this week alone.” Ben said in his ever soft tone. “They likely use the city as their feeding grounds.”

Carson motioned towards Ben, like the matter was settled.

“But we have to prove it’s them,” Luca countered, his voice strong and commanding.

“It’s enough proof if I say it is,” Carson growled.

“You are not judge, jury, or God,” Luca snapped back, standing to his feet. Carson’s considerable height still unable to diminish Luca’s ancestral presence.

“No, I’m better,” Carson growled low in his throat. “I’m the Alpha.”

“You’re an Alpha,” Luca growled in response. “I’ve followed better.” Then he took a step back for his own self-preservation. He could take the pack. His father’s line gave him that right. But Carson’s death was still the only way to do it.

Carson’s glare was murderous.

“Killing them without clear evidence is wrong.” Luca turned his back on his Alpha and pack, walking from the room.

He strode furiously out the front door heading for his Jeep until he realized that he’d left the Jeep keys upstairs.

So, he paced angrily in the side yard instead.

He desperately wanted to storm back in and defend her.

To tell them all that he knew she didn’t kill humans, didn’t even feed from them.

To convince them that they were wrong about her, but that desire was utterly illogical.

What he was doing with Jules was a betrayal the pack would never forgive.

In fact, Luca thought that if Carson knew the extent of his betrayal, he would kill Jules just for spite.

But that didn’t really matter, because Luca was pretty sure Carson intended to kill Jules no matter what.

It was clear that their relationship had to remain a secret.

Revealing his feelings for her to anyone endangered them both.

“Luca. Luca! What was that about?” Ben asked, running up beside him.

Luca ran his tongue over his teeth, deciding how much he could say without throwing Jules, and likely himself, under the bus.

“I don’t know.” Luca shrugged. “This vampire. She didn’t attack us.

She’s the one who stopped the fight.” He spoke very carefully.

“And we don’t have proof that she’s hurt anyone.

Why is Carson so intent on killing her?”

“Killing?” Ben raised one eyebrow. “She’s already dead. You understand that, right?”

“You know what I mean.”

“We can’t risk letting those monsters roam around innocent humans,” Ben said.

“What if she doesn’t kill?” Luca asked.

“They all kill,” Ben stated bluntly. “Luca, you’re a young wolf.

You haven’t seen the terrors that I have.

The tyranny they’ve enforced over our race throughout the years is unacceptable.

Every being on earth will be better off with one, or three, less of those things in existence.

You get that don’t you?” Ben asked, jabbing Luca in the ribs.

He guessed Ben was trying to lighten the mood.

Luca faked a chuckle. “I know, but…”

Ben took him by the shoulder and steered him back toward the Den. “Luca, you’re young. I know you don’t understand fully. Be assured that they are the enemy. And that they are dead, soulless beings. To destroy them would be to put them out of their misery.”

“How?” Luca stopped walking and looked at Ben.

“Only one thing is as deadly to them as silver is to us. The sun,” he stated simply.

Luca offered a fake, lighthearted, eye roll. “I know that. But how else do you destroy them?” He was treading on thin ice, but if there was another way, he needed to know.

“Yes, Luca, everyone knows that sunlight kills vampires. But just as…”

Luca waited patiently. Ben’s explanations sometimes took a while, but his knowledge was vast.

“…silver has to circulate in our bloodstreams to kill us,” Ben continued, “vampires have to be in direct sunlight for prolonged periods of time for the sunlight to be fatal. Vampires are quite strong, so this can be hard to accomplish. Our ancestors devised another way. Years ago, we used to bury them alive. It is likely that many are still buried deep in the ground. Their locations forgotten forever,” Ben’s voice trailed off like he was remembering something.

“We bury them?” That doesn’t sound so bad, Luca thought.

But Ben continued, “not in this age. Today’s technology makes killing them much simpler.”

Luca waited, impatiently now, for his real question to be answered.

“Now, we have sun emulating lightbulbs we can carry to weaken them for the kill. Then, removing their heads works quite nicely.”

Protecting Jules from this fate was now Luca’s number one priority.