Page 4 of Crave Me

Hence, I had to respond.

To. Every. Single. Message.

Rather than voice another complaint, I buckled down and focused on the myriad of requests. There were a few I sent over to Kieran. He would either handle them or give them to Sabrina. If I knew the female phantom baroness—a title she preferred overqueen—better, I’d have sent them to her. But it was Kieran I had owed a debt to, making him a more obvious recipient.

Larus and Cara worked silently with me, each of them taking over the responsibility of sending funds for relocation as I approved the requests.

There were a few we paused to discuss, but the majority of them were relatively straightforward.

We worked through most of the night, the moon still an orb in the sky when we finished. Of course, it was December in Iceland. So the sun barely existed during this time of year.

I lifted my arms, stretching out stiff muscles, and stood, ready to call it a night, when Kaspian entered.

His grim expression told me I wasn’t going to like his report.

“Klas is dead,” he said, wasting no time.

My eyebrows flew upward, my entire body rippling with shock. “What?” Klas was a vampire. Killing him would require a beheading or fire. “How?”

Kaspian shook his head. “I don’t know yet. Nolan and Slater are both unconscious but said to be healing. Kieran sent a witch to help them along.”

I blew out a breath. “Fuck.”

Klas is dead?

He was a lower-level assassin, but a good one.

And Nolan was one of my best, with the others in this room being the only ones ranked above him.

Not to mention Slater’s skills for not only tracking but also reading a room. He would be able to sense a threat from a mile away. And he knew how to avoid them.

If this thing managed to lure all my men into a trap, or worse, then it was clearly a lot larger than any of us had given it credit for.

So far, it hadn’t caused any violent disturbances, just a few magical ones. Which was why we wanted it removed.

Now I had even more motivation to take it out.

It killed one of my men.

Gods damn it.I was going to need to get back on a plane, something I’d hoped not to have to do for a few weeks. I’d just returned from Scotland a few days ago after attending Sabrina and Kieran’s mating ceremony.

“How pissed are they?” I asked, referring to the new territory owners of Ireland.

“Given the situation, not very,” Kaspian replied. “It helps that I gave Kieran a heads-up prior to carrying out the mission.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” The last thing I wanted was to piss off the new Baroness and Her Consort of Death and Diamond. “I’ll follow up with him on the plane.”

“You’re heading to Ireland?” Cara asked.

I met her pale green irises. “This thing has been wandering our world for three months. And I’m done playing games with it.”

It’d just killed one of my mercenaries, after managing to dodge all my hunters for months.

And it’d taken down Slater and Nolan, two of my most talented House members.

This powerful being was clearly an even larger threat than any of us had originally anticipated. It’d obviously just been biding its time until the right moment. And who the fuck knew what it was planning to do next?

But one thing was certain—I would not be sacrificing any more of my people for this cause.