Page 4 of Fated In Blood (Nocturne Vampire Clan #1)

4

RIORDAN GRAVES

D awn was still a few hours away when I nudged the remnants of Spencer Tyrell and Ambrose with my boot, the heavy odor of petroleum nearly blotting out the sweet feminine scent perfuming the alley, turning the corridor between the buildings tight and hot, sending a river of sweat racing down my back.

Human… and something far more potent .

“They were worthless assholes. Look on the bright side, Rohr, once we get through the paperwork, someone did us a favor.” Blake perused the charred bodies with an expression of eternal boredom that hadn’t changed since we’d gotten the news, and while I agreed with him on principle, the growing body count was concerning.

“You mean once I get through the paperwork, don’t you?”

Blake flashed his usual crooked smile, dark brown hair hanging in wet, dripping strands around his face. “I’m not the one whose sire croaked and left him the whole goddamned kingdom, thank fuck. Besides, you know I have no patience for desk work.”

“You have no patience for anything, asshole.”

Blake Marten was two hundred years older than me and had been my sire’s enforcer for half that time. Now he was my trusted right hand, although, at the moment, he was doing a shit job. “What do you think happened? Vendetta? Blood feud? Lover’s quarrel?” I gestured to the two ashy corpses, Spencer’s still smoking.

“You’re the king, start thinking strategically.” Blake’s frown etched deep lines in his face. As was his habit, he reached up and toyed with the small gold ring strung on a chain around his neck, rainwater spilling off his leather jacket. “What do you see, Riordan?”

Truth was, I didn’t want to think strategically about two smoking corpses in an alley. I didn’t want any part of this. Not the crown, not the responsibilities, and certainly not this—crouched over two smoldering bodies as I debated how this development would complicate my already fucked-up life.

“Over twenty killings.” Every one of them brutal. Barbaric. “They were killed off the main road but still close to campus. Most of them were tortured, some worse than others. All of them ashed afterward to hide any traces of the killer.”

I sucked in another deep inhale.

A female. I didn’t see that coming.

“Smart, burning the bodies.” Blake rolled his eyes when I tsked him. “Fucking sue me, but I can’t work up the energy to feel bad. Most of them were filth, the worst kinds of predators, and you know it as well as I. My king .” He always tacked on my title like an afterthought, which made me wonder why he even bothered.

“Fuck you, Blake. We have to find who’s doing the killing. This can’t continue.”

“These two probably deserved it.”

“Knowing these two, yeah, they probably did. And so did all the others, but one of these nights, it’ll be one of our friends lying dead in an alley, and what the fuck are you going to tell their family? We have to shut this down.”

He stayed quiet while I picked through the blackened remains, looking for something to irrefutably identify Spencer, anything to take back to this asshole’s sire. I crouched down to get a better look. “There’re more clues left behind here than at any of the other scenes. Ambrose was killed cleanly, but Spencer…Come and look at this.”

“You can thank the rain for that. Put out the fires quicker than usual.” Blake’s clever eyes sparked when he squatted beside me,

“They didn’t waste any time with Ambrose. One clean, professional cut—looks like he was collateral damage. Spencer was tortured, like the others, but…there are far more wounds. Looks like someone had questions he didn’t feel like answering.”

“Or didn’t know the answers to,” I countered.

My friend reached over, spreading open the remains of a black and green brocade vest, Tyrell House’s signature colors, revealing Spencer’s pale chest, marred by deep cuts. “See these wounds? Placed strategically to cause the maximum amount of pain. These were inflicted by a pro, Rohr. He was incapacitated then tortured.”

His eyes flickered, those lines along his mouth deepening, and that hollow, haunted look twisted a knife in my heart.

“Blake, you don’t have to be here right now…”

Fuck, I should have realized seeing this carnage would be a reminder of his own, broken past.

Blake wasn’t listening. “Whoever killed Spencer…this wasn’t random. They were lured in here,” he muttered roughly. “My guess is, his killer got their answers before they finished him off. Silver blade, most likely. From the blackened edges of those wounds, I’d say they used nightshade or monkshood to neutralize his magic.”

His hand clutched that tiny gold ring, worrying it up and down along the chain. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

“Slayers ,” Blake hissed, his black-as-coal magic coiling protectively around us. “We could have professional slayers in town.”

“We’ll keep that information to ourselves for now. If Tyrell finds out, he’ll paint this town in blood to find them.” I picked up Spencer’s charred claw of a hand and yanked off the heavy signet band, weighing the ring in my palm. “I suppose duty requires us to take this back to his sire at Darkmore and report what we’ve found.”

“I hate that fucking place. You should have torched that mausoleum centuries ago.”

“Yeah, I should have. I can’t exactly burn my sire’s closest ally out of his own home. I might be king of this territory, but Tyrell’s an Ancient with the backing of the High Council, and I have no desire to fuck with those assholes.”

The High Council governed every clan, ruled over every vampire—both Born and Made—in America and in the Old Country. Their protection made Laurent Tyrell untouchable, under penalty of death. If he involved them in his son’s death…Blake and I were totally fucked.

“I heard they’re going through some kind of…reorganization.” When my brows went up, Blake shrugged. “Look, I hear things from my sources. Bits and pieces, you know how it is.”

“Doesn’t change the problem at hand. The bodies are piling up, and if Tyrell hasn’t noticed before…” I stared down at what was left of his son. “He’s going to fucking notice now.”

“The old bastard’s going to be so disappointed in his progeny. Spencer Tyrell, murdered in a back-alley street by a human girl . That won’t look good, etched into the family records.” An ice-cold smirk played on Blake’s lips. “But I suppose you could tell Laurent the truth, he raised his son to be a worthless git, and see how that argument goes over.”

“Maybe I’ll leave you behind and go this alone,” I muttered, wiping my hands on my pants before I stood up. “Chances are, you’ll get us both killed.”

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Blake pushed to his feet beside me, but he lifted his head, all signs of humor gone. “You smell her, don’t you?” I kept staring down at Spencer, but I felt my friend’s eyes drill into the back of my head.

Blake hid his dark, twisted past behind smartass remarks and bland, bitter arrogance, but vengeance burned hot inside him, and seeing those wounds on Spencer—no matter how depraved the fucker had been—would bring that darkness to the surface like poison.

Blake regressing back to the past was never a good thing.

My gaze homed in on that ring hanging on the chain around his neck. The one he was never without. For a moment, I wasn’t standing in a Thorndale alleyway, but the steps of Darkmore Castle, watching my friend gather up his sister’s broken body.

“Young, female…and a fucking human .” Blake’s fangs flashed before he turned away. “She took down two centuries-old pure-blooded males and didn’t leave so much as a drop of blood at the scene.”

All true, but I was listening to everything he wasn’t saying. If she was trained to hunt down and kill our kind, then like cockroaches, where there was one…there were more.

The chances we had slayers in town were minimal. Tyrell had placed numerous protections around this place, as did my sire. In over four hundred years, a vampire slayer had never set foot in Thorndale.

No, our problem was this ongoing war between Blake, me, and Tyrell, the power struggle that was building to a dangerous crescendo.

And now his only son was dead.

But that scent …I wanted to gulp down lungfuls of this sweet, exotic spice and let her perfume saturate my senses until I was drowning in warm desert breezes. Nothing had ever affected me so strongly before, and I understood why these two bastards followed her to their deaths.

Her sweetness was a siren’s song rushing through me, leaving tattered tendrils of logic behind. I wanted to track her down like a beast, and once I found her, I wanted to…God, the things that mouthwatering scent made me want to do.

Why the hell was the smell fucking with me like this?

I ripped my thoughts away from that delicious, ambrosial aroma.

I had no time for females, especially humans. No time for weaknesses of the flesh, no matter how long it had been. No matter how fucking good she smelled . My focus had to be unwavering if I ever wanted to rule this kingdom of monsters.

“Did you even hear what I said, Rohr?”

“I fucking heard you.”

“Tyrell will want answers, Riordan. The fucking High Council will demand blood for this, the bunch of desiccated carcasses.”

“I said I fucking know , Blake.” I scrubbed my hands down my face, praying for calm. Blake wasn’t where I should direct my anger. “Now let’s figure out how we’re going to spin this without stirring up an international shitstorm with the only Ancient left on American soil.”

I heaved out a sigh. “And let’s hope it’s not our fucking heads they’ll demand.”