Page 15 of Property of Mako (Kings of Anarchy MC: Louisiana #1)

Ghosts of the South

Mako

We’d returned to the clubhouse, and I got my ass chewed by Boomslang and Killswitch.

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Boomslang shouted from behind his desk. His fist slammed to the wooden surface.

“There wasn’t time. The contact called me, and I could hear him being attacked,” I argued.

“Bullshit!” Boomslang spat before he shook his head. “That was a reckless move. And you took the girl? Jesus, Mako, I expected better than that from you.”

That burned—because I knew he was right. I shouldn’t have allowed Lyra to ride along. Yet now that I knew she was my mate, the thought of leaving her safety in anyone else’s hands was next to impossible.

“She’s my mate,” I explained in a calm tone.

In any other circumstance, the way their eyes bugged would’ve been humorous. Boomslang let out a low whistle. Killswitch muttered, “Well, holy fucking shit.”

“Brother, I understand your need to have her close, but she’s still human .” Boomslang’s brows pinched together as he stared at me.

“We got a lead. According to Malrick, there’s an old plantation south of New Orleans that is tied to the Crimson Chalice Covenant. I have feelers out to see if I can narrow down which one. Once I get the location?—”

“ If you get the location,” Boomslang cut in.

“ When I get the location, I need to go check it out. We’re running out of time.

They know we’re looking for them. This last incident was a direct message to me.

It was telling me that they not only knew we were hunting them down but that it was me specifically.

” I sighed and dragged a hand down my face.

“Also… you should know that the council meeting didn’t go well,” Boomslang wearily announced.

“Shit,” I muttered. “What did they say?”

“They are furious that the auctions are still taking place. Yet the majority ruled. They will not be taking action unless it gets out to the public,” he explained.

“Are you fucking kidding me? It’s too late then. It will be a nightmare to clean up. Why wouldn’t they want to cut this off before it gets out?” I demanded in exasperation.

“We don’t know for sure. But my gut’s telling me it’s because some of them are benefitting from them in some way,” Killswitch chimed in, his jaw ticking in irritation.

He really disliked the council. He was a very new vampire, and he believed they were all pompous, crusty relics that acted like their shit didn’t stink.

While he probably was right, the council was made up of vampires, shifters, demons, witches, demigods, and a few of the lesser creatures.

They were the ruling authority when conflict arose among the supernatural world.

“So we’re on our own, my mate’s sister is on the auction block soon, and we have a rat in our fucking chapter.

Fucking great,” I ticked off in a mock jubilant tone.

“If that’s the case, I have to hurry. I need to find Lily and the other girls.

Time is ticking, and the old farts aren’t giving us a stay of execution. ”

Boomslang sat at his desk, fingers tapping in an agitated rhythm. Killswitch leaned against the wall, arms crossed and brow furrowed.

“Fine. You go check it out, but you take brothers we know we can trust. Crypt, Spook, and Dexter will go with you. I strongly suggest the girl stay here, but I understand why you don’t want to do that. Just remember… she’s a human,” Boomslang repeated.

He didn’t need to elaborate on the last part. I was fully aware of how fragile a human was to a vampire. If I couldn’t keep her safe… but I refused to think that way.

“I’m fully aware.”

“Okay, when you get the info, you let me know first. No one else needs to know we’re still following this mission.

Not until we know who is spilling information.

We’re not telling anyone else where y’all are going.

Nor are you to leave at the same time. Meet up at the old gas station down by the tattoo shop,” Boomslang instructed with finality.

“Roger that,” I replied, secretly thankful that he’d insisted Dexter accompany us. Though I hated to consider the possibility, I knew that if anything happened, we would need him.

* * *

The next lead came from an old contact that quietly made his home in the Louisiana bayous—a dhampir who owed me for pulling him out of a blood debt.

A dhampir is the rare offspring of a male vampire and a female human.

While not immortal, they live a long damn time.

Over the years since I helped him, he’d been an occasional but reliable source of information.

He said girls matching Lily’s description had been taken to a property outside New Orleans.

An old sugar plantation. Abandoned for decades.

At least, that’s what the humans believed.

We all quietly made our exits at different times and met up as instructed. Once we were sure none of us had been followed, we pulled out onto the asphalt.

The ride south was long, humid, and heavy with silence.

Not the comfortable kind, either.

Lyra sat behind me, her arms tight around my waist, but I could practically feel her mind working—chewing over Malrick’s death, over my insistence she stay at the clubhouse, over the fact she’d ignored me anyway, over the hope that this lead wouldn’t be another failure.

She’d been exposed to so much already that a lesser woman would have crumbled. I loved that she was ballsy and tenacious. She’d be a formidable vampire—no. I refused to even entertain that vein of thought.

The main reason she was on my bike was because she was stubborn as hell. And because she loves her sister enough to walk straight into the fire. That kind of loyalty is rare… it’s also the kind that gets people killed.

Which led to the other reason she was with me. As my mate, I didn’t trust anyone else to keep her safe.

When we finally reached the location, I was surprised to find the entrance open.

The rusted wrought iron gate was hanging off its hinges, vines growing up from the earth and wrapping themselves around the base and up the rails.

One of the finials was missing; the others were an elaborate fleur-de-lis shape.

Single file, we entered through the gate—each of us on alert.

Inside the gate, we parked under the shadow of a leaning magnolia tree, the cicadas screaming like an alarm no one else could hear.

“Creepy doesn’t even begin to cover this place,” Lyra quietly murmured.

“This is just the welcome mat.” I slid a blade into my belt and placed my earpiece. We did a quick check that the comms were working, then I added, “If this is tied to the Crimson Auction, we won’t be alone. Let’s go.”

Dexter stayed with the bikes to watch the entrance. Warily, the rest of us walked up the tree-lined driveway. At one time, it must’ve been beautiful. Now, it was overgrown with weeds popping up through the old bricks.

The main house appeared through the moss-draped oaks like something out of a fever dream—three stories of weathered white columns, black shutters hanging crooked, and a roofline that seemed to sag under the weight of centuries.

The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and something sweeter, almost metallic.

Blood.

Old, but not old enough.

Lyra grabbed my sleeve, making me pause. She glanced toward the house. “What’s the plan?”

“See if anyone’s here. Figure out if the girls are being kept on-site or just processed through. Then get the hell out.”

“And if they’re here?”

I met her worried hazel gaze. “We improvise.”

* * *

The inside was worse.

The foyer smelled of mildew and dust, but underneath it was a faint copper tang.

The walls were lined with portraits—gaunt men and women in antebellum dress, their eyes following us with unnatural intensity.

I was surprised the place hadn’t been looted or at least cleaned out by some previous resident.

Crypt Keeper’s voice crackled in my earpiece. “North wing’s clear. But there’s fresh prints in the dust—someone’s been here recently.”

Spook chimed in next. “South wing has these cushions all over the place and chains bolted to the walls. Empty, though.”

Chains. I didn’t like what that meant.

Lyra and I moved deeper into the house, down a hallway where the wallpaper peeled in curling strips. That’s when I saw it—a thin trail of dried blood leading toward the rear of the house. I followed it into a ballroom, the kind made for waltzes and champagne.

Now, it was nothing but broken glass and the faint outlines of symbols painted in something dark on the floor. A staging ground.

Lyra’s breath caught. “What are those?”

“Wards,” I said. “Binding circles. You put prey inside; they don’t get out.”

A whimper escaped her, and her hand brushed mine, unintentional, but enough to send that now-familiar jolt through me. The one that told me this woman wasn’t just a complication—she was my mate. And that made her presence here even more dangerous.

Through a broken pane of the dust-coated windows, something caught my eye. Movement in the tree line.

Too slow for a vampire, too careful for a human.

“Mako,” Crypt Keeper’s voice came low. “We’ve got company—lots of it. East side, converging. Armed to the teeth.”

I glanced at Lyra. “Time to go.”

We slipped out the back, into the overgrown garden where moonlight silvered the weeds. As we ran for the bikes, I could feel them closing in—Covenant scouts, no doubt coming for us.

This wasn’t the Crimson Auction.

But it was certainly a feeder house.

A holding pen.

Which meant Lily likely had been here. I had a feeling they had recently been moved—likely because we were closing in.

And that meant we were too damn close for comfort.