Page 74 of Tethered Souls

But he singled Leno out as the one to draw her in. Leno is my second and liked by our men much better than I. Does he plan to grab my brother while he attacks me so it forces my Family to choose which one of us to save? It would be a clever way to take us both out. Use more men to attack me first, get me pinned down along with Khalid. Then when Leno tries to sneak in to get Cara Jervis, there’s an ambush waiting for him. My backup would be rerouted to Leno…

Except for that to work, Aleric would have to have a full nest, and his capos are being picked off one by one. Even if he’s making a dozen more sired every night – something that would utterly drain him, a sired vampire only has the fraction of power a born vampire like Aleric does.

So the alternative is Cara is a complete red herring, and he’s only using her as an excuse to finally tell me about who tried to kill me. Which means he wants me to deal with the traitor now, the timing being the important part.

Perhaps because his Family is getting slaughtered, and he needs to make sure my Family isn’t being torn apart on the inside so we can stop Antonio for him.

“You finished in that head of yours?” Aleric teases, his hands dipping low to wash his balls and cock.

“If we leave Cara alone, will you tell me what’s going on?”

The vampire boss shrugs. “Not much to tell. Antonio’s throwing a tantrum because I fucked his mom.”

“His mom’s dead.”

“Yeah...he’s especially pissed I dug up her grave.”

The Garcia family has always eaten their own kind, but I don’t point that out because I really don’t want to know what he’ll come back with.

“You have no idea what he’s doing to them, do you?” I say, fishing.

He snorts. “I know exactly what he’s doing, and good on him for making them last so long.”

My eyes narrow as I try to work out what he means. Is whatever poison Antonio pumping them with meant to kill them a lot faster than it has been? But why would he want to drag out their deaths in a way that makes them incapable of speech? He can’t be interrogating them for information. So is he trying to make it contagious? My stomach twists at the thought of it jumping from vampires to witches. Getting anything out of Aleric, though, isn’t going to happen.

“Deal,” I say, focusing on what he will give me. “Who was it?”

He turns off the shower. “Not who you think.”

My eyes narrow.

He pins me with a look of exaggerated annoyance. “You are terribly boring to play with. Ask me how I know it isn’t who you think.” When I don’t say anything, he sighs. “It’ll hurry this whole thing up if you play along.”

“How do you know?” I ask flatly.

“Who do you think cleaned up the mess?”

I still, having assumed it was the assassin, but the look in Aleric’s eyes... “You?” I ask. “Why?”

He turns off the shower and steps out, water cascading down the valleys of his muscles to splatter on the tiled floor. He walks over to the cupboard, turning his back to me so easily, not afraid I’ll kill him while he isn’t looking.

“Fortunately for your assassin,” Aleric says as he starts to dry himself off, “there was a rogue vampire in the area. We found the leftovers of his lunch and another large bloodstain nearby. We assumed that was also his kill, so we cleaned up.” He snorts. “If I’d known it was yours, I would’ve kept some of it, but alas.” He sighs in pure disappointment. Then he smiles as his gaze dips to my neck. “Although, I could –”

“So you caught the rogue,” I cut in, “and asked him what happened.”

“No.” His eyes lose his humor for the first time, a flash of red coloring the gray as his bloodlust bleeds out. “No, that fucker’s still out there somewhere. But the woman he bled dry? She was a tourist taking photos on her phone, and in one of them she caught a man I would recognize anywhere. Granted, it was just his back, but that was all I needed to identify him.”

My patience wearing thin, I ask, “Who?”

He smiles at me, taking pleasure in the pain he is about to dole out. “Who else could carry out something like that, fail, and still get away with it? No one but a reaper.”

Everything inside me shuts down. Not a muscle twitches. Not a hair rises. I’m numb at the thought of Khalid, at the brother I trust the most, being the traitor.No. No, he’s had so many chances to kill me and never took them. Aleric is just fucking –

“Well, ex-reaper,” he says, cutting into my thoughts and giving me breath that I suck into my crippled lungs. But I don’t feel any better. Because that means that the traitor –

“The traitor is your uncle Myers.”

Twenty-Five