Page 22 of Bold Mercy

I hastily changed the subject, even as my face heated. A woman didn’t want others to know when she pursued a man and he rejected her. “Why Rose Inn?” I asked Lennon. “Your favorite flower?”

She laughed and the sound was like the tinkling of glass. The seer was just otherworldly. Still, there was the tiniest of lines between her brows and her laugh didn’t quite ring true. I didn’t think I’d done anything to upset her. Probably, she was simply upset over the bad shit that had happened, just like the rest of us. “It’s my last name.”

“Oh,” I said. I was a bit new to the pack, but I really should have known Lennon’s last name. Then chills chased each other down my spine, and my heart stuttered hard for a few breathless seconds. “Jared’s coming,” I said.

Moments later, he pushed open the inn door and strode into the room. The guards Wyatt, Avery, and Brian were at his back, and Zach was beside him. It appeared as though the alpha and the hunter had become fast friends, and I was glad to see it. Zach needed someone like Jared.

And maybe he wasn’t the only one. But I frowned at the thought. I didn’t need him—I wanted him. There was a big difference.

“I need to speak with you before you go,” Jared said.

Which meant he wasn’t hunting with me tonight. Only something big would have kept him from accompanying me on the hunt for Avis Vine and honestly, I dreaded hearing what it was.

“Good afternoon, Alpha,” Lennon said, her voice serene. But it looked to me like there was a sort of…warning in her eyes when she looked at him, and I felt a tension between them. Maybe it had nothing to me, and I was being a little paranoid.

I hugged my mother, Lucy, and Ash goodbye and turned to follow him outside.

“What has happened now?” I asked, once we were striding away from the inn. I didn’t mean to sound hostile, and I gave him an apologetic glance. We were all on edge.

“My scouts have just returned with the heads of three vampires—a small group attempting to infiltrate the compound.” He looked at me, giving me a second to think about what he had said.

It took me about five to really grasp his meaning. And then I could only squint and shake my head, because no way could he have said what I thought he’d said. “No,” I said, finally. And when he only nodded, grim and silent, I whispered, “Show me.”

Ten minutes later I stood in a basement room in the pack’s small warehouse, staring at the three vampires, bloody and gory exclamation points with their severed heads placed at the tops of their shriveling bodies.

Their unburnt bodies.

Sure, there were blackened scorch marks across their gruesome faces, and some holes had burned through their clothes, but the sun hadn’t killed them—and it hadn’t been dark when they’d tried to slip into Shadowfield.

Jared and the others stood back and gave me some time to absorb the awfulness of what I was seeing. I crouched down to examine them, noting the empty eyes, milky with death that had, in reality, claimed them long, long ago. Their hair had been burned to the skull, but the sun had not sunk beneath the skin. The female had blisters on her scalp and her nose, and the two males had black holes in their lips, their eyelids, and their ears.

The sun had hurt them, but she had not killed them.

“Magic,” I said, finally standing. “Frederick Axton and his seer had lots of secrets, didn’t they?” I kept my face blank, and my voice didn’t show the horror in my heart. It didn’t matter, though. There wasn’t a person there who didn’t feel the exact same way I did.

Somehow, these vampires had survived the sun.

“It was nearing dusk and overcast,” the alpha told me, stepping closer as though he thought I might faint and he’d need to catch me. “And what sun there was weakened them severely. My wolves were able to take them easily.”

“But it didn’t kill them,” I said. “And maybe they’ll get stronger eventually. Maybe they’ll be able to walk in the daylight without consequence.” We stared at each other, and I couldn’t help but shudder.

Vampires were powerful and hungry. If the sun wasn’t there to control them, they’d destroy the world—even if some of them might not want to. And vampires walking under the sun? No. That was just wrong.

“And if they could do this,” Zach said, walking to stand beside me, “then how many other vampires or supernaturals are also learning such secrets?” He tilted his head when he looked at me, and his long hair slid down the side of his face. “Who else did Axton and Kaloni give this knowledge to? And where did they get it from?”

I reached out automatically to push his hair out of his face, and I felt the alpha’s immediate tension. I didn’t look at him. “Maybe Kaloni created it,” I said. “When we kill Avis and her rogues, the magic will die with them.” I could hope.

“I want to be part of her death.” Zach caught and held my stare, his own steady and full of a sort of eager, greedy desire to kill that I hadn’t noticed before. “When Avis is captured, I would like to be the one to take her heart.”

“If possible,” I murmured, “I’ll give it to you.” I didn’t tell him that Bastien wanted the woman as well. Sometimes I wondered what Axton and his human servant had done to Zach, but the dark curiosity was fleeting. I didn’t want to know details.

“Right now,” Jared said, “you need to hunt for Avis. Stay in contact. I will join you later if I can.” He looked up when Eli strode into the room. “Eli is going with you, as are these three.” He indicated Wyatt, Avery, and Brian, who remained by the doors, guarding their alpha from a threat none of us could really allow to sink in.

I didn’t want Eli to go with me. Honestly, I didn’t want any of the wolves with me. I hunted better alone. God knew I’d done it all my life. But it would have been pointless to argue. They would simply follow me anyway, because the alpha demanded it.

I could see from the anger in Eli’s dark eyes that he was as reluctant to go as I was to have him, but he wouldn’t argue, either.

“Sorry,” I told him, and maybe he softened a little. I gave my overprotective alpha a small smile. “Be careful out there, Jared. Especially since you’re giving me your best people.”