Page 11 of Forced Bonds

“No thank you,” he said, turning his attention back to the bed.

I didn’t want to get into another argument, so I went to turn off the light and the glass. There was no way I was ever telling him that the light switch had nothing to do with the glass, and the black button was a part of the tile design so I doubted he would notice it himself.

I never claimed to be a good vampire. I did whatever pleased me and my coven and didn’t care much about others feelings, and that included my newest obsession. If I wanted to play, I would.

My phone rang, the ringtone already telling me who it was. I accepted the call and waited for Altaur to speak.

“Zar, my darling, how are things progressing?”

I smiled warmly at my master’s tone. He’d calmed down immensely after obtaining his bonded, a fact that was very well known in our coven. His bonded, Yanus, was praised because of this.

“The Hunter and I have just reached the hotel. We’re about to head out and scout the area. Any new information?” Altaur might not enjoy getting his hands dirty, but he did what he could from his mansion. I understood why he was done dealing with cases such as these. Killing got boring after a few centuries, and Altaur much preferred to spend his days with his bonded.

“Only that a witch is one of the missing people,” my master said, his tone grim.

“Fuck,” I groaned. I did not want to deal with pissed off witches on top of things.

“It gets worse,” he warned me.

“Great,” I grunted.

“Anker told me whatever the werewolf alpha is hiding in that library has to be powerful or important for the rogues to go after it. We had Yuni check the wards and he couldn't even enter the building. Whatever they’re protecting is worth something to these rogue vampires and their master. This is the first time we’ve ever seen rogues go after something other than humans. It must be important.”

I grunted in reply. “And let me guess, you want me to figure out what it is after we’ve eliminated the source?”

There was humor and a touch of pride when my master said, “You know me so well, my child.”

After I was dismissed—rather kindly thanks to the influence of Yanus once again—I turned and faced my newest obsession with a forced grin.

“So, we have witches involved now, too,” I informed him, trying to act like it didn’t bother me, when in fact I hated witches with a vengeance. They were petty fuckers and could do more harm than good in my opinion. Whenever a witch was taken they all banded together like soldiers until the missing witch was found. It was even worse if the witch turned up dead, which is what I was assuming to be the case here. A witch couldn’t be turned into a vampire. Their magic simply didn’t work like that. Nor could any other supernatural beings. Only humans could be turned. So, for this witch to have gone missing either meant they found the source and was killed because of it, or because whoever was creating these rogues needed a witch’s magic. I only hoped it was the latter and that the witch wasn’t there by choice.

The grumpy human groaned. “Not witches.”

I nodded. “I take it that you’ve worked with them before?” Perhaps my little obsession and I had something in common after all.

He just gave a vague grunt and muttered curses under his breath as he stalked toward the hotel door. “Let’s get a move on. We won’t find any answers in here.” Agreeing, I followed close behind, eager to hopefully kill something soon.

We walked around for an hour, me listening for anything unusual and Benjamin, well, he seemed to do the same, though I doubted his human hearing helped him much.

Considering that I’d yet to feel any rogues nearby—a thing all vampires could just sense, maybe even all supes, though I doubted witches could with their lack of predatory instincts—I figured we needed to head further out of town, which meant getting back to the car.

“We need the car,” I declared, grabbing the hunter’s hand in mine as we moved between the humans as they passed us on the street.

“You know,” the human began, his tone sassy. “I do have the whole walking thing down by now. I might even be able to locate the car without your hands on me.”

He was just so perfectly feisty. “But then you’d feel all sad and neglected,” I countered, making him splutter indignantly.

I grinned triumphantly as we powerwalked back to the hotel’s parking garage. Once we were back in my car it only took us a few minutes before we reached the outskirts of town, more specifically, the area closest to Keen. We would have the most luck starting there since there weren’t any obvious signs in the middle of the city.

“There!” Benjamin pointed to our right and I slowed the car as we passed a parked van to the side. This part of the city was greener, meaning there were forested areas, and forested areas meant lots of places to hide.

“We better park further down and walk the area,” I said, getting ready to park. “We’ll start by that van.”

Benjamin didn’t argue, just followed my lead, likely pleased that I would be the first to be attacked. I honestly didn’t mind his thinking. I could take a lot more hits than he could with his frail human body.

The only lights we had to go on out here were the scattered road lights and even they didn’t offer much. I had the advantage of my vampire vision, but the human didn’t. It also appeared darker because of the looming forest edge that the van was parked closest to.

“Feel anything?” he asked, stepping up beside me.