137

I picked up my phone and dialed the Elder’s number. It rang and rang and then disconnected. I dialed their number again and tapped my pen against the daily planner in front of me. I was only patient when hunting and I almost ended the call.

“Elder Victor speaking,” he finally answered his phone.

“Elder, we have a problem,” I said. “It’s Ryder by the way.”

“What problem might that be Sire Ryder?” he asked me.

“I can’t go through with this bonding ceremony,” I said.

“Sire Ryder, all the facts have been established …”

“I’m not fucking doing this!” I said angrily.

“Sire Ryder, let me get this straight, you’re refusing to bond with Miss Ava?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not real,” I said to him.

“Sire, I understand. The bond will appear after the ceremony as it does with chosen mates, the girl is pregnant with your heir, you cannot claim him or her otherwise,” he said gently.

“What are my options here?”

“We will have to convene with both families present and see if another agreement can be made. It’s highly unlikely since she’s a Sire’s daughter …” he said.

“I’ll call you back,” I said to him.

“Take some time to think it over, Sire Anthony would be within his rights to claim retribution if you don’t complete the ceremony,” he said.

“I need to go, I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said and ended the call.

I was still holding my phone in my hand when a new message appeared. The message I was looking at was a new e-mail sent to my old e-mail address I had used when I used to be in the Elite Unit. The only e-mails that were sent to that address were assignments. It had me curious because Wentworth would’ve called me if he needed my help.

I turned to my laptop and logged into my old e-mail. There was no subject line and the sender was an unknown address. I clicked on the email and my breath caught in my throat. It couldn’t be possible yet I was looking at it. There was only one person that would ever send me a coded message like this.

XVIII0IV0XXIV0XX0XVIII0I0III0XX0IX0XV0XIV0XIV0V0V0IV0V00XV-III0XVII0LXXI0XIV0XC0XXX0XXI0XXV0XXIII0VI0

I pulled the writing pad closer and started writing down the coded message as I translated it. REXTRACTIONNEEDEDAE0C1771N90302125WF

Extraction needed. That part of the message was clear enough. I changed the rest of the letters to numbers and got 15031771N and 90302125W. F

R was for Ryder. Extraction needed. The location was at 15° 03' 17.71" N 90° 30' 21.25" W. F was for Felix. The 0 represented a space and the – was a zero. We had communicated in this format via e-mail and text when we were on assignments and we were the only ones that used it.

My heart was beating erratically because Felix was dead. I’d seen him die. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about him. Today of all days, exactly one year later, I got this coded message. It could only be him. Nobody even knew that we communicated like this.

I typed the coordinates onto my maps program and I tapped the pen impatiently on my desk as it zoomed into the location. It was close to Aldea Raxjut, but it looked uninhabited, just shrubs past the mountainous area a mile away.

“We need to go,” Abeloth said.

“We saw him die Abeloth,” I replied.

“We go!” he said angrily.

“We go alone, I’m not leading anyone else to their deaths if this is a trap of some sort,” I said.

“Agreed.”

It was nine pm as I took the go bag from my office cupboard. I left a note for Ava not to worry and that I would be in Chicago for a few days. I left the house and headed to my borders. One way or another I’d bring Felix back if he was somehow still alive somewhere.

I drove to where my territory line ended and pulled the SUV off the side of the road and into a clearing hidden just around the bend in the dirt road leading to nowhere. I pulled the backpack on and Abeloth separated from me.

It was a four and a half hour flight to Guatemala City but Abeloth could fly out to our location in two and a half hours. I needed my weapons so flying commercial wasn’t an option. He’d land on the outskirts of Aldea Raxjut and I’d scope the area on foot.

Abeloth landed in a clearing outside the town a few minutes before midnight. Smoke rose from his nostrils and I could feel his bloodlust. He was pissed off, ready to kill and he had a thirst to destroy whoever stood in our way.

“Ryder?” Link asked questioningly as he answered his phone.

“Link, I’m on a mission. I’ve left a note for Ava saying that I’m in Chicago, I’m not. If you don’t hear from me in 72 hours I want you to call Elio and Basil, there’s a letter in the safe, they’ll know what to do,” I said.

“What’s going on?” Link asked me.

“I can’t tell you just yet, 72 hours Link, and not a word before that,” I said.

“72 hours Ryder,” he said.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said and ended the call.

Abeloth merged with me as I strapped my weapons on over my black combat gear. I switched my phone off and buried the backpack in the loose sand under some bushes. I started off at a jog and reached the exact spot of the coordinates I had received.

“There’s nothing here,” Abeloth said in dismay.

I stood in a small clearing, surrounded by shrubs and trees. There really was nothing out here, except a few houses to the southwest. Abeloth pushed forward and my eyes changed colour and adapted to the darkness around me.

I walked around the clearing looking for anything out of the ordinary when Abeloth froze and I strained to listen as his ears flicked. It was deathly quiet around me, dark and it felt slightly eerie.

“What if they’re underground?” Abeloth asked me.

“There has to be an entry point somewhere,” I said.

“Where are you going?” he asked me as I turned around and started jogging away from the clearing.

“Where’s the best place to hide an underground entrance?” I asked him.

“In a house,” he said with a smirk as I smiled.

I stopped at the tree line and surveyed the house in front of me. The two houses further on had lights on but this house was dark, it had an empty feel to it and I felt sure that this house hid the entrance from any curious eyes.

“The scents are a few days old,” Abeloth whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” I asked him.

“Shut up and go kill some assholes,” he said grumpily.

The air was musty and I was careful not to disturb anything. The house felt abandoned, it was sparsely furnished and I could smell old blood and sweat. The one thing that didn’t have as much dust on it as the rest of the house was the floor around a rug in the living room.

I lifted the rug and saw the trapdoor. I lifted the door and saw a series of steps leading downwards. “Here we go.” My eyes adjusted to the blackness of the darkness as I took the steps down and closed the door behind me.

In front of me was a long hallway with another door at the end. It was dimly lit but I could see everything clearly. The air down here smelt clean and fresh and I looked up at the metal ventilation system.

“I’ll mask your scent,” Abeloth said as I opened the latch and pulled myself up into the metal tunnel.

I secured the latch behind me and started crawling forwards. There were enough vents to let the outside light into the tunnel. Whoever had built this little hideaway was a genius. It was the perfect underground operation and chances that you’d be found were slim.

If I hadn’t gotten the coordinates I would’ve never thought to look for someone here. They were close enough to the town for supplies but so far underground that they could come and go as they pleased although they would have to make the house more lived in to avoid suspicion though I doubted the crime rate here was that high.

The tunnel led to another room that resembled a canteen, tables and chairs were scattered about with a long counter where food could be dished up. Behind the counter were swing doors that led to a kitchen from what I could see.

There were other hallways that led away from the canteen and I turned left to go towards the first hallway. There were ten doors and I could only assume that these were rooms where the men slept. The people that I had seen so far looked very relaxed, they joked and played cards, some were walking around and I decided to follow the man with the gun in his holster.

The second hallway had cell-like rooms. I discovered that with the wrong turn I’d taken and looked through a vent at a man strapped to a bed. He was a vampire and I could see the dried blood where his wounds had healed. He smelled weak, like he was dying or half dead already.

The third hallway had a small infirmary, stock room, a communal bathroom and a large room that I knew were used for torture. There were blood spatters on the walls, it smelled like decay, rotten flesh, feces and congealed blood.

I had to stop myself from kicking a hole in that vent. Felix was chained to a wall, his head hanging forward, his dark hair plastered to his sweaty skin, blood running down his chest as a man paced in front of him.

“You put up a pretty impressive show vampire,” the man said to him.

“Fuck you,” Felix whispered.

“Who did you send that message to?” he asked him.

“Your worst enemy,” he said with a bloody grin.

“It was a wasted effort, nobody will find you here,” the man said and I heard his rib crack as he punched Felix on the side.

“You had us all fooled, I guess we’ll just have to try to wipe your mind again,” he said.

“It’ll be a wasted effort,” Felix said and started chuckling.

My breath hitched in my throat as the man walked up to Felix and screamed out his rage as he snapped his neck. “Take him back to his cell, no blood, no water. Keep him in darkness for the rest of the day.” Two men I hadn’t seen emerged from the other side of the room and dragged Felix’s lifeless body out.

The man turned around and I studied his features. Shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes and his features looked familiar for a few seconds as I stared at him before he turned towards the door and left. I took a few deep breaths and headed back to the second hallway where the cells were located.

I had stopped thinking and my actions were now automatic, that of the hunter in me. For the first time since Megan had died, I felt like me again.