Chapter 42

I ended up in front of a bar on a street of mostly empty buildings lined up like skeletons waiting for the next death to happen. It didn’t feel like a place that Warren would go to but the tracker said that he was in the area. The skin on the back of my neck prickled uncomfortably against a chilly breeze that tried to coax me inside the bar. I lingered in the shadows though; I was supposed to wait for Leo. I waited a whole hour before sending Leo a text message of where I was waiting for him. I had waited long enough for the chill I had felt earlier to crawl its way over my entire body, before I gave in and finally pushed open the old wooden door of a bar.

“Have a seat wherever you’d like, hun,” called the lady behind the bar after I found myself stuck in the doorway, wondering why this place looked so familiar.

I nodded to her and looked around, trying to decide both where to sit and why I felt like I knew this place. The photos on the walls were antique advertisements and what I guessed to be soccer or rugby team pictures positioned above deep u-shaped leather booths with high back dividers between each one. Then I moved around towards the booths and caught the smell of vampire blood.

This was where I had seen Kris’s brother in the vision after I drank his blood.

This was his regular place.

What was Warren doing at this place? Was he here with Orin and Kris’s brother? Would I be able to kill Orin if Kris’s brother and Warren were around?

Then there was another smell that caught my attention.

This was a place where vampires had died. Several vampires.

I moved around deeper into the space of the bar, following the scent of Kris’s brother until I knew his normal place and took it without hesitation. The lady behind the bar didn’t seem to mind me taking that particular place but I could tell that the men around the bar were uncomfortable with it by their stares.

“What can I get for you?” she asked as she approached.

I shook my head to get rid of the daze I was in. I knew what I truly wanted wasn’t on their menu. “Umm… a beer… just a beer.”

She gave me a smile. “Bad day?”

I looked down at my hands already typing out a message to Kris that I wasn’t fully aware of doing. “You can say that,” I breathed as I hit send and looked back up at her.

“Well you picked a good place to unwind. We’re usually quiet when there’s not a game to watch. I’ll be right back with your beer.”

I watched her retreat behind the bar again then took another look around as I pulled out my cell phone. Other than the lady serving beer, there were only men in groups of twos and threes. Maybe seven men total. I was the only one not at the bar and I was the only one not in a group.

The text I sent with my location said: I found Kris’s brother.

Would it be enough of an explanation for them?

The lady came back with my beer and the door slammed open against the stone wall, its old hinges straining to hold on and creaking their protest as the door moved to cover the open space again. A man framed in the light streaming in from outside, stopped the door on its path before shouting, “A round of scotch, Liv!”

It was Kris’s face but the hair was wrong. There was too much of it and it was very blonde. Behind him were three vampires with the smell of death around them all. I was very outnumbered and nowhere near strong enough to do anything but I was sitting in his seat like a bully picking a fight.

Why had I gone inside this pub in the first place? I was supposed to be looking for Orin and Warren, not Kris’s brother.

The lady smiled and walked away from me heading back behind the bar as the men cheered their thanks for the free scotch.

I watched as Kris’s brother realized that I was sitting in his place and then sized up his three followers, trying desperately to come up with a plan of action. He never even paused as he crossed the space to sit across from me. His friends followed suit, sitting around the table and pulling up an extra chair next to me. I tried to stay relaxed as I stared down Kris’s brother but underneath, his friends were too close and I was panicking.

“I wondered when I would see you again,” he purred.

I didn’t know what to say.

One of his friends scooted even closer to me, stroking my bare arm starting at the t-shirt sleeve. I shot him a disgusted look and leaned away but the vampire on the other side was just as close.

“I don’t think she likes us,” one of them laughed.

“Don’t worry, she’s good for some fun. Just look at the scars,” Kris’s brother replied coldly. This wasn’t how he had approached me when I was a raven but maybe he needed to pretend to be cold in front of these people.

“I’ve never seen so many. How long have you been at this darling?”

I was about to tell the henchman off angrily but the lady arrived with their scotch and I bit back my words altogether.

“Is there a problem here?” she asked, seeing the anger and panic on my face.

“No worries, Liv. We’re just teasing her. We’re old friends,” answered Kris’s brother with a smile that made her melt.

My phone rang in my pocket and I jumped, having nearly forgotten that I texted Kris and Leo. I pulled it out and pushed out my chair in the same motion, standing to answer the call as I walked away toward the back entrance. Thankfully, I wasn’t followed but I knew that they were listening.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Kris demanded before I even spoke.

“I needed to clear my head but I umm… I ran into some guys,” I lied. “They can hear our conversation so I’m hanging up. I can’t leave.”

I prayed he would understand what I was trying to tell him.

“Fifteen minutes,” he growled back barely audibly before the call ended.

Fifteen minutes was a long time to wait for help.

“Come back and talk to us lovely!” one of the vampires shouted.

“We promise not to bite hard,” another laughed.

I hesitated, looking at the door but Kris’s brother appeared in front of me. “What did my brother need?” he hissed low so no one else could hear.

“Why does he hate you?” I threw back at him matching his tone.

“He should have kept a better eye on you when I sent you back the first time. This time you’re stuck with me.”

He grabbed my arm roughly and drug me back to the table. I yanked myself free and tried to head for the door again only to be caught by one of his friends.

“Let me go before you make a scene in front of the humans,” I growled as I tried to yank my arm free. His grip never faltered though and I was planted back in the chair I had previously occupied.

“I’ll take care of that,” Kris’s brother spoke smoothly before floating over to the bar.

I noticed Liv with a phone to her ear already but when she met his gaze, her expression changed from worry to calm and she put the phone down again.

“Why don’t you want to stay and play with us, beautiful?” one of the vampires to my left teased me.

I wasn’t looking at them though. I had my eyes locked with the vampire to my right.

“You are going to let me go and walk out of this bar then forget that it exists,” I commanded, shoving a good dollop of magic with my compulsion to make sure that it would work.

He blinked then obeyed like a robot, dead to the rest of the world. His friends were beyond perplexed so I had enough time to grab the face of one and send him out following his friend.

“Leave this bar and forget it exists.”

It wasn’t a complex command and it could leave them standing outside confused but they were one less variable to contend with. Unfortunately, those were the only ones I could get to before Kris’s brother lunged at me.

I threw up a quick shield to deflect him but he was strong enough that the impact put us both on the floor.

“Get out of here!” I shouted at the human customers as I picked myself up. The lady looked at me like I was crazy while the men ran out the door, one of them running directly into Leo. I was so relieved to see him that I almost forgot about Kris’s brother.

“You’re making this more complicated than it needs to be, little witch,” he grumbled as partner went after Leo. “If you could have just stayed out of this, I wouldn’t have to make a scene for Orin.”

I didn’t understand what he was saying but I was trying to make sure that Leo was okay in his fight also so it wasn’t a priority. He used that to his advantage and let me watch Leo fight while he pulled a knife out of his pocket.

“What is Orin doing here? Why does he want the witches gone?” I tried as my attention came back to him and we sized each other up.

“My brother seems to have trained you well. You’ve come a long way from when I first met you,” he said instead of answering my question.

“He should be here soon and you can talk to him for yourself,” I replied, still confused about what he was saying. “When did you meet me?”

A smile peeled across his face slowly then bubbled into a laugh that caught me off-guard. “I get it now. You came after me because you don’t remember me, do you? Remind me to fix that for you someday.”

Then he bolted at me before I could react, knicked my forearm with the knife and disappeared out the back door. My feet and brain were still too stuck in confusion to go after him. Instead I looked down at my arm and the pain that was spreading there.

The blade was poisoned.

My hands started to shake and my heart pounded against my ribcage.

I was either going to transform again or lose control but I didn’t have the knowledge to tell which one it would be. Fear mixed with pain and details got blurry from there.

I knew Leo was fighting at my side at one point and I knew that I was feeding on at least one of them if not more. I know that I pulled limbs from bodies and I know that there was blood everywhere but I don’t know how I was knocked out or when exactly it happened.

I just remember what felt like the next moment, waking up in Warren’s house, in my room, my skin covered in a crust of dry blood. I sat up slowly, my head spinning a little with the memories all jumbled together with pain and adrenaline. When the spinning finally stopped, I went for a shower and tried to remember what happened to Leo.

Was he the one who saved me?

Why didn’t he bring me to his house?

Was he hurt in the fight?