Shameful by May Dawson
61
Legacy
I turned in a slow circle,trying to get Tobias’s scent before demanding, “Really?”
I was offended by the vampire. He thought he could take me alone, but he ran for theseguys?
“It’s hard to tease out his scent. The whole place reeks of hybrid vamp,” Rhettsaid.
“I’ve got the map,” I said, digging in my pocket. I’d carried the map and the marble with me, and now I smoothed the map across the rough concrete floor and dropped the marble on top. The marble rolled across the paper, then came to a stop and didn’t move again.
“He’s hiding.”
“He’s close. Inhere.”
“Don’t forget he’s dangerous,” Killian warned. He studied my face, then reached for me. “You’re bleeding.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I pulled away from his grip and headed through the warehouse. We had to take Tobias down. Once I knew we could take revenge on him, I’d mourn my friends.
Killian frowned after me but followed. The four of us spread out, keeping each other carefully in sight, searching for Tobias.
When Killian opened a closet door, the vampire sprang out at him. Tobias’s fangs sank into Killian’s neck, but Killian ripped him away and smashed him to the ground. Tobias’s blood splattered across the floor as Killian held the thrashing vampiredown.
“Can we kill this guy now?” Killian demanded through gritted teeth. Tobias had torn open a wound in Killian’s throat, wide and angry but shallow. Blood ran into the collar of his white t-shirt and soaked it to his chest.
“We need him,” I said. “He knows what Cyrus is upto.”
West had found a rope somewhere and carried it over, a grim look on his face. Rhett rolled him over, and the guys worked together to bindhim.
Then I turned to face the shadowy figures hanging on the other side of the warehouse. My chest closedup.
Courage. Tania.They couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t imagine the world without the two ofthem.
I crossed the warehouse to them, my heart fluttering in wild panic. Facing my brother’s body was worse than facing any threat. Courage’s face was still, his lips parted faintly, his eyes closed. Except for the grisly scene around him and the blood and bruises, he looked the same way he did when he fell asleep on the couch. A dart of hope streaked through my terror, even though I barely dared believe there was a chance.
When I touched Courage’s throat, I couldn’t find a pulse for long seconds I held my breath. And then there was the faint flutter of a heartbeat against my fingertips.
“Help me get them down! They’re alive!” I called.
Apparently, Vampy had either been speaking metaphorically, or she didn’t have a good grasp of the human pulse after decades withoutone.
West found the winch that had been used to pull their bodies up, and released it slowly. Rhett caught Tania and Killian caught Courage, then lay their bodies out on the pavement.
Rhett grabbed Tania’s wrist and held his fingers against her pulse. “Pulse is slow, breathing thready, but she’s hanging in there,” he said, and relief swept over me, warm and glorious.
I realized I was on my knees and I didn’t even know how I’d gotten there. I shook off the powerful emotions that had crashed over me, trying to focus on what we had to donext.
There were wounds on their arms; they’d been drained of a lot of blood.
“Where’s their blood, Tobias?” I demanded, but Tobias was groaning in pain, unresponsive.
Did he have more friends he was supplying with blood for helping them do hiswork?
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I told the guys urgently. “He said that Lucas was tracking me… and him. I don’t like the idea of our pack showing up, not until we’ve built a case against Cyrus. And we don’t know if we might get more vampire company, either.”
I filled them in on everything that Tobias had told me sofar.
“I’ll get us a car,” Rhett said without hesitating. “Big enough for all of us. We’ll head out somewhere safer.”
Somewhere safer.
We had to move. But without a pack, I wasn’t sure there was any such place as safer.
“While you do that, we’ll have a little talk with the vamp,” West said grimly.
He grabbed Tobias, and Killian pulled a chair from across the room, its feet screaming across the pavement. West threw Tobias intoit.
“Did Lucas really hurt a girl in my pack?” I hadn’t thought he was the kind of man who would hurt a woman like that. I’d had a crush on him for so long. Now, after hearing what he’d done in my pack and after having him hit me, I felt so stupid.
“Yes,” he groaned through crackedlips.
“According towho?”
Tobias stared up at me, one eye swollen shut. He seemed to debate whether or not it was worth trying to holdout.
West moved toward him, whistling, and Tobias winced. West’s happy sounds were apparently terrifying; maybe Tobias knew something about my grouch’s history that I didn’t.
“I met two shifters who wanted to work with me to bring Cyrus and Lucas down,” he said. “I wasn’t originally interested in helping them, but they seemed very desperate, and I do love desperate shifters.”
“Names?”
Reluctantly, he said, “Edmond Dantes. And his wife, Rooney.”
I let out a laugh, surprising everyone in the room who was still alive. “You don’t read much, doyou?”
“What?” The vampire eyed me suspiciously.
“Edmond Dantes is the hero of The Count of Monte Cristo. Rooney Mara is the heroine of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Two books about revenge.”
Killian smiled faintly, as if he were proud of his bookish girl. The mark on my throat seemed to tingle at his approval, and I resisted the urge to rub it. He didn’t deserve to know what effect he had onme.
My dad had read The Count of Monte Cristo to Courage and me when we were kids. A strange tingling ran up my spine. Could my father have been working with Tobias?
The thought was so ridiculous that I tried to dismiss it, but I couldn’t. I filed it away in the back of my mind, because I had to interrogate my vampire quickly before Rhett returned with thecar.
“How did you find Courage and Tania?”
His lips curled. “They followed us when we left our meeting with Edmond and Rooney.” He seemed to feel foolish using the names now. “They tried to trap us and found themselves in a bit of a spot themselves.”
The thought that Courage and Tania might not survive and wake up again filled me with red hot anger. I couldn’t think of any other questions for Tobias.
“Legacy,” Killian said quietly. “Do you want me to hurthim?”
“When he’s all tied up and helpless?” I asked, cocking my head to one side, studying the vampire. Then my gaze went to my brother, pale-faced and weak, and the best friend who had been like a sister tome.
“Yes,” I said crisply.
I walked away to check on them as the vampire started to scream.