“It’s not impossible, though,” Micah stated, coming to my defense.
“It doesn’t make sense. My father mourned Sandra and started building up the hunter guild to protect us from the kind of creatures that killed her. We say our purpose is to guard the humans, but organizing the guild was the only way to stop us from being hunted down and exterminated. We are a smear on the faces of the full-breed races, and they loathe us. So we gathered and got stronger. We learned how to band together and become a force they couldn’t murder outright. Yes, we stop our own from killing humans so that they don’t join the others who want us dead, but it didn’t start like that. The first hunters killed some pretty bad things, and those beings threatened to make us pay. I think they’re carrying through on that threat now.”
“It’s been twenty-five years, though,” Kaderyn argued, her eyes narrowing when I merely shook my head.
“To them, time is nothing. It moves differently there. I don’t know how different because my father never told me about it. I read it in his books and from the archives in the hunter guild. I think we’re about to be in the middle of a war that we’re ill-prepared to wage against beings that want us all dead.”
“Then we need someone strong enough to help us against them,” Onyx muttered, starting toward the house.
“Yeah, we do,” I admitted, frowning as Kieran’s words echoed inside my head. At least Kieran’s men had left, and I hadn’t had to deal with his men on top of my dead aunt. A ghost was bad enough, but a bunch of alpha assholes weren’t something I wanted to deal with before coffee.
Chapter Twenty
I’d been busy the past three days delegating hunts and scheduling people to patrol areas of the city and forests. I hadn’t gone back to the estate to see if my aunt reappeared. My focus was on doing what we could to protect the community. I’d spent nine hours on calls with dignitaries at the other hunter guilds. It was an endless task that was exhausting and frustrating. I wasn’t sure how my father handled it without losing his shit.
I’d fallen into bed each night, depleted to the point that if I dreamed I couldn’t remember them. Talia sent me a care package, and in it was a letter stating that martyrs never went down well in history. Some asshole always made fun of them and smeared their names.
I’d snorted, calling her the moment I’d finished reading her message. Only she didn’t answer. The next day I decided to stop by, but when I reached her house, it was eerily silent, and the gate would not open for me or allow me to pass. There was no sign of anyone outside, and the gargoyles hadn’t moved or transformed to acknowledge my presence.
Changing courses, I’d gone to Enzo’s club where the bouncers blocked my entrance. They told me the twins were indisposed and then sent me away. It wasn’t until I’d pulled up to the Van Helsing estate that I figured out why I wasn’t able to access any of my allies.
Kieran had cut me off from any and all help. Cole had chuckled, leaning his heavily tattooed body against the gate, and promised me that if a blood debt didn’t bind them, they’d be helping me. He had at least informed me they were still on the hunt to find my dad, but that all communication with me had to end.
By the time I returned to the compound, I was livid. Kieran, the sadistic prick, was making sure I had nowhere to turn except for him. I exited the Land Rover, pausing as Axton’s lengthy frame came into view. I glared at him, crossing the parking lot to where he waited on the other side of the fence for me.
“What the hell do you want?” I snapped, already exhausted from the day I was having.
“I need you to know that it wasn’t me, Xari. I didn’t put a hit out on you. I was told to be in that alley, and that I wasn’t to warn you, aid you or look away from you.” Leaning closer, Axton laced his fingers through the chain links of the fence. “I’ve known you a very long time, little one. When have I ever cut you off? I am merely moving with the flow and trying to survive here. I wasn’t the one that set you up. I would never do that to you. If I planned to murder you, I would do it with the respect you deserve. Kieran isn’t fucking around, though. He’s here for something, and he won’t leave until he has it. Are you hearing me? He showed up and confronted Xavier, who wouldn’t back down, and now your dad is missing. That’s what happens when you fuck with him. If the Underworld had a mafia, he’d be the leader.”
“Do you believe Kieran took my father?” I asked carefully.
“I think this wasn’t the first time they have crossed paths. Kieran comes when it is time to collect his payment for a debt. He hits hard and fast. I think your father owed him, and when you refuse to pay Kieran, you vanish, and he sees it through to the end. One way or another, he always gets paid. The other option is that your father made a deal with him, and he will be held in the ether until it is settled. Once the terms have been agreed upon, he’ll come home. And one day, sometime in the future, Kieran will collect.”
“My dad wouldn’t form a deal with Kieran. Not when the cost could be blood. I am the only relative he has, Axton,” I pointed out, watching the weariness burning in his gaze. “You think he is here for me? That my dad refused to kill me, and so they took him, intending to murder me?”
“Until Enzo called in his debt, yes,” he stated, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Now that Kieran can’t order your death or kill you himself without breaking an agreement, he’s stuck. All he can do is wait for it to happen without interfering. So if Xavier has struck a deal, and you were part of the terms to be paid, then he will remain in limbo until it has been completed.”
“Awesome,” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I can’t believe my father would do that. What could he possibly gain from it?”
“Your father was an average half-breed who built an empire. Look around you, Xariana. He’s a fucking legend in his own right. How? Because he’s invincible?” he snorted. “I asked him one time how he’d gotten to where he is. He told me that deals with the devil have advantages.”
I turned his words over inside my head, knowing that it was possible, but not plausible. My dad taught those classes, never to bargain with creatures. There was always a cost to be paid, and they struck where it hurt the most. He’d enforced that thought into our young minds.
“Look, I get it, murderous beauty. You don’t want to think Xavier would do that because he’s your father. Ask yourself this, though. Why is Kieran here now? Your father is missing, and Kieran is benefitting from it most. He’s slowly undoing everything Xavier has worked his entire life to achieve. Kieran doesn’t need power or this city. Yet, he’s taking it from you. He’s put out a citywide ban on anyone attempting to help you or the guild. The only person that refused his order was the fucking sheriff. Kieran runs E.V.I.E. now, too. He infiltrated the organization, discovered it was catering to half-breeds, and then turned it into a full-breed hunting unit. He’s leveling the playing field, and you’re not ready to take someone like him on, Xari.”
“Rhys stepped down as the leader of E.V.I.E. because the vampire population shaped up the moment Ian returned to be the face of the House of Vampires. He moved his castle here, stone by stone, no less. The twins called in their debt, making them vulnerable now, right?” I asked.