It hadn’t escaped his notice that his entire tribe typically took water-magir to mate. Kaia was his type in so many ways.
And why can’t I forget what she looks like naked?
“That’s it!” A loud boom hit the car, and Orion and Kraft glanced through the front windshield to see the big guy with the bat and his friends pounding on the vehicle. Apparently, they’d found a tire iron and lead pipe to add to the damage.
“I’ll handle this.” Kraft’s eyes flashed red then back to normal too quickly to be noticed.
“Now I feel bad.” Orion huffed. “There’s no challenge out there.”
“Well, there’s no challenge in here,” Kraft snapped back.
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you.” Then, instead of wrapping his hands around Orion’s neck, Kraft jumped from the vehicle and leveled the three humans in seconds.
Orion left the vehicle and glared at the one human who looked to not be breathing. “You broke his neck. Great job.”
“Hey, not my fault they’re so fragile.” Kraft cursed Orion in German before turning to meet the horde of men running from the tiny gym. “And where are these warlocks we’re supposed to spy on?”
Orion looked around and noticed movement from a second floor apartment to the left of the road. “Up there I think.” He saw one of them point at Kraft and say something. So he grabbed one of the downed humans and threw him at the warlock on the second floor, having no patience for witches turned evil.
The female screamed while two of her conspirators yelled at Orion and waved wands.
Kraft laughed as more humans joined the fray. One of the men tried to hit him and lost the use of his left arm for his efforts. But at least this time Kraft didn’t break the limb off. “Wands, really? What is this, Harry Potter?”
Orion would have laughed, but he hadn’t forgotten Kraft’s comment about him being no challenge. He shoved a bulked up female face-first into the concrete before she could stab him. “We finish this, I challenge you. Right here, right now.”
“Yeah? You think you can do something besides pine after a sea creature that spreads her legs for everyone?” Kraft said.
Orion took the insult personally, as the bastard had intended.
Kraft laughed at him. “If you could see your face.”
“You’re a real shit, you know that?”
“I know she’s ruining you, asshole.” Kraft turned as a human shot him. “I’m done with this.” In seconds, he mowed through the humans pouring through the gym and disappeared inside it, with screams, gunshots, and shouts following.
Orion had had enough of the warlocks trying to break him, and the last volley of burning arrows had scorched his favorite shirt and put a hole in his brand new jeans. “That’s it.” He used his anger to rush the building. And rammed it.
He pushed through brick and stone, bursting pipes, and saw a small coven with dead animals and a few dead humans hollowed out and carved with dark symbols he recognized from his time in Abaddon’s hell plane.
“Oh, fuck no.” Orion went to both floors, leaving only two of the senior members alive for Mormo to question. The other nine he killed with prejudice. After knocking out the last two and tying them up with magic-sealing rope, courtesy of Mormo, he shoved them in the trunk then turned to face Kraft.
Who started ahead of him by slamming a rock-hard fist into Orion’s face.
Orion crumpled, his head ringing, and looked up into the dead eyes of his kin.
“She has made you weak. Look at you.” Kraft growled, his wolf close to the surface, all that tasty rage burning in his red eyes. “Why, vryko, do you revel in the soft touch of a female when your power is all you have? Your true worth is not in your emotions,” Kraft sneered, “but in your fighting spirit. Varu and Duncan mated, but do you see them getting beaten up? Pathetic? Less than the humans I just crushed with one hand?”
“You caught me by surprise.” Orion knew he shouldn’t have said that the moment it came from his mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kraft said in a sweet voice. “Should I warn you next time I try to kill you? Who’s the fledgling? I’m less than half your age, yet I could kill you here and now.” He leaned closer, the wolf present and waiting. For what, Orion didn’t know. “And then I’ll go after that pretty morsel in the water. She’ll do whatever I say before I drain her and feed her to my wolf. All that magir blood, so tasty under my tongue.”
Orion lost it and grew larger. He launched himself at Kraft and didn’t back down, barely aware of Kraft laughing with delight. “There you are,” the nachzehrer said.
But he’d threatened Orion’s female, and that could not be allowed to stand. Orion let go of the hold over his deepest rage, needing to make a point Kraft would understand. “She does not make me weak.”
“No, you make yourself weak,” Kraft yelled to be heard over the sound of an approaching storm. “Take her or not, but stop wallowing in a state that will get you killed, you fuckhead.”
A dark cloud gathered over them from out of nowhere, and shocks of lightning accompanied the deluge of rain that fell from the sky. Orion’s upper chest grew hot, the mark he’d been born with flaring to life.
He looked up at Kraft, the world bathed in blue.
“Yes, yes, there you are,” Kraft repeated in a deep growl more suited to a wolf than a vampire. He howled and shifted into a giant wolf, one bigger than Orion had ever seen him assume. “Let’s have a taste of your power, puny vryko.”
Orion wanted to warn him, but he also wanted to teach Kraft a lesson he would not soon forget. The threat to Kaia hovering, as well as the taunt to the true power inside Orion from that particular voice not quite Kraft’s, made the decision for him.
The bolt of lighting that hit Kraft dead in his heart should have killed him. The crack of that boom killed the electricity all around them for at least a good mile, even as the storm dissipated as if it had never been.
Orion shook his head and pressed a hand to his chest, tracing the familiar burn of the trident, a symbol of the first vryko’s true power. When he looked down at Kraft, he didn’t see the giant wolf but a woozy nachzehrer laughing his fool head off.
“That was wunderbar.” He giggled like a child, and Orion stared at him in concern, spotting the melted soles of his shoes, the scorch marks on his chest, and the smoking tatters of his shirt.
With a sigh, Orion returned to his normal size and lifted Kraft in his arms. He shoved the unsteady vampire into the passenger seat of the dented Land Rover. With the warlocks tied up in the trunk, they’d accomplished what they’d been tasked for the night. And if he didn’t soon get moving, they’d have to deal with MEC, which Mormo had strictly told them to avoid.
On the drive home, he wondered what tonight had been about—Kraft’s challenge, his own feelings about Kaia, and why he kept referring to her in his mind as his mate and not his prey.
She’s not my mate, he continued to tell himself, ignoring the fact that they’d shared thoughts. That he grew way too possessive and angry over a slight directed at her. Or that the thought of Kraft taking a taste of her blood made Orion want to rip his head off and give him the true-death that thought deserved.