Page 18 of His Mate By Vengeance

Need an urgent clean-up in the alley behind HR.

They couldn’t risk the clawed corpse being found by the witches. Relationships were tense enough as it was and Vin was more than powerful enough to handle a single human without his help, even with the effects of the stun grenade.

Duty done, he raised his nose to the wind and traced the enticing smell of Vin’s blood out toward the street to his right. The vampire scent was faint, given the bite to his wrist would already have healed. As he reeled forward, still struggling with damage to his inner ear, he noticed patches of fresh human blood scattered among the trash littering the alleyway. The human they hunted had hurt himself jumping out of the window. Angelo bared his teeth in satisfaction, but he couldn’t help but be impressed that the man had survived the drop at all, let alone made it away from the building.

As he reached the quiet street at the end of the alley, Angelo stared around in confusion. He hadn’t taken that long, and both Vin and the man were injured. He should be able to see them even if he still couldn’t hear for shit. Ice clenched at his heart as he noticed a dark van tearing around a corner away from his location in the distance. Looking down, he noticed a tyre burnout nearby, like a vehicle had been waiting there and had left in a hurry.

Fuck.Someone had Vin.

His wolf howled inside him as he flicked another message to his Alpha, burning with the need to chase down whoever had dared to take the vampire from him. Was it Kyan or was it the people trying to frame him? Angelo wasn’t sure which was worse. They both wanted Vin dead. Every cell in hisbody rejected the possibility. Vincouldn’tdie. He just couldn’t. Because Angelo wasn’t sure he’d survive losing someone like that again. Marco’s reply did little to settle him or his wolf?—

Alpha

Stay there. I’ll get Luca to hack the traffic cams and trace them. The clean-up crew will pick you up,

Every second he was forced to wait was agony. The only good thing about the delay was that by the time Angelo made it back to the pack house, he could walk in a straight line and the ringing in his ears was no longer blocking out all sound. He stormed straight to Marco’s office.

“Who has him?” he growled.

Marco raised an eyebrow at his tone, and Angelo instantly bared his throat in submission.

“It was an unmarked coven van,” Luca, Marco’s cousin and their resident tech genius, said from his position hunched over a laptop on one of the couches. Angelo hadn’t even noticed he was there. That was how distracted he was.

“Kyan,” Angelo said, his heart sinking. “I said I’d keep him safe.”

“I can’t be seen to be launching an assault on a coven facility. Not without starting the kind of war between the families that someone seems so keen to incite,” Marco said.

Angelo swallowed hard. “We need to get proof to Kyan that Vin didn’t set that bomb.”

“He’s aware already, not that he’ll admit it. This is internal vampire politics, and he’s not going to back down. It’s not something I can get involved in,” Marco said.

It took every inch of Angelo’s self-control not to bare his fangs in frustration. His Alpha rose to his feet and strode over to him, gripping the scruff of his neck tight in a hold that was both dominance and reassurance.

“I’m sorry, Angelo. There’s no way I can order an extraction team to the shipping container in sector 3F of the docks. Even if that damn vampire has somehowcracked you open and made you feel something when the rest of us have failed for years. I’m going to invite Doc over for a drink. I expect I’ll be busy for a few hours.”

Angelo blinked and then looked up into the ruthless eyes of his Alpha that had just a hint of rueful humour in them. There was only one reason he’d be telling him exactly where Vin could be found and ensuring medical help was on hand.

It wasn’t permission. It couldn’t be. But it was enough.

“Thank you,” Angelo whispered.

“Don’t make me regret it.”

CHAPTER 6: VIN

Searingpain in his shoulders pulled Vin back to consciousness. Experience had him holding perfectly still and limp while he tried to remember where the fuck he was and what was going on. He was swaying in a way that shouldn’t have been making him nauseous. Or maybe it was the layered smells of years of torture assaulting his nose that did that.

Discreetly flexing his hands, he discovered they were bound behind his back. Probably for a while, given the complete lack of feeling in them. His feet were similarly numb. He couldn’t hear anyone in the surrounding space, no telltale thrum of pulses waiting to be sipped on, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have cameras on him. Whoever they were.

What the fuck had happened?

He remembered chasing that asshole with his flashbang down the alley, throwing him against a wall, and then… nothing. The ache in his head said someone had hit him. It shouldn’t have taken him down, though. And he shouldn’t be suffering from memory loss. The fact he was meant this was one of his own kind with the power to affect his mind—Kyan.

A metal door clanged open nearby and the nature of the echo told him where he was. Concrete floor, a large open metal space—he was in one of the coven’s warehouses at the docks. And if he wasn’t mistaken, the twin pains in his shoulders were from meat hooks impaled through his body to suspend him from something. The cold air on his skin said he was naked. How thoroughly pedestrian. He’d better not die like this. It was so cliché.

“I can tell you’re awake.” The voice came from behind him, where the door had opened, but Vin didn’t need to twist to see who it was.

He’d been right. It was Kyan.

---