Page 11 of Blood Sacrifice

“Do I want to know?” he answered.

“Probably not,” I replied. “I need a clean-up crew for two pitiful excuses for lycans.”

“Teams are already in our base. I’ll mobilise them to your location.” Tarrack paused for a moment. “Is it one of the priestesses they’re tracking?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied, crossing my fingers he wouldn’t detect the lie. “None have displayed any magical signatures so far.” Luna had carefully masked her natural abilities. To the casual observer, she was nothing more than a tourist visiting this country.

The problem was that I was not a casual observer, and my wolf was struggling against my control since he had caught the scent of his mate. I dragged the two bodies to the side of the alley, snapping a photograph of each for our technical teams to work their own brand of magic on.

My phone pinged. A text from Tarrack flashing onto the screen.

Tarrack:Ramon said to take fingerprints and DNA as we have some unknown players in the wind.

“Great,” I muttered, crouching down to scan their fingerprints.

“Been busy?” Jethro asked, staring down at the dead men, as he appeared beside me.

“Assholes know not to wander onto our land,” I replied, but both of us knew I tended to turn a blind eye to that type of infraction.

“Paulo is on his way with a van,” Jethro said. “We’ll take them away to avoid any questions. You need me to take samples?”

“Tarrack wanted fingerprints and DNA. Their phones would be beneficial as well,” I replied, sending the prints to our database.

“Balor has stayed in his own areas for a long time,” Jethro said, leaning against the wall as he watched me. “People are talking.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I replied, sliding my phone into my back pocket. “I’m not happy about this either.” I growled lowly when I sensed a human approaching. The vibration should be enough for their instincts to make them avoid this place.

“We thought there were no other priestesses out there,” Jethro said, trailing his fingers through his hair. “We’ve been searching a long time to ensure he can’t absorb any more of their energy and powers.” Jethro had been there the night our lives had been ripped apart. He had fought alongside me in the war, and watched when I discovered my mate was dead.

“I think we need to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew. If he was willing to send these goons to kill tourists, thenhe has information that we don’t.” I pinched the bridge of my nose since I was struggling to stay in control.

“What about our witches?” Jethro asked. “Would they not have sensed a priestess?”

I met his eyes. “This operation stays between our team alone,” I replied and Jethro slowly nodded. Trust was born when you saved someone’s life and stood shoulder to shoulder with them in the front lines of war. I knew I could trust Jethro, and that he trusted me. I had no idea why Aisha had lied to me, but there was no way she had felt the death of someone who was still alive and walking around my city. I knew for a fact that they had never physically met again since the day I put her into the care of the travelling workman and his family.

Jethro pulled his phone out and started to type, no doubt locking this investigation down to only a limited number of people. Our van reversed into the alley, and Paulo appeared at the back a few moments later. He stared at the bodies for several moments before he opened the rear doors.

“I swear his minions get younger every day,” Paulo said. “They’re only pups.” He shook his head in disgust.

We tried to reach the young dire wolves as they emerged, but we didn’t have the wealth and lure that Balor’s organisation did, and money tended to talk louder than honour did.

Jethro and Paulo lifted the bodies into the back of their van to remove any evidence of what happened here. We watched as Paulo drove away and back to our base. The basement had room for our vehicles as well as an incinerator that would be used to destroy evidence.

“You need me to do anything?” Jethro asked as we walked back into the sunshine.

“We need eyes on that tour at all times,” I replied. “They’ll send others to replace those guys. We need to carry outbackground checks of everyone getting on that bus, including the driver and tour guide.”

I needed to return to being the leader of this pack, and not a hormonal teenager with no plan. If we were investigating every single person in that group, I would be personally paying attention to the data that came back for Luna.

“I’ll grab a room at the hotel, and keep an eye on what is happening there since the last couple were killed in their beds,” Jethro said. “If they send any more lycans, I’ll sense them when they arrive.”

Dire wolves all had unique abilities—it was the reason we had been collected not long after our first change and they realised we carried the genes coveted by magic users. Jethro could detect the energy of supernatural creatures, seeing what they were below their skin. He had identified threats long before they manifested into a problem in our pack.

“I’m going to head back and try to trace where they were before the first incident, and maybe determine what alerted Balor and how we missed it.” I also needed to do my own private research into Luna, or whatever name she was currently using. It would allow me to start to piece together how I’d gotten everything so very wrong.

“Stay safe,” Jethro said, and we parted with a handshake which denoted our pack.

Back in the safety of our pack house, I began to search for Luna, using not her name, but her facial biometrics, tracing her across the globe. I didn’t doubt who she was, my wolf knew.

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