Page 61 of Blood Sacrifice

Panic surged through me, first from not knowing what was happening, and second from Salvator’s emotions echoing in my chest.

We were currently involved in a game of life or death, and only the winner survived.

Chapter Twenty

Salvator

Every stupid decision I made in my lifetime involved Luna:

The day I let my hormones rule and kissed her for the first time, then going back the next night because I couldn’t escape the feeling of her lips on mine.

The night I threw caution to the wind and committed what Balor considered a cardinal sin, having sex with Luna with only the moon and stars as our witness. She had infected me with pesky little gremlins called emotions and I started to fall helplessly in love with her.

The morning I paid a trader to keep her safe, and walked away to fight in a war to save my kind was my worst decision. I should have stayed with her, turned my back on everything but the woman who meant the most to me.

My latest stupid decision was thinking I could block her out because I was ashamed of the man who stood there and watched impassively as young witches were murdered to steal their powers. I never wanted her to see my weaknesses because she had weathered horrendous storms in life and remained true to herself and the people she protected.

I didn’t deserve her, and yet the moment I felt her in danger, I sent my wolf to her.

Tarrack was still in the command centre, but Jethro and Paulo sat on either side of me at the conference table, staring at a sea of faces which no longer held any friendly intent.

“We have received troubling reports,” Aisha said, lifting a black folder from the table to wave it in the air. “A massacre in a small town, yet when our operatives arrived there was no evidence. The CCTV units had been wiped, and the humans confused.”

My eyebrows shot up and I leaned back in my seat to regard the four witches. “Is there a reason this report didn’t come to me or one of my commanders?” I asked, deliberately infusing my tone with alpha energy. Some of the wolves near the door moved uncomfortably in their seats.

Aisha drummed the tips of her nails on the table for several heartbeats. “My witches report to me,” she finally replied. “One of them had magical business in that area at the time she intercepted human communications.”

That was bullshit because there were blockers up all over that town and Luna had personally ensured humans didn’t venture anywhere near us. I didn’t comment on the fact she had already said the humans were confused, so how could they send out communications?

“Balor seems to be getting more and more confident. He had some of his men following a tour group a few weeks ago in our territory, and some of those tourists ended up dead in mysterious circumstances,” I replied, and I noticed Jethro nodding from the corner of my eye.

“We had to clean up the mess. It’s why I’ve been off the grid for a few days trying to track them,” Jethro added. “The pathologist didn’t find anything suspicious at their postmortem, but when I viewed the bodies, I could smell magic.” He wrinkled his nose up to demonstrated his disgust.

“There was an explosion at one of our safehouses as well,” Paulo said. “There was no one there at the time thankfully, but I’ve spent the past few days investigating.”

Someone in this room had to know who gave the order to blow up my house, and I slowly scanned all their faces to determine who the traitor was. By the way their auras jumped and darkened, it suggested there were quite a few secrets being hidden. This aura-reading ability had appeared after I mated with Luna, some of her magical gifts seeping into me like a sexually transmitted infusion.

I leaned back, taking in the room while pretending to be relaxed. The device in my ear connected me directly to Tarrack so he could hear what was happening here. “This base is now locked down,” I said, and the click of all the doors locking sounded in the silence that followed my announcement. “There have been too many strange occurrences that need to be investigated.”

I watched as certain individuals looked at each other in silent communication, the witches sitting up straighter in confrontation.

Aisha’s tongue flicked out to moisten her lips. “I don’t think that is acceptable,” she replied. “We have a mutual alliance that allows us to protect each other against a common enemy, but we will not be treated like criminals or an inferior species.”

“This is to protect all of us,” I said, pushing my chair out and rising to go and stand at the window. “It has been a long time since Balor dared to encroach on our domain, and we can’t rule out the possibility that some of our new staff may be affiliated with him.”

That seemed to pacify some of the occupants around the table.

“That doesn’t explain why we are all locked in this room,” Kayla, Aisha’s second-in-command said. “If there is a securityrisk, then we need to remove our witches before we lose any more souls to the darkness of this war.”

“The key people in this organisation are locked in this room to ensure their safety,” I replied. “Our people are seeking out any new operatives who have joined in the past five years.”

That was a lie since there were only four of us released from the spell, with Dominic and Luna releasing more as we sat here. I had a vague idea what my little witch was planning since she had emptied that potion into the water supply.

The alarms activated, startling me as that wasn’t planned. Red lights flashed as emergency lighting was triggered.

“What the fuck’s going on?” I demanded, speaking to Tarrack and ignoring everyone in the room.

“We have breaches on all levels,” he said. “No one can access the armoury as there is something wrong with the doors.”

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