Page 49 of Property of Mako
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From the back hallway, the sound of Lily’s voice drifted faintly—soft, trembling words as she spoke to Lyra. I couldn’t make them out, but I caught the way Lyra’s voice gentled in response.
It hit me like a punch in the gut—how close I’d come to losing them both because I fucked up.
And how much worse it was going to get before this ended.
Chapter 22
The Things She Saw
Mako
Lily sat at the end of the worn leather couch like she was afraid it might bite her—or that we would.
Her hands stayed locked in her lap, knuckles bone-white, and her eyes kept flicking to the door like she was memorizing her escape routes. Lyra stayed close enough that their knees touched, a silent anchor in the storm.
The Kings we knew we could trust were scattered around the room. The rest of the chapter had been sent on a run to support the Central Texas Chapter on a big job they had to do. They’d be back tonight, however.
Dexter leaned forward, elbows on his knees, intensely watching everything unfold. Crypt Keeper lounged in the armchair across from Lily, his expression unreadable, yet I was getting a weird vibe off him. Bugsy was perched on the edge of the bar with his cane balanced across his lap, every muscle in his face pulled tight.
Boomslang and Killswitch leaned against the wall adjacent to the couch but so far hadn’t said a word.
Spook lurked in the shadows—so quiet, I almost forgot he was there.
“We need you to tell us everything,” I encouraged, keeping my tone as even as I could. “From the moment they took you.”
Lily swallowed, eyes flitting to me, then away.
“They moved us. Twice. Both times in vans with blacked-out windows. I think they were trying to make it impossible to track where we were going. The last place…” She hesitated, pressing her lips together like she was trying to hold something back.
“Go on,” Lyra urged gently.
“It was that old plantation. Or… that’s what it looked like.” Lily’s gaze went distant, like she was seeing it again. “When you get close, it changes. Everything—the rotting wood, the sagging roof—just melts away. Inside, it’s beautiful. Rich. But not in a good way. It’s… wrong. Like the walls know you’re trapped.”
I felt the muscles in my jaw twitch. Thane. It had his fingerprints all over it.
“Who was running it?” Dexter asked.
She glanced between us. “A vampire. Tall, dark hair, pale. He had this… presence. Everyone treated him like he was above the rest. His name was Thane.”
No one in the room reacted like they were hearing it for the first time. We all knew. But hearing her say it put more weight on the name.
“What else?” I pressed.
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “He told me I had legacy blood. That it makes me… valuable. That my blood could make someone more powerful. And that my sister—” she shot Lyra a quick, pained glance “—has it too. He said he’d be bidding on both of us.”
Fury at that reveal burned through my veins like wildfire, but I tamped it down, and Lyra stiffened beside her.
“That’s not going to happen,” I vowed.
Crypt Keeper leaned forward. “What about security? Numbers? Wards?”
Lily nodded, voice shaking. “There were guards—lots of them. Not all vampires. I think there were demons too—or something… scary anyway. And something else… I couldn’t tell what. There were symbols on the windows and doors, glowing faint red at night. And before the auction, they moved some of the girls into another part of the house. They talked about ‘keeping the inventory fresh.’”
Dexter muttered a curse under his breath.
Then she said something that made the room go still.
