It led off into the woods away from town. Not a good mark for the boy in James’ book. He followed it into a clearing where it stopped. He started to walk around the perimeter of the clearing when Dorin suddenly spoke up, “So you feel that threatened by the little alpha?” His tone was teasing.
“What? Of course not,” James demanded, turning to face the vampire. He threatened of Lucas? Never.
“Really? Seems to me as soon as he mentioned the hybrid, you became rather aggressive,” the vampire continued to tease him.
“That’s not me being threatened, Dorin. That’s me not liking him thinking he might actually have a chance with her. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t feel the same if you were in my position,” he argued.
Dorin scoffed then gave him a fanged smirk. “I wouldn’t,” then added when James gave him a look of disbelief. “If I was in your position the first thing I’d do is find someone to stake me. Final death is much more appealing than having to deal with her for eternity!” Dorin’s smirk suddenly fell and he bent to the ground. “Who are you tracking James?”
James bent next to him and sniffed. He smelled blood, werewolf blood. More importantly Zander’s blood. But it wasn’t just his blood either. James caught a trace of someone else’s blood. This blood smelled musty and old which meant only one thing. It was vampire blood. “Can you smell it? The blood?”
Dorin lowered himself to the ground and sniffed in short quick breaths. “It’s strange,” Dorin said then took one long inhale closing his eyes. “I can detect two essences here. One is a powerful vampire, if not Vincent then must be one of his closest followers. I’m not sure about the other. It’s strange. It doesn’t feel right to be vampire or lycan and it’s powerful but not as much as you or Lily. Why did you come here? Whose scent were you following?”
“I can’t say yet. I agreed that I wouldn’t tell anyone,” James replied.
“That’s what you were discussing with the alpha. Wasn’t it? The person this blood pertains too,” Dorin said. James nodded, he didn’t want to lie to Dorin and didn’t see the point in it. “You realize as soon as we get back, I’ll be able to smell him or her out? I told you power calls to us.”
James narrowed his eyes at the vampire then sighed, rubbing the back of his neck again. “It’s Zander, Bonnie’s son,” he said, feeling the best way to keep Zander’s secret was to tell Dorin. This way maybe they could contain it.
“Ah yes, Lord Etienne informed me there was something odd about the boy,” Dorin replied.
How did the vampire know that possibly know about Zander. It wasn’t even confirmed in the first place, James wondered. “It’s possible that Vincent drank from him. Maybe even gave the boy his blood and creating a blood bond between them. The boy wouldn’t have a choice but to obey him.”
“I thought the blood bond made non-vampires insane,” James asked. He did not like the sound of a blood-bonded wolf willing to do whatever the vampires commanded him too.
“Insanity is only guaranteed among humans. The boy is lycan and a mutated one at that. I’m assuming it’d have a similar effect that it had on Lily when Silvano tried to force one on her. I understand the alpha wishes to protect him, but I can’t keep this from Lord Etienne. I can only promise that I will speak of it to no one but the Lord.”
James sighed, nodding and standing. “I had to make the same deal with Nick about Lily. Look, Nick says he’s a good kid and, besides being a bit of a punk, I don’t see any reason to disagree.”
Dorin stood, his face stern and thoughtful. “Alright, but he’ll be watched. You remember how Lily almost couldn’t resist Silvano despite her strength. If he’s blood bound, good or not, he’ll do as Vincent commands,”
James frowned at the vampire. “Trust me. I won’t forget what vampires are capable of doing anytime soon,” he told him, his tone hard. A few months ago the vampire king had taken James captive in an attempt to control Lily. While in captivity, the Hispanic vampire allowed many of his vampires to feed on James. Some were cruel, enjoying causing him pain. Some tried to convince him that his pain was actually pleasure.
Dorin frowned slightly but turned back towards the direction they’d come. “Let’s go find the others. It’s getting late and we only have two hours until sunrise. I would like to see if we can’t get at least an estimated area where their daytime rest might be.”
James followed Dorin back to where he’d branched off from the others and began sniffing the air again. Nicoletta and Lucas were nowhere to be seen. Not that James wasn’t glad to be free of both of them. He did hope their absence meant that they might have found something. He lifted his nose up into the air, taking another sniff. He caught several unfamiliar vampiric scents. However none of them were from the same vampire that had been with Zander.
A strange sense of deja vu washed over James when suddenly all the scents vanished. “What is it?” Dorin asked him when he stopped.
“I think you’re right. They’re using Xavier’s bag of tricks. Their scents vanished,” he explained. He scented the air some more but picked up nothing as he expected. It would take an enormous amount of effort to get passed it. That is if he was able to which he wasn’t sure if he could.
James was about to try when he caught Nicoletta’s and Lucas’ scent. “I smell the others. Let’s see what they found,” he told Dorin.
They didn’t get far before James stopped dead in his tracks. “What is it?” Dorin asked looking worried.
“They’re screwing each other,” James told him, disgusted. He took several steps backward. James definitely didn’t need to hear their noises and he had no intention of getting closer.
“They’re what? How do you know?” Dorin demanded and James leveled him with a blunt look. “I told Lord Etienne she couldn’t be trusted not get distracted,” he complained and stomped off towards the two.
Lily sighed as she sat up from the bed. She rubbed her face, which was still half asleep. She wasn’t sure how long she’d slept but it didn’t her any good. In fact, she felt worse now than she did before. And she was hungry again! “Did I wake you,” James asked as he came out of the bathroom, all wet and in nothing but a pair of jeans.
Lily swallowed feeling her hunger spike. Damn you two, she swore at her little monsters and went back to rubbing her face. “Yeah but it’s okay. I wanted you to wake me up when you guys go back. Did you find anything?”
“Actually I’ve been back hours now. Sorry, I didn’t know you wanted me to wake you up,” he said.
Lily looked up and scowled at him. Really, she thought angrily. In what world would she not want to be woken up?
“We didn’t find much though. Chicken Alpha was too busy screwing the vamp tracker,” he said, sounding as irritated as she felt.
“Figures! Damn werewolves. You’re nothing but a bunch of nymphos,” she swore standing up from the bed.
“You’re? I don’t think I’ve done anything to earn being called a nympho,” he shot back, grinning at her.
Lily rolled her eyes with a snort. “Do I need to remind of that night in the woods and then in the hotel room?”
“The night in the woods was all you,” he demanded. “I told you to stop but you wouldn’t listen. I was practically violated,” he said with a pout then got a wicked, sly grin. “And the hotel room, well you were asking for it.”
A smile started to break across her face but she turned it into a smirk. “Whatever Lacrosse. If that eases your guilty conscious,” she told him, grabbing a blood bag and biting into it. The cold blood made her gag almost as badly as the real food did now. Yet she was hungry and James was starting to smell yummy.
“That’s your last one,” he said and she wasn’t sure if he was asking or telling. “What are you going to do now?”
“How the hell do I know? It’s not like there is a friggin book about how to be a vampire,” she snapped at him then went back to draining the bag.
He frowned as he watched her drink. “Lily you should talk to the vamp lord tonight,” he said, the concern now all over his face.
She scoffed when she finished and tossed the empty bag into the cooler. “Why the hell should I talk to Pumpernickel?”
“Because you’re like the Bram Stoker’s version of that Snickers commercial,” James insisted. “And that’s with blood to drink!”