1
SAM
The area was shrouded in darkness as vampires entered the seedy club. The music from inside was loud and obnoxious, the bass heavy, and the electric guitar was ear-piercing, making me want to cringe with my sharp vampire hearing. I hated grunge. My taste in music was more on the indie rock side. But I wasn’t there to dissect music genres.
My team and I were on a mission to gather intel on a well-known vampire criminal, Roman Brown, who ran one of the largest syndicates of the Vampire Blood Cartel. We’d gotten word he was meeting that night with Jose Douglas, the owner of the club. Our orders were to watch and listen, not to engage, not to kill, and not to reveal who we were.
Ben was positioned inside, Kraft was guarding the back exit, and Olivia was about a block and a half away. I watched the front entrance from a secluded alcove in an abandoned building that had once been home to a textile company.
An old rusty Nissan, a shiny new red truck, and a Porsche sat in the gravel lot across the street. The foot traffic going inside the club was nil to light for a weeknight.
The wind kicked up as the clouds skated over the crescent moon. Thank fuck it wasn’t a full moon, or shifters would be tearing up the streets, and I didn’t care to tango with them. They were known to be quite restless leading up to a full moon.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I leaned against a cement wall. I was veiled in the shadows of the dimly lit street, in a perfect spot to monitor who went in and who came out.
“Ben, do you copy?” I asked into my comm.
“Ten-four. Nothing happening,” he returned. “I count about ten vamps. Jose is on his phone by the bar. But no sign of our target.”
We suspected, if our intel was correct, that Roman might slip in through the backdoor.
“Maybe we got bogus info,” Kraft chimed in.
“Let’s give it another thirty minutes, then we’ll call it a night. Roman is probably waiting for the club to clear out. This shithole closes in an hour, anyway,” I said.
“We’ve got a black four-door sedan heading your way.” Olivia’s voice came through loud and clear.
Within seconds, headlights bounced along the street before a sleek black car slowed to a stop in front of the entrance.
I straightened. Maybe we were about to get lucky. The bio we had on Roman indicated he had a penchant for expensive black cars. The Infiniti sedan was high-end, but not in the realm of the Mercedes Roman had been seen in by our scouts. He liked to live high on the hog and spared no expense when it came to building his empire. To me, he was foolish. If I were trying to stay under the radar of the Vampire Council of Elders, showing off would be the last thing I would do.
The sedan’s back door opened, and a brunette emerged, followed by a shorter chick with lighter brown hair than her friend. Both had their hair up, exposing their smooth long necks, and both were dressed in tight black jeans, cut-off tops, and boots that traveled up over their knees.
Automatically, I sniffed the air. A hint of sweetness carried on the wind and knocked me back a step. Definitely human. Definitely stupid to be walking into a vamp club, and even more idiotic to expose those smooth necks. Every vampire inside would be lining up to get a taste.
Hell, my gums pounded with the need to release my fangs. I had a ton of restraint, but I wasn’t perfect. Still, my pulse shot up ten notches, and not because of my thirst for delectable human blood. If I had to save a human, that would only compromise our mission.
The problem, though, was that as vampire soldiers—Navy SEALs to be exact—we protected our own, but also humans, both foreign and domestic. Not only was it our job to make sure vampires didn’t kill humans, but we took down the lowest, dirtiest, and most lethal of vampires who broke our laws, and we had strict ones in our world.
A third woman climbed out. She was slender yet curvy and dressed in an outfit similar to her friends’. Her auburn hair was thick, long, and wavy, spilling down around her shoulders.
I sucked in air. Her emotions hit me like a Mack truck—fear, nervousness, and a dusting of excitement.
Fucking empath ability.
My twin sister could read minds, but I’d gotten stuck with feeling every damn emotion on humans and any supernatural. If I let them, those emotions could stop me in my tracks.
Red whipped around. Her blue gaze, a beacon in the night, darted in all directions as if she knew I were hiding in the shadows. Then she tapped the roof of the car, and the front passenger window lowered.
“Thank you. We don’t need your services anymore tonight,” she said to the driver. The sound of her voice slid up my arm like butter on warm toast.
I sniffed the air once again, and this time my fangs slid out of their own accord. Where her friends smelled like apple pie, Red’s scent was chocolate and cherries. I dragged my tongue over one fang, staving off the need to taste her that instant.
Focus, man or your ass will be chum for the fish in the bay if you fuck up this basic mission.
With my fang embedded in my tongue, I sharpened my hearing.
Her two friends shimmied up to the bald bouncer.
