Harlow frowned, grumbling, “It would be fun.”
“No. We’ve had enough injuries as it is lately, we don’t need to add to that.”
The man let out a dissatisfied huff. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
Foxx snorted. “Piss me off enough and I likely will.”
The smirk returned. “Easy enough,” he hummed. “Though I suppose now isn’t a good time anyway. You aren’t at full strength.”
His humor fled at that. “Right…” Foxx cleared his throat. Not wanting to think about his injuries, and how he got them, he asked, “So, who is the other person fucking around with… Well, I’d say us, but really they are both after you, not me.”
* * *
Harlow grimaced. The ‘who’was…ugh. “Well, to get to the who, I need to explain the why. As in, why they were able to live long enough to pull this shit off. And that’s…just a bunch of…dumb mistakes and…fuckingIggy.”
“You know,it only gets worse from here,” Harlow drawled.
Eyeing the restrained vampire, his gaze swept over him. Tall and lanky, the bound man’s mousy brown hair was matted with blood, his green eyes bloodshot and swollen, the bruises on his face were a stark contrast to his pale skin.
Harlow had broken all his fingers. Each and every one was now bent in the wrong direction. Nearby, part of the vampire’s leg lay discarded. The first, he was sure, of many limbs he’d be removing tonight.
Micah was all that was left of the fucked-up nest that had been living here. The rest were just bodies on the ground around him. As much as he wanted to just kill the fucker…they needed something from him.
Eyeing what remained of the man’s left leg, he tsked. The thing was just a bloody stump now, chopped off below the knee, blood flowing freely. “You are already down to one leg, but I’ll gladly take the other as well, among other things.”
Harlow stepped back to avoid the bloody gob of spit that the man spat at him. “Why tell you anything when you plan to kill me anyway?!”
He went to answer, but paused upon hearing the roar of an engine. At the sound of crunching metal, Harlow spun around, his eyes widening in horror as he watched his SUV crash through the side of the metal storage facility he was standing in. The vehicle careened to a stop inches from him.
“WHAT THE FUCK, IGGY?!” he roared, glaring at the apparently suicidal bastard sitting in his driver’s seat.
The man stared sheepishly for a moment, and then eyed the room, before laughing. “It got quiet…so I thought, maybe…you needed help?”
Harlow stared at the now fucked up hood of his car, and said calmly, “I’m going to kill you.”
“Aww, it’s just a car… I’ll…” Iggy cleared his throat. “Pay for the repairs. And like, no harm done… Everyone’s dead here, so like, now we can just clean up.”
“Everyone is not…” He spun, eyes widening on finding Micah gone. “I’m going to kill you, Iggy!”
“Wait, wait, wait,”Foxx barked, drawing him out of the memory he’d been retelling. Harlow still felt just as pissed off as he had been when it actually happened. Iggy always seemed to have just the absolute worst fucking timing.
“How did you lose a one-legged vampire, who no doubt was suffering from massive blood loss?!”
“The vampire had a fuck ton of followers, one probably hid and waited. Dumb fuck Iggy just gave them the perfect opportunity to grab him.”
“What information were you trying to get out of him?”
Harlow grimaced. “The man had a thing for kidnapping and changing human teenagers. I was trying to figure out where the fuck he’d taken the recent victims, and if he had already changed them or not.”
Foxx’s face twisted in disgust, hissing, “A fucking pedophile?”
“Yeah. Most of those in his nest—his followers—were young and brainwashed as hell. Which did make them easy to kill, as none had age or skill on their side.
“Truth was, plenty of hunters back then saw vampire children as monsters. So even if they had once been humans who were changed against their will, most wouldn’t have felt a thing taking them out.
“Iggy isn’t part of the majority, even if he is a fuck up. Which is why Tony paired me with him for the hunt. Tony may be a hard-ass with most, but he is a complete disgusting marshmallow when it comes to children, no matter what species they are.”
“He wanted you to see if you could save any of them, didn’t he? While you wouldn’t care whether they lived or died, you would at least attempt to help, because you don’t actually hate my kind.”
