Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman with the blue hair hurrying down the steps, yelling about never letting werewolves in her club again and that they’d never get the place cleaned up before the police showed.
Werewolves?
Oh God. She’d known Zane was different before tonight but a werewolf?
That’s when Alyssa started to hyperventilate.
* * *
Zane could tell that Alyssa was freaking out, and the urge to comfort her was overwhelming. But all it took was one look at her face for him to realize there was no way she was going to let him get anywhere near her. He’d known she’d find out at some point, but even so, something inside him died then because he realized whatever had been between them was over.
Confusion, anger, disappointment, regret, disgust, revulsion—it seemed like dozens of emotions flitted across her face in those agonizing moments before she turned away from him. It was eerie how closely Alyssa’s expression resembled Sienna’s the night his former fiancée had walked out of his life. It was something Zane never thought he’d have to experience even once in his life. Now, it had happened for the second time. Only this time, it hurt even more. It felt like someone was ripping his guts out with a piece of razor wire.
He wished he could think of something to say to her to get her to understand how incredibly sorry he was for not telling her the truth sooner. But he couldn’t. She might beThe Onefor him, but she was going to walk away from him anyway, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could say or do to stop her. He locked eyes with her for a moment, but as he opened his mouth to say something—anything—that would explain what she’d just seen, Diego ran toward them from one of the side entrances.
“Stefan took the twins. Rachel and that other alpha are still chasing after them, but I knew we’d need help if there are any more of those things outside.” Diego was breathing as hard as if he’d run a marathon, and blood dripped from a dozen lacerations across his chest and arms. “They were heading for the back loading dock when I left to come find you.”
Cursing, Zane threw a quick glance at Alyssa before following his pack mate into the darkened corridors of the club, the stench of those things easy to track. Alyssa wordlessly followed, her heart pounding like a drum. He wished there was time to stop and talk to her, but there simply wasn’t. They couldn’t let Stefan and those vampires get away with Zoe and Chloe. The thought of what those wankers might do to the twins worried the hell out of Zane.
He moved after Diego quickly, zigging and zagging through the club’s twisting passageways and dimly lit storerooms. They ran into a handful of terrified people along the way, crouching behind boxes and hiding in dark corners. He couldn’t imagine what they were thinking after what they’d seen tonight.
Vampires.
He didn’t want to believe the creatures were possible. That was silly, considering he was a werewolf. He was bloody living proof of the existence of the supernatural. But in the end, he couldn’t deny what he’d seen. That thing he’d fought had smelled like a grave, and though it had made a mess when he’d pulled its head off, the lack of blood spray made it obvious the creature wasn’t alive—at least not in the normal sense. He guessed that made it a vampire.
The moment they got to the loading dock, Zane knew it was too late. The vampires were nowhere in sight, and Rachel and Jake were standing there staring into the darkness, scowls on their faces.
Alyssa cursed and took off running in the direction of the rental car. No doubt, she was going for her laptop and the GPS tracking app. It was hard as hell letting her out of his sight even for a minute, but the car was parked just around the corner. Besides, Stefan and his monsters were long gone.
“We were fast, but not fast enough,” Rachel said softly. Her jacket and jeans were ripped in several places and she had bloody scratches on her neck. “We didn’t even see which direction they went.”
“We have to go after them,” Jake snarled, turning to look at Zane, his expression a combination of utter devastation and barely suppressed rage. His fangs were still fully extended, and it was obvious he was barely holding it together. “We can’t let those creatures have them.”
Jake’s reaction didn’t surprise Zane. Even though Jake had never actually met Zoe and Chloe, he still felt the overwhelming need to keep them safe. That’s what it meant to be an alpha. They were genetically coded to protect betas. Jake had already bonded with the twins as their pack alpha.
“I want to go after them as much as you do,” Zane said. “But it’s not like we can go driving around LA without a clue where we’re going. We have GPS trackers on their vehicles. As soon as Alyssa comes back with her laptop, we’ll go after them.”
That seemed to calm Jake down a little, but when Alyssa came running around the corner without her laptop Zane knew something was wrong.
“The signals from the trackers are gone,” she said. “The vampires must have found them somehow and destroyed them.”
Jake’s growl was loud enough to echo off the surrounding buildings, but even that wasn’t enough to cover the sound of approaching sirens. They were about to have a lot of company.
“What about the parking garage?” Diego asked. “Do you think Stefan would have taken the girls there?”
Jake snapped his head around to look at Diego before turning back to Zane, his eyes filled with hope. “Stefan. You said his name in the club. That he was targeting Zoe and Chloe. If that’s true, we should go check out this garage of his, right?”
Zane was fully aware that Jake didn’t have a clue who Stefan Curtis was, but also recognized the alpha was more than ready to go after a man he’d never heard of on even the slimmest chance it would lead him to his betas. The man was grasping at any straw offered to him, anything to make him believe those girls were safe and that he’d be able to get them back.
Zane’s instincts told him heading to the garage wasn’t a good idea, though he couldn’t say why. But after seeing his doubts mirrored on both Rachel’s and Alyssa’s faces, he was sure of it regardless.
“As far as we know, Stefan’s normal MO is to troll a club with a small group of his goons until he sees a victim or two that catches his eye. Then he drops a roofie in their drinks and his men slip them out without causing a scene.” Zane shook his head. “But what happened in there earlier was something completely different.”
“It was the first time any of us have seen him with those vampires,” Alyssa said softly. “I’m not sure what was going on, but I’m willing to bet their presence changed everything.”
“Did it seem like they were working for Stefan? Or the other way around?” Rachel asked. “If the vampires are in charge, it’d make sense they’d take the girls to wherever those vampires live. Iflivingis the right word for it.”
Their discussion only seemed to piss Jake off more than he already was and he snarled as he looked back and forth between the three of them. “So, where the hell does that leave us? Where do we go, if not the garage?”
