Enslaved in Shadows (32 page)

             
“I was checking out the house, it looked suspicious.” Oliver quipped.

             
“Wrong.” Ronin said. He took his clawed hand to Oliver’s cheek and tore open the skin. He wasn’t nice in his actions. He hooked his
fingertip
and pulled.
The blood was thick, congealed.
It didn’t drip down his face but slowly oozed. Oliver was still in service to the Royal House. He didn’t look like a healthy House member.
His blood should have been a bright red not black. He needed blood and fast.
He was dangerously low.

             
“Again, I ask why you were at the cottage.” Royce said on a bored sigh. He put his cigarette out on the wall and walked over and glared again.

             
“Whoever is blocking his thoughts is doing a pretty good job.” Royce walked around the inside of the room. He passed by Solon and kicked the back of his chair and grinned. Solon took the shot unmoving. The two of them were having way too much fun.

             
“Won’t matter when I get inside there.” Ronin roughly jabbed his finger into Oliver’s forehead.

             
Oliver whimpered, but didn’t answer. So Ronin scored his nail down his chest. His chest opened up. The sound of skin giving way as Ronin’s nail slid down Oliver’s chest made Jes’s feel sick to her stomach.
It was a sick wet zipper sound that left Oliver’s insides on display. She’d had never seen anything like it. He was empty on the inside, his organs missing; there wasn’t even a beating heart. All Oliver had was a skeletal structure underneath. All Regs and royals had insides right? Everyone in the room looked between each other. There were murmurs and grunts. The others obviously hadn’t seen anything like that either.

             
Maybe he was like a Death Walker, only still partially alive?
Something was seriously wrong with Oliver.

             
“Who’s your master?” Royce asked then.

             
“I can’t!” Oliver yelled. “He’ll kill me.” Oliver tried to struggle in the chair but couldn’t. Ronin moved to the side and Jes was able to get a better look at his insides. Ronin slinked back into the corner of the room, the shadows swallowing him whole.
She knew he was there could see his silver eyes glinting in the darkness, staring at Oliver.

             
“It would have been perfect.” Oliver suddenly spat. “But that bitch had to go and ruin everything.” Oliver was staring at her.
The corners of his mouth tilted as much as he could and tried to smile.

             
“I’m not interested in perfection.” Royce said quietly.
There was menace behind his voice, deadly, determined. Serious Royce was scary.

             
“Fuck you!” Oliver screamed. “I’ve sworn fealty to something much bigger than all of us put together and when it comes time to collect his dues, you all will suffer.”

             
“Who did you swear fealty to Olly. Please enlighten us with your tale. Promise me you didn’t do it for a box of candy or,” Royce feigned shock. “You did it for the ass, right? Your woman didn’t want you so you traded sides for ass? Am I right?” Royce asked.

             
Royce was lazy in his movements, and his gait looked relaxed but she could tell he’d be ready to attack at a moment’s notice. He walked from the wall and then back over to Oliver.

             
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll be the next in line to rule House Deadcrest, I will be in charge!” Oliver tried to yell but it came out as a whine. Having your jaw slashed open could not be the best thing for him.

             
“Ah, now we’re starting to go places. The doc did tell us we’d get far.” Royce stopped in his tracks and faced the window.
Royce was a performer, an attention grabber. Ronin still in the corner hugged by the shadows said nothing.

             
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today, to bear witness to an asshat. That’s right a real asshat. This idiot of all idiots swore fealty to a moron. Because only a moron would promise fucktard over here, Dagas’s throne.” He paced the length of the glass as he spoke.
Jes wanted to laugh at his hysterics, but thought better of it.

             
“The Red Sun, I’ve given him my daughter as a blood sacrifice. There is power you can’t even fathom Royce. More than you or this mixed breed sitting next to me. I know all your secrets! All of them!” Oliver shouted. He was belligerent now. Twisting and turning trying to get free. He only made the entire ordeal messy. Black ooze was dropping out of his body’s cavity in chunks.
Fucking gross!
Hysteria at its finest!

             
Royce didn’t budge, there was a slight falter to his
step,
and anyone else would mistake it for swagger.
She knew there was something more. In a dark smoky voice, Royce looked to Oliver and said. “What do you know Oliver?”

             
“You’re a blue blood.”

             
“Go on.”

             
“You’re race is supposed to be a myth. Feral they called your kind. Uncontrollable. Your kind was blood slaves to the Gods.”

             
“Hmm, did you hear that Ronin?” Royce asked. “Uncontrollable.” Royce repeated with a dead even tone.

             
There was dark laughter in the corner and then Ronin stepped into the light. “I believe that’s what they said about us back in the days. Although, I was never a slave to anyone and neither was my brother.”
Ronin looked normal but he didn’t look any calmer.
He walked over to Oliver and pulled him back by the hair on his head, stretching the other man’s neck. She could see the definition of his veins.
More black ooze fell from his gut.

             
“Yeah, you may know what we are, but I bet you didn’t figure on me doing this.” Ronin said calmly.

             
There was a moment of silence as everyone waited. Then Ronin brought his hand up and with his claw, scalped Oliver. He actually scalped him!
It’d happened so fast, one minute he had his hair still attached to his scalp, the next minute gray matter with veins oozing with black blood appeared.
Brains.
She was staring at Oliver’s brain.

             
“What the fuck!” Dravaggio and all the men were up on their feet headed towards the door. She couldn’t see because the men rushed to the front of the room where she was sitting. There was a sickening slurping sound. The inside of her stomach dropped and was headed for the nearest exit.
Ronin couldn’t be actually drinking that thick blood could he? Draven had never left her side and pushed her into his shoulder. She didn’t resist. She didn’t want to see it.
Royce calmed the others and told them to wait. The men were standing when she finally looked up again and she would have screamed if it
weren’t
for the bile clogging her throat.

Oliver was dead, and his brain was missing.
She looked further up and Ronin was licking blood from his fingers and wiping his blood-black mouth on his shirt. He looked to Royce and nodded. The entire time he sucked and licked his fingers, a picture of her back at her friend’s house sucking the marrow at of a chicken bone came to mind. Totally fucked up!

Royce turned to the group on her side of the window. “We have Marcus’s location and the location of the other vampires. Let’s put something together fast and shake the spot.”

* * * *

             
Draven looked at Solon. He was still strapped to the chair. Calm, like the man sitting next to him, only he didn’t just have his head literally handed to him.
He didn’t look the least bit worried about the outcome of his life, and Draven didn’t know if it was because the man knew they weren’t going to do him in.
Yet.
Or if what he’d said back at the hotel was true.
The nasty scene in front of him, gnawed at his stomach. He’d seen a lot of things in his life. Never thought a day would rise or set with Ronin eating someone’s brain. That shit was fucked up. What he did to Oliver was gruesome and wrong on all sorts of humane levels.
The brother wasn’t even the least bit jarred by his action. Just the opposite.
He was smiling as he grabbed a new shirt off the back of the chair in the corner, buttoned up and was ready to head out.

             
Blood still stained his lips. He’d eaten a piece of Oliver’s brain, the cerebrum, the part of the brain that retained memories and had tossed the rest. Draven witnessed many forms of tortures in his long life.
Fuck! A
screwdriver jabbed inside the ear would have been a better way to handle the situation
than
just eating the guy’s brain.
His body swayed as he’d watched in horror. The entire time Royce was as calm as can be.
He didn’t waste any time, but he had a funny feeling there was more to this than just getting information of out the man. A lot more. He wasn’t about to speculate either, as long as the twins were on his side he was golden.

             
“I can’t believe he did that,” Jes whispered.
He was glad he’d shielded her from the worst part. Gods she’d really have issues with men because of Ronin’s violent display.
The location and plans to secure his daughter was the outcome he’d wanted. A small part of him wanted to rescue the vampires, but his mind was consumed with thoughts of his daughter.
Royce knew it, and made sure he pressed the correct question button. Jes needed to rest. She could stay here or go back to his parents’ and wait for the mission to be complete.

             
“Fuck,” Dietrich breathed.
“I’m a bad motherfucker, and I mean I’m pretty fucked up in the head sometimes, but I want some of what the twins got going between them.
That shit right there, was beast.” He pounded Gabe on the back, who looked over his shoulder with a troubled look on his face and continued walking. Gabe usually had jokes. Lots.
Dravaggio gave them two hours to rest up.
Meeting in the war room would happen only after Gabe scouted their location with his high tech shit. Dude was the best scout and surveillance whiz out there.

             
Melissa was at the end of the hall, her fury beat at his
body,
and his skin stung from the emotional assault. The rest of the team slowed their pace. Fucking gossip whores the whole lot of them! They wanted to see the drama unfold. Watch Melissa go into her bitch fit. He only wanted to get him and Jes back to the room he kept here. They needed to talk.

             
Melissa’s face scrunched at the brows. Her gaze was on his left hand. He’d wrapped it around Jes’s waist to guide her back towards the elevators.

             
“You know,” Melissa began.
She cocked her head to the side and took a disgruntled sniff in the air, her posture stiffened. She narrowed her eyes. Turbulent storm grey eyes, glazed with hatred.

             
“You fucking marked her, Draven?” She yelled. Her voice was coma inducing. How did he ever stand their fights? Her tone bled his ears and turned his skin cold.

             
“I could have over looked your blasé attitude for a quick roll in the hay, but marking another female after we’ve been together for over seven years?”
Lie number one.
Draven thought to himself, he felt Jes stiffen in his arms, because yeah she wasn’t stupid. She was doing the quick math in her head, which granted wasn’t hard at all five plus two equaled seven and his daughter was five, which meant if she was in mind to believe the shit Melissa was piping
,
then she would think he was scum and that she was just a side fling.
Which she wasn’t.

             
“Oh don’t get so upset doll, he does this all the time. Like the stray wolf he is. He goes out to scratch an itch only to come crawling back my way. It’s no wonder I let him back home.”

             
“Knock it off Melissa,” Draven growled.
Lie number two.
“You knew in the beginning this could happen. We were both on board with the possibility that at any time we’d find our mates.” He squeezed Jesminda tighter in his arms.
             
They both knew the consequences of the type of relationship they were in. Either one of them could find their true mates. Destiny put its finger on the trigger and pulled without aim. When it hit, it hit.

             
“She’s mine.” He simply stated.
Melissa knew he was right, could see the knowledge in her eyes, but she continued the arguing anyway.

             
“You will grow tired of her soon. She can’t produce cubs. She’s human after all.” Melissa spat the words. They were words she wanted to hurt. But she’d play any card at this point.
Even if she didn’t realize her errors.