Warrior (Relentless #4)(83)

“Yes,” I said as my phone vibrated.

It was a text from Dax. Minneapolis. Here’s the number. A phone number appeared on my screen.

Thanks, I wrote back.

Anytime.

I set my beer down on the coffee table and dialed the number Dax had sent. A female’s voice answered, and I immediately got to the reason for my call.

She sucked in a sharp breath. “You want us to send them to Westhorne?

“Yes.”

“But they’re… This is a high security facility, and we’re much better equipped to house such beasts.”

It sounded like she was typing on a computer keyboard. “We had to lock them up in a separate part of the building because they make the other creatures nervous.”

“Then you should be happy when I take them off your hands.”

She refused to back down easily. “Does Lord Tristan approve of this request?”

I couldn’t fault the warrior for doing her job. “Feel free to call Tristan, but I expect those beasts to be on a transport for Idaho by the end of the week.”

I hung up and smiled. I hadn’t let Tristan know what I was doing, and I suspected I’d be hearing from him within the hour. But if I couldn’t be with Sara, I would do my damnedest to make sure she was happy. Something told me those two hellhounds would do that.

Chris gave me a wide-eyed look. “Did you just order them to send those two monsters to Westhorne?”

I shrugged and sat in the chair across from him. “They belong to Sara, and she’d be upset if they were locked away in a place like that.”

He let out a choked laugh. “They’re hellhounds, Nikolas. Tristan will have to lock them in the menagerie. He might throw you in with them when he gets his hands on you.”

“They’re better off in the menagerie than in Minneapolis. They’ll be close to Sara, and she’ll make sure they’re well cared for.”

He smiled wryly. “Yeah. Until they get loose and eat someone.”

“She’ll have them eating out of her hand in a day.”

He coughed into his beer. “You willing to make a wager on that?”

It was my turn to laugh because I knew Sara a lot better than he did. “Name it.”

“Hmmm.” He thought for a moment. “My new knife set for your favorite sword.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that, my friend? I know you love those knives.”

“And I plan to keep them.”

Geoffrey had been silent since my phone call. He looked from me to Chris. “What am I missing here?”

Smirking at Chris, I picked up my beer. “I just acquired a new set of throwing knives.”





Chapter 15





“This is the last one.” I walked up to the large bonfire and tossed a body on top of the pile there. The stench of burning flesh assailed me, despite the wind blowing across the desert, and I held my breath until I put a safe distance between the fire and me.

“Thank Jesus,” groaned Noah, one of Geoffrey’s warriors. “I don’t think I’ve ever lugged around that many dead suckers.”

Abigail, the only female warrior on the team, stared at the fire. “Twenty-six vampires. I’ve never heard of a nest that big.” She looked across the fire at me. “Have you?”

“Yes, but it’s rare. Usually they are new vampires. You don’t often see that many older vampires living in the same nest.”

Mature vampires were territorial over their nests and didn’t play well with others their age. Younger vampires were weaker and more easily led, so it was common for an older vampire to surround themselves with younger ones.

It was the second nest we’d cleaned out this week. The first one was much smaller – five vampires holed up in an apartment in Spring Valley – but one of the vampires we’d interrogated had led us to the larger nest. All in all, it had been a productive week.

My phone vibrated, and I knew it was Tristan before I saw his name. He called me every other day with updates on Sara, which he received from Claire. His trip to India had been extended by a few days, and he’d flown back last night, eager to finally meet his granddaughter.

I felt a pang of envy that he was with her while I was seven hundred miles away in another state. I’d kept busy in the week and a half since I’d left Westhorne, but no matter what I did, it couldn’t assuage the lingering ache in my chest. It didn’t help that my Mori constantly barraged me with angry longing and images of our mate from the last time we saw her. The only time the demon eased up was when I was killing vampires.

I walked away from the fire as I put the phone to my ear. “You’re back.”

“Yes, and I see you’ve been busy. I’m looking at a report that just came in and I’m sure the numbers must be wrong. It says you took out a nest of twenty-six vampires last night.”

“That’s right.” I stopped walking and turned to look at the group of warriors near the fire a hundred feet away. “We’re just finishing the cleanup now, in fact.”

Tristan let out a low whistle. “I take it you took lots of backup this time.”

“You can let the Council know I went in with two heavily armed units. It was completely by the book.”