The pile of bones glowed white under the scant moonlight, legs and arms tangled together wherever the dead had fallen, skulls staring up at him, mouths agape in ghoulish, silent screams.
Nikolai had seen enough. He stepped back from the edge of the ravine and hissed another curse into the darkness. "What the fuck has been going on out here?"
In his gut, he knew.
Jesus Christ, there wasn't much room for doubt.
Blood club.
Fury and disgust rolled through him in a black wave. He had the instant, overwhelming urge to rip the limbs from every vampire involved in the outlawed, wholesale killings of these people. Not that he had that right, even as a warrior member of the Order. He and his brethren didn't have a lot of friends among the Breed's governing branches, least of all the Enforcement Agency, which acted as both police and policymakers for the general vampire populations. They considered the Order and the warriors who served it to be on the far outer fringe of civilized society. Vigilantes and militants. Wild dogs just begging for an excuse to be put down.
Nikolai knew he was out of bounds on this one, but that didn't make the itch to dispense his own brand of justice any less tempting.
Even though he seethed with outrage, Niko willed himself to calm. His fury wouldn't help any of the lives that were scattered below. Too late for them. Nothing to be done, except show them some bit of respect - something they'd been denied even after death.
Solemn now, if only for a few needed moments, Nikolai knelt down at the sharp drop of the ravine. He spread his arms wide, calling upon a bright power within him, a Breed talent that was uniquely his and, in his line of work particularly, of little use to him. He felt that power kindle in his core as he summoned it. The power grew in force and in light, spreading through his shoulders and down into his arms, then into his hands, twin orbs that glowed beneath the skin at the centers of his palms.
Nikolai touched his fingers to the earth at either side of him.
Vines and bramble rustled around him in response, green tendrils and small forest wildflowers waking up at his beckoning. All of it growing at accelerated speed. Niko sent the burgeoning shoots into the ravine, then stood to watch as the dead were soon draped by a blanket of soft new leaves and blossoms.
As a burial rite, it wasn't much, but it was all he had to offer the souls who'd been left there to rot in the open. "Rest in peace," he murmured.
When the last bone was covered over, he headed back toward the lodge at a hard clip. The storage barn where he'd smelled blood earlier now drew his eye.
Just to confirm his suspicions, Niko stalked over and willed the lock loose. He pushed open the door, looked inside. The barn was empty, just as Lex had told him. But then again, the steel cages built inside weren't constructed for any kind of permanent storage. They were tall pens, locked holding cells designed for one purpose - human prisoners of the temporary sort.
Live game to be released for illegal sport here in the remote woods of Sergei Yakut's domain.
With a growl, Nikolai left the barn and stalked into the main lodge.
"Where is he?" he demanded of the armed guard who leapt to attention the second he flew through the door. "Where the fuck is he? Tell me now!"
He didn't wait for an answer. Not when two other guards, both posted outside a closed door off the great hall, took on a sudden battle stance. Behind them, Yakut's private quarters, obviously.
Nikolai stormed over and shoved one of the steakheads out of his way. The other brought a rifle around and started to level it on him. Niko smashed the weapon into the guard's face, then tossed the stunned vampire into the nearest wall.
He kicked in the door, splintering old wood jambs and breaking oiled iron hardware clean off their fixtures. Nikolai strode through the showering debris, ignoring the shouts of Yakut's men. He found the Gen One half dressed on a leather sofa, sprawled possessively over the bared throat of a dark-haired female who was caged within the vampire's arms.
At the disruption, Yakut lifted his head from his feeding and looked up. So did his blood Host...
Renata.
No fucking way.
She was blood-bonded? Could she possibly be a Breedmate to this monster?
All of the accusations Nikolai was prepared to hurl at Sergei Yakut died a sudden death in his throat. He stared, his already roiling Breed senses ratcheting tighter at the sight of the female's blood on Yakut's lips and dripping from his huge fangs. The scent of it carried across the room, slamming hard into Niko's brain. He wouldn't have expected such an odd contrast to her chilly demeanor, but her blood scent was a warm, heady mix of sandalwood and fresh spring rain. Soft, feminine. Arousing.
Hunger coiled in Nikolai's gut, a visceral reaction that he had to fight damn hard to hold back. He told himself it was simply his Breed nature rearing up. There were few among his kind that could resist the siren's call of an open vein, but when his eyes locked on to Renata's unblinking gaze across the distance, a new heat flared to life inside him. Even stronger than the primal thirst to feed.
He wanted her.
Even while she was lying beneath another male, allowing that male to drink from her, Nikolai hungered for her with a ferocity that staggered him. Bound by blood to another or not, Renata made Niko burn to have her.
Which, by even his own flexible code of honor, lowered him to something close to Yakut's despicable level.
Niko had to mentally shake himself loose of the disturbing realization, yanking his focus back to the trouble at hand. "You've got a serious problem," he told the Gen One vampire, hardly able to contain his contempt. "Actually, I'm guessing you've got about three dozen of them, rotting out there in your woods."