Page 6 of Bound

None of us understood precisely how Topher’s spidey sense for vampires worked, only that as one of the rare former blood slaves who’d escaped after long-term captivity, he now felt a tingling aura-like sensation whenever vampires were near, and for a few hours in the echo of their presence. Figuring out how to apply his freak of nature ability in the field was a nightly work in progress.

Brody squinted at Topher. “What can you tell us about the fang-heads?”

“There were two of them. A female I didn’t recognize and the male from last time, one of the ones who held me captive.” Topher balled his hands into fists. “If you got me access to photographs, I might be able to—”

“No. We’ve been over this.”

“They have my brother.” Topher’s eyes blazed gold. “And you still think I’m so screwed up in the head I’m going to go crawling back to them?”

And therein lay the problem. Topher had spent the first months he stayed with us in a secured room on our parents’ ranch. Every chance he got, he’d broken out, trying to get back to the vampires. Only after he’d nearly succeeded had he finally revealed his brother was missing, that he was pretty sure the Vampire Nation had picked him up. Now it was a year later, and no one could find any trace of Kieran Greer. Brody refused to see the progress Topher had made and drew a hard line at allowing him to access sensitive intel where the vampire covens were concerned.

“You could access the Tracer database,” I pointed out. “Alphas have level one clearance.”

Brody’s eyes flashed gold. I didn’t usually challenge his authority. But lately when it came to Topher, it felt like he and I were constantly butting heads.

“We’ve been over this. You’re talking about restricted level data, digging around in their classified files. No way is the Council giving me access unless I tell them why. We need something concrete to go on.”

Translate: No more of these random leads from Topher’s repressed memories that never pan out.

I bit back a growl. Like we didn’t both know our uncle would get the intel for my brother in five minutes if he asked. This was personal.

Topher bared his teeth. His fists clenched and unclenched, the sweeping tribal tattoos that partially covered both arms and half his torso flexing with the movement. I leaped between them, hands raised, eyes down in a submissive posture.

“That male vampire… he’s the key to finding Kieran. I’m sure of it.”

“Your brother.” Brody’s tone was impossible to read. “You got anything else?”

“The memory is hazy, but I remember they kept me in some sort of room at a larger compound. They moved us around so much, but I want to say we were outside of Austin some of the time, maybe just west of the city. I could smell water, could hear them coming and going in boats. The bloodsucker, he had dark hair, maybe shoulder length, and I remember he showed me pictures of Kieran on his phone. Recent pictures.”

Brody kicked the edge of the curb, and it took everything in me to keep from shouting at him to cut Topher a break for once. That everything between them didn’t have to be like nails scraping down a chalkboard. That the constant tension was eating me alive from the inside out. “If you’ve got a clear picture of this guy in your head, we take it to Ethan, have him sketch it out. That gives us something concrete to go on.”

Topher’s expression went glacial. “Yeah. I’ll be sure to do that.”

I cursed. “Can we just—”

But my brother had already turned to stalk back down the alley. “I’ll see you back in town.”

“Right,” I said through gritted teeth.

He’d just disappeared when the first wave of dizziness hit. I staggered, vision blurring, barely doubling over in time before I got sick. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, not by a long shot. But the attacks were getting worse. All magic came at a cost. Shifter magic drew on the power of the moon. Draw too much of it at once and it felt like getting run over by a garbage truck. Omega magic was far more dangerous. We could manipulate bonds and draw moon magic at a rate most shapeshifters couldn’t. With the full moon less than forty-eight hours away, I was like a circuit on overload. But it couldn’t be helped. We needed the intel. And right now, I was our only way in.

A car door slammed. A second later, a water bottle was shoved in my face.

Panting, I took it. “Thanks.”

“This is effed up.”

“You think?” I swished and spit.

“You should tell your brothers what’s going on.”

“August knows.”

“They might be able to help.”

“They can’t.”

He sighed.