AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He glanced at the view from the window, between the blinds. Tall pines and old oaks dappled a gentle slope leading down to a lakeside and a small boathouse. This was a ways from St. Louis. Somewhere in the Ozarks?
Octavius opened the door, careful not to make a sound, and moved silently down an inner hallway. Cooking smells wafted his way, and freshly brewed coffee. Sizzling bacon helped hide any hint of his approach. As he rounded a corner, a vast double-height kitchen and lounge area opened up, complete with exposed oak beams and huge windows overlooking the lake. And there was a man in the kitchen area, dressed in ass-hugging shorts and a loose button-down shirt, untucked and loose around his waist. Sunshine-blond hair and an all-body tan suggested the stranger was from the west coast, California probably. He hummed to music pumped into his ears by two earbuds.
Octavius approached behind him. All he had to do was grab his head and jerk it to the side, and the man would drop like a stone. Strange, his scent was woody, like warm cinnamon, and Octavius knew it, suggesting he knew him, but he couldn’t place from where.
The Californian let out an off-tune rendition of “Natural” by Imagine Dragons. Octavius only recognized it because Zaine had insisted on singing the same song every time he beat Kazimir at pool back at the Atlas compound.
The Californian spun. His blue eyes widened. Freckles flushed. He screamed and swung a pan like a bat.
The stupid mortal didn’t stand a chance.
Octavius sidestepped around the sloppy attempt at an attack, encircled the fool from behind, trapping him in his embrace, and breathed him in. The fool struggled like a rabbit in a snare. Human, definitely. But also something else. Something worse. He smelled of blood, of cinnamon, of Saint.
Snarling, Octavius shoved the idiot away. “Feeder,” he growled.
The man stumbled against the edge of the kitchen counter. “Asshole,” he snarled back, baring tiny human teeth.
Octavius snatched the pan from the idiot’s hand and tossed it into the sink. “You have ten seconds to tell me where I am or I will kill you.”
“Kill me?” The feeder dared scrunch up his face, as though disgusted. He straightened and dragged his blue-eyed glare over Octavius from head to toe. “You won’t. Not if you want to live past those ten seconds.”
Was this idiot threatening him? He stood there almost naked apart from the tiny shorts, like a nyktelios chew toy, and thought he could threaten Octavius? Did he not know the danger he was in?
“I am Brotherhood,” Octavius said. “And now you only have five seconds to live.”
He snorted again, ran a hand through his floppy golden hair, and shoved past Octavius. “I’m making coffee. You want some?”
Was he mad? Driven insane by venom perhaps? “You clearly don’t understand the danger you’re in, so I’ll grant you a few more—”
“I’m not the one who is in danger.” The feeder glanced over his shoulder and dared a smirk.
A growl bubbled from the back of Octavius’s throat. He snatched the feeder by the back of the neck, bent him over the countertop, and pinned him there.Nowhe knew fear. Yes, Octavius could smell it on him. Finally, the feeder understood who he was dealing with. Now Octavius would get the respect due to him.
The punch to his back struck low, over his kidneys, and the bolt of pain that surged through him like lightning dropped Octavius to his knees. Fingers twisted in his hair, yanked his head to the side. Cool breath fluttered over his neck. A nyk, he knew that much. The feeder’s master. And he was strong. Too strong. Saint.
Fear iced Octavius’s heart, but anger too.
“Touch my feeder again and I will tear your throat out,Brotherhood,” a smooth male voice purred with no hint of anger, just fact. That ripple of fear and something tight, something sharp, spilled down Octavius’s spine. In the next heartbeat, the grip on him vanished. Octavius shot to his feet, teeth bared, and spun, searching for the nyk. But the kitchen was empty, except for the feeder, who was now pouring coffee as though nothing had happened.
What the fuck was this? Some game Saint was playing? He had to be here—
Then he saw him, reclined on the sofa, one arm resting along the back of the cushions suggesting he’d been there all along and hadn’t just had Octavius on his knees.
Saint arched an eyebrow. “Do we have an understanding?”
He wore a white shirt and the black pants from the night before, looking as if he’d just returned from a shift at an office job. He didn’t look like the kind of monster who deserved to be locked in the bowels of the Brotherhood for centuries, but the oldest nyks were masters of disguise, and the most dangerous. Mikalis didn’t look like the ancient killer he was either. He walked among humans as though he had every right to be there, and so did Saint.
With his pride having taken a beating, Octavius hung back and tried to reevaluate the situation. The feeder was Saint’s. Saint was a nyktelios—he had been Brotherhood, but then for whatever reason, he’d flipped back to being the enemy—and Octavius was in his lake house, brought here by him after the fight with Mikalis.
Saint was powerful. That much was obvious.
And Octavius needed him, either to answer questions about why he’d been released before Atlas had imploded or to keep him here long enough to give up his location to Mikalis and buy Octavius some one-to-one time with the Brotherhood leader, during which he’d plead his innocence.
“He’s a little prick,” the feeder said, handing Saint a mug of hot coffee.
The smallest of smiles tugged at Saint’s lips. “Leave us, Jayden.”
The feeder huffed. “But he’s hot, like a vicious little wolf cub.”
