Bite Marks (The Lycans 5)

“Shit.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and looked forward again. Banner made a noncommittal sound, and Odhran grunted in agreement. I shook my head and growled.

“She’s in there. I know she is,” Odhran said with a feral tone to his voice.

I stared at the barn, feeling that connection, that living hum moving through me. Kayla was here. Somewhere. I felt her blood vibrate in my veins and sensed mine rushing through hers.

Yeah, my female was in there too.

“Fuck this.” I was up and moving toward the barn, not giving a shit if bullets started flying or if my soldiers and the Lycans followed me. I was fast with my otherworldly speed and got to the entrance in a matter of seconds, stopping to take in the scene, to inhale for any newer, lingering scents.

My soldiers were behind me moments later, the Lycans soon following. Banner was bitching, per usual when he didn’t agree with my tactics.

“Good tae know it was yer idea tae have some kind of plan when we got here, and then that just went tae shit because ye canna control yerself,” Banner grumbled.

I ignored him, pushing the large door aside and stepping inside. There was debris everywhere, old farm equipment that was rusted and aged, decaying bales of hay, bags that smelled like they were filled with rotting corn.

There were several holes in the roof, moonlight spearing through. I kept trying to sift through all the scents and could smell the lingering aromas of humans, but the stench was so faint it was hard for me to decipher how old it was.

“Let’s turn this place over and see what we can find.” I scanned every inch of the place without moving at first. We’d done plenty of research on the barn but hadn’t physically gone through it.

At first glance, nothing was out of the ordinary, just an old, broken-down structure.

And maybe to humans, it all seemed in place, but it was suspect as hell. I knew for a fucking fact that there was a hidden entrance someplace in this piece of shit.

“This place needs torn the fuck up. Turn everything over,” I said to no one in particular. A second later my soldiers were moving in and doing what I ordered. Banner barked out his orders in Gaelic to the Guard, and for the next five minutes, both species looked at every available inch of the structure.

We looked for trap doors, destroyed the bales of hay, and broke through walls. But I wasn’t going to give up. I never would. Not when it concerned Kayla.

As I stared into Banner’s eyes and let a grin spread across my face, I rolled my head around my neck, cracked my knuckles, and prepared for things to get bloody.

The barn started shaking, the beams and rafters rocking back and forth, the wood physically vibrating from the ground up.

We all backed up, and I focused on the part of the flooring that was shaking the most. A second later there was a hiss, the sound of gears working, and then as if an airlock had been unlatched, the wood slid back, revealing a brightly lit underground bunker.

It was only a millisecond after the floor opened that I smelled the humans, and then they were bursting through all openings of the barn, weapons raised, shouts ringing out. Banner and I shared one anticipatory glance before all hell broke loose.

I heard Kane laughing deeply, saw Sebastian’s lips twitch ever-so-slightly, a bloody battle the only thing that could make the emotionless bastard show any kind of reaction in life.

Kane glanced at me, and his smile grew, his fangs already long and ready to tear skin and muscle from bone. I knew what that silent look meant. If he couldn’t take his anger and revenge out on James, he’d do it with these pieces of shit.

I took out the first human that came for me, ripped his arm out of the socket, used the end of his gun, and rammed it into his skull hard enough one of his eyes popped out. His head whipped backward, his entire body flinging to the ground, his skull slamming against the wood hard enough I knew he was dead.

I tossed the gun aside. My weapons of choice were my hands and fangs. Real old-school grit.

The violence was never-ending, with some of the Lycans shifting into their wolves and vampires using their strength and speed to overpower the humans. But the latter had guns, weapons that were weakening the Otherworld creatures, taking them out.

Someone came at me from behind, slamming his body against mine, propelling me forward. I growled low and turned around, reaching out and slamming my fist so hard and deep into his chest until I gripped his heart. I stared into his eyes as I ripped his still-beating organ out. I held it up, blood dripping down my forearm as I smiled. His eyes widened a second before he crumbled to the ground.