Pack Master (Vampire Kings 3)

The ambush wolves did not manage to stop him. Ivan escaped into the depths of night, and they returned.

Lorien decided it was probably about time he left. He went out the back door, figuring the front was going to presently be occupied with a number of wolves who had just viciously attacked the first entity they’d encountered. If they were capable of doing that to Ivan, Lorien did not much fancy his personal chances of escaping a terrible mauling. He could move much more quickly than a wolf, but that all depended on moving before he was bitten.

He exited through the back door as fast as he could go. A hand met his chest, stopping him in his supernatural tracks.

“Good evening.” A cultured and impossible to place accent greeted him. Lorien only knew one person with that voice. Maddox.

Lorien thought about keeping on running. If Maddox was here, then Maddox was likely to shortly be indoors, and if Maddox saw what had happened indoors, then there were going to be a lot of questions Lorien really did not want to answer.

He tried to shuffle past the hand, only to find that it clenched in his shirt and held him firm.

“If I have to chase you, neither one of us will like it,” Maddox said conversationally.

Lorien looked over at Maddox. They were essentially side by side now. He hadn’t actually ever told Maddox he was moving out. He’d just gone. So this was awkward in the extreme.

“I… uh…” Lorien tried to stammer around for some words.

“I think it’s time you came home,” Maddox said.

“Yes,” Lorien agreed. “Perhaps so.”

Chapter Five

Will woke up.

Will was hungry.

Not the kind of hungry that demanded a human sacrifice, thankfully. The kind that could be satisfied by some mass-produced pastry products. He let himself out of the bedroom and went to seek sustenance.

He noticed as he came downstairs that the house felt fuller than usual. It was usually a series of empty concrete areas sort of echoing about on themselves. This time the sound was sort of thuddy, as if it was being absorbed by something.

Will found the kitchen full of people. Not people. Wolves. He could smell their scents thickening the air. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange and it made his hackles rise. He didn’t like smelling his place as if it had been invaded.

Henry was there with three other men: a big, dark-skinned man who was about the most handsome creature Will had ever seen besides Maddox, a burly blond lumberjack with a scruffy beard and bright blue eyes, and a lanky guy who was on the younger side but had dangerously intelligent eyes.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Henry looked at him. “Turn around, go back outside, come back in, and try that entrance again.”

Will scowled. This was his territory. His home. Maddox wasn’t here, so as far as he was concerned, he was the man of the house.

“You’re the help,” he reminded Henry. “You’re like a tutor. You can’t talk to me that way.”

Henry walked to Will, grabbed him by the ear, and marched him out of the room. Will found himself taken back to the bedroom far more swiftly than he imagined, attempting to keep attached to his ear as Henry strode along.

“What the hell, man?” Will cursed and grabbed at his ear as Henry released him upstairs, leaving his ear throbbing from his rough grip.

“I’m doing you a favor. You don’t want to make an ass of yourself in front of these guys. They could be your pack one day.”

“I’m my own pack.”

“You’re a little shit.”

Will caught another scent as Henry loomed over him. At this distance it was obvious that the scent that had flooded his nostrils downstairs wasn’t just the native scent of this group. They'd been on a hunt of some kind. Recently.

“Why do you have blood on you?” Will changed the subject abruptly. “Why do you all smell of blood? And why does that blood smell like wolf?”

“If you want to eat, you’re going to come down and introduce yourself politely,” Henry said, ignoring his question.

“Why do you stink like a slaughterhouse?” Will wasn’t going to let the issue go.

“Or you can stay up here.”

“Who. The fuck. Did you bleed?” Will stepped forward into Henry’s space, even though it did make him have to look up in order to make eye contact. “Where’s Maddox?”

“He’s with another vampire.”

“Another vampire. What other vampire?”

“I don't know. They’re in his office.”

“Right,” Will said. “I’m going to go see him.”

Lorien was talking to Maddox. Or rather, he was listening to Maddox give him a dressing down.

“To call this a disappointment would be to vastly overstate it,” Maddox said. “You not only took up residence with someone who tried to kill us all, you aligned with Ivan. What is so loathsome about William and me, and the future you have before you, that you seek our polar antonyms?”