Half Blood by Lauren Dawes Read Free Book Online Page A

head behind.
    He found his uncle, Vaile and Sabel in the living room waiting for him.
    ‘Is she safe?’ his uncle asked as soon as he walked in the room.
    Rhett nodded. ‘The last I checked she was.’
    ‘Good, because we have a problem.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘A vampire,’ Vaile replied, taking over from his alpha. ‘In Buxton. I came across a body on my shift tonight. The body was drained, the throat slit to hide the bite marks.’
    Rhett swallowed thickly. ‘Is it one of the Sicarii?’
    Vaile shrugged. ‘Not sure, but the Sicarii don’t feed on humans, so I’m guessing it’s just a regular vamp.’
    ‘What are we going to do?’ Rhett asked.
    ‘Hunt it down and kill it,’ Vaile replied; a glint of malice flashing in his normally passive eyes.
    ‘When?’
    ‘Now,’ Antain said. ‘You, Vaile and Sabel are going in.’
    Rhett glanced at Sabel then Vaile then back to his alpha. ‘Isn’t that a bit of overkill?’
    His uncle gave him a meaningful look. Right. So leaving Sabel alone with him wasn’t such a good idea. He was being babysat. Rhett opened his mouth to protest, but a stern look from his alpha closed it for him. ‘I want you to be careful Rhett. It’s not just your life you have in your hands now. Remember that.’
    ‘I will Uncle.’
    Rhett took the Jetta into Buxton. Vaile was riding shotgun while Sabel kissed his own kneecaps in the back seat.
    ‘I should have been driving,’ he grumbled.
    ‘Nobody drives my car Sabel,’ Rhett snapped, trying to hide his smile but failing. ‘How’s the space back there by the way?’
    ‘A fucking midget wouldn’t be comfortable,’ Sabel muttered.
    ‘Enough,’ Vaile snarled, his eyes flashing icy-blue before looking out the passenger window again.
    Twenty minutes later, Rhett parked in Hell one block away from where the body had been found. Vaile had called in the pack to dispose of the body as soon as it was discovered and found to be a supernatural kill. Humans didn’t need to know about that stuff.
    ‘It was down this alleyway,’ Vaile said, leading the way down the dark, dank space. To Rhett, all he could smell was death; the scent of the vampire an aftertaste to that. ‘Rhett, shift so you can pick up the scent a little more strongly,’ Vaile added.
    ‘No. I’m going to Change. Rhett’ll probably fuck this up for us,’ Sabel snarled, pushing past him as he pulled his t-shirt over his head and unbuttoned his jeans.
    ‘This isn’t some kind of pissing contest Sabel,’ Rhett said. ‘But go for it. I haven’t got a hard on to get killed tonight.’
    Sabel’s lip curled away from his lip, but he said nothing. Vaile and Rhett turned around when the alleyway filled with the wet sucking sounds of the Change. Shifting into a wolf wasn’t a pretty thing. When Sabel growled softly, them both turned around to face the huge chocolate-brown wolf that shared Sabel’s body. Dropping his head to the ground, Sabel sniffed around the alleyway and picked up the scent a minute later. He charged out of the alleyway with Vaile and Rhett on his tail.
    They didn’t get very far before Sabel stopped and growled down a dark backstreet. By the looks of it, the streetlights overhead had been broken and never bothered to be replaced. Sabel disappeared into the swallowing darkness, leaving Vaile and Rhett to cautiously slide in after him. The sound of suckling was faint, but Rhett honed in on that one sound, navigating himself to the other side of a dumpster.
    The vampire hadn’t heard them or smelled them yet; too engrossed in feeding than worrying about its safety. Sabel crouched down to hide and after a nod from Vaile, Rhett stepped away from the dumpster; his arms crossed his broad chest. ‘And what do we have here?’ he asked, staring into the dirty-brown eyes of the vampire. Shocked, the vamp disengaged its fangs and let the human drop. She was female and probably no older than nineteen or twenty. Her clothes told him that he had picked her up