Jocelynn Drake - Wait for Dusk

We need to leave him alive, I said reluctantly to Stefan.

The nightwalker jerked a step away from me, pinning his dark gaze on my face. Are you insane? He may have killed her. If not him, then one of his people.

Probably so, but we need him in order to get closer to Veyron. It’s the only way to catch everyone in this twisted power dynamic. There’s a warlock out there that’s working with the lycans as well. I want them all.

So be it, he snarled at me as he stalked off a few yards. Just so long as I kill him before we leave Budapest.

Agreed.

I walked back around so I was standing in front of Ferko, who growled at me like a wounded dog. “Is this the agreement that you had in mind when you went in with Veyron? Sacrifice your people? Get yourself killed just so he could be the big bad vampire in Budapest? He wanted you for his enforcer so you could do all his dirty work?”

“You don’t know anything,” Ferko said stubbornly.

“Really? Then enlighten me.” I slipped my hands into the back pockets of my pants as I came to stand before the shifter. “Seems like you’re getting the raw end of this deal. You’re going to die while he gets away without a care.”

“What do you want from me? Names? Dates? The total betrayal of everything? I’m no snitch.”

I sighed, my shoulders slumping under the weight of too many long nights with no real answers. Glancing up at Stefan, I found the nightwalker growing more impatient by the second. I thought he was getting closer to the realization that he wasn’t going to get his Michelle back, but he at least needed the culprit behind her disappearance and death.

“Hasn’t he already betrayed you? He singled out the lycanthropes for the disappearance of Michelle. Lycanthropes attacked Danaus today, trying to kill me. Did you actually think you would escape unscathed from such acts?”

“One can hope,” he said, looking up at me with a lopsided smile.

“You’re no help to me. Kill him,” I said, weary. I turned on my heel to look at Danaus, who was watching me with dark eyes. The hunter made no move to stop either me or Stefan. Valerio leaned against a nearby tree, picking dirt and dried blood out from under his fingernails.

“No! Wait!” Ferko shouted suddenly. “Odelia sent me after the woman.”

I turned back to face him, raising one hand to halt Stefan, who was holding the man with both hands around his neck. If Ferko had hesitated any longer, the nightwalker would have snapped his neck before we could procure this interesting and surprising bit of information. Odelia had struck me as another of Veyron’s flunkies. She didn’t have any particularly special standing within the nightwalker community other than being somewhat old. The true power, in my mind, had always been linked to Veyron. He was the oldest, strongest, and most powerful in the region.

“Odelia? Not Veyron?” I asked.

“Odelia likes the fact that she’s the most beautiful of all those in the city. She doesn’t like having competition,” Ferko said quickly. “The bitch had two of my own females killed because of their looks. When this brunette showed up unexpectedly in town, Odelia didn’t care that she was only passing through. She wanted her dead.”

“So she requested that your people take care of her,” Stefan said.

“Requested?” Ferko snorted. “You make it sound like we had a choice. Between Veyron and Odelia, we didn’t have much choice in the matter if we wanted to continue to run in the city.”

“You tracked Michelle down and killed her,” I finished, my throat tightening around the words. The nightwalker had done nothing more than come into town so she could pick up a package for Stefan. She had been eliminated because she was simply too beautiful to live where Odelia was concerned.

“Where is she?” Stefan demanded in a trembling voice.

“Dead.”

Stefan kicked the lycanthrope in the back, knocking him to the ground again. “I understand that! Where is her body?”

“Burned,” Ferko admitted, slowly pushing back into a sitting position. “It’s the only way to be sure that one of your kind isn’t going to rise again. Her ashes were spread around these woods.”

Stefan looked up at me, shaking his head. I could see the pain in his eyes. He couldn’t stay here and not kill Ferko. And I couldn’t blame him. If I had been in his shoes, I would have already ripped the werewolf’s heart from his chest. Of course, I didn’t think the werewolf deserved such a quick death. He deserved to suffer for the death of Michelle, and if I had any say in the matter, he would before we left Budapest.

Just give me a little more time, I begged Stefan.

So long as he is mine before we leave Budapest.

You can have Odelia as well if you would like.

Throw in a seat on the coven and I might not have to kill you myself, Stefan said, causing one corner of my mouth to twitch with a morbid laugh.

Agreed.

Stefan’s eyebrows jumped as he looked at me, surprised by my promise. The nightwalker said no more after that, not waiting to spoil his sudden good luck. He simply disappeared into the darkness, leaving us to handle Michelle’s murderer.

“Tell me about the warlock who was with your kinsmen during the day and I’ll consider sparing your life,” I said.

Ferko turned his face up to me, frowning. I doubted whether he could actually see me through his blurred vision, but I could tell he was considering my offer. He had to know that his life was dangling by a thin thread. “Warlock?”

“Oh, don’t start playing dumb with me again,” I huffed. “We were making such progress.”

Ferko shook his head, turning his face back to the ground again. His shoulders were slumped and his breathing was labored. His body was having trouble healing all the wounds we had inflicted on him despite the full moon. Of course, if it hadn’t been a full moon, I seriously doubted that he would have been able to survive. Valerio and Stefan liked to play rough.

I paced away from Ferko, walking over toward Danaus. Valerio looked up from his fingernails and pushed off from the tree with a jerk of my head. He headed over to our captive and took up Stefan’s position behind Ferko. While Valerio might not like to get his hands dirty, he was still very good at it. If I gave the slightest indication that I wanted Ferko dead, Valerio would not only happily carry out my wish, but also make sure it was a particularly slow and painful death.

“I’ve been around for quite a while, Ferko,” I started again, trying a different approach. “I’ve known nightwalkers and lycanthropes to work together on the rare occasion. I’ve known nightwalkers to rarely work with warlocks and witches. But this is a first. Warlocks don’t generally get along with shifters. They see you as just a bunch of filthy, uncivilized animals that can’t control your basic urges. Why would a warlock possibly want to work with your kind?”

“Maybe this one sees you as being less desirable to have around than a pack of animals,” Ferko sneered.

“Maybe,” I admitted. “I’ve pissed off my fair share of warlocks, but I have to say that I haven’t been in this part of the world in a long time. I don’t know who would find my presence undesirable.”

“No one wants you to be the keeper here,” Ferko said. “You don’t belong here.”

“And trust me, I don’t want to be keeper here, but someone has to rein in the chaos in this area before it leaks across the rest of Europe. Not every nightwalker is going to prove to be as tolerant as me.”

“Tolerant? You’ve destroyed my pack!” he snarled, baring his fangs at me. Power filled the air so that the scent of the woods grew even thicker. Valerio leaned forward and clipped the werewolf behind the ear. The lycanthrope collapsed in a limp heap at my feet, unconscious.