The Mate Challenge (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Sassy Mates Book 4) (10 page)

Emma pointed the shot gun at one of the shifters and fired. The deafening sound of the shot didn’t pause the fighting. The blast propelled her back, but she was ready for it. The shifter went down for a second, giving Barbara the chance to get back on her feet and even out the fighting.

The two male vampires flashed their fangs at Aria and flew at her at the same time. She jumped, landing ten feet behind them. One of the guys got to her. He tried to grab her hair, but she moved faster, slipping past his grasp. She kicked, hitting the bald headed vampire approaching her from the right side. He skidded down the alley to hit a dirty dumpster. Aria flew at the blond vampire. She picked him up and landed on a ledge, holding him by the neck.

Emma reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, pressing a button to reach Ellie. She passed the phone to one of the girls at her back.

“Ask for Ellie. Tell her we’re at Embraced and Emma and Barbara need help!”

Three figures showed up from the other side of the alley. It was three shifters and for a second, Emma couldn’t tell whose side they were on. Then, two of the guys jumped into the fight and helped Barbara.

The third new guy ran toward Aria and the vamps. He stopped, watching her fling the blond vampire across the alley, where he slammed into the back entrance of the club. At some point when the fighting started, the gate had come down, sealing the back entrance.

The second vampire shot upward, shoving Aria off the ledge she’d jumped on. The shifter growled and jumped, catching Aria before she hit the ground.

The two vampires used that moment to run off. Emma glanced at the shifters Barbara had been fighting. One of the bad guys had gotten away. Barbara had the other guy dismembered.

Emma rushed out to Aria. The shifter holding her didn’t appear to care that she was a vampire.

“Are you okay?” Emma asked, reaching their side.

Aria pulled out of the man’s grasp and nodded.

“Your friend’s been hurt,” one of the other guys said, calling their attention to Barbara. Her wolf’s usually white coat was matted in blood. She fell to her side, panting.

Emma ran for Barbara, her heart thumping in her throat. Fear for her friends choked the air in her lungs. She kneeled down, searching through the fur for injuries.

“Looks like she’s been stabbed a few times,” one of the guys said.

Aria picked up Barbara’s wolf and turned to Emma. “Do you want to take her somewhere or do you want to wait?”

She readied to say take her to the hospital when the sound of cars approaching stopped her. She turned to ask the shifters some questions but they’d gone. “Frickin’ hell!”

“I can find them for you if you want,” Aria offered.

“I think you should put her down.” Emma glanced at the vehicles closing the distance. “I don’t want them thinking you did that.”

“I should go. We’ve had enough fighting for one night.” Aria placed Barbara back on the ground with utmost care. She straightened and frowned at Emma, her gaze filled with fury. “Keep your phone close. I’ll find out what’s up with shifters getting blood to vampires and get back to you.”

Emma nodded, leaning down to pet wounded Barbara. She called the teens over to her side where she could keep better watch as the other shifters arrived to help out.

An ambulance wailed as it neared Emma. Two big, beefy enforcers jumped out of the ambulance, picked up Barbara’s body and rushed her into the medical vehicle.

Ellie and Mason appeared out of another car, running toward Emma. Shaari and her partner took the teens away from the area.

Mason’s heart raced when he saw Emma covered in blood. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her face pinched in pain. “Is Barbara going to be okay?”

Ellie glanced over her shoulder. The enforcer nodded. Ellie turned back to Emma with a sigh. “Yes. She’ll be fine.”

“What happened here?” Mason asked, needing to figure out how Emma and his mother got caught up in a fight.

“Can we get out of here?” She mumbled, moving closer to his side. “I’ll answer all your questions but I don’t want to stay anywhere near this place.”

Mason pulled her into his arms. She pointed to her car in the alley.

“I’ll follow you guys,” Ellie said. “I need to know what happened.”

The ride to Emma’s house was quiet. She’d withdrawn into herself. Mason noticed it from the moment he’d arrived at the area. When Ellie told him Emma was in trouble his heart felt like it was being torn from his chest.

“Emma?”

She’d been staring down at her bloodied hands the entire drive. She lifted her gaze from her lap and met his. There was fear and pain in her eyes. He sensed and scented her worry.

“I shouldn’t have asked your mom to come with me,” she mumbled.

He could hear the struggle in her voice to keep from crying. “Don’t do that to yourself. My mother will be fine. She’s an Alpha female that has seen bigger injuries than those little cuts.”

She swallowed hard. “But she wouldn’t have gotten hurt today if I hadn’t been so hard-headed and taken her with me.”

“Emma. My mother would be offended if she knew you were upset over a few cuts. She can handle a lot more than that. She’s tough,” he said, trying to pacify her. He enfolded her hand with his, lifting it to his lips for a kiss.

Once they were at Emma’s house, Ellie and Nicole joined them shortly after.

Emma glanced up to meet Nic’s worried gaze. “I heard. Are you okay?”

She nodded, still leaning into Mason’s side. “I’m fine.”

“I could use a drink. Anyone else?” Ellie asked, heading for Emma’s kitchen.

Mason nodded at Ellie. Emma needed to drink something. She was cold in his arms, her body shook every few moments.

“What happened?” Nic asked, sitting across from Emma and Mason.

Ellie reappeared with a glass of wine in one hand and a whisky tumbler in another. She passed the whisky to Mason. Mason put the drink in Emma’s hand. “Here. Have a sip of this. It will help calm your nerves.”

“I’m not nervous,” she denied with a soft tremble in her voice.

“Em, mom is fine. I promise you she’s going to be doing great tomorrow. She just needs to sleep it off,” Ellie smiled from the sofa next to them.

“There was so much blood on her.”

Mason’s heart ached. Emma’s distress had the animal in his pushing at the skin, wanting to appease his mate.

“How did you end up at Embraced?” Nic asked the question in all their minds.

Emma glanced at Mason before replying. “I got a text from Aria. She said she thought there had to be something going on in the club.”

“Did she know what or did you all just decide to show up and see what you found out?” Ellie asked, leaning forward.

“We decided to go check out the back entrance and see if we saw anything suspicious. Some shifters were dropping off two teenagers for them to bleed.”

“Jesus!” Nic exclaimed. “Those two little girls?”

“Yes,” Emma turned to face Mason. “Rocco hired those rogues to bring the girls to the vampires.”

“But why?” Ellie asked. “What could he possibly want with vampires?”

Mason didn’t know. He had a feeling they’d need to find some of the rogues and see about getting them to talk.

“Then these three guys showed up to help,” Emma added. “I think they were rogues too, but they helped us, not them.”

Interesting. He’d have to talk to his brothers and find out who those guys were. Maybe they could shed some light on the vampires and Rocco.

“I’m not surprised by any of this,” Nic said. “Vampires drink blood. Of course they’d want to get some humans brought to them.”

Emma shook her head. “Actually, according to Aria, her clan is human-blood free. They only drink synthetic or animal. It was another reason she was pissed at seeing those girls brought to the club.”

“Looks like she’s got some strays,” Ellie mused.

He needed to find out what the hell was going on between the vampires and Rahound and fast. Before any other humans ended up missing or dead.

* * *

Aria slammed a book across her study, anger simmering in her veins. She’d been deceived. Someone in her clan had to know about those kids.

A knock sounded at her door and Chantal, Anton and Claude entered the room in a hurry.

“Is everything okay?” Chantal asked, rushing forward.

Aria raised her head to glare at the three, knowing her eyes were blood red from her recent feeding coupled with anger. Chantal stopped abruptly, keeping a safe distance. Smart move.

“There have been humans at Embraced!”

“Are we back to this?” Anton asked, his voice whiny with frustration. “I already told you—”

She hissed, her fangs descended and a blast of fury sparked in her chest. Then she jumped, letting her anger flow and shoved him across the room to slam against her bookcase. “I don’t give a fuck what you told me. I saw it myself!”

Chantal gasped. “What? When?”

Aria flung around to face Chantal. “Does it matter when?”

Chantal’s gaze dropped to floor. “N-no, mistress.”

She glared around the room. “I want to know who’s been bringing humans into Embraced.”

“B-but—” Anton started, getting back to his feet.

Aria stopped mid-stride. “But nothing, Anton. This is priority.”

Anton fixed his suit into place, saying nothing over being flung across the room. “Mistress, we’ve been talking to the south about a possible union and questioning them could be seen as undesirable.”

“I don’t give two fucks what they think!” She slammed a hand on her centuries’ old desk. “I want to know who’s been breaking the rules and I want to know now. Find out now or I’ll have Julian, Penelope and Zane dig deeper when they return in a few weeks.”

The three of them nodded in quick jerks before leaving the room. She knew they liked to act like they could fix everything but Julian, Penelope and Zane were her most trusted elders. If she had to wait for them she’d lose weeks of time she could be using to solve the problem of who was feeding on humans.

She let herself fall on her chair. The anger inside her hadn’t ebbed. She wanted answers. She wanted names. And then, she wanted to go take some heads off.

A firm knock sounded at her door.

“Come in.”

It was Marxius, her chief security and personal guard.

“Mistress, I just wanted to let you know we caught sight of a wolf tonight, but we didn’t go after him. We were sure he was passing by,” he said shoving handguns into his holsters. “He was pretty far off the property.”

She nodded. Her mind was still focused on the fact that someone if not a few someone’s in her clan knew about the human blood-drinking. Worse than that, they might be actively participating, breaking all the rules they’d established centuries back.

“Marxius, let me ask you something. Has there ever been any talk of our people drinking human blood after we became animal drinkers?”

Marxius frowned, pressing his lips into a thin line. “If there is, I haven’t heard of it. They know I’d inform you of anything like that. However, there are those that might feel the urge to satisfy a human blood craving.”

“Like?”

Marxius shrugged. “Anyone who’s had it before. Human blood can be addictive. Especially during the throes of a sexual encounter.”

Yes, but these were children. What sick bastard would want to drink from a teenager and get turned on?

“Thank you, Marxius.”

He turned to leave but stopped at the door. “The only way to know who is doing it is to go check on it yourself. You’d be surprised what you find out when you go undercover.”

Aria swiveled her chair around to face the giant glass window the moon shone through. Her mind drifted back to the shifter that caught her. There had been no need for him to catch her. She would have landed on her feet, but the act had remained in her head. His eyes, that bright electric blue that she’d only seen in the waters of the Caribbean had held her captive for a few seconds. Until she realized he was a shifter.

Something about him made her feel strangely uncomfortable. She didn’t like that. Shifters weren’t her foe, but that one was dangerous. She sensed it the moment he put his hands on her.

She’d call her new human friend soon and see if she wanted to try a second stakeout. Hopefully they could finally figure out who was getting humans into Embraced and why.

* * *

Mason sat down in a booth at Aric’s empty bar and groaned. He’d been up all night with Caleb and Jake, searching out the rogues that were taking over Caleb’s land thanks to Rocco, Caleb’s uncle.

“I need a massage,” he grumbled, leaning back on the cushion.

Jake dropped his head on his arms and mumbled. “I do too.”

“Thanks for your help,” Caleb said.

“Who’s making the coffee?” Mason asked. “Because I can’t move.”

He’d been going non-stop from the club to hunt to Emma and then doing it all over again. It was starting to take a toll on him.

“I’ve got the coffee,” Nate offered.

They had hardly seen Nate the past few weeks with Karla getting closer to giving birth. He was spending all his time with her.

“Thanks, bro.” Jake groaned, his head still laying on his crossed arms.

“How’s your mother?” Caleb asked.

Caleb’s features had changes in the past six months. He’d gone from a younger wolf looking for his own way, to knowing what he wanted and going after it. Mason saw the leader in him every night. Caleb sustained wounds but continued to fight. The number of rogues on his property had taken them by surprise. Luckily, Jaxon, a friend of the Wolfe’s had sent some of his people to help in the fight.

“She’s good. Not even a scratch on her,” Nate answered, bringing the pot of coffee on a tray with mugs, cream and sugar to the booth.

Caleb nodded, rubbing a hand over his short hair, exhaustion visible in his eyes. “I’m sorry about Emma. I bet that must have been scary for her.”

Mason sighed. “Yeah. She got really worked up.”

“Can you blame her?” Caleb filled a mug with straight black coffee and added sugar. “You said she lost her family. She’s pretty close to your family, so seeing your mother bleeding, even if in her wolf form, would have terrified her to think she was going to lose her too.”

Ah, hell. He hadn’t thought of that. Emma had been all over his mother after her injury, making sure she was taken care of even though she’d been back on her feet the next day. He picked up his cup, added coffee, cream and sugar. “I’m such an idiot.”

Jake snorted. “We already knew that.”

“Shut up, furball,” Mason replied.

“Hey, that’s Aric’s name,” Jake threw back with a laugh.

“Speaking of women,” Nate said, taking a seat. “Have you talked to Ellie?”

Both Mason and Jake turned to face Caleb. Their friend had aged a lifetime in his battle against Rocco. It was obvious in the lines in his face and the rigid way he carried himself.

“Not recently,” he admitted. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then glanced at them. “I can’t yet. I can’t make her promises when I don’t know if there will be a pack left after this. I won’t bring her into the destruction Rocco has created of Rahound.”

They nodded in understanding. Ellie was too important to Caleb for him to bring her into danger. Just like their mates were to them.

Caleb pursed his lips, his eyes glowing with the power of his animal. “It’s not open for debate. Ellie stays with you all. She stays safe. And until I can guarantee she will not run into any danger with Rahound, I won’t discuss her going anywhere near the pack. Or me.”

There was a moment of silent acknowledgement over what he was willing to lose in order to ensure her safety.

“So what did you learn about the vampires getting teen humans from rogues?” Jake asked, downing a second cup of coffee.

Mason winced in his seat. Damn, he hurt. All he could think of was going home to his Emma. Making sure she was okay and nothing happened to her while he’d been gone.

“Emma said one of the guys said the girls came from Rocco.” Mason sighed. “Seems he’s got something up his sleeve with his rogues and feeding the vampires.”

“And the vampire female?” Nate asked folding his arms over his chest and leaning back.

“Apparently, she likes Emma and wants to help her find Emma’s missing student.” Mason replied. “I don’t know what to think on that end. But Emma says Aria’s clan made a vow centuries ago to not drink human blood.”