Saxon tossed aside the sheets and climbed out of bed. He pulled on a pair of sweats before stalking out of the room. Walking down the hall, Saxon cheerfully knocked on the doors he passed as he called for a meeting in a loud, singsong voice. It would piss them all off, which only made his smile widen.
When he reached the end of the hall, he turned back, leaned against the stair banister and crossed his arms over his chest while he waited for his friends to emerge. Doors creaked open, and Lucien stuck his head out to heave a boot at him.
“Fuck your meeting!” Lucien snapped as Saxon sidestepped the boot that went soaring over the rail.
“What couldn’t have waited until tonight?” Ronan demanded as he stepped halfway into the hall. Declan emerged from his room, and stretching his back, he yawned loudly.
“Killean called,” Saxon said and was pleased to note they looked as stunned as he’d felt when he first heard Killean’s voice on the other end of the line. “We need to speak with Nathan. I’ll be waiting for all of you in the bar.”
He didn’t wait for a reply before descending the stairs to the foyer below; he had no doubt their curiosity would win over their exhaustion. His steps were soundless on the marble as he made his way across the foyer and into the bar.
Despite the smirk reflecting at him in the glass behind the liquor bottles lining the shelves behind the bar, his hand shook when he lifted a bottle of Scotch, and his hazel eyes were troubled. His dark blond hair, still tousled from sleep, stood up in spikes around his face. He didn’t bother to try to tame it before grabbing a glass.
He’d never expected to speak to Killean again unless it was in a fight, but though his friend hadn’t denied being a Savage, Killean had sounded relatively normal on the phone. There had been tension in his voice, but who wouldn’t be stressed after what he’d gone through? Then why was he so rattled by the conversation?
Was it the fact Killean still sounded so normal when he’d obviously infiltrated Joseph’s inner circle to free his mate? Or was it that Killean had, in a roundabout way, confirmed he’d become a killer and therefore an enemy?
They’d all suspected he’d fallen, of course, Killean had as much as said he planned to become a Savage in the note he left, but Saxon had held out hope that Killean wouldn’t follow through with his plan.
That hope was gone, but now he had bigger questions. Killean had fallen, but was he a Savage, or was he something else? What would he do now? And could he be saved?
That was the biggest question of all, Saxon decided as he swallowed his Scotch. The burning liquor didn’t ease the tumult of emotions battering him.
When Joseph turned Savage, it hadn’t overly surprised him. There was always something about the vamp he hadn’t liked, and that was saying a lot as he wasn’t that discerning when it came to others, especially women. But Killean…
Well, he’d never seen Killean’s desertion coming; Killean had always been distant but loyal. He’d never shown any indication he might waver from his mission or his allegiance to Ronan. However, since Killean walked away, Saxon had harbored the fear that if Killean could fall, any of them could.
And Killean had done it for a woman; that was the most astonishing thing of all considering he’d shown as much interest in women over the years as he had frogs.
Saxon refilled his glass and took another long drink. He may be a Savage, but it appeared Killean’s loyalty to Ronan remained unshakeable; otherwise, he wouldn’t have called to report what he’d learned. Unless, the call was part of a trap devised by Killean and Joseph, but Saxon preferred to believe their fallen brother would make his way back to them.
Lowering the glass, Saxon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as Lucien and Declan glided into the room. A few minutes later, he heard the front door open before Ronan and Kadence joined them followed by Nathan and Vicky. Everyone either settled into either the leather chairs or the stools in front of the bar.
“What did Killean have to say?” Ronan inquired.
Leaving his empty glass behind, Saxon claimed the bottle and walked around the bar to settle onto one of the stools lining it. He set the bottle on the bar and fiddled with the label as he told them what Killean revealed to him.
“Do we believe him?” Lucien asked when Saxon finished. Lucien’s onyx eyes were like chips of black ice when they met Saxon’s. “Or is he feeding us false information?”
“I believe him,” Saxon said.
“Why?” Ronan asked.
Peeling away a piece of the label, Saxon laid it neatly on the bar as he spoke. “Because he doesn’t want our help.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Killean might not want our help because he’s safely ensconced with Joseph three miles from here and is simply waiting to attack,” Lucien retorted.
“Then why call in the first place?” Declan asked as he twisted a lollipop stick between his fingers. A strand of his dark auburn hair had fallen into one of his troubled, silvery-gray eyes.
“To learn what we’re doing,” Nathan said.
“He didn’t ask about any of us,” Saxon replied. “He didn’t ask if we were still here or if we moved after he left.”
“Because he might already know we didn’t move,” Lucien said.
Lucien could be right, but Saxon refused to let his pessimism deter him. “He called to give me the information he has in case they don’t make it out of Vermont.”
“He really has Simone?” Kadence whispered.
“Yes,” Saxon said. “I spoke briefly with her. They turned her, but Killean said she’s not a Savage. He freed her before that could happen.”
“And he could be lying about that too,” Lucien said.
“Is he a Savage?” Nathan asked.
“I’m not sure what he is. I don’t think he’s one of them, not entirely, but he’s not the same man who left here.” That was easy to discern by talking to him. “How different he is, I don’t know.”
“What about the other hunters Joseph took?” Nathan inquired.
“Killean couldn’t save them.”
Vicky rested her hand on Nathan’s arm when his shoulders slumped and sadness filled his blue eyes.
“Killean told me to look into a wedding reception in Vermont,” Saxon said. He told them about the reception Killean and Simone fled from. “He’s not sure of the location, but he thinks it ended in a fire with no survivors.”
“That shouldn’t be hard to find. I’ll get my computer.” Declan rose and left the room. He returned a minute later with a laptop and settled into his chair. Opening the computer, he tapped rapidly at the keys.
“Were there other hunters turned into vampires in the past?” Ronan asked Nathan.
“No,” Nathan replied. “I know our history, and that was never mentioned before.”
“Could they have kept it a secret?”
“If anyone knew about such a thing, it would be my line as we’ve always been in charge. Kadence was the first to make the transformation.”
“If it did happen, could your ancestors have buried it to keep it hidden?” Ronan asked.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t want that dirty little secret getting out,” Lucien muttered.
Nathan looked about to deny it, but then he held his hands up before him and shrugged. “They may have wanted to keep such a thing hidden, but I think they would have preferred us prepared if we ever came across something like that.”
“They might have been ashamed or refused to believe it themselves and decided to hide it,” Vicky said.
“I’ll ask Roland and the other elders if they’ve ever heard of such a thing to make sure, but I doubt they’ll know anything either. If this is a hunter turned vampire, then it is most likely someone the other hunters believed dead all these years, but who was instead turned and has been in hiding.”
“That’s a frightening thought,” Kadence said. “But maybe Killean was mistaken about what he saw in there.”
“Or maybe he’s feeding us lies,” Lucien said.
“That’s possible,” Ronan murmured as he draped his arm around Kadence’s shoulder and drew her against his side.
“What does he plan to do with Simone?” Nathan asked.
“He’s trying to get her away from them,” Saxon said. “After that, I don’t know.”
“I can’t believe Simone is his mate,” Nathan muttered as he ran a hand through his black hair. “That won’t end well.”
“Why not?” Vicky demanded. “It’s worked out well enough for you and Kadence.”
“It did,” Nathan agreed as he took her hand. “But Simone is so proper, and Killean is so…”
“Rude,” Declan supplied when Nathan’s words trailed off.
“Yes.”
“Opposites do attract,” Vicky said. “And now that she’s a vampire, she’ll feel the pull of the mating bond more intensely than you and Kadence did while you were hunters.”
“And it was still strong for us,” Kadence said. “We have to help them.”
“He wouldn’t tell me where they are,” Saxon said.
“Convenient,” Lucien muttered.
“I’ve got it,” Declan said as he rose from his chair and walked over to the bar. He set the computer on the bar and turned it to face everyone. “Ninety-five dead in a fire in Norton, Vermont. The police say all exits were blocked and they’re looking for who could have started it. There are no witnesses. Due to the extent of the fire, identification will take a while, but they believe all wedding guests, including the bride and groom, perished in the blaze.”
“Okay, so he was telling the truth about that, so what?” Lucien asked.
“So, it gives us an idea of the things Joseph is targeting. Remote areas and groups of people who aren’t huge but aren’t small either. If we keep an eye out for more fires or accidents matching those criteria, we might get a better idea of where Joseph is centered,” Ronan replied. “Where in Vermont is Norton located?”
“Near the border of Canada and New Hampshire. Not much of a population,” Declan said.
“And Joseph took the hunters from a stronghold in New Hampshire,” Kadence murmured.
“Declan, do a search of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine for anything similar to what happened at this wedding,” Ronan commanded. “Check back three months, and if you find things that match, go back further.”
“He’s changing his MO,” Nathan said. “Before he was using the sewers and the homeless to create Savages, but once we discovered that he changed things.”
“He might have been doing this all along,” Ronan said. “But since it doesn’t fit the normal criteria of what we expect from a Savage, which is to hunt clubs, bars, and the homeless, we weren’t looking for it. We were also expecting smaller-scale attacks and not ones of this magnitude.”
Declan’s fingers flew across the keys before he stopped typing and lifted his head. “I’ve got three fires and two gas explosions that have gone unexplained with no known perpetrators throughout those states in the past three months. Fifteen people died in the first fire, twenty in the second, thirty-five in a gas explosion, thirty-seven in the next explosion, and sixty-two in the last fire.”
“So, the death toll is going up as he’s gathering and creating more Savages,” Ronan said.
“Shit,” Lucien muttered.
“If Joseph and Killean were working together, Joseph wouldn’t willingly let Killean feed us this info about the wedding,” Saxon said. “He’d know we would discover these other incidents once we learned about the wedding.”
“Maybe,” Ronan murmured. “If you pinpoint the locations of those events on a map, are they centered around anything?”
Declan worked at the computer for a minute before replying. “No, they’re all scattered across different states and towns.”
“But we know the pattern to look for now because of Killean,” Saxon said.
He had no idea why he was pushing so much for them to trust Killean on this. The two of them were Defenders together for a century and a half, there was a bond there, but he knew very little about Killean. Still, they’d saved each other’s lives more times than he could count, and Killean deserved some faith because of that.
But he didn’t think that was the reason he was pulling so staunchly for Killean. No, he could admit it was because he needed someone to come back from the line Killean crossed because he was so damn close to going over it himself.
Saxon lifted the bottle and drank half of it. When he lowered the bottle, he found Declan staring at him in that maddeningly penetrating way of his. Saxon grinned at him as he set the bottle on the bar.
“So what do I tell Killean?” Saxon asked.
“I’d like to speak with him,” Ronan said.