LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      “We’ve got a Guild infestation, Stanislav. What are you going to do about it?” Senator Kenneth Bardot demanded.

      Luka shifted the phone with his shoulder—he still had blood on his hands from the most recent den of infected werewolves he’d put down. It clung to his fingers, stained his nails, a scarlet letter of accusation. But he’d had to do it because they’d become like mad dogs.

      “What am I going to do about it?” He kept his tone carefully modulated, but it was more for his own control than the Aeternali Senator’s comfort. “Bardot, you’re on the Guild Oversight Committee. One would think you could manage to keep your own house clean.” The Guild Oversight Committee was supposed to make sure the supernatural police force continued to protect and serve without abusing their power, but more often than not, it was the Aeternali that abused that power. They disgusted Luka, but dealing with them now was the only way he’d be able to save his people and stop the infection before it was pandemic.

      “One would think, Luka. One would most certainly think,” he drawled. “You know how these cops are. One of the female cops is down with Van Brunt’s body now. I want you to take care of it.” The cop had been bitten and there were even odds on whether Van Brunt would stay dead, or rise...infected. There shouldn’t have been anything for this woman to find.

      “Where are you on locating Gevaudan and his benefactor? My Beta is still missing and displeased doesn’t begin to cover my state of mind.” He kept the facade of civility, but the threat was clear. Luka, if properly motivated, could tear Senator Bardot apart like a rag doll. The only thing keeping him from being so motivated was finding Ian Gevaudan, the source of the virus that had already claimed so many of his people.

      “These things take time. Finesse. You can’t just barge in and—”

      “Oh, but I can.” The growl started low in the back of his throat, almost like a purr. “And I will, if he’s not found.”

      “You know Konstantin’s been infected.”

      As if that mattered to Luka. If Kon had to be put down, he’d be the one to do it—honorably for his Beta. But Luka believed to his core that the virus affected him differently. He was still the Konstantin he’d entrusted with his life and the lives of their people. “I also know the virus was engineered to bond with his DNA and I know the Aeternali think they have a new weapon. Find him, retrieve him, or I’ll do it and war be damned.”

      Yes, Luka would go to war. He was ready to do so now, regardless of how the situation played out. The Aeternali might be a council of supernaturals, much like the UN, but they had wronged him, violated those who depended on him.

      Luka would not and could not let that go unanswered. Neither would the beast inside of him allow him to do so. Already, his teeth elongated in his mouth, the change hovered so near.

      “You may want to rethink that,” Kenneth Bardot said, as if he had some information Luka did not.

      “And you may want to start thinking. You ever have to put down your own, Bardot? Noble members of your race who don’t remember who they are, what they are? Instead these members are scrounging in the filth, mindless of everything but the next belly full of flesh? Gnawing on their own bodies with no more viable food sources available to them?”

      “Luka, I know this hard for you, but—” His tone changed, softer now.

      “You know nothing,” he snarled. “I feel all of their pain, the fear. The black moment of death. But mostly it’s this terrible emptiness, like starving for a thousand years. Every life I end, even as a mercy, pushes me closer to the Abyss. To the dark things you want inside no Alpha of Alphas. I’ll take care of your Guild problem, there’s no love lost there, but you’ve got three days to find my Beta. Or I’ll go to war against Gevaudan, the Aeternali and you. You’re either with me or against me on this one.” It was even odds on what the Senator would say—Luka had yet to determine his motivations for getting involved, but so far, his information had been reliable.

      “That’s madness, Stanislav.”

      “Madness was signing the Aeternali treaty to begin with.” In exchange for granting the Aeternali certain powers, the treaty was supposed to guarantee peace for his people. It had been a pretty lie. He tossed the phone on the bed and tried again to wipe off the blood that seemed to permanently stain his hands. But it was better that he end their suffering rather than some exterminator. Better the Alpha of Alphas who could bear witness to their indignities and the wrong done to them. Better him who would pass down the memory of the atrocity to be recorded in their histories so it would never be forgotten or hidden with some Aeternali cover-up like this village. After he’d finished exterminating the last of the infected people here, Aynkava would be nothing but dust and ash when he and the rest of the cleanup crew left. Abandoned, the village’s ground would be stained red by the blood that had been spilled there. The Czechoslovakians would never know what happened and it would become fodder for urban legends and stories told to make children quake in their beds rather than the very real horror it was.

      Luka cast a glance at the darkening sky. The dens of infected werewolves would be on the hunt again for more meat. Why would the Guild send another investigator when the brass knew

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