A Shifter's Curse, Raven Steele [the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT] 📗

Silas looked past him to Mateo. "Will he be like this the whole time?"

"Depending upon his dream. It can change at a moment’s notice."

"And it truly is addictive?"

“More than anything I have ever seen."

His serious expression made my stomach turn. Now I understood Samira’s concerns. This was bad news.

Silas straightened and relaxed. “Let’s discuss terms. We would be honored to distribute Scorpion’s Breath throughout the country, but we expect a cut. We will incur a huge cost providing men and vehicles for transport.”

"As to be expected.”

"I will defer to our financial advisor who has crunched the numbers. She knows what our cost would be to do something of this magnitude.” Silas motioned with his fingers. “Samira, come forward."

She came next to him and began to blabber about all the manpower that would be required, the trucks involved, and the security needed to get past border control. She spewed out a bunch of numbers that made my eyes bleed.

I tuned her out and directed my attention to the human as he circled around the same spot on the ground. He should be dizzy by this point, but he continued to go round and round, talking in his foreign language. Gerald and Toby quietly laughed at him, but Luke looked especially tense and agitated as he stared ahead. I followed his gaze beyond the druggie. A few of the vampires were murmuring to each other in voices so soft even my sensitive hearing couldn’t understand what they were saying.

The human howled and slapped his face several times. He left his small circle on the ground and shuffled my direction. Snarling, he sniffed the air around me, spit foaming around his mouth is if he’d forgotten how to swallow.

I stepped to the side, hoping to lose his attention, but he followed me, his teeth now chomping up and down rapidly. I backed up several steps away from him and focused on Silas and Mateo, hoping that by ignoring the human, he’d get bored and leave me alone.

I turned back to Silas and Mateo and noticed that the same tall vampire next to Mateo was again watching me. I raised my eyebrows, challenging him. It was his turn to avert his gaze.

Silas scraped the ground impatiently with his cane. "Get to the point, Samira. How much do we need?”

"No less than forty percent.”

The human edged closer to me, and I had to alternate keeping my eye on him and the rest of the vampires, who had begun to fan out. That can’t be good.

The human leaned forward and sniffed my neck. I cringed and gently shoved him away.

“And yet, you shall only have ten,” Mateo said, his voice sharp and cold.

Silas laughed out loud. “Ten? I wouldn't hug my own mother for that. She said forty.”

One of the vampires at the back of the crowd produced a shiny dagger from his sleeve. I might've missed it had it not been for the moonlight shining off its smooth metal surface. I made note of my own blades pressed against the small of my back, and the knives tucked into my bra. It would take me a fraction of a second to retrieve one of them and, by the way Mateo and Silas were arguing, I was going to need it soon.

Before I could react, the human jumped onto my back and began to choke me. Luke was suddenly there. He twisted the human off me and threw him to the ground, driving his booted foot into the human’s chest.

The man struggled against Luke, but Luke kept enough pressure on him to keep him still.

Silas glanced back at us, annoyed by the interruption, but Luke wasn’t finished.

“We said forty percent,” Luke said, his voice firm and full of power.

To back up the strong statement, he removed a long blade from behind his back and tossed it at the vampire who had produced his own dagger earlier. It hit the creature in the stomach and dropped him to his knees. His dagger fell from his hands.

Mateo didn’t react, but his deadly gaze fell on Luke. “Fifteen percent.”

With surprising strength, the human twisted Luke’s leg hard, knocking him off balance. The human jumped to his feet and rushed at me again, but this time I was ready. I swatted him to the ground. "Stay."

“Don’t be difficult, Mateo,” Silas said, the sound of his voice near patronizing. "You know we can't operate on fifteen percent. Would you like Samira to go over the terribly boring numbers again? I know she's itching to do so."

Samira glared at him, but he didn't notice. She did, however, remove her glasses and place them on a nearby stump.

"Very well. Eighteen percent.” Mateo must really not have wanted to hear all that again.

Startling everyone, Samira darted into the fray of vampires, pulling out her sword. In a blur, she sliced off a head. It dropped to the ground, bouncing toward Mateo’s feet. The rest of the body collapsed, then slowly crumbled to the ground in a pile of blood and flesh.

"Stop screwing with us and give us what we want,” Samira said, appearing back on our side with her sword already slid into its hilt. She was faster than any supernatural creature I’d ever seen. Silas nodded his head at her approvingly, but it was her turn to ignore him.

For someone who didn’t want this deal to go through, Samira sure was fighting hard to make it happen. Maybe she came around to my point of view and thought it would be easier to just destroy the drugs once we had them. I liked the idea of her agreeing with me.

"If we must battle to decide terms, then so be it." Mateo stepped back and unsheathed a sword strapped to his back.

Chapter 25

Not wasting a second, the other vampires rushed for us with their fangs and claws extended. My wolf erupted and I began to shift, but I pressed her down. If I shifted now, I could kill most of them in less than a minute. But that would reveal my true strength, and this wasn't the time for that. Instead, I allowed just enough to the surface to make sure I didn't die.

Snarling, Mateo aimed for Silas, but Luke jumped in between the two, defending Silas like a good little wolf. He branded two short blades, and by the way he was expertly swinging them, I wouldn’t want to fight him.

A vampire ran toward me, and I reached for the small blade in my bra as I raced toward him. I yanked it out, ripping a big hole in my shirt. “Motherfucker,” I grumbled just as the vampire reached me.

I swiped at him, catching him on the shoulder as he attempted to duck. Off balance, he stumbled backwards, tripping over the human, who was oddly flopping like a fish on the ground.

Another vamp rushed me from behind, but, sensing him, I spun at exactly the right moment, and stabbed him in the chest. He fell to his knees. Knowing he would recover quickly, I slashed at his neck, severing his artery to effectively take him out of the fight. For several minutes, at least.

A flash of silver caught my attention. Samira was swinging her long blade, nearly decapitating two vampires in a row. Like me, she wasn’t trying to kill, only severely maim, confirming what I thought. This fight was all a show for power.

I don't know what I was thinking, not bringing wooden daggers to a meeting with vampires, which would’ve made their wounds harder to come back from. Everyone else had them. Toby and Gerald had one in each hand. Even Silas unexplainably had a wooden dagger attached to the bottom of his cane. He used it to stab at any vampire in passing, while Luke and Mateo exchanged blows, neither one gaining the upper hand.

The vampires outnumbered us, but we fought for dominion, not to exterminate. None of us wanted to lose lives, but I figured a few would have to go down to really prove anything. Had we not had Samira on our side, we probably would’ve been spanked by now.

A vampire slammed into Toby from the side. He spun, his feet getting tripped up, and fell forward. He was so distracted by trying to get his feet under him, he failed to see another vampire who was almost upon him. I rushed forward to intercept, but before I could, the vampire rammed a silver blade directly into Toby’s heart.

Toby grunted, and his mouth formed an O. He looked up, his eyes finding mine as the color in his face turned gray. His life, one I happened to like, slowly faded from his watery gaze. I sucked in a breath as the vampire tossed Toby’s body aside.

I cried out and rushed the murderous vampire, cutting my