Tainted Night, Tainted Blood - By E. S. Moore Page 0,1

their underlings defected. A vamp thinking she could leave a Major House to start her own usually turned up dead within an hour of making her claim.

But there Telia was, torturing victims and reveling in their blood just like any other baby vamp, albeit a more violent one. I was there to put a stop to it.

I left the body where I found it and started up the drive, keeping close to the trees so anyone who would happen to glance out a window wouldn’t see my approach. I moved in near silence, my vampire-light feet barely making a sound on the pavement. I’d even learned to minimize the sound of leather with my walk. Being a vampire had its advantages at times.

It wasn’t until I was halfway up the driveway that I noticed the other bodies. All of the lights in the house were blazing, including the outside light. It spilled out over the corpses, illuminating them like actors on a stage. I could see the dark stain of blood against the black pavement.

I froze and gave the house a good long look. One body, I expected. Three was a bit much.

I hadn’t noticed it before because I hadn’t really looked, but the front door was torn nearly off its hinges. The window beside it was intact, but the curtains were hanging at an angle, as if someone had tried to tear them down.

And there were no sounds, no moving shadows that told me where Telia or her minions were. Had her little torture party turned into something much more deadly? I had no idea what she did in there most nights. It was entirely possible she had set three Purebloods loose, sicking her wolves on them for pure entertainment.

If so, then where was she? I should have seen a flicker of a shadow, heard the howl of a wolf. She would have wanted to watch the events as they took place.

I approached the two other bodies, keeping my gaze on the house as I went. They could be in there, watching me. The night was still young, so I was sure they hadn’t bedded down for the day.

The first corpse turned out to be another Pureblood, this one male. He had been stripped naked and lay in a pool of his own blood. His ribs showed through flesh pulled tight, as if he had been starved before being released. His stomach had been ripped open and his throat slashed.

I nudged him like I had the other corpse to make sure he was really dead. Sometimes it was hard to tell between a Pureblood and a young werewolf or vampire. It was possible this was some sort of initiation rite that Telia cooked up for her newest recruits. Torture them, let them bleed a while, and then take them in.

But this guy was definitely dead. If she had tried to turn him, she had started the process far too late.

The last body was a few paces away, and at first I thought he was wearing a fur coat. As I got closer, I realized that wasn’t the case and alarm bells started ringing in my head in earnest.

The werewolf was lying facedown, his head a few inches from his body. The cut was ragged, as if it had taken a few hacks to cut through the wolf ’s thick neck. There were marks on his arms and shoulder where he had tried to protect himself.

It hadn’t helped. The wolf had been hamstrung, making him an easy target for whomever had done this. I wasn’t sure if Telia had done it herself or if someone else was involved. Either way, I didn’t like it.

I hurried to the front of the house and pressed my back to the wall. The place wasn’t large by vampire standards. It was bigger than where I lived, but not by much. Countess Telia still had a ways to go before she could move up to the mansions the other Counts and Countesses preferred.

I crept along the wall to the nearest window and peeked in. Furniture lay strewn across the room. A mirror had been smashed, leaving shards of bloody glass all over the floor. A glass coffee table had been shattered as well, adding to the destruction.

And there was blood everywhere.

My stomach rumbled as my inner demon made itself known. I hadn’t fed for over a week and it was starting to get to me. I really should have hunted before coming. Then again, I