Read Austin's Lost Bride (The Sterns) for Free Online Page B

forced to steal. He should have felt bad about stealing a car, but he didn’t. The note had given him little time and he needed to get more supplies at another safe location he knew. Going against Mannus completely unprepared wasn’t something he intended to do. Even if he expected to die.
    He looked down the street to the house he was told to go. Perfect for a vampire in need of healing, he thought. It was a practically abandoned area of the city, with a half dozen homes crumbling, and the same number clearly vacant on this block alone. The other nearby streets were the same, a precious few homes with people living in them scattered around a vast urban wasteland, forgotten by authorities. No one would answer a call for help here. As he stepped out of the car and went to the trunk for his weapons, the smell drifting through the street of blood, death, and rotting garbage hit him. His stomach lurched and then he forced it still.
    The beast was in Rebecca, he felt a blow to his soul and a cry of pain from her in his mind when it happened. He knew she was lost to him. Her heart was lost to him before, but now her humanity and soul were in danger. He started gathering his weapons, including Rebecca’s dagger, and finished mentally preparing himself when he felt the first tickle on his skin warning him he was being watched.
    No surprises there. He already knew it was a trap and he was going to die. Mannus’s MO was to have the victims he turned kill a loved one for their first blood. He wouldn’t kill Austin outright. Mannus would try to keep him alive for Rebecca to kill and that gave him his chance to save her before her soul was destroyed.
    He loved her more than he could love any other woman. Any lies that he may have told himself that he could get over her were gone now. Rebecca could feel otherwise, but she would always be his true love. It’s why he was here and he was going to honor that love the same way he honored her father when Mannus had turned him. He was going to save her if he could, kill her if he couldn’t, and probably die along the way.
    There was no other way.
    He grabbed the last, most important weapon from the car and smiled at the surprise he was giving them. His senses warned him they were watching still and he started walking toward the house. They’d expect him to be stealthy and try a rescue, but that wasn’t his plan. Using stealth he couldn’t win alone against multiple thralls and Mannus, who somehow was still strong after last night. That left brute force as his only surprise strategy.
    His senses exploded with alarm and he realized they knew what he was going to do. He heard several shouts of warning and he brought his weapon to his shoulder. Austin peered down the barrel of a multi-shot police teargas gun and quickly unloaded two into the house before pivoting and putting the last four on either side of the house and across the street.
    He heard shouting in the house and then gunshots start ringing out of a crumbling home nearby, the aim wildly off mark through the spreading teargas. Pulling the pin from a grenade, Austin threw it toward the shooter. He gave a smug smile as it exploded, killing the thrall.
    That’s for taking Rebecca .
    Austin slipped on his mask before the teargas enveloped him and started moving closer to the house, intending to make his way around back. The sound of breaking furniture focused his attention to the front door as a thrall came crashing through it, gasping for air. One bullet through his head ended him before he even looked up or raised his own weapon.
    Two down. How many more were there?
    Austin didn’t know, but he kept moving to the side of the house and around back. He had tried looking through the basement windows as he moved but they were sealed and the basement was where Rebecca was most likely being held. No other thralls challenged him but he could hear movement inside as he made his way to the back door.
    Teargas filled the surrounding area,