Keeping My Nose Out

The Alpha looked down at me like I was nothing more than a piece of wolf shit on the bottom of his shoe. Too bad for him I was not in the mood to play.

Things to do, people to see, cleaning to be done.

"The Head of House Vampyre is dead," I said, delivering the news without a care. The vampire Alpha simply nodded his head.

"Then I guess we'll have a couple of decades of murder and mayhem before the big man comes back and claims his throne," shrugged the Alpha like it wasn't that big of a deal. Unfortunately for him, his king wasn't coming back.

"Sure, let's go with that. Until then, there will need to be a new Head of House," I replied with a nod. No point in telling him that I killed Vlad or that I made sure that he would not be reborn again. That was just too many secrets for this… vampire… to take to his grave.

"There is not going to be a new Head of House. We'll take care of our own until Vlad comes back. He doesn't like anyone else to sit on his throne while he is otherwise engaged." The Alpha wrinkled his nose and I was actually impressed that Vlad inspired this much loyalty from his Houses.

In fact, if he hadn't kept us standing at his front door for this entire conversation, I could almost overlook the stink of rot coming off of him.

But I have wasted enough time with this side quest I had set myself on. Now that Nicholas was back in my life, I wasn't going to spend one minute more dealing with this crap.

"Who is your Beta?" I asked, not caring if I had just interrupted the Alpha. There would be less of an upheaval if the Beta took over from the Alpha, but if I couldn't trust the Beta to do what needed to be done, then I would have to go down the line.

I had no problem eliminating everyone in this House until I found the one I could work with… and that would work with the wolves.

*Sigh*

"I am the Beta," admitted the good witch as he stepped forward and briefly bowed his head to me.

"Do you get along with the wolves enough to be able to work together for the benefit of both Houses?" I asked. I could feel a headache coming on, and all I wanted to do was go home.

"I do," he replied.

It wasn't that I didn't trust him further than I could throw him, but I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't have to come back to this place any time soon.

Was it acceptable to become a hermit in my own house? I was pretty sure that the Dracula in the movies managed to do it. And if that was the case, I could do it, too.

This was why I should have kept my nose out of everyone's business. When I got involved, it blew up until it was not a quick fix. Or I didn't know when I could walk away.

That was the other possibility.

I let my eyes blur until I could see all the threads attached to the three vampire males in front of me. The good witch was right; he had some strong connections with the wolves. That would be useful.

The threads on the other two were so decomposed that it was a wonder they were even able to stand.

And the idiot should never have been turned, based on what he did as a human. Then again, maybe he was the exact type of sociopath that vampires recruited.

That would need to change, too.

Nope. I learned my lesson. Keep my nose out of the other Houses.

"You are the new Alpha of this House. Get along with the wolves and learn to be more choosy on who you turn," I grumbled to the Beta.

"Who the fuck—" the Alpha swelled up like a balloon, his eyes turning bright red, and his fangs dropped until they were hanging outside of his lips. He was pissed.

"I am the one that the monsters should be terrified of," I answered him with a shrug, even though he didn't get to finish his question. "But no one is that scared of me. I guess I have to learn to shed a bit more blood before people start to smarten up."

A wave of my hand and the threads on the two vampires in front of me snapped, and their bodies fell to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.

"You will be the Head of this House," I said slowly so the good witch could understand what I was saying. "You will work with the House of Wolves to make sure that there is peace in this city. Clean out your House if you need to, but there should not be any other 'unexplained' deaths in LA unless you want me to come back. And trust me on this, you don't want me to come back. I'll make Viktor look like a Saint if that happens. Do you understand?"

Frankly, I didn't really care if he understood or not. I said my peace, and I was done.

Turning around from the house that I was never invited into, I walked back to the SUV that had all of my men inside. I wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep for a few days, but that would have to wait until I was back in New York.

"The plane is ready for us," said Nicholas as he opened the door for me so I could crawl into the back seat. He slid in after me and picked me up so I was now sitting on his lap and not Levi's.

"Thank you," I said softly. I placed my head on his shoulder and let out a long breath.

All I wanted to do was make sure that Vlad was not going to be a problem anymore. I hated what he did to the humans and wolves. I hated it even more that no one was willing to deal with it.

Maybe the others had been alive for so long that they no longer cared about anything.

But I would have thought Viktor would have done something… it was his only job requirement. In fact, I am pretty sure it was written on his business cards: "Van Helsing: Monster Hunter."

He was supposed to be our boogeyman, so why the hell did it end up being me?

"Everything is going to be okay. I am here," murmured Nicholas as he gently rubbed my hair. "Get some sleep. I'll wake you up when we get to the airport."

Letting out a long yawn, I nodded my head and closed my eyes. I could feel them, Greyson, Levi, Mathew, Nicholas, and Dom. Their very presence in the car seemed to seep into my very core, and I fell asleep knowing that they would be there to watch over me.