Lucien’s lips turned up just as the SUV started to slow. Abel looked out the window and saw they were at a barrack at the far northwest part of the property. There was a lot of activity outside, and Abel had never been there to know for certain, but it seemed more than what would be normal late-morning activity at a vampire barrack.

They got out and Abel followed Lucien into the barrack.

Ryon met them inside the doors and said instantly, “This way.”

They moved behind Ryon down a hall to the end and into a room that was guarded outside by two wolves.

The door closed behind them.

In the room were Callum, Moose, and three young men who looked like they were in their midtwenties.

They were also fucked right the hell up. Eyes nearly swollen shut. Noses twice their size, one of the kids’ looked broken. Fat and split lips. Serious bruising. Cuts seeping blood. All of them holding their bodies gingerly like the visual damage was not all they’d sustained.

They were also warily surveying the vampires and wolves in the room and looking scared out of their minds.

They looked something else too. Something that creeped Abel right the fuck out. That being, when he and Lucien walked in and the men’s attention turned to them, they looked less scared and more hungry.

And not for food.

For whatever Abel would give them.

“Right, you’re here. I can get this out all in one go, then get back and get some shut-eye,” Moose proclaimed the moment the door shut behind them, and Abel tore his attention from the guys and turned it to Moose.

He motioned to the kids with a swing of his arm and Abel saw his knuckles were split and bloodied, but otherwise, he looked fine.

“Was at a bar coupla days back, doin’ my thing. Heard these fuckers talkin’,” he began. “They were hammered. The kind of drunk that makes you messy and they got all kinds of messy.”

“And how’s that?” Callum prompted when Moose quit talking.

Moose jabbed a finger at one of the kids. “That one was off on one, braggin’ about how good it felt to get fed from while takin’ it up the ass.”

Abel looked to the kid Moose indicated. Blond, slight, his was the nose that looked broken.