Free Witches Be Burned: A Magic & Mayhem Novel by Stacey Kennedy

seen repeatedly growing up. His relationship with his father was a tight one, seeing that Talon had raised Kyden. When Kyden was a month old, his mother had left the Otherworld to live in the Earthworld and had cut off complete contact. Kyden didn’t know much about her, but he also didn’t ask. Why focus on something he couldn’t change? But that one move from Talon indicated his father was stressed.
    Talon finally said, after lowering his hand, “We were called out on a classic bloodlust killing.”
    “It was nothing out of the ordinary,” Haven interjected, her voice shaky. “I went there with Trefan and re-created the scene. A young vampire seemed wildly out of control and killed a mortal. I didn’t see any other vampires or anything like that.”
    Kyden frowned. “There was no mortal body when we arrived.”
    “Perhaps they had, in fact, presented the mortal vampirism,” Zade offered, and all eyes went to him as he continued. “Perhaps the mortal had been fed vampire blood before death,” which meant the mortal would be reborn as a vampire the next night.
    Nexi interjected, “Why do that, though? I thought turning a mortal was like a gift or something?”
    Zade agreed with a fierce nod. “Usually is, but we have never had a black-magic witch working alongside vampires before. A missing body lends me to believe they intended to turn the mortal.”
    “It’s a theory that makes sense,” Talon agreed with a grave voice.
    Though the question remained,
Why?
    What could be Astoria’s motive for wanting to create new vampires?
Kyden didn’t like being left in the dark, though one thing did make sense. “It would explain why Astoria was with the vampire in Salt Lake City. Maybe turning him had failed and she left him for us to clean up her mess.”
    Every member of the Council nodded.
    Haven said, “After Trefan altered the wound on the mortal it all seemed fine.” Her voice hitched on a sob. “And I left him—”
    Nexi groaned, sagging and nearly sinking to her knees, apparently under the weight of Haven’s despair. Kyden wrapped an arm around her, bearing her weight. This time, a pale Nexi didn’t look at him. Sometimes Kyden hated the bond between her and Haven. At times, it helped. At other times, he wished he could remove all of the heartache that lay inside Nexi.
    “Don’t do that to yourself,” Finn interjected softly, turning Haven in his arms and peering down at her. “If you were there when it happened, you would have died, too.” He wiped the dampness off her cheeks and comforted her in the way Kyden expected from his friend.
    Finn added, “Trefan wouldn’t have wanted you to be in danger. He would’ve wanted you safe.”
    “He was all
alone,
Finn…” Haven’s chin quivered.
    Silence swept through the Council’s Hall as Finn closed his eyes. When they reopened, tears welled. “I know, Haven. I will always know that.”
    A blast of rage enveloped Kyden. Trefan had been defenseless against those vampires, and for that Kyden would not stop his search until each of those vampires was dead by his blade. And even if Astoria hadn’t killed him herself, she’d die alongside them for not stopping it.
    Zade heaved a sigh, breaking the silence, scanning the faces in the room. “Did any of you recognize the vampires?”
    Kyden shook his head, as did everyone else.
    Unless the vampire belonged to the Council’s Guard, typically they wouldn’t know them personally. The vampire population in the Earthworld was in the hundreds of thousands. Besides, those in the Otherworld didn’t get involved with vampires in the Earthworld, unless they took a mortal’s life.
    The two worlds, while connected, were, in fact, very different. In the Earthworld, vampires had Mistress Vampires who ruled them. Werewolves had Valor, who governed the Alphas of werewolf packs in the United States. Though the treaty had been made to link the worlds together—and both the Mistress Vampires and Valor believed in