Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron) novel Chapter 297

Chapter 297
LEAH
I hold Ethan closer trying to calm him, but with the feeling of malevolence in the air, I can’t blame my son for the way he’s screaming.
“Evacuate the pack to the emergency bunker,” Aaron tells me in a low voice.
“What’s happening?” I whisper fearfully, even though I doubt he has any more of an idea than I do.
“I’m not sure. It feels like-But it can’t be. It doesn’t make sense,” Aaron replies. “You oversee the evacuation, I need to head down to the front gate. They’re not answering my calls.”
My stomach pitches with anxiety.
If the sentries at the gate aren’t answering Aaron’s calls-maybe because they can’t-then something bad must have happened.
Aaron tugs me in for a quick kiss, and then I turn to James, who is standing alert nearby.
“We need to begin evacuating to the emergency bunker,” I say to
him..
He nods and starts off to do just that, but in that moment,
there’s this loud bang that echoes through the house.
James starts herding freaked out pack members through the house, but I turn and follow Aaron where he’s hurrying toward the front of the mansion and the source of that loud banging noise.
Halfway down the hallway, this dark, icy cold, terrible wave of power washes over me, and my footsteps falter.
Ethan isn’t crying anymore, he’s quietened down to whimpering, his face turned into my chest.
I stay close to the wall, keeping an eye on Aaron as he slows and three people come into view.
Well, people might not be the right word.
Two men and a woman, all ethereally beautiful.
I’ve never met a vampire in person before, but I’ve got absolutely no doubt that’s what I’m looking at right now.
“What are you doing here?” Aaron demands in a hard voice. “Do you know how many ancient treaties you’ve broken by setting foot on wolf territory? By arriving unannounced at my home?”
The vampires somehow look bored and maliciously gleeful at the same time.
“About the same number you broke by coming onto vampire territory and interfering with things you had no right to stick
your wel dog nose into,” one of the vampires says in return, in this perfectly polished accent.
“I didn’t set foot on your territory willingly,” Aaron replies co oly. “I was taken there-”
“By Karolina, we know,” the woman says, crossing her arms. “But your mate and her lap dog certainly had a choice when they followed after you.”
Aaron doesn’t say anything, but I can see the tension running through his shoulders, how he’s on high alert and ready for anything.
“All they did was rescue me. We left as soon as we were able. We didn’t interfere with any vampire business.’
“Ah, but you did,” the third vampire says, and my entire body freezes, my blood turning to ice.
I know that voice.
But it can’t be.
It doesn’t make sense.
That vampire sounds like the military contact Liam-and even 1-spoke to regularly about the ongoing progress of the AI
weapon.
“You see, Karolina was finishing up a deal we started with Liam Roberts,” the familiar-sounding vampire says, and right in that
“To hand over the AI tech the Roberts pack were designing and building for us,” the vampire finishes, and I can see Aaron trying not to react to this news.
I can practically see his wolf rippling under the surface of his skin, wanting to shift, to lash out at the danger and defend his pack.
“Karolina and Liam were working with you?” Aaron demands, disgust dripping from every word.
I can’t believe it myself.
Did Liam know his supposed military contact was actually a vampire? Or was he taken in by the lie? Maybe he only told me it was a military contract because he knew I wouldn’t take it well if I found out we were working with vampires.
Clearly Karolina knew who she was working with.
And now the things Ryker said, about what Karolina was doing going against Ryker’s morals, makes sense.
I’m confused and terrified.
How could any wolf willingly work with vampires?
Never mind the packs warring within themselves.
The ancient war with the vampires had almost wiped out both.
species centuries ago.
A peace treaty had only been drawn up because both races had come horrifyingly close to extinction. Whole houses and bloodlines had been slaug htered.
Wolves had the advantage of being able to shift, as well as our animal instinct.
However, a single vampire bite was deadly to a wolf. If the vampire didn’t simply drain them on the spot, then they would still die hours later from the poison of the bite.
Meanwhile, vampires got a temporary boost of raw power after drinking from a wolf.
There’d been a few incidences over the years where misunderstandings or mistakes had threatened the peace between wolves and vampires.
But no vampires had ever gone so far as to brazenly walk onto any wolf territory the way these three had tonight.
I didn’t even want to think what consequences this night would bring for our pack and wolves at large.
We couldn’t afford to go to war with the vampires.
Because there was every chance that wolves simply wouldn’t
survive it.
“We had a mutually beneficial agreement in place, yes,” the
collect.”