Live Free or Die Complete Series Boxed Set: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series Hayley Lawson (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📖

onto his face. Ryder and Maxwell laughed. Fluffy looked like he was smiling, and his tongue lolled out from between his teeth.

Carter gagged and narrowed his eyes at her. “Now you get a sense of humor? That’s fucking disgusting. Why isn’t Ryder on toilet duty as well?”

“You know that’s not how we treat new members of the settlement.” Maxwell shook his head, clucking his tongue. “If you’re going to fit in here, one of your daily tasks will be to wake up Carter. He is very lazy.”

“Hey,” Carter cried. “I’m right here, you know?”

“We know,” Maxwell said. “We can smell you.”

Maxwell smiled as he led Ryder away to relax for the rest of the day. He left Louis at her door. Maxwell might have made Ryder feel welcome, but she was still a prisoner.

Not for long.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Old Dog was packed when Massimo entered.

Word had spread about the nasty business going on around town. Some people wanted to pay their respects, others felt there was safety in numbers, and a few were just nosy.

Kelvin passed Massimo a glass. “I told them you thought it was a disease.”

Massimo was grateful for that. It meant that he wouldn’t have to fill everyone in. “Thanks, Kelvin. Drinks are on me tonight.”

Kelvin nodded. “Drinks on Massimo!” Kelvin yelled to everyone in the bar.

A cheer erupted from the gathered crowd. Everyone smiled and thanked the old vampire. It helped cut some of the tension building among the townspeople.

Kelvin passed out glasses of their strongest liquor first. Once everyone had a glass in their hand, Massimo raised his to the sky. “To the fallen!”

Everyone repeated Massimo’s words, and they all downed their drinks. The toast was quickly followed by coughing, people asking for water, and general cursing.

“Are you trying to poison us, you crazy old man?” Graham asked, laughing.

A few people asked for a second round, and others looked down at their cups indecisively.

“Fill them up again, Kelvin,” Massimo shouted. “Drinks on me! If anyone has an empty glass, you’ll be fired!”

Kelvin smiled at Massimo. He knew what he was doing. He did it every time something like this happened. Everyone knew he wouldn’t fire Kelvin, but they pretended like they didn’t want to risk his job.

People cheered, wives shook their heads, but everyone joined in. Massimo went to the jukebox, looking for the perfect song. Something that wasn’t too upbeat, but not too depressing, either.

Something just right.

He thought about what music the dead men and Annie might like, but nothing came to mind. He flipped through the songbook, running his finger down the list of available songs as the pages turned in hopes of inspiration.

The Osmonds’ Crazy Horses flipped to the front. Oh, that wouldn’t be right, would it? Andrew did love those horses, though.

Next was Taylor Swift’s White Horse. Way too depressing even for a time like this. Then, Dead Horse by Guns ’n’ Roses came up.

Massimo shook his head. He wasn’t having any luck finding a song, and why on Earth were there so many non-English bands on here? Leandro must have snuck them in when I wasn’t looking, that cheeky bugger. It’s really screwing with the bar’s ambiance.

Then he found it. He hit the button, and The Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses blared over the speakers.

Perfect.

Sergei, Pavel, and Yegor got to the edge of the forest and stopped. They had never been any farther than this. Only men on cattle raids were allowed to cross the invisible line of Afana’s domain. If the hunters stepped one foot over the line, their friends would have killed them for a reward.

This time, it was different. Afana had given them permission to track down Ryder wherever he went. He’d even given them guns to achieve it. If they failed, he would have their heads, so failure wasn’t an option.

“Which way now?” Yegor asked, scratching the back of his head. “Something fucking bit me. I hate these damn bloodsucking bugs.”

He pulled his hand away from the bite, and he saw his black fingernails stained with blood. He sucked his finger clean and then wiped it on his shirt.

Sergei wasn’t paying much attention. He wished Nestor had been here to occupy Yegor. That was what Nestor was good for, listening to Yegor’s crap.

Sergei looked up and down the swampy river, trying to work out which way Ryder would have gone. The traitor’s tracks had led the hunters here, but Ryder could have gone anywhere once he hit the water.

He didn’t think Ryder could swim well, since most of them couldn’t. There was no need to, and he really didn’t like the idea of trying to get himself across the water. Farther out, the current looked strong.

He knew that there were settlements in the Bora mountains. Afana had sent the generals to round people up from there when he was young. Sergei didn’t like the idea of going up there. There were a million hiding spots for people to lie in ambush.

“You don’t know where to go, do you?” Yegor asked, craning his extra-long neck between the two of them and then looking across the river. Sergei tried to smack Yegor out of the way, but he’d already yanked his head back. “Why don’t you go where the fire is? That’s where I’d go.”

He hadn’t spotted the black smoke rising on the horizon, but now, it was clear as day. Sergei refused to give Yegor credit for pointing it out. Sergei pointed to the smoke. “Why don’t we go this way?”

Pavel smiled at Sergei. “Excellent idea.”

As Sergei and Pavel headed toward the smoke, Yegor wouldn’t stop talking shit about it being his idea. If the annoying douche didn’t stop going on like an old woman, it wouldn’t only be Ryder’s head Sergei would bring back.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ryder washed the bedding in the lake that afternoon. It would have been weird to sleep in sheets another man had used, especially after he went mad.

She recalled Tommy looking into the cages that held the infected people as they’d