Luther's Return (Scanguards Vampires Book 10) by Tina Folsom

made love to her so many times, Vivian lay, lifeless.
    Samson and Amaury stood by the bed, silently staring at him as he entered.
    Maybe if she’d died alone, he would have been able to accept it. But his friends had stood by. And done nothing.
    “You let her die!” His heart turned to stone. “You could have saved her!”
    Had they turned her into a vampire, Vivian would have lived.
    “I hate you!”
    They offered no excuses.
    He didn’t hear their condolences, their false words of comfort. False, because they couldn’t imagine what he was going through. None of them had a mate and knew what true love meant.
    He’d lost Vivian, his mate, the love of his life. The woman he was going to spend eternity with.
    “The child?” he asked, not even looking over his shoulder as Samson and Amaury walked to the door.
    Samson’s hesitation and almost inaudible intake of air told him everything he needed to know.
    Luther growled, feeling his fangs lengthen. “Leave my house!”
    “Luther, when you’re better, we’ll talk,” Amaury said.
    Luther pivoted, glaring at the two vampires who’d once been his best friends. “Leave, or I will kill you both!”
    They finally heeded the warning.
    Silence descended upon the house. He shed no tears, not for a long time, only stared at the pale face of the woman he loved more than his own life. When he ran his fingers over her face, the coldness of her skin shocked him to the core. Never again would he sense her warmth, taste her sweet blood, feel her body shudder around him in ecstasy.
    “We’ll be together again one day. I promise you. Just as soon as I’ve avenged your death!”
    But Samson and Amaury weren’t the only ones responsible: he, Luther, was the culpable one. His child had killed her. It was his fault. Therefore he had to be punished, too.

15
     
    Blake stared at the bank of computer screens in front of him. Samson was sitting to his left, while Thomas had taken a seat to his right. But this was Blake’s operation. He was orchestrating it. And the four young hybrids, Grayson, Damian, Benjamin, and Ryder were his puppets. He wished he could be there with them, but a mission like this was too unpredictable, and he couldn’t risk being exposed to sunlight should anything go wrong. The hybrids, on the other hand, didn’t have such shortcomings. The sun couldn’t harm them, though silver bullets or a stake would kill them as surely as they killed a full-blooded vampire.
    That’s why he’d had them dress in reinforced Kevlar suits protecting their vital organs. To give them sufficient mobility, their arms and legs were unprotected—though they wore gloves—, as were their heads. Unfortunately, not all risks could be eliminated. That’s why Blake had insisted on the hybrids wearing specially designed headbands with a built in camera that weighed no more than an ounce. The cameras were feeding live pictures to the four monitors in the center of the wall in front of him. Each monitor Blake had labeled with a name. This way, it was immediately obvious which hybrid saw what, and Blake and his colleagues could interfere and redirect them should it become necessary.
    In addition, a software program Thomas had been working on had been installed in the console. Together with the video feeds from the hybrids’ cameras and their exact GPS locations, which were constantly being transmitted back to HQ, a live 3-D video was being created and projected on a larger screen above. It blended the individual camera feeds and created a more comprehensive image, giving Blake a full view of what was happening with and around his charges.
    Blake zoomed in on Damian, who was driving the Minivan, which was equipped with a small cell and silver chains to transport a prisoner.
    “Remember, take him alive if you can,” Blake reminded the four young men via the intercom that fed directly into their earpieces.
    A few grunts came as a reply.
    Samson leaned in to use the mic. “I mean it,”