by Chloe Neill
Ethan met my eyes, acknowledging the pain he must have guessed I’d remembered.
I’ll get her something to drink, I told him. I went into the kitchen, poured water into a glass from a sealed bottle in the refrigerator, carried it back.
Ethan reached for it, our fingers brushing as I passed it over. He fitted it between Nessa’s hands, now kneading fists in her lap.
“Drink,” he said, and she nodded, tipped up the glass with shaky hands.
Ethan waited until she’d lowered it again. “Have you called the authorities?”
“The sheriff,” Nessa said with a teary nod. “Tom McKenzie. There are a lot of McKenzies in the valley. He came with a deputy and they started looking around. I went outside to get air, and then I started walking . . .” She looked around the living room as if utterly surprised to have found herself there. “I came here.”
“Will they be looking for you?” Ethan’s question was quiet, his tone cautious.
“I don’t know. Probably.” Her eyes filled again, and this time there was fear in them.
Ethan and I exchanged a glance. “Nessa,” he gently said. “What else?”
“Taran was a shifter,” she said, the words coming out in an outpouring of sound. I realized too late the faint pepper of magic she carried, shed along with her husband’s blood. “The McKenzies didn’t approve of our marriage.”
“Because you’re a vampire?” I asked.
Nessa put the glass on the floor, wiped at her eyes, nodded. “And a member of the Clan.”
Ethan’s brows lifted, his own magic piercing the air. “There’s a Clan here?”
Clans were, as far as I remembered from the official vampire Canon, groups of Rogue vampires—those who didn’t reside in a House—living together just as a human family might. Where Rogues generally preferred to live alone, vampires in Clans lived together, like unofficial Houses. Unregulated Houses, so they acted like human families to keep their profile low and rarely revealed their existence.
“The Marchands,” she said, brushing hair from her face with the back of her hand, the move streaking blood across her pale skin. She didn’t seem to notice it. “We’ve been in the valley nearly as long as the McKenzies. The conflict began not long after we arrived.”
“Over the land?” Ethan asked.
“The land, its use and control. The population. Possessions. Love.”
“There’s a feud,” Ethan concluded.
“There was a feud,” Nessa said, her despair obvious. “It had been so long—I thought we’d moved past it.” She looked up at Ethan. “I’m so sorry. So sorry that you’re here, now, and this is going on. I thought—”
“Do not trouble yourself with us,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s focus on what’s happened.”
She looked down at her hands, streaked with dark and drying blood, her nails stained with it, her fingers shaking. “They’ve killed him. Punished him for our transgression, for marrying me. They’ll come for me next.”
Ethan’s body tensed at the hint of trouble to come, of war, before relaxing again with resigned acceptance. “We won’t let that happen.”
It wasn’t clear she heard him, with her gaze still on her stained hands. “His blood. This is his blood.”
“Why don’t you wash up?” Ethan suggested. “Call your Clan, let them know where you are. They can send a message to the sheriff that you’re here. He’ll want to question you.”
He’ll want to know she didn’t run away in guilt, I thought.
Nessa nodded, rose, and walked to the end of the room, disappeared through a doorway. A moment later came the closing of a door and the sound of running water.
I kept my voice quiet. “Do you trust her?”
Ethan frowned. “I have no reason not to trust her.”
He’d told me before we left Chicago that Nessa had been a friend of two Cadogan vampires, Katherine and Thomas, siblings originally from Kansas City. They’d stayed in touch with her, and she’d visited them in Chicago. That’s how Ethan had met her several decades ago.
“I’ve known her for many years, Sentinel. And while I’d say we were more acquaintances than close friends, I certainly don’t know anything that suggests she’d have killed her husband.” He brushed fingertips across my cheek. “I wouldn’t have knowingly brought you into danger.”
I had no doubt of that. And yet, here we were. I looked through the windows to the valley beyond, the moon arcing across the sky. Ethan’s sense of honor and loyalty made it exceedingly unlikely he’d abandon this woman to what might be a very ugly fate at the hands of a mob.
“I know,” I said, and took his hand. “This isn’t going to be a vacation, is it?”
“Ah, my Sentinel,” he said, and pressed his lips to my forehead. “It was a nice thought, wasn’t it? That’d we’d find peace in this beautiful country?”
It was a wonderful thought. But at the second knock at the door—this one an ominous pounding of meaty fist against heavy wood—I realized how far away it was.
“Villagers with torches?” Ethan said, only partly joking.
Not villagers, I guessed, given the hot animal magic that began to seep into the house.
Shifters.
***
Half a dozen shifters to be exact, standing in the front yard like a gang of regulators come to mete out justice in the Wild West.
Ethan and I stood alone on the porch, katanas at the ready. And since we were outnumbered and probably outmagicked, with bluffing skills at the ready. My expression was fierce and determined, even if my heart beat like the wings of a small bird inside my chest.
A shifter stepped forward, and he cut an imposing figure. Broad-shouldered enough to be a defensive lineman, with a square jaw and deep-set eyes, his hair long, thick, and multi-shaded, threads of brown and blond mixed together. His brows and stubble were darker, his eyes ice blue and swirling with knowledge, with power. I’d have put his age at twenty-eight.
The rest of the shifters—men in a variety of ages—bore a passing resemblance to him and shared his ferocity. Their magic, animal and raw, vibrated just enough to hint they were fully armed.
Guns, I silently reported.
But Ethan wasn’t intimidated by weapons, shifters, or most anyone else. His expression was utterly bland. “And you are?”
“Rowan McKenzie. We’re here for the bloodsucker.”
“McKenzie,” Ethan repeated, ignoring the demand and the epithet. “You’re related to Taran?”
“Rowan is Taran’s cousin,” Nessa said. Ethan kept his gaze on Taran, but I looked back, found her in the doorway behind us. She stepped forward, walked across the porch to stand beside us.
The contrast between us and them—between cold and pale vampires and sun-kissed and golden-skinned shifters—was undeniable.
“The rest of them are McKenzies, as well,” she added. “Apparently Rowan believed he needed to bring his crew.”
“My cousin is dead,” Rowan said, and at that the rest of the shifters slapped their hands against their hearts and screamed to the sky. The sound—full of grief and anger and jagged magic—raised the hair on the back of my neck. And not in a good way.
“My husband is dead!” Nessa called back. “My lover. My mate. Someone murdered him in our home.”
“Someone did,” Rowan agreed, his eyes on her. “Tom told us Taran was killed. We know you did it, and we’re here to bring you to justice.”
“I didn’t kill my husband,” she said, now an edge in her voice as grief transmuted to anger.
It was the first time she’d said the words outright, but I believed her, as far as that went.
“I loved him,” she continued, her voice shaking. “You’re the ones who hated him. You hated him for marrying me. For deserting your family. For ignoring the feud. For moving past it. How do I know you ar
en’t the ones who killed him? That I shouldn’t kill you where you stand to avenge his death?”
“And now who’s making threats?” Rowan took a step forward, then another, his magic bouncing toward us in waves, vibrating with hatred. “Your husband’s lying dead in his home, and you’re here with strangers, bloodsuckers. There were already far too many vampires in the valley.”
Ethan arched an imperious eyebrow. “We have no fight with you, McKenzie, or any other shifters. We’re allies of the North American Central Pack.” Colorado was part of the Pack’s territory. We hadn’t anticipated running into any shifters, but we’d given the Apex, Gabriel Keene, a heads-up about our trip as a courtesy.
Rowan spat on the ground, an obvious insult. “The Packs have no authority here.”
Ethan’s smile was easy. “I doubt Gabriel Keene would agree. Regardless, he’s aware we’re here, and I’d be happy to let him know you’ve got doubts about his authority. I’m sure he’d have an answer. As for now, since you’ve intruded on Nessa’s grief and are trespassing on her property, what, precisely, do you want?”
Rowan leered at Nessa and shifted his body weight threateningly. “We want her to answer for her sins.”
“You have evidence she murdered her husband?”
“She’s a vampire and a member of the Marchand Clan,” said one of the shifters behind him, who had Rowan’s coloring but less weight, less height, like a leaner and meaner version. “Probably did it for revenge.”
“Revenge for what?” Ethan flatly asked, putting a hand on Nessa’s arm when she opened her mouth to speak.
“She’s a Marchand,” Rowan spat, as if that characteristic, that insult, was obviously enough to answer the question.
Since logic wasn’t going to get him anywhere, Ethan switched tacks. “The sheriff is at the house investigating Taran’s death. If you have a problem with the investigation, take it up with him. In the meantime, I strongly recommend you leave Nessa to her grief and get on with your mourning in a more productive way.”
Rowan’s lip curled, and the shifters behind him moved incrementally closer. “She’ll come with us, whether we have to go through you or not.”
Ethan regarded Rowan as if he was a spoiled child. “Are you threatening me now?”
“Stating a fact. This is our business, our valley, and our fight. You’d be better stepping aside and letting us get on with it.”
“So you can unilaterally execute her? You’re crazy if you think we’ll even let you near her.”
Rowan’s lips curved in what might have been a smile, had there been a little less hostility in it. He glanced at his men, shared a laugh, before he turned back to us, challenge in his eyes. “And you’ll stop us? Outnumbered as you are?”
That was my cue, I thought, and pulled out every bit of vampire bravado in my arsenal.
“No,” I said, stepping in front of Ethan, even as his magic pulsed with irritation behind me. He—and his alpha sensibilities—hated it when I stepped in front of him. But that was my job, and as his lover, my absolute and undiminished right.
“But I will.” I unsheathed my katana, handed my scabbard back to Ethan.
Slowly, Rowan’s gaze dropped to me, lip still curled in disgust. He had me on weight and height, and probably in sheer shifter strength, and it was hard not to ignore my logical and deep-seated urge to turn tail and find a corner to hide in. But these guys were practically vibrating with ego, and they weren’t going to leave without a fight. They’d need incentive, and I was happy to give it to them.
“Vampires don’t scare me.”
“Good,” I said, letting my own eyes silver and fangs descend, and twirling the katana in my hand. “That means you’re stupid. It’s been a week since I’ve had a good fight, and stupid’s usually a quick one.”
Take care, Sentinel, Ethan warned, as he pulled Nessa back.
It wasn’t often that I blatantly picked a fight. On the other hand . . .
We set boundaries now on our own turf, I told him, or we wait for them to attack. I like my option better.
And I wasn’t about to risk Ethan to a surprise attack. Or the crap I’d get from Luc, the captain of his guards, if Ethan was hurt by a shifter while traveling with me.
Rowan, either loath to fight his own battles, or thinking I was worthy of only a minion, gestured to the lean and ornery-looking shifter. “Niall,” he called.
Niall grinned, loped forward.
“Your weapon of choice?” I asked him.
The shifter snorted. “Use whatever toy you want.”
Yes, he was a shifter, with more magic than I could accumulate in an eternity. And yes, even though he was skinny, he had at least forty pounds on me. But he was also arrogant. I was well trained, and I was supposed to be relaxing with a bison burger and a book; that I was out here instead just pissed me off.
As shifters moved around to give us room, I belatedly considered the fact that I wasn’t exactly dressed for a fight in a wrap sweater and ballet flats. But it was too late to worry about that now.
Niall circled me, light on his feet, his arms corded beneath a short-sleeved T-shirt, flipping his head to keep shaggy hair out of his eyes. “Come on, then,” he said, beckoning me forward. “You’ve got that nice big sword. Show me how you use it.”
“As you wish,” I sweetly said, and opted for speed and simplicity. My first strike made immediate contact, spilling blood across his arm. The air bloomed with peppery spice. I regretted that I hadn’t eaten on the plane, because the smell of it—the promise of the magic it carried—was nearly intoxicating.
Niall screamed, more with insult than pain, and launched toward me. I used the katana’s spine to block a punch he aimed at my face. But he was strong, and I nearly hit my knees with the effort of holding him back.
I huffed out a breath, garnered my strength to push the katana back against him like a lever, trying to reverse our positions. And when he decided to spin—and signaled the move—I used the sword as a brace, flipped over his arm, landed, and spun with just enough time to block his kick. Still, the force of it shuddered through me like an explosion.
Not that a little pain was going to stop me. I kicked twice, two fast jabs to his side that had him lurching away with gritted teeth. He swung back with an elbow, and I ducked quickly beneath it, swiping the katana horizontally and striping his abdomen with blood.
He let loose a full-throated scream, eyes swimming with fury and pain, the bright scent of blood flashing in the air again. Niall’s arm was out and moving before I had time to react, the back of his hand connecting with my cheekbone. I flew backward from the impact, hit the ground five feet away with a thud, hard enough to shove the air from my lungs. Panic tightened my chest as I fought to suck in air again.
Sentinel. There was fear in Ethan’s voice.
I’m fine, I told him, glad I didn’t have to use precious breath for it. Stay with Nessa.
My breathing eased, but pain filled the void left by the receding panic. My cheek sang with it, the throbbing strong enough to drown out every other sensation and feeling . . . except for the glorious rush of hot fury. I flipped back, bounced to my feet, pain pulsing with every heartbeat, and stared down Niall.
He wanted a fight? Fine. He’d have one, and this time, I wouldn’t pull my punches. I pushed down the pain and kicked the katana into the air, snatched it on the descent. I didn’t pause to let him catch up, but sliced diagonally, then again, pushing him backward as he dodged the blows. He hit gravel, stumbled. I swung the sword again and sliced his upper arm, blood welling and scenting the air.
Three strikes, I thought, and you’re out.
He stared at me, blood from his wounded arm seeping to the ground with soft plinks. And in his eyes, the energy and power of shifters, their metaphysical connection to the lands they roamed. Jagged mountain peaks. Rushing streams. Dense forests tha
t smelled of dirt and resin. Shifters were part of a world we couldn’t enter, would never understand, their connection to surf and sky as fundamental as the sunrise itself.
And matched with that connection, equally strong, was Niall’s unswerving belief that Nessa had murdered her husband.
The sound of a whirring siren broke the spell between us, a car approaching from the direction of the airport. Niall wiped a hand across a cut on his arm, then smeared the blood across his T-shirt like a badge of honor, or a mark of victory.
“Move out,” Rowan said, and the McKenzies hauled ass to the truck parked near Ethan’s ride. It was a white behemoth, with an extended cab and enormous tires.
It was the first time I’d noticed the truck. And although it wasn’t flattering to my vampire sensibilities, it was also the first time I realized there was someone else watching. A young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, sat in the front passenger seat, one arm draped through the open window, staring at us. Her face was thin, her hair the same thick, multihued blond. Shifters were a relatively patriarchal bunch, so it wasn’t unusual that the men had done the fighting while she watched from the vehicle. But her expression was as angry and fierce as the others’.
“Cormac,” Rowan called out, drawing my attention back to one of the shifters who remained behind.
Magic vibrated, pulsed, as Cormac drew a gun from the back of his jeans.
I didn’t think, but reacted, running back to the porch and ensuring Ethan and Nessa were out of the way. The shots weren’t aimed at me, but our escape. Four pops filled the air as he punctured Orangesplosion’s tires, air hissing angrily from the fissures as they deflated.
“In case you decide to leave before we’re done with you,” Rowan said. They climbed into the truck and sped down the road in the other direction.
You’re all right? Ethan asked.
I glanced back at him. I’m fine.
Assured of it, he nodded. You aren’t especially good at making new friends.
There wasn’t a chance in hell they’d be friends with vampires like us.