by Chloe Neill
I’d thought I was alone, that Ethan was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. I nearly jumped when I heard his voice.
“I’m right here, Sentinel.”
I opened my eyes, found him a few feet away, pulling a belt through jeans, still shirtless.
“Bacon?” It was a query, an accusation, a wish.
“I believe the Pack is making you breakfast.”
That had me sitting up and grabbing clothing to change faster than most things would have.
“Should I be insulted that you’re so eager to enjoy another man’s pork?”
I leaned out of the bathroom, toothbrush mid-swipe, and grinned. “Ethan Sullivan, did you just make a joke?”
He hadn’t, at least from the look on his face. But I wasn’t threatened by the possessiveness in his eyes.
Because bacon.
“You’re the only man for me,” I assured Ethan when I’d pulled on my leathers and boots in preparation for a night of investigating. I’d hoped, of course, I wouldn’t need them on our “vacation,” but I’d packed them just in case. Good thing I’d been a little paranoid.
He scanned his phone as he waited for me to add the final touches, glanced up with moderate amusement. “You say, as you’re putting on lip gloss.”
“It’s lip balm, because you’ve chapped my mouth with your kisses, sir. And I’m attempting to represent Cadogan House with class and charm.” Which is why it had a pale pink sheen. Or that was my story, anyway.
Ethan snorted, and when I put the balm on the counter, he whipped an arm around my waist and pulled me toward him. “Use your class and charm, Sentinel, which you have in spades. But don’t forget that you’ll be sleeping in my bed—and only my bed—come morning.”
He kissed me again, mooting application of said lip balm.
***
Nessa’s guesthouse had become a den of wolves. Quite literally.
Gabriel hadn’t traveled lightly to Colorado. There were at least a dozen brawny NAC shifters milling around the living room, stretched out before the fire in leather jackets and boots. Some of them had dewy beers in their hands; others held playing cards. I guessed their chromed bikes were probably parked in a tidy row outside, or at least the ones who’d been in driving distance.
And what, I silently asked Ethan, would Nessa think about this?
I suspect it’s better she doesn’t know.
I waved at them, followed Ethan to the kitchen, found Gabriel Keene on a stool at the island, beer bottle in hand. He was tall and broad shouldered, as befit the alpha wolf, his hair, not unlike Rowan McKenzie’s, a mix of gold and brown. His eyes were golden, like very expensive whiskey. He wore jeans and a gray V-neck T-shirt, one boot propped on the rung of the stool beside him.
I didn’t see his usual companions, his wife, Tanya, and young son, Connor. But he had brought a friend. The Pack’s enforcer, Damien Garza, stood in front of the stove, deftly flipping a small sauté pan, the smell of meat wafting deliciously into the air. Damien was tall and lean, with tan skin and dark, deep-set eyes that seemed to take in everything. He wore his black hair to his shoulders, his face unshaven, which added a dangerous appeal to his immaculately carved cheekbones and generous lips.
I loved Ethan, desired him above all other things, but Damien’s masculinity was powerful enough to have its own gravitational field.
Plus, not to belabor the point, bacon.
“Sullivan,” Gabriel said, nodding at Ethan.
“Keene,” Ethan said.
Gabe turned his gaze to me, his eyes narrowing on the bruise on my cheekbone that had softened to a pale yellow thanks to speedy vampire healing. “Kitten.” He’d taken to calling me that as a mock insult, and the name had stuck. “You’ve been hurt.”
“Just a flesh wound,” I promised him, thinking, of course, of Monty Python in a time of crisis. “I can barely feel it.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “Shifter or vampire?”
“Shifter. Although I goaded him into it.”
Gabe made a dubious sound. “This is quite a vacation you’ve planned for your Sentinel, Sullivan.”
Ethan pulled two bottles of blood from the fridge and popped the caps. “I had other things in mind. But once again, fate has intervened.”
“Fate’s a stone-cold bitch,” Gabriel said, moving his foot and patting the stool beside him with a wink. I wasn’t about to turn down that offer.
“I see you’ve made yourself at home,” Ethan said, handing me a bottle.
“If we’re here to help you, and by extension the Marchands, might as well take advantage of their hospitality.”
“Can I take advantage of some hospitality?” I asked, taking a drink of blood.
Damien turned, pushed a perfectly folded omelet onto a plate in front of Gabriel, then glanced at me. “You want ham or bacon in your omelet?”
It was the question of my dreams.
“Yes,” I said with a grin.
I can only hope you answer with the same conviction when I propose to you, Sentinel. Ethan had made his intentions abundantly clear, even if he hadn’t formally done the deed.
I reached out and patted his hand, smiled mysteriously. We won’t know until you stop fake-proposing and get to the point, will we?
I enjoyed his responsive growl, then turned back to watch Damien move diced ham from cutting board to pan with a dexterous scoop of his knife. He flipped and sautéed with such adeptness that I wondered if Berna—another shifter who worked in Little Red, the Pack’s official watering hole—had trained him, or vice versa.
“You’ve got impressive skills,” I said.
He smiled almost bashfully. “I like to cook.”
“I can see that. You should try out the Cadogan kitchens sometime. Margot”—she was the House chef—“has a pretty nice setup.”
“Maybe I will,” he said, but his focus was on the pan in front of him.
“So,” Gabriel said, drawing the conversation back. “You’ve stepped into the middle of a feud.”
“Evidently,” Ethan said. “You failed to mention it when I told you we were coming here.”
Gabriel took a drink, shook his head. “Shifters don’t send newsletters when they fight with vampires. The world would be littered with paper. I’m aware of the McKenzies, that trouble likes to find them. I’m now up to speed on the apparent feud. Where’s Nessa?”
“With the Marchands.”
“Is she trustworthy?”
“I think so,” Ethan said. “What did she have to gain from killing him? To further the feud? She could have simply avoided marrying him in the first place.”
Damien turned back, put a steaming plate of eggs, meat, and cheese in front of me. I plucked up a forkful, blew to cool it off. “It could be a long con,” I suggested. “She gets close to him, marries him, kills him. Completes the cycle of revenge for the theft and the jilting and everything that’s happened since.”
Gabriel nodded, crossed his arms. “Sullivan?”
“As plans go, it has a sense of vampire strategy.”
“Immortals love a long con?” I asked.
“Something like that. But it’s not especially efficient. And Taran wasn’t immortal.”
When the eggs were cool enough not to scour away my taste buds, I took a bite, savored the mix of flavors with closed eyes. “Well done, Damien.”
“Don’t get a big head, Garza,” Gabe said. “She says that to all the shifters.”
I opened my eyes, grinned at them. “I don’t—only the ones who cook for me.” I waved the empty fork at them. “What if this wasn’t revenge by the Marchands, but a sacrifice by the McKenzies? What if they killed Taran?”
Gabe frowned. “Why?”
I shrugged, stabbed a chunk of ham. “I don’t know. Maybe to put the heat on Nessa? Maybe they want to frame he
r. Anger makes people do really stupid things, and Rowan McKenzie looked plenty pissed yesterday.”
Gabriel’s gaze darkened. “Did he give you the bruise?”
“It was Niall. But I gave as good as I got. He shed blood. We’re even, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Your sense of fairness is noted and disregarded,” Gabriel flatly said. “Cadogan and the Pack are allies, and he’s Pack. That’s the only important thing.”
“Technically,” I said, “I drew First Blood.”
Gabriel snorted. “That’s vampire nonsense. You didn’t come all this way to take down a shifter. They threatened; you defended. That puts this squarely at their feet.”
“And are they obliged to recognize your authority?”
Damien and Gabriel froze, turned their gazes toward me, the sizzle of the pan suddenly the only sound in the house.
I cleared my throat nervously at my apparent breach of etiquette. “I didn’t mean they shouldn’t recognize it. I’m just not certain of your, you know, rules.”
Gabriel held up a hand, and the cloud of magic that had crept in at my perceived slight dissipated. “There are, as you know, four Packs in the United States. Colorado is within the NAC’s territory, and that makes the McKenzie family, whether they prefer to admit it or not, part of the Pack.”
“Fair enough. Are you planning to tell them that tonight?”
“I am. Those are words I prefer to say in person, which is partly why I’m here.” He glanced at Ethan. “And what will the vampires be doing this evening?”
“The sheriff asked Nessa to walk through the house, see if anything was missing.”
“In case this was just a robbery gone bad,” Gabriel suggested, as Damien offered Ethan an omelet.
Ethan nodded his thanks, bit in. “I wouldn’t have thought the sheriff that naive, but he rules a town that’s seen more than its fair share of violence. His skills are necessarily suspect.”
“I doubt a man stays in a hidden valley in Colorado in order to advance his career,” Gabriel quipped, sipping beer with a knowing smile. “I’m sure your getting a look at the Clan’s HQ is also on your wishlist?”
“We’ve gotten the basic details,” Ethan said. “Only fifteen members, but Clans are still to be registered with the NAVR, and this one isn’t. I wouldn’t mind giving it a perusal.”
Gabriel snorted. “I’m guessing these fangbearers don’t give two shits about your rules or regulations. If they’ve made a family that’s lasted a century without involvement of the NAVR, they most certainly aren’t going to start now.”
“Be that as it may,” Ethan said. “My job is to manage risks for my House, and manage I shall.” He took another bite, glanced at me. “Wasn’t the Librarian going to send you a file?”
The seductive scent of bacon had distracted me. I pulled out my phone, skimmed through messages from Luc, my best friend (and sorceress) Mallory, and my grandfather, all of them wishing us a good vacation with varying degrees of sarcasm. And the report from the Librarian.
I opened it . . . and whistled. He’d sent a timeline of the feud, a two-page bulleted list of strikes and counterstrikes, with designations for whether the incidents had been suspected, documented, or proven in court.
“What’s the good word, Kitten?”
“There are a lot of incidents,” I said. I read through the list, then passed the phone to Ethan and Gabriel so they could get a sense of the feud’s scope and the creativity of the groups’ reactions.
Humans weren’t the only beings who could come up with inventive ways to torture each other. The blood-across-the-door threat was common, as were thefts of objects deemed important to each group. Not to mention the flat-out murder and assault. So many deaths, so much waste, and all because of a woman who might not have done anything wrong in the first place.
And that’s the part I kept tripping over. “Are they making this too complicated?”
“What’s that?” Gabriel asked.
“I guess the feud—all of it. They started fighting because someone decided Fiona’s disappearance was part of a scheme, murder by the vampires or theft by the shifters.” I glanced at Ethan. “We’re always talking about Occam’s razor, right? About how the simplest explanation is usually the right one. A scheme doesn’t exactly fit that.”
“So what does?” Damien asked, hands braced on the countertop.
I frowned. “I don’t know. Christophe reportedly woke at dusk, and Fiona was gone. But she was a shifter. She could leave during the day. So what’s the simplest explanation? She went out, meant to come back, but didn’t for some reason. Got lost, got injured, got killed.”
“They’ve had a century to think that through,” Ethan said. “Surely they’d have looked everywhere—overturned every stone—to find her.”
“Or would they?” Damien asked. “If they already hated each other, why bother proving the entire situation was an accident? Why not let it lie and use the lie against them?”
“There’s also the possibility the present murder isn’t feud related,” Gabriel said, and I nodded.
“Taran studied cartography, exploration,” I said. “Maybe he found something no one wanted publicized.”
Gabriel glanced at Ethan over my head. “She’s coming along nicely.”
“All according to plan,” Ethan said, wincing good-naturedly when I slugged him in the arm, since slugging Gabriel didn’t seem the best option.
Gabriel took a final drink of his beer, sat it on the countertop. “In that case, we should probably get to our respective trips. I’d like Damien to go with you.”
“Now who wants a look at the Clan?” Ethan asked.
“Oh, I don’t deny it,” Gabe said, spinning the empty bottle on the countertop. “But my primary concern is the McKenzie family. They’ve shown very little respect for your House or mine. I’m going to assume, until proven otherwise, that they’re stubborn idiots, and take care of you as necessary.”
“In that case, we appreciate the offer.”
“Do we have to ride in that orange disaster?” Damien asked.
“I call it the Orangesplosion,” I told him.
His lip curled with distaste.
“It’s a good vehicle,” Gabriel said. “And now it’s got four inflated tires.”
I gave him a wide grin. “You’re really handy in vampire cult and ancient feud tire emergencies.”
“It’s a narrow field,” Gabriel said, rising from his stool and towering over me. “But an important one. And watch the flirting. Ethan’s right there.”
“No worries,” Ethan said, without a hint of irony. “I’ve ruined her for other men.”
Given the fire in his eyes, I had no plans to test that theory.
***
Ethan took the wheel of Orangesplosion, and I took the passenger seat. Damien folded his long frame into the backseat.
“How’s Boo?” I asked, when we climbed into the car.
Boo Garza was Damien’s pet, a kitten he’d saved during a previous magical misadventure.
“He’s good,” Damien said, grabbing the vehicle’s grip handle as we bumped from driveway to road, and bracing his other hand against the ceiling to keep his head from smashing against it. “Smart. Opinionated. Cute as hell.”
“And how’s Emma?”
Emma was Tanya Keene’s younger sister, a lovely brunette who obviously had eyes for Damien. I didn’t know either Damien or Emma very well, but the few moments I’d seen them together hinted at something sweet and growing between them.
Really, Sentinel? Ethan asked, his grin mismatched against intense eyes focused on keeping Orangesplosion on the road in the pitch-black night. Is this the most appropriate venue to quiz the man on his relationship?
You just told a house full of shifters that you’d ‘ruined me for other men.’ The bar’s pretty l
ow. Also, I was nosey.
“She’s got a boyfriend,” Damien said. “He keeps her pretty busy.”
I was glad he was in the backseat and couldn’t see my reaction to that answer. I’d seen Emma’s eyes when she watched Damien. There was more than casual interest there. Lust would have been understandable, but it wasn’t just that. There was respect. Awe. Appreciation. Love, maybe, or at least the beginnings of it, and I’d seen reciprocal emotions in Damien’s eyes. I couldn’t imagine she’d have taken on anyone else.
“Huh,” was all I could think to say. “And will I get in trouble if I say she’s being dumb?”
A corner of his mouth lifted, but only slightly, and he kept his gaze on the road through the side window. “Probably.”
“Can I sit her down and give her a talking-to?”
His smile widened, with something a little bit bashful at the edges. “No.”
I humphed but turned back to the front again. “All right. But you decide you’re ready for that heart-to-heart, and I’m all over it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
***
Orangesplosion may have had new tires, but that didn’t make the drive any smoother over the pitted gravel road. Fortunately, the Clan wasn’t far from Ravenswood. I bounced in the seat for ten minutes before we pulled onto a long, paved road that curved through a stand of pole-straight pine trees stretching into the dark sky. We emerged into a flat clearing empty of trees but littered with residual pine needles.
The clearing held an enormous building in two parts—a circular component, the outside covered in curved wooden planks, and a straight component made of stone that intersected the circle like a spear.
The wood and stone were heavy and dark, the few pops of color all oranges and ochres. It had a 1970s feel and a UFO vibe.
“Interesting architecture,” Ethan said, pulling the car to a stop. We climbed out, took a moment to look over the building, the surroundings.
“Thoughts?” Damien asked, hands on his hips as he surveyed the property with a careful eye.
“I don’t know much about them,” Ethan said, “so they’re hard to handicap. I suspect Vincent controls them, emotionally or otherwise. They’re vampires, so they’ll act accordingly.”