by Kelly Meding
“Are any of the other couples still working in different cities also barren?” Chandra asked.
Gideon hedged a bit. “One other is, but the rest are not. Because we cannot lose the income, we did send guards to watch their homes and businesses as a precaution.”
Smart move. Without knowing why these couples were being targeted specifically, that unnamed barren pair could be in danger.
“So only three of the missing couples lived away from Pack lands,” I said so we were all on the same page.
“Which means eight werewolves were somehow taken from here without anyone knowing about it,” Jaxon added, his voice taking on a slightly stronger twang as he laid out a subtle implication that their security was lacking.
Wait, how do I know his voice does that?
Gideon gave us both a bland look. “We have over a million acres of land to patrol, and only eighty-one Dominant wolves capable of watching our borders. With only one main road in and out of our settlement, it’s difficult to know how they were taken and from which point.”
“You didn’t scent anyone other than your own?” Chandra asked.
“No, and that’s all in those files. We didn’t discover that the Andersons, Barrows, or Porters were missing until almost a week after the fact, when our communication with them ceased, so any lingering scents were gone there, too. No signs of a struggle in any of the homes.”
“Nothing to suggest they left willingly?” Novak asked. He usually left this kind of stuff to us, but he was watching Gideon with open suspicion now.
“It’s difficult to know. A lot of clothing was left behind, food as well. We found suitcases in each residence, so if they left willingly, they didn’t take much. And where on earth would they go?”
Exactly what we wanted to know.
I scanned the Porter file, but nothing in it stood out.
“We don’t know where,” Chandra said, “but based on the fact that six of the seven couples missing were all barren does suggest a why: someone is experimenting on werewolf procreation.”
“Which leads to an even bigger why,” I added. “And also a big blessed who. Can we visit the homes of the four couples who lived here?”
“Yes,” Gideon replied. “Would you like to go now?”
“Can we take these files with us?”
“No.”
Bless it. “Okay, then give us some time to read them before we go.”
Gideon nodded.
We pored through the seven slim files, but I didn’t see anything terribly useful. They could have been forced out of their homes as easily as they left willingly, but there was no clear sign of which.
“Did you do any fingerprinting?” I asked.
“We do not use that type of technology here, no,” Gideon replied.
“Will we be allowed to?”
The expression he leveled at me reminded me of when a dog’s ears go flat. “I will inquire with Rosalind about your request. Excuse me, please.”
He left us alone in the room, which was kind of ballsy, considering the dozens of filing cabinets containing decades of Pack information. All at our fingertips. But he was trusting us, so I kept my curiosity in check.
“There isn’t much in these files,” Jaxon said after a few minutes of silent reading. “Then again, these guys aren’t trained investigators. At least, not in the sense of a thorough investigation. I mean, fingerprinting? Who doesn’t do that?”
“Pack animals who rely more on scent than human technology,” Chandra replied. “Remember, born wolves rely more on their inner beasts than their human minds.”
“Except wolves like the Andersons who are allowed to be educated on human technology for the benefit of the Pack?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, hey, that reminds me,” I said. “When we get to our motel tonight and find some workable Wi-Fi, I need to get online and track down a forced wolf I used to know. He keeps his ear to the Para underground, specifically with werewolves, so he could be a useful resource.”
“You haven’t contacted him yet?”
“I’ve been a little busy, and he’s off the grid, so finding him isn’t as easy as Google.”
“Understood. I don’t suppose he has any female companions I could find?”
“None I’m aware of.”
Jaxon’s face went slack, a sure sign he knew something but wasn’t sure he should say it, and godsdamnit, instinctively knowing these things about the guy without understanding why was going to give me a migraine.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“Look, we talked a little that day after the freak house bust,” Jaxon said. “He let it slip that he has a daughter.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, she was a kid then, so she’d be early teens by now, I guess.”
“If she’s achieved her first cycle of the moon, I can find her,” Chandra said.
Jaxon blinked dumbly at her.
“Her first period,” I said.
“Oh.” His cheeks pinked in an adorable way. “Uh, okay.”
“The middle of the Homme Alpha’s house might not be the best time for a mental phone call, though, so maybe we can reach out later?”
Chandra nodded.
Gideon returned with a shocking yes from Rosalind for taking fingerprints, and with nothing left to see or do here, he led us outside. “I’ll lead you to the Chandler home first,” he said. “They’re closest. You can follow my truck.”
We got back in the Jeep, Chandra behind the wheel. Novak and I were in the back, and I reached into the rear compartment to dig out a fingerprint kit. Gideon led us back down the main road toward the little town, and then onto a narrow road that split rows of various kinds of homes. Some were single-wide trailers that had seen better days, others were simple log cabins, and a few looked like pre-fab homes, probably added over the years as the Pack grew.
He stopped in the yard of a log cabin, so Chandra pulled up behind him. The yard was a little messy, but hey, no one had been home to tend it for a while. Gideon walked right in like he owned the place.
“Don’t you guys use keys?” I asked as I followed him.
“No need,” Gideon replied. “Theft is one of gravest crimes and receives swift punishment. The Pack must work together to survive, so we share freely and know better than to disrespect another.”
Too bad humans can’t be as well behaved as Pack wolves.
“How are they punished?” Jaxon asked.
“For a first offense, they lose their tail, which places them at the bottom as a disgraced wolf.” Gideon glanced around the small interior as if bored. “As a disgraced wolf, they no longer run with the Pack during the full moon. If they offend again, they are put down.”
“Sorry I asked.”
Iblis—I was sorry he asked, too.
“As I said, we must work as a Pack to ensure our survival. Mankind won’t do it for us, and honestly, you could learn from our laws.”
I snorted. “Dude, in some places on Earth, countries cut the hand off a thief for a first offense, and it still doesn’t deter crime. Desperate people will do desperate things, no matter the consequences.”
“Perhaps if your people did more to help each other, they would be less desperate.”
“Mister, I am right there with you, and unfortunately, we aren’t here to confab about ways to save the world from hunger. Can we look around?”
“Of course.”
I handed the fingerprint kit off to Jaxon—trusting he knew how to use it—so I could poke around. Chandra and I were both sensitive to certain kinds of magic, so we moved through the cabin. Novak, too, because he could sense if demons had been in an area within a certain time frame—not that we had any indication that something demonic was at work here.
The downstairs was a big open space with a kitchen, living room, and eating area. The bedrooms were near the back, one with the standard furniture, and other an office of some kind.
No kids.
No ov
ert sense that anything magical had happened here from me or Chandra. The bedroom had clothes, the bed was neatly made. Food was rotting in the fridge like whoever had left had intended to come back one day—or had been forced out with nothing. No real signs of a struggle anywhere in the place. The Chandlers had simply . . . vanished.
Which, knowing what I know about magic, teleportation, and other stuff, was entirely possible. Oh, hey!
“What about teleportation?” I said to the group at large, who’d reassembled in the living room, where Jaxon was painstakingly trying to lift prints. “I mean, Novak popped me and Jaxon across the country, so couldn’t someone have potentially teleported the werewolves to another location?”
“It’s definitely possible,” Novak replied. “How it’s done depends on who’s doing the teleporting. For an incubus, I rely on my target being aroused, whereas a djinn can pop wherever he or she chooses.”
“But djinn can’t teleport someone else unless it’s part of a wish.” The air around me shifted in an odd way, as if invisible waves of magic had rippled outward from a disturbance. I caught Novak’s deep frown; he’d sensed it, too.
“So who else can teleport?” Gideon asked, seemingly quite interested in our magical conversation. Werewolves knew of the existence of fae, demons, and other creatures, but he probably didn’t get off Pack land often enough to experience it. Who else indeed—
Good evening, Shiloh, Tennyson’s voice boomed in my head. Miss me?
“What the ever-loving heaven?” I turned around and my mouth fell open, stunned stupid to see Woodrow Tennyson, vampire Master, standing in the cabin’s open doorway.
Chapter 5
The first time Tennyson spoke directly into my head, I thought my brain was going to explode. Or simply liquefy and leak out my ears. Once we got our telepathic mojo going, though, it was less brain-explodey, but it was always uncomfortable.
Until today. He’d spoken in my head at a pretty normal voice level, and the instant our eyes met, something deep inside me quivered, as if sensing the connection we’d made by him sharing his blood. It also made my mouth water for a nice, bloody steak, and that was bad.
Yet probably not as bad as him suddenly showing up on Pack land.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Before Tennyson could respond, Gideon inserted himself between him and us—not that Tennyson could enter a private residence without permission from someone non-vampiric. “Does Alpha Kennedy know you’re here, vampire?”
“He does not,” Tennyson replied. Outside my head, his voice had a deeper pedigree and the inflections of someone from high-society Europe—and it occurred to me I’d never asked Tennyson where he originally came from. He was five hundred plus-years old and obviously not Native American, so unless he came over on the Nina, Pinta, or Santa Maria . . . .
And where on earth could he have come from to have hair like that? It flowed down to his mid-back in thick layers of ethereal colors—every imaginable shade of brown, black, red, copper, gold, blond, silver, and white separating the individual strands. Maybe that’s what happened to the hair of really, really old vampires? But paired with his pale skin and sharp jawline, he was both incredibly handsome and an obvious predator, even when he wasn’t baring his fangs or changing his eye color with his emotions.
“My business is with the Para-Marshals, not your Alpha,” Tennyson continued.
“Announcing yourself to the Alpha is a sign of respect,” Gideon replied, the first edge of a growl in his voice.
“Respect goes both ways, wolf. I seem to recall your Alpha ordering me off his lands and to keep my ridiculous conspiracy theories to myself, and yet now I find you are employing Para-Marshals in your efforts to locate your missing Pack members.”
“We haven’t employed anyone. They came to my Alpha and asked permission to carry out an independent investigation. Our missing are still considered an internal matter.”
“Hmm.” Tennyson looked right over Gideon’s head. “Shiloh, you look well. I am pleased to see this for myself.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “Uh, you too.” Suddenly the pulse point on the side of Jaxon’s neck looked way too interesting. “You came all the way to California to find us? You couldn’t have called first?” Wait a minute. “How did you find us?”
“You and I are connected, remember? I can sense you if I reach out far enough.”
“Oh.”
“That is really creepy,” Jaxon said under his breath. Novak grunted his agreement.
Tennyson’s lips twitched. “Skin-walker. How are your wounds?”
Holy crap, he’s asking how Jaxon is?
I didn’t remember any of Jaxon and Tennyson’s previous interactions, but I was smart enough to know they’d been strained. Maybe because of me? Tennyson and I had spent a lot of time alone together this past week, and if Jaxon and I had been together once, maybe he was jealous? No, that didn’t fit my impression of Jaxon as a person.
Overprotective?
Jaxon took off his baseball cap to reveal closely shorn hair. “Healing, thanks.”
“I am glad,” Tennyson replied. “You fought bravely that night, and you are important to Shiloh.”
“Uh-huh.”
Yeah, definitely overprotective.
“Vampire,” Gideon said, clearly not enjoying this casual banter. “If my Alpha ordered you off our lands, then you have no business here. Leave.”
“No,” Tennyson said without looking at Gideon.
“Okay, let me handle this,” I said. I inserted myself between the posturing vampire and werewolf. “Tennyson? Outside.”
His mouth twitched as he bowed slightly and left the cabin’s small porch. I followed him onto the porch and shut the door, and this close to Tennyson, his power crackle-popped across my skin. I licked my lips, remembering the addictive taste of his blood, and positive this was a bad idea. But despite the fact that vampires and djinn are mortal enemies—even though myth tells us we’re cousins—I considered Tennyson a friend. And he’d sought me out for a reason.
“I told you on the phone that I’m fine,” I said. “Why are you really here?”
Tennyson tilted his head at me. He wore a thick cloak to protect himself from direct sunlight, the hood now down in the shade of the porch’s roof. “Three days ago, you were near death, and now you’re here, searching for missing werewolves, instead of spending time repairing your broken relationship with a man you say you care about.”
For a split second, I thought he mean Jaxon, who was right here with me, until I remembered Vincent. “I tried calling Vincent but so far he’s ignoring me. And it’s hard to ignore a moon witch when she gets into your head and asks for help,” I replied. Off his curious frown, I gave him a condensed version of why we were here.
“You have found no sign that these mated pairs were taken by force?” Tennyson asked.
“Not yet, but we haven’t been investigating for long. So far, there’s no evidence, no leads, nothing in this house that helps us. It’s like they vanished into thin air.”
“Such a fate is possible, but unlikely, considering thirteen of the fourteen pairs taken from both California and Florida were barren.”
“Spoiler alert. The fourteenth pair only had children because Chandra intervened with magic.”
“Interesting. The witch admitted this?”
“Yup. Also spoiler alert. All three of those kids are dead.”
Tennyson narrowed his eyes. “Alpha Kennedy or his Second likely had those children killed.”
My entire body jerked at how bluntly he’d stated something we had only suspected. “That’s a bold accusation.”
“Pack werewolves are extremely suspicious of modern medicine, preferring the old ways when one falls ill. They’d see infertility as a punishment from their goddess Danu, not as something to be overcome. If the Alpha became aware of this witch helping a mated pair conceive, he’d see it as a bad omen and fear retaliation from Danu. The only way to regain bala
nce would be to eliminate the unnatural children.”
“Yeah, but assuming Danu is real, is any goddess genuinely appeased by the murder of children?”
He gave me a droll look. “You’d be shocked.”
No doubt.
“I don’t suppose you have a personal relationship with Danu like you did with Brighid?” I asked.
“Even if I did, young djinn, what would motivate me to assist you in this endeavor? With Brighid, my own children’s lives were at stake.”
“No pun intended.”
He quirked a slim eyebrow. “My point is, what do I have to gain by arranging an audience with Danu?”
“Wait a minute.” I studied his blank face, unable to tell if he was leading me on or not. But Tennyson had been completely genuine in all our previous interactions, so I had no reason to doubt he wasn’t sincere with his question. “Are you telling me Danu is real and you know her?”
“I’m merely asking a question.”
“So am I. Tennyson, please.” I reached for his arm, then pulled back, uncertain if physical contact was okay. Just because I’d drunk his blood more than once didn’t give me the right to get handsy with a Master. “You may not like werewolves as a general rule, but twenty-eight lives are at stake, and it’s possible three innocent children were murdered. And you didn’t just come out here to check up on me. Can you help?”
Tennyson watched me with eyes that sparkled with flecks of green. The air around us charged with a warm, sweet scent I’d begun to associate with him being curious about something. And the weirdness of the fact that I could scent his emotions was still bizarre, but nothing about my life could be considered normal.
Other than maybe the desire to fix things with my boyfriend, but how do you reconcile getting kidnapped by a necromancer intent on controlling an entire line of vampires? Especially when you won’t freaking call your girlfriend back?
Yeah.
“Vampires are not altruistic by nature,” Tennyson finally said. “We are, in fact, quite selfish. As a Master of some age, I have acquired a wealth of knowledge over the past five centuries, and I cannot merely parcel it out to anyone who asks.”