Entangled

by Olivia Stocum

  Vesper said something quietly to Nick, then crossed over to her brother. She kissed his cheeks in greeting, talked in Lithuanian to him. She loved her brother; it was all over her face. Alessandro took Kendra by the hand and wordlessly walked her outside. They crossed toward the jet together.

  “The last goodbye? This one is worse,” she said.

  “It’ll be over soon. Theron will come out for us.”

  He went on the plane with her, stowing away her new leather bag that had cost more than her monthly car payment. Former car payment, seeing as all her debts were now paid and her goods gifted to Greg and Stephanie. Giving up all her worldly possessions hadn’t bothered her as much as she would have thought. Her name now graced several hideously large bank accounts after all, so it seemed like the least she could do for them.

  Alessandro kissed her face, working his way toward her throat. She’d been worried he’d only touch her there when he needed her blood. His mouth pressed warm on her skin mere inches away from the scars. Her breath came hard; panting. The whole side of her neck was hyper-sensitive, sore and swollen from the stitches but alive with awareness where he touched her. Carefully, as if testing himself, he pressed his lips against them.

  Her knees gave way and he caught her expectantly. He trailed the backs of his fingers down her throat, over one breast, Kendra draped over him. With a sigh he helped her back to her feet, looking down at her.

  “And here I was worried,” she heaved, “you wouldn’t touch me anymore, except when you have to.”

  “I don’t think I can stop.”

  The emotion in his voice undid her. She wiped her eyes. “This got out of hand. I mean, it has been for me since the start, but for you too?”

  “Yes, for me as well.”

  She held onto him until Nick and Vesper came, both making rotten milk faces. Alessandro kissed her once more, quickly, and then left. Kendra watched through a window as he walked back across the tarmac alone.

  He and Lothar had rented a car, and planned to drive through the south of France, leading along whatever monsters Theron had for them. Packs throughout the countryside had been alerted and could be summoned at a moment’s notice by cellphone to back them up.

  She hoped it was enough. Because there could be hundreds of monsters out there.

  Kendra turned away from the window when she couldn’t see him anymore. Vesper sat next to her, making nice.

  “Is going to be all right,” she said. “They are both tough, and have needed smarts, ne? Hard team to beat.”

  Was Vesper actually complimenting Alessandro right along with her brother? “Yes, they both do,” Kendra said.

  She could sense Alessandro still. He was focused now on what was ahead. The copilot announced that it was time to buckle in. How long before she couldn’t feel him anymore? She would find out soon enough.

  ***

  After a two and half hour flight, Vesper trying too hard to be nice, and Nick brooding by himself on the other end of the plane, they made it all in one piece to Lithuania.

  Kendra couldn’t sense Alessandro. She kept trying but there was nothing, the signal—or whatever it was between them—just wasn’t coming in.

  Danielle met them at the front of the castle. She looked tired and anxious, her brown hair as wild as ever. She looked pregnant too, about four months in had she been a mortal woman.

  Kendra would’ve preferred to do this right with Danielle, maybe throw her a baby shower at the diner. Yeah, like that would ever happen. Neither of them had the luxury of an ordinary life.

  “Have you heard from them?” Danielle asked Kendra and Vesper both before they’d even had the chance to say hello.

  “Nothing,” Kendra said.

  Vesper shook her head. She tucked her hand in Nick’s as if seeking emotional support. He took the hint, climbing out of his black mood long enough to support his mate.

  Kendra followed them through a hall lined with the portraits of people from various time periods, all bearing a distinct resemblance to Vesper and Lothar. She looked away, reminding herself not to hang out in there anytime soon. They continued up a wide staircase lined with a Persian wool runner, Kendra more aware than ever that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Vesper and Nick left them to check on her children, and Kendra followed Danielle to her quarters next to Vesper and Nick’s.

  “Nice place,” she said, knowing nothing either of them said would seem right.

  She nodded. “Old.”

  An awkward moment passed. Danielle’s father, Jacob Smith, was there, busy at what Kendra assumed was usually Lothar’s desk. They waited out the silence from Lothar and Alessandro together, hardly speaking to each other past their initial introductions. Danielle mostly sat in a chair she’d pulled up by the desk, seeming unwilling to venture very far from Jacob.

  Her father heard from the packs as they updated him on their status. A report came in; Theron and his son Waylon had launched an attack against the local packs. The BMW Alessandro and Lothar had rented was found totaled on the side of the road. They’d abandoned it, and the wolves weren’t tracking them because Lothar had given them orders not to.

  Danielle wasn’t happy about that, but she seemed to understand the danger the wolves posed to Alessandro, and that Lothar wouldn’t have made that decision lightly.

  All that was left to do was wait.

  Kendra went to the window. It was still dark, the cloudy and pitch black kind. She heard a wolf howling in the forest surrounding the castle and rubbed her arms, promising herself she’d accept this too as a normal part of her life.

  Yeah, right.

  A few hours ago, when she’d walked into the stone chambers that were her friend’s home, her first thought had been to wonder at the lack of curtains in the living room. Idiotically, she’d forgotten that even though werewolves were nocturnal, the light didn’t harm them. She definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  Kendra turned her focus onto her reflection in the glass, to how perfectly surreal she looked. If Alessandro hadn’t been rich she could have gotten a job modeling. Kendra pushed her hair back. It would need to be cut soon. She figured she might as well learn to do it herself. It would be inconvenient finding a hair dresser all the time, especially when they had to keep moving.

  This was all assuming her husband came back alive. No, she shouldn’t even think about it. He’d be back, and once he was they’d go to Paris, explore the countryside by night. It would be beautiful that way, all the villages lit against the backdrop of a velvet sky. She would see Europe, and then the rest of the world, all by night. It was romantic, and she even had her prince to live out this fairytale life with.

  The door between quarters opened. Nick and Vesper came through, closing it softly behind them.

  “Twins are sleeping,” Vesper said. Her gaze swept past them, pausing on Jacob, who was frowning at his laptop. She already knew about the car wreck. Danielle had texted her as soon as it had come in.

  “Why don’t I put on some coffee,” she said companionably, going to the open kitchen. “Except for Danielle. She gets tea.”

  Vesper seemed like the kind of person who was good at that, at pressing on. Kendra used to be good at it too, until she’d overused that quality in herself by over-working through her grief over Jason. She sat in a brown leather recliner and tucked her knees to her chin. She was scared of many things, one of them was being made a widow twice in one year. People would start calling her the Black Widow. Being scared was perfectly understandable. But did that mean she had to act useless? Kendra stood suddenly, crossing past Nick, aware of his eyes on her. She didn’t bother covering her neck. They could go right ahead and see her scars.

  “Don’t you guys usually hunt at night?” she asked Vesper, who was scooping coffee beans into a grinder.

  “Taip.”

  “Then you all need to eat.” She smiled. “I used to run a diner. Best food in town.” She paused. “Got a hair tie?”

  Vesper pulled an elastic band off
her wrist. “I always have a few. With long hair, you have to.”

  Kendra pulled her hair back, dismissing Vesper’s look when her neck was fully exposed. She’d been the one who’d neatly stitched the wound closed. By now it was well on its way to healing, and that had probably shocked her.

  “I should take those stitches out for you after dinner,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, that’d be fine.” Kendra opened the fridge with a brave smile. “Let’s see what’s in here.”

  “I’ll help,” Vesper said. “Just let me know what you want me to do.”

  “Is there any flour in the cupboard?” Kendra grabbed some onions and garlic.

  “Should be. He is always cooking for her.”

  Kendra smiled, finding a knife. “Pregnant women...”

  “Especially werewolves.”

  “Hey,” Danielle said, joining them finally. “I heard that.”

  Kendra dismissed yet another look at her neck, this time from Danielle, who stared far longer than necessary. Danielle kept her opinions to herself fortunately.

  Danielle opened a drawer and took out another knife. “What can I cut?”

  “Potatoes. That is if perogies aren’t too cliché around here.”

  “No,” Danielle said. “You get used to them after a while. But not sauerkraut. I’ll never get used to that.”

  “I’ll make the dough,” Vesper said, getting out a tin of flour. “If you do not mind my using own recipe?”

  “Of course not,” Kendra said.

  She worked on the onions, her eyes immune to the stinging after years of chopping them. She and Jason had scrounged on his limited salary to put her through school. She’d minored in business with the hope of one day opening her diner. In college she’d even earned a scholarship for the Cordon Bleu, had spent a semester in Paris on it. Homesick, she’d gone back to Jason but her teachers hadn’t forgotten her. One of them had recently offered her a job as a traveling food critic. She remembered the letter sitting at home on her desk. It’d come in that same day the vampires had ransacked her home. She’d dismissed it at the time because she thought Greg still needed her. He didn’t.

  Maybe it was too late for her old life, but she could start a new one. The downside was the possibility of someone linking the disappearance of blood with her travels. Maybe she and Alessandro could work that out. She could still be the Kendra she’d always been. The sacrifices she and Jason had made wouldn’t have to go to waste.

  “Does it hurt,” Danielle asked quietly, disrupting her thoughts.

  “What?”

  She gestured to Kendra’s neck.

  Ah, that. “Not anymore. I wish it did.”

  “But why would you want it to?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe to keep him with me as long as possible. Guess that sounds sick.”

  “Ne,” Vesper added, glancing at Nick on the other side of the chamber. “Venom feels like burning through Carrier’s blood. Sometimes, it still hurts him.”

  Danielle was quiet. There was no solid argument for her to make. She’d marked Lothar three times, and he gladly wore all the scars like badges of honor.

  The smell of cooking food brought Nick and Jacob over. Nick got a couple chairs from Vesper’s quarters to put around the table. The twins came shuffling in their pajamas.

  It was like Christmas dinner, only two of their men were missing. No matter that one of them didn’t eat food. The party—family?—couldn’t be complete until they were all safe and sound.

  Jacob set his tablet to alert before he sat down at the table, but it never went off.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lothar sent Darling and Jacob the same text.

  Alessandro and I are on the road. I’m sending you our route.

  I’ll pass it along to the packs, from Jacob.

  Be careful, I love you, Danielle.

  Alessandro was driving the rented BMW. The night was black, moon and stars covered by clouds. Alessandro’s stench was going to take some getting used to, especially in the closed confines of the car. Lothar cracked open the window. His mouth was filling with venom. The instinct to kill the vampire was that strong.

  “Davide tells me it gets better with time,” Alessandro said, glancing at Lothar.

  “It will. I am not used to...” Was there any right way to say it?

  “Not killing anything that smells like I do?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would mask it, but we want Theron to know I’m with you.”

  “I know.”

  They drove in silence for a time. “How fares Lady Wolf?”

  Lothar felt his lips twitch. Were they going to get domestic now? He shrugged it off. Might as well. What else did they have in common, outside of Theron?

  “Angry that she has been left behind.”

  Alessandro nodded. “Kendra and I are too aware of her mortality. It isn’t easy.”

  Lothar took a moment to process that. “Not to turn her?”

  “I’ve no wish to curse her like that, but her vulnerability in our world is a disadvantage.”

  “Darling is not happy with you for marrying her friend.”

  “Let me guess, Nick has given her his two cents?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you not kill him? I have been sorely tempted myself.”

  Lothar smiled. “My sister is why. He is good for her. Perhaps not much for rest of us.”

  “Thorn in my side. He upsets Kendra, and I don’t like that.”

  “Is Darling’s Carrier. Like it or not, if I hurt him, it will hurt her. I have no choice but to keep his hide attached to body.”

  Something to the side of the road caught Alessandro’s attention. “Wolves,” he said.

  The local pack was chasing down shadows in the dark. Slave vampires.

  Do they pull over? Was this a just a staged distraction?

  “Lothar?” Alessandro said, waiting for him to make the call.

  “Pull over.”

  No sooner had he said it than two humanoids appeared in the stream of their headlights in front of them, standing in the middle of the lane. There wasn’t enough time even to hit the brakes. The vampires put their hands out in unison, the BMW hitting them like a stone wall. They deflected the car up and over their heads. It caught air for a moment.

  Lothar in human form was easier to kill. He opened the door and jumped out, shapeshifting before he hit the pavement on four paws.

  He turned, watching the BMW land roof first on the other side of the road, skidding, sparking all the way before it came to a metal grinding halt against a tree. The vampires walked calmly away as if they’d accomplished everything they’d come for and were ready to call it a night. He smelled Theron, recognized him, his hair worn in the same blonde tail as the last time he’d seen him. All that was different was his clothing, chosen to blend in with modern styles. The second vampire was Waylon.

  Darling’s ex-boyfriend.

  Lothar would need to kill him or risk too many loose ends. Darling didn’t need to know that Waylon had spent the better part of the last two decades as a serial killer. Didn’t need to know how Lothar had slipped up, striking a deal to save his own life over that of a mortal boy’s, fifteen years ago.

  The local pack was growling and fighting off Slaves, herding them into the forest and away from the road. Lothar glanced back at the car, detecting no movement from Alessandro. He left Theron and Waylon, running to the BMW. He slid to a stop in the snow on four paws, barked once, twice at the bent metal and broken glass.

  Metal creaked and groaned, remaining glass crumbling into diamond chunks in the beam of the headlights, still on. The door flew free, Lothar jumping out of the way. Alessandro emerged, shaking tempered glass particles off his coat.

  His chin lifted as he smelled his son and grandson.

  ***

  Theron led them on a chase through the countryside. He left no scent behind but they were able to trace him through Waylon’s. Alessandro’s phone had b
een smashed and Lothar’s lost when he’d shifted. Lothar hadn’t alerted the pack by howling. Alessandro was a vampire, and the wolves battle-thirsty.

  Alessandro sensed that it was only an hour before sunrise. Soon he would be useless. So would Theron and Waylon. If Lothar could scent them out in their sleep then he was welcome to hunt them on his own. Alessandro would rather do it himself, but at his age, he’d learned that things like revenge and honor weren’t as important as coming home.

  A twig crunched behind him. Alessandro stopped, turning even as Lothar growled. A skinny blond Slave in jeans, turned recently by Theron or Waylon, came at them.

  Alessandro caught him easily, tossed him at Lothar’s feet. Lothar’s jaw closed over the boy’s neck and shoulder, fangs sinking, drawing blood that oozed onto the ground. Wolves were messy. They bit like young, mindless Slaves.

  Lothar dropped the body, still thrashing. Another casualty, but it had been too late for the boy anyway. Lothar turned lithely to face Alessandro, baring his teeth. He still wanted to kill Alessandro. He couldn’t seem to help himself.

  He fell back with a whine, and they ran on.

  Their hour was waning. Alessandro could sense the approaching sunrise, was fighting the instinct to find a place to hide from it. They came upon an abandoned farm, barn sagging, the old stone house roofless. There was a well with a rotting bucket in the front yard. The property reeked of so many mixed scents that it was hard for them to distinguish one from another.

  Lothar circled, snorting in frustration. He looked at the barn as if suggesting they check inside. Alessandro nodded, following. Lothar had to go around to where there was a gap wide enough for him to fit through. Alessandro used a door sagging on rusted hinges. He made a sweep of the barn, running past Lothar, who lifted his head to growl as Alessandro sped past. He smelled the Slaves that had been there not long ago.

  Lothar snarled. Alessandro turned in his direction. His hackles were raised as he backed away from the door. Alessandro’s view was obscured by a fallen beam. He caught a new scent. Werewolf, and judging by Lothar’s reaction, not a friend.