by Beth Alvarez
NINE
* * *
BELLS JINGLED ON the front door, reminding Kade of the Hilltop House. They’d taken the bells off the front door after he’d returned from Nashville, when the bed-and-breakfast officially changed its hours. Though Felicity and her father both spoke fondly of the idea of reopening for peak seasons, Kade didn’t think it would last. As soon as they had children, they wouldn’t want strangers in their home.
“Be right with you,” Gertie called from somewhere behind a maze of antiques.
Kade crept toward her voice, away from the big plate glass windows that let in the morning light. Then he tipped up his hat, studying all the oddities in the shop.
There were no mirrors that he could see. A small blessing and one less thing to worry about. He turned toward the sound of unsteady footsteps, managing a polite smile when Gertie came around the corner and froze in surprise.
“Ma’am.” He took off his hat and pressed it to his chest.
“Is that Kade Colton? In my little shop?” She pretended to rub her eyes, blinking at him. “You’ve never so much as set foot in here before. Is everything all right?”
“It is. I apologize if I’m interruptin’, I’m sure you’re busy. I just had a question. I was told you were the best person in town to ask.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed until she practically leered at him. “What kind of question?”
He ran his fingers along his hat’s brim, turning it in his hands. “Flowers.”
She frowned. “For the wedding?”
“No, for the garden. I’m lookin’ for somethin’ in particular. Tryin’ to get somethin’ special set up.”
Gertie made a small sound in her throat, picking up a few knick-knacks and rearranging them on a shelf. “What are you looking for?”
“Monkshood.”
Her head turned ever so slowly and she cast him a shadowed look from the corner of her eye. “Monkshood,” she repeated in a murmur. “Aconite is rare in the United States, these days.”
He licked his lips, shifting on his feet. “Does that mean I can’t get it?”
“Not easily. Not in Texas.” Gertie pursed her lips. “It’s an endangered flower. Have you considered something similar?”
“No, ma’am. Have to admit I’m not that familiar with flowers.”
“You could use a delphinium. They do well here.”
Kade hesitated. “A what?”
“Larkspur. It’s a relative of aconite. They’re both poisonous, but I’m sure you know that. You ride with the cattle.” She picked up another handful of oddities, moving them to a different shelf to display.
And he’d just pulled it all up and thrown it over a fence. The corner of his eye twitched. “Interesting.” He’d be scavenging the wilted plants as soon as he got back to the ranch.
“I mean, for a garden, it should suit the same purposes.” Gertie shrugged, then gave him another sidewise glance. “Assuming, of course, that’s what you want it for.”
The tone of her voice put him on edge. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They’re both blue. Did you mean to use them for Felicity’s bouquet?”
Kade closed his eyes, exhaling in relief before stifling a laugh. “I didn’t, actually, but that’s not a half bad idea.”
Gertie chuckled. “It’s a romantic choice, too. In the language of flowers, delphinium represents new opportunity and experiences. It’s also the birth flower for July. Which means it’s your flower, and would represent you.”
He shook his head in amazement. “Is there any folklore you don’t know?”
“Unlikely. But let me know if you decide to dig up some larkspur and put it in your garden. If your heart really is set on monkshood, I’ll see what I can do.” She smirked, and the shadow in her eyes was replaced with a bright glimmer. “After all, I am the best person to speak to about flowers.”
Kade nodded, putting his hat back on. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Miss Gertie.”
“Of course. Oh, and Kade?”
He paused, halfway to the door.
“In the future, don’t think you need to be sneaky. It’s better just to ask outright when you need something. Even if it’s just information.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He touched the brim of his hat, then slid back out into daylight before she could see him frown. Truth be told, he needed more information, but he wasn’t going to ask that question right on the heels of asking about wolfsbane.
In a place like Holly Hill, there had to be someone who prepared their own ammunition.
But how did one ask for silver bullets?
* * *
It had been a long time since Kade hunted a lycanthrope. Three years, if he remembered right; they weren’t contracts he’d been able to nab often. They were typically reserved for the best hunters. While he was among them, he did have competition.
He crouched beside a small campfire in the field, the cattle sleeping a safe distance away. His horse, Dex, was picketed nearby. Kade didn’t usually tie him out, preferring to spend the night in the saddle just in case he needed to move the herd. Knowing what was out there in the dark, he couldn’t help feeling a little on edge.
If Marshall McCullough—or any of the other cowboys, for that matter—had seen what he was doing, Kade suspected he’d be strung up by his toes. Bad enough to spend the whole evening scouting the pasture for larkspur to gather, rather than destroying it. Worse to sit in the middle of the pasture and slowly boil the stuff down, right in front of the cattle.
He stirred the thick, syrupy toxins in the tin can, holding his breath all the while. As a vampire, he was immune to most any poison, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the smell.
“Sure hope Miss Gertie’s right about this,” he muttered. He’d been at it all night, but the concoction looked thick enough now. Plucking the can from the fire, he sat it aside and waited for it to cool. Then, one by one, he dipped the tips of bullets in the sludge and lined up the cartridges on an old bandana to dry.
Silver would have been preferable. Wolfsbane would have been preferable, too, but maybe the larkspur would be similar enough. If nothing else, at least it was toxic. Werewolves were resistant to disease, but they weren’t like him. Poisons still killed them, so long as they were concentrated enough. If a whole can packed full of larkspur and boiled down to a few teaspoons of slime wasn’t potent enough, he didn’t know what was.
After the bullets dried, he loaded them into magazines and wrapped them in cloth. Then he kicked dirt over the fire to smother it, stamping out the embers before packing up his things. The larkspur paste, he scraped into a small jar he’d stolen from the bakery. Once he’d salvaged every drop he could, he stuffed the tattered and stained old bandana into the can he’d used for rendering it and put that with his things, too.
Dex turned his head, whuffing softly as Kade piled things into the saddlebags.
He peeled off his gloves and put them away, just in case of contamination, and rubbed the big bay’s nose. “You ain’t scared of lycans, are you?”
It was a silly question. Not because the horse couldn’t answer, but because everyone in their right mind was afraid of them. Even Kade feared them; there were few things that could tear a man apart so fast. And not just men. Vampires who were trained to hunt them down, too.
He’d been lucky. He’d been taught to fight werewolves by some of the best resources a hunter could hope to find. Even so, with everything in him, he hoped the thing hadn’t gone feral. It was about more than just the hunt. More than the risk.
If there was a feral werewolf in Holly Hill, everyone he’d allowed into his hardened, walled-up heart was at risk. For a lot of them, death was the kinder outcome; lycanthropy was a curse that spread like disease. All it took was one bite.
Kade replaced Dex’s halter with his bridle and climbed into the saddle to ride out the night.
An experienced werewolf could take its beast form at will, but experience didn�
�t spare them from the forced change brought by the full moon.
“Tomorrow night,” Kade murmured, patting his gelding’s neck more for his own comfort than anything. The moon would rise and the wolf would be out scouting its territory. From what he’d seen, the wolf’s territory was limited.
Kade had starved himself of sleep, scouring the range for tracks through the afternoon and evening. He’d found plenty of them, along with evidence of older kills that hadn’t been found by the other cowboys. Both tracks and kills were in isolated parts of the pasture, thickets and crannies where the cattle didn’t wander often. Nowhere else. None outside the fence line.
Planned. Deliberate. And showing a familiarity with the ranch that left Kade cold inside.
If the beast wasn’t feral, chances were it was someone he knew. And though the McCullough ranch was a popular destination at Christmastime, there were only a few people who visited with regularity through the rest of the year. He’d run through the list in his head a dozen times and found himself cycling through it once more.
Anyone in Holly Hill fit, but some more than others.
A cowboy, for example. One who knew the ranch intimately, who had reason to learn all the hiding places the range had to offer. Someone who wasn’t so concerned about the safety of the herd during the full moon.
Oddly enough, he knew someone who fit the bill quite well.
The last time Kade had seen him was in Drake du Coudray’s mansion, minutes before they’d descended into the basement compound to kill du Coudray and his chupacabra pet.
Kade shook his head as if to dislodge the unpleasant memory.
If it was Grant, Kade should have heard about his return before now. As far as he knew, the Greenwood family had never heard another peep.
Which left the other cowboys and Marshall McCullough himself. Five men Kade knew and respected. Men he called friends. Who, under the full moon, he might have to kill.
His hands tightened on the reins and Dex stamped in uneasy anticipation.
Just a few more hours to prepare, then the hunt began.
TEN
* * *
“GOT A FAVOR to ask,” Kade announced as he pulled his horse into the barn and led the bay to his stall.
The other cowboys looked up.
“Never heard you ask for help,” James teased, crossing his arms.
“Because he knows he won’t get any from you.” Rico smirked at the way James glowered, then pointed into an open stall. “Ain’t you supposed to be cleaning?”
James rolled his eyes, leaning on his pitchfork. “Yeah, yeah.”
Kade couldn’t help a grin. After a few months on the ranch, the other cowboys felt less like coworkers and more like brothers. Even the squabbles they occasionally got into reminded him of siblings.
Aside from Rico, the rest of them were close in age. Or, close to the age they thought Kade was. Brady, who had replaced him with the herd, was youngest. James and Charlie—both of whom were supposed to be cleaning stalls and weren’t—were in their thirties and often reminded Kade of his relationship with Owen before they’d gone to school. He sometimes wondered if they would have stayed close if he hadn’t abandoned his attempt at a degree.
Seeing the others weren’t about to get back to work, Rico shook his head and turned his attention to Kade. “What do you need?”
“Y’all know my brother’s in town,” Kade said. They hadn’t stopped ribbing him about Owen showing up in a Jaguar, either. He put up his horse and unclipped the lead from the bay’s halter, slinging it over his shoulder as he double-checked the stall door. “I don’t like speakin’ ill of family, but we’ve got some bad blood. I need time to work through some things. Wanted to see if one of you could take my ride tonight.”
“I’ll trade you,” Charlie said without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m supposed to cover for you to be off on Saturday, but I got a date, and I’d much rather do that.”
James snorted. “Who wants to date you?”
“Funny thing, coming from someone who hasn’t had a date in six months,” Charlie replied.
“All right, all right,” Kade said, waving a hand. “If that’s what I gotta do, then sure. I’ll ride Saturday.”
“I’m still looking forward to Marshall leaving the herd unattended.” Rico swiped the pitchfork, making James stumble sideways. “We didn’t have to spend every day watching them before last fall. Got a lot more done around here. But you know how it is.”
“Scared something else will happen to the herd,” Charlie said, nodding.
Kade couldn’t blame him. After losing so many cattle to the chupacabra he’d been sent to kill—or to rustlers, as everyone else still believed—he understood why the rancher was reluctant to let the cattle roam on their own. Having wildlife turn up dead in the pasture probably didn’t help.
“Speaking of,” James said as he righted himself and adjusted his hat, “Marshall said he found some tracks around the old barn. He’s thinking you’re right about that wolf, Kade.”
Of course he was right. Even so, Kade frowned. “Just tracks? Nobody’s seen an animal yet?”
“No, but he said he was gonna call the game warden and figure out what to do ’bout it. They’ll probably want to trap and relocate it.”
Rico grunted in displeasure. “Better hope they can, before it takes down one of our animals. Cattle aside, what if the thing kills one of the dogs?”
“Ain’t gonna let that happen,” Kade said. “I think we can all agree on that.”
James and Charlie both nodded, though they looked troubled.
“Anyway,” Kade went on, rubbing his eyes and fighting weariness. “If any of you need somethin’ out of the bunkhouse, you better get it now, ’cause I’m lockin’ everyone out. I’ve been up two days and I don’t want any interruptions while I’m tryin’ to sleep.”
“You were awake?” James asked. “I thought you went back home to sleep. Tired of sleepin’ alone, or somethin’ like that. You know.” He elbowed Charlie and the two cowboys chuckled.
Kade’s face darkened.
“That’s enough of that,” Rico growled, prodding both the men with the haft of the pitchfork. “The two of you better get back to work. I’m not mucking out these stalls by myself.”
They both made sounds of displeasure, but James took back his pitchfork and returned to his job.
Nodding in satisfaction, Rico turned back to Kade. “You ought to get some rest while it’s nice and quiet. Seems like you need it. You’re looking a little worse for wear.”
“Don’t feel much better than I look, but thank you,” Kade said. “And thank you, Charlie, for takin’ my ride.”
“Thank you,” Charlie replied with a grin, sliding into the stall with a shovel.
Kade put up the lead and slipped out the way he’d come, cutting toward the bunkhouse.
One night off, one chance to end things before they got ugly. He locked the door before climbing into bed, silently hoping things would go better after he woke.
* * *
“Sign here, please.”
Felicity blinked at the covered crate by her feet, then blinked at the stylus and electronic signature pad the deliveryman extended. She was about to protest when he smiled at her, exposing fangs.
Oh. It was that kind of delivery.
She smiled nervously in response, signing for the unexpected parcel and murmuring a polite thank-you. Then she picked up the crate and carried it into the bakery, pushing the back door closed with her foot.
Her fingers skimmed bottles inside the crate and she removed the top, studying the dark glass. It wasn’t hard to guess what was inside, though Kade hadn’t mentioned it was on the way. She supposed it made more sense to have it delivered to the bakery, sparing them the difficult task of explaining why bottles of cold human blood were being delivered to the house. That they needed to be delivered gave her a twinge of guilt. If not for her protest, Kade wouldn’t have to supplement his food supply that way.
/> Nibbling her lip, Felicity pulled one of the chilled bottles from the crate and turned it over in her hands. Then she put it back and carried the crate to the refrigerator in the back. She could keep her father out of the bakery for a while, and Penny already knew. Storing human blood in the fridge had to be some kind of health code violation, but better there than home. Kade could figure out where to put it later.
One by one, she stowed each of the half-dozen bottles in the door of the fridge, turning them so their labels—proudly displaying blood types as if they were flavors—couldn’t be seen. Her bottles of extracts and flavorings were dark glass, too, and some were as large as the liter bottles of blood. Of course, there was no need to refrigerate a liter of vanilla, but so long as she didn’t ask Penny to retrieve any ingredients, maybe there wouldn’t be any questions.
That feeble hope evaporated as Felicity stood and turned, just as Penny spun back from the doorway.
With Penny’s help, there were occasional quiet moments through the day. As misfortune had it, this was one of them. Penny gave Felicity a curious look as she crept back to the counter without offering any explanations.
“All set?” Penny asked after a moment of awkward silence.
“Mmhm,” Felicity replied simply. For a fraction of a second, she’d felt Penny’s appearance in the doorway had been nosy. Then she caught herself. Penny worked with her now. Deliveries of supplies came at least once a week; it was only polite to offer help. Trying to put the whole thing from her head, Felicity picked up a cloth and idly wiped dust from the sales counter.
The silence returned, thicker, breeding.
“Felicity?” Penny asked at last, her voice small. “Can I ask you something?”
Oh boy. Felicity put on her best smile. “Of course.” Here we go.
The redhead licked her lips. “If you knew someone wasn’t... what people thought they were... what would you do?”
Felicity didn’t know how to reply. She was keeping Kade’s secret, but it was a complicated situation. And so far as she knew, Penny didn’t know Felicity was aware of what had transpired.