by Moira Rogers
They’ve been hiding from the past. Now it’s time to fight for their future.
Red Rock Pass, Book 4
New England is ideal for vampire Adam Dubois. His cozy home in the Great North Woods reminds him of a happier time when werewolves and witches were stuff of legends, and he was a simple lumberjack.
Hiding from past failures has worked for over eighty years, but a life debt owed to the Red Rock alpha has forced him to leave his retreat—and come face to face with a woman who challenges and tempts him on every level.
Hiding secrets is a lonely business, and Cindy Shepherd is lonely with a capital L. Red Rock isn’t exactly crawling with available men, but her interest in the mystery-shrouded new vampire in town seems mutual. After all, it’s only sex—there’s no danger he’ll dig deep enough to unleash the demons of her past.
Casual flirtation turns deadly serious when Adam discovers that the vampire plaguing Red Rock is using his mistakes as a road map. When it comes to his life, he knows Cindy has his back. But in order to secure the future, they both must trust each other with more—even if it means sacrificing themselves to save everything they hold dear.
Warning: This book contains epic werewolf battles, mystical vampire blood bonds, unexpected sex on the kitchen floor and a dangerous attraction between a secret-burdened werewolf and a vampire lumberjack.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
Sanctuary Unbound
Copyright © 2010 by Moira Rogers
ISBN: 978-1-60928-046-8
Edited by Anne Scott
Cover by Tuesday Dube
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2010
www.samhainpublishing.com
Sanctuary Unbound
Moira Rogers
Dedication
This is for John, who heard about the vampire lumberjack and informed us we were to write it at once. Your wish is our command, sir.
We’d also like to extend special, heartfelt thanks to Ann Aguirre, who always listens and encourages us, and to Molli, who is the fastest beta reader in the contiguous United States.
Chapter One
Cindy gritted her teeth and peeled the backing from the last lead. “I’ll have to see what the EKG shows, but you sure the hell look like you’re having another heart attack.”
Gavin had to move the oxygen mask and unclench his jaw to speak. “It’s not as bad this time.”
He was pale, sweaty and trembling, and she barely managed not to call him a liar. “Put the mask back on and keep it there.” She turned on the machine and checked the signal integrity. “Sit still while I talk to Sam.”
Gavin’s wife hovered in the doorway, tension in her dark eyes even though she’d fixed a stern look on her face. “For God’s sake, do what she says or I’m going to finish you off before your heart gets a chance.”
Instead of arguing, he nodded and leaned his head against the raised headboard of the bed.
Cindy pulled the door shut behind her and watched Gavin through the window. “There’s not much I can do here, Sam. It’s the same as last time. I’m not a cardiologist.”
“Damn it.” Sam squeezed her eyes shut as she lifted her fingers to rub at her temples. “What if I gave him some of my energy? Sasha and the lot of them should be back this afternoon. Maybe if she used magic to bind us…”
“It wouldn’t do anything but hurt you, Sam. Werewolves have accelerated healing, and we live a long time.” But not forever. Gavin’s problems were mundane, and the sort they rarely saw, even in a sanctuary town like Red Rock. “He’s just…not a kid anymore.”
“And this war is killing him.” Sam exhaled sharply. “He can’t keep this up, can he?”
Cindy urged Sam to the chair beside the doorway, keeping tight hold of her hand even after she sat. “There are a lot of things that don’t help, things a werewolf wouldn’t normally have to worry about. The smoking, for one. And yes, his stress level.”
“He doesn’t think Keith’s ready. That’s why he can’t slow down.” Sam’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “When Keith found Abby… You know how he’s been. It was the first time we’d seen him alive in years. And Gavin thought he might be ready to take over. But when Keith got hurt…”
No one knew better than she how close he’d come to dying. “Keith is recovering faster than I’d hoped. The hard truth is that, physically, he’s stronger than Gavin now.”
“Then Keith needs to know that.” Sam sat up, her fingers tight around Cindy’s as she gathered the formidable will for which she was known. “Will Gavin be able to come back home tonight?”
“It depends on the EKG. He might need thrombolytics, or just aspirin.” She felt helpless, and she hated it. Even your average small-town doctor could refer patients to a hospital if their condition called for it. All Cindy had was herself. Worse, she was all the town had. “I’ll know more in a little while.”
“Can I sit with him?”
“If you can ignore me while I work.”
“Of course. Cindy, I know this is a lot to ask of you, but I need you to tell Keith. My husband can yell at me over it if he wants to, as long as he’s alive to yell.”
“This evening,” she promised. Once she got Gavin stabilized, she could take the time to visit Keith. “Come on.”
When they walked in, Gavin opened his eyes and pulled at his mask. “I heard every word you two said.”
“Good. Now that you know how badly you’ve scared your poor wife, you won’t give me as many problems.” Cindy sat in front of the computer monitor and scrolled back through the electrocardiogram. “Definite ST elevation. How’s the pain?”
“Better.”
“Raging headache?”
He grimaced. “Just like last time.”
“That’s the nitroglycerin. If you can stand it, no morphine.”
Gavin glanced at Sam and tried to smile. “I’m all right.”
“And you’re going to stay that way,” Sam whispered, her voice suspiciously thick. “You think you’re going to do Keith any favors if you drop dead and he has to blame himself because you didn’t trust him with this?”
Cindy stared at the monitor. It looked like a heart attack, but she couldn’t be sure how much damage had been done without lab work. He needed angioplasty, but it was beyond her capabilities. “I can give you medications and hope they help, but what you really need is to go to a hospital.”
Gavin shifted on the table and frowned at her. “You know that’s not possible, Cindy. Too many questions.”
“Yeah.” Too many questions. “Okay. You can also lay off the smoking, fatty foods and stress. Which would you like to start with, Sam?”
“I’ve been trying to get the ornery bastard to quit smoking for years.” Sam smoothed her fingers over Gavin’s forehead, brushing back hair that now held more gray than black. “Cindy’s going to tell Keith about the heart attacks, Gavin. And then the two of you are going to decide how to lift some of this burden
from your shoulders. I’m not ready to live without you.”
None of them were, which was part of the problem.
“So she’s going to make him quit smoking, for starters.”
Keith made a rude noise and leaned back against the counter. “Fuck. How long has this been going on, Cindy?”
She gripped the coffee mug. “The first one happened right before you came back. From overseas, I mean.”
“Shit.” All hints of humor faded from his eyes, replaced by guilt and a trace of anger. “How many?”
He wouldn’t like her answer, but the time for secrets was over. Gavin didn’t have the luxury anymore, and neither did the town. “He had a third today. I don’t know how much heart muscle was killed because my facilities here are limited, but he’s getting weaker after every one.”
“Cindy, you should have fucking told me.” Keith pushed off the counter and paced to the other side of the room, leashed energy filling the kitchen in an uncomfortable rush. “He should have told me. God damn it.”
As if the decision had been hers to make. “He’s the alpha, Keith. Beyond that, he’s my patient. I can’t go around telling people he’s on his last legs, not without his permission.”
Keith froze. “Last legs?”
“Apparently I’m doing a bad job of impressing upon you the gravity of his condition.” Her chair scraped over the tile floor as she rose. “Gavin’s led a hard life, and he spends every waking moment worrying about this town and the world outside of it. If he were human, the stress would have killed him by sixty. He’s twice that age now, old even for a werewolf.”
“And he didn’t think I was ready.” Keith swore and kicked a chair out of his way, sending it flying into the table so hard that it rebounded and clattered to the floor. “I am one self-absorbed ass.”
“Uh-huh.” They didn’t have time for guilt and blame. “Was that before or after a crazy woman tried to gut you with a knife and you nearly died?”
Keith turned that hard glare on her. “Before, smartass.”
He’d always been strong, and she had to fight not to shrink away from his anger. “Simmer down. I’m just saying that sometimes life gets in the way of our plans.”
“Yeah.” He bent and picked up the chair. “Joe’s about an hour out with his caravan of road-trippers. I’ve got that much time to figure out how to deal with an alpha who might not be ready to step down, a witch half the town still doesn’t trust, and a vampire some of them won’t believe exists.” His fingers clenched around the chair’s back until Cindy thought the wood might snap. “Could this situation get any more fucked up?”
“Dylan will look after Sasha.” Thinking about her ex-lover and his new flame should have hurt more. “Worry about Gavin and the vampire.”
Keith eyed her as if he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it didn’t hurt more. “You okay with all of that? Dylan and Sasha, I mean. I know he was the first guy you got close to.”
Cindy retrieved her mug from the table and finished her coffee. “It wasn’t going to work, and that had nothing to do with Sasha.” The worst part was having to own up to how recklessly she’d pursued Dylan. Maybe if she’d given it a little more time, she could have saved them both the heartache of a failed relationship.
“He was a nice guy,” Keith said, his voice quiet and too gentle. “I liked the idea of you having a nice guy. After all you’ve been through, Cin—”
“Keith, please. I’m a grown woman, and this isn’t overprotective big-brother time.” She rinsed her mug in the sink. “Dylan is a nice guy. He’s just not the one for me, that’s all.”
“Was that code for ‘butt the hell out’?”
“I don’t need to dance around your delicate feelings.”
“Never have before. Life’d be boring if you started now.”
The banter was comfortable, easy. “Is there anything you and Abby need? Abby, especially. I think your convalescence has been harder for her than for you.”
“She’ll be better when her sister’s back in town. Brynn tried to fudge the details of what happened in Maine, but Dylan blew it and spilled the whole story.”
Just the little Cindy had heard from Sam would have been enough to turn Abby’s hair gray. “Her baby sister was out there with vampires and corrupt alphas, and you managed to keep her sane? You deserve a medal.”
Keith grinned. “It helps he didn’t give her the really bad details until they’d already hit New Hampshire. And Joe wasn’t going to let anything happen to Brynn.”
“No, he wasn’t.” It was a side of Joe she hadn’t seen in the years she’d known him. She’d known there was more to him than the easygoing playboy most people saw, but his relationship with Brynn had brought out an intensity and devotion she barely recognized.
Keith’s smile faded. “Hey. Smile for me, sweetheart. If I have to take over Gavin’s place, I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
She managed a small grin. “Just remember that Joe might be burly, but I’m smart. I’d make a damn good second-in-command.”
“Screw second-in-command. You’re the doctor. You’re the boss of everyone.” Keith tugged fondly at her hair. “Now do me a favor and go upstairs and tell my mate that I’m not an invalid anymore, or she’s going to have her own heart attack when I tell her I’m about to move up the food chain.”
“I can do that.” Cindy leaned up to kiss his cheek and headed for the staircase. And all the way up, she told herself it was stupid to feel alone in a town full of people.
Adam couldn’t decide what was worse—when Dylan or Sasha sat up front and peppered him with endless questions, or when their saccharine puppy love overcame their manners and they ended up cuddling in the backseat of his rental car.
Probably the questions. It had been years since he’d driven a car more than fifteen miles, long enough to admit that he wasn’t very good at handling modern vehicles. They’d made it out of New England before he’d stopped trying to shift gears with the emergency brake, and it was easier to concentrate on keeping the car on the road when he wasn’t fielding questions on the history of vampires in the States.
Dylan had offered to drive more than once, but Adam stubbornly refused to relinquish the wheel. With his quiet, rigidly controlled life spinning out of control, he needed this last illusion of order.
Even if he kept turning on the damn windshield wipers every time he tried to use the blinker.
The road ahead of them had narrowed until towering trees blocked out most of the light. He’d felt the wards ten miles back, layered so thickly across the pass he was amazed humans didn’t notice them. Even knowing what the magic was and why it was there, he’d had to fight to follow Joe’s Blazer off the main road. It had felt unpleasantly like passing through a thick tangle of sticky cobwebs, and the back of his neck still itched.
Dylan had finally detached himself from Sasha’s side, which Adam supposed was indication enough they’d almost reached Red Rock. He cleared his throat to catch their attention and raised his voice. “Do you two feel the wards too? Or do I only get them because I’m a vampire?”
Sasha leaned forward over the seat. “They affect everyone to varying degrees. Do you feel all right?”
She was so damn earnest it made his teeth hurt. He’d never done well with gentle women, and sometimes Sasha reminded him of the well-bred daughters he’d done his best to avoid in the days before automatic transmissions and cars that told you when your gas tank was low. But none of those spoiled rich girls would have looked at him with wide, worried eyes and shouldered into his personal space like she had a right to be there.
Like she needed to help him.
His silence had gone on too long, and Dylan watched him in the rearview mirror. Adam shrugged one shoulder. “Fine. But that magic was made to welcome werewolves, and I’m damn near the opposite of a werewolf.”
“I suppose.” She offered him an encouraging smile. “Gavin will be happy to see you.”
The painfully chippe
r little girl was mother-henning him. As if he hadn’t been alive when her great-fucking-grandmother had been born. “Hope so. Like to wait at least a week between fights with werewolves.”
“We all do.” Sasha sat back and nestled into the cradle of Dylan’s arm. “It’s a bit of a luxury around here sometimes, though.”
Adam eyed them in the rearview mirror again, his gaze sweeping inexorably to the claw-shaped scars that marked her pale cheek. Maybe he wasn’t giving the witchling enough credit. Life in a town full of backwater werewolves couldn’t be any more comfortable for her than it would be for him, but even with the proof of violence carved into her skin, she didn’t turn away from it.
Still, she didn’t have to be so damn cheerful about it.
Dylan nuzzled his nose against the girl’s bright red hair, and Adam jerked his attention back to the road. Love made people blissful. Love made people stupid. The couple cuddling in the backseat had faced down a power-hungry vampire less than two weeks ago, and every indication pointed to the inevitable fact that their next confrontation would be five times as bad. Yet they still looked foolishly, joyfully happy.
For one brief minute, he considered mistaking the parking break for the gearshift again, just to keep Romeo and Juliet from necking in the backseat. Of course, with his luck the car would spin out of control on the loosely packed gravel and they’d end up wrapped around a tree. Dylan might make it out in one piece, but witches were fragile things—and this witch obviously wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, or she couldn’t be half in Dylan’s lap.
Adam tightened his fingers around the steering wheel, gritted his teeth, and promised himself he’d use kamikaze dives toward large trees as a last resort. Like if he saw tongues.
“That’s it up ahead.” Dylan’s voice, quiet and unassuming. At the same time, the Blazer in front of them made a sharp left. Adam jerked the wheel to follow, and the trees on either side disappeared, replaced with a steep hill leading down to an idyllic little village tucked into a picturesque clearing.