Sloane Briallen

I woke up suddenly, gasping for air, with the ghost of hands grabbing at my hips to tear away my clothes.  Faint echoes of screaming—my screaming—rang in my ears.  My cheeks were wet, and my mouth was dry.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said.

I blinked hard, trying to clear away the images of my father grabbing me.  Tears fell from my eyes as I did.

When I could see, I found Cailean crouched in front of me.

“Cailean?” I croaked, looking around.  Familiar pale walls with yellow lighting met me.  Fear bubbled from the depths as I realized I was back in the dungeons.  “Where—”

Cailean reached out to put a hand on my shoulder, and I flinched away.

“Hey,” she said.  Her tone was low, as if she was speaking to a spooked horse.  “I need you to not freak out.”

“Not freak out?  We’re back in these fucking dungeons.  Your fucking brother was going to kill me.  I was promised that he would leave me alone.”  Hot tears spilled from my eyes.  “He was going to rape me.”

Cailean’s eyes went wide.  “What?”

I couldn’t stop the tears or the way the words rushed out.  “He was going to ‘teach me a lesson’.  He held me down and wouldn’t let me go.”  I wrapped my arms around my knees, burying my face in them.  “They always want to teach you a lesson.  Rape is the only way they know.”  I rocked in place, fear and anger and helplessness a vortex in my chest that I couldn’t resist.  The pull of all that pain was too much.

Something settled on my shoulders, and I startled, looking up.

It was just Cailean, kneeling in front of me and throwing her coat around my shoulders.  She settled back on her heels, her eyes fluctuating between cobalt blue and plum.  Her hands were in front of her, haloed around me like she wanted to touch me but wasn’t letting herself.

“I’m sorry for whatever happened to you,” she said.  “Truly.  You didn’t deserve it.  And you didn’t deserve what Saeran did.  You didn’t deserve any of this.”

I buried my head in my arms again.  My shoulders shook with sobs I wouldn’t let out.  But I couldn’t hold back the whimpers that broke from my throat.  I couldn’t keep them in.

I was too tired and everything hurt.  The past week had been so much.  And just when I was doing better . . .

“He’s a monster,” I finally said, my voice barely more than a whine.  “Someone tried to kill Cyly, and I took the poison.  I saved him.  I took the same poison that Angus and Ava injected me with right before they tortured me.  I’m sorry I could have hurt, you but—”

“But considering everything, the reaction was not only understandable, but also warranted.”

“And he’s blaming me for that?  This is somehow my fault?”  My voice cracked.  “I’m nineteen.  Why is he terrorizing me?”

I heard Cailean exhale through her nose.  As she did, I realized that at some point, she had moved to sit next to me.  I looked over to see that she had also pulled her knees up and had her arms wrapped around them. 

“I can imagine his motivations.  I could probably explain them, even.  But it doesn’t matter.  Sloane—I’m sorry.”

Her apologies gave me no solace.  “The next time I see him, I’m going to kill him.”  I had never gone out to kill someone, but I could have killed Saeran.  I was ready to kill him.

“You would be in your rights.”

I blinked, a fat tear splashing on my arms.  “What?”

“Saeran . . . he used to be my best friend.  But once I started to question whether I wanted to be a queen . . . I’ve always known he was capable of terrible things.  Not a monster but . . . monstrous.”

In that moment, Cailean looked as lost as I felt.  She looked angry and helpless and tired.  Her fists clenched where they held her legs. 

“At some point, when I wasn’t looking, he turned into this . . . thing.  This thing that talks over everyone, sees everyone as a threat, and is willing to kill for no other reason that because he feels like it.  And I let it slide—whenever I see him, I let it slide.  He’ll be a good king.  He’s dedicated to his people.  He cares.

“But that’s not true.  Because if he can’t see past his own pride, then he’s no better than any despot my mother ever tried to keep us from becoming.  He’s everything I was ever afraid of becoming.

“I would stop you if I saw you trying to kill him.  But I wouldn’t hold it against you if you succeeded.”  She rested her cheek on her arms and looked at me.  Her eyes were glassy.  “I’m sorry that this is what you get for doing an illegal favor for my mother.  And I give you my word that when this is over, I will do everything in my power to protect you, and my kingdom, from what he’s become.”

I chuckled bitterly.  “If we get out of here.”

Cailean looked up at the ceiling of our holding cell.  “I don’t plan on going quietly.”

I didn’t say anything, burying my head back into my arms.  I didn’t know why we were back here.  I didn’t remember anything past Saeran escaping from me.  I didn’t know if we were safe.  I didn’t know if the door was secretly open, and we could just leave.  I didn’t know anything. 

But I also couldn’t find an ounce of emotion to give a fuck.  I was so, so tired.

So, I let my brain drift.  I let that exhaustion push away all the anger and the fear.  I let numbness settle.

I don’t know how long I was like that before I felt a familiar warmth. 

The smell of fruit was the first thing that drifted into my awareness.  Soon after, the sound of wind through trees echoed in my ears.  Slowly, old, familiar shapes resolved in my head.  A pagoda.  Some trees.  Grass.

The Phoenix crew and I looked through one of those home magazines once.  Better Homes and Gardens or House & Garden or something like that.  We’d seen beautiful houses laid out over sprawling grounds covered in flowers and trees and bushes with landscaped ponds and topiaries.  I’d grown up envious of a kid who could afford a new pair of shoes but a place like that . . . there’s no describing what that would have been like for me had I been able to even set foot on the property of one of those places. 

There had been this one house in particular that had had its own orchard of fruit trees.  The grass was green and beautiful, rolling grounds with tiny hills and valleys.  There was a tennis court in the distance.

This was where I found myself.  In memories of a place that had never existed for me outside of the pages of a magazine.  The sun shone from above, filtering through the grove of trees.  I could smell peaches and apricots, sweet on the air.  It was late afternoon, past the sun’s zenith.

The grass beneath me was soft and short, cut recently.  A butterfly flitted through the air past me, headed towards a flower on one of the peach trees.  The sound of a fountain gurgling filtered through the still summer air to me.

The sky was a warm blue.  A few fluffy pillow clouds drifted across my vision, moving with lazy carelessness that spoke of nothing to do and nowhere to be.

This was where I went to be safe.  It was a place we had built long before any of us knew trauma therapy techniques.  It was a safe place in our heads. 

And a familiar voice, one I had heard many times in this space, called out.  It was distant and quiet, but I knew it like I knew my own voice.

Sloane.

Mira? I said, looking around.

Sloane.

There.  Where the tennis courts were supposed to be.  There was only a dark forest.  The sky there was dark, overcast.  At the edge of the trees I saw Mira.  She wore what I had last seen her in, a red tunic and leggings with knee high black boots.

Those dark woods weren’t a place we had built.  I refused to move closer to it, but Mira shouted my name.

What? I called out to her. 

Come here.

I shook my head.  You’re in a scary place.  I’ve seen enough scary things today.

I saw her face fall.  She stepped closer, but not out of the woods.  What happened?

Does it matter?  Saeran will get away with it anyway.

She froze.  A familiar expression crossed her face, her eyes moving from left to right, as if reading something.

Her jaw set in anger.  I’ll kill him.

I shrugged.

Where are you?

Dungeons.

Physically, are you okay?

Yeah.  I’m with Cailean.

Someone will come get you out.

Okay.

They’ll take you to the panic room.

Panic room.  That sounded fancy.

Sloane, she said.  She held her hand out to me.  I’m sorry.

Yeah, everyone is.  But nobody seems to do sorry around here.

The pain in her eyes matched the pain in my chest.

I just want to go home.

You’ll be home soon, baby.  And when you are, I’ll be there, too.  Home with you.

I stopped.  What?

She smiled softly.  It was bittersweet.  I was waiting until after this to tell you but—the reason I took this job?  I’m getting paid a lot.  And I’m moving all of us to Minnesota.

I stared at her.  All of you?

All of us.

To Minnesota?

To Minnesota.

To be with me?

Always to be with you.

If I thought I had been crying before, the tears were like a river.  Hope expanded in my chest, making it so tight that the pain had no place to stay.  Home with me.

Home with you.  She glanced behind her.  Connection’s breaking.  You need to rally.  Someone needs to help me house hunt.

I choked out a laugh.

Love you.

Love you, I said back.

She was gone.

I opened my eyes and stood up.  Next to me, Cailean looked up, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

I wiped my eyes.  “Talked to Mira.”

Cailean’s eyebrows unfurled and rose in surprise.  “How?  These rooms are designed to block magic.”

“Cursebreaker,” I said with no further explanation.  “Are we in the same room that you put me in last time?”

She nodded.

I thought so.  I recognized the broken bedframe.

“They know we’ve been taken?” she asked.

“It would appear so,” I said.  “They’re going to come get us.”

She stared at me, an unreadable expression on her face.

“What?” I said after the staring didn’t abate.

“Finding you in those woods has turned into a lesson in humility,” she said, shaking her head.  “Soulsilver and cursebreaking and psychic connections—bloody hell.”

I shrugged.  “Next time you meet someone who helps you fight some original vampires, maybe give them the benefit of the doubt.”

She surprised me by nodding.  “You’re right.”

I paused before finally giving her some ounce of . . . not warmth, but less hostility.  “How did we get here?”

“Something gassed us—by the smell, I would guess valerian mixed with something.  Knocked me out.  When I woke up, I was in here with you.”

“Is it sweet?” I asked, remembering what I had smelled before passing out.

“Yes.  Valerian is an herb used in sleeping potions and the magical equivalent of knock out gas.”

“Fantastic,” I said.  I went to the door and looked out the window.  I didn’t see anything outside of it.  Just the same grey stone I had seen the other day.  “There’s no way out?”

“No, but . . .”

I glanced back at her.  Her eyebrows were knitted together in thought.  “Cursebreaker . . .” she murmured before looking up.  “Do you have an idea of how powerful you are?”

“I broke my room.”

“Your room?”

“I was in one of the neuropath rooms.  I was in it to block me off from Mira so we could sleep easily without her getting in my head when I dreamed.  I broke it, and Mira could hear me.  And Aoife said that if I was a couple hundred years older and disciplined, I could dismantle the castle.”

Cailean bit her lip pensively.  “Decades ago, we worked with a cursebreaker.  She could focus her magic to a point and break it.  I know how these cells were built.  The spell around the room is bound at the lock.”

On this side of the door, there was no lock.  But I had seen the cell from outside.  There was a lock just above the door handle.

I put my hand approximately where the lock would be. 

The room had a general buzz of magic, but where I touched, I felt the magic like a steady hum.  It made the hairs on my arm stand up.  “More magic here,” I murmured.

“And a sensitive,” Cailean whispered.  “Bloody hell.”

Oh right, she hadn’t known that.

“Do you know how she focused it?” I asked.

Cailean shook her head.  “I don’t know a lot about magic.  Can’t you just . . . focus hard on it or something?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.  I also knew jack shit about magic, so I couldn’t talk.  What did it hurt?

I closed my eyes and focused on my hand.  I imagined those diagrams I used to see for the circulatory system in biology class—arrows pushing through my arms, into my palms.  I imagined sucking out something, maybe magic, maybe blood—something—out of other parts of my body, concentrating it into my hand.

I felt a faint pressure against my palm.  I looked down, opening my eyes, but realized the pressure was just my palm pressed against the door.

I pulled my hand away, and my skin tingled where it had touched the door.  Huh . . .

I tried putting my other hand to the door for a moment.  I didn’t focus on it, just let it rest there.

When I pulled away, my hand didn’t tingle.

“I think maybe something?” I said.  “But I don’t know for sure.  Maybe I’m not powerful enough.”  I looked back at Cailean.

She looked from me to the door and back, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth.  “When did you last drink blood?”

I shook my head.  “I can’t remember.  I was poisoned, but I can’t remember before that.”

“Maybe if I open a vein?”

“Why?  Isn’t that just for when a vampire gets low on blood?  Their sire opens a vein to get them okay again?”

“I assume you’re speaking from experience?”

I eyed her warily.  “Maybe . . .”

“It’s not a criticism.  The only reason it works quickly with Karhi is because he’s so old.  Older vampire blood gives a boost to younger vampires, especially fledglings.  If your sire was younger, say only a few decades old, then it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Would I have died?”

“No, you would have just taken longer to be okay again.  Anyway, I’m over three hundred years old.  It isn’t quite the boost you would get from Karhi, but it might be enough.”

“I always assumed the blood boost was just because we’re vampires, and we need blood to survive.”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know if the blood would help with your cursebreaking ability, but it also can’t hurt, right?”

“Does it matter that we’re different species?”

She shook her head.  “It’s not dead man’s blood, so the worst that could happen is nothing.”

I thought about it for a second before shrugging.  “Alright.”

She held out the back of her hand towards me.  With her other hand, she let a claw grow on one fingernail and scratched the skin.  Crimson blood beaded up.

I took it before she could heal and drank.  I only drank a few mouthfuls since that’s all I ever needed from Karhi.

I pulled away.  “I won’t tell anyone that royal blood tastes like regular blood.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Do you feel any different?”

I took a second to search my body.  Any differences, any sensations, hell, any sudden feeling of power?

After a moment, I shook my head.  “No.”  I turned back to the door anyway.  I repeated the same thing, imagining pushing . . . magic?  Will?  Power?  Something.  I imagined pushing the desire to break the lock into my hand.  I concentrated on my hand, pushing everything I could into it.  I imagined a bubble forming from my hand, opening, expanding. I imagined it popping like—Pop.

The staticky sensation of magic suddenly disappeared from against my hand.  It was like a balloon popping—a sudden recession of magic from around me.

I looked at Cailean, eyes wide.

“What?”  She looked around the room.  “Did it work?”

I tried the door, but it didn’t open.  Right.  There was still a lock.  “Yeah,” I said.  “I think so.  I don’t feel any magic anymore.  But it’s locked, and I don’t know if I—

“Step aside.”

I moved away from the door.  I watched as Cailean walked up and straight kicked approximately where the lock was.  The door groaned against the blow but held firm.  Cailean kicked it twice more before it buckled in its frame.  Her final kick launched the door into the hallway.  It slammed into the wall opposite before falling forward.

She leaned out of the door, checking both ways before stepping out.  I followed her.  Before we left, I picked up the door and put it back in place.  It was fucked, and didn’t fit in the doorway, but at least someone would actually have to come look to find out.  If they just glanced at it from far away, they wouldn’t notice.

“Mira said the panic room.”  I paused.  “Wait . . . I’ll degrade that.”

“Panic rooms are designed differently,” Cailean shook her head.  “They need to withstand sustained magical and physical attacks.  It’ll be okay.  Especially because they’re not meant for long term use anyway.”

“But you don’t know a lot about magic.”

“I know enough to know that degrading magic is something that is in mind when panic rooms are built.  Attrition is in mind by design.”

I guess that made sense.  

Cailean led me up a set of stairs that I vaguely remembered from my last trip to the dungeons.  At the top, she stopped on one side of the door, listening.  I followed her lead, standing on the other side, listening for anything outside.  I couldn’t quite get the range she could, I knew, but I could hear enough.

“. . . one job.  The prince was just inside the door.  But no, now we have the princess and that fledgling in the dungeons instead.  And the prince and his consort are in the panic room.”  The voice  sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.  One of the servants maybe?

“It was too much of a risk that somebody would find us,” another voice, male and British, replied. 

The woman made a noise of frustration.  “Go check in on them.  Be wary.  The fledgling is tricky.”

Oooh, I was the tricky one?

Then we heard footsteps walking away from us. 

“Bitch,” the Brit growled. 

“Don’t let her in your head, mate,” another male voice said, also British.

Cailean motioned me to her, and we squeezed in behind the door.  It was located at a corner such that when the door opened, it would hit the wall perfectly to hide us.

The door opened to hide us exactly as we expected.

“She’s just afraid of when Gwydion gets here,” the first Brit said, starting down the stairs.  “She’s a scary bitch.”

“I heard shadowmancers usually are.”

I felt Cailean stiffen against me.  I grabbed her wrist and darted around the door as it closed.  We made it through without any trouble, just seeing the backs of two brunette heads going down the stairs on our way out.

I didn’t know where we were.  I hadn’t really been all here when we first walked out of the dungeons.  It was yet another stone hallway with sconces mounted on the walls and long, worn rugs on the floors.  It was empty of anyone else, thankfully.

“Where’s the panic room?” I whispered.

“Close to our quarters, follow me.  I have no idea if we’ve been fully invaded, or just infiltrated, so we’re going to need to be sneaky.  I’ll lead the way because it’s likely I’ll recognize people that you won’t.”

“Sure.”  Stealth I could do.  It was one of the skills that had kept me alive over the years.

Mikko Lawrence

As they walked into the backyard, Carlos had called back to Mira’s house to update Frankie.  He told Frankie to hold tight, that they’d be home soon, with Lina.  From the amount of soothing Carlos had to do over the phone, Mikko guessed that Frankie was pissed Carlos wouldn’t tell him what happened.

Russell’s backyard was landscaped within an inch of its life.  Half of it was tiled over with pale natural stone in soft golds and browns.  The other half was tall decorative grasses, cacti, and other plants Mikko usually saw in the dessert.  They were set behind little brick dividers, circles and rectangles of dirt and stone filled with plants.

Just outside of the sliding glass door in the back of the house was a pergola covering a steel-and-glass patio table with eight matching steel chairs.  The pergola did a good job of blocking out the afternoon sun and they all came to stand under it, awkwardly surrounding the table. 

Russell stepped up next to the sliding glass door and tapped something that looked like a dark smudge against the coral.  Runes lit up beneath the smudge and then Mikko felt the static of magic in the air.

Russell moved to stand across the table from them.  Mikko was still holding Lina in his arms, but they were starting to fatigue, and his ribs ached from her weight.

“No one can hear us,” Russell said, looking between them all.  “Cards on the table.  I’ve worked with Timber and Carlos before, but I don’t really know who the rest of you are.  Trying to gather information on anyone in your house was difficult at best.”

“That’s because I’ve threatened everyone in this city within an inch of their life,” Carlos said coolly.  He had his arms crossed over his chest and was wearing a suit like he usually did.  This one was brown with a teal shirt and a navy tie.

Russell’s brow furrowed.  “Wha—” at a glare from Annie and remembering her stance on saying the word “what” again, he changed mid-sentence, “—why?”

I got to put you down, Mikko said to Lina.  She didn’t look at him, but she released his neck and waist, and he set her down.  He kept hold of her hand.  Annie reached for her other hand without looking at Lina.

“These are Amos’s kids,” Timber said.  It was probably the best explanation, especially if Russell worked with Amos.  They didn’t need to explain that Mira was the White Psychic or that Lina was her daughter.

“Amos’s kids,” he said, looking at Mikko, Annie, and Lina.

“Amongst other things,” Mikko muttered.  “Are you the guy who was trying to break into the house?  And who tried to pickpocket us?”

Russell’s face went impassive.  “Yes.”

Mikko pulled Russell’s wallet out of his pocket and tossed it over to him.  “You’ve got to be the worst lockpick, pickpocket, and kidnapper that’s ever existed.  For your trouble, we took all your money.”

To his credit, Russell didn’t complain, checking his wallet.  He folded it back up and put it in his pocket.  “Fair enough.”

Carlos laughed for the first time since they had arrived at Russell’s house.  His shoulders weren’t quite as tense as they had been.  “To be fair to Russell, he’s actually very good at his job.  He just made a mistake when he took a job trying to fuck with y’all.  His mess-ups these past few days are very out-of-character.”

“Yeah, can y’all explain what the fuck is going on?” Russel said.  His eyes were narrowed in annoyance, but his posture was mostly relaxed.

“You first,” Annie replied.  “Since nothing would be going on if you wasn’t here.”   Lina pulled her hand from Mikko’s to wrap her arms around Annie’s waist.  Annie pet her hair absently.

Mikko watched Russell.  He was clearly out of his element, but he didn’t seem to let it faze him.  There was definitely confusion, but there was none of the arrogance Mikko had come to associate with a lot of stronger magics.  He wasn’t trying to play it cool, like he knew everything, but he also wasn’t letting himself be cowed.  And he didn’t try to attack them when they’d come to get Lina.  He’d stood back and talked.  There was an air of danger to him, but he wasn’t threatening? 

“I was hired to retrieve a stolen necklace.  After I failed to break into your house, and I failed to take keys to the house from you in the mall, I was told to take the girl.  I—”

“Lina,” she interrupted him.  “My name is Lina.”

He nodded to Lina.  “Miss Lina.”

Lina nodded against Annie’s stomach.

“Normally, kidnapping children isn’t really something I do.  However, I was told that this necklace was powerful, the magic inside of it volatile.  And that you probably stole it to sell it and Miss Lina could be in danger.  So, it was twofold—use her to force you to give me the necklace back, and protect her from potentially lethal, volatile magic.  I saw my chance when the werewolf was in the backyard with her.  I used a valerian and aconite mixture to knock them both out and took her with me.”

Carlos looked over at Mikko and Annie.  “Volatile magic?”

Mikko gave him a flat look.  “You think Mira be fucking with volatile magic?  No, that necklace was a family heirloom.  It was fucking smoky quartz.  It’s just used for grounding and clarity.  There are runes etched in the silver under the quartz that enhances it for magic users.”  Well, really, just neuropaths.  But he wasn’t going to be that specific.  “Were you the one who was watching us the past few days?” Mikko asked Russell.

He nodded.  “Apparently I never intersected with Carlos when he was around, otherwise I would have probably figured out sooner that I was in over my head.”

He wouldn’t have been there when Saorla set-up the wards, either.  Mikko had scared him off just before that.

“Well, the necklace ain’t even here,” Mikko said.

Russell looked at him sharply.  “What?”  Annie didn’t glare at him this time for saying what.

“I gave it back to the person who it actually belonged to.  And she’s currently in the mountains of Montana.  It’s not even in the state.”

Russell’s brow furrowed and his mouth moved wordlessly, repeating what Mikko said.  After a moment, he said, “She’s with living vampires?”

“Before you started this comedy of errors, maybe you shouldn’t have underestimated a few kids just cuz they was mostly human with a halfshifter,” Annie said.  “The house is warded by some strong fucking magic.  You tried to steal from some of the best thieves in Phoenix, and then got schooled by a pickpocketing physiopath with a petty streak.  And then you tried to take one of the most beloved children in this fucking city.”

“And apparently one of the most powerful people in your house,” Russell muttered.

Annie looked at Lina.  “What did you do to him?”

Lina reached out a hand to Mikko.  He took it and he saw what she’d seen.

She’d woken up confused and groggy in an unfamiliar bed.  Her head ached, but it wasn’t too bad.  The last thing she remembered was blowing bubbles.

The room was simple—just a bed with some pillows, a blanket, and a desk in one corner.  There were a couple bookshelves filled with books in English and Hebrew.  There was light coming in from a window at the head of the bed blocked off with white blinds.

Lina heard the quiet buzz of thoughts.  Mikko didn’t know a lot about mind reading, but he did know that everyone felt a little different.  The same way everyone’s voice was a little different. 

This buzz was gentle and introspective.  She reached for it and found someone in the middle of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  She could smell the peanut butter through the thoughts.  She could also feel the nag of something.  It was like a gentle tug of imbalance.  The feeling of having second thoughts.

Lina felt the thoughts grow, not louder, but heavier.  Like a pressure just above her eyes. 

The door to the room opened and Russell stepped in holding a plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of orange juice.

“Who are you?” she asked. 

Russell’s brow furrowed slightly.  He was surprised by how calm Lina was.  “I’m Russell,” he said.  His voice was quiet and gentle.  “Are you hungry?”

“No.  What am I doing here?”  She could tell, from the way he was at ease and the ambient noise in his head, that they were in his house.

“I was asked to keep you safe,” he said.  “To take you away from some bad magic that could hurt you.”

She could see, in his head, that while he believed what he was saying, his background thoughts gave more insight.  Russell had been told to take the girl at all costs.  He felt guilty that he had kidnapped her as ransom.

Instead of replying, Lina looked around.  To Russell, it looked like she was taking the room in.  In reality, she was listening to the ambient noise around her.  She could hear him, but she could also feel the little twinges of other people on the street.

She knew that her family would come for her.  There wasn’t a single doubt in her mind.

“Well—” Russell started.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she announced.  She got out of bed, pushing the sheets aside, and headed towards him.  He moved, as she knew he would, and she turned down a hallway.

“It’s on the right,” he said.

She knew that.

“You won’t be able to get out through there.”

She also knew that.

She went into the bathroom.  The walls were blue but everything else was white—the sink, the toilet, the tiles, the tub.  The toilet seat was closed.

She did use the bathroom, and then she washed her hands, all the while listening to the world around her, searching for something familiar.  She wiped her hands on white towels hanging from a ring by the sink and went back out.

She followed the hallway past the room she had been in, passing Russell still standing in the doorway, watching her with a look of incredulity, and walked into the living room.  The walls here were all an earth brown.  The furniture was black leather, couch and chairs centered around a glass coffee table on a brown shag rug.  A TV sat across from the couch.

The entire opposite wall from where she stood was just lines of shelving.  There were more books, in English, Hebrew, and some Arabic, but also there were items on display.  There was a menorah, some fancy silver candlesticks, a few fancy silver cups, what looked like an animal horn, and some knives and daggers on display that looked very pointy and sharp.

Lina settled on the couch and waited.  Russell walked into the living room, still holding the food.  His brow was furrowed, mouth scrunched in disoriented confusion.  He started to open his mouth to speak before closing it.  He opened it again and closed it.  Finally, after a moment or two of the same aborted attempts at speaking, he went back into the kitchen to put the sandwich and juice back.

Lina continued, listening to the faint static that filled the space between minds.  Russell moved with quiet, catlike steps, but she could hear the haze of confusion in his mind.  She could also hear that he genuinely meant her no harm.  Reaching into his mind was easy.  He didn’t have any sort of resistance to her.  In fact, he couldn’t even tell she was looking. 

She searched for memories to explain why she was here.  She brushed on a memory of a phone call.

“I hired you because you are, supposedly, the best.  How do you keep failing over and over again?”

Russell sneered into the phone but didn’t let it bleed into his voice.  “If you had allowed me to do more reconnaissance on them, instead of just throwing me at them, we would—”

“There is no time, Russell.  That necklace is dangerous, volatile magic.  They’re poor.  They likely want to sell it for fast cash to the highest bidder.  And the highest bidders include shadowmancers.  Look—there’s a child in that house.  Take her and ransom her back.  You’ll be protecting her from a potential explosion, and I’ll get what I need.”

Russell’s distaste at hearing that dripped down his throat like wax on a lit candle.  He cleared his throat to keep the thickness of the wax off his tongue.  “Isn’t that a bit of overkill?  I can—”

“Just do it,” the voice snapped and hung up.

Before Lina could listen to more, the static around her changed to a thrum of anxiety.  Racing thoughts that were all about her.

Mikko.

Russell walked back into the living room.  He opened his mouth to speak.  Are you sure you’re not hungry?

He never got the sentence out.  Lina dove back into his head, searching for the sparks she knew would get her what she wanted.  Her mom had tried to explain it as something to do with frontal robes and cereal and flower stems.  But she didn’t need to know what things in the brain were called to find what she was looking for.

She pressed as hard as she could against the sparks.  They tingled against her, like pins and needles when her feet fell asleep after sitting on them for too long.

Russell collapsed, and Lina bolted.  The front door was locked from the inside by a key.  She went over to where he lay on the ground.  He couldn’t even move to look at her as she dug through his pockets.  But she could hear the dull roar of fear that was filling his brain.

She pulled out the key from his pocket and was out of the door in a flash.  The tingling sparks faded, but it didn’t matter.  She was out.

The memory ended, and Mikko came back to himself.  Getting memories pushed into him always felt like they took as long as the memory lasted, but in reality, it only took a few seconds for Lina to give them memories.  He often thought of it like copy-and-paste on computers.  Sometimes there was a brief loading screen, but it was fast.

Russell had absolutely no mental blocks against a neuropath.  Not a single mental defense to stop a neuropath from getting inside his head and fucking with him.

“Fuck that guy,” Annie growled.

He knew what she was reacting to.  They’re poor.

“Rich fuck,” Mikko muttered.  He looked at Carlos and Timber.  “She paralyzed him.”

Carlos and Timber nodded.  They had already suspected, as had Mikko.  The paralyze move was Mira’s favorite way to get out of a bad situation.  It made sense she would have taught her daughter, who had the same abilities.

Russell looked at Lina, a suspicious narrowing of his eyes.  The gears in his head were turning.  Lina met his eyes.

Finally, Russell’s shoulders fell.  “I was messing with the White Psychic’s family.  Wasn’t I?”

“Your employer really set you up for failure,” Carlos said without answering the question.

Russell ran his hand over his hair, knotting his fingers into it at the back.  “He really did.”  He took a breath and exhaled with a finality that indicated he had made a decision.  “I’m going to back out of the job.  Going to cut my contract with him altogether.  I don’t want to be involved with this.”

“Who is your employer?” Carlos asked.

Russell shook his head.  “If I gave away that information, I would lose a lot of clients.  My confidentiality would be called into question.”

Lina let go of Annie and Mikko and took the three steps to Carlos to touch his wrist.  Carlos shivered almost imperceptibly, the way most people unused to touching neuropaths did.  There was a pretty strict rule about touching people outside of their family, but Mikko let it slide.  So did Annie.

“Interesting,” Carlos murmured.

Russell’s face was impassive, but Mikko got the feeling that he had expected that.  Maybe even counted on it. 

“I apologize for the trouble I caused your family.  And also, I apologize for underestimating you,” Russell said, looking at Mikko and Annie.  He looked at Lina, who had moved back between them.  “And Miss Lina, I’m very sorry for taking you.  And also, for underestimating you.”

“I carry this house,” she said.

Annie smacked her shoulder lightly.  “Hush.”  It earned a scowl from Lina.

Russell chuckled.  “I don’t doubt it.”  He looked at Carlos and Timber.  “I would appreciate it if you maybe kept this from Amos.  I don’t think this would go well.”

“He would skin you alive,” Timber agreed. 

Russell glanced at Carlos who rolled his eyes.  “I won’t tell my brother-in-law what you did.  I would never hear the end of it.  And if Lina has judged that you’re sincere, then I have no reason to doubt you.”

“It will be the last time I make the mistake of not doing my due diligence.”

“Last time you underestimate a halfshifter and a bunch of humans,” Annie growled.

Russell nodded, looking appropriately chagrinned.

“Then, we’ll be on our way,” Carlos said before Annie could get anymore jabs in.  “Hopefully the next time we see each other will be under better circumstances.”

Russell agreed.

They left his backyard, and it wasn’t under they were in the car that Mikko said, “You already told Amos what he did.”

Carlos was back in the driver’s seat, Lina sat between Mikko and Annie in the backseat with Timber in the front.  He glanced back at Mikko, flashing teeth. “Well yeah.  Only way I could have gotten his address from Amos.  And it’ll do Russell good to get his ass handed to him.”  He reached back to hold his knuckles out to Lina.  She rapped hers against his.  “While I like Russell, I care more about Lina.”

“Love you, too, tío Carlos,” she grinned.

Carlos reached to his chest dramatically, as if grabbing at his heart.  “Ay, mija.  Me vas a matar.  Vámanos—let’s go get ice cream.  It’s been a long day.”

“Ice cream!” Lina shouted, pumping her fist.  Mikko had to move to avoid her punching him in the chin.

They wound up going to grab something to eat instead of just ice cream.  It was dinnertime and not a single one of them, besides Lina, had had anything to eat today.  Apparently, Annie had called Carlos right before he was to eat lunch.

Annie used Carlos’s cell phone to call the house and tell Genie and Frankie they were okay.  They were going to bring them some dinner home.  Carlos was paying, which meant that Annie, a shifter who would eat the equivalent of three full meals, wouldn’t have to worry about breaking the bank. 

They sat at a booth in a family friendly-ish sports bar.  Mikko and Annie sat with Lina between them on one side, Timber and Carlos on the other side.  It was loud, but since it was only a Thursday night, the shifters were okay with the volume.  Sensitive hearing made bars difficult sometimes.

“Can we call Mom when we get home?” Lina asked.  She was coloring on a sheet the hostess had given her.

“Of course,” Mikko said.  They had been playing a rousing game of phone tag with her for the past few days.

“Who was he working for?” Timber asked Carlos as their first round of appetizers—wings, spinach artichoke dip, and potato skins—was set down before them.

“Hm?” Carlos said, tearing his eyes away from the wings in front of him.

“Russell,” she clarified.

“Charlton Windsor.”  He reached for the closest drumstick and set to work.

“Atlantes’ deputy?” she asked, eyebrows high.

Carlos nodded.

“Who?” Mikko asked.

“Right hand of the head of the mage court,” Timber replied, setting a potato skin on a small plate in front of her.  “Don’t know much about him.  Pyromancer or something?”  She shrugged.

Carlos swallowed, mouth covered in sauce.  It was an odd look combined with the suit and pale shirt he wore, but Mikko had never seen him get his suit dirty.  “From what Lina showed me, Russell didn’t seem to think he posed a threat.”

“What do you think he wanted the necklace for?” Timber asked.

Mikko and Annie shrugged.  They had always maintained a lack of curiosity about things like this—magic and its politics—mostly out of self-preservation. 

They focused on the appetizers.  Mikko hadn’t really noticed he was hungry until he had started to eat.  He was shoving food into his mouth.

“If it gives Mira a boost, I have to imagine it’s powerful,” Carlos said, replacing his picked-clean bone with a new wing.

Mikko didn’t really know how powerful it was.  He only knew that it had belong to Mira’s grandmother.  That fact alone made it priceless in Mira’s eyes.  He had felt like shit for years for what he had done. 

Timber and Carlos continued to speculate while Annie glanced at Mikko and said, “That name has to be fake.”

She was talking about Russell.  Mikko snorted, taking another potato skin and slathering it with sour cream.

Dinner came and went.  Timber and Carlos’s chatter about the mage dissipated and they talked about other things.  Carlos asked Lina what she was doing in school.  Timber asked Annie about her hip and her plans.  Annie thanked Timber for teaching her that ankle lock.

As Mikko was cleaning up Lina’s fingers with a wet wipe from a particularly saucy hamburger, Carlos pulled out his phone.  It was lit up, vibrating. 

“Frankie?” Carlos answered.

Frankie was probably complaining about them taking too long and how he was hungry.

Carlos put his free hand down on the table, fingers splayed, eyes wide.  “What?  When?”

Annie and Timber straightened up, eyes wide.  Mikko even saw Lina tense.

He hated being the only plain human at the table sometimes.  One with a bum ear, too.

“We’ll be there soon, mijo.”  He hung up.  Timber was already moving out of the booth.

“What’s going on?” Mikko asked, taking the hint and getting up.

“There’s someone outside the house, trying to get in.  When the door shocked him, he started screaming.” 

Mikko swallowed, mouth going dry.

Carlos pulled out his wallet.  He was getting up just as the server was returning and he placed the cash in her hand.  “No change, thank you.”

The server sputtered but they were already moving.  Annie scooped up Lina as they shimmied out of the booth.

“Timber,” she said.

Timber was already meeting her to take Lina. 

Timber was probably the most capable of any of them.  She was a bounty hunter, and she was good at it.  The scars on her face were just a few of those on her body.  She had survived a lot.  She would be their best option to take care of Lina so that she wasn’t anywhere near the action.

“Come on, baby,” she said to Lina.  Lina transferred easily from Annie to Timber, while they were all moving.

They got outside and Annie looked at Mikko and Carlos.  “I’ll meet you at the house.”

Mikko and Carlos went to the car.

“How come you’re not going with her?” Mikko asked.

“Bears are strong, but we are not particularly fast,” Carlos replied, putting the car in gear.  “This car is faster.”

Mikko got to learn just how fast the car was.

Karhi Emelyn

Why had he done that?  What had possessed him to kiss her?  Had it been the surge of adrenaline from putting Saeran in his place? 

He enjoyed Sloane’s company.  They were finally getting on the same page, and they were becoming friends.  It was nice to spend time with someone who understood what it was like to be fucked up, but differently fucked up than himself.  He could talk to his siblings if he needed to rehash similar experiences.  With her . . . there was no sympathy.  Empathy, sure.  But neither of them ever felt sorry for the other.  It was a refreshing relationship that wasn’t quite as barbed as his relationship with Luna.

He knew Sloane liked him—he felt it in their interactions both in how she acted and in the steady tug of her emotions.  He knew they each found each other attractive, too. 

But did the kiss signify something?  Did he want it to?  He was the one who had done it.  He should know!  And yet, he didn’t have a fucking clue.

Soon enough he arrived back at the war room (still a ridiculous name) and had to put the thoughts out of his head.

Inside, it was just Hazel and Aoife looking over the map of the castle.  There were lights all over the buildings and grounds.  Hazel tapped the table when Karhi entered, and the sand collapsed back into tiny dunes and valleys.

“Karhi,” Hazel said, stepping around the table.  “Besides her first and last name, her childhood in Phoenix, her adoption, her grandmother, and her turning—what do you know about Sloane?”

Karhi eyed Hazel.  “Why do you ask?”

“She and her family seem to exist in a very limited sphere in records.  Which I’m sure isn’t all of her own doing,” Hazel said.

“Of course not.”

As a five-century-old vampire, Karhi had connections. After turning Sloane, he’d made sure that her records were pristine, any unnecessary entries deleted.  She no longer had any criminal record—though, that list had taken a long time to rearrange and change.  A few counts of petty theft, one charge of grand larceny, several counts of vandalism, several assault charges, and two charges of grand theft auto.  That last one, they were both filed by the same person, and both dropped. 

Hazel nodded.  “Did you modify any of the information between when she was born and where her mother died?”

Karhi shook his head. 

“In the period of time after she was born, after the birth certificate was written, and the death certificate of her mother was written, there is no record of her.  There exists no record of her elementary school; no record of her grades; no record of her mother claiming her on her taxes.  And pulling on that thread, I found no records of her family past Elizabeth.  It’s as if the Briallen family has been completely eliminated from history—an erased family tree.”

Karhi had noticed the same thing, but he had attributed it to poor record keeping.  There were many immigrants to America with no family lineage.  Elizabeth had been from Sweden.  The 1940s were hectic for immigration and things slipped through the cracks.

It was curious, though.  It almost seemed to be a family trait.  Elizabeth had disappeared after their relationship dissolved.  He only found her through her marriage to Sloane’s grandfather. 

On top of that, Sloane had the ability to disappear off the face of the earth.  Her disappearance to Phoenix two months prior attested to that.

“And her abilities are . . . odd,” Hazel said.  “A linguipath, a—”

“A what?” Karhi interrupted.

Aoife glanced at Karhi, raising an eyebrow.  “Yeah, didn’t you wonder why she knew so many languages?”

“I mean, four languages is quite a few, but I didn’t think much of it since she grew up in a multi-lingual household.” 

Aoife blinked.  “Four?”  She shook her head.  “No, no.  Last I knew, she was at seven?  English, Swedish, Arabic, ASL, Spanish . . . maybe French?”

“And Finnish . . .” he said.  He had known English, Finnish, ASL, and French.  The French came from Mickey and Bell.  He only heard it when she was on the phone with them.  Their parents were from France, he thought?  But now knowing she also spoke Arabic, maybe they were from a French colony like Morocco or Algiers?

“Yeah.  She’s a linguipath.  It doesn’t surprise me that she never mentioned it.  If it couldn’t earn her money—”

“She didn’t care,” Karhi said, rubbing his temples with his fingers.  Of course she would never have mentioned it.  She was infinitely practical and languages, while useful in general, had never been all that useful for her.”

“Exactly.”

“That woman.”

“Absolute pain in the ass,” Aoife agreed.  She looked at Hazel.  “Apologies, my queen.”

“She’s an odd one,” Hazel said, waving the apology off dismissively.  “Anyway, as I was saying, her abilities do not line up in any way.  Linguipath.  Healer.  Cursebreaker.”

Karhi hadn’t really thought about it like that, but, even if he hadn’t known she was a linguipath, it would still be odd.  Any powers, parahuman or vampire, tended to be related.  Mira was a skilled neuropath with multiple abilities, which was rare, but they were related.  She could read minds, use telepathy, control minds, and influence emotions.  She couldn’t do unrelated things, like negate someone’s abilities or turn invisible. 

Vampire abilities similarly had to be related, though multiple abilities were so rare as to be almost unheard of (with the exception of the ‘bae since, as energivores, they worked under different parameters).  Karhi was certain that the only vampire he had heard of with more than one ability was Savita.  She could read minds, use telepathy, and influence emotions.  Most vampires could only do one.

Though Savita was another odd case because typically vampires couldn’t do magic, either, and Savita could.

Sloane’s three abilities were not at all related and didn’t make sense.

“Usually parahuman abilities amplify as vampires.  Though a linguipath wouldn’t really have much to enhance.  It’s a limited power,” Hazel said.  “But as a healer or a cursebreaker?  Those abilities are not quite so limited.  And it doesn’t look like she was particularly powerful as either of those things as a human.”

“Are you familiar with her healing abilities as a human?” Karhi asked.

“I am,” Aoife said.

Hazel nodded, motioning for Aoife to continue.

“It only occurred to me within the past couple days,” she said.  There was a self-deprecating smile on her face.  “I’ve spent centuries with vampires.  To me the ability to heal as quickly as she did wasn’t strange.  But when I reflected, I realized it wasn’t normal.”

It was easy to forget about how human bodies worked.  Karhi had had to reel himself back on his assumptions in the past, even chide himself for hubris.  Apparently he wasn’t the only one.

“Almost six years ago, Mira was pregnant with her child,” Aoife continued.  “I’m sure it surprises no one that Sloane was prickly even as a human.  She had hurt someone’s pride, and he went after her and Mira when he saw them out shopping, I believe.  He held a gun to them and was going to shoot Mira.  Sloane got in the way and pushed Mira out and wound up with a bullet tearing through the flesh of her arm.  It was just a graze.

“I was down at the time with Sevilen.  I had been looking for them, and I came up on the altercation after sniffing out the scent of blood.  I killed the man and helped take Sloane back to Mira’s house and treat the wound.  It just barely missed the bone and the brachial artery.  She was fine, just needed to keep it from getting infected.

“I saw her a year later, not long before she was adopted, and the scar itself was barely even noticeable.  It was there, but not as apparent as it should have been.  I’m sure now it’s probably almost gone, if not completely gone.”

Interesting.  So her healing ability wasn’t drastic.  She wouldn’t survive a fatal blow as a human, but she would recover more quickly after stabilizing.

“Abilities like that,” Hazel said, “minor healing or something like a little extra luck when finding parking spaces or always getting green lights—abilities that don’t rise to parahuman levels, but still have some magic behind them, they get burned off when someone is turned into a vampire.”

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  “Burned off?”  He’d never heard of this, but he also wasn’t very familiar with humans having bits of magic within them that didn’t rise to parahuman levels. 

“There’s a theory that it has to do with how vampires typically don’t have magical abilities.  What I described is like magic that sticks to people just from existing.  Like particularly stubborn bits of lint or fluff.  It’s not linked to someone fundamentally like being a parahuman is.  So, when a human is turned, that magic burns off.”

“That magic burnoff doesn’t have anything to do with the types of powers a vampire gets after they’re turned?” Karhi asked.  Though he couldn’t remember having any ability to make people forget things when he was alive.

“Typically, powers you see are either amplifications of existing parahuman abilities or else they’re random.  There are also some theories that for non-parahumans, the circumstances of their lives as humans can influence it.  For example, Lunette had cystic fibrosis as a human, and it was painful for her.  Her cruciopathy could come from that chronic pain.  But, beyond things like that, vampire powers appear to be random.  Like yours.”

Karhi hadn’t heard this much about magic theory in years.  It wasn’t any easier than he remembered.

“The cursebreaking?” Karhi asked.

“Cursebreaking is another ability that we don’t know a lot about.  It’s rare, and to our knowledge, we haven’t come across it in vampires.  It seems to be an ability purely reserved for other creatures—you see it in the Fey, elves, yokai—things primarily not from the Mortal Realm.”

“Humans?” Karhi asked.

“If so, it wasn’t anything significant enough to be flagged,” Hazel shook her head.

“So . . . what you’re saying is that her healing ability should have burned off, and cursebreaking shouldn’t even be possible.”

“That’s what it amounts to, yes,” Hazel nodded.  “But it seems that the opposite is true for her.  She’s a healer, and her cursebreaking abilities as a vampire are strong enough that they’re breaking down the magic in my castle.”  She rubbed her temple with one hand.  “Savita says that she’s an anomaly to vampires.”

“If it was going to be anyone, it was going to be Sloane,” Aoife muttered.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Aoife?” Hazel said.

“Yes, my Queen.”

“Do you know of Sloane having known any other military generals outsides of yourself prior to her becoming a vampire?”

Aoife’s brow furrowed.  “What?”

Hazel shook her head.  “A joke she made.  Never mind.”  She looked at Karhi.  “Her family history is shrouded in mystery.  She has an innate ability to heal that enhances her vampire healing.  Cursebreaking is an ability that has never been seen in a vampire.  She has soulsilver.  She is Free.  If Savita hadn’t been in her head not an hour ago, I would currently be evaluating if she was a threat to my house.”

Karhi bristled, ready to argue, but Hazel held up a hand.  “However, Savita was in her head and determined that she is in the dark like the rest of us as to what combination of events led her to this.  She wants to turn Alice and leave, which is all we want, as well.”

Karhi let that mollify him, but it left him tired.  He wanted to leave, too.  But he had a job to do that . . . wait.  “Hazel,” he said.  “Why wasn’t I involved in the remaining interrogations?”

“Ah,” she said.  “Yes.  I learned that Faren and Mira’s abilities are more well-suited to each other.  Your fuscopathy is excellent for interrogations but they pair together with less work.”

That did make sense.  Faren was an empath, like Karhi’s brother Zeren, though dialed up to eleven.  And Mira was powerful.  They would probably be better suited together.  And it got him out of interrogation duty, too.  “Fair enough.”

“Yeah, we had to—oh.”  Hazel stopped, caught off guard.  Then she chuckled.  “When you get used to justifying your decisions to people with egos in play, it’s always disorienting to work with someone confident in their own abilities.”

“Having an ego has rarely gotten me anywhere pleasant.”

Hazel started to say something, but before she could, her phone went off.  She checked it before saying, “Lavender has results.”

They went back to the kitchens.  As they walked in, they found Faolan on his way out.  When he saw them, he bowed to Hazel.  “Your majesty.”

“Faolan,” Hazel said.  “I needed to talk to you anyway.  If you’re not in the middle of anything, would you accompany us?”

“Of course, your majesty.  I was looking for the Princess.  I thought she might be here.”

“I think she’s with Cyly,” she said.  “She wanted to be around for Alice waking up.”

“She’s not.  She left to get something to eat.  It’s fine, we probably just missed each other when she was on her way back.  I can accompany you.  It wasn’t pressing.”

They went into the kitchens again.  Faolan waved at some of the people working at the prep stations. 

The walked into the lab to find Lavender working at a computer on one side of the room, close to the fume hood.  She looked up when they entered.  “Have you found Benjamin Forest?” she asked.  She looked exhausted.  It had only been a few hours since they saw her.  What had happened?

“No,” Aoife said.  “I have the castle scouring for him, but we have found neither hide nor hair of him.  The room that he was staying in is sparsely furnished, and the bed doesn’t even seem to have been slept in.  Amara doesn’t have any leads, either.”

“If he ever existed,” Lavender growled.

“Lavender, I have spoken with him.  As have many of your own employees.  I apologize for my oversight, and we’ll put precautions in place to prevent this in the future, but it’s also not something we’ve encountered before.”

“Ben Forest?” Faolan said.

Everyone turned to look at him at once. 

“Do you know him?” Lavender demanded, standing up as if to lunge at him before holding herself back.

Faolan eyed Lavender warily.  “Yeah, of course.  He and I are friends—his first child, Siobhan, is also halfvampire and I grew up with her.  It’s how he got into nutrition to begin with since Siobhan had so many allergies when she was a kid.  But he’s been on vacation with Siobhan mountain-climbing in Chile since . . .”  He thought for a second.  “Whenever Amara got back from that mission.  He’s not back yet.”

“I saw him myself last week,” Aoife said.

Faolan shook his head.  “I received an e-mail from Siobhan yesterday with pictures of Ben and her mom, his wife, next to an alpaca.  They’re still on vacation.  They’re due back in Ireland after the New Year.  You can double check with his boss, Dr. MacPherson, since she would know best, having approved his time off, but that’s what I know.”

“We need to put Amara under immediate protection,” Hazel said, looking at Aoife.  “Please find her and make sure it’s done.”

Aoife nodded.  “Of course, your majesty.”  She left without a word.

“Lavender, you called me saying you had results on the blood,” Hazel said.  She didn’t look concerned, but Karhi knew from the tightness around her eyes that she wanted to move quickly.

Lavender, who had been quietly fuming in the corner, seemed to deflate.  “Yes.  I tested the blood to see if we could find any remnants of DNA indicating there was a gelled capsule used to release the dead man’s blood into the healthy, regular blood.  I could not find anything like that.  I did find some vegetal DNA, but that’s it.”

“Vegetal,” Hazel repeated, brow furrowing.  “What does that mean?”

Lavender shook her head.  “It means we’re back at square one.  We don’t know how the dead man’s blood got into the prince’s drink.”

“Wait,” Faolan said.  “Can you explain what you were looking for?”

Lavender looked annoyed, but she explained what their early conversations had included, regarding Karhi suggesting that a pill capsule had dispersed the blood.  “But there’s no DNA to suggest a capsule.  Those would have bovine or porcine DNA.”

“What about for the vegetarians?” Faolan asked.

Lavender looked at Faolan like he was stupid.  “We do not allow any unturned vampires to eat vegetarian diets.”

“I know,” Faolan said, voice sharp but not quite angry.  “But vampire children are not the only people who use these capsules.  In Ireland, we have staff that are human, too, that we make medicine for.  We have capsules made from vegetable products because typical capsules are not vegetarian.  And even on top of that, those capsules are not halal or kosher.”

Lavender’s mouth snapped shut.

Faolan raised an eyebrow.  “You’re saying you don’t have any Muslim or Jewish people in this castle?”

Lavender didn’t have a good reply to that.

“Wait . . . is Amara Muslim?” Karhi asked.  She was Egyptian—there was a large chance the answer was yes.

“Yes,” Faolan said.  “And she makes sure all the food she eats is halal . . .”  He trailed off, eyes widening.

“Does she need pill capsules?” Karhi asked. 

Faolan pressed his lips together tightly and nodded.

“That she presumably brought from Ireland when she came out here?”

“No,” Hazel said, her voice a harsh whisper.

Karhi looked at Hazel.  Her eyes were wide with horror.

“What?” Karhi said.

“She can’t be the one behind this.”

“But . . . she would have the best resources to trick us,” Faolan said, looking at Hazel.  He didn’t look as stunned as Hazel, but he certainly seemed unsettled.  “I don’t know why she would do this.  But she would be the best equipped, considering her . . .”

Hazel pressed her hands to her temples.  “No.  We took her and her sister in after their parents were killed.  She wouldn’t.  She’s been—”

“Your majesty,” Faolan interrupted.  “All due respect, but we need to find her and put her somewhere safe.  We can figure out the rest of the specifics afterwards.”

“What’s so special about her?” Lavender asked. 

Hazel shook her head.  “That information is confidential.  I need to alert Aoife.  I also need to move Alice and my son.  If something is going on, Alice is a ripe target.  Lavender, I need you with Alice.”

“Yes, my queen,” Lavender said.  All of her shortness and frustration from earlier was gone. 

“Please keep it very quiet,” Hazel replied.  “I don’t want to ring an unnecessary alarm, but something isn’t right.”

“Yes, of course, my queen.”  Lavender bowed and left.

Hazel looked at Faolan, who was rapidly typing something on his phone.  “Faolan.  I need you to get Sevilen.”

“I have already texted Sevilen to meet me in the armoury, my queen,” Faolan said, not looking up from his phone.  “Where is his Majesty?”

“He was checking on some fortifications.  I will have him meet you in the armoury.”

Faolan nodded.  “Thank you, my queen.”  And then he was gone.

Karhi noticed how quickly things had changed from “your majesty” to “my queen”.  It reminded Karhi that when it came to serious matters, Hazel’s subjects trusted her judgments.  And Hazel trusted that her subjects would do what she asked without needing oversight.

“Karhi,” Hazel said.  “I would like you to stay with me for now.”  She started walking towards the lab door.

“Of course.  Where are we going?”

“I need to pull Faren and have him mobilize the ‘bae.  I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have a good feeling about all of this.  We may need to prepare for a fight.”

Sloane Briallen

TW on threatened sexual assault towards the end of the chapter.

Savita’s intrusion in my mind, while unwelcome, hadn’t been nearly as bad as I was expecting.  I had been expecting to be thrown into bad memories, just like I had been with that truthseeker before. 

But, it turned out Savita wasn’t bad.  I still felt her when she went in my head, but it was just gentle tugging, as if I was trying to remember something that had slipped my mind.  With Mira, I wouldn’t have felt anything, but as far as experiences went, this one wasn’t bad.  In fact, the pain I had had before, whenever I thought about what that first truthseeker had done, had finally stopped.  I didn’t know if Savita fixed it, or if I had just gotten over it.

All of which was to say, I wasn’t as upset from having my mind read as I would have anticipated. 

But I was still fucking pissed with Karhi.  I couldn’t get the image of him sitting on the ground, surrounded by broken glass and dried blood, drawing pictures in his arms.

I had nothing against people who self-harmed.  It was a way to cope.  But I knew that Karhi wasn’t fucking coping.

So, when Karhi tried to talk to me as he led me to the infirmary, I gave him the finger and told him, “Don’t talk to me.”

“Sloane, I wanted to a—”

I spun on my heel and punched him as hard as I could in the mouth. 

He just barely dodged the attack, but I got a glancing blow off his chin.  “Perkele,” Karhi cursed, his hand flying to his face where I hit.  “Fuck, Sloane.”  He rubbed his jaw, but I hadn’t done any real damage.  His reflexes were always better than I expected.

I gave him the finger again.  “I don’t want to hear another fucking apology.”

“I wasn’t going to apologize.”

I glared at him.  “You weren’t?”

“No.”

I gritted my teeth.  On the one hand, I really didn’t want to hear another apology.

On the other hand, I really did want to hear an apology.  But I didn’t want these weird fucking apologies for “failing me” or whatever.  I wanted a genuine apology for abandoning me when I needed him.

I growled unintelligibly and continued walking.  “Fine.”

“Sloane—”

“No, fuck off Karhi.  I don’t . . .” 

I didn’t what?

My movements slowed, and I hesitated.  What had I been saying?  Why was I . . .

Wait, what was that feeling?  It was like something brushing my thoughts.  Something . . . trying to make me forget.

I rounded on Karhi, furious.  “No,” I roared.  “Get out of my head.” 

I shot off, sprinting away from him.  This fucker, trying to use his fuscopathy on me.  Fuck him, I wouldn’t—

I slammed into a wall and bounced off, landing on my ass on hard stone.

I blinked, dazed from the sudden unexpected interruption in my path.  I looked up to see Karhi standing there.  We were in the hallway that led out to the breezeway between the Royal Wing and the castle proper.

“Sloane,” Karhi said.  He was holding his hands out to me like he was trying to calm a wild animal.  “Let’s talk.”

“You lost that ability when you used your powers on me,” I growled, getting to my feet.

“Oh, because you would have let me talk if I hadn’t?”

Probably not.  But that didn’t matter.  “What the fuck useful thing could you have to say?”

“Nothing.”

I stopped.  What?  What did that mean?

“Look, Sloane, I wasn’t trying to apologize.  I was trying to say that I wanted to address—not apologize, you cut me off—this wall that’s come between us.  I’ve been a shitty sire this week.  And a shitty friend.  You needed me, and instead of listening to you, I made everything about me.”

My confusion turned into full on shock.  I would never have expected this level of self-awareness from Karhi.  Mister Gets-high-on-heroin-to-avoid-his-problems.  Mister Trauma Avoidant.  Mister Rarely-met-a-problem-he-couldn’t-run-from.

“I should have been watching out for you.  I should have been walking you through how to sire.  I should have been making sure you were safe.  I should have been here for you way more than I have been.  Sloane, I’m sorry.  For failing you.  And I know I said that before, but I didn’t understand that how I thought I was failing you wasn’t how I was actually failing you.”

My fists clenched.  “I needed help, Karhi.”

“I know.  And I made it about me.”

I thought I was done with tears, after all the tears I shed talking to Mickey.  Apparently fucking not because I felt the sting building behind my eyes.  Sometimes I desperately wished my anger wasn’t hardwired to my tear ducts.  “You gave me all that shit, early on when you first turned me, about how I needed to stay with you to learn about becoming a vampire.  You were mean to me about it.  Broke my lease.  Made me live with you.

“But you did it.  You taught me to drink blood.  You taught me to hunt animals.  You took care of me when I forgot to drink blood.  You bitched about it the whole way, but you opened a vein when I needed it.

“And then, when we’re finally on good terms, when we went through all of that around Samhain,” I said, waving my hand in a vague circle to signify “all of that”, “you fucking bail the minute I actually ask for help.”  I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, trying to get the tears before they fell.  “The minute I actually finally trusted you, you backed out.  I needed you.  I—”

I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before Karhi had enveloped me in a tight embrace.  He brought one hand to the base of my skull, cupping it, and the other over my back, resting on my ribs.  “I know,” he said, his mouth next to the back of my head.  “I was being stupid.  I was letting all of my shit cloud everything.  It wasn’t fair to you.”

This . . . was not how I had been expecting this to go.  Honestly, I was about ready to completely write Karhi off.  Once this was done, once I had hit my year mark, I was going to leave.  Move back in with Mira or whatever.  I hadn’t made it that far in that line of thought.  I just knew I wasn’t okay with things staying as they were.

But here was Karhi.  He was apologizing to me, and I could feel his sincerity in my bones.  He knew he had fucked up.  He knew that he needed to make it up to me.  And this time, instead of his regret coming from some weird, nebulous feeling of having failed me by turning me, his regret was because he hadn’t been there when I needed him.

Finally, I said, “If we’re going to have any sort of relationship—fledgling-sire, friends, whatever—you need to talk to me.  You can’t just get in your head and decide you know what I want or need.  I’m not doing this again.”

He nodded against my head.  “I understand.”

“And you never use your powers on me,” I growled.

At that, he pulled away to look at me, but he still held me.  There was a smirk on his face.  “Can’t promise that, since I use it on my siblings because I can.  You won’t be any different.  Especially because my powers only temporarily scramble your brain.  It’s not possible to leave permanent damage.”

I scowled, about to protest, but he cut me off.

“However, you did a damned good job of kicking me out of your head.  So, who knows how far I’ll ever get.”

I glared at him even though I knew he was right.  Mira was in my head regularly enough that I couldn’t even find enough energy to be mad.  Especially because, behind Karhi’s actions, I could feel his intentions, which weren’t malicious.  And yeah, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  But I had also spent seven years with Mira where all she ever did was use her powers on me with good intentions.  And I didn’t have the brain scramblies. 

Finally, I said, “You promise you’ll actually listen to me?  And talk to me?”

“Yes,” he said.  “I promise.  I even promise that I’ll make an effort to be helpful.”  He grinned—Christ, he had nice dimples.  “Though, I can’t make any promises about how useful those efforts will be.”

I shook my head, but I didn’t fight him.  I let my hands rest on his arms, and I leaned against his shoulder.  “Fine,” I said into his sweater.  My eyes still stung, but the tears had stopped.  I was tired.

We stayed like that for a few more minutes before I said, “That night you turned me.” 

He stiffened against me.  I felt his regret, but I also felt his resolve not to fall back into that same self-pitying shit.  He was going to listen and actually hear me. 

I lifted my head finally to look at him.  His eyes were their normal pale grey, not the storm clouds I had been seeing.  He was listening.

“I don’t remember it well,” I said.  I had been so very, very drunk.  But I remembered enough to remember making a decision.  “I wanted to die that night.”

I felt his hesitation like a knot in my chest.  He wanted to argue with me, tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.  But he also wanted to listen to me, like he had promised he would.

“My birthday is fraught.  My mom went into the hospital before, and died not long after, my birthday.  My adoption went through.  Mickey and Bell disappeared.  Some other things.”  I wasn’t ready to tell him about my father, even though I knew that he, of all people, would understand.

“I was fucking broken when we met.  And you were the first vampire I had really interacted with outside of patrons at the bar that wasn’t Aoife or your sisters.

“You were an out.  I was hoping that I could seduce you and get you to kill me.  Because I was too much of a fucking coward to do it myself.

“I’m sorry.”

Karhi pressed his lips together in a thin line, and I heard him clacking his tongue piercing against his teeth.  His emotions were a complicated knot at the base of my sternum, like bad heartburn.  I could only imagine what they felt like for him.

“Outside of when I went into frenzy when I was first turned, I’ve never killed a human from feeding before you.”

Oh shit.

“Sex with you was the first time, in decades, where I wasn’t fucked up and using a human to give me blood to get me high.”

Oh shit.

He finally pulled away from me, wrapping his arms around himself, like he was trying to hold himself together.  “I had had a rough time with Ilona the night before.  I was new to the city, and I hadn’t found the drug scene yet.  I was trying to find a way to cope without having access to heroin.  I found you, and I thought it would be fun to hook up with someone who seemed nice.  And I had fun with you.  Running with you on my back, listening to your excitement—it made me feel good.”

This was getting worse and worse.

“And you were really nice . . . you made me feel safe, as dumb as that sounds.  A human making a vampire feel safe? 

“But you did.  You checked with me that things were okay.  You made it clear that we both could say no at any point.  And you worked at the bar, so you knew about vampires.  I thought you hooked up with me because, at least somewhere in you, you trusted me even though I was a vampire.”  He shook his head as if trying to clear it.  “I projected so much weird shit on you.  You were my first encounter in decades where I felt like there was a choice.  I felt safe enough to take your word.  And you told me I could drink.  And I did.

“But I was drunk and horny and you were so encouraging and . . . I drank too much.”  He bit his lip and I realized that his eyes were glassy.  “And then I gave you too much blood, and I passed out.  I almost died trying to turn you.”  He laughed bitterly, tilting his head to meet his shoulder and wipe a tear that escaped off on his sweater.

“Fuck,” I whispered.  I had known what happened up to when I passed out.  I had never thought to ask about the aftermath.  I just . . . assumed he turned me and that was it.

“And, unless it involves heroin, I hate feeding during sex.  I hate drinking blood.  Because that’s what she would have me do.  And what she would do to me.”

If I thought my heart could drop lower, I had been wrong.

“It was so stupid.  I know better.  I know how you’re supposed to turn.  But I guess I panicked.  I went too hard in the other direction when I realized what I had done.  Gave you more blood than you needed.”

Now I felt like the asshole.  I had been far too casual in asking him about that night.  I just thought he was upset that he turned me.  But it had been so much worse.  We had been having sex—something he already was nervous about because of Ilona—and I had used him.  But he hadn’t known that.  He had rightly assumed that he got carried away.  He never even considered that I may have had a part to play in manipulating it.

“I still don’t know how much I buy that you manipulated me,” Karhi said.  “But I guess . . . a combination of me being naive about turning, and you having a death wish . . . it isn’t a surprise that the night turned out the way it did.”

I could feel his regret and anger and revulsion all twisted inside of him.

He was five hundred years old, but he had spent so long under someone else’s thumb that he hadn’t ever really had a chance to grow as a person.  He had done his fucking best.  I saw how he was with his sisters and brother.  He loved them so much.  I felt it every time he was with them.  He was the ultimate eldest sibling.  Down to blaming himself when anything bad happened to the others.

He had learned to love while being repeatedly broken over and over again.  Shame and anger and sadness mixed in with desire and helplessness and the desperate hope to find some sort of softness and care.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You don’t—”

I didn’t let him finish that sentence.  Instead, I wrapped my arms around him.  I held him tight, my chin on his shoulder. 

His response was immediate, pulling me in just as tight.  He buried his face into my shoulder.

It was a few minutes, maybe a bit longer, before Karhi said, voice muffled in my sweater, “I think we should start over.”

“I think you’re right.”

“When we get back to the Cities.  Recalibrate.”

“That sounds good.”

“Maybe finally get fucked up and see who can tell the worst story with a straight face.”

I huffed out a laugh, remembering that conversation from Samhain.  “No heroin.  I don’t get fucked up like that.”

I felt his smile against me.  That was word for word what I had said last time.  “Alcohol and weed then.”

“Perfect.”

He finally pulled away from me, but he took my hand and laced our fingers together.  “I haven’t checked in,” he said.  “By my count, you’ve killed four or five people since you got here.  Are you okay?”

I shrugged one shoulder.  Objectively, I understood that I should maybe be upset by that.  But in practice, I couldn’t muster up enough energy to care.  The people I had killed had either tried to hurt me, or tried to hurt someone else.  “I’m okay for now.”

“You’ll tell me if that’s no longer the case?”

I nodded.  And, for the first time since I had gotten here, my head was quiet.  No dull keening or screaming.  No fear.  No magic making my head feel cottony.  I wasn’t fixed or all better, but I felt on even footing for the first time in days.

“How sentimental.”

Karhi and I both started, looking up to see Saeran.  Neither of us had sensed him coming.  We had gotten more wrapped up in ourselves than I had realized.

“Saeran,” Karhi said curtly.  I didn’t say anything, glaring at him.

“I didn’t realize you would be so much like Ilona,” Saeran said, glancing from me to Karhi to our hands.  “I guess you had to pick up some bad habits from her.”

No no no.  We just got back to being normal again.  Comparing Karhi to Ilona?  After all Ilona had done?  I glanced at Karhi, going to pull my hand away, but he tightened his grip.  And curiously, he didn’t look angry.  Nor did I feel a lot of anger.  Just annoyance and exasperation.

“Oh, come now, Saeran.  Don’t I at least get points since Sloane is Free?  Ilona would never have been interested in me if I was Free from her.”

I blinked, looking from Saeran to Karhi and back.  What?

Karhi pressed on and there was a savage edge to his words.  “I’m only related to Ilona because she’s my sire, though.  You’re related by blood.  I would think you probably inherited some bad habits.”  Karhi gave him a very pointed onceover.  “Certainly her penchant for sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong because she can’t get over her own ego.”

Saeran’s jaw clenched.  “You are a guest of my mother’s, but mark my words—”

“Since when does anyone being a guest matter to you?” I cut in.  “If you’re going to make your move, make it now.”

Saeran’s mouth snapped shut, his lips pressing together in a tight, angry line.  One corner of his mouth jumped, but he didn’t have anything to say in reply.  His eyes were deep violet.

“He won’t,” Karhi said.  He glanced at me before looking at Saeran again.  “The Queen has forbidden it.”

Saeran bared his teeth.  “If you’re still alive by the time my mother finally steps down, I’ll make sure to revisit the agreements she’s made with you.”

“You assume that you’ll still be a recognized heir at that point.”  Karhi shook his head, making a disapproving noise though his teeth.  “I’ve been around long before you, Saeran, and I’ll be around long after you.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll even have the honor of seeing the end of your reign.”

I didn’t even see Saeran move.  I just felt Karhi’s hand jerk out of mine, and suddenly Saeran was up against the wall, feet dangling, hands scrabbling to get Karhi’s hand from around his neck.  Karhi’s face was mere inches from Saeran, lips pulled back from his teeth, baring fangs.  His grey eyes luminesced silver and claws had grown in place of nails.

Karhi grabbed one of Saeran’s hands and slammed it against the wall.  Stone shattered and Saeran’s wrist broke.  Saeran’s scream was cut off by Karhi’s hand around his neck, preventing air from getting in or out.

“We proved a long time ago who would win one-on-one, Saeran.  You may be the prince with a chip on his shoulder, angry and ready to fight, but you’ll never have the ruthlessness you need to win against me.”  His grip on Saeran’s wrist moved to his hand, and I heard the bones popping.  Saeran’s scream was muffled by Karhi’s grip on his throat.

I had never seen Karhi like this before.  I had seen him high out of his mind, sad, frustrated, happy—but I had never seen this quiet, coiled rage.  I had never really thought of him as someone who could be poked until they snapped, but seeing this side of him . . . I had heard rumors that he used to be an assassin of sorts for Ilona along with other things.

He was much more faceted than I had ever thought he could be.

This must have been how he felt in Phoenix, seeing the real me.  Though I don’t think I was quite so drastically different.

“I’m going to let you go.  We’re going to leave.  And if you ever go after Sloane again, I will end you.  I know you wouldn’t have the guts to come after me again.”  He tightened his grip on Saeran’s wrist again.  “Nod if you understand.”

Tears were pouring down Saeran’s face now from the pain and the lack of air.  The pain had to be excruciating because he nodded.

“Excellent.”

Karhi let go of Saeran, and he crumpled to the floor, cursing and crying.  His wrist and hand were mangled, jutting out at angles that didn’t look right.  I couldn’t throw up, but the sight did make my stomach roll, and I had to look away.

“The infirmary is right over there,” Karhi said, pointing down a hallway.  “You can get that seen to.”

Karhi stepped to me, took my hand again, and we continued walking.  He didn’t go towards the infirmary.  He went away from it.

When we had finally turned down another hallway, and Saeran was no longer in sight, I stopped walking, forcing Karhi to also stop or drag me along. 

“What was that?”  I honestly didn’t entirely know whether to be upset about what I had just seen . . . or kind of turned on?  There hadn’t been any cruelty in Karhi’s actions.  He hadn’t enjoyed what he was doing.  He had seen a threat, and he neutralized it the best way he knew how.  And maybe I’m fucked up but seeing that level of assuredness from Karhi—seeing him so confident that what he was doing was correct and right, and not backing down—it was hot.

The confidence immediately crumbled, and he grimaced.  “I’m sorry you had to see that.  I wasn’t intending to lose my temper with him.  But then he lunged at you, and I couldn’t let that pass.”

I would take him at his word that Saeran had lunged at me, because I hadn’t seen Saeran move.  I also hadn’t seen Karhi move.  But it checked out, based on all my interactions with Saeran up to now.

“I mean, I’m not mad.  I just haven’t ever seen you like that before.  You were fine and then suddenly you were pissed.”

“No one can evoke reactions like that quite like Saeran can.”

“He’s like that annoying yappy dog that keeps going after the old, big dog.  One day the big dog finally has enough and whaps him and launches him out of the room.”

Karhi made a choked noise before he burst out laughing.  “What?”  He brought his free hand up to cover his mouth as he laughed.  “Did you just call the prince a yorkie?”

“I didn’t specify the type of dog.”

“What does that make me?”  He started walking again and I followed.

“Mmm . . . German Shepherd.  Gentle for the most part, but savage if poked.” 

He contemplated that, frowning thoughtfully.  After a moment, he nodded.  “I can get behind that.  You’re an Irish Wolfhound then.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.  “What?”

“Long legs, loud, intimidating, but mostly just fiercely loyal and protective.”

I had to avert my eyes at the unexpected compliment.  “Christ,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Warn a girl.”

He smiled, and it was dazzling.  His dimples were going to be the thing that finally killed me.  “I’ll make sure you know the next time I’m going to describe you to yourself.”

I glared at him.  I could feel my face heating up.

“Ah,” he said, looking ahead.  “Here we are.”

We had come up to a juncture of our hallways with a large hallway that I realized went to the dining hall.  Where the halls met, there was a door at the top of the T. 

“We took a bit of the long way to get away from Saeran, but here we are,” he said.  He continued forward, pushing the door open.

It led out into the main courtyard of the castle.  In front of us, across the expanse of land before me, was a massive black metal gate easily two stories high and just as wide.  It was shut and faced an open field before it turned into forest.

I heard goats and cows but when I looked up, I couldn’t see them.  I had heard them during my castle-exploring, too.  This time I could pinpoint that they appeared to be coming from some buildings off to one side. 

The sun was sinking in the sky, close to sunset.  The shadows were growing long.  The weather had been surprisingly bright recently.  No clouds or anything, just sun.  It was nice. 

The walkways were clear in front of us, leading to other buildings and parts of the castle wall that were visible.  Snow hedged the stone, trampled and beaten down from people cutting across.

Karhi pointed to a part of the castle that jutted out to my right.  “That’s the infirmary.  There’s an entrance just around the corner from us.  You can drop in there, let Cyly know you’re there, and you can stay outside.  Avoids being stuck in what amounts to a hospital ward, but you’re close by.  Plus, I know you like being outside because it feels less like magic all the time.”

I squeezed his hand.  “Thanks.”

“Sure.  Do you want me to go in with you?”

I shook my head.  “Nah.  I’ve kept you long enough.  I know the queen has to talk to you.  Probably tested her patience long enough.”

He chuckled.  “I suppose.  Alright.  I’ll come check on you when I’m free.”

“Sure.  No rush.”  I finally let go of his hand.  “See you later.”

“Yeah . . .”

I felt his sudden uncertainty.  I glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek before I could react.  It was just a quick brush of his lips on my skin.  I froze in surprise, and Karhi pulled back.  His expression echoed his uncertainty, but I didn’t say anything.  We just stared at each other.

Karhi was the first to break himself out of it.  “Yeah.  Um . . . bye.”

“Bye . . .”

He ducked back into the castle, leaving me confused and dumbfounded. 

“What . . . ?” I murmured. 

I had made out with Karhi.  I had slept with him both euphemistically, as well as literally.  I had held his hand while he was on the comedown.  I had held him while he cried and vice versa.  We had developed a level of rapport where I thought we were probably becoming friends.

He had never kissed me on the cheek.

Why did that feel more intimate than literally fucking?

I shook my head.  That could be examined later.  I needed to go speak with Cyly first.

I followed where Karhi had pointed to get to the door into the infirmary.

Something slammed into me.  It took me down to the ground, knocking the breath out of me.  Pain cracked up my skull and stars shot through my vision.  The scent of juniper and cypress filled my nose. 

Before I could speak, a hand clamped over my mouth.  My vision finally cleared to see Saeran over me, straddling me and keeping me from screaming.  He had my arms pinned to my sides with his knees.

Fear seized me, panic stilling my senses.  The evening was quiet except for the sound of Saeran’s heavy breathing above me and the pounding of my own heartbeat.

“I knew you would respond to this,” Saeran said, his face cracking into an awful, satisfied grin.  He leaned over to whisper in my ear.  “All women respond to power when you show it to them like this.  I will make you show some respect.”

His breath hit my ear, hot and wet.  Just like that night.  It was ragged and harsh against my skin.  My eyes stung, and I couldn’t stop the tears that brimmed.

“Finally,” he said, pulling away.  “Was that so hard?  To show me the proper respect?”  He adjusted himself against me, and I felt something against my thigh.  It was hard, and fear took control.  I bucked against him, trying to free my hands.

The movement bought me Saeran’s hand moving just enough against my lips.  I opened my mouth and bit down as hard as I could, snatching my hands out from where he had them pinned to my legs.

He howled in pain, jerking away.  Before I could buck again, he slapped me so hard that my teeth clacked together, and I bit my cheek.  Hot blood filled my mouth, mixing with his blood.

His hands clamped on mine, pinning them to the ground on either side of my head.  Warm blood dripped on one hand only for a moment, the wounds presumably healing.

“That was the hand your stupid sire broke, you fucking cunt,” he hissed.  His hands on my wrists tightened until I could feel my bones grinding against each other.

“What do you want?” I shrieked at him, the words barely intelligible behind the blood in my mouth and the tears running down my face.

“What do I want?” he snarled.  “A lot of things.  I want you gone.  Your lack of respect is enough.  But then you put my brother and sister in danger with this.”  He tapped the necklace on my chest.  He leaned over and hissed, “You’re a fucking liability.”

“Someone poisoned me!” I shouted at him.

He pulled away to look at me.  His eyes had shaded into a furious bright red.  “Yes, and I thank you for your service in saving my brother.  But I do not thank you for the danger you put him in by having no fucking control of yourself.  You can be an asset and a liability at the same time.”

I felt the hard thing in his pants against me again.  This fucker was getting off on this.

And then the hard thing vibrated against my leg.

It was a phone.  A phone.  Not his dick.

The relief that realization hit me with gave me enough strength to finally think clearly.  That coupled with Saeran’s brief surprise at his phone let my training finally kick in.

I got my knees bent behind where he straddled, and hooked one of my legs over his.  He tried to settle his weight back, keeping me from moving, but the movement was enough that his grip on my wrists loosened.

I bucked up, and he rocked forward, hands moving to brace his fall against me.  That gave me enough wiggle room to pull my wrists out of his grip.  I grabbed the arm on the same side as the leg I had hooked and I heaved up again, this time to the side.

I knocked him off me, landing between his legs.  I jumped to my feet, turning to run for the infirmary.

He had me before I was even fully turned,  slamming me into the side of the building and mashing my face into the stone.  “Your fighting is solid,” he said, shoving his forearm into my back and his hand against my skull.  “But you forget that without anyone here to save you, you’re nothing.  Before you die, think of it as a lesson.”  He pressed against me and murmured in my ear.  “A lesson in respect.”

Because, if you hadn’t disrespected me, this wouldn’t be happening.  Think of it as a lesson.

“No,” I screamed.

Green filled my vision, and Saeran shrieked.  The pressure let off and I spun around to see him backing away, the pads of his fingers completely gone, only bone where they had been.

Green flames licked at the ground around me and covered my arms.

Why wasn’t the fire spreading through him?

It didn’t matter.  He was hurt and scrambling away from me.

“Maybe Karhi was right that you take after Ilona, Saeran,” I growled, my voice reedy and thin.  “She didn’t know when to shut the fuck when dealing with me, either.” 

I stretched my hand behind me, ready to throw fire at him when I heard someone scream, “Sloane!”

That distraction was enough for me to look away to see Cailean.  And when I looked back, Saeran was gone.

“No!” I shrieked.  The green around me brightened.  “No, I can’t—”

A scent hit me, sweet and cloying.  It cut me off and my knees buckled.

The last thing I thought was, At least it’s not dead man’s blood.

And I was out.

Karhi Emelyn

NSFW chapter

She jerked away before they could touch, cursing and wringing her hand out.  The cigarette she’d been holding lay in the snow next to her boots, a thick chunk of ash next to it.

“Burn yourself?” he asked, not even bothering to hide the small huff of laughter that came out of his nose.

“Should’ve stubbed it out.”  She wrinkled her nose, grinding it down with her foot.  She shook her head, but there was a twitch of a smile on her lips.  She put one elbow on one knee and rested her head on her hand, tilting her head to look at him.

It was like a jolt of lightning—her green eyes and the curve of her mouth.  She looked so much like Elizabeth. 

But the way she had shoved a broken bottle into a shifter’s neck and then sprayed him with aconite was decidedly not like Elizabeth at all.  Elizabeth had been what the 40s would view as a “proper lady”.  This woman was not that.  Her elegance was a different animal altogether.

“Your work with that bottle was impressive,” he said. 

She winked at him.  “I know,” she said.  “The nice thing about being human in there is that everyone assumes you can’t do shit.  But I sure as hell can break a bottle over an asshole’s head.”

He chuckled.

“So,” she said.  “Are we doing this or what?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her.  “Doing what?”

“You didn’t follow me out of a bar after watching me spectacularly wreck someone’s shit just to check on me.  And we were on to something else here before I burned myself.”  A light danced behind her eyes, half of a smile tilting one side of her mouth.

He shrugged.  “I mean, one, that would be incredibly creepy for me to follow you out of the bar.  And also, wouldn’t it be strange for me to pursue someone after watching them spectacularly wreck someone’s shit?”  He put his hand to his chest.  “I should be concerned for my safety.”

“Didn’t you follow me out because Bart got jealous?”

He shook his head.  “Nah, I just knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him tonight.  I was going to walk by the river on my way home.”  He gestured towards her.  “And here you were.”  He wasn’t lying.  He had been bummed when he’d walked out of the bathroom and she was gone, but he wasn’t going to try to follow her.  He had smelled her lavender scent as he walked but he hadn’t set out to find her.

She raised a sceptical eyebrow before shrugging one shoulder.  “Here I was.  And you came over even though you should be concerned for your safety.”

“Call me a glutton for punishment.”  He flashed her a wolfish smile before looking towards the river.  “I—”

She grabbed the lapels of his coat and jerked him towards her.  They crashed together, open mouths and teeth and tongues.

When he first went to kiss her, before she’d burned herself, he had just wanted to see if something was there.  He hadn’t planned on pushing any passion so quickly.

She had no such compunction, and there was definitely something there.

He buried one hand into the front of her coat, holding her close.  His other hand found the back of her head, just above her neck.  Sitting down, they were close in height to each other.  She barely had to tilt her head to meet him.

She tasted like cognac and smoke and cigarettes and something sour that was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.  It was faint, like a bitter taste on the edge of his tongue.  It was almost like the cigarettes but not quite . . .

Any thought of it disappeared as Sloane let go of his coat with one hand and tangled her fingers into his hair.  She pulled his hair just enough to hurt but not enough to make it unpleasant.  Desire like hot lightning struck through his core and his breath hitched.

He pulled her in tighter, letting go of her coat to put his hand at the small of her back.  She exhaled sharply into his mouth, and he swallowed it greedily.  She was so warm and alive against him.  Nothing at all like what Ilona . . .

The hand still fisted in his coat crept up until her fingers rested on his neck, just below his ear.  Her thumb rubbed along his jawline.  It was a gentle movement, one that banished thoughts of Ilona.  Ilona was never gentle.

They separated, Sloane breathing heavily.  Karhi wasn’t, but only because he was already dead. 

“I live three blocks over,” he murmured, leaning forward to brush his lips along her jaw. 

“Perfect,” she rasped.

He smiled before getting down from the back of the bench.  Before he could turn to her, she jumped on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips.  Her grip was surprisingly strong for an inebriated human, each hand holding the opposite wrist.

She pointed northeast, along the river.  It was surprisingly accurate towards his apartment.  “Onward.”   She grasped her wrists again.

He resisted the urge to look back at her in annoyance.  “Am I a mount?”

“Play your cards right, and I’ll be riding you in more ways than one tonight.”

That went straight to his dick and all outrage and offense disappeared.  He hooked his arms under her legs and started towards his apartment.

They were maybe ten steps on, past the water fountain, when Sloane said, “What are we doing?  You’re a vampire, right?  I am not getting any younger.”

The horny and the irritation warred again.  “I didn’t want to catch you off guard—”

“I shanked a guy with a bottle tonight.  Catch me off guard.”

Fine.  He tightened his grip on her legs and bolted.

He had half-expected her to lose her grip on his neck and had been prepared if she did.  But she didn’t.  The sudden movement meant that her clasped hands jerked against his neck uncomfortably, but her hands on her wrists were apparently iron.

It was a snowy night, past midnight.  Reflections of the streetlights on the snow illuminated everything and cast heavy shadows.  The streets were empty except for the occasional car or person walking out of a bar. 

He bounded down the sidewalk.  He was used to the way things blurred as he moved, but he never lost track of the things around him. 

He was surprised when Sloane screamed in delight.  After the initial acceleration, she braced her legs against his arms and her forearms against his shoulders and lifted herself up.  She whooped.

He considered for a split second before he leapt across the street.  It was a controlled jump, but Sloane yelped in surprise.  She sat back down, tightening her legs and arms around him again

“Dickhead,” he heard her mutter.  But there wasn’t any anger in it.  Just breathless joy.

He grinned and sped up.  “I’m going to jump!” he called over the wind.  “Hold on tight!”

Her grip on him tightened and when he jumped, she cursed.  But again, there wasn’t anger.  He had never come across a human who melded so easily with vampire speed and strength.  She was rolling with it and enjoying it.  Her shouts weren’t fear but unbridled delight.

He leapt on top of a single-story building and continued, jumping from building to building, getting higher and higher until he was soaring through the night two hundred feet in the air.  Normally he would climb up a building, but he couldn’t take his arms out from under her legs.  It meant he had to take a bit of a roundabout way to his apartment to do that, but it was worth it. 

Hearing Sloane’s gasps of surprise and shouts of joy made his heart swell in his chest.  He couldn’t think of a time where he had done something that made someone sound this happy.  Even the night before, he had just been satisfying Ilona.  Pleasing her.  There had been no happiness in it.  Not from her, and definitely not from him.

They finally arrived at the terrace of his penthouse.  The terrace took up half of the square footage of the footprint of the building. It was a flat expanse of tiled floor broken by a pergola with seating, garden boxes with hibernating plants and bushes, and a closed-up pool in one corner. 

His penthouse took up the rest of the space.

Karhi let Sloane down and had to steady her when she faltered.  Her hair was wild, her face flushed, and lips chapped.  Her eyes were starry and wide, looking up at him with the biggest grin.

“Okay?” he asked.

She nodded, taking the arm he offered her and leaning heavily on him.

“Still want to come in?”

She nodded.  “Yeah,” she rasped, throat dry from the wind.  The grin didn’t disappear.  She looked around the roof.  “Fancy as fuck.”

There were four doors leading out onto the terrace from his penthouse.  One was to his bedroom.  He knew where the night was going to end, but he didn’t want to cut to the chase and bring her in through his bedroom.  He found he was having way more fun that he had anticipated.

He led her into a hallway opposite from his bedroom, unlocking it with a code entered into a keypad instead of a key.  The hallway was dark, and it wasn’t until Sloane bumped her shoulder against the wall and cursed that Karhi realized that the darkness could be a problem.  Right.  Humans.

He reached back behind them to hit the light next to the door to the terrace.  The hallway lit up into the living room.

They moved into the living room, and Karhi turned the light on here.  He had a TV mounted on one wall with suede furniture grouped around a coffee table across from it.  He moved toward the hooks mounted on the wall next to the front door.  He took off his coat and hung it up there. 

He turned back to Sloane, who was looking around his living room with raised eyebrows.  He cocked his head.  “Your coat?” he asked.

She nodded, unzipping her coat and passing it to him.  She looked around his apartment as she did. 

He hung it up, trying to figure out how to advance things.  He realized he had halted the flow of their tryst by taking the time to hang up his coat.  He hadn’t meant to, but he had been so buzzed by the fun of running with her on his back, he realized that he had lost the horny in the process.  Not completely—it was still lurking like a leviathan in the depths—but it had flagged enough to force him to think.

It turned out, as he faced her, that she wasn’t overthinking it like he was.  She put both of her hands on his chest and pushed him into the wall, just past the coat hooks, and pressed against him.  She kissed him.

He only hesitated for a moment.

He hauled her onto his hips in direct juxtaposition to how she’d been situated on him not five minutes earlier.  She wrapped her legs around his waist and looped her arms around his neck.

She smelled like lavender—a deep, clean scent that made his head buzz.  Or maybe it was the residual alcohol.  He had drunk a lot of the cognac in one go.

He wished he had just cut to the chase and gone into his bedroom.  It would have saved them some time.

They made it to his bed, almost without incident.  But she was doing this thing with her tongue on his ear while pulling his hair and it made his knees buckle and they almost fell.  She chuckled, moving down his neck, alternating between bites and kisses.

She unlocked her legs from his waist as he lowered her to the bed, laying back and pulling him down with her.

For the first time, he realized his boots were still on.  At some point, Sloane had apparently gotten rid of hers without him noticing.  Impressive when they were snow boots.

He pulled away, growling in annoyance to pull the laces and kick them off.  He reached over to turn on the table lamp next to his bed.  He could see fine, but he knew she couldn’t. 

He turned to meet her, his chin colliding with her head as she sat up.

They both cursed, Karhi jerking back; Sloane doubling over, hand to her mouth.

He sat down next to her, a hand on her shoulder.  “You okay?”

She nodded, hand over her mouth.  “Bit my lip.”

Even if she hadn’t said anything, he would have known.  The scent of copper hit him when she’d turned to look at him.  A combination of desire and disgust welled in his stomach, as it often did when he smelled blood while aroused.

He realized with a start that this was the first time in years he was going to sleep with a human without being fucked up on heroin.  The realization left the taste of bile in the back of his throat.  Was he going to be able to stomach this?

“You okay?”

His own question reflected back at him.

He looked up to see Sloane had her lip tucked behind her teeth.  The scent of blood had thinned in the air.  She had one hand balled in a fist, the other covering it.

He swallowed.  “Uh . . .”

She held her hands up, fingers spread out, palms facing him in the universal display of Very Obviously Not Touching.  “We can stop.”

The bitterness in the back of his throat disappeared.  Choice.  She was giving him a choice.  This woman—this human—who was no threat to him whatsoever, was telling him, the vampire with all the power, that they could stop.  That she wouldn’t hurt him.  That she wouldn’t force him.

He would have laughed at that—this frail human telling him that he had power—if it didn’t make him want to cry.  Not a single person he had been with before had ever given him the option to say no.

He captured her mouth in a deep kiss. 

She made a noise of surprise, her splayed hands coming to rest on his chest.  He ran his hands up her spine to rest on her shoulder blades.  She breathed out heavily through her nose.

The taste of blood was still faint in her mouth.  It was heady and intoxicating in a way he couldn’t remember blood ever being before.  Fuck, when was that last time he drank fresh blood without heroin?

She pushed against his chest with both hands, and he froze, pulling back from her.  “Sorry,” he said uncertainly.

She shook her head.  “No.  Just want to make sure—we’re okay here?”

He squeezed his eyes shut to try to ignore the way her question made his heart twist.  “Yes.  Really okay.”

“Can you say that while actually looking me in the eye?”

He opened his eyes, pushing down the emotion that threatened to bubble up.  He was not going to cry in front of this woman.  Not when he so wholeheartedly wanted to continue things with her.  He nodded.  “Yes.  I would like to continue.  If you would also like to continue.”

She searched his face for a moment before finally nodding.  “Remove your clothes.”  She was already pulling her sweater and camisole over her head.

By the time her shirts had cleared her head, he already had his shirt and pants off.  She paused when she saw him working on his boxers.  She frowned, but it was an impressed frowned.  “Love me a man who can take orders.”

He resisted the urge to tell her that he would take any orders she gave him.  They had literally only just met, and he was not yet that desperate.

Karhi fully naked, she looked him up and down with an appreciative smile.  Her bra was gone, underwear still on.  But he wasn’t going to complain.

“Nice,” she grinned.  She moved back on the bed, letting him climb on next to her.

Almost before he knew what was happening, she had him on his back and was straddling him, her hips on his thighs.

She licked her hand before wrapping it around his cock.  The gesture was so obscene that he jumped in her hand.  Sparks shot through him, and he groaned as she slowly pumped up and down.

He brought one hand to the small of her back, the other to the centre of her shoulders, and brought her down to him.  He groaned against the flesh between her neck and shoulder, sucking a bruise into the skin there.

She let go of him.  He resisted the urge to whine when she did and was rewarded for it when she dug her nails into the flesh of his biceps.   She panted as he continued leaving bruises along her neck and collar bone.

She reached up his body to fist her hand into his hair.  He gasped at the sudden pressure.  He wanted to sink his teeth in her, but he wouldn’t.  It wasn’t right—

“You can bite.”  Her voice was harsh and ragged in his ear.  She pressed his mouth into her throat, as if to tell him what she meant.  As if he hadn’t known the moment that she said it.

She hissed through her teeth when his fangs pierced her neck.  But she returned her hand to his aching cock, continuing those same slow, firm strokes.

The taste of her blood before hadn’t been a fluke.  It really was just as intoxicating and potent from her neck.  He had never tasted blood like this.  Or, at least, he hadn’t in years.  Decades, even.  Did he even remember what fresh blood tasted like when he wasn’t fucked up on heroin?

He pulled away, licking her neck to help the wound coagulate.  He rolled her over so that he was on top, kissing her and grinding against her.  She moaned against his mouth, one hand in his hair, the other fumbling with her underwear.  He reached down and got them off her legs in one quick movement.

He reached down, ready to finger her but she stopped him before he could.  She pulled away just enough to whisper, “Inside.”

The request was so desperate and so, so sexy.  His erection was almost painful at this point.

She bent her knees to lift her abdomen up just a little.  He took himself in hand, brushing the tip of his dick against her.  She was so wet.

She hiccupped in surprise, and he stopped before pushing in. But before he could make sure she was okay she was wrapping her legs around him and pulling inside of her.  The wet warmth of her enveloped him, and they moaned in unison into each other’s shoulders.

He pulled out just a bit, and she pulled his hair so hard it made him see stars.  But the pain combined with how she felt around him just made him groan in pleasure.  He pushed back in, and she whimpered into his shoulder, her hips rising to meet him. She grabbed his shoulders.

As he gained a steady rhythm, Sloane rising up to meet him with every push, an agonizing, delicious tension built in his abdomen.  He reached down to cup one breast, grazing her nipple with his teeth.  She arched her back, shouting out in surprised pleasure.

He only let himself think about it for a split second before he bit the skin there.  Blood, sharp and strong, filled his mouth, and he swallowed it down.  One of Sloane’s hands came to rest against the back of his head, almost crushing his mouth to her.  She whimpered with every swallow.

Her blood made his head spin.  With every push into her, he pulled blood out from her, letting it fill his mouth.  The tension inside of him was building, like a spring winding up.

He pulled away and Sloane whined.  She pushed him to her other nipple.  He got the hint and repeated the same thing.  Her blood sang inside of him, filling him with warmth and feeling that threatened to overwhelm him.

She pulled him up, tangling her hand in his hair and crushing their mouths together.  She met each thrust with reckless abandon, kissing him so hard that he almost bit her lip.

His orgasm was threatening to overtake him, and he slowed.  “Are you close?” he whispered in her ear.

“You first, me later,” she replied, squeezing her legs around him and bucking forward so hard that they both shouted at the sensation. 

He was okay with that.  He pulled out again, regaining the same rhythm he’d had before.

She pressed him against her neck again, whispering, “Come on, babe.”

He bit her again, her blood rushing to fill him.  The heady taste of her blood and the tension building inside of him had him on the edge.  He thrust into her, the spring in his gut on the verge of snapping.  Warmth enveloped him, both inside and out.  Blood and pleasure threatened to overwhelm him.

His orgasm crashed over him, and his hips stuttered, blood flooding his mouth.  Her breath was ragged in his ear, and he pumped a few more times, chasing his orgasm before he finally stopped.

Only then did he realize that the grip of her legs had loosened.

He looked down, and terror erased all of his pleasure. 

She was so pale she was almost blue.  How much had he drunk?

“Sloane,” he said, pulling out.  He tapped her cheek.

She moaned weakly.  It wasn’t pleasure.  It was pain and exhaustion.

“Fuck,” he cursed.  “Sloane, come back to me.”

Her eyes fluttered, and her head fell to the side.  Her breathing was ragged, and her heart was beating too fast.

She had lost too much blood.

Regret and terror gripped him.  But he couldn’t let it take root.  He couldn’t let her die.

And suddenly, with clarity that he hadn’t expected, he finally understood what he had tasted on her breath earlier.

Cancer.  Late, late stage cancer.  In her lungs.  It would kill her soon.  Probably not even a few months.

In any other case, he was certain he would have made a different decision.  He may have tried to get her to a hospital.  He may have called someone to help him. 

But regardless of if she got enough blood in her body through normal, human routes like a transfusion, she was going to die soon from the cancer.  With, or without him, she was going to die.  And with him, he could at least give her a second chance.

He leaned down and bit her again.  Her blood was no longer the same intoxicating taste.  It was desperate now.  Her body was trying to fix her. 

And just as her breathing got so shallow, he almost thought it had stopped, he pulled away.  He bit his own wrist, tearing the skin away from it, and pressed it against her mouth, squeezing the blood out with his other hand.  It hurt, but he was far, far away from the pain, the horror and panic numbing it.

He didn’t have to wait long to find out if it was working.  The reaction was almost immediate.  Her mouth closed around his wrist, and she sucked the blood down, swallowing hungrily.

He had never turned anyone, but he knew the general steps.  She had to drink blood from him until he could feel his own thirst.  To turn a brand-new vampire, they needed just as much blood as had been removed from their body.

It was hard to differentiate the feeling of adrenaline from what he had done from the feeling of adrenaline from when his body was losing too much blood.

When his vision started to spot, he knew that was enough.  Human or vampire—massive blood loss resulted in unconsciousness.

He pulled his hand away from her with little difficulty.  She whined but she already looked better.  The pale blue of death had disappeared, replaced with the pale pink of health.  Or, at least, non-death.

He didn’t have the chance to wallow in guilt before his vision started to spot again.  He shook his head, trying to get up, to go get blood from the fridge to replenish himself.  He had let her drink too much.

He stumbled getting out of bed.  He didn’t even reach the door before collapsing.

Panic rose in his throat as his vision went dark. 

No no no no—

Everything disappeared.

Waking up was like a comedown but ten times worse.  He had lost so much blood that his hands shook, and his head felt like someone had split it open with a pickaxe.

He looked to the side, dreading what he knew he would see.

There she was.  Dead.

Of course, she was breathing, and he could hear the slow beat of her heart; but the scab surrounded by angry purple skin on her neck said everything.  She was turning into a vampire. 

I turned someone.

If he could have, he would have thrown up.  But nausea was a familiar feeling that he could do nothing about.  It wasn’t like he could vomit his guilt and anxiety.  Vampires didn’t vomit.

He climbed out of bed, shaking so hard that he missed the doorknob when he tried to leave the room.  He slammed into the door, pain ringing like a gong through his shoulders.  He reached blindly, finally finding the doorknob and turning it.

He almost fell as the door opened away from him.  He stumbled, catching himself on a wall before starting towards the kitchen.

He made it through the hallway.  The lights were still on from when they had come in.

It took every ounce of strength he had to skirt around the dining room table.  He cursed himself.  Why had he gotten such a big fucking table?

He tripped on nothing just before the fridge, grabbing onto the handle of the fridge door. 

It didn’t save him from falling.  The door made an awful grinding and squealing noise, and the top hinge broke away from the fridge.  He let it go and the door crashed to the floor, the other hinge breaking away as it went down.  He heard tile shatter.  Great.

The fridge had French doors on top and a chest freezer below.  Karhi could see into half of the fridge, and there wasn’t much in there besides drinks and blood.  He reached in and grabbed a bag of blood.

He sank to the ground, his fangs running out, and tore into the bag.  Blood spilled over his hands and onto his legs and the floor.  He sucked down as much as he could before the bag was empty, half on the floor, half in his body. 

The relief was instantaneous.  His hands weren’t shaking so badly and now he only felt like someone had taken an ice pick to his head instead of a pickaxe.  He was able to get to his knees to reach for another bag.

He punctured this bag with his teeth again but didn’t tear it.  He only lost a few drops to his hands and the floor this time.

The consistency of the blood was awful.  It was thick on his tongue and swallowing it was like swallowing straight molasses. Five hundred years, and he still couldn’t stand cold blood by itself.

He went through three more bags after that before he had finally stopped shaking and his head didn’t hurt.  It took him almost five pints of blood to feel normal again.  He had let the dead woman take far more blood than he should have. 

For the first time, he looked up at the microwave to see what time it was.

Four AM?  His brow furrowed.  It had been almost two when he got home with the woman.  There was no way he had only been asleep for an hour.  He finally dragged himself to standing.

His phone was in the pocket of his pants, but he didn’t want to go back into that room.

He went into his study, on the opposite side of the apartment from his bedroom.  His computer monitor glowed blue with the login screen.  He entered his password and looked down at the clock to see that it was indeed 4 AM, the morning of December 21^st.  He had lost a day.

Which meant that the woman in his bed would be waking up soon. 

“Fuuuuck,” he whispered, sitting down in his leather desk chair.  What the fuck was he supposed to do?

He knew what Luna’s response would be.  She would tell him to just kill her now.  She wasn’t fully a vampire yet.  Luna had accidentally turned enough people over the years that her go-to was always to kill them.

The woman in his bed was in the turning coma.  There was no connection between the two of them yet.  He could kill her.  She would just be another dead human.  He would have to find out who she was to make the reparations to her family, but then he wouldn’t have a fledgling.

But he wasn’t fooling anyone with that.  Least of all himself.  He couldn’t kill her.  It wasn’t her fault that he fucked up.  She had just been a cute girl in a bar who hadn’t been worried about hooking up with a vampire.

She should have been worried.

Fuck.

Sloane Briallen

Swanskin’s was the only place where I felt comfortable getting drunk.  I worked there, I knew its ins and outs, and if worst came to worst, I could activate the wards to the basement and hide in there if something bad happened.  Niqui took the safety of her employees seriously and there was always an out in case someone got too rowdy for anyone to handle. 

I tipped back a shot of whiskey and barely felt the burn of it down my throat.  I caught the eye of the bartender, a light-skinned mage named Bart.  He had worked at Swanskin’s for a few months before he left for grad school.  We never had overlapping shifts.  But he was usually working when I was a patron.

I signaled for another shot, and he nodded, making a just-a-minute motion.

I watched as he poured blood straight from the bag into a shaker.  He followed it with vodka and tobasco.  A literal Bloody Mary.

He chatted with the man who had ordered the Bloody Mary.  He was smiling a lot as he capped the shaker and shook it.  The agitated sloshing of mixing drinks was a sound I’d come to like.

I followed his gaze to the vampire he was talking to, and I saw Karhi for the first time. 

He wore a short-sleeved maroon Henley that clung to him.  He had defined biceps and shoulders and his waist cut in before flaring out over a nice ass.  He drained the last of his drink, the tendons on the back of his hand jumping where he held the glass.

I couldn’t blame Bart for his smile or the way he lingered with Karhi.  Karhi was flirting with him and wasn’t a bad looking guy. 

But beneath the surface, I was frayed thin because today was my birthday.  I was on edge and needed another fucking drink.  Now.  Bart needed to work faster.

Bart poured out the drink into a glass and set it in front of Karhi.  He skewered three olives and laid them across the top of the glass with a flourish, winking at Karhi.

Bart headed back towards me.  “Same?” he asked.

I nodded quickly.  “Leave the bottle this time.”

He shrugged, grabbing the bottle from the top shelf.  LaPhroaig, twenty years.  He set it down in front of me, and I threw him a thumbs up.  “Tell Niqui to take it out of my paycheck.”

He shrugged again, heading back to flirt with Karhi.

I poured out a finger and threw it back.  There were only a few ounces left in the bottle.  I guess this whiskey wasn’t really something you should be taking shots of, but I liked the aftertaste and burn of this particular one.  And a younger, poorer part of me loved the idea of drinking what was a status symbol for rich people like it was a PBR.

I listened idly to the chatter in the bar.  Two nurses gossiped about work in the corner.  A man in a booth was animatedly, and drunkenly, telling his friend the plot of V for Vendetta and dissecting how it told the story of the original comic.  Every person in the bar was a regular except for Karhi.

The door to the bar opened.  I glanced up to see a burly man I didn’t recognize, a shifter with greying temples and sharp eyes.  He wore a heavy coat and thick work boots.  His boots thunked on the wooden floor with every step.

He sat down at the bar closer to the door, and Bart tore himself away from Karhi.  “What can I get you?” he asked the man.

“Corona,” the man replied brusquely.  He hunched in on himself, arms heavy on the bar.  Something about him made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t know if it was the instinctive fear of large men, or the way he replied to Bart.  I jiggled my knee, glancing over the counter to see one of the purple spray bottles that Niqui had along the bar.  A little bit of relief eased the tension gathering in my shoulders.

Bart got a Corona and put a lime wedge into the mouth of the bottle.  He set the bottle down on a cocktail napkin.  “Anything else?” he asked.  “Kitchen closes in twenty minutes.”

“No,” the man said, taking the bottle and twisting the lime into it.  He took a sip before shoving the lime down into the bottle.

Bart nodded.  “Let me know if you need anything.”  He left to check on the other customers.

I poured out another finger of scotch and shot it back.  I was met with a faint swirling sensation at the top of my head as I set the glass back down.  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the man giving me the stink eye.

Guess he didn’t like me treating the whiskey like a shooter.  His attention on me, unwelcome and unasked-for, made me want to leave.

Instead, I poured out another finger and glanced at him.  I toasted him and threw it back. 

He grumbled but turned his gaze back to his beer.

Bart came back from his rounds and moved back to flirt with Karhi under the guise of washing dishes.  I listened to them, looking at the mostly-empty bottle.  Karhi was telling Bart how he’d just moved here from London.  His voice was warm, his laughter at Bart’s responses genuine.  He had a slight accent, but it was one of those accents that had been acquired living in many different places.

The tension in my shoulders eased a bit.

Then two things happened.

The first: “Elizabeth?”

My head snapped up to see Karhi staring at me.  Bart was turned away, getting the bus tub from the end of the bar next to the back wall.

I hadn’t heard that name in years.  And there would be very few vampires who would know it.  In fact, probably just one.

But I didn’t have time to react because the second thing happened.

“Fags.”

I saw Karhi pause, ever so slightly.  Bart didn’t react from where he was bringing the bus tub to the sink.  He hadn’t heard.

I turned from Karhi.  I had a more pressing thing to attend to than my grandmother’s ex-lover.

I poured out the last of the scotch, shot it back, slipped off my stool, reversed the bottle in my grip to hold it by the neck, and smashed the bottom off the bottle over the man’s head.

The shifter roared in pain, stumbling to his feet.  Blood poured from his forehead down his face.

“Get out,” I snarled, holding the bottle out toward him.  He towered a good nine inches over me, but I didn’t let it bother me.

The room had gone quiet, and I could feel the tension like taught strings against my back.

He roared wordless rage, lunging at me.

I dodged into his guard and shoved the bottle directly into his huge neck and twisted.  I felt the slice of glass through flesh all the way up my arm.  The skin in the neck didn’t resist nearly as much as other body parts would, but I still felt it in my teeth.

I darted out of his grip, and he screamed in pain.  Hair spurted out across his cheeks and neck.  I felt the subtle smokey magic of a shifter changing forms.

I grabbed the purple bottle behind the bar and squirted it at him.  The man screamed, jerking away from me.  I followed him, squirting in time with the words I next spoke.  “No.  Homophobia.  In.  The.  Bar.”  He shrieked in pain, scrambling away from me.  His exposed skin was turning ugly colors of yellow and purple, but other than that, there was no outward sign of what the liquid in the bottle was doing.

“Aconite’s a bitch, ain’t it?” I shouted.  “Out!”

He turned from me and ran, limping.  He barreled through the door, screaming obscenities at me.

When I couldn’t hear him anymore, I turned back to the bar, setting the squirt bottle back down behind the counter and looking at Bart.  “Broom?” I asked. 

The adrenaline and the alcohol were warring in my system, but it left me curiously calm.  I was annoyed, but I wasn’t angry or scared.  I had just done what needed to be done.  And the tension that had settled in my shoulders was gone.

Bart stared at me with wide eyes.  “What the fuck?”

“He called you the F-word,” I replied.  “We don’t stand that word in this establishment when the entire fucking staff is queer.  Not the F-word, not the T-word—nothing.”

Understanding overtook his confusion and he nodded, shuffling to the far side of the bar where there was a broom and dustpan.  “Niqui wasn’t kidding when she said it was safe here,” I heard him mutter.

I didn’t reply, looking up at the room.  The nurses and the two guys in the corner were staring at me, mouths agape.

“You have a problem with the gays?” I asked them.

They all shook their heads.  “I’m gay,” one nurse volunteered.

I was actually pretty sure I had known that.  She normally came in with her girlfriend.  They were both paramortals.

“Excellent,” I said, trying to take the broom and dustpan from Bart.  “Drinks on me!  As an apology.”  I swayed as I said it, almost hitting Bart with the broom.

“Sloane, give me the broom,” he muttered, tugging the broom away from me.

“No, I broke the bottle, you shouldn’t have to clean it up.”

“You are still holding the bottle and are going to hurt someone.”

I looked down to see that I was indeed still holding the bottle, jagged edges tipped with blood and flesh.  “Right,” I said.  I set it down on the bar, shrugging.  “Alright, you clean, I pour.”

“Sloane—no.  The last time you poured off your shift, you cleaned us out of rum.”

I waved him off.  “Just clean, Bart.  I’ll do just one round of drinks.”

Bart huffed out in annoyance, but he didn’t argue.  I was the closest thing to assistant manager at this place anyway.

I made my way around to the back of the bar.  “French 75s!” I called out, reaching for the Hendrick’s at the top of the bar.  It was crowded with alcohols that didn’t match with it—brandy, cognac, scotch.  There was supposed to be another shelf for those items but there had been an incident.  I grabbed a bottle of syrup.  “But we do them with pomegranate.”  I pulled a bottle of champagne cider from the fridge.  “Aaaand cider.” 

One of the first things I had learned as a bartender was how to hold more than one bottle in my fingers as I poured it out.  I had always thought it was so cool in movies.  I had become pretty proud of my pouring game.  I could do three bottles on a good day.

Today was not a good day.

It really only works if everything has spouts on it.  If it doesn’t, you just wind up pouring champagne all over the bar and dropping a bottle on the floor.

“Sloane!” Bart shouted.  “I swear to God.”

I grimaced.  “Oops.”  I glanced up to see Karhi was watching me, a small smile on his face.  I pointed finger guns at him and clicked my tongue.

Bart stalked to the back of the bar with the broom and dustpan.  “Sloane, get out.” 

I reached up to the higher shelf and grabbed one of the top tier cognacs with a French name.  I dodged beneath Bart—a feat considering he was four inches shorter than me—giggling as I shot into one of the booths.

The other patrons stood by the bar, watching my antics with amusement.

“I’m so sorry,” Bart said, leaning over to pick up where I dropped the bottle.  “I’ll get you the drinks she promised you.”  He shot me a venomous look, but I ignored it.  The adrenaline had gone (probably why I had dropped the bottle), leaving only the alcohol.  My stomach fluttered pleasantly.

“You know she got the Louis the Thirteenth, right?” Karhi murmured to Bart.

Bart shot me another glare.  “If you let her take the high shelf stuff, she won’t destroy the furniture.”

“That happened once, Bart,” I shot back, glancing at what had once been an even higher shelf above all of the alcohol.  It was why the alcohol shelves were so crowded.

Bart didn’t reply, mopping up the champagne I had spilled all over the bar top.

I pressed my back to the wall of the booth and brought my knees to my chest.  I rested the fancy cognac bottle on my knee and my head against the wall.  I was in that stage of drunkenness where I could follow everything that was happening, and everything swirled pleasantly.  I didn’t have to, or want to, think about what day it was.

I watched Bart clean up my mess and rectify my promise of French 75s with pomegranate syrup and champagne cider.  I felt a twinge of guilt, but not much. 

I took a swig of the cognac.  The floral, fruity notes of this exorbitantly expensive brandy were lost on me.  After a while, all alcohol tasted the same when I was drunk enough.

I watched Karhi step away from the bar as Bart worked on the drinks.  He had a glass of ice water in his hand.  He set it down in front of me.

“‘S that?” I asked, taking another drink from the cognac bottle.

“I believe water is recommended after a night of raucous drinking,” he said.

“Didn’t think vampires needed to stay hydrated with water.”

He smirked, smoothly settling in across from me.  He had a French 75 in his hand.

“Mmm, didn’t say you could sit there,” I said.  But I took the water.  He was right; water was a good idea now.

“Would you like me to leave?”

I looked him up and down.  “Up to you.” 

Dimples flashed as he smiled, and my stomach fluttered in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol in it.

Or maybe it had everything to do with the alcohol.  I hadn’t been attracted to a man in years.

“You sit, you drink,” I said, pushing the bottle of cognac towards him.

He took it and winked, toasting the bottle towards me before taking a long draught.

Watching him, something nagged at me.  He said something earlier that had bothered me.  Right before I’d shoved a broken bottle in a man’s neck.

I drank the water.  The shock of cold water down my throat made me realize how flushed I’d become through everything.  My face felt hot and sweat beaded at the back of my neck.  My sweater was sticking to my skin.

“I’m Sloane,” I said, pulling off my sweater.  Cool air flooded me, and I sighed contentedly.  My undershirt stuck to my back.

“Karhi,” he said.

Right.  Karhi.  I knew who he was.  He was . . . wait.  Who was he again?  I knew he was a vampire.  Famous one, too.  Why . . . maybe one of Aoife’s?  But no . . . this wasn’t a living vampire . . . right?  Wait, did Aoife have children besides Sevilen?

“Do you work here?” he asked.

“What gave it away?”

“I don’t think patrons are typically allowed behind the bar—also Bart was complaining about you pouring off your shift.”

I shrugged.  “What can I say?  I’m a rapscallion.”

He smiled again and that same fluttering feeling came back, this time in my chest.  The way his eyes lit up when he smiled was so inviting.  There was an openness to him that I hadn’t expected to see in a vampire.

I took a swig of the cognac bottle before holding it out to him.  He pointed to his French 75.  “I’m fine.”

“Double fist.”

He eyed the bottle in my hand, glancing at his own drink before nodding.  He took the bottle from me and paused, looking between the glass and the bottle in his hands.  Then he shrugged and put them to his lips side-by-side.

It went as well as he had probably expected.  He got the cognac in his mouth, but the French 75 spilled on his shirt. 

I snorted at him.  “Nice.”

He set them both down and shook his head, chuckling.  The dimples made a reappearance.  “My brother is really good at doing that, but I’ve never been able to master it.”

My smile fell, but he didn’t notice.  He was already turning from me, hips faced towards the bathroom.  “Give me a minute,” he said.  “Gotta blot.  Don’t want it to freeze when I go outside.”  He glanced at me as he stood, winking.  “Be right back.”

“Okay,” I said.

He headed back to the bathroom and when I heard the door swing shut, I got out of the booth.  “Bart, I’ll pay my tab when I get in tomorrow.”  I grabbed my coat from where it was hung by the bar.  I put my sweater back on and put the coat over it.

Bart waved me off, still dealing with the aftermath of my antics.  At least he’d kept my promise.  Everyone had French 75s.

I emerged onto Kellogg Boulevard, the street that ran along the Mississippi River.  Swanskin’s enjoyed a primo spot on the water, just across the street from a strip of trees that, in the summer, gave a nice bit of vegetation to walk through, and in the winter, revealed the river, frozen at the edges but never quite in the center.

I crossed the street, headed towards a fountain a block down from Swanskin’s where there were benches.  Even though I had grown up in Arizona, I loved the cold.  It made me feel clearer than any amount of warmth did, cutting through the haze of the alcohol.

I cleared the snow off one bench and instead of sitting on the bench, climbed up so I was sitting on the backrest, feet planted on the seat. 

The first pull of the cigarette helped ground me.  It was harsh, the smoke burning like inhaled embers going down.

My brother, Karhi had said.  In the present tense.  Something I couldn’t say.

It was ridiculous, really.  Someone referencing their male sibling completely taking the wind out of my sails.  But here we were. 

I hadn’t talked about Mickey and Bell for months.  When I had finally made it into St. Paul six months ago, I had made a vow not to say their names.  I had hoped that if I tried to pretend that they hadn’t existed, then maybe it would hurt less.

It had just served to make me more numb.  It had made me really good at drinking a lot of alcohol, on and off shift.  I only barely finished my last final for my Associate’s two days earlier.

Bell had been good at drinking two things at the same time.  It didn’t even have to be alcohol.  He could do it with anything—two mugs of coffee, two Gatorade bottles.  He’d even tried two gallon-sized milk jugs.  It had ended about how you would expect.  The jokes about jizz hadn’t been in short supply that day.

I felt the prickle of energy that betrayed a vampire’s presence before I heard the intentional shuffle of feet on packed snow. 

I glanced back to see Karhi in a black peacoat, hands in his pockets, but not shoved in the way humans who felt cold did.  He was just playing the part of someone who felt cold.

“Did I touch a nerve in there?” he asked, coming around to stand in front of me.

I shrugged.  “No.  I just realized I was getting hot.”

He nodded. “Okay if I join you?”

I tilted my head slightly to the side, considering it.  “I suppose,” I said after a minute.  “But only if you can smoke this without coughing.”  I held the cigarette out towards him.

He raised an eyebrow.  “I smoked the first generation of commercial American cigarettes,” he said.  “You think that scares me?”

“Well, considering you haven’t taken it . . .”

He rolled his eyes, taking the cigarette from me.  He took a drag, and his nose wrinkled but he inhaled without any trouble.  Smoke expelled from his mouth in little puffs as he spoke, “Not my favorite, but still nothing compared to the ones that were like sticking a log in your mouth and trying to breathe in ash.”

I laughed, taking it back from him and putting it back in my mouth.  “Why are you out here?”

He sat down next to me, climbing up on the back of the bench.  “Bart’s trying to close up, and he got a little mad that I went to sit with you.”

I nodded, exhaling out of the corner of my mouth.  “Don’t know much about Bart but I know he’s a flirt.”

He shrugged.

I glanced at him.  My vision was still doing a good impression of a lava lamp from the alcohol, but the cigarette was helping keep my head from spinning.  Karhi’s gaze was on the river.

Even without beer goggles, I would have found Karhi attractive.  There was a nice golden glow to his skin, and his brown hair had a red tint to it.  His shoulders were broad, and they made me want to grab them and sink my nails in.

He caught me staring but I didn’t try to hide it.  His grey eyes, the color of slate, met mine.  He bit the corner of one lip absentmindedly, searching my face.

Liquid courage wasn’t really something I needed, but it never hurt.  I shifted over so our hips were touching.  He jolted against me as we made contact.

I sat back up, our shoulders brushing together.  I met his eyes again, tilting my head up slightly.

He paused for a moment, looking between my eyes and my lips, his own lips pursing in contemplation.  “Queer?”

I looked at him for a moment.  Then I made a decision that would change my life.

“Bi,” I clarified.

The dimples made me weak.  “Excellent.”  He leaned forward to kiss me.

Karhi Emelyn

Karhi didn’t know what to expect when he saw Sloane, but he hadn’t expected her to be covered in human blood with a throw blanket around her shoulders. 

She sat on one of the couches in Hazel’s living room, her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them.  Mira sat next to her, hips and shoulders touching.

“What’s going on?” Karhi wanted to know.  He wasn’t sure if he should go to Sloane or not.  When he glanced at her, she didn’t look him in the face. 

No, definitely not.

“Alice has been attacked,” Hazel said solemnly.  Her gaze was impenetrable.  It was only her and Aoife here, Matadi somewhere else.

“What?  How?”

“That is for Sloane to relay,” Hazel said, turning to look at her.

Sloane looked up, and as she did, the blanket moved just enough for Karhi to realize she was only wearing a bra beneath the blanket.  Dried blood was smeared on her chest, arms, and hands. 

Sloane told them what had happened.  Her voice was hollow and numb.  Several times during her story, Karhi wanted to interrupt but Aoife and Hazel never did, and he remained quiet.

Finally, when she was done, Hazel said, “There were just blue sparks in the air?”

“Yes,” she said, looking down.  “Since they got in . . . I’m guessing that was the shield malfunctioning?”  Her voice was too quiet compared to her normal speaking voice.  He could feel her emotions like a quiet distraction in the back of his head.  Shock and anger.

Hazel nodded grimly.

“How?” Mira asked. 

Hazel shook her head.  “We’ve been having issues with the shield for the past couple months, but it’s gotten worse in the past week.”

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  “How is that possible?  Who maintains the shield?”

“The shield was created by the eldest three Praecantrix sisters,” Aoife said.  “Both at this castle and the one in Ireland.  And a couple of the hotels.  They taught Savita how to maintain and monitor the shield.  Savita has been searching for the source of what caused these magical breaches.  So far, she’s only been able to localize where some breaches originated.  The dining hall.  The top of the tower opposite the armoury.  A couple other places.”

“Do you have a map put together?” Karhi asked.

“Yes,” Hazel said.  “We cannot find a pattern to it.  Some of the spots are hubs that anchor the shield, but others are nothing.  The breezeway between this wing and the main castle, for example.  It’s not a hub, but it has been repeatedly attacked and savaged.  Both beneath it and on top of it.”

“No wonder I didn’t mind sitting there,” Sloane murmured to Mira.  Her voice was still flat, but Karhi saw Mira’s eyes light up with amusement.

“What?” Hazel said.

Sloane looked from Mira to Hazel.  “What?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Sloane shrugged one shoulder, shaking her head.  “It just feels like less magic there.”

“Are you a sensitive?”

Sloane nodded.

“Is that why you were sitting up there for hours by the time I found you the other day?” Aoife asked.

Sloane had sat on the breezeway for hours?  Doing what?

“I originally went up there because it was outside.  But after a while, the feeling of magic eventually settled, and it was a nice spot to sit.”

Aoife’s brow furrowed.  “Interesting.”

“Can I go take a shower?” Sloane asked.  Her voice was hesitant and uncomfortable.  “I’ll come back if you need to still talk about what happened, or whatever.  I just want Alice’s blood off of me.”

“That’s fine,” Hazel said.  “Please come back when you’re done.”

“Sure thing.”  Sloane got up and left without even looking at Karhi.  He really needed to fix that.

You do, Mira agreed.

He glared at her before smoothing his expression and asking, “Where is Alice?”

Aoife answered.  “She’s in the infirmary.  She’s stable, but she lost a lot of blood.  We have to wait until she’s been stable and full of blood for a few hours, and then we’re going to have Sloane turn Alice.  We’re close enough to her year mark for it.”

“Will you send Sloane away before her year mark hits?” Karhi asked.

“That would be ideal,” Aoife said.  “But we’ll have to see.”

Mira started to speak.  “Will y—” She cut herself off, her head turning towards the door, brow furrowing.  “What?”  Her eyes were moving from left to right, as if she was reading something.  “How are you . . . no, that’s not right.  Change and come back.”

“Mira?” Hazel prompted.

“Something’s wrong with Sloane’s room.”

“What do you mean?”

“I could still hear her after she went inside.”

“What?” Aoife said sharply.  “How in the hell?”

The door opened and Sloane walked in.  She wore a green sweater and had washed the blood off of her hands and face.  She had changed her jeans, too.

“I feel like this can’t be good,” Sloane said when she walked in, looking between Aoife, Hazel, and Mira.  She still wasn’t looking at Karhi.  He felt her concern, and a little bit of anxiety, like an insistent tapping against his mind.

“Mira, is this the first time this has happened?” Hazel asked. 

“To my knowledge,” Mira said.  “I pretty much am always tracking my family if they’re nearby.  I was waiting for her mind to disappear behind the barrier, but she walked into the room, and I could still hear and talk to her.”

“It was faint, and muzzed up with static,” Sloane said.  “But I could hear her.”  She stood by the door, huddled in on herself with her arms wrapped around her torso.

Something pressed at Karhi’s memory, like a fluttering in his head.  Breaking down magic . . .

“Hazel, can I see the map of everywhere the magic has degraded that they could find?” Karhi asked.  Things were starting to click in place, but he wanted to check first.

He saw her hesitance.  She glanced at Aoife, who also seemed hesitant.

He knew why.  If they had a map of the castle, they probably had a map of all of their weaknesses—magical hubs, points of entry, et cetera.  “I don’t need to see the nitty gritty.  If you could just show me a basic map of the castle, don’t even need every room identified, and just the areas that degraded, hubs or not.  Is that possible?”

Aoife mulled it over for a moment before nodding.  “I’ll call Matadi to meet us, since the map is his baby.  I’ll take you to the war room.”

Karhi’s eye twitched involuntarily.  The fucking war room.

Aoife saw it.  “Cyly saw Dr. Strangelove in theatres when it came out.  The name came from that.”  She sounded annoyed that she had to explain and even more annoyed that she had said it.

Sloane glanced at the queen, who was already looking at her.  “I know,” Hazel said. 

“You said not to take any lessons—”

“Some of my children suffer from hubris.  I know what I said.”

What the fuck?

Karhi did not get an answer about Hazel and Sloane’s conversation, but they did go to the “war room”.  It was just a larger version of Cyly’s study.  There were less books, and more tables, but the furniture was still comfortable—loveseats and settees mixed with wooden tables with claw feet and matching chairs.

In the centre of the room was an enormous table that was little more than a long, shallow box with legs.  It was filled with five or six inches of fine, pale sand.  There was nothing else remarkable about this table except that the tile around it was exceptionally worn compared to everywhere else in the room.  Karhi knew what to expect from the sand table.  He had seen its ilk in other places.

Matadi was at one end of the table, and Savita stood opposite him.  She wore a golden sari with red beading along the seam that went over her hip and down her legs.  Her hair was pulled back and plaited.

Aoife led them to the table where they spread out on either side, bracketed by Matadi and Savita. 

“Savita,” Hazel said as they entered.  There was a slight tilt to her voice, almost a question but not quite.

“I was able to modify the map as his Majesty requested,” Savita replied, nodding her head towards the table.

With that, Matadi tapped the table three times, and the sand began to shift of its own volition.  In seconds, it had resolved itself with crisp edges and sharp lines into a perfect model of the castle.  The courtyard was rendered in tiny detail with trees and even the small flower garden where he and Sloane had sat. 

He felt Sloane’s wonder, looking at the table as it formed.  He stole a glance to see her eyes wide on the scene in the sand below them.

“This is the castle,” Matadi said needlessly.  “And here is where we’ve found frayed magic.”  He held out his hand.  Each of his fingers were capped with silver up to the first knuckle.  Each cap had a thin chain connecting it to a piece of silver encrusted with small gems.  Another chain around his wrist secured the contraption to his hand.

Different parts of the castle lit up with soft yellow light.  Not enough to be bright, but enough to see clearly.

There were two towers lit up, not far from each other.  Two parts of the main castle glowed.  The brightest was the breezeway between the main castle and the Royal Wing.

“Where are these places?” Karhi asked.

“This is a tower across from the armoury,” Matadi said, pointing to one of the towers.  It lit up brighter for a second before dying down again.  “This is the tower where Alice was attacked; this is a supply close; this is the dining hall; and this is the breezeway.”  Each location lit up when he pointed to them.

Karhi looked at Sloane.  He hated that this was the first time they had really spoken in days, but he needed to see if his theory was correct.  “Sloane, I know you’ve been in three of these five places—the tower with Alice, the dining hall, and the breezeway.  Have you been in the other two?”

Sloane glanced at him.  He felt resentment in her look, but mostly just a heavy fatigue.  She looked away, stepping towards the table.  She tilted her head for a moment before nodding.  “Yeah.  I spent some time there a couple times.  I was talking to Devlin.”

Karhi didn’t know who Devlin was, but it didn’t matter.  “And the closet?”

At that she looked away from the table completely.  “Uh . . .”

“Sloane,” Mira said.  She stood next to Sloane and looked like an annoyed parent.  “Really?”

She shrugged, throwing her arms up.  “Whatever.”  He could feel a little bit of embarrassment creeping into him from Sloane.

“What?” Karhi pressed.

Sloane scrunched her nose before huffing out an annoyed breath through her nose.  “I hooked up with Amara in that closet.”

Karhi nodded, looking back at the map.  “The brightness of the light indicates how strong the attack on the area was?”

“Yes,” Matadi said.

“So, in order, it looks like the degradation from most to least is: dining hall, breezeway, supply closet, tower where Alice was hurt, and the tower across from the armoury.  Or, to put it in context, the place where Sloane drank dead man’s blood meant for Cyly.  Then, the place where Sloane spent several hours lurking and was later attacked by Saeran.  Then, the closet where she hooked up with someone, the tower where she and Alice were attacked, and a tower where she spent an amount of time.”

He could see Matadi, Aoife, and Hazel working it out in their heads.

“I would suggest you check out how Mira’s room and the dungeon is doing in terms of magic degradation.  We already know how Sloane’s room is doing.”

Savita was the first to say it out loud.  “She’s a cursebreaker.”  She sounded stunned.

That got Sloane’s attention.  “Cursebreaker?  Yeah, I’ve been called that.”

“By whom?” Hazel asked.  She didn’t look quite as stunned as Savita, but she was surprised.

Sloane glanced at Mira, who shrugged.  “She’s not a secret after what happened in October.”

“Queen Corvine,” Sloane said.  She glanced at Karhi for a moment before looking away.  “She calls me that.”

“Fuck,” Aoife said.  Her head had fallen back on her shoulders, and she was rubbing her eyes.  “Fuck fuck fuck.  Savita, we—”

“I know,” Savita interrupted.  “I’ll be right back.”  She left without another word.

Aoife looked at Sloane.  “How in the hell?”

Sloane was getting frustrated.  “What are you talking about?” she wanted to know, just short of snapping. 

“A cursebreaker is someone who degrades magic,” Matadi finally said.  “Please take several steps back from my table.  It’s very delicate and if you break it, it will take weeks to fix it.”

Mira took Sloane’s hand and stepped away from the sand table with her.

“Did you already know?”  Hazel asked Karhi.

He shook his head.  “No, I just put it together.  Sloane mentioned something a while ago about how the Queen of Ravens owed her a favour because she could interfere with magic.  And I realized that everywhere you had mentioned, Sloane had been.  And some places were places where she felt strong emotions.”

Aoife groaned.  “Heavy emotions degrade magic faster.”

Karhi continued.  “Others were just places she spent a lot of time in.  The dining hall had the worst of it, which makes sense, considering what happened there.  And she said she liked the breezeway because the magic eventually stopped bothering her.  Because she was degrading it.”

“Fuck me,” Aoife said.  “And this is just your passive ability?”  She shook her head incredulously.  “Fuck, Sloane.  You could destroy this entire castle if you were a few hundred years older and more disciplined.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s uncertainty like ice against him, and it reminded him of his duty.  He was her sire.  He should be taking care of things that she was too out of her depth to handle on her own.  He should have been doing it all along, instead of moping, but better late than never, he supposed.

“What does this mean for Sloane?” he asked.  “I imagine that it’s very likely that she was part of the reason why the shield failed when she was with Alice, but I can’t imagine she was the sole reason.”

Matadi was the one to answer.  “I’m waiting for Savita to come back from checking the shields, but I agree with that assessment.  Cursebreakers can be unparalleled in their power, but Sloane alone couldn’t have caused that breach.”

“Do you suspect that Sloane was involved?”  That was Karhi’s primary concern.  He, of course, knew better.  But he wanted to make sure that they agreed.

“I will defer to Aoife,” he said.  “I don’t believe so.”  Hazel was nodding in agreement with Matadi.

Aoife shook her head.  “Nor do I.  But I think we need to have Savita take Sloane’s memories.”

Karhi immediately felt Sloane’s fear.  “Why?” she asked.  “Why can’t Mira do it?”  Her voice shook.

“It’s a conflict of interest,” Aoife shook her head.  “We can’t—”

“No.  I won’t,” Sloane interrupted.  Her hands were shaking at her sides.  “Not after last time.”

“That won’t happen again.  We will only use a neuropath of Mira’s calibre—”

“Savita?” Sloane asked, nodding to where Savita had originally stood.  “I felt her in my head the fucking moment we walked in here.  I can only imagine how she’ll do with trying to pull memories out of me.”  Her voice was thick with disdain that only barely hid the fear.  Karhi could feel it rising in her like boiling water frothing over.  “I—”

Mira, who had mostly been quiet since they had entered the war room, cut her off.  “Sloane.”

Sloane didn’t even have a chance to react.  The moment her attention flickered to Mira, Karhi felt an immediate calming warmth flow over Sloane.  He felt Sloane’s indignation, but it was immediately swallowed up and dulled into vague annoyance.

“No fair,” Sloane growled without any real heat.

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner you get to leave.”

Sloane grumbled, but she didn’t argue.

The door opened and Savita re-entered.  “The shields were attacked by magic.  Likely, Sloane’s presence made it worse.  Somehow they had to have known that breaching close to her would be an issue.”

Karhi’s eyebrows rose.  “They knew she was a cursebreaker?”

“If they didn’t, it was one hell of a coincidence,” Savita replied.

Aoife was the one to speak next.  “Then we need you to go through Sloane’s head—make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s annoyance, but it was still dulled by the calm that Mira had forced on her.

Savita looked from Aoife to Sloane.  “I’ll be fast,” Savita told her.  “I saw what you did in the dungeons and I don’t wish for a repeat of that.”

Sloane’s jaw clenched.  She glanced at Mira, whose expression was neutral.  They must have had some telepathic interaction because Sloane finally said, through gritted teeth, “Fine.”

Savita clapped her hands together.  “Yes.”  She motioned to an armchair close to the door by a small table and another armchair.  “Please sit down.  Most people don’t feel my intrusions, but I know you’re not most people.  I want you to be comfortable.” 

“You want me to be comfortable?” Sloane asked, moving to sit in the chair.  “Don’t go in my head.”

“Unfortunately, not an option.  But I want to walk you through some breathing exercises to calm you enough to go through your memories.  Can we do that?”

Sloane shrugged one shoulder.

Savita pulled up another armchair in front of Sloane and sat close enough that their knees almost touched, but not quite.  “Alright, so we’re—”

You never explained to me why Amara lied about sleeping with that succubus.

Karhi clenched his fists to keep from jumping.  Sloane glanced at him while Savita continued to talk her into a breathing exercise.  He gave her a strained smile but didn’t say anything.

Aren’t you supposed to be keeping her calm? he asked.

I can multi-task.  I have a child that I have to calm down from meltdowns who has the same powers I do.  Sloane is a piece of cake when she isn’t actively in the middle of a flashback.

Karhi was too far out of his depth to argue with her, and he wouldn’t bother trying. 

Good man.  Now, tell me.

It wasn’t like Karhi could do anything useful while Savita asked Sloane questions to ascertain if she was truly telling the truth about everything that happened up to now.  Karhi knew Sloane had no idea what a cursebreaker could do before today.  Savita would find that, too.

Fine.  When a human or a living vampire hasn’t had enough blood for a long time, they will go into frenzy—the bloodlust drives us to kill and drink any human we come across.

That’s what happened to you when you were first sired, she said.

That was where he had gotten his nickname, Tuhkanharmaa.  Yes, he replied tightly.  But also, fledglings are prone to frenzy just as a hazard of being so new to being vampires.  So I had that twofold.  Which was why he had killed almost fifty people a month into being a vampire.

Ok.

Karhi continued.  We’re only driven by thirst, though.  There’s no emotional component.

Now, the ‘bae have the thirst for blood.  And the hunger for emotions.  And the ability to feel the emotions of everyone around them.  And they are basically a giant lure—anyone they set their sights on is immediately enamoured by them if they don’t have previous training to block it out.  He paused for a second.  And also, if their intended target doesn’t feel sexual attraction to the vampire.  Lesbian human with a male vampire.  Asexual human with any vampire.

Mira didn’t nod physically, but he could feel her acknowledging that she got it.

Now, imagine—you’re horny all the time, you need to drink blood, you need to consume emotions, you can make anyone want you, and you’re young with very little control and no way of blocking out anyone’s desires or your own.

He felt Mira’s understanding before she said, That’s a perfect storm for awful things.

Yes.  And with age comes wisdom and control, of course.  Faren is very careful about who he allows into power underneath him.  But for a long time, the ‘bae were viewed as savage monsters who could not be controlled.  It was why they were killed on sight before Hazel rose to power.

A lot of people still think like that.  And caution is warranted, sure, but the outright hatred is just based in bigotry at this point.  They have a much better grasp of the ‘bae nowadays.

So, Mira said, any time something happens around one of the ‘bae, even if they’re not behind it, they get blamed?

Correct.  So, if something bad had happened to Amara, Ciara could come under fire for ‘being the reason’, even if she wasn’t.

Hm.  Yeah, I suppose it would be a bad look if something happened to Hazel’s prized pet.

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  What?

Before Mira could reply, Savita said, “We are finished.”  She looked at Hazel.  “As suspected, she does not have any extra information, and she did not know what it meant to be a cursebreaker until today.”

Sloane was already standing up.  “Great,” she said.  “Good.  I can leave now, then?”

“Yes,” Hazel said.  “I would like if you could go to the infirmary and stay there until Alice is stable enough to be turned.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s apprehension.  “Is it . . . like a hospital?”

Hazel tilted her head to one side, considering it.  “Yes, I suppose it is.  You don’t need to stay in the infirmary, if it makes you uncomfortable.  If you could stay near it, that would work well enough.”

“Where is it?” she asked.

“I can take her,” Karhi volunteered.  The last time he had been here, he had spent a lot of time in the infirmary because Hazel had been badly injured in an assassination attempt. 

“Very well,” Hazel said.  “Please return once you are done.  I would like to speak with you.”  She turned to Aoife.  “Would you take Mira to Faren so they can resume the interrogations?”

“Sure,” Aoife said.  “Cyly’s study?”

“Correct.”

Wasn’t Karhi supposed to be doing the interrogations?  Why had he been replaced with Faren?

He quickly decided that it wasn’t worth it to ask right now.  He could feel Sloane’s annoyance with him seeping into his head like cold water.  Normally her annoyance was hot and angry against him.  The fact that this was cold—it had been sitting for a long time. 

He really needed to fix this.

He glanced at Sloane and nodded to the door.  She glared at him, but she went.

Mikko Lawrence

“Lina?” Mikko called out as Annie rushed to Bell to rouse him.  He felt light-headed as he moved down the stairs.  He signed back at Frankie and Genie, “Search the house for Lina.”

He grabbed the railing heavily, using it to support most of his weight as he moved down the stairs.  Why was he so dizzy?

By the time Mikko got down the stairs, Bell was waking up.  He groaned as Annie pulled him onto his side.  Mikko couldn’t see any blood.

There was an overturned bottle of bubbles next to Bell, the bubble soap still wet on the asphalt.  Glass lay shattered on the ground, as if something had broken against the edge of the stairs.

Mikko wanted to move forward and search for Lina, but he wavered where he stood.

“Inside,” Annie said, helping Bell to his feet.  Bell’s eyes were open but unfocused.  He wasn’t doing a good job of keeping his own weight up by himself.

Mikko turned back, keeping his hand on the stair railing to keep from pitching over.  It took all of his energy to go up the first step.  His feet felt like lead weights.

“Mikko,” Annie growled behind him.

He didn’t have the energy to reply.  He just pitched forward, dragging his feet up the four remaining steps into the house.  It was like walking through molasses.  And that smell—sweet and heady.  It filled his sinuses, fogging his head.

His head cleared suddenly when he passed the threshold.  He sped up, clearing the doorway and turning to help Annie bring Bell in.

Annie stumbled on the last step and Mikko just barely kept her from landing face first with Bell on top of her.  He caught them, fire clawing into his side from his injured ribs.  He bore through it to get Annie through the door, pulling it shut behind them.

“What the hell was that?” Mikko panted, trying to help her bring Bell into the living room.

“Valerian,” she huffed as they finally shoved Bell onto the couch.  “My mom used to make potions.  That was a common one to help people sleep.  And that one was mixed with aconite.”

Aconite was poisonous to shifters.  It took a high dosage to kill them, but it interrupted their ability to shift and made them slower and duller.  Straight aconite on bare skin would cause chemical burns.

Mikko’s brain was still sluggish, and he wasn’t quite putting it together.  Annie saw that and said, “Someone threw an aerosolized aconite-valerian cocktail into the yard.”

“The broken glass,” Mikko said, understanding.

She nodded, crouching down to hit Bell’s face lightly with her hand to rouse him.  “It was still in the air, which is why it hit you and me so hard.  Valerian is no joke.”

That sweet scent.  Mikko looked back at the sound of creaky stairs to see Genie and Frankie.

“She’s gone,” Frankie said.  His eyes were wide with disbelief and a little bit of fear.  “What do we do?”

“We need to wake Bell up,” Annie said.  Mikko interpreted for her to Genie.

Genie nodded, disappearing back upstairs.  Frankie left at the same time but went outside instead. 

Genie came back down with an ammonia tablet.

Annie stepped out of the living room.  Mikko heard her pick up the phone and the sound of pushed buttons.  She was sensitive to the ammonia.

Genie snapped it under Bell’s nose and had to dodge when he jerked up in alarm.  “The fuck?!” he shouted, looking around wildly.  He caught sight of Mikko and locked wild eyes with him.  His pupils were almost the size of his irises, and Mikko could see his pulse pounding in his throat. 

“Bell, where’s Lina?”

Bell’s eyes went wider, if that was possible.  “What?” he whispered.

“Someone threw an aconite and valerian potion into the backyard,” Annie said, coming back into the living room.  Mikko hadn’t caught who she called.  “Do you remember anything?”

Bell started to stand, but his arms buckled underneath him when he tried to push himself up.  He sat back heavily on the couch.  He put one hand to his head, wincing.  His eyes squeezed shut. 

“Yeah, those potions leave shitty headaches,” Annie said.

“I . . . I remember the sound of breaking glass.  And something smelled sweet, but then . . .”  He shook his head.  “Then you were waking me up.”

“You didn’t see anything?”

He shook his head, his knuckles white as he dug his fingers into his skull.  “I was blowing bubbles for Lina.  I can’t remember anything.”  He looked up at them.  “I’m so sorry,” he said, taking his hand away from his head.  He clenched his fists.  “You trusted me to take care of her and I just fucking . . . didn’t.”

The back door shut.  Mikko looked up to see Frankie coming inside.  He didn’t look dazed, like Mikko had felt coming in from outside.

“Lina isn’t anywhere outside,” he shook his head.

“Why aren’t you dizzy?” Mikko asked him.

Frankie’s brow furrowed.  “What?”

“The aerosol probably dispersed before Frankie went out,” Annie waved her hand.  She looked at Bell.  “Can you track?”

Bell nodded, standing up.  He didn’t sway.  He looked better already, his pupils going back to normal sizes.

“Annie,” Mikko started.

“Stay here,” she said.  “I called Carlos.  He’s coming here.”

Mikko stopped.  Annie and Bell could get more done without him tagging along.  They could also cover a hell of a lot more ground than he could.  Annie shapeshifted into a hawk—if anyone could find Lina, it would be the two of them.

“I’ll be here,” he said.

They left.

Carlos beat Annie and Bell back to the house.  He refused to knock on the door this time, calling on the phone from outside the front door to let them know.

Mikko opened the door, walking back into the living room without looking.  “It shouldn’t shock you anymore.” 

“Not taking that chance, boludo.”  The words were light, but Carlos’s tone was tight.

Carlos joined him in the living room.  The door shut as he came in and a second person followed into the living room.

She was dark-skinned, almost the color of ebony.  Crocheted braids fell to her shoulders with different colored wooden beads at the ends.  She had four scars slashing across her face, starting from her hair line at her forehead almost down to her lips.  Her eye was untouched by the scar, but it did curl her lip up just enough to make her look like she had a perpetual sneer.  She was almost as tall as Mikko with wide hips and a round face.  Her wrists were covered with metals bangles that jingled as she walked.

“Oh, Timber,” Mikko said, grimacing.  “Sorry.”  He hadn’t realized she was behind Carlos.

“Don’t worry, baby,” she waved him off, the silver and bronze bangles on her wrist jingling.  “You got a lot on your mind.”  She greeted Genie and Frankie with a touch of her index finger to her head.  Frankie was interpreting for Genie.  Timber and Carlos were decent in sign language, but not fluent by any means.

“Annie said you might know who did this?” Carlos asked.

Mikko grabbed the wallet that sat on the table next to the couch and handed it to Carlos.  “Yeah.  Annie didn’t tell you?”  He didn’t sign as he spoke, relying on Frankie to do it for him.  True ASL was better than simcomming in a situation like this.

“No, she was afraid of . . . someone . . . listening . . . FUCK.”

Mikko jumped when Carlos shouted that last word.  His heart spiked into his throat before falling back, racing.  “What?” Mikko asked.  He didn’t like how scared Carlos’s voice sounded.

“Russell?” Timber said, looking at the wallet in Carlos’s hands.  “What the hell?  Russell don’t fuck with children.”

Carlos shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

“You know this guy?” Mikko asked.  He didn’t like that.  Anyone that ran in their circles would be dangerous.

“Yeah.  We work in similar circles.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Amos does,” Carlos said, already pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing.  “Amos hires him sometimes.”  He paused for a moment before saying, “Amos.  I need to know where Russell Russell lives.”

Carlos went quiet for a moment, nodding as he listened to whatever Amos was telling him.  “We think he kidnapped Evelina.”

Mikko heard the scream that came from the other end.  “What?”

“Yeah, yeah—we’re taking care of it.  Give me his address.”

After a moment, Carlos nodded.  “Sure, yeah.  Thanks.  I’ll tell you more later.”  He hung up and looked down at his screen. 

“Carlos?” Mikko prompted when he didn’t say anything.

“Amos is—”  Carlos’s phone dinged, interrupting him.  “There it is.  He texted it to me.”   He read over the address.  “Scottsdale.  Bougie fuck.”

“Let’s go then,” Mikko said.  He looked back at Genie and Frankie.  “Stay here.”

Frankie bristled.  “We—”

“—are a liability,” Carlos finished sternly.  “Russell is a formidable adversary.  I barely want Mikko there, but he needs to be able to take Lina and drive away if necessary.  Neither of you have a driver’s license, and you’re both kids.  You stay here, in your heavily fortified, heavily warded house.”  He was already starting to turn toward the door.

“Activate the wards after I leave,” Mikko told them, ignoring the glares they each gave him.

“This is audism,” Genie argued, finishing her sentence with a middle finger for style.

“No, it’s ageism,” he replied, following Timber and Carlos.  “Activate the wards!”

As Mikko stepped out, he saw Bell was walking towards the front door, Annie next to him.

“Nothing,” Annie shook her head.  “Scent disappeared.  Got into a car, probably.”

Mikko held the front door open to Bell.  “Bell,” he said, “can you stay with them?  The house can protect them, but I would feel comfortable just in case.”

Bell nodded, already heading into the house without question.  Mikko thought he may have heard Bell say, “do it right this time,” under his breath.

Annie and Carlos were already conversing by the time Mikko shut the door behind Bell.  He felt a staticky current run across his hand as he touched the door.  They had activated the wards.

“We got a location,” Carlos said.  “Follow us.  Give us aerial.”

Annie didn’t need to be told twice.  She lifted her arms up, her skin already beginning to ripple and remold.  By the time she had swooped her arms back down, her fingers had turned into black-tipped white primary feathers, and she launched into the air.  A white ball streaked into the sky and disappeared high above them.

“You drive,” Carlos said, holding the keys out to Mikko.  “I want you ready to go, leaving me and Timber behind if you have to, okay?”

Carlos and Timber were more than capable of taking care of themselves.  Mikko took the keys and got in the car

“Who did you leave with the kids?” Carlos asked as Mikko started the car.  Timber climbed into the back.

“One of Sloane’s brothers.” 

“The family that adopted her?”

Mikko nodded, putting the car in drive and setting off.

“When you said the guy’s name, you said it twice?” Mikko asked.  Russell Russell.

Carlos shrugged one shoulder, pointing the direction Mikko needed to head.  “His first and last name are the same.  Don’t ask me why; I don’t know.”

Weird.

Mikko had never driven a car that moved so smoothly.  It responded to his touch almost before he did anything.  And it had all these lights and buttons on the center console, including AC/heat that adjusted based on the desired temperature of the driver and the passenger.

“Carlos, your car tells me that you’re the bougie fuck,” Mikko said as Carlos directed him to I17.  He needed something to focus on other than Lina.  If he thought about it, he was going to cry.

“Man owns a fucking Lamborghini,” Carlos replied.  “This is an MKZ.  It costs like thirty grand.  His car costs like 200 grand.”

“You think Lambos be ugly though,” Timber interjected.  “And don’t be acting like you ain’t got a fucking Aston Martin in the garage at your house.”

“That’s my wife’s—”

“Bullshit.  You just got it for her birthday cuz you wanted it.  She wanted the vacation you also gave her with the car.”

“Whatever.” 

“You—”

“He’s not hurting her, is he?” Mikko asked, his voice barely above a whisper.  He couldn’t contain his fear.

That stopped everyone in the car.

He had tried to distract himself, but it wasn’t working.  He was seeing terrible things happening to Lina in his head.  Things that had happened to him. 

Mikko had been kidnapped not even two months before.  He had been tortured, deprived of sleep, starved, and beaten within an inch of his life.  He had believed that no one would ever find him.  He had been so cold and so scared. 

He just barely held back the tears that threatened to spill at the thought of something like that happening to Lina.  Happening to a five-year-old.  When he was supposed to have been protecting her.

“No, baby,” Timber finally said, reaching over to put a hand on his shoulder from behind.  “Russell works by a code.  He would die before he let harm befall a child.”

“Are you sure?  How well do you know him?”

“I’m familiar with his work,” she said.  “He was a bounty hunter for a bit, like I am.”

He bit his lip.  Her words sounded nice, and she sounded like she believed what she said.  But he couldn’t take any sort of solace in that.  Not until Lina was safe.

Carlos eventually led him off the highway onto a tree-lined street where each block had a tall white wall along their perimeters.  That was how Mikko knew he was in a place he had no business being.  Trees that didn’t belong in Arizona and required a lot of up-keep, and tall white walls.  Some of the walls had big bronze letters on them spelling names of neighborhoods.  He could barely see houses behind the walls because of all the trees. 

Carlos pointed him down a street with one such neighborhood name.  The Highlands.  Except there were no highlands in sight.

They turned off the main thoroughfare, passing ranch-style houses with covered garages and green lawns and tall trees.  Some lawns were edged with rocks and sand, but most of them were bright green grass.  It was a departure from the crabgrass in their own yard.  This was the nice, rich, white people grass.  They had sprinklers installed in their yards, little black plastic heads peeking out just above the ground.

Carlos pointed him down another street and started looking at the numbers on the houses as he turned.  “Okay, so, we should be coming up on it . . .”

They were coming up on another ranch house.  This one was coral-colored.  It had a covered two-car garage on one side and a metal gate on the other that connected to a fence disappearing behind the house.  The front was mostly gravel and rock with some cacti as accents.  The front door opened to a small porch with a couple chairs set up one step from the front walk that connected the house and the driveway.

A glimpse of blonde hair and gangly legs darted out from the porch, waving at him.  Losing all sense of “the plan”, Mikko barely had the sense to put the car in park before he was jumping out to meet Lina.

“Mikko!” she shouted, running to him.  She jumped up, and Mikko caught her, swinging her around.  She clamped her legs around his hips and wrapped her arms around his neck.  He crushed her to him, one hand pressing on the middle of her back, the other on the back of her head.  His ribs ached, but he didn’t care.

Tears threatened to spill, and he didn’t speak for fear his voice would break.  He buried his face into her neck.  Are you okay? 

Yes.  He didn’t hurt me.  I knew you’d be so scared after what happened to you.

He hated that she knew what he’d been through.  He hated that she had seen it in his nightmares.  How did you get out?

He—

The rest of Lina’s thoughts were lost as Mikko heard Carlos and Timber shouting.

Mikko looked up to see that, at the front door of the house that Lina had escaped, stood the man Annie had fought at Bryant’s.  Russell.  His green eyes were wide, staring at them all outside of his house.  He looked from Timber to Carlos, mouth parting in shock.

“He didn’t hurt me!” Lina called to Timber and Carlos.  “I’m okay!”

Russell looked between the four of them, getting more and more obviously confused as he met each person’s eyes.  Finally, unexpectedly, he said, “What the fuck is going on?”  He had a strong Southern drawl.

“Think that’s our question, forro.  Why the fuck did you take a little kid, Russell?  Who the fuck could possibly have wanted that?”

Lina lifted her head up.  Mikko let go of her head to put his arm underneath her butt to give her some support.  “Someone’s mad at Mikko!”

Baffled silence met that statement.  The anxiety and fear that had been building up and threatening to spill suddenly quieted, replaced with abject confusion.

“What?” Mikko finally said when it seemed like no one else was going to.

Mikko felt the small breeze of air just before Annie was standing next to him.  “Why is someone mad at Mikko?” she asked.  She reached over to put her hand over one of Lina’s arms where they were wrapped around Mikko.  Probably to prove to herself that Lina was really there.

“Because he took Mom’s necklace back from that jerk at the pawn shop.”  She pointed to Russell with the arm that Annie wasn’t touching.  “He works for the guy mad at Mikko.”

“Wait,” Russell said, staring at Lina.  “What?”

Lina tilted her head for a moment before she pulled away to look at Mikko.  “The man told him,” she pointed at Russell again, “that the necklace is really dangerous, and you took it to sell it to bad people.”  She looked at Russell.  “That’s not what happened, mister!  That necklace was my mom’s, and the pawn shop jerk wouldn’t sell it to Mikko!”

Russell’s gaze on Lina was baffled.  Good, because Mikko was also lost.

“Wh—” Carlos started to say.

Annie interrupted him before he could finish the sentence.  “I swear to god, if one more person says ‘what’, I’m going to lose my absolute shit.”

Silence reigned.

Finally, Mikko spoke.  “I feel like . . . we should have a conversation?  Like normal, civilized people?” 

“I would be okay with that,” Russell finally said.  He still sounded confused, but he sounded more confident now.  “I suspect I missed something.”

Carlos and Timber exchanged glances before straightening, moving out of defensive stances.

“I don’t want to invite you into my house,” Russell said, looking from one side of the street to the other.  It was empty and quiet.  “But we shouldn’t have this conversation in the open.”  He stepped down from his porch and headed toward the gate leading to the backyard.

Karhi Emelyn

Karhi and Aoife exited the wine cellar and were about to part when Aoife’s phone chirped.  She glanced at it, reading through something, before looking at Karhi.

“Sorry,” she said, typing on her phone.  “Your reunion with Sloane needs to be delayed just a bit.  Which might be a good idea anyway so she can cool down.”

“Why?” 

“The blood that she drank—we were able to run some tests on it and there are results.  I’d like you to be there to talk about it.”

Karhi wanted to argue, but Aoife was right.  Sloane was usually easier to talk to when she had been given some space.  And Aoife had searched for him for eight hours to get back to questioning.  There was a job he had agreed to do.  What was another hour or so?

“Alright.”

Aoife took the lead, and Karhi followed her.  As they walked, he took off the bandages she had put on his hand.  He wasn’t bleeding anymore, and he didn’t want people asking questions why a vampire needed bandages.  There was some scarring on his hands, but it was already fading.

“How did Sloane wind up drinking dead man’s blood?” he asked.  He had heard it was meant for the prince, but that’s all he knew.

“I spoke with Cyly afterwards.  Sloane joined Alice and Cyly in the dining hall.  My understanding is that Sloane had just gotten some warm blood, and Cyly was complaining about how he forgot his own blood, and it had gone cold.”

Karhi didn’t need to hear the rest.  “Sloane doesn’t mind cold blood.  She offered to swap.”

“Yes.  She swapped, drank the blood, and immediately started feeling the effects.”

“Cyly hadn’t drunk any of it?”

“He had had a sip when he first got it, but otherwise, no.”

Just like when Faren’s valet had taken a sip to show that Faren’s blood wasn’t poisoned.

“Do we know who could have spiked it in the kitchen?”

“We’re headed there now.  It’s where they did the testing.  We can ask there.”

Karhi recognized the hallway leading to the dining hall when they got to it.  But instead of going into the dining hall, Aoife veered off into another, smaller door and then through another.

The kitchens were enormous, with multiple gas stoves and grilltops, ovens, sinks, and prep tables.  There were maybe five or six people in the room, attending to different stations.  The room smelled like spices and cooked meat.

They made their way past the maze of prep stations.  There was one where a teenager sat, several unlabelled jars and a few dozen empty pill capsules spread around him.  He was carefully measuring out a powder on a scale in a small bowl before dumping the bowl into a larger bowl already filled with powder.

“What’s that?” Karhi asked as they passed him by.

“Prenatal vitamins, effectively,” Aoife answered.  “Over the years, we’ve tweaked certain herbal combinations that allow for the best chances for a vampire pregnancy to be viable and healthy.”

Karhi knew that living vampires had a higher birthrate now than they ever had in the past.  Apparently it was the same for vampires as humans—better healthcare and medicine understanding meant that more babies and mothers survived to birth.

“You just let kids measure out the medicine then?”  Karhi had a sudden image in his head of toddlers manning a pharmacy.

Aoife chuckled.  “That’s the son of Dr. Horus.  He wants to be a doctor, too.  She’s training him to be useful as a chemist until he can go to medical school.  He’s fifteen, I think.”

“Starting them young.”

“Henry likes it, and he’s good at it.”

Aoife led Karhi through another door, this time into what looked like a combination of a laboratory and a kitchen.  There was an oven and stove in one corner, along with more stainless steel tables that matched the prep tables they had passed in the kitchen.

There were also microscope and Bunsen burner set-ups.  There were a couple of chemical glove boxes and a bunch of electric boxes flashing different colours and blinking numbers.  There was a chemical hood in one corner with brown glass bottles sitting in it.

“What is this?” Karhi asked, looking around.

“Every hub where living vampires reside—this castle, the Irish castle, various other communities all over the world—has an arsenal of food scientists.  Since vampire children and halfvampires have such specific food requirements to make up for the fact that they can’t survive with blood or on blood alone, it’s become kind of a requirement to have food scientists on-site.”

Shit.  Karhi knew running a kingdom was insane, but this was beyond what he could have imagined.  He needed to make a note to tell Sloane about this.  She loved the weird minutiae of magical society.  When she had found out that farmers contracted animal slaughter to vampires, she had lost her mind.

A woman popped up from behind one of the counters in the centre of the room.  “Don’t forget allergists,” she said.

The woman was a living vampire, a few hundred years old.  She had long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and maroon lips that contrasted with her golden skin.  She came up to Karhi’s chest and wore a white lab coat with her name embroidered on it.  Dr. Lavender Horus, M.D.

“And allergists,” Aoife amended.  “Speaking of which—since you are an allergist, why are you the one here?”

She shrugged.  “You forget that I helped develop the first spectrometer way back in the late 1700s.”  She rolled her eyes.  “As usual, a white guy stole it, but whatever.  I’m familiar with the machines, so I got stuck on spectrometry duty.”  She nodded to Karhi.  “Been a while, Karhi.”

“Lavender.  Last time I saw you, I think you were . . . a surgeon?”

“I believe so.  I’ve gone through a couple specialties since then.  Didn’t you get a medical degree once?”

“Some time in the early 1700s.  I never used it.”   He waved his hand dismissively.  “It was mostly just different uses of opium.”

“It usually was.”  She looked at Aoife.  “So, first update: the vent you had us test had nothing on it.”

Karhi had expected that, and the motion Aoife made for Lavender to continue told him that she did, too. 

“We had more promising results with the blood the human vampire drank.  This was the first blood sample we were able to get still in the cup,” she said, showing them a printout with numbers and letters that meant nothing to Karhi.  “The others were dropped to the ground and contaminated.”

“What did you find?”

“We ran a few different tests.  First up, we found two different types of blood, like we expected, one being the blood that was safe to drink, the other being the dead man’s blood.  The safe blood came out as human.  The other one came out as human-like.”

Karhi and Aoife’s looks of confusion matched.  “Human-like?” Aoife asked.

Lavender nodded, glancing down at the printout.  “Yeah.  Usually that pops up for humans with lower amounts of magic.  Parahumans with simple powers, mages without a lot of magic, et cetera.”

“This was the first time you could determine the magical signature?” Karhi asked.

“Yes,” Lavender nodded, setting the printout down and stepping around the counter to pick up a printout next to another machine.  “I’m based out of this castle, but my understanding from my colleague in the Irish castle is that the blood at the second death had been dropped on the floor.  And here, Faren also dropped his blood.  The magic in the castle contaminated the samples.  This was the first sample still in the glass when we got it.  Fortunately, the victim’s magical outburst didn’t affect the sample.”

It took Karhi a second to understand that Lavender was saying that Sloane and her soulsilver hadn’t contaminated the sample.

“Did all of the blood come from the kitchen?  In both castles?” Karhi asked.

“Yes,” Aoife said.  “We do have one person who overlapped kitchens.  He was actually supposed to be one of your interviews before Sloane was poisoned.”

Karhi’s eyebrows rose.  “Oh?  Well, let’s talk to him then.”

“Who are you talking about?” Lavender asked curiously.

“Benjamin Forest?” Aoife said.  “Do you know where he is?”

Lavender’s brow furrowed.  “I haven’t heard of him . . .”  She set down the printout and motioned for them to follow her.

She brought them out into the kitchen.  As they passed her son, she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder but didn’t say anything to him as she continued.  It was a sweet, motherly gesture.

Lavender led them to a whiteboard next to the door through which they had originally entered the kitchen.  There was a list of names on it as well as information on their shifts, like where they were supposed to be working in the kitchen.  At the very bottom was the name Benjamin Forest.  There was no information on shifts, but in the section of where he was assigned, it just said “Zarrouk”.

Lavender’s brow furrowed.  “What is this?”

“Benjamin is a dietitian that works with one of the Queen’s contractors,” Aoife explained.  “Amara Zarrouk.  She has a lot of weird dietary restrictions.  He usually advises the kitchen on how to modify things for her.”

Lavender shook her head.  “I haven’t met him.  I would have spoken with him.  This kitchen is very allergy-friendly, and I don’t allow anyone to work in here who hasn’t been briefed on how to handle things.”  She looked up.  “Where’s Greer?”

“In the larder,” one of the prep cooks answered.  “Should I get her?”

“Yes.”

The prep cook left, heading through another door in the kitchen.  A few minutes later, she brought back a short, barrel-chested woman with a bandana tied around her head to hold her hair back.

“Doc,” the woman said in a strong Scottish accent.  She had a worried look on her face.  “Something wrong?”

“No one’s sick, Greer.  No, I wanted to ask you—have you been working with a Benjamin Forest?”

Greer nodded.  “Yeah, he’s a nutritionist or something.  Working for one of the Queen’s people.”

“Why wasn’t I notified?” Lavender asked.

Greer frowned.  “I thought ye had told me to work with him.”  Her brow furrowed.  “A few days ago, we talked about it.”

Lavender stood up straighter, eyebrows high on her forehead.  “I most certainly did not.”

Greer frowned.  “I could have sworn . . .”  She rubbed her temples.  “I’m sorry, doc.  My mind isn’t what it used to be.  It must just have been when Aoife came and introduced him.  I must have assumed you vetted him, Aoife.”  She glanced at Aoife.

Aoife blinked.  “Benjamin told me he had already gotten Lavender’s approval . . . I just . . .”  She looked at Lavender blankly.

“Aoife, you cannot just take someone’s word!” Lavender exclaimed in horror.  “I have a rigorous vetting process for anyone new who comes in here.  The O’Leary twins are severely allergic to nightshade vegetables and gluten—we have to be so careful about what’s prepared in here and how we prepare it.  I do not let anyone work in this kitchen without my approval.”  Lavender’s voice was getting higher and higher with anger.  She spun on Greer.  “What did he make in here?”

“Just some smoothies.  He advised a couple of the cooks of things that they could make for Amara.”

“Did he cook in here?” she hissed.

Greer shook her head, eyes wide.  “No.  He just advised on the things that Amara could have.”

“Why does she even have a personal dietitian that travels with her?” Lavender demanded, spinning back to Aoife.

Aoife looked just as stunned as Greer.  “Uh . . . I thought he was there for her allergies, too.  A doctor or—”

“Dietitians are not doctors,” Lavender snarled.  “Is he even a dietitian?  Or just a nutritionist?”

Aoife didn’t have an answer for that.  Karhi wouldn’t have, either.  There was a difference?

“You can notify the kitchen of her allergies.  Dietitians make meal plans.  They help advise on things to eat and work with.  They don’t cook anything.”  Lavender put her hands to her temples.  “Vampires, absolutely useless when it comes to eating.  There’s no reason to bring a dietitian on a trip.”

Aoife glanced at Karhi uncomfortably, but Karhi didn’t have any suggestions.

Lavender finally took a deep breath.  “Sorry,” she said tightly.  “I’m just sick of people bringing strangers into my kitchen.  They can be dangerous, if they don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Or if they do,” Aoife said, something dark flashing across her face.  She looked at Greer.  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Um . . . late last night.  Not too long before . . .”  Greer stopped.  “Just before that human vampire was poisoned.” 

“Do you remember seeing him around when Faren was poisoned?”

Greer’s hands went to her mouth in horror, nodding.  “Oh no.  Yes.  He was in here at the same time that Conchobar was picking up Faren’s blood.”

Aoife was already stepping away and pulling her phone out to call someone.

So, they may have had their culprit.  But . . . what was the method of delivery?  The first death was simple—just a syringe.  But the others had all been poisoned drinks.  And in at least two instances a living vamp had drunk the poisoned blood without getting sick.  Conchobar had checked Faren’s blood for poison.  And then Cyly had taken a sip of his own blood when he first got it.

But then Faren had almost died, and Sloane had been poisoned.

It was some sort of delayed onset.

He surveyed the room.  What would have delayed onset like that . . . ?

He had thought that maybe someone had snuck into Faren’s vents and poisoned him that way.  Dropping something into his drink from above or something.  It had been a longshot, he knew that.  Faren would have heard someone in his vents.  And the blood had been hidden from view of the vents.  But it had been the only thing that he could think of.

But that was definitely not the case with the blood Sloane had drunk.  It had to have gotten to her already poisoned.  But how?

Lavender’s son weighing out the medicine caught his eye.  He had started picking out capsules and was loading them up with a measured dose of the medicine in the bowl.

Capsules.

Karhi darted forward to Henry, startling him when he grabbed a capsule half off the table.  Henry looked up, eyes wide.  “Uh . . .”

Karhi examined the capsule for a moment before looking at the boy.  “These capsules, they’re meant for swallowing?”

Henry blinked in confusion.  “Uh . . . yes?  Is this a trick question?”

“No.  Do these ever get put into drinks to dissolve?”

Henry frowned, shaking his head.  “If it was going to dissolve, we’d just put the powder in a drink directly.  But most of these medicines taste terrible, so we put them in capsules to be swallowed easily.”

“Can these capsules dissolve into drinks?”  He had dissolved plenty of hallucinogenics in blood over the years for fun.

Lavender was at his side in a second.  “Yes,” she answered.  Karhi could tell from her tone that she understood why he was asking.  “These capsules take about twenty minutes to dissolve in a warm liquid.”

“Like blood?”

“Like blood.”

“How much blood can fit in a capsule?”

“Maybe half a teaspoon in our biggest ones?  So, there would need to be a few capsules of dead man’s blood slipped into someone’s drink.  But blood is dark.  You wouldn’t notice a few clear capsules filled with more blood settling at the bottom of a glass.”

“Is there a way to prove if a capsule was dissolved in the blood?”

“Capsules are made of gelatine, which is an animal byproduct.  So porcine or bovine DNA would show up in certain tests I can run.”

“Can you run the tests?” Karhi asked.

“Absolutely.”  She leaned over to kiss her son on the forehead.  “Sorry for scaring you, honey.  Thanks for your help.”

Henry still looked confused, but he gave his mom a hesitant thumbs up.  “You’re welcome, mom.”

Aoife joined them from her phone call, and Lavender relayed what they had just figured out.

“Get on that,” Aoife said to Lavender curtly.  “I cannot find a trace of Benjamin Forest anywhere.  I’ll need to talk to Amara.  But before that—someone tried to kill Alice.”

Lavender gasped in horror.  “Who?”

Aoife shook her head.  “We don’t know.”  She looked at Karhi and Karhi’s heart fell.  He didn’t like the expression on her face. “Your fledgling was there.”

Of course she was.

Sloane Briallen

I couldn’t get service in my room.  This was bullshit.  I had gotten enough service to get texts.

The search for cell service ended with me climbing to the top of the highest tower I could get to.  I couldn’t figure out how to get inside of it, so I leapt up from the perimeter wall and scrabbled up the stones.  It wasn’t the most elegant thing, but it got me where I needed to go. 

Dawn had fully crested over the mountains, and we were well into morning.  The sun was bright in the sky and all I saw above me was blue.  It was a new, clear day.  And if that wasn’t a fucking sign, then I didn’t know what was. 

The top of the tower was flat with a parapet, covered in a two-inch-thick layer of undisturbed snow.  I couldn’t see any way to get up here, but there had to be, right?  Maybe there was a trap door beneath the snow.

I pulled out my phone and checked it again.  Two bars.  Good.  I scrolled to the number I wanted and hit dial.

I only had to listen to a ring and a half before, “Sloane?”  Mickey sounded both relieved and hesitant.  Like he was afraid of what the other end of the line held.  Which was fair.

“If we hadn’t had that dream, the one with my mom where she gave us the soulsilver, the one that you said prompted you to come find me, would you have come looking for me, still?”

“What?”

“Were you ever going to look for me?”

There was a pause.  I was afraid of the answer, but I also needed to hear it.  I needed to know what their thoughts had been.

“I don’t think either of us really had a plan.  There wasn’t like a deadline of, we train for four years, and go look for Sloane.  But . . . yeah.  I think, for both of us, there was an endpoint.  We never talked about it, but we both knew.”

“Bell, too?”

“I think so, yeah.  After that dream, when we woke up, he just looked at me.  We were sleeping at Mingan’s next to each other.  And without really talking, we got up and left.  I think we even both knew we had to go to Phoenix.  It was like we finally had permission to go looking for you.”

I let out a shaky breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.  With it tears rolled down my cheeks.  “I’m sorry,” I said.

There was a silence that, even though I couldn’t see Mickey, I knew was stunned.  I heard it in his voice when he said, “Sorry?”

“I blamed you for everything.  You and Bell and your moms.  A-and, while I don’t agree with it, I finally get it.”  I wiped my eyes with the back of my free hand.  “You did the best you could with what you had.  No one could have known what was going to happen.  It was cruel of me to put all that blame on you guys.  It wasn’t your fault.”  I hiccupped.  “I’m sorry, Mickey.  I’m so sorry.”

More stunned silence met my apology.  I could practically hear the gears in his head working.  Finally, he said, “Me, too.  I’m sorry.”

We stayed on the phone like that for minutes.  I cried quietly, small sobs escaping here and there.  I could hear the way Mickey’s breath hitched and when he sniffled.

“I love you,” I said when I had finally gotten my breathing under control.

“I love you.”  Mickey’s voice was raw.  “I-I miss you.”

It had only been a week since we saw each other.  But I knew that’s not what he meant.  He missed how we’d been.  He missed our friendship.  And fuck, so did I.  “I miss y-you, too,” I whispered, barely keeping another sob from breaking through.  “Wh-where are you?”

“I went back home when I found out you w-weren’t in the Cities.”

“Would you hate me if I asked you to go back?”

“To the Cities?”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you in Montana?”

“Yeah.  But I should be home tomorrow night or the morning after.  I want to see you.”  I bit my lip to keep it from trembling.

“Okay,” he said.  The word was wet and nasally.

“I’m going to call Bell.”

“He lost his phone.”

Of course he had.

“I can get a hold of him.  Get him to meet us there,” Mickey said.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

We stayed on the phone for I don’t know how long.  We listened to each other breathe, catching hiccups and sobs in our throats.

Finally, I said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I’ll see you soon?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

We hung up.

I stared at my phone screen until it went dark.  I could see my reflection.  My cheeks were wet, and I looked terrible.

I felt lighter than I had in years.  I knew there would be hiccups and stumbles, both from me and from Mickey and Bell, but we were moving forward.  We were going to find a new normal.  We weren’t in high school anymore.  That dynamic would never come back.  But we would find something new. 

I couldn’t fucking wait.

The snow next to me suddenly lifted and then a wooden trap door swung open, landing on the floor with a thunk.  I looked down to see Alice’s head poking out through the floor.  She stared up at me with wide, surprised eyes.

“Uh, hi,” I said.

She took in my appearance.  Red eyes, wet cheeks, probably disheveled hair since I usually run my fingers through it when I’m upset.  “Hi.  If you need to be alone—”

I shook my head.  “No, no.  I’m okay.”

She studied me for a moment before she continued up and shut the door.  It left a perfect, clear square of dark wood with only a light dusting of snow on it.  There was an iron ring to pull it back up.

Alice wore a thick, puffy grey jacket and black corduroy pants with red woolen mittens and a matching woolen beanie with a pompom.  Her snow boots had a thick fringe around the top.  She looked cozy.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked. 

I finally put my phone in my pocket.  “I had to reconcile with my brothers.  It was a tough conversation.”  I smiled.  “But we’re finally okay.”

Alice broke out into that dazzling smile of hers.  She had killer dimples and her canines were crooked.  It was charming.  “That sounds wonderful.”

“Yeah.”  I inhaled and exhaled.  I felt so much lighter.  “It really is.”

Alice went over to the parapet.  It was notched, with breaks in the wall (the deepest parts of my brain dredged up knowledge from my art history class in high school that these were for archers to shoot from).  She sat in a notch after pushing the snow off.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked.

“Needed a break from the wedding planning.  I’ve found that no one ever looks for me up here.  The entrance is hard to find.”  Her brow furrowed.  “How did you wind up here?  You found the entrance?”

I snorted, shaking my head.  I sat down in a notch a couple yards from her, swinging one leg over to dangle in the open air, the other staying on the floor of the tower.  “I needed cell phone service, and I figured the highest tower would help.  I couldn’t find the entrance so I climbed up.”

She laughed, throwing her head back.  “Vampires.  Can’t find the right way in, so you parkour up.”

I shrugged one shoulder.  “If I got the ability, I’ma do it.”

“No judgment here.  It’s cool.  That’s one of the things I’m looking forward to.  The strength and speed.  Also, the non-responsiveness to temperature.”

I frowned.  “I kind of wish I could respond to temperature.”

“Yeah, I do I think I’ll miss that to an extent.  But winter makes vitiligo worse.  Skin dries out more and the lack of sun makes it tough.  And my vitiligo is starting to get close enough that there’s a danger to my eyesight and my hearing.”

I hadn’t known vitiligo could do that.

“Also, I haven’t yet been diagnosed with any sort of autoimmune disorder, but they’re common for vitiligo.  So being turned means I don’t have to worry about that eventuality.”

I myself had been dying when I’d been turned.  But I still had never really thought of vampirism as a way to escape health problems.  It was interesting.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said.

“I’ve heard you’ve had a shit time with dead man’s blood.  I think having a trauma response was warranted.  Besides, Cyly made sure I got out safely.  Are you okay, though?  I heard Faren was with you for hours.”

“Yeah,” I said.  I rubbed my face.  “I’m better.  I talked with Mira about it.  You know, letting out our frustrations and venting and whatnot.”

“I do.”

She huffed out a laugh.  “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“Devlin suddenly came to me yesterday, after everything died down with you.  He finally told me how he became a vampire.  Told me about his parents and his sister.”  She was pushing around the snow with her boots, playing with it.  “Is that because of you?”

I leaned back against the parapet, letting my head rest against it.  “I’m so glad he finally talked to someone.”  But I probably owed him an apology, too.

“It answered a lot of questions.  Thanks for talking to him.”

I shrugged one shoulder.  “Just glad he finally talked to his friends.”

Alice made a noise of agreement.

I changed the subject.  “What are you doing hanging out with twenty-year-olds?”

She snorted a laugh.  “What?”

“You’re almost forty.  I would think you’d be bored by kids half your age.”

“Ah.  Well, I’m friends with Fiachra’s cousin, Azure, who’s close to my age.  Wound up hanging out a lot with Fiachra, and then Dev when he came to live here.  I have a lot more in common with those two than Azure.  We read a lot of the same books and go for the same movies and TV shows.  Similar hobbies.  Eventually, we just started hanging out a lot.

“You can’t really go by age in a place filled with vampires.  I’m friends with Faolan and Cailean, who are hundreds of years old.  Obviously my fiancé is hundreds of years old.  If you find some common ground, and can get along, then age is really just a number.”  She paused.  “To clarify, I’m not saying any vampire should be fucking a fifteen-year-old.”

I held up a hand to stop her from continuing.  “I get it.  Trust me.”  My second serious girlfriend had been old, so I definitely got it.  “Can you answer another question for me?”

“Maybe.”

“What is up with the Irish names?  Like, your husband and his siblings are all black.  Faolan is Hispanic?  Indigenous?  And Fiachra is Asian.  Might have heard Irish last names for them, too.  Not sure.”

“Faolan Niamh and Fiachra Laisrén, yeah,” she chuckled.  “So, you know how the living vampires are pretty stuck up and clique-ish?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I said drily.

She rolled her eyes in agreement.  “So, Faolan was born like . . . three hundred years ago, or something.  There was, like, a fad at the time because the Ruaidhrís are the Irish vampires.  Hazel is Irish.  And so every kid just got a super Irish name, regardless of if one or both parents was a person of color.  Faolan’s mom is from the same place as Matadi.”

“The Congo?”

Alice’s eyebrows went up.  “Oh you know his background?  I guess I should be more specific.  Faolan’s mom is from Palenke.”

“His mom was a slave?”

She nodded.  “His mom was born into slavery in Columbia—a lot of the indigenous people were slaves, just like the kidnapped Africans.  The Spanish and Portuguese weren’t super picky.

“She was part of a slave rebellion that succeeded, and she escaped to Palenke.  She was actually turned around the same time as the king because she was part of the same failed guerrilla attack as Matadi.  I think Aoife turned her?”

When I got home, I needed to do more research on this shit.  It was crazy.  I had only ever heard of failed slave rebellions in the US.  It had never occurred to me that other places had had successful slave rebellions.

“And Fiachra?”

“His father is the lieutenant to one of the nine generals.  He’s very traditional sometimes.  Kind of a hardass but not a bad person.  He was born into the house around the time that the Irish name craze was happening.  He was committed to having a traditionally Irish-named boy when he finally had a partner to do that with.”

“Is his dad even Irish?”

“Irish-Korean.  And Fiachra’s mom is fully Korean, and she was turned about forty years ago.

“So, Fiachra’s mom is just as hard-headed as his dad.  And she would only agree to taking his surname and allowing him to name their kid, if she got to give Fiachra a Korean middle name.”

“What did she name him?”

“Fiachra Jae-sang Laisrén.  His mom will only call him Jae-sang.  His little sister is Chun-ja.  His dad didn’t win on naming a second time.”  She smirked.  “I’m 95% certain it’s because they had a fight about the name and the argument forced her into early labor with Fiachra and his dad freaked because she almost died from blood loss.  So she got to name her.”

“I didn’t know vampires could die of blood loss like that . . .”

“Living vampire pregnancies are super high risk.  Pregnant vampires have to take so much medicine, and there’s still a high risk of losing the baby, and a risk to the pregnant person.  It’s bad.”

“Huh . . . that’s crazy.”  I shook my head.  But I was back on the Irish-names-for-non-Irish-people.  “It honestly wasn’t until I got here that I had ever seen non-white vampires besides Carry and Zeren.  But everyone here is still racist as shit.  It’s like being in Georgia, surrounded by people of color, and still hearing white people using the n-word.”

Alice grimaced.  “Yeah, it’s not great.”

“Were Cyly and the other two born during the Irish name craze?”

“Yeah.  Hazel didn’t care, but Matadi made the argument that it would be better if they got Irish names because people already looked down on their union.

“He gave them their middle names.  Decidedly not Irish.”

“I’ve never heard the name Cyly before.”

She chuckled.  “It’s a nickname.  His name is Suileabhain Anu Ruaidhrí.  He couldn’t pronounce his first name when he was younger, and it morphed into Cyly.  He kept it as his official name, primarily because it pissed off the Irish purists who wanted the princes and princess to use their given names.”

“Every time I learn something new about Cyly, I like him that much more.”

She grinned.  “Right?  He’s amazing.”

“He’s so even-keel, too.  I wouldn’t have expected a lot of this.”

“Youngest child syndrome.  He had to mediate between Saeran and Cailean a lot.  It was either learn to manage them or get steam-rolled.”

I made a face.  “Lovely.”  I started to say something else, but I stopped. 

Something felt off.  My brow furrowed, and I looked around.  There was nothing off the edge of the castle and nothing in towards the courtyard.  Still, I couldn’t shake the sudden awareness that we were being watched.

“Do you feel that, too?” Alice asked.

I was about to reply when we both looked up.

High above us, I saw four floating specks, banking and swerving. 

“Are those birds?” Alice asked.

“Yeah.”  I stood up.

“Vultures?”

The movements were like vultures hovering over a kill, but they were too far up.  I squinted at them.  They resolved after a moment.  Definitely birds of prey, but they weren’t buzzards.  They were all hawks.

They dove down suddenly.  “Uh, I don’t think they should be doing that.”

“No,” Alice agreed.  “They shouldn’t.  But whatever it is, they’ll hit the barrier around the castle.”

That was when I saw sparks above us.  The birds were aiming straight for the sparks.  That couldn’t be good.

And then—Oh fuck.

“That definitely shouldn’t be happening,” she said, standing up.

The hawks transformed into humans midair and breached the sparks.

I grabbed Alice and rolled just before the shifters landed where she had stood.

I let go of her to face the four shifters.  My fangs ran out beneath my lips and claws tipped my fingers.

I lunged at the closest shifter, a man with dark hair.

The shifter let out an eerie bird-like screech, and he met me with the blade of his arm into my throat.  I slammed into the parapet, pain exploding in my airway. 

I scrambled toward Alice, gasping for breath as I did.  I had to remember.  I couldn’t just go full on into a fight.  I had to play the defensive.  I needed to get the trapdoor up and us gone.

Two shifters were already at Alice.  She shrieked, trying to kick them off.  I saw one, with hands that were partially formed into four-fingered scaly talons, tearing into her side.

I jumped on his back and raked my claws across the front of his neck as hard as I could.  He bucked me off, and I heard a wet gasp for air. 

I fell on my side, but I had enough control to turn and end on my belly.  I launched myself back at him to get him off Alice.

Sharp claws ripped into my side, and I screamed, turning to swipe across the face of the shifter who had me. 

She screeched and her other hand went straight into my stomach.  I coughed, blood filling my mouth, and knocked my head against hers.  She cried out in pain, and I flattened my hand and jabbed with an uppercut beneath her sternum.  My claws cut clean through her skin, and I hit through something big and firm—a lung. 

She choked, falling to the ground, and I spun to Alice.

Alice lay on the ground, covered in her own blood.  Her breathing was dangerously fast.  I saw the other shifter standing over her.

“No.”  I ran at him and slammed my left leg into him, sending him into the edge of the roof.

I spun around but I saw the other shifter already taking off, going for the still-sparking shield.

I heard shouts, but I ignored them, running to Alice.

There was a gaping hole in her stomach.  I could see things I shouldn’t have been able to see.

She gasped for air, gurgling.

I crouched over her and tore my shirt off, putting it up against her stomach to put pressure on the wound.

She moaned in pain, and I saw her eyes flutter.

I got in her face.  “Alice, stay with me.” 

“C-cold,” she spurted, blood spattering her lips.

Fuck.  Cold didn’t affect me at all because I was dead, but we were in the middle of winter in Montana.  She was going to die if I didn’t get her out of here.

I grabbed her in a bridal carry and jumped.  I wasn’t going to try to figure out how to get down the tower.  Not when I could jump from the rooftops to find someone who could help.

I went straight for the Royal Wing.  I would find someone there.