Sloane Briallen

I did my best to ignore Karhi and Lunette’s awkward conversation while I showered. Listening to them was like listening to the most awkward teenagers trying to make amends. How could two four-hundred-plus-year-old grown-ass adults be so absolutely bad at communicating? Especially when I knew that Lunette was basically Karhi’s best friend. As weird as that sounded to say about old-as-fuck vampires.

I washed all the grime off of me and when I could hear Karhi explaining to Lunette what had happened the night before, I finally got out of the shower and toweled off. I was uncomfortable with Lunette knowing about what was going on with my family, but I also knew that she was likely the only one who could help us, unfortunately.

Lunette’s whole thing was information. She gathered it and traded it and used it as currency.

She had gotten into the internet early on and was into coding and how computers work. That eventually led her into becoming a very good hacker. She lived in a mansion in California, and from what Karhi had told me, she had a whole server room that took up half of one floor.

If anyone could help me find out who did this to Mikko, it would be her.

Which sucked for me because our relationship could cordially be called icy.

“Oh look, it’s the useless fledgling finally makes an appearance,” Lunette sneered as I exited the bathroom.

“Oh look, the grown-ass woman doesn’t know how to accept an apology,” I shot back, throwing my duffel bag to the side.

She sputtered, trying and failing to find a response.

“We’re all vampires,” I said, pulling on socks. “I’m not going to pretend I can’t hear.”

Karhi let out an annoyed sigh. “Can we just pretend to get along for a couple hours?”

“No,” we both said.

He rolled his eyes. “Lunette, have you had any success with who took me?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been trying to track down who owns the shell company that owns that house, but so far, nothing.”

“How about the woman I’ve been accused of killing?”

I blinked. What?

“We can go to the morgue later today. I know someone who knows a mortuary assistant there who can get us in.”

I couldn’t keep it to myself. “You killed someone?” I didn’t know Karhi all that well personally outside of the heroin stuff. But I did know his reputation from growing up with stories about Dusky and her children. Karhi wasn’t particularly known for killing humans. He had had an incident after he was just turned where he went into frenzy in a city nearby his hometown. It had earned him the name Tuhkanharmaa, or “ash grey” because of his eyes.

“I have been accused of killing someone,” he said. “Is it possible I did? Yes. Is it likely? Not really.”

“Is it from when you lost your memory?” He had given me the basic lowdown of his past few days while we were headed to Mira’s house the night before.

He nodded. “I found out after you and Corvine left when I went to Lazarus. Supposedly I took someone home, and she showed up dead several hours later. I don’t know anything past that.”

It was weird seeing this side of Karhi. The spiteful, annoying ball of sarcasm I knew had transformed into this analytical, self-aware creature of intelligence. It was refreshing in a way I couldn’t really explain.

“Well, if we can’t follow that line of questioning any further right now, let’s move on to your thing,” he said, looking at me. “Do you know where your friend was held?”

I shook my head. “I know the approximate area, but Corvine handled it. It wound up being good that she did because there were a lot of charms to keep things out and when she showed up with him, she was literally smoking.”

“Approximate area is good,” he said. “We can probably figure it out from there.”

“Can’t you call her again?” Lunette asked me. The venom in her question was a little less than usual. I would take it.

“I only know one way to summon her, and I don’t even know if it’ll work this time. She doesn’t currently owe me any more favors, and it’s a tossup if she hears me summoning her.”

Lunette narrowed her eyes at me. “Useless.”

I gave her both fingers. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Clever,” she rolled her eyes, turning from me.

“Enough,” Karhi groaned with all the conviction of a wet sponge. He sounded like a parent tired of siblings squabbling. Though I guess with how vampires worked with families, it would be like his child and his sister squabbling . . .

“Wait,” Karhi said, his wet sponge conviction melting into confusion. “Lunette, how did you find me here?”

“Your phone has GPS, idiot. I pinged you.”

I had no idea what that meant, but Karhi looked annoyed. “Of course, you did.”

“How else was I supposed to find you? Come on, let’s go.”

Karhi’s annoyance didn’t disappear, but he still followed Lunette out. I was the last out of the room, turning off the light as we went.

I led them back to the parking lot where I had fought the bearthing. Curiously, the creature was gone. There was still blood on the pavement, and tufts of hair from the creature as well as Mickey and Bell, but that was the only trace.

“Ugh, it reeks of dog,” Lunette said, lip curling.

“When you’re dealing with werewolves, it be like that sometimes,” I shrugged, surveying the parking lot. It was devoid of cars and the nearest human was a block away. There wasn’t much industry in this area, just a lot of abandoned buildings.

“That’s a lot of fur,” Karhi said, looking at where the creature had died. “You said it was a bear?”

“I was calling it a bearthing, but it was fucking huge, so I don’t know. Could’ve been a big ass dog or something.”

“A shifter?”

I shook my head. “Ain’t never seen a shifter that big. I mean, maybe a bear shifter? But it didn’t feel like it.”

Lunette looked at me skeptically. “What does a shifter feel like?”

I bristled. “What do you mean? It feels like a shifter. Different than a vampire or a mage or a parahuman. Everyone knows what they feel like.”

“They don’t,” Karhi said before Lunette could snap something back.

I blinked at him, eyebrows furrowing. “What?”

“I’ve suspected for a while, but yeah—Sloane, you’re a sensitive.”

That word jogged a memory I had forgotten I had. This wasn’t new information for me, but it had been so long since someone had named it that I took it for granted that other people could do it, too. “Oh, right. Y’all are blind.”

“Are you kidding me? She’s a fucking sensitive?” Lunette scoffed, looking me up and down. “I guess it makes up for the lack of any useful powers.”

“You know what’s also sensitive?” I sneered, stepping forward and letting my claws grow. “Your eyes, you bi—”

Karhi shoved us apart. “Fuck off, both of you. Sloane, go look in the buildings in the north. Lunette, you take the south. I’ll handle the west.”

To the east was just parking lots and train tracks.

I glared at Lunette, but I did what Karhi said and headed north.

Being back in Phoenix brought back a lot of memories. And a lot of them brought out the worst in me. I had learned years ago that picking fights with people who were trying to get a rise out of me was useless. But I had been out of Phoenix by the time I learned that. The scents and sounds here brought me right back to the worst times of my life—where I had been defensive and angry and would do anything to avoid seeming weak. Phoenix coupled with Lunette was probably one of the worst combinations for me.

I needed to focus on what I was doing.

A sensitive was someone who was more sensitive to magic. We could easily identify vampires, mages, shapeshifters, parahumans, and so-on. Depending on the degree of sensitivity, we could even identify the species a shapeshifter was. I could normally identify dog or cat or horse—but past that was a toss-up.

Being a sensitive had its perks. As I walked down the tiny streets between buildings, I could get a feel for the area around me, sensing where there was more or less magic. Phoenix had one of the highest population densities of magics in the US. There was always the faint trace of magic in the air.

There was even a huge, famous family of mages right in the city, the Praecantrix family. I didn’t know if they were one of the reasons behind the huge magic population, but at the very least, they were a big part of it. It was nine identical twins, three sets of triplets (I know, right?), and the parents. Rumor had it they were some of the most powerful mages in the world.

The buildings around me were maybe three or four stories tall, mostly brick, with boarded up or just straight-up broken windows. There was at least one “For Lease” sign on every wall of the buildings, and some boasted manufacturing space. Like anyone would have an interest in putting a manufacturing plant here.

The streets between the buildings were narrow, some barely more than alleys, with a car parked here or there. The gutters were littered with trash and the road was pale from years of use and stained from the cars that passed through. The sound of far-off honks traveled through the air, but nobody was close by. People didn’t really drive through here.

The early afternoon sun was warming up the ground, and I could feel the light on my skin, but the warmth was barely more than a whisper. Sometimes it was a perk, being unaffected by temperature. Like when it was too hot or too cold. But more often than not, I found myself thinking of it as something like a numbness to change. There was a piece I missed about being cold from the early morning and warming up with the sun.

At least I still felt water. Sometimes I liked to blast the cold in the shower and then turn it hot so I could feel that drastic change in temperature. It was nice.

I passed through the streets like a ghost, humans few and far between, listening and feeling around me. The ebb and flow of the city was constant, and the buildings were quiet.

Something prickly filled the air, and I rubbed my forearms as if cold.

I looked up at the building that had drawn my attention.

It was a corner building, the sides on the streets faced with orange brick, the other sides made of yellowing concrete. Most of the windows and doors on the first floor had been bricked over, and the front door was locked and barred. There was a sign that read “Historical Preservation Area” affixed to the bars.

There was a window on either side of the corner of the building. One of them was broken already. Judging by the glass still on the ground below it, it was a recent break.

I glanced around to make sure no one was nearby before leaping up to grab the windowsill and pulling myself up. I threaded myself through the broken glass and dropped to the floor.

I landed in a foyer, a rickety hostess stand in front of me. The stench of must and decaying flesh permeated the air. Some animal had crawled in here to die. At least, I hoped it was an animal.

Stairs led up in front of me, some of the steps missing. On either side of them were archways leading into other rooms. Something drew me to move to the room on the left.

Sunlight shone through one of the windows at the top of the room. The remains of wooden tables lay on the floor, small round things with rotting chairs. It looked like this had once been a dining room. I was in old China Town, so this probably used to be a Chinese restaurant.

Something told me to move to the door at the opposite end of the room. Because I trust my instincts, I moved towards it. Also, because I trust my instincts, I snapped off the leg of one of the chairs as I made my way over.

As I got closer, I realized that the door I was aimed for had a dark ring around the jamb. I smelled burnt wood and ozone.

I reached out for the doorknob and a zap of static electricity stung my fingers. I cursed, shaking my hand out. Was that magic? Had this been where Mikko had been held?

I was hesitant grabbing the doorknob this time but there was no discharge. It swung open on loose hinges and revealed the room beyond.

It was empty, wooden floors scuffed and well worn. Maybe it had once been a second dining room. There was a shattered window on one wall. The pungent scent of urine and blood soaked the air.

And the scent of Mikko.

I moved closer to the wall with the window, where the smell was heaviest. The wood was tan, and I could see dark spots on it.

Blood.

This had been where he was held. The floor and wall looked the same from the pictures Karhi had received, and I saw dark strands of long hair on the floor. It was heavy with the scent of laundry.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I jumped, my heart flying into my mouth. I cursed as I pulled it out, checking the screen on the front. I almost ignored it when I saw it was Karhi until I remembered I wasn’t doing that anymore. “Hello?”

“There’s nothing going on over here and Lunette doesn’t have anything. How are you doing?”

“I found it,” I said, pulling my free arm around myself to ride the adrenaline the phone call had stirred. “Building at the corner of Third and Buchanan. Fresh broken window. There’s nothing here, but I’m looking around.”

“Alright, we’ll be there in a minute.” He hung up.

Only the prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck and the faint smell of cologne warned me to duck before a two-by-four smashed into the wall right where my head had been. My phone clattered to the floor.

I popped back up, coming face-to-face with a dark-haired man the size of a fridge. It took me a split second to recognize him as one of the men who had been trying to get at Karhi at the brothel. I could see the whites around his eyes, and his nostrils were flared.

I found myself more confused and alarmed than scared, really. Taking in this huge man, a shifter, holding a piece of lumber, trying to . . . what, beat a fledgling to death?

“What kinda fuckin’ shifter tries to knock someone over the head with a piece of flooring?” I asked, holding my hands out in a what the fuck position.

He snarled, and fangs filling his mouth. His hands had claws where they held the improvised bat. He rushed me, raising the piece of wood over his head as he did.

I rolled on the floor, bypassing him and coming back up. He skidded to a stop, spinning to face me. His shoulders heaved with harsh breaths.

He came at me again and I rolled again. He swayed on his feet where he stopped. His turn back to me was slower this time.

“What are we doing?” I asked him, looking from him to the door I now stood by. “I can roll all day, but you don’t seem to be—whoa, buddy, you okay?”

He was shaking, and his mouth was wet. Too wet to be just normal spit. I could hear his heart and it was going a mile a minute. His pupils had dilated to consume his irises.

He dropped the bat, his hands shaking too much for him to keep a grip on it.

I stepped back uncertainly. Now was probably the time to bolt, but wasn’t I supposed to also ask questions?

He uttered a pained cry and dropped to the ground, shaking and convulsing. He let out choked screeches of pain before suddenly stopping.

His heart was still, his breath stopped. Dead.

“What the fuck?”

I spun to face Karhi and Lunette, barely keeping from lashing out at them in surprise. Lunette had been the one to speak, staring at the dead shifter.

“What happened?” Karhi asked me.

I shook my head, looking from him to the dead man. “He tried to jump me, but I dodged it. He tried another time, and then he just started shaking and then . . .” I gestured vaguely in front of me.

Lunette crouched down next to the body, turning him over and examining him. “Foaming at the mouth, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm . . .”

“What are you thinking?” Karhi asked.

She shook her head. “This is familiar, but I can’t remember why. I need to do some digging.” She straightened up to face me. “Did you search the rest of the building?”

“No, I came in through the broken window in the front and came into here.” I looked around. “I don’t get it. Corvine said there were spells all over the place to keep her out. But I don’t see anything in here that looks like spell work.” Granted, I wasn’t super knowledgeable about wielding magic or how it worked.

Lunette walked over to the other two doors that I hadn’t gone through yet, going just through each door before coming back in. “Did you see the burn marks on the walls?”

I nodded.

“The spells were originally inlaid around the doors.” She looked up above us, towards the shattered window. “There’s burns around the window, too. That’s probably how Corvine got out.”

“Why are they burned?” I asked, glancing up at the window.

“When a spell is broken by a powerful force, like a bestia queen, it can overload the magical circuit, for lack of a better term.”

“Oh, like how when an outlet short circuits, sometimes it gets black around the edges?”

She nodded. “Corvine was too powerful for the wards to keep her out or in. I can’t see any of what the writing was before, so I can’t even tell what type of magic.”

“She told me that it was a battery of spells, some of which were to keep out the Fey, but they can mess with the bestia, too.”

Lunette’s gaze was still on the window. “I have some research to do.”

My phone buzzed where it still lay on the floor. I winced at how loud it was, bending over to grab it. It was Mira.

“Hey,” she said when I answered. “Mikko’s awake. He doesn’t have much to say, but he figured it would help to tell you and your sire if it helps your investigation.”

“My investigation?” How did she know what I was doing? I hadn’t even asked Karhi about it until we were too far away for her to hear it out of my head.

“I know you, Sloane. You want to know who did this. So, you asked your sire if he would help because he has resources we could never hope to have.”

I hated that she could peg me so easily. “Fine.”

“See you soon.”

I hung up.

“Take your fledgling back,” Lunette said, looking at Karhi. “I’m going to do some more searching around here. See if you find out anything from the boy.”

“You don’t have to talk about me in the third person,” I growled at her.

She ignored me, her focus already back on the burned walls.

“Come on, Sloane,” Karhi said.

I glared at Lunette before turning away. “Fine.”

Karhi Emelyn

Sloane pulled a battered man, presumably Mikko, out of the cab and thanked the cab driver in Spanish. She handed him a hundred-dollar bill before he drove away.

Mikko put his arm around her neck, and she took most of his weight for him.

The door to Mira’s house opened, and four people flooded out of the house—Mira, Genie, Frankie, and a black woman Karhi didn’t recognize.

The woman Karhi didn’t know, a shifter, rushed ahead of the others and when she reached Mikko, she put her hands on either side of his face. As she did, Karhi saw that where his right ear should be, there was only a gnarled, scarred stub of skin.

“Babe,” she murmured, searching his face. “What happened?”

Mikko smiled but it was tight and uncomfortable. “A lot. I’d really like to shower and go to bed, if we can do that.”

She kissed his forehead before pulling her hands away. She looked at Sloane. “I can take him.” Her tone and expression told Sloane she didn’t have a choice.

Sloane passed Mikko off to the woman—Annie, Karhi thought from things Sloane had said—and Annie slung his arm around her shoulder. Together, they headed into the house. Frankie followed them, hovering uncertainly, asking Mikko if he could get anything for him.

Genie and Mira stayed outside, and Sloane stepped to stand in front of them. As she did, two shadows separated from Mira’s house. One was a giant red wolf, the other the barrel-chested man Sloane had addressed before Corvine had come. Bell, Karhi thought his name was.

“What happened?” Mira asked.

Sloane shook her head. “Corvine found him. And then something came after us.”

Karhi had begun to move closer to the house when he had seen Sloane. Now he stood across the street, not bothering to hide himself. Two werewolves, a vampire, and a mindreader would find him in a minute. He would just be a quiet, unobtrusive presence instead.

Sloane told them about when Corvine had come out with Mikko, explaining what she had learned about his captivity (namely, nothing) and then when they had been attacked by the creature.

“What the hell was that?” Mira asked, glancing between Sloane and the two wolves. Karhi got the feeling she was reading their minds and seeing whatever had attacked them.

Sloane shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. Giant bearthing? Dunno.”

“Same,” Bell agreed.

“Did you talk to Mikko in the cab about what happened?”

Sloane shook her head. “He slept for most of it, using me as a giant pillow. He barely slept the past few days.”

“If I was getting tortured, I’d probably be the same,” Mira agreed.

Sloane grimaced. “Did you see in his head?”

She made a so-so motion. “I didn’t go digging, because I didn’t want to accidentally dredge it up for him when he’s so raw. But I saw bits and flashes. He was blindfolded for the most part, and no one ever spoke to him. They just beat the shit out of him when they felt like it.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t look like he got much about what was happening to him. They just kept him afraid the whole time, and he didn’t see anyone’s faces until Corvine rescued him, and she pulled his blindfold off. They made him put the blindfold on before anyone came into the room.”

“Great,” Sloane growled.

Genie signed something to both of them and Karhi noticed for the first time that neither Mira nor Sloane had been signing in front of her, but she didn’t seem to be lost. Was Mira relaying the conversation telepathically to Genie? Even if Genie was good at lipreading, it was usually only possible to get forty to fifty percent of the conversation that way.

Mira answered Genie out loud. “He doesn’t have anything broken or hurting in a way that makes me think he won’t just heal up. He seems okay.”

Genie nodded.

“I accidentally dislocated his arm,” Sloane winced, glancing at the house apologetically.

Mira shrugged. “Are you staying tonight?”

“He’s going to be out for a while, and I should probably get some sleep while I can,” Sloane replied. “You have a full house, so I’ll just head back to my motel room. Call me when he wakes up? I want to be there when he tells us the full story.”

Mira gave her a thumbs up and glanced at Genie. She signed something and Genie nodded.

Genie hugged Sloane before turning back to the house. Mira followed her.

That left Sloane and the two wolves.

Sloane looked at them and pointed at each of them. “You are going back on the back burner.”

Apparently, he hadn’t learned a thing from what Mira had told him earlier. Bell bristled. “Sloane, you can’t keep us waiting forever. You said—”

“I said we would talk. Didn’t say when. At least you know there’s an end to your waiting,” she shot back. Karhi felt the heat of the anger behind those words like a fire inside his own chest. He had felt more emotion from her in the past ten hours than he had felt from her in the past ten months. “You let me think you were dead for two years, Bell. You can wait a couple days for me to figure out who is trying to kill my family.”

Bell’s jaw clenched, and his hands balled up into fists.

Sloane smiled without an ounce of warmth. “What, do you want to argue with me? Emphasize how you’re my family?”

He didn’t have an answer for that, but his body language seemed to indicate Sloane had hit the right notes.

“Thought so,” she said. She turned her back to him. “Go fuck yourself.”

She glanced at Karhi as she walked to where his car was parked in front of Mira’s house. She pulled out the keys and said, “Come on.”

Karhi didn’t especially want to tag along with Sloane. But the rip current of emotions inside of her made him think that he should. He wasn’t worried that she was dangerous, but he suspected she needed something from him.

And honestly, the longer he could stay away from his hotel, with Ilona easily able to find him, the better.

He followed her and got into the passenger seat, not bothering to point out that this was his car, and he should be driving it. At this point, it was her car. She had stolen it fair and square.

Sloane let out a harsh, humourless laugh as she pulled out onto the street.

Karhi glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.

“I just can’t fucking believe that you, of all people, are the only person I can actually stand to be around right now.”

Karhi shrugged one shoulder, looking back out the front window. “Sometimes it’s easier to handle strangers than friends.”

She didn’t reply, but her uncertainty and anger tugged at him like annoying children.

“What did you want to ask me?” Karhi finally said when it seemed like she wouldn’t gather the courage to tell him why she had really wanted him to come with her. She was staring out the front windshield, navigating to whatever motel she was staying in.

She huffed a breath out through her nose. “Karhi . . . will you help me find whoever did this to my family?”

“If you give me a shred of context for anything that’s happening, maybe.”

She blinked in surprise. “You knew I was going to ask?”

“I knew you wanted something from me. I have five centuries on you, and it’s no secret that I’ve played detective for Ilona over the years. So, your question isn’t surprising. Especially because I’ve recently realized that you know a lot more about me than I would have thought three days ago.”

He felt her discomfort as his words hit her.

That’s what he had thought. “You knew,” he said.

“For fuck’s sake, Karhi. You called me Elizabeth the first night we met.”

Karhi looked out the passenger seat, suddenly too uncomfortable to even see Sloane in his peripheries. As he did, she pulled into the parking lot of a Super 8. “Yeah, well . . .” He didn’t have anything else to say in response. She was right and he didn’t have any excuses.

She parked and killed the engine. He couldn’t see her, but he felt her gaze like a pressure on the back of his skull. “Is that why you turned me? Because I looked like my grandmother?”

He shrugged, focusing on the numbers of the rooms in front of him. “Maybe? I don’t know, Sloane. The night I met you was a particularly bad night with Ilona. I was trying to avoid going out and getting high. So, I went to Swanskin’s and thought maybe I could distract myself with hooking up with someone. And then . . .” He didn’t know what else to say. They did what they did, and the next morning he woke up in bed with her in her turning coma. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he finished lamely.

She wasn’t angry with him, which he hadn’t expected. He’d been actively avoiding thinking about how Sloane was Elizabeth’s granddaughter for months. He had mistaken Sloane for her when the first met, but after talking to her that night, he had just chalked it up to coincidence.

He had been horrified when he found out that was not the case after looking into her background more.

“I don’t really expect you to say anything,” Sloane said when the silence between them had become too loud. “I guess I just wanted to finally clear that air because I never acknowledged it. And it takes two to turn.”

He hazarded a glance at her, and her face and emotions confirmed that she wasn’t upset.

She was just tired.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.” It didn’t take two to turn quite like she said, but it didn’t matter. They were okay.

It was rare for Karhi to feel embarrassed or awkward or sheepish. But Sloane made him feel like that way more than he was comfortable.

He was a bit soothed to know that he made her feel the exact same way.

But she was better at moving on from it than he was. “I’ll give you more context if you help me find out who did this to my family,” she said, finally meeting his gaze.

“You know that’s a pretty lousy bargaining chip,” he replied, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Do you have anything better to do?”

“Find out who kidnapped me and tried to take me from the brothel?”

“I could probably help. I know a lot of people in Phoenix.”

He hadn’t thought of that. In fact . . . “Wait, you were the one who brought Luna to Madam Bovary’s.”

“I knew she was the only place in town that really did hookers and drugs. And her employees are all genders, which I knew would appeal to your pansexual ass. Plus, turns out I knew one of the women that work there, so that helped us get in easier.”

He considered it. “You grew up in foster, but you were mostly a runaway? Homeless?”

“Basically.”

It struck him that the thoughts of growing up homeless or being reminded of her childhood didn’t really seem to bring up any emotions for her. It was a time of her life that she seemed to accept. Sometimes she even looked back on fondly. Not all of it—not even most of it—but enough of it.

“Alright,” he finally said. “I’ll help you if you help me.”

She held out a fist to him. He peered at it quizzically for a moment before realizing that she probably wasn’t the type to shake hands.

He bumped fists with her.

“Cool,” she said. “But since we finally have like two minutes to not freak out about things falling apart . . . sleep?”

He agreed. “Sleep.”

They never talked about it, but Karhi appreciated that Sloane never questioned his fear of the dark. It didn’t matter that he could see through most darkness pretty easily. It didn’t matter that his sense of smell or hearing would warn him long before his sight did. It didn’t even matter that he was stronger than most things that would come after him.

The fear was that he would fall asleep in the dark and wake up to darkness he couldn’t see through. Because Ilona had done that to him so many times in the past.

He woke up suddenly, sitting straight up and gasping for air. Darkness spotted his vision, and he could barely see anything in front of him. Panic gripped him, and he clenched the sheets beneath him.

Something soft and smooth covered one of his bunched fists and cooling calm flooded him. It soothed the hysterical fear that had hold of him, and his vision cleared.

A shabby motel room. The faint stench of cigarettes. A broken TV that only played FX.

“Lay down,” a muffled voice said. “It was a nightmare.”

Karhi looked down to see Sloane with her head turned almost completely into her pillow, one arm under the pillow, the other next to him, her hand covering his.

Her eyes weren’t even open, and her voice was sleepy. Her hair almost completely obscured her face.

He went to move his hand, but her grip tightened. “Mikko, go back to sleep. It was only a nightmare, we’re here now. Bed is safe.” She pulled his hand until he had to lay back down or lose his balance.

Laying down, he bent his elbow, and she pulled his hand to her chest. “S’okay, Mikko. They’re not here.”

Mikko. How many nights had Sloane soothed Mikko back to sleep after nightmares? Were the nightmares from what happened to his ear?

He didn’t bother to argue with her. She was half asleep and her holding his hand to her chest was nice.

They had spent a majority of their cohabitation up to now arguing and fighting. From the first day she had been a vampire, they had argued and fought and ignored each other. They had spent as little time as possible together.

Except when he had needed someone.

He had been with Ilona twice since Sloane had become a vampire. Both times, she had beat him so badly that he had limped when he left her. It only took him a few hours to heal, and the minute he could walk on his own, he had gone straight to the Carlyle for blood from Azlea and Thirn, and then to the bar downstairs searching for anyone who had a fix.

And when the high wore off, and whatever sex worker was paid, and he had to crawl back home, Sloane had been there. She was there when he came back, barely even able to talk.

The first time, it took her a bit to understand. She had just been reading a book on the couch. She was confused when he came inside, aching from the comedown and half mad with exhaustion.

But she had felt his emotions. She had understood that Ilona had done something to him.

And she sat with him on the couch, holding his hand until the comedown was done. It had to have been six hours. She held his hand and read a book and didn’t say a word.

Then, when he wanted to sleep, she helped him into bed. She sat with him, reading her book, and left the light on. When he woke up, she had fallen asleep, upright, with her book on her belly.

The second time, she had been asleep when he came home. She was pissed at how much noise he made, but she had made him drink blood to flush out his system. When he was more sane, she dragged him into bed with her and held his hand while they fell asleep. She left the light on, even though she hated sleeping with lights on.

And she never talked about it. She never asked him questions. She never made him feel bad. She just cleaned him up, sitting or sleeping with him, and waited for him to feel better. She didn’t tell his siblings. She didn’t shame him. She just waited with him.

He had never really thanked her for that.

Sloane shifted next to him. He looked over to see him staring at his hand in confusion. “Why . . .”

“You kept calling me Mikko and told me to go back to sleep.”

She let go of him and sat up. “Time is it?”

The alarm clock next to him told him he’d gotten nine hours of sleep. “Ten.”

Thump thump thump. Someone banged on the door. “Karhi, I know you’re in there.”

It was Lunette.

“I’m gonna shower while you deal with that,” Sloane said, rolling out of bed and heading for the door next to the bed headboard. She pulled a duffel bag with her as she did.

He got up, pulling on the shirt he’d been wearing the day before that he’d thrown over the dresser at the foot of the bed.

He started to open the door, but before he could even get it fully open, it hit him in the knee, and Lunette pushed through. She sneered at the room and him, hands on her hips. “What the fuck is going on?” she demanded. “You keep hanging up on me and leaving me out of the loop. And then you ask me to look shit up for you.”

He hadn’t really asked her to look stuff up, she had mostly done that on her own. But if he pointed it out, the conversation would be much longer than it needed to be. But it didn’t matter. He had been blocking her out on purpose, even if he hadn’t really actively realized it.

“If I tell you, you’ll be implicated when Ilona finds out,” he said.

She gave him the finger. “And? I’ll already be fucking implicated for knowing where Sloane is, you dense fuck.”

He didn’t have a good response for that. “Uh . . .”

“Yeah, too fucking busy thinking about you being reunited with your little fledgling to realize that she puts us all in danger by fucking existing.”

The heat that burned at the back of his neck was sudden and unexpected. Before he could think about what he was saying, he barked back, “Sloane isn’t a danger for existing. Ilona is. She’s the problem, not Sloane.”

“Sloane isn’t helping,” she muttered under her breath.

“And neither are you,” he snapped. “Lunette, did you come here to be a dick or—”

“How long have you been doing heroin?”

The words died in his throat, and he stared at her. “What?”

“Why did your fledgling know you were doing it—had taken care of you with it—and I find out, basically by fucking accident?”

Lunette was so much shorter than him, but glaring up at him, he felt almost her height. He felt small. Her glare was powerful, filled with anger . . . and hurt.

He had hurt her.

He blinked. “Um . . .” He clicked his tongue against his teeth.

“I know we don’t see each other a lot anymore, but you used to tell me everything Karhi. We lived together for over a century. Why did I find out from her?”

He remembered thinking that Luna was made of barbed wire and ice the day before.

But really, she was made of dried out brush. She was brittle and if you put a flame too close, it incinerated her. She would burn out with too much heat and neglect. And she would take everything down with her.

But if tended to, she could be brilliant and luscious and full of life.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m sorry for cutting you out and acting like this.”

Luna flushed, looking away from him. A lot of people thought vampires couldn’t blush because they didn’t have any blood or were too dead to flush. If that was the case, what was the point of all the blood they drank? Blood didn’t stay in their stomachs.

“I thought you wanted an apology?” He held his hands out in confusion at her averted gaze.

She turned away from him. “Yeah, well . . . don’t do it again.”

He rolled his eyes. She was still shit at taking apologies gracefully. “Do you want to know what’s going on?”

“Literally that’s all I’ve asked for the past two days.”

He sighed, sitting down on the bed. Even when he was trying to be nice to Lunette, she was still an asshole.

TW on child abuse

Sloane Briallen

My relationship with Mikko had always been complicated.

For a lot of people, trauma hardened them. That was how Annie and I were. We kept everything inside and didn’t let anything get to us. We were prickly and hard, and we kept everyone at an arm’s length. It was how we had bonded. You can’t get hurt if your shell is airtight.

Mikko was soft and squishy and sensitive. He cried at Disney movies. He liked to snuggle unprovoked, unbothered by my elbow in his ribs. He hid behind me and Annie whenever there was anything serious going on. He trusted people.

I was an asshole the first time we met.

It was an alley in downtown Phoenix, close to Van Buren Street, early in the morning. Dawn was starting to creep up and sex workers were wrapping up their night to go home to sleep the day away and wait for nightfall. I’d seen a few drug dealers out and about too, but they were going home as well.

I frequently took this alley as a shortcut from Van Buren to a bus stop that would take me back to Mira. I was meeting Annie for the ride back.

The buildings on either side of me were mostly offices—bail bondsmen, lawyers, accountants. This was just on the edge of downtown before things turned seedy. It probably said something that there was a bail bondsman next to a lawyer’s office.

Industrial-sized dumpsters were lined up along the walls down. It wasn’t the best smell, but it didn’t smell like decaying food like it did outside of restaurants. It was just a vaguely harsh, moldy smell.

He was on a damp cardboard box next to an overstuffed dumpster, obscured by a couple bags of trash that hadn’t fit inside the dumpster. He’d tried to hide, but when you’re homeless, you could tell the signs of other homeless people.

He was barely more than skin and bone. He looked older, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but he was probably younger. Homeless kids always looked older than they were. He was probably younger than me. Maybe ten.

He was asleep when I found him, curled up on a bed of flattened cardboard boxes. He had dull, tar-colored hair in matted patches all over his head.

I kicked the dumpster next to him, a clanging noise cutting through the muted city noises around us.

He jumped, sitting up suddenly. As he did, I noticed scarring on one side of his face, by his ear. I couldn’t see past the matted hair too well, but the purple scarring was angry against his seashell-colored skin.

He locked dark eyes with me and tensed. His hands clenched, and his shoulders shook. It was pretty warm outside; he wasn’t shaking from the cold.

He reminded me of a small dog, like a chihuahua, shaking in fear as he stared at me. Anger flared in my chest. I wanted to kick him. I hadn’t even done anything or said anything, and he was already shaking? I wanted to give him something to be afraid of.

“Why are you shaking?” I sneered at him, stepping forward and looming over him. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

He stared up at me with wide, frozen eyes. I could see him weighing his options. Did he run and risk me chasing him? Did he risk aggravating me? Or did he stay here and take whatever shit talk I would dole out?

I feigned a kick at him, and he flinched away violently. My disgust just rose up.

“Ain’tcha gonna fight back?” I demanded.

He hazarded a glance from behind where his hands shielded his face.

I bent down and grabbed him by his arm, hiking him up to look at me. He hissed out in pain as I did. “Stop shaking, you pussy!” His arm was hard beneath my grip, just bone.

He still didn’t say anything, staring at me with wide eyes, trembling.

“Sloane!”

I glanced back to see Annie walking from the same entrance I had come from.

“What’re you doing?” she wanted to know, looking between me and the boy.

“He won’t talk and he’s shaking,” I replied, shooting him a disgusted look.

Annie sighed. “Sloane, leave him alone.”

“Why?” I’d have though Annie would be the first to jump at this opportunity.

“Just leave ‘im alone.”

I rolled my eyes and let go of him. He slumped back down on his butt, still shaking like a leaf.

Annie crouched down in front of him. “Are you okay?”

He blinked at her. The shaking eased ever so slightly, which just served to piss me off more.

“Annie—” I started.

“Shut up, Sloane,” she cut me off, giving me the finger. She leaned over. “Come on.” She took his hand and helped him up.

Looking between the two of them, frustration and embarrassment warred inside of me. I had thought Annie would be on my side. But she wasn’t. And now I felt like an asshole.

“Whatever,” I growled, turning from them to continue down the alley.

I was so mean to him in the first few months I knew him. He hardly talked and he stuck to Annie like glue. I was twelve when we met. I didn’t understand how he could be so soft and gooey. He was afraid of everything, absolutely insufferable.

It wasn’t until he started doing coke when were just out of our preteens that anything changed.

It’s funny. People don’t realize how often it happens that kids get hooked on drugs. Young kids. People won’t believe you, but I’ve seen nine-year-olds smoking weed and doing crack. It’s more common in poverty.

It had been weeks since I had seen him. The coke habit had started maybe a year before. Annie, Mikko, and I all tried it at a party and while it hadn’t stuck with Annie and me, Mikko had been hooked immediately. He would disappear for days at a time. Even without Mira’s ability to read minds, we knew. We’d seen the behavior before in Mira’s mom.

He lied to us, borrowing money with no intention of paying it back. I even caught him taking some of Mira’s mom’s jewelry to hock it. It wasn’t until he pawned a necklace Mira had gotten from her grandmother, breaking Mira’s heart, that I lost my absolute shit at him. He hadn’t come around since.

Annie was worried and dragged me into searching for him with her. There had been a recent rash of coke ODs because of something they were cutting the coke with.

I was the one who found Mikko at a party at his drug dealer’s house doing a line of coke off a counter littered with beer cans. He had been so high he hadn’t even recognized me. I hauled him out of there and told his drug dealer if I ever found out he gave Mikko coke again, I would break him in half.

Little Ray had been stupid enough not to take my threat seriously. He walks with a limp now. I’m not above using a crowbar to get my point across.

I didn’t want Annie finding him, and I didn’t want Genie or Frankie seeing him like that. Genie and Frankie had just started hanging out with us a few months before, and Frankie thought Mikko was the sun. They tagged along with him, and it pissed me off, but I’d already taken a liking to Genie, and Frankie was alright.

I didn’t take Mikko home. I got him some water from a convenience store and took him to a park not far from the party. It was dark and quiet. A couple of teenagers further down were playing on the jungle gym. I sat with Mikko on a bench, waiting for him sober up.

A coke high lasts only about fifteen minutes. And then after that your brain feels like it’s melting, and everything in your body is on fire. The aftereffects of cocaine are what make coke junkies do so much of it.

On the comedown, he tried to leave to go back. When I forced him to stay, he scratched the ever-loving shit out of me, and I had to pin him to the ground.

When he was finally sober and had drunken all of the water I got him, he was more human. I was able to let go of him without him trying to run.

He apologized for everything, but I wasn’t going to let it pass. And then he told me the story of his parents.

It’s not necessary to explain the things they did to him when he was growing up. It was too horrifying, even for me, and I’ve seen a lot. Starvation, neglect, physical abuse, mental abuse—the usual. It was all there. Until he was ten. That was when they cut off his ear in the middle of the night while they were high out of their minds, thinking they could sell it for more junk.

The state took him from the hospital. And in a lot of ways, that just made it worse. He was taken from his parents and put in a foster home. A rare foster home with warmth. A good foster home with loving, kind parents.

He lived there for a year. For a year he was safe and at peace. He was loved.

That was the worst part of it all. The story was already awful, but the fact that he had a sweet, caring family made it tragic. Like most kids with living family, he had been in a reunification program—the goal of which was eventually to go back to his parents. He hadn’t known that. He had been too young to understand, really. And why would he? They had cut off his fucking ear. In what world should he have gone back to them?

When his parents got back custody because they played nice, he no longer had a beautiful, kind family. He was back in the same, terrifying place. Being treated exactly the same except now, they made sure the bruises were covered. They didn’t do anything that got him hospitalized. They just got close enough.

He ran away two months later. He lived on the streets for three days before foster took him back. His parents lost custody for good, and foster put him in a home. Of course, he wasn’t put back in the same one. This new home wasn’t beautiful and loving. He was neglected by this family. They didn’t hurt him or starve him; they just ignored him. They had three other foster kids and only cared about the welfare check.

Mikko ran from there. He decided he was better off on his own.

We found him a month later, and from there, everything was different for him.

I never apologized to Mikko for my behavior. I just changed it. I was nicer to him. Annie and I began to spend all of our time with him to get him clean. Frankie found out and instead of rejecting Mikko, he insisted that he help get Mikko clean. Frankie was an angry kid, angrier than the rest of us, but he had hope beneath the anger.

It took months to get him clean. Two of us were with him at all times, sleeping in shifts and making sure he didn’t get to his supplier. He had two slips, but we kept him on the wagon after that.

During the time it took to get him clean, I was taken away from them for two months from November until the beginning of January. I turned fifteen during that time period. I came back, and Mikko was clean.

During the time I was gone, I was assaulted. It was why I came back. Mira found out, and Mikko was the only one there when she found out.

Mira was the one who convinced me to go to the free clinic to get tested for pregnancy and STDs, but Mikko was the one I allowed to come with me. He came, and he was there. He held me when I cried when the doctor told me I had gonorrhea and chlamydia.

Mikko and Mira were the only ones who ever knew I got the STDs. They kept it a secret and I never told anyone about it except for my therapist.

He stayed with me when I got shots and made sure I took my antibiotics to get rid of the infections. After I finished my treatment, he promised me he’d never get high again. If I could get through the sexual assault and suffer through a battery of tests, shots and oral medications that were daily reminders of what I’d been through, he could stay clean.

Mikko wouldn’t break his promise like that. Of all people, I should have known that. I had betrayed him.

I looked up at the sky. I could feel fear welling in my chest, making it had to breathe. It had been forty minutes.

I should have come back after Mickey and Bell disappeared. I should have come back and moved in with Mira and gotten a full-time job. I should have been here for them. I shouldn’t have gone on my selfish way and moved to St. Paul. If I had come back, I wouldn’t be a vampire.

But you would be dead.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to listen to that voice in the back of my mind.

You were dying when he sired you. He told you.

I shook my head again. I didn’t want to think about it. Things would have been different here.

Would they?

Yes. They would have been different. I wouldn’t have smoked so much, and nothing would be as it was. Annie would be okay, and Mikko wouldn’t have been kidnapped. I didn’t know about Genie and Frankie, but at least if their adoptive parents had died, I would have been here for them.

But I hadn’t done any of those things.

It was getting darker and darker as we passed midnight. The fear was growing in my stomach, getting heavier and heavier. What if she couldn’t find him? What if the hairbrush was useless?

Or even worse . . . Corvine wasn’t always the most reliable person. The auditory hallucinations made her forget things. She probably hadn’t even gone after him.

Mikko was probably dead.

There was a snap through the air like a firecracker going off, and I smelled ozone. I jerked around to see Corvine hunched over, chest heaving. Smoke rolled off her shoulders in waves, and her clothing was shredded. Her skin, where I could see it, was smeared with blood. I wasn’t sure if it belonged to her or not since there weren’t any open wounds that I could see.

She held Mikko in her arms. His clothing was in tatters, his skin mottled by cuts and bruises. Blood, dirt, and sweat matted his hair. One of his eyes was black, the skin around it purple and yellow, and he had cracked lips that were bleeding. If I hadn’t known it was him from the beginning, I don’t think I would have even recognized him.

But he was alive. He was breathing hard, and I could hear his heart racing, but he was alive.

I took him from Corvine almost before I knew what I was doing. “Mikko,” I whispered. My eyes stung. “Mikko.”

His head turned to me, squinting through his swollen eye. “Sloane?”

He was awake. I hadn’t expected that.

“Mikko,” I warbled. “Oh, my God. You’re alive.” The tension and fear in my stomach eased, the heaviness lifting. It didn’t completely abate, but it was enough that I almost felt dizzy.

“Sloane,” he said. He reached up and put his arms around my neck. He turned his face into my shoulder. “I knew it’d be you,” he whispered. It was so quiet and muffled in my shoulder that I almost didn’t hear it. “I knew you’d be the one to find me.”

Tears prickled at my eyes, and I looked up at Corvine. I could hardly speak over the lump in my throat. “What happened?” I choked out.

“He was inside of a metal room spelled with ridiculous amounts of magic to keep him in there. I had to kill a bunch of vampires, shifters, and a mage or two. But I got him.”

“Why are you smoking?”

“They had some magic on there that isn’t very friendly to the animalia,” she said. She held her hands up in front of her body and shook them out. As she did, her clothing changed. She still had black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, but they were free of rips. The only hint of what had happened was that she was still steaming.

“Why would there be magics against the bestia?” I asked. I tightened my hold on Mikko.

She shook her head. “There are some wards against fey magic that work on us. I think it was just a general battery of spells to hold someone inside.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Why did they have Mikko?”

“I didn’t stop for tea and cookies to ask the kidnappers what their plans were,” she snapped, shooting me an annoyed look. “I got in and out, and that was it. If you wanted me to ask questions, you should have said that before. As it is, I’m going home.”

I clenched my teeth. Right. I hadn’t been specific in my request. “Okay,” I sighed. I unclenched my teeth. “Thank you so much, Corvine.”

“We’re even,” she replied. Her gaze was like a laser, cutting through me. My skin crawled.

“Yeah.”

“For now,” she said.

Then she was gone.

I looked down at Mikko. His grip on me was tight.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“They didn’t break anything,” he said, finally looking at me. Those eyes. They were the same dark brown from when I had first met him. Scared and covered by hair.

I let out a shaky sigh of relief. “God, I was so scared.”

“Probably not as scared as me.”

I laughed bitterly. “And I was so angry with myself. I wasted so much time.”

“You thought I was using again.”

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to lie to him.

But I couldn’t do that. Not to him. “Yes. Fuck, I wish you’d been using. It would be so much easier to deal with.”

He shook his head. “Not for me. I preferred the pain. I’m clean, and I’m going to stay like that.”

I bit my lip.

“Put me down.”

“Are you—”

“They didn’t break anything. I ain’t stood up in days. They kept me tied up.”

I put him down gently. “It’s Tuesday. Going on Wednesday.”

He looked at me. “October?”

I nodded.

“So . . . they only had me four days.” He looked up at the dark sky. “God, it felt like forever.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m sorry for when we were growing up and I was so mean to you. I’m really sorry. I never apologized and I thought if I didn’t—”

He held up a hand to stop my word vomit. It worked. “We’ve always been okay. Shit happens. If I was upset about things from years ago, I doubt we’d be friends.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, the ache in my throat growing. He was right. I still felt heavy, though. “I’m sorry I thought you were using.” Tears spilled over.

“I can’t blame you for thinking I was using,” he said, giving me a small smile. “Because the reality was a lot fucking weirder.”

I laughed, my breath hitching. I wiped the tears out of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I hiccuped, tears streaming down my face.

He looked at me. The smile was still there, sad and gentle. He wiped away the tears before wrapping me in his arms and pressing my head into his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault,” he murmured into my hair. “Am I bummed you thought I was using? Yes. Am I surprised? No. You and I are okay.”

I hugged him back and it wasn’t until he gasped that I let go. I had hugged too hard. “Sorry,” I whispered, wiping more tears from my face.

“Enough sorrys,” he groaned. “Enough tears. We’re good.”

I nodded. I resisted the urge to say sorry again. Mikko was the only person who could elicit so many apologies all at once. And he was the only one who could lift my guilt.

I felt a little lighter.

“Alright, let’s try this,” he said. He tried to take a step forward. He wobbled and I caught him before he fell.

“I might need some help,” he admitted.

“No shit.”

He put an arm around my shoulder. He was shorter than me, so I had to stoop to meet him.

“You smell terrible,” I finally said, wrinkling my nose. He still smelled like laundry . . . but maybe molded laundry.

He snorted. “I’ll make sure to tell my captors next time that you disapprove of their hygienic policies.”

I smiled.

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you,” he murmured.

I put my arm around his back to help support him. “Yeah.”

A musty stench hit me, and I froze. It was far beyond how Mikko smelled. This was strong and reeked like an unwashed animal.

“Sloane?” I heard Mikko’s heartbeat speed up, and he clutched me tighter with the arm around my shoulder. He sensed it, too.

I didn’t answer. My muscles itched to bolt.

A growl rumbled right behind me, and I just barely avoided claws that swiped down on my head. Mikko cried out as I shoved him away.

I spun away and had a split second’s view of red eyes and black fur before my head cracked against asphalt. Pain exploded behind my eyes.

Claws tore into my neck, heat tearing across me, and I finally reacted. I kneed the creature where I thought its stomach, or balls, or something would be. It didn’t pull away, but I heard a snarl of pain, and the pressure eased from my neck. That distraction bought my enough time for me to lace my fingers together and hammer-fist down onto the first bit of the creature I could hit.

I got lucky and hit something tender. It screamed out in pain and let go of me.

My head spun but I rolled to my feet. Move or die.

I finally got a look at what had attacked me and wished I hadn’t.

It was the biggest fucking animal I had ever seen, towering over me like a pick-up. It was like a bear with a pointed snout, standing on two heavily muscled front legs and two small, thin back legs. It looked like a terrifying version of that dog that used to give Tom Cat shit in those Looney Tunes shows. Its mouth was filled with rows of fangs dripping with saliva and blood.

Thick, coarse black hair brushed over heavy muscle. I had hit its trapezius, a tender spot no matter how much muscle was there. With the vampire strength, no matter that it wasn’t a full vampire’s strength, I had injured it, and it favored that leg now as it moved, staying out of arm’s length.

That was fine. My training was more Taekwondo than boxing. I had long since learned how to use my height to my advantage.

I heaved out a kick that caught the bearthing off guard and hit it square in the tender sides of its nose. It stumbled back, wailing in pain.

I turned to run, but I wasn’t fast enough. Snarling, it launched itself at me. I leapt into the air to avoid it, but it sunk its claws into my leg and brought me back down. I hissed out in pain, a high-pitched, breathy scream.

The thing bore down on me, snout broken, blood gushing freely from its nostrils. It howled a strangled cry of pain and rage and batted me to the ground. Pain seared through my arm as I scraped against asphalt.

Fuck.

I was dead.

Something jerked me from behind, and the bearthing and I both howled in pain. The bearthing had a claw in my leg that tore through me as I moved backwards.

The bearthing reared up on its tiny little legs and shook its whole body. As it moved, I saw what had pulled it away.

Bell was on its back, choking it.

I looked up to see that Mickey had been the one to grab me.

“You okay?” Mickey asked.

“Mikko,” I choked, looking to where I had thrown him. He was on his side on the ground, trying to get up. But his shoulder was unnaturally hunched. Had I dislocated it?

“Go,” Mickey said, gently pushing me towards Mikko. “We got this.”

I stumbled on my injured leg as he pushed me, but he was already running to the bearthing. His muscles shuddered beneath his skin, and he leapt at it. When he came down, he was a wolf the size of a motorcycle, covered in russet brown fur. His clothing was in tatters on the ground from where he jumped.

Bell stayed in his human form but together, they took out the thing in no time. They tore it apart like it was a third the size of what it really was.

I crossed the distance between Mikko and me, limping the whole way, and knelt down beside him. I was careful not to put too much pressure on my leg, even as I felt it healing. “Are you okay?”

“Dislocated shoulder,” he grunted, flopping onto his back. “What the hell just happened?”

I shook my head. “Maybe the assholes that had you sent something out after you?”

“It didn’t go for me. It went for you.”

I shrugged, holding my hands up as I did in a gesture of ignorance.

He glanced past me to where the wolves were fighting the bearthing. “Is that . . . Mickey and Bell?” He had met them a few times after I had been adopted.

“Long story.”

“Does this story also include why you’re a vampire?”

I froze. What?

“Sloane, I’m not an idiot,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. “I knew something was up when you held me without an issue. I’ve always weighed more than you and you used to struggle giving Genie piggyback rides for too long.”

I couldn’t find the words to reply to that. He was right. But I hadn’t expected him to pick up on it so quickly.

The bearthing collapsed with a final death rattle, leaving Mickey and Bell standing. Mickey’s fur was slick with blood and Bell had healing claw marks on his arms.

“What was that?” Bell asked me, looking between me and the bearthing.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But we need to get Mikko back to the house before anything else comes after us.”

Mikko piped up. “Can we pop my shoulder back in first?”

I looked back at Mikko. “Yeah, Bell, can—”

Mikko shook his head. “I’m sure Bell is very nice, but I would really rather you do it.”

His words hit me in the stomach like a truck. I hadn’t necessarily expected hostility from Mikko once he knew I was a vampire, but I also hadn’t expected him to treat me the same. I had expected . . . well, I wasn’t sure. But not this.

And it made me feel warm in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. It made my eyes sting and a lump settle in my throat.

He still trusted me.

I pressed my lips together and nodded. I didn’t think I could speak without crying again.

I steadied him against the ground and took his shoulder.

“On three,” he said. “One, two—fuck.”

I popped the shoulder back into place before he could say three.

“Bitch,” he huffed shakily. But there was a smile on his face, and it helped ease the lump in my throat and the sting behind my eyes.

I helped him up. “This is what you expected anyway.”

He didn’t have a rebuttal for that.

“How did you find me?” I asked Bell.

“Mira asked us to go after you just in case. We caught your scent while we were searching for you.”

I would have never thought to do that, but I was grateful that Mira had. I was almost always ready for a fight, but this time I hadn’t been. “Thanks,” I finally said. “I’m not sure I would have gotten out of this without you.”

He hazarded a slight smile, which wasn’t common for him. Bell mostly scowled.

He was offering an olive branch.

I wasn’t quite ready for it, but I also didn’t want to continue in this weird, awful limbo. Everything had been an absolute trainwreck since I had come back to Phoenix, and I hated it.

Finally, I said, “Let’s go. We . . . can talk later.”

Mickey’s tongue lolled out in what I think was a grin and Bell nodded, the smile still there. “Sounds good.”

I stood up. My leg had healed enough that it didn’t hurt to put weight on it. I moved to pick up Mikko, but he knocked my hand out of the way.

“While I love being carried like a princess,” he said, giving me a look telling me how much he absolutely was not loving it, “it is not the most comfortable position. May I suggest a cab?”

I smirked, shaking my head at him. “Sure.”

Karhi Emelyn

With Sloane disappearing, Karhi stepped off of Mira’s property immediately. Mira had already told him earlier that day that he wasn’t to step on it, and the glares of the werewolves in front of him reinforced that he shouldn’t overstay his welcome. Or lack thereof.

On the sidewalk, he still didn’t know what to do. He was annoyed that Sloane had disappeared (though arguably, it wasn’t her fault), but he also didn’t want to leave before he saw her back.

He was pretty sure Sloane had gotten blood earlier in the day when they were with Lunette, but it probably didn’t hurt to go get her more. It would take him away from here and would give him something to do. He started down the street, passing by a black car as he did.

He should also probably call Lunette.

“Bell, I swear to fucking god, if you try to go after her and demand answers right now, I will cut your fucking dick off.”

But he could stay to listen to this.

He paused just past the tree line that separated Mira’s house from the next.

“Mira, she can’t keep us waiting forever,” Bell spat back at her.

“You fucking broke her, you selfish piece of garbage,” Mira snarled at him. “You two disappeared on her eighteenth birthday, and suddenly reappear without even so much as a call? Have you even been fucking paying attention?”

Bell didn’t have a reply for that.

“She is not the person I used to know.” Mira’s voice almost hitched as she said that.

“Yeah, she’s a fucking vampire.” Bell didn’t catch that Mira was upset beyond being angry at him.

“That’s your fault, too.”

Actually, Karhi was pretty sure that was his fault, but he wasn’t going to say anything.

Bell spluttered.

“She’s barely laughed since she’s been here,” Mira said. “We are in a grim dark place, but Sloane’s humour has always been grim and dark. But she doesn’t even seem capable of that right now. And how long has she been like that?”

Karhi had never really thought of Sloane as someone who laughed a lot.

“And you’ve lived with her for almost a year,” Mira muttered.

Karhi wasn’t surprised Mira was listening to his thoughts, but he wasn’t thrilled about it either.

“What?” Bell said.

“Quit lurking,” Mira said.

Karhi knew that was aimed at him. He turned around and moved back into their sight.

Bell bristled at seeing Karhi. Karhi noted the Mickey barely seemed to react to his presence at all. He tensed, but his body language wasn’t antagonistic towards Karhi. He just looked sad.

“Why are you still here, bloodsucker?” Bell hissed at him.

“Because he’s curious and also has an answer to my question. Karhi, would you describe Sloane as a happy person?”

“I would not,” Karhi replied.

“Is she funny?”

“Not particularly.” He was beginning to see she had more of a personality than anger and apathy, but it was slow to reveal itself.

Mira glared at Bell and Mickey. Bell was doing his hardest to look anywhere but at Mira. Mickey stared at the ground. “You two fucking did that,” she snarled at them. “Sloane is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. And it used to be so easy to get her to laugh. But now? Her depression? That’s on you and the choices you made.”

Surprisingly, it was Mickey, not Bell who responded. “You don’t know what we had to do,” he murmured. He still didn’t look at her.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you had to do,” she snapped back at him. “You don’t abandon family, Mickey Blackthorne.”

Mickey didn’t have an answer to that. He was tense, his gaze hard on the ground. Karhi could read the anger in his features, but it didn’t seem to be aimed at Mira. It was aimed inward.

“If you want to be useful and regain her trust, go find her and watch out for her,” Mira told them. “Whatever’s going on, it won’t hurt her to have backup. But don’t fucking demand forgiveness.”

“We don’t know—”

“Supposedly you’re werewolves. Y’all are trackers. Go fucking track her.”

Mickey and Bell exchanged glances before stalking off. Bell glared at Karhi one final time for good measure before disappearing down the street.

Mira huffed out a sigh through her nose. “I have a headache now.”

“I’ve heard Advil helps,” Karhi said, turning from her.

“You’re getting her blood?”

He glanced back at her, nodding.

“Good. She’s always been bad about eating or drinking.”

That made him pause. “Wait, even as a human?”

She nodded. “Food is scarce when you’re poor. And I don’t think it ever really left her.”

That . . . actually explained a lot.

He paused for a moment before saying, “I don’t know a lot about what’s going on—Sloane has never mentioned Mickey and Bell. But I’m not sure if you can reasonably blame everything she’s going through on them.”

She put her hands to her head and massaged her temples. “You’re probably right. They were just the final block that tipped the tower. But it’s easier to blame them than a lifetime of disappointment and bad shit.”

He bit his lip for a moment before turning from her. “I’ll be back.” As he did, for the first time he registered the black car parked in front of their house. It looked very familiar.

He went around to the back of the car. The plates were Arizona plates and there were bumper stickers on the back of the car. On the side, he saw the passenger door dent from when Sloane had been reckless about parking it.

“This is my car,” he said.

“Sloane is very good at hotwiring.”

He glanced at Mira. “Yeah.” He didn’t even have his keys to reclaim it. But it didn’t look in bad shape. Hadn’t Sloane said it was uninsurable?

“She probably had the VIN scrubbed off,” Mira volunteered.

“Stay out of my head,” he growled, turning and leaving.

“Nope!” she called after him.

Where St. Paul had Swanskin’s, Phoenix had Lazarus. Primarily, Lazarus was a place for magics to party and drink and do drugs. But, if you knew who to ask, you could find harder things, like offers of power and wealth—always more of either than was safe, and always at a price that wasn’t actually worth it.

The building itself was little more than an enormous pink warehouse with bubbly neon letters in rainbow colours saying Lazarus.

It was early enough that there was no line to get inside. The front door was propped open with a cinder block, a single male vampire standing outside, hands crossed over his chest. He glanced at Karhi as he walked up. “Welcome back,” he said.

Karhi let out a surprised thank you as he walked by. Welcome back? Karhi hadn’t been to Lazarus in several years. Did that greeting mean anything specific, or was that just something the bouncer said to everyone who came through? This was the only place that any magics in the city would go to be free from human scrutiny.

A concrete hallway that reminded Karhi of something he would see in a baseball stadium led from the front door into the club. He could feel a dull, reverberating sound in his chest and throat as he walked.

The door at the end of the hallway led into a cavernous room. A bar easily the size of half his apartment took up the back. The rest of the room stepped down in tiers, with booths and tables on the top tiers, couches and chairs on the lower tiers, and a chequered dance floor on the final tier. A stage rose up at the end of the dance floor, a single drum set sitting at the back of it. The room was filled with growling, industrial music playing from speakers built into the walls.

There were a handful of patrons, some sitting at tables, some sitting at the bar. Three bartenders worked to fill drinks and take orders at the counter while servers drifted around the room.

“Hey, Karhi,” one of the bartenders said.

Karhi blinked, looking at the bartender and furrowing his eyebrows. He was a tall, muscular man with a handlebar moustache and shoulder-length dreadlocks. Karhi had met him a few years back when he was in Phoenix for Ilona.

“Sid . . .” Karhi said, moving to stand at the bar. “How are you? It’s been, what, eight years?”

Sid eyed him, raising an eyebrow. He was drying out a shaker. “You were here last night, man.”

Karhi blanched. “I was?” He didn’t know how else to finish that. He wasn’t comfortable admitting something like this to someone he barely knew, but he also needed information on where he had been the night he lost his memory.

“Yeah,” he said, setting down the shaker. “You came in around two or three AM? Had a couple drinks and then left with one of the blood workers.” He pointed to a small grouping of plush chairs and couches on one of the tiers closer to them. Men and women sat or lounged on those couches, chatting to each other or texting on phones. Their outfits were flashy and revealing, most of them wearing high heels and crop tops. One of the men wore bondage gear and talked to another man with peacock feathers in his hair.

Karhi’s brow furrowed. “Do you know who?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t one I was familiar with. She was new, maybe. You can ask Larry.” He pointed to the man with peacock feathers in his hair. “He’s the one who keeps track of them.”

“Thanks,” Karhi said.

“No problem, man. If you don’t remember, you must’ve gotten pretty fucked up.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Karhi made his way to the blood workers. He could differentiate the regular sex workers from the blood sex workers by the bites on the blood workers’ arms and necks. The man with the peacock feathers had three bruises just barely obscured by cover-up on his neck.

As he walked towards them, a hush passed through them. People saw him and they’d trail off into silence. Karhi clacked his tongue piercing against his teeth nervously.

One whispered something Karhi couldn’t catch above the bass to the peacock man. He looked up and when he saw Karhi, his eyes narrowed. He stepped in front of the others to meet Karhi. “Why are you here?” he demanded.

Karhi paused. “What?”

“I know it isn’t an explicit rule, but it is generally understood that when a vampire kills a blood worker, they aren’t welcome back.”

Karhi froze, staring at the man. His mouth went dry. “Killed?” he whispered.

“Don’t play dumb. You left this morning with Rhee, and she’s found in a dumpster six hours later? Completely drained?” He glared at Karhi.

Karhi blinked, staring at the man. It was like he had punched a hole in Karhi’s chest. “No! I haven’t killed a human in four hundred years.”

“Well, maybe you got too fucking high with her, and you killed her. You were asking if any of us did dope. And you were practically hard when Rhee told you she did.” He shook his head bitterly. “She was so new, too. She had only been here a few weeks, but she was doing so well for herself. Fucking disgusting.” He spat at Karhi.

The spit landed on his cheek, but he hardly registered it.

The woman he had picked up the previous morning had been found dead in a dumpster? But . . . Karhi would have never done that. He hadn’t killed a human in centuries. And he certainly wouldn’t have dumped her like garbage even if he had. Someone his age—there would be proper channels to report the death and make reparations to the loved ones of the deceased.

Straight-up killing humans wasn’t as accepted as it used to be. It was sloppy and displayed a lack of finesse and grace. And while using the proper channels wasn’t required, it was expected from any vampire who wanted to maintain their reputation. If Karhi had killed a human, it would be expected that he would follow the rules.

He turned to leave and felt eyes on him from above. He looked up to where there was a balcony around the edge of the room, leading to private rooms. He froze.

A pale vampire stood at the railing, in front of a door. He was tall and wiry, his hair like white ice. He locked glacial blue eyes with Karhi.

When their eyes met, whispers like the rustling of leaves filled his head. He could just make out words behind the rustling, but he couldn’t pick anything out.

Karhi looked away and wiped his face. He had to get out of here.

He had originally come here to get blood for Sloane. But all thoughts of that fled from his head as he fled from Lazarus.

He didn’t want to go back to the hotel and risk running into Ilona again. Not when he knew about Sloane, and Ilona could find out about it. Instead, he moved back closer to Mira’s house. Not exactly on her block, but close enough that he could see if Sloane came back. He could see Mira’s front yard from where he stood beneath a broken light post. It was dark enough on the street that no one would be able to see him from the house.

Here was probably the safest place to be. Ilona wouldn’t dare pull a move so close to the White Psychic’s house. Hazel would be only too happy to return the favour.

He called Luna and she answered on the first ring.

“What the fuck do you want?” she growled.

“Help,” he answered honestly.

The pause on the other end told him that she hadn’t expected that answer. “Help for what?”

“Apparently I was at Lazarus last night before I was . . . taken, or whatever. And the woman I left with turned up dead this morning.”

“Dead? That doesn’t sound like you.”

No, it sounded like Lunette, but he wouldn’t say that. “No,” he agreed. “I need to figure out what happened to me last night.”

“Or this morning. Or this afternoon.”

“Luna, one thing at a time,” he growled. Everything today had been so much of a blur that he hadn’t been able to actually sit down and process anything. His kidnapping (if that’s what it had been?), the men who had tried to take him from the brothel (related to the kidnapping?), or Sloane’s reappearance (probably not related to the kidnapping).

“Where’s that bitch now?”

He refrained from asking if she was talking about herself. “Luna—”

“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ve been looking into that house you escaped from anyways.”

He blinked. “What?”

“After that bitch split my head open, and you were so fucking helpful in telling me what’s going on, I needed something to do to keep from killing you. When we drove to the psychic’s house, you described where you woke up. I took your description and went searching for the general area. I caught your scent and followed it back to the house.”

He wouldn’t comment on it, but this was actually the only way he knew Lunette gave a shit about him. She would tell him to go fuck himself while also actively searching to help him. Carry and Onyx, and even Zeren to an extent, were all very expressive and affectionate. Over the years, it had worn him down and he had begun to reciprocate it. Even expected it.

But Lunette’s entire exterior was made of barbed wire and dry ice. It hurt to touch her. Oftentimes, it hurt to talk to her. She took brutally honest to mean that she would beat him over the head until he bent to her.

She had learned a lot from Ilona over the years.

Silence had fallen between them and Karhi realized she was waiting for him to acknowledge her. “Yeah,” he said.

“It was a small, three-bedroom house. Some furniture in the rooms, but it was pretty obvious that no one had ever lived there. No food in the kitchen, just some plasticware and paper plates and cups. It was a safe house or something.

“There was no one there. I could smell blood and bleach—someone had cleaned up after the shifter you killed. I saw where you broke through the window, since that hadn’t been fixed yet. But otherwise, there was nothing. Not even anything in the trashes.”

He hadn’t expected Lunette to find anything, but he did still find himself disappointed at the lack of new information. “Is that it?”

“It’s owned by a shell corporation, but I haven’t been able to figure out where the money is coming from. The doors were reinforced with heavy steel, and those bars over the windows could withstand a beating from the outside if necessary. But obviously not from the inside. Whoever owns it is definitely used to dealing with magics, but maybe not vampires since we can cut through steel. I’m digging deeper but it’ll be a bit before I figure it out.”

He nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “Thanks, Luna.”

“What is that brat doing?”

“Do you actually want to know, or are you going to just yell at me about her some more?”

“You could answer, or we can talk about how you turned a nineteen-year-old.”

There were no good ways to get out of this conversation. But . . . Lunette had had a lot of slip-ups with turning humans over the years. As far as he knew, they had never been underage, but she had been in trouble a lot with the vampire courts.

“Do you know the consequences?” he finally asked.

Lunette made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. But she did answer. “It depends,” she said. Her voice sounded tight, like she was just barely holding back another growl of irritation. “Nineteen is a grey area with humans. Because humans’ age of adulthood is generally recognized as eighteen. The vampire courts generally frown on turning below twenty. It’s illegal below eighteen, but eighteen and nineteen are grey. Basically, as long as the fledgling doesn’t pull any shit, you should be fine.”

That was a minor relief. It hadn’t really been a huge concern of his, but because of the questionable legality, it had been niggling at the back of his head. “Thanks,” he said.

“Did you turn her at nineteen or eighteen?” she asked.

“Nineteen,” he said. In fact, it had been her nineteenth birthday the night he had turned her, he later found out.

“Oh good. Because if you had turned her at eighteen, you have to keep track of her until she turns twenty.”

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“A sire staying with their fledgling for a year after they turn is a general rule. But if you turn them at eighteen, you have to stick around until twenty, because you’re kind of their guardian. It’s this weird . . . not law, but kind of unspoken rule.”

He hadn’t known that.

“And incidentally, fledglings under twenty aren’t really subject to the same rules as the rest of us. They’re still underage. They don’t get punished for things the same way overage vampires do.”

He leaned against the lamp he had been standing next to. “Like what?”

“Eh, violating rules in neutral territories like the courts or violating hospitality rules like they have at big festivals or parties or whatever. Most of us would get put to death. They get a stern warning, and their sire gets fined.”

“Fined?”

Lunette chuckled darkly. “Money or service or any other sorts of things. I heard one time that a sire that had pissed off the courts had to serve as Aurelia’s hand maiden for like a decade after her fledgling killed someone at a Yule festival.”

Karhi glanced up at the sky thoughtfully. He couldn’t see any stars, just darkness. A gentle breeze brushed his skin.

“Karhi, why don’t you know any of this shit?”

“Because I haven’t sired hundreds of children,” he replied coolly, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

She replied with something not physically possible.

“I don’t have tentacles,” he replied distractedly, something popping into his mind. “Lunette, how normal is it for fledglings to forget to feed?”

The pause he got in response told him that she hadn’t expected that question. “Uh . . . not at all. Why?”

“Sloane forgets frequently. I’ve had to open a vein more than once to feed her. And then, afterwards, she drinks two or three bags of blood.” He didn’t want to tell her that Azlea and Thirn told him to ask because he was still trying to understand what the hell had happened with them.

Lunette cursed. She sounded . . . impressed? “How is she still alive?”

“I don’t know. I spoke with Mira, and she said, with the way they grew up, Sloane went without food more often than not.”

“Hmm.” He heard her scribbling something down. “Yeah . . . that could be it. Big influences can carry over into vampirism. For example, someone who spent a lot of time trying to be invisible as a human could have an ability to—”

“Turn invisible?” He had never heard of that as a vampire power, only a paramortal power . . .

“No. Vampires don’t develop powers like that. No, they could make themselves easily overlooked as a vampire. They could be in a group of people, and the next day, no one in that group even remembers they were there that night.”

“Or someone who spent most of her life dreaming and imagining a better life would wind up being able to make illusions as a vampire?” Onyx had spent her life locked up by her father because of her albinism. She’d had to find ways to entertain herself.

“Yes. Sloane’s power may not have manifested because the whole time it’s just been incredible thirst control.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“Anyway, where is she?”

He heard a car door slam just as he caught the scent of burnt meat and sulphur on the wind. He looked up to see a taxi in front of Mira’s house. Sloane was already out of it, by the door next to the curb. She opened it and reached in to help somebody out.

“Gotta go,” he said.

“Karhi!” Lunette protested. “What the—”

“Call you later, bye.”

Sloane Briallen

It would start with a crow. It was the only way I knew how to get to Corvine.

Fortunately for me, they were everywhere, and it only took a few minutes to find one once I started looking. It was perched on a broken neon sign advertising a pawnshop.

I launched myself into the air, moving as fast as I could. The bird barely had time to register that I was coming at it before I had grabbed it off the sign. The crow squawked, driving its beak into my collarbone where I cradled it to me.

I swore, landing on the ground before darting into the closest alley. I didn’t want people to see me yelling at a bird. It wouldn’t be weird in this part of town, but I still didn’t want the attention.

The crow squawked and beat its wings against my hands, pecking to get me to let go. I caught its wings and held on down by its stomach to keep it from pecking. The feel of its glossy feathers beneath my fingers made me want to shudder. I had always had an image of feathers carrying disease, and that hadn’t changed since I died.

I moved us back to the alley from which I had originally spotted it. Doing this next part always made me look batshit, but it was the only way to do it. Corvine had never taught me her stupid summoning spell.

Tucked away in the alley, hidden behind dumpsters, I moved the bird close to my face but not close enough to peck my eye out. I could feel its little heart thumping hard enough to beat out of its chest.

“Corvine!” I shouted at the bird. “Hello! Anyone in there?” I hoped she was attuned to crows like she was ravens.

The bird stilled, staring at me. I didn’t know if it recognized its master’s name, or if it was scared that I was yelling at it. Crows were smart, but I wasn’t sure if they were this smart. Oh God, I hoped it didn’t poop in my hands. That was the last fucking thing I needed right now.

“Corvine!” I yelled. “Come out! I need to talk to you!”

“Sloane!”

I looked up.

Karhi stood next to the dumpster I hid behind, staring at me with wide, confused eyes. I could feel the judgment emanating from him. He thought I’d finally cracked.

I dismissed him, shaking the bird. “Corvine! Get your ass over here. I need to talk to you.”

“Sloane, what are you doing?” Karhi stepped toward me, but I took a step back.

“Karhi, stay away from me.”

Before he could reply, the glossy feathers pressed hard into my hands and I started, dropping the bird.

The bird didn’t hit the ground. A man did.

He towered over me, enormous black wings rising high above him. They enclosed his broad shoulders, cocooning him.

He had dark umber skin, as if dipped in the same inky blackness of his wings. His hands and feet were talons, like a bird. His feet talons were longer than my forearm and I would definitely not want to see them at work. They could probably disembowel a rhino. While flying.

An enormous bird skull sat on top of his head as a hat, the beak thin and sharp enough to skewer a fly. Long dark hair flowed from beneath it, framing the hardened face of a warrior. A skirt of black, brown, and white feathers encircled his waist.

I had never met any of the corvae, Corvine’s warriors, but I’d seen her with them. I knew what they looked like.

“What the fuck?” Karhi whispered.

I ignored him. “Do you know who I am?” I asked the birdman.

He bowed his head deeply. I had to take a step back, so he didn’t accidentally kill me with the beak of his skull hat. When he spoke, his voice was deep and melodious, something I wasn’t expecting. Their language, Carlahck, was an ugly series of harsh squawking and cawing. I had expected his speaking voice to be very similar. “Yes, Sloane Briallen. Of course. We all do.”

That would make things so much easier. “I need her,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “I think that was made clear by how violently you shook me.”

I eyed him for a second. I felt no shame, but something was clicking together.

“Were you watching me?” I asked. The chances of having come across a crow that wasn’t just a regular crow were a little too low for this to have been coincidence.

He didn’t say anything. His gaze was dark and intense.

Right. That wasn’t the point.

“Tell her she can repay her debt to me,” I said.

His eyebrows rose but he nodded. “I will go to her now and tell her.”

“Thank you . . .” Did the corvae have names?

“Korbin,” he supplied.

Of course, it was. “Thank you, Korbin. Tell her I’ll be at home. And tell her I needed her ten minutes ago.”

“Yes, Sloane Briallen,” he said. He bowed to me again before he took a step back. His wings opened out and up. They beat down and he launched into the air, disappearing from sight.

I turned to Karhi, who was staring up at the sky, mouth agape. I could feel the vibrating mass of confusion, awe, and disbelief in his head.

“Are you going to continue following me around?” I asked him.

He looked at me, the awe fading from his face into hard lines of annoyance. “What the fuck is going on?” He scowled, an expression that was so blessedly familiar on him that I almost laughed. Nothing in the past two days had been familiar.

The humor disappeared just as quickly as it had come. Fine. We needed to do this. “Keep up,” I said, before bolting past him. He followed me, no problem.

“I grew up here,” I said. “This is where my family lives. And someone has been trying to hurt them. That guy you have pictures of?” I ignored the guilt that bubbled up as I said that. There was time to deal with that later. There was time to deal with everything later. “He’s been missing for four days. And I didn’t go looking for him because . . .” The guilt came back up, like acid reflux this time. It burned the back of my throat, and I couldn’t say anything else.

“Because?” Karhi prompted.

I pursed my lips angrily and shook my head. “I thought he had tanked his sobriety and was on a coke bender from the stress of everything else that’s happened to our family.” The feeling of shame was bitter and harsh in the back of my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but it remained.

“And who is Corvine?”

“Bestia queen. She owes me a favor.”

He cursed under his breath.

“What?”

“Carry and Onyx were right.”

I hadn’t expected they would guess Corvine was a queen . . . but I guess if it was anyone, it would have been them to guess.

“Why does she owe you a favor?”

“Something about breaking curses. I’ve never really followed why, she just does.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Why are you here?” I was much ore interested in that, though I had a sinking suspicion I knew why. Lunette had already told me that she was looking for me.

“The Samhain festival.”

Yeah, I had guessed. The Arizona Samhain festival wasn’t the biggest Samhain festival, but it was up there.

“We were called here to attend with Ilona. She’s looking for you.”

I could feel the fear that crept into him as he spoke. But the adrenaline and focus for finding Mikko was a solid barrier and kept the fear away from me. “To torture me?”

He glanced at me for a moment. I could feel the war inside of him to answer truthfully and to . . . shield me? That didn’t sound right.

“Why do you care about protecting me?” I asked. He had never had that instinct before.

He sputtered. “I—I don’t care about protecting you.”

“The war between telling me and lying to me in your head says otherwise,” I replied. I just narrowly avoided a car as we crossed the street, traveling way too fast. I heard tires squealing and shouts of surprise and dismay.

He curled a lip in a sneer. “I just don’t think anyone should have to go through that. Whatever.”

I had always known he felt like that. I had felt his disdain for Ilona along with his simultaneous anxiety at doing anything to displease her. The fear was palpable when she was even brought up. But there was something more to it. I could feel it beneath the embarrassment and feigned disdain.

I glanced at him for a moment. Was there . . . it felt like admiration. “Wait . . . do you actually like me more now that I stole your car and completely fucking fooled you into thinking that I was a vanilla human when I was alive?”

His eyes narrowed but I had hit the nail on the head.

“Karhi, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?”

It was ridiculous. Everything was so hard and heavy. I was so fucking scared for Mikko that I couldn’t even be scared for myself. But this—this was a welcome relief. The eye of the storm. The flush of embarrassment I felt from him when I called him out was a wonderful bit of levity in the middle of the worst week of my life. He didn’t really answer, just grumbled something unintelligible.

Okay. I could fucking do this.

“This is your brother that’s missing?” Karhi asked after we passed a couple streets in silence.

I made a so-so motion. “Not by blood. But we grew up in foster together. We were both chronic runaways. Frankie and Genie, I told you about them finding their parents dead. But on top of that, Mikko went missing this week. And I found Annie late last night, barely breathing and covered in blood. Mikko was the only one left I hadn’t found, and I thought . . .” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I thought what? He was high somewhere? He was dead somewhere from a high? I didn’t know, but I had been too afraid to look. “They called me to come back. They needed help.”

Annie had been right. Mikko hadn’t skipped out on them to do coke off someone’s counter somewhere. He was still clean. I felt awful for doubting him, but at the same time, I actually felt worse knowing the truth.

“Why did it have to be him?” I murmured. At this point I was just talking to avoid being left with my own thoughts. “He had it the worst. I mean, yeah, we were all beaten a lot. Any one of us, we were in our fair share of abusive foster homes. One guy beat me with a belt once. But—”

“Wait,” Karhi interrupted.

I looked at him, furrowing my brow. “What?”

“Are you telling me this to avoid feeling guilty?”

I blinked. “What?” That hadn’t been what I was expecting. I had been expecting outrage, shock, horror—people always wanted to focus on the pain of being raised in a shitty system if I brought it up. People loved trauma porn. It was an easy way to avoid what was really bothering me.

“Using the bad shit that happened to you in the past as a way to distract from how you’re feeling now—I fucking invented that shit, Sloane. I have five centuries on you. You’re going to have to try a bit harder.” He gave me a condescending look, rolling his eyes.

I glared at him. “Like you even want to hear about my feelings.”

“Well, no. But come on, try harder.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. But weirdly, his nonchalance and outright mockery was actually helping. I hadn’t been called out like this in years.

And . . . he knew it. I could feel his satisfaction at making the tension in my shoulders ease just a little bit.

Finally, I said, “I hate being able to feel your feelings.”

“Back at you, babe. But you and I can sit down one day and get fucking wrecked and see who can tell the worst story with a straight face.”

I glanced to see his smirk. “No heroin,” I said. “I don’t get fucked up like that.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Alcohol or weed?”

“I feel we can do both.”

He laughed.

When we arrived at Mira’s house, the door was already opening. Mickey and Bell stepped out as we stepped on her front walkway.

Right. Them.

The initial shock at seeing them had worn off. And while I wasn’t looking, it had been replaced with anger. Because in the back of my head, I had finally put together that they had been alive for two years and had never come looking for me.

Anger was easier than pain and I embraced it.

I held up a hand to them. “I do not have the ability to deal with you yet.”

“Sloane, we need to talk,” Bell said, fists clenching at his sides. The muscles in his shoulders strained against his shirt.

“Bell, if we do this right now, I may tear you’re fucking arm off,” I smiled without any humor. “I don’t have the time or energy to deal with one of your temper tantrums. At least this time, I acknowledged you’re alive. Now go fuck yourself.”

It was easy to focus anger and just anger on Bell. I avoided looking at Mickey because my feelings with him were more complicated. I had never been able to stay angry with Mickey. And moving on from anger would mean I would have to focus on the betrayal from both of them, and now was not the time.

Karhi broke the awkward, angry silence I had created. “Sloane, why are we here?”

“We’re here because this is home,” I answered. My original plan had been to walk into the house from here. But Mickey and Bell being here made it that much harder.

“Home?” I could feel his confusion. “With the White Psychic?”

I didn’t give it a moment’s hesitation. “The who?”

“Move,” I heard Mira say from behind Mickey and Bell. She appeared from between them, wiping wet hands off on her pants. “I go to the bathroom for one fucking second and this shit.” She looked up at me. “You don’t have to keep up the act, Sloane. I met your sire earlier today.”

“What?” I demanded. “Why the hell would you two meet up?”

A strong feeling quenched my indignation—horror. It wasn’t mine. I looked at Karhi to see him staring at the ground with wide eyes. “Ilona . . . asked me to pay my respects to her because she had a contract with Queen Hazel.”

“She knew,” Mira said.

“That bitch,” Karhi growled. “She knew about your relationship with Sloane and used me as a fucking puppet.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, staring at Mira. “You have a fucking what?”

“Yeah, I signed a contract with Hazel like two months ago. Amos hired a lawyer for me and came to the negotiations,” she said, waving her hand like it was no big deal. “I didn’t agree to anything that I was uncomfortable with. Basically, we’re in a truce and they can call on favors from me or vice versa. We both reserve the right to say no.”

I blinked, staring at her. “Mira, what the fuck?”

She didn’t have a chance to answer. Another voice interrupted.

“We will deal with that later.” A cool wash of energy hit me.

I looked up to see Corvine standing at the edge of Mira’s lawn. She looked like a teenager in a pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. There was a faint, hazy aura around her.

“Corvine,” I said. A bit of the knot in my stomach eased.

“Dealing with whatever you’re talking about is a problem for another time,” Corvine said dismissively. “We have other work to do.” She addressed Mira. “I need something from the boy. Hair would be the most preferable.”

“I have his hairbrush.” Mira disappeared back into the house.

It was still weird to me that everybody had been living with Mira.

“Korbin had to explain to me that you saying you wanted me ten minutes ago didn’t actually mean you wanted me in the past,” Corvine said. “That’s why it took me so long.”

I forgot. Corvine didn’t always understand hyperbole.

Mira came back out with the hairbrush. Corvine held up a hand, and the brush lifted from Mira’s hands and threw itself to Corvine. Animalia associated with animals that could fly had a specific proficiency in telekinetic powers.

Corvine looked at me. “Are you coming?”

I nodded. “Yeah.” I walked over to her and took her hand.

“Sloane—” Karhi said, taking a step to follow me.

I never got to hear what he wanted to say because Corvine pulled me into the sky.

It was always a disorienting feeling, flying with Corvine. I hadn’t done it much, but when I had as a human, she moved so fast that I couldn’t keep up. But now that I was a vampire, able to process thing so much faster, I actually saw as we moved.

Buildings and houses rushed below us. City lights rose up and swallowed the crisp night. The smell of exhaust and metal permeated the air.

And then we were floating above the city. Corvine let go of my hand, and I stayed in the air. It was the weirdest feeling in the world. I felt completely weightless but at the same time, I remained upright. Nothing supported me, but I was standing.

For about a minute.

Then I was rotating backwards.

“Uh, Corvine,” I said when I was halfway upside down.

Corvine flicked her hand at me and something righted me and kept me there. It felt like a block or something against my shoulders and ankles.

The hairbrush was a small plastic thing wound with fine, dark hairs.

Corvine held it out in front of her in her right hand. She held her left hand over it and began to murmur. It sounded like English, but I couldn’t pick up the words.

Mikko’s black hairs were wound into the plastic bristles on the brush. They started to glow. I felt the discharges of magic from the brush, and Corvine stopped murmuring. I hadn’t seen a lot of magic in my time, but I knew a bit about how blood or hair worked in a spell. It could be used to track someone.

Corvine held the brush out in front of us and moved it slowly around. It reminded me of that scene from The Princess Bride when Inigo asks his father’s ghost to guide his sword to find the secret door in the tree.

Then we were moving forward. We didn’t stop until we were by the mall, on the other side of town.

Corvine’s brow furrowed.

“What?” I asked.

“There’s a cloaking spell. It’s telling me he’s in four different places at once.”

“Corvine, how—”

“Does Mikko speak any other languages?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“I’m doing the spell in English because he speaks English. It helps to filter out through the rest. And because this city primarily speaks English, it also helps connect the spell to the city, also filtering out other influences.”

“Well, he knows sign language.” I thought she need a spoken language.

“Right,” she said. “Right.” She shook her head. “I don’t know it.”

“I do.”

She regarded me for a second before saying, “Put your hand on the handle.”

Her hand was cool as I covered it with mine.

“Now. You want him more than anything right now. Focus on that desire. Focus on it, and sign what you want to do.”

The levy I’d put on my guilt broke. If I had searched for him sooner, called Corvine sooner, maybe I would have spared him from the torture. If I hadn’t dicked around on it, too focused on him on a coke bender, maybe he would be here. It was all my fucking fault that he had been gone for so long, and I needed to find him.

Corvine stiffened beneath my grip. Holding out my free hand, I signed, Find Mikko.

The brush jerked away from us, and my heart flew into my throat. We were flying forward and then down.

The only thing that kept us from crashing to the ground was Corvine. She slowed us before we hit, and we alighted gently on pavement.

We had landed in the Phoenix Warehouse District close to where I had found Annie. There were a lot of brick buildings and empty parking lots. We were in one such empty parking lot.

“Uh . . .” I looked around. This couldn’t be it.

“I know where he is,” Corvine said, pulling her hand from mine. “I’m going to get him. I brought us here, a couple blocks away, so when I came out with him, they wouldn’t find you.”

I blinked. “You know where he is?”

“I do. I’m going to bring him out.”

“I want to—”

“No,” she cut me off. “You’re not coming with. This will be faster and easier because I won’t have to worry about you.”

Then she was gone without a word, disappearing into the air.

I scowled. I hated Corvine for leaving me behind, but she was right. She didn’t need to worry about my sorry ass. And I had known her long enough that I knew she wouldn’t back out of her agreement.

I’d wait.

Karhi Emelyn

Karhi’s eyelids felt like gum when he tried to open them. They wouldn’t open much more than a fraction at first. He squeezed them shut and tried to open them again. It was easier, but they snapped back shut.

He groaned, trying to turn over, but his limbs were like anvils. Or something heavier than anvils because he could actually lift those. They were each the weight of a freight train.

As he moved, he dully registered a female sigh somewhere nearby. He couldn’t tell the source from his ears alone.

He tried to sit up, but he could only manage maybe a half a foot before he fell back, thumping on the bed. His mouth was so dry and tasted sour.

He stayed there, working on opening his eyes again. This time they were less gummy. He blinked a couple times but could only keep them half open.

“For someone who does heroin semi-regularly, you are shit on the comedown.”

That voice.

He turned his head as fast as he could—which felt like a snail’s pace—to find the source.

It was her.

“Sloane?”

She lay next to him on the bed (that he vaguely recognized as a hotel bed). She was on her side, facing him, her dark hair splayed across her pillow, green eyes a little less vibrant than he remembered. She looked as tired as he felt.

Was this a dream? That would explain why everything felt so slow and gummy.

But no . . . he could feel her next to him. He could feel the exhaustion emanating off of her. And a particular type of numbness that he recognized—one where you’re actively trying not to feel your emotions. She was hiding from something

All of this brought new confusion, and all he could think to say was, “What the fuck?”

She sat up. “Come on. If we get more blood in you, you’ll flush it out faster.” She got off the bed and walked over to his side, pulling him up.

When had she gotten so strong?

She helped him up and walked him over to the door. For the first time, he realized that he wasn’t in his own hotel room. Whose room was this?

She opened the door into a small living room, and he found Lunette sitting on a couch, typing on her laptop.

He couldn’t stop the first thought that came to mind when she looked up at him.

“You came over to my room, to bitch about not getting a nice room, and then neglected to tell me that your room is still nicer than mine?”

Lunette rolled her eyes, setting her laptop aside.

Sloane set him on the chair next to Lunette and stepped away somewhere. He didn’t know where because he was too busy staring at the mugshot on the screen of Lunette’s laptop.

“Who’s that?” he asked, pointing at the picture of a teenager with bronze curls and light brown skin. It felt like it took three months to bring his finger up to point.

“My friend, Frankie,” Sloane answered, handing Karhi a cold bottle of blood. “He’s in police custody.”

Karhi fumbled to open the bottle, fighting the urge to slump in his chair. “Because he stole my wallet?”

“He what?” Lunette looked from Karhi to Sloane, irritation quickly taking over her face. It was one of only four facial expressions she had.

Sloane smacked her hand to her forehead and left it there, huffing a breath out through her nose. “Of-fucking-course he did. You’re obviously loaded, and he wouldn’t be able to help himself. It’s second nature.”

He was obviously loaded?

“Are you why he got arrested?” Sloane asked.

Karhi shook his head, finally getting the cap off the blood. “He bumped into me while running from cops, and then they tackled him. I didn’t even know he had taken it until I tried to get back into my hotel room and my wallet was gone.” He glanced up to see Sloane’s gaze was discerning on him. “I swear,” he said. “I didn’t call the cops on him. It’s an inconvenience but I don’t keep anything in my wallet that I can’t cancel or replace.”

“He’s right,” Lunette said, picking her laptop back up. “The police report says he and Jean Carwyn were picked up in relation to a murder?” Her brow furrowed. “Seems a bit dark for two fifteen-year-olds.”

Sloane shook her head, sitting down on the chair across from Karhi. “They came home one day to find their parents murdered and dismembered. They fled the scene instead of calling the cops.”

Lunette’s scowl turned neutral. “Why would they flee?”

Sloane looked at her and the look on her face was like Lunette had just asked the stupidest question Sloane had ever heard.

But Karhi was the one who answered. It took him a second to untangle his tongue from his mouth, but he did. “Considering I watched the police use aggressive force on two teenagers and there was blood everywhere when they got arrested—probably because of that.”

Sloane squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. He could feel the bitter regret and anger that warred in her, but she didn’t speak it out loud. Instead, she said, “They were adopted four years ago. When they found their parents dead, they freaked. Like you said, they’re fifteen. I don’t know many adults that would handle finding that scene well.”

Lunette agreed after a moment.

He suddenly felt a spark of inspiration from Sloane, which was a sharp, harsh sensation against the general torpor he was feeling. He looked over to see a smile unfurling on her face, and she looked at Karhi.

“But him stealing your wallet gives me an idea . . .”

Karhi took that as a sign to drink his blood.

Two hours later, close to nine in the evening, Karhi was fully dressed (it had taken him far too long to realize he didn’t have anything on but boxers and socks), more awake on blood and coffee, and off the comedown. He and Lunette were walking into the Phoenix Police Department headquarters, where Frankie Cirocco and Genie Carwyn were being held.

“So, the social worker got ‘caught up’,” Lunette said, tucking her hair back behind her ear from where it had escaped the bun she’d stuck it in. She had changed into a pair of black slacks and a grey button-up. Originally, she had put on high black heels, but Sloane made her change into sneakers. Sloane told her that only newbie social workers wore heels to the police station. If she wanted to play a season social worker, she needed to look seasoned enough to pass scrutiny, no matter what Luna’s fake ID said. Lunette had borrowed Karhi’s briefcase, sans the stacks of money.

“Why do you even have a Phoenix social worker ID?” he asked as he held open the door for her.

“Something Ilona had me do a few years ago when she suspected one of her other children of breaking Gaea’s Laws and taking children off the streets.” She shrugged. “Nothing ever came of it.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, and he was glad he didn’t.

They walked into a room with linoleum floors and chairs along one wall. In front of them was a brick wall with a large plexiglass window and a speaker. The only other door besides the entrance was next to the plexiglass. A woman in a police uniform sat behind the window. She looked to be in her late forties with heavy wrinkles around her mouth and watery blue eyes.

Lunette walked straight up to the window and said, “Hi, I’m Lauren James. I’m here for Frankie Cirocco and Genie Carwyn. I’m the social worker assigned in their regular case worker’s absence.” She pressed her ID against the window to show the officer.

The woman looked from the ID to Lunette before typing into the computer that sat before her. After a moment, she said, “I’ll speak with the chief.” She looked to Karhi. “And you are?”

“Luka Emelyn,” he answered. Karhi was pretty sure that was the name on his ID in the wallet Frankie had.

Lunette spoke for him. “Mr. Emelyn is Frankie and Genie’s assigned foster parent. He wasn’t notified when they were arrested.”

The officer reached over past where they could see and pressed a button. “Chief Braxton, the case worker and foster dad for those two kids are here.”

A moment passed before an answering, “Okay,” came through.

They took a step back to wait.

“When this is over, you and your fledgling need to have a strong talk about what ‘I can’t go into the station because some cops will know me’ means,” Lunette muttered.

“I think it’s fairly self-explanatory,” Karhi shrugged. “She’s only nineteen, it’s not that far out that she could have been a juvenile delinquent.”

“She’s what?” Lunette hissed.

Before he could reply, the door next to the plexiglass opened and a middle-aged man with a round belly and a black push broom above his lips walked out. His uniform strained against his stomach and his belt was cinched too tight.

Lunette stepped forward. “Lauren James,” she said, holding out a hand to him.

The man shook her hand. “Chief Anthony Braxton,” he said, glancing at Karhi. “You’re those punks’ social worker?”

Lunette stiffened, standing up straight and withdrawing her hand. “I am those children’s social worker.”

Karhi had to admit. Lunette played a convincing social worker.

The chief was unimpressed by her correction. He looked at Karhi. “Luka Emelyn?”

“Yes,” Karhi said, shaking his hand.

“Well, come on.”

They walked into a bullpen filled with ringing phones and the stench of burnt coffee. Desks piled with papers littered the floor and bodies moved around the rat maze, just barely avoiding bowling into each other.

Braxton led them to a hallway off to the side with closed doors. They each had a number over them with an indicator of occupied or empty.

Braxton stopped as they came to the first door, turning to them with a suspicious glint in his eyes and a faint frown around his mouth. “You know, their files didn’t say anything about them already having a foster parent. And why would they already have a foster parent assigned, but the police were never notified about the deaths?”

“They came to us yesterday to tell us what happened,” Lunette answered, her tone clipped. “We had an emergency foster parent available to take them over night, and we were working on the paperwork to get them settled.”

“You didn’t contact the police to tell us that you had them?”

Braxton was getting too into the weeds for Karhi to be comfortable with Lunette making more shit up.

“Um,” Karhi said.

The chief looked at him. Karhi met his eyes and felt for the focus in Braxton. “Focus” was difficult to describe. It felt like a ball of thin, sharp wire, like what was used for wire saws. For different people, it was at different levels of tightness. This man was a cop. His ball was a little more tightly wound than most, but not as much as what you would feel for a private investigator or someone else who actually needed to solve mysteries to make a living. It was easy to pick at.

Braxton blinked, a veil of confusion fogging his features.

“Well?” Lunette asked.

Braxton looked at her. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

“We should be seeing them now . . .” she trailed off, giving Braxton a raised eyebrow.

He and Lunette had worked together for so long that she always picked up when he used his powers and immediately used it to her advantage.

Which was why she hated it so much when he used his powers on her.

The chief shook his head. “Right . . . we have them in separate rooms.”

“Why?” Lunette asked, shifting her weight slightly to show she was unhappy with that set up. Sloane had warned them that was likely.

“Ma’am, we have to determine if they were involved in the deaths of their parents.”

Lunette bristled and took a slight step towards Braxton. “You have no business questioning minors without their social worker and a lawyer present.” She smiled tightly. “If you have determined they were not involved, please bring them out. We will be taking them.”

This time, Braxton bristled. “We have not determined they are uninvolved.”

“I saw that you requested their social worker. I would like to see where you have requested a lawyer for them, and which judge you will be using to determine if you can keep them in detention.”

Braxton didn’t have an answer for that, but Karhi could feel that they were getting into territory where the cop would stick them in the weeds.

He cleared his throat and Braxton glanced at him. Karhi picked at his focus again, unravelling it just slightly. He didn’t need to maintain eye contact to use his powers, but it was easier when it was someone he didn’t know well. Eye contact made his ability stronger.

The key to working with loss of focus was that Karhi needed to make the person have a combination of two reactions. The first was a general unease and embarrassment at having lost their train of thought. The second was a desire to either please Karhi or get him out. Or in this case, get Lunette out.

“Chief Braxton?” Lunette prompted.

He looked at Lunette and the tightness in his eyes told Karhi that he was struggling with not being able to remember what they had just been talking about. It was frustrating and embarrassing him, his face beginning to flush.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Lunette said, impatience in the tension of her jaw. “We can take them, right? You seem to be implying that. They’re not suspects. Please bring them to us.”

Braxton’s lips were tight as he searched his memory for what was happening. After a moment of his memory not working the way he wanted it to, he finally nodded. “Yes. Follow me.”

Karhi kept close to him as they walked. His power would eventually wear off when he left Braxton’s side. However, the longer Karhi stayed closer to him, the longer it would take to wear off.

Braxton led them to the fourth door on the right and opened it.

It was a small room with a table and two chairs on either side of it. A one-way mirror took up the majority of one wall.

A girl, fifteen or sixteen, sat at the table, an open can of coke on the table next to her. She looked exhausted, brown-gold eyes sunken in her face. She wore a short-sleeved blue shirt and faded jeans. Karhi saw a bandage around one elbow and scrapes on her face from when the cop had tackled her.

The girl looked up when they walked in, and her brow furrowed. Then she sat up, her face turning guarded. Karhi heard her heart speed up.

Did she know they were vampires?

Lunette walked over to her and, very slowly and deliberately, signed to her. Sloane’s outside. Play along. Her movements were exaggerated, but Sloane had been very explicit that Lunette needed to do it exactly as Sloane showed her. She had said that if Lunette very deliberately used Sloane’s sign name, Genie would likely trust them.

Understanding dawned on Genie’s face, and she stood up.

“The other one is in the room across the hallway,” Braxton said, turning away from them. Karhi could see from the tension in his shoulders that they needed to get out quickly. He would lose his patience with them soon.

Frankie was sitting behind the same table set up, an open can of coke next to him, too. He looked exhausted, like Genie with scrapes on his face and a bandage on his forehead.

Genie pushed ahead of Braxton, moving in a light, lithe way that piqued Karhi’s curiosity. She moved so smoothly, as if she wasn’t entirely human.

A parahuman?

Genie quickly signed something to Frankie. His brow furrowed and he replied back, looking confused. Genie nodded, and Frankie looked up at Lunette and Karhi. His confusion immediately turned to a scowl. He stood up and walked towards them but kept his distance.

They definitely knew that Lunette and Karhi were vampires.

“Can I have my wallet back, Frankie?” Karhi asked. He felt that pointing this out would solidify for Braxton that Lunette and Karhi weren’t liars.

Frankie looked away, pulling a black leather wallet out of his back pocket and passing it to Karhi. Karhi opened it to find his license in the window. It did indeed say Luka Emelyn.

Braxton shook his head, muttering something about thieves. “We’ll have you sign the paperwork to take them out, follow me.”

They followed Braxton out and did not, in fact, have to sign the paperwork. Karhi made him forget what they were going to do right as they got to the door. He didn’t want to leave any trail past the camera footage of them in the precinct.

They emerged into the darkness of evening. The sun had set an hour previously and the evening had cooled. They crossed the street to the parking lot on the next block, where Lunette and Karhi had parked, and that was where Frankie stopped them.

“Well,” Frankie said, turning to Lunette and Karhi and taking a large step back, “this was great, but I think we’ll leave now. Thanks for the jailbreak.”

“Being civil to vampires, that’s a new one,” Sloane said, melting out of the shadows created by the cars in the parking lot. Karhi had felt her just before she revealed herself.

Frankie jumped, spinning around to face her. He glared at her. “You got us out. Mira’d say something about gift horses and mouths.”

Mira? Like . . . the White Psychic?

“Oh, when did you ever listen to Mira?” she shot back. “Maybe if you had, and laid low, you wouldn’t have gotten fucking arrested. Look at you, you’re covered in scrapes and bruises.”

“Oh, because it’s my fault that a fucking cop body slammed me.” He stepped forward until he was almost touching her.

This was not how Karhi had expected this to go. The way Sloane had been talking, these two were childhood friends of hers. He had assumed they either didn’t know she was a vampire or didn’t care.

And, neither of those seemed to be the case?

He exchanged glances with Lunette, who seemed to be sharing the same, confused thoughts.

“Yeah, but you fucking ran from a crime scene. You should have laid low.” She poked his chest as she said it.

“I’m not gonna let the fucking pigs—”

Genie got between them and shoved them apart. She slammed one hand into the other. Karhi didn’t know any sign language, but it was obvious that one meant stop.

Frankie turned his anger on Genie, signing something quickly at her. She replied to him and whatever her answer was, it set him off again.

Sloane shook her head, scrubbing her hair back from her face. She looked at Karhi and Lunette and her frustration dissipated, replaced with a heavy exhaustion that mimicked his own.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s been a fucking week.”

“Yeah,” Karhi said. He hadn’t had the chance to really process everything that had happened with Sloane since he had woken up three hours earlier. And he wasn’t about to let himself, either. “Can I have my car back?” Maybe he would process a little.

She grimaced. “Uh . . . I need it. And I don’t think it’s insurable anyway, so . . .”

“Sloane, what did you do to my car.”

“Uh . . .”

“Well,” Lunette interrupted, “I’m going to let you deal with this. I’m done playing the social worker.” She snapped open the brief case and pulled out her wallet from it. It was the only thing in the briefcase since it had just been there for show. “Karhi, I’ll see—”

Karhi watched in slow motion as an angry gesture from Frankie sent the briefcase flying to the ground. As it did, the pictures Karhi had found earlier went flying from where they had been tucked in the briefcase. Stupidly, he hadn’t thought to leave them in his hotel room; he had been too rushed trying to get the briefcase to Lunette.

Frankie yelped in pain, cradling his hand where he had hit the briefcase. Of all people, he glared at Sloane when that happened.

Lunette made a noise of irritation, bending over to pick up the scattered pictures and the condolence card. Karhi did, too.

As he gathered them, a peculiar combination of feelings crept up the back of his neck. Horror, dawning recognition, and disgust. It didn’t belong to him. He looked up to see Sloane standing over them as they picked up the scattered pictures and the condolence card.

“What the fuck is this?” Sloane whispered, staring down at the pictures.

“Do you know who this is?” Karhi asked, straightening up and leaving the photos there.

Frankie snatched a photo from the ground. “What the fuck are you doing with photos of Mikko? What the fuck did you do to him?”

But Frankie didn’t come after Karhi. Of all people, Frankie lunged at Sloane.

She caught him by the arms, shoving him back before he could hit her.

“You said you were the same, Sloane,” Frankie snarled. “But what the hell is your sire doing with a picture of Mikko? He’s been tortured, Sloane. Did you know about this? Did you have something to do with this—”

Sloane slapped him so hard that he crashed into a car.

“You think I’d do this, you stupid fuck?” she roared at him. Her voice was strong, but her face buckled in agony as she advanced on him. Karhi felt the rage and pain warring inside of her, frothing over onto Frankie.

“You think I like coming back here and everything is fucked up? You think I’d do this? To Mikko of all people?” She turned to Karhi, eyes burning with murder. “Karhi, what the fuck is this? Why do you have pictures of him? That card says, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’” Her voice cracked at that last word. But there were no tears in her eyes. Only fury.

Karhi bristled as her anger switched to him, partly feeding on her anger, partly angry at the accusation. “I found that envelope outside of our apartment before you pulled your disappearing act. If you’d stopped to talk to me, maybe you’d have known about this already.” He regretted the words as they left his mouth. He felt them plunge into her like knives.

Sloane opened her mouth to speak, but Genie stepped forward, shoving Sloane. Karhi prepared to have to grab her to hold her back from retaliating against Genie. Sloane was still a new vampire, and vampire tempers were not typically compatible with frail human bones.

What Karhi hadn’t expected was that Sloane didn’t retaliate at all. In fact, she let the shove push her.

Genie signed something quickly at her. Her movements were fast and angry. Did she even know what was going on? No one seemed to have been translating for her.

From the guilt that Karhi suddenly felt in Sloane, that must have been what she was doing. And Karhi was even more surprised to see was how fluidly Sloane responded in sign language. He had known that she knew it, since she had explained how to sign to Genie when they saw her, and seen her sign to the cook at Swanskin’s, but he had not expected her fluency.

Finally, Sloane looked at Frankie, where he was still leaning on the car. “Frankie, go home. Take Genie with.” Her tone had changed. The fury was gone, replaced with a steady resolve. He could feel that she had made a decision.

“Sloane, someone has Mikko, and the vampires are probably lying—”

“Frankie, I can handle it. I’m going to bring him home.”

“Sloane—”

Sloane signed something very angrily at Frankie. It looked almost like spelling?

Frankie’s mouth dropped. “You’re going to—”

“Yes, now fucking go,” she roared.

Genie grabbed Frankie’s wrist and jerked him forward. “Let’s go,” she said. She had an accent Karhi wasn’t familiar with.

Frankie let Genie lead him away. They took off running.

“Sloane—” Karhi said.

“I’m leaving,” she said, turning from them. Her emotions were a whirlwind.

“No, you’re not,” Lunette said, grabbing Sloane’s arm.

Sloane lashed out with a kick that knocked Lunette to the ground. Her skull cracked against the asphalt, and she shouted in pain.

Sloane was gone before Karhi could stop her.

Sloane Briallen

We didn’t have a good track record with the police. I was busted for stealing a car a few times. Mikko got busted on a drug raid. Annie was detained for being black more than once. Genie and Frankie were usually arrested together, normally petty theft since they were the best pickpockets of us. That didn’t include the times we were rounded up by the police and put back in foster for being runaways.

I was the only one who had never been hit or shoved so hard into a car that I had bruises. My skin was pale with obvious European traits.

The others were not so lucky.

The last time I remembered Frankie got arrested, he got a concussion. Another time, Genie had been forced to sit in an interrogation room for three hours with no interpreter because the cops couldn’t figure out where to put her.

All of this is to say, it was easy for me to focus on worrying about finding Genie and Frankie instead of anything else. I didn’t have to deal with Mickey and Bell being back. Or alive. Or here. I didn’t have to deal with Mikko still being missing. Or that I wasn’t looking for him because I was afraid of what I would find.

Genie and Frankie had the police after them. I could get to them first. I wouldn’t be able to hide them or take them away. That would just compound the problem. But I could at least get them to foster, with a social worker, who could handle them and the police together. The foster system sucked, but in my experience, they had never let any of us go in front of the police alone. They actually gave a little bit of a damn about how kids were treated by the cops.

I was optimistic I got a call from Mira.

I opened the phone, glancing to make sure it was her. “Hey,” I said.

“I called some people, asked around about Frankie and Genie. Just got a call back that someone saw them get busted downtown. They ran away, but the cops were after them. I haven’t heard if they got caught, but I’m assuming they did.”

“Fantastic,” I sighed, my heart dropping. “Where downtown?”

“Not too far from where they’re building the light rail station.”

“Do we know if it’s sheriff or police?”

“No. Isn’t it usually police?”

“I got picked up by the sheriff once.” I growled in frustration. “Alright. I’ll ask around.” I hung up.

Mira lived in the South Mountain Village area, about fifteen minutes south of Downtown Phoenix. I was south of Mira’s house, searching further through South Mountain for Frankie and Genie. I hadn’t expected them to leave the area. South Mountain was Phoenix’s poorest neighborhood where we’d spent most of our lives. Generations lived and died here.

I got back in my car and headed north. It took me almost forty-five minutes with traffic and then the fucking parking. Parking downtown in any city was a nightmare, but Phoenix was worse than most.

The new light rail was supposed to open soon, December 2008, according to the signs all over the chain link fence surrounding the construction. New construction meant detours and congestion, both in foot traffic and cars. It didn’t take long to find my target.

A homeless man sat under an awning against the wall of a building that had a big “For Lease” sign on it. The foot traffic was pretty heavy, with people passing him in groups. He had a cup next to him and was holding it out to anyone who walked close, asking for spare change.

I thought he was in his forties or fifties maybe, but it was hard to tell. Food scarcity, sun, and homelessness wore anyone away. He could have been thirty. He was skinny and wore a pile of clothes, even in the seventy-five-degree weather. His skin reminded me of the reddish brown of weathered rocks in the desert.

He held out his paper Pepsi cup when I walked over. “Can you spare any change, ma’am?” His voice was gravelly.

I crouched down next to him and tucked a twenty into his cup. “I can. Can I ask you a question?”

His eyes went wide, looking in his cup. “Oh, bless you, ma’am. Thank you thank you.” He looked up at me, registering what I had said. “Question?”

“Yeah. Did you see the police here, chasing after two teenagers? The kids got arrested?”

His brow crinkled. “Two kids . . .” he shook his head. “I seen a commotion over across where they’re building the light rail. Saw police lights.” He pointed through the construction. “I think Marnie’s over there, they mighta seen something.”

“Did you see if it was sheriff or police?”

He shook his head. “No, sorry, ma’am. I don’t see too good nowadays.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eric, ma’am.”

“Well, thank you, Eric.” I stuck another twenty in his cup and stood up.

“Ma’am, you’re too generous,” he whispered, staring into his cup. “Thank you.”

I smiled, dipping my head to him before heading off for across the street.

The person that Eric had told me about was about a half a block down from where he had said the police cars were. They were much closer to my age with short brown hair and sharp collarbones. They were digging through the trash outside of a McDonald’s when I found them. I saw bruises and track marks on their arms.

“Marnie?” I asked as I walked up.

They didn’t give me a second look, continuing to dig through the trash as people gave them a wide berth.

“Marnie?” I tried again, stepping closer.

Still nothing. Now people were giving me a wide berth.

“Hey!” I shouted.

They looked up then.

“Are you Marnie?”

They looked to the side quickly, eyes darting around. “Why?”

“Eric said you could help me.”

They blinked several times. “Eric? Like Eric over there?” they pointed vaguely where Eric was.

I nodded.

“Why’s Eric talking to a vampire?” they asked, scratching at their arm.

I hadn’t expected that question, but I also wasn’t completely surprised. Homeless people were more attuned to magic than the rest of the world. They tended to see it a lot more.

“I’m just looking for some friends,” I said. “Did you see two kids get arrested here earlier?”

Their eye twitched. “Two kids? Mmmm, yes. Yes. Two kids. A Mexican and a Indian.” They blinked three times in rapid succession.

“Was it the sheriff or the police?”

They blinked a few times before saying. “Mmmm white car with blue stripes. Police, n-not sheriff. Police for sure.”

“Thanks,” I said. I pulled out forty dollars and handed it to them. “Here.”

They blinked, looking from the money to me and back to the money. “F-forty dollars?”

I handed them a third twenty. “And here. Get something to eat for you and Eric. Okay?”

They glanced from the money to me and then at the McDonald’s. They nodded then and snatched the money from me before scurrying into McDonald’s.

I stood outside, idly watching Marnie go up to the counter before stepping away from the window. I didn’t want them to think I was policing how they used their money. As long as Marnie got Eric food, if my forty dollars went in their arm, it wasn’t my business. I remembered all too well what it was like to be homeless. I had smoked a bit of weed and done some coke in my day, but my addiction had always been cigarettes. If it brought peace, it was worth it.

When Marnie left, giving me a quick hurried nod, I started down the street. I tried to remember where the closest police department was in relation to where I stood.

But once I did remember, I realized I still had no plan. As a vampire, I could maybe take on some cops, but an entire precinct? To what? Reclaim Genie and Frankie?

They needed to get out legally, and I needed a plan.

“What the fuck?”

That voice made the blood freeze in my veins.

I looked up to see Lunette. And she looked furious. Her russet eyes burned with crimson flames as she came towards me.

My eyes almost popped out of my head. “Oh fuck.”

I bolted.

Weaving through the crowd, I tried my best not to hurtle through and hurt anyone. And that was my downfall.

Something grabbed my legs, and I went down, almost landing in the street. My head cracked against a parking meter, and I yelped in pain, grabbing my skull. A shadow blocked out the sun.

I looked up, my eyes watering.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lunette growled.

Dizziness threatened to overtake me, and I closed my eyes. “Sightseeing.”

“Do you know how much fucking trouble you’ve caused with your little disappearing act?”

The dizziness passed, and I finally stood up. I could feel the bump where it strained against my ponytail. “Ask me if I care,” I replied, checking around to see if I had an easy out. I did not. Too many people and cars. And once again, I was getting a wide berth and stares from pedestrians.

In a blur of motion, Lunette had my shirt in her hands and was as close as her little five-one head could get to my six-one head. “Ilona is here. And she is demanding your presence. And she’s punishing him because he can’t fucking find you.” She bared her teeth at me, her canines elongating just enough to make her point.

“Then he shouldn’t have turned me,” I snarled back, smacking her hand away. I turned from her. “I’m sure he’s self-medicating anyway.”

“What?”

I waved her off, walking away.

She was in front of me so fast that I would have run into her if she hadn’t shoved me before I could. It made my head spin. Did I have a concussion?

“What do you mean ‘self-medicating’?” she demanded. “Do you know where he is?”

I paused. Did . . . she not know? “What?”

“He told me he was going to take a nap but when I went to check in on him, he wasn’t in his hotel room. I can’t find him anywhere, and he isn’t answering his phone.”

That gave me an idea.

This was gonna suck.

“You said Ilona is here? And has been punishing him for my disappearance?”

Her glare lightened into a scowl. “Yes.”

“Yeah, I know where he probably is.”

“Where?”

“I will only help you if you two help me.”

“Fuck you, fledgling. You owe us.” She took a step forward until she was almost touching me.

“I don’t owe you jack fucking shit, Lunette.” I took a step back, pushing her shoulder as I did. “I did not ask to be turned by the child of one of the scariest vampires on the face of the earth. I did not agree to be part of this family. So, if you want my help, you’ll have to help me.”

She glared at me.

I shrugged, turning from her. As I did, the dizziness finally resolved itself. Concussion healed, I guess.

“Fine.”

Oh, thank the gods. I hadn’t had a clue if my bluff would hold. Plus, her powers were scary, and she could probably force me.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Madame Bovary kept her “shop” in a house at the South Mountain Park foothills. It was an older Tudor style house with tall gables and small windows at the gable peaks. But instead of the normal white with dark wood beams on the exterior, the house was built from red brick. It towered over us, three stories tall, with an imposing, dark entryway.

The entry hall was beautiful with orange and red tile on the floor, the walls with half-exposed bricks on the bottom. A table off to the side had a terrarium filled with flowering cacti and a crystal chandelier hung from above. In front of us was a wide staircase leading up to the second story. The air smelled like the desert right after it rained. The room was empty, the lone hostess stand in front of us unmanned.

There was a commotion. I could hear an argument going on upstairs, but it was muffled by soundproofing. Madame Bovary’s primary clientele was vampires, and they didn’t want to be able to hear each other when they came here.

An arch opened to our right into a living room filled with lush furniture. On our left was another arch into a room with a full bar and a jazz stand. The rooms were empty and dark.

A woman in a black silk cocktail dress with blue hair and black and grey tattoos covering her arms appeared from a hallway at the top of the stairs and hurried down. “I’m sorry, we’re not accepting any customers right now due to an emergency.” She was human, and I could hear her heart beating a mile a minute.

I recognized her. “Tara?”

She paused on the stairs for a second, taking a moment to actually focus on me. I saw the recognition dawn in her dark eyes. “Sloane!” She hurried down the stairs and hugged me. “Oh, my God. It’s been years.”

“It has,” I said, hugging her back. “Nice to see you off the street and doing something swanky. Landing at Madame Bovary’s, hot damn.”

She beamed. “Jackie started college. I gotta make sure she gets through.”

“Oh right. How—”

“Lovely that you two are having a reunion, but can we focus on why we’re here?” Lunette snarled, grabbing my shoulder.

I rolled her off, looking at Tara, who was finally giving me a real once over.

“Vampire?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Long story. Could the emergency you mentioned have to do anything with a male vampire with ear plugs, a tongue piercing, and a huge back tattoo?”

Her blue eyebrows rose in surprise. “Do you know him?”

“He belongs to us,” I said. “What drug? Heroin?” I was pretty sure that was Karhi’s drug of choice.

I heard a noise of surprise from Lunette that I was definitely not supposed to hear. When I glanced at her, she glared at me.

“Yeah,” Tara answered, glancing up the stairs.

“Is his date okay?”

She nodded. “They’re fine. It’s just—the guy barricaded the room and won’t come out unless someone brings him more. He just showed up two hours ago, dropped fifteen grand, and took Julio and Ignacio with him.”

“He hasn’t hurt anyone, right?”

“No, no. He’s being loud and aggressive, but just talking shit. He hasn’t laid a hand on anyone.”

That sounded right. “We’ll take care of him.” I glanced at Lunette before saying, “She’ll take care of any damage he caused.”

“Wait, what—” Lunette started but I was already following Tara up the stairs.

“I mean, sure,” Tara said as we went up. “But two guys are already here for him. Said he had paid them to pick him up when he was done.”

Lunette cursed and darted past me before I could reply.

I bolted after her, earning a surprised yelp from Tara as I left her behind me.

Lunette led me to a white door with painted clematis. A group of people in various states of undress milled around the door. Two naked men—Julio and Ignacio I presumed by the bite marks on their biceps—stood next to each other, talking quietly. An older woman in her fifties wore a silk robe angrily talking to another woman. That was Madame Bovary most likely.

But what really caught my attention were the two burly shifters in front of the door, one’s fist through the wood, splinters on the floor. I felt like that wasn’t a good thing, especially judging by how alarmed Lunette had been.

Lunette grabbed the one whose fist wasn’t in the door and hauled him back by his shoulder, punching him in the face. He roared out in pain and the humans scattered, shouting in surprise.

I was willing to trust Lunette’s judgment on this matter. This was only my third time seeing Karhi after a night of smack, but he had never had anyone pick him up before. I didn’t think he’d have strange shifters doing it, either.

I turned my hip to the one whose hand was in the door and brought my heel down on the back of his knee, forcing him down. He shouted out in pain and started to turn to me, but I was already smashing my elbow into the side of his head.

He slammed into the ground, his skull shattering the tile floor. He didn’t get back up.

Lunette shouted and I turned to see that her shifter had transformed into a large tabby cat. His face was lopsided from the punch Lunette had leveled at him—shifting must have fucking sucked. Transforming with broken bones could rebreak healing bones.

The tabby bolted past me and when I looked, I saw the guy I had hit had also transformed into a cat, a black house cat. He fled, too.

Lunette lunged after them, but I caught her, almost breaking my arm in the process. “Sloane,” she hissed, red-brown eyes flashing a bright vermilion.

I shoved her back. “We need to get Karhi out. Not go after whoever the hell those people were.”

A female voice boomed through the room. “Yes! Please, get out of my house, all of you!”

I looked up to see Madame Bovary coming towards us, arms open wide in frustration. I had never met the woman before, but she had been on the scene for a long time. I could see why—the grey hair and the busty figure gave her an older, mature look.

“You,” she said, pointing to me. “I’m always happy to meet a friend of Tara’s, but not. Like. This. Get him out and get you out. I don’t want any more trouble in my establishment—you are running out my clients!”

“She’ll pay you,” I said, pointing at Lunette. “She’s fucking loaded.”

The 180 was tangible, anger on Madame Bovary’s face immediately transforming into a smile. She turned to look at Lunette, a predatory glint in her eyes. “Oh?”

Lunette looked at me. “Sloane, like hell—”

“You’re like a multi-millionaire—you won’t notice a hundred or two hundred grand in renovations,” I shrugged. I turned from her and went over to the door. I hadn’t heard Karhi in there at all through the ruckus.

“Karhi?” I asked the door. “It’s me, Sloane.”

I didn’t hear anything for a moment. Wait, was he even here? I swear to God, if he had somehow left during all that—

“Sloane?”

Oh. He was in there. “Yeah. Can you open the door?”

“Are those men gone?”

“They are. Can you let me in?”

“Do you have heroin?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

Lunette shoved me aside before I could say anything. “Karhi, if you don’t open this door, I will break it down and drag you out of here.”

“Lunette?”

“Yes, you fucker. Get the hell out of there and come back with us.”

“You’re working with Sloane?”

Lunette glared at me before quietly growling, “Yes.”

“Now that’s something I have to see.” I heard something screech behind the door, like heavy furniture, and the door opened.

Karhi had on boxers and one sock, but that was it on the clothing front. I could see the edges of his tattoo along the tops of his shoulder and at his sides.

His pupils were blown, the black swallowing up the grey. He was coming off the high, then.

He stared at me. “You really are here . . .”

“I am,” I said. “Come on, let’s get you dressed.”

“Clothes are uncomfortable,” he scowled. He swayed where he stood.

“Then at least let’s get your shoes on.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face to the ceiling. He stayed like that for a moment in contemplation before saying, “Okay.”

It would have taken more coaxing to get Karhi out if Lunette hadn’t finally gotten fed-up and picked him up and hauled him back to her car. I collected his clothes from the room he had trashed and left. Lunette left her card with Madame Bovary to deal with any destruction Karhi had caused.

We drove back to the hotel in silence. There was an elevator directly from the parking garage into the hotel and we got Karhi back to Lunette’s room without him scandalizing anyone.

It took me another ten minutes to talk him into bed until he finally settled. As I was leaving, I went to turn the light off. I caught myself just as Karhi said, “Wait.”

I looked back at him, nodding. “I know. Don’t turn the light out.”

He eyed me before rolling over.

Lunette’s hotel room had a living room and a minibar in the corner. She sat on a small loveseat across from a mounted TV. There was a small table in front of the loveseat with a glass of blood on it. Her gaze was on the table, her head miles away.

I really needed something to drink.

“Do you have more blood?” I asked.

She nodded to the minibar without looking up from her staring contest with the table.

I pulled out a glass bottle of blood from inside the minibar. It was like Mexican Coke, except, Mexican Blood? Who thought a glass bottle was necessary?

Whatever. I twisted the top off and raised the bottle to my lips.

Almost before I knew what I was doing, I was guzzling it. I hadn’t had anything to drink in almost three days. I’d been too busy trying to patch my family back together.

At least this time I’d caught myself before I had to ask someone to open a vein. That would not have gone over well.

I finished the bottle and grabbed another one. It took that plus one more to finally feel like I was done. The tension and anxiety I had felt was finally ebbing.

Being full on blood wasn’t the same as being full on food. It was more like an itchiness in my muscles eased. I had found that I tended to ignore the thirst because it wasn’t so much like a parched feeling in my throat. It was like the aftermath of adrenaline. And having spent most of my life dealing with the aftermath of adrenaline, I had learned to ignore it.

“He does heroin?”

Lunette’s question was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear it. When I looked at her, her eyes were still on the table.

“Is . . . it a secret?” I asked. Lunette hadn’t really said anything during the whole time at Madame Bovary’s. She had seemed surprised, but I hadn’t been sure why. The heroin? Madame Bovary’s? Me?

She finally looked up at me. “He never told me.”

Yikes. “Uh . . . yeah. He tends to do it after a really rough night with Ilona. He came home twice in the cities high as fuck after she came through. He woke me up both times and slept in my bed with me because he was too afraid of the dark in his room.”

At her stare, I immediately regretted what I said. “Uh . . . forget I said that.”

She looked down again. “Afraid of the dark . . . ?”

Well, I had already said it out loud. “Yeah. I always assumed it was because of what Ilona did to you when she first turned you. I’ve heard she’s a big fan of sensory deprivation in those first few months.”

“How did you know where to find him?” She sounded uncertain, something I had never heard from her before.

I shrugged one shoulder. “I grew up in Phoenix. I was a foster kid, and I didn’t stay with my families for very long. I did anything to make money.”

Her brow furrowed. “Were you a prostitute?”

I shook my head. “No, I would sell drugs. But I knew a lot of sex workers. And I knew about Madame Bovary. She sells sex and drugs to vampires.”

“How does that even work?” she asked. “Drugs don’t work on vampires.”

I tilted my head at her. “Who told you that?”

She blinked, staring at me. Then her face contorted from confusion to anger at my apparently dumb question. “Our blood breaks down opioids, Sloane.”

“If you inject it directly. Not so much if a human injects, and you immediately drink their blood from the nearby veins.”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

“I was never really sure how he found it in the Twin Cities because they don’t have the sort of sex-and-drugs vampire scene like Phoenix does, but you can always find someone willing to do something for the right price.” I rubbed my eyes. Exhaustion was beginning to hit me, too. It was almost enough to dull my curiosity, but not quite. “Who were those shifters?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He told me that this morning, he woke up in an unknown house, and someone had drugged him with dead man’s blood. I’m assuming it’s related to that.”

I was surprised, but the exhaustion was making it hard to feel it. It was more serious interest than shock. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” she said. She glanced at me. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“Minnesota.”

“You should get some sleep, too.”

I peered at her, tilting my head in confusion. “Lunette . . . why do you give a shit about me?”

She bristled. “I don’t. But if I have to do something for you when he wakes up, you might as well not be fucking useless when we do it.”

Right. Frankie and Genie. I had been doing this for them. The exhaustion was beginning to take my memory.

“You’re good at finding information, right?” I asked.

She nodded, her expression guarded.

“Can you find out where Frank Cirocco and Jean Carwyn were taken when they were arrested by Phoenix PD earlier today? They’re fifteen.”

I expected pushback at first, but Lunette pulled a laptop out from under the coffee table. “Who are they?” She opened the laptop.

“The kids I need your help busting out of jail when Karhi is awake again.”

Her gaze on me wasn’t a scowl like it usually was, but it was still clearly annoyed by my answer. After a moment, she shook her head and said, “I’ll find them. Go the fuck to sleep.”

I headed back into Lunette’s room and crawled into bed next to Karhi. I never had to worry about him being weird sleeping in a bed next to me. I would never tell him, but the times he’d slept in my bed in the past—I had never felt safer around a man I hadn’t grown up with.

Karhi Emelyn

Karhi couldn’t stop thinking about the time that Sloane and Ilona had first met. Thoughts of it consumed him as he showered.

Carrick had called Karhi, and the call was much like his summons to come to Phoenix. Short and curt with very little information. Ilona was staying in Eden Prairie and wanted to meet Sloane.

The mansion Ilona had chosen in Eden Prairie was smaller than the one in Phoenix, but not by much. It was three stories high with Corinthian columns from floor to roof. The windows spanned two stories at a time and security lights flooded the front yard. They cast menacing shadows on topiaries cut into fantastic shapes along the driveway.

As they drove up, Karhi saw and felt Sloane getting more and more stiff in the passenger seat. She stared out the front windshield, expression impassable. The shadows created by the floodlights made her pale skin even paler—an alabaster statue.

She had been quiet ever since he told her they needed to go see Ilona. He had never really said much about her, but Sloane seemed to have a healthy fear of meeting her. She had probably felt his own anxiety at the thought of Ilona and learned from that.

At least, that’s what he thought at the time. In retrospect, he had been very wrong.

She didn’t seem to notice when he pulled to a stop just past the house, next to another car.

He got out and walked around, opening her door for her. She looked up, startled. He held out his arm to her, silently challenging her to avoid it. He knew she could feel the challenge.

After a moment, she took it and allowed him to help her out.

He had been pleasantly surprised by her choice of clothes when she had come out of her room before they left. She wore a black, high-necked cocktail dress with a pencil skirt that ended just past her knees. It flowed over her slender form and emphasized her long legs, made longer by black sandals with two-inch heels. She had put her long dark brown hair up in a tight bun.

Karhi had bought the dress and shoes for her ages ago when he knew that she would probably have to meet Ilona one day. Ilona always expected fledglings to be well-dressed and well-groomed. Sloane had managed both despite that she usually only wore T-shirts and jeans. She looked like a paralegal.

“Do not say anything rude or belligerent,” he murmured as they walked up to the front door.

He was surprised when she didn’t respond with any sort of smartass comment. She just nodded. He really should have seen earlier that she wasn’t new to the Underground.

A slender blonde man with black rectangular glasses opened the door. He had a long face with a sharp cut jaw, his eyes a bright, disconcerting blue that felt like lasers as he looked from Karhi to Sloane.

“Karhi,” he said. He looked down at Sloane, and Karhi felt her tense against him as they locked eyes. “And the new fledgling. Sloane Briallen. I am Carrick.” He bowed his head deeply, and Karhi had to do everything in his power not to drop his jaw. Carrick never bowed to any of them. And a nod like that was close enough.

“Come this way,” he said.

They passed through the threshold with nothing more than a buzzing of magic flowing over them. This house had no threshold much like Casa Vampiria. No one actually lived here, it was just owned by the vampire courts, allowed for use when requested.

They followed Carrick through the house until they entered a large room filled with leather furniture. Windows twice Karhi’s height revealed dark sprawling grounds behind the mansion.

There was large gas fireplace with fake wood inside. Mounted on the wall above the mantle was a picture of a fire burning in a fireplace. It took Karhi a moment to realize it was a picture of what a wood fire would look like burning in the gas fireplace below it. Why?

Three sofas encircled an ebony table in the centre of the room. There was a silver tray on the table with crystal glasses filled with blood.

Carrick left.

Carry and Onyx sat on one sofa together, while Zeren sat on a separate couch.

Zeren stood up when they walked in, smiling. “Sloane.”

Sloane had met Zeren a few times in the past five months since she had been turned. He lived in Washington, but he frequently came to visit his sister. He had the power to soothe or stoke emotions and was the only one of Karhi’s siblings that Sloane seemed to like.

He came forward and hugged Sloane.

“Hey, Zere,” she said, hugging him back loosely.

He took her hand and led her to sit next to him. Karhi sat on the remaining couch.

They felt Ilona’s cold power long before she entered but it enveloped them like frost when she finally came through the door.

She wore a Catholic priest’s black robes, and Karhi resisted the urge to grimace. That couldn’t mean anything good.

Karhi saw Sloane sit up straight, a look of nausea passing across her face. It was one he was familiar with, having felt the same sensation many times over the years. Her shoulders were tense and her hand in Zeren’s tightened.

“Hello, my children,” she purred, looking between the five of them. “It has been so long. I missed all of you. You have been bad, misbehaved children for not visiting me.”

Karhi felt the push of her power, her attempt at submitting them. But it quickly disappeared when her eyes fell on Sloane. A light danced in them that made Karhi nervous.

“Oh . . . but it seems we have a new child here tonight.” She slinked over to Sloane and murmured, “Well, hello, hello. Who are you, you scrumptious little nugget?”

“Well, for one, I am not a nugget.”

Karhi inhaled sharply, his nerves knotting together.

Ilona’s eyes iced over, and her smile became a strained grimace. “Then what are you?”

“A vampire.”

Her smile fell. She spoke again, and it sent Karhi’s stomach roiling. “What is your name, fledgling?” she asked.

“Sloane.”

She grabbed Sloane’s face. “Your full name, child,” she growled.

“Sloane Briallen,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes were wide; Karhi could feel her fear.

The fear seemed to assuage Ilona, and her smile returned. She let go of Sloane’s face as she turned away. “And you are my Karhi’s new chew toy.”

Karhi saw Sloane open her mouth, but Zeren squeezed her hand. She spoke anyway. “I am no one’s chew toy.” She did an impressive job of keeping her terror off her face and out of her tone.

“Oh no?” Ilona asked. The smile on her face had too much teeth.

“That would imply Karhi is a dog,” she said. Karhi could feel her kicking herself, and he wanted to join in. Why. Why was she doing this.

Ilona tilted her head to the side. Then she surprised them all by letting out a laugh that sounded like clinking glasses. “Ah yes, I am sorry. I did not mean to insult my Karhi like that.”

He didn’t like how she kept saying, “my Karhi”.

“What would you call yourself?” she asked.

“I am Karhi’s fledgling,” Sloane answered carefully.

“Much like yours before you,” she said, turning to look at Karhi.

If Karhi had thought he was stiff before, it got even worse when Ilona locked eyes on him. He knew exactly what she was going to say. And he hadn’t figured out a way to bring it up with Sloane yet. This was not the forum where he wanted Sloane to find out that he had been with her grandmother.

“What?” Sloane said, confusion muddling her face.

Ilona kept her eyes on Karhi. “Did he not tell you?”

He clenched his teeth. He hadn’t realized when he first turned Sloane that she was Elizabeth’s granddaughter. And he knew how incredibly inappropriate it was that he had turned her when she was Elizabeth’s granddaughter. He hadn’t found the time to bring it up with her. In fact, he had been secretly hoping that the real time was “never”, and he could kick her out when she was a year old and never have to discuss it.

“Tell me what?” Sloane asked. Her voice sounded weak, as if she was straining against Ilona like the rest of them. She probably was.

“Yes,” Ilona said, looking at Karhi with her sugary, venomous grin. “What, Karhi?”

Karhi could feel a tendon in his neck jumping from the strain.

“Karhi, why don’t you tell her all about how she’s not the first of her kind?” Ilona asked.

Zeren, Carry, and Onyx knew what was going on. He had told Carry when he first found out and it had gotten to the other two quickly. They were looking back and forth between Ilona, Karhi, and Sloane.

“That your grandmo—”

The door flew open, cutting her off. Carrick sprinted in and went to Ilona.

“What?” Ilona snapped at him. He just barely avoided a slap to the face.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he murmured, “but there . . . has been an escape.”

She paused. “An escape?”

“I detained him, but I believed you would want to deal with him.”

Light illuminated her green eyes again, and the tension eased in Karhi’s shoulders. The pressure of her focus on them was fading with the distraction. “Give me ten minutes, my children. Don’t leave.”

Karhi saw Sloane wilt when Ilona was far away enough that her influence had quieted. With the tension gone and Ilona away, anger bubbled into Karhi’s throat. He stood up. “Sloane, I told you to keep. Your mouth. Shut. I explicitly said—”

Sloane stood up, grabbing the lapels on his suit jacket. “Karhi,” she begged. “Please.” She stepped so close to him that her chest touched his. “Please get me out of here. Please.”

The anger disappeared, replaced with surprise. “Sloane, I told you—”

She raked her nails down his jacket. “Karhi, she is too old. I feel so sick that I wish I could vomit. I cannot stay here. Get me out of here, or I am going to bolt.”

Karhi was at a loss for how to respond. Sloane’s eyes were glossy, threatening tears. And he could feel her fear and her anxiety and her desire to disappear from here. She was afraid of Ilona and what Ilona might do to her.

“Please, Karhi. If you do nothing else for me ever again, please get me out of here. I am going to suffocate. I cannot stay here.”

He searched her face—for what, he didn’t know. Deception? Manipulation? But there wasn’t any ounce of anything like that in here. Finally, he said, “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

He took a deep breath and addressed Zeren. “Take her home.”

Zeren paused for a moment, glancing at Sloane. “Alright,” Zeren said. He stood up, taking Sloane’s hand. There was a look of helpless confusion on her face, as her eyes darted between Karhi and Zeren. She had thought Karhi would be the one to take her home.

But he couldn’t. He had to smooth Ilona over and take her wrath.

“Go,” he said.

Sloane and Zeren left.

“I know you’ve been lost in thought this whole time, but I also think you’re just plain lost. You put the wrong address into the GPS,” Lunette said, looking around.

She wasn’t wrong. The neighbourhood they were in—“poor” couldn’t even describe it. Desolate, maybe.

The GPS had led them from downtown into middle class neighbourhoods and then, finally, into this area. The house they sat in front of was the nicest one in the neighbourhood, at least as far as Karhi had seen. It was on a double lot and painted a rusty colour. A jump rope and children’s toys scattered in the front yard made him check the address again.

He took a breath. Well, if it turned out he was wrong, then he would have just wasted some time and could finally go to bed. He could blame Carrick.

Karhi was halfway up the front walkway when he caught the scent of shifter—dog. At least two different ones.

“Shifters?” Lunette murmured. “I guess at least that points more to us being in the right place.”

“Yeah.”

He reached the front door. There were four heartbeats in the house. Three were fast, typical of shapeshifters, and the remaining was the steady pace of a human.

“I’m not sure what you were expecting,” he heard from inside. The voice was female. “You disappeared without a trace and didn’t tell her a thing.”

Karhi knocked on the door and the voice stopped. There was a pause and then he heard footsteps. A second later the front door opened.

The human who stood before Karhi was over a head shorter than him. She was solidly built with a shock of fruit punch red hair on her head.

“What?” Lunette said, staring at her. That one word was filled with so much confusion and disbelief that Karhi had to nudge her with his elbow.

“Good afternoon,” he said to the woman, smiling at her in a way he thought was disarming. “I’m afraid I have the wrong address. I—”

She gestured to herself. “Right here.”

His brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“White Psychic. Right here. You’re looking for me. Well, you were. Now you’re not.”

Karhi didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I get that a lot.”

That was when it hit Karhi that she was actively listening to his thoughts, parsing them, and responding. He hadn’t met a neuropath who could do that who wasn’t at least a couple centuries old.

And he couldn’t even feel her in his head.

She glanced a Lunette. “I do enjoy unnerving people, yeah.”

Karhi glanced at Lunette, who looked annoyed.

Finally, he said, “I’m Karhi Emelyn, and this is Lunette Emelyn. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting . . .”

“A woman?” she asked. “Someone so young? Someone living in this neighbourhood? Really, you can say anything. I’m used to it.”

She wasn’t wrong with her guesses. Though, he had known she was a woman.

“So,” she said. “Karhi and Lunette Emelyn.” There was a strange look on her face. “The irony.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” she said. “My name is Mira. Call me Mira. What can I do for Dusky’s children?”

Karhi should have expected she would know who he was. But she was so young . . . it was hard for him to process.

“I’m under contract with Queen Hazel,” Mira said. “Why wouldn’t I know who you are? Also, I’m pretty sure you’re just as famous as me.”

Annoyance was beginning to froth over inside of him. “Could you please refrain from reading my mind?” he asked, fighting to keep his tone from sounding angry. It only came out clipped.

“Sorry,” she said without any real feeling. “I don’t trust vampires as a general rule. And before you say it, Hazel is an entirely different case. That’s why I said the rule was general.”

Karhi didn’t have anything to say against that. Hazel was indeed a special case.

“You still haven’t told me what I can do for you.”

Behind her, he saw two men appear from a door in the hallway. They were heavily muscled, definitely shapeshifters. When they saw Karhi and Lunette, they gave them dirty looks.

Mira looked back at the two shapeshifters. They were werewolves, Karhi thought. “Get,” she ordered. “You’re barely any more welcome than they are. Go back to the kitchen.”

The werewolves shuffled uncomfortably, the scowls disappearing, but they disappeared back into the house.

Mira looked back at Karhi. “Sorry about them. Shifters are so hard to get in line. And I’m asking for the third and final time—”

“My apologies,” he said. “We come on behalf of Ilona Emelyn, as an envoy to pay her respects.”

She eyed them for a moment before nodding. “I appreciate the respects.” She smiled, and it was actually a genuine one, he was surprised to find. “I don’t ever want an Emelyn on my property uninvited again.”

His brow furrowed. He didn’t understand . . .

“This way you don’t ever get turned into a pawn on my behalf again,” she said, winking at him. “Go back to your hotel and go to sleep. You seem like you need it.”

He found he couldn’t keep a smile off his face. He hadn’t expected such a measure of kindness like this in such an unexpected place.

But it was nice.

He bowed a shallow bow. “Thank you.”

She winked. “See you later.”

She closed the door and Karhi looked at Lunette curiously, still smiling. Lunette looked just as surprised as he did.

“Annoying . . . but I do appreciate the gesture,” Lunette finally said.

“Yeah.”

They went back to their hotel. Karhi was finally going to get a chance to actually sleep. Exhaustion was heavy in his bones, and he could barely focus on the road. After the second near miss with oncoming traffic, Lunette made him switch with her at a light.

“Jesus,” Lunette said as they entered the lobby from the garage. “Go get some fucking sleep.”

“I’ve been trying but I keep getting interrupted,” he growled without much heat. He was too tired to get angry at her.

“Yeah, well . . .” Lunette trailed off, stopping with her gaze straight in front of them.

The moment Lunette stopped, Karhi felt it. The pulsing, gyrating lullaby in the back of his mind that meant that Ilona was nearby.

He looked up to see she was sitting on a couch in the lobby, drinking a glass of white wine. There was a table next to her with an empty wine glass. How long had she been there?

She was people watching, but he knew that she knew they were there. She was waiting to be acknowledged.

“She doesn’t want me here,” Lunette said.

He could feel that, too.

He approached Ilona alone. Lunette stayed behind. Ilona looked up just as he stopped, smiling humourlessly. `

He bowed to her. “Hello, Ilona.”

“Hello, my child.” Her voice was cold but there was a gleeful menace in her eyes. “Did you visit the White Psychic?”

“Yes. We paid our respects.”

“Excellent. What did she say?”

Karhi found himself not wanting to answer. The emotions he felt from her were menacing—a combination of triumph and spite. What could make her feel like that?

Finally, he said, knowing she would just pull the information from his head if he didn’t, “She told us that she never wanted another Emelyn to step on her property uninvited again.”

He could feel the heat of triumph inside of her cool down, but only a fraction. Whatever she was so excited about could not be squelched by the power play.

“Well, considering she contracted with Hazel, I’m sure she has some terrible thoughts on you and anyone I’ve sired, so I’m not surprised.” There was only a hint of malice in her words. He noticed how she refused to say that she was the problem, instead foisting the distaste on anyone associated except herself.

Karhi didn’t comment. It wasn’t anything new.

“No matter. You must be bursting with curiosity as to why I have come to visit you here.”

“I am,” he said. Though he doubted that whatever she told him would be good.

She crooked her finger, beckoning him.

He bent over until their faces were almost touching. She pulled him closer by the collar of his button-up shirt.

“Sloane is in Phoenix,” she whispered in his ear.

He froze. “What?” He barely heard himself above the sudden pounding in his ears.

“And since I know I can’t trust you to bring her to me, I will find her myself.”

She let go of him. He straightened up, eyes never moving from her face.

Sloane was in Phoenix? How? Why? And how had Ilona found out?

Ilona’s grin was threatening as she stood up. She barely even looked human, stepping past him. His horror and fear warred against her triumph and satisfaction. She was playing with him, tormenting him with the idea of Sloane going through what he had gone through.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Ilona murmured. “And you’ll bear witness.”

He stared after her as she left the lobby, leaving the wine glass on the table next to the empty one, half full.

“Karhi?” Lunette asked, stepping to his side as soon as Ilona was gone. “Are you okay?”

As the feeling of Ilona disappeared, he felt jittery. The anxiety and pressure Ilona brought into every room disappeared, leaving him weak with the adrenaline rush.

“I’m fine, Luna,” he said. He looked at her, numbness setting into his muscles. “I’m going to sleep.”

Lunette followed him to his room and left him there when she saw that he was truly going to his room. She didn’t try to push him for more information. She knew what the aftereffects of Ilona felt like.

Inside, he went for where his briefcase rested against the wall by the TV. He set it on the table, flipped open the latches, and opened the case to show a little over thirty grand. He had borrowed cash from Onyx and Carry after he had discovered Sloane’s theft.

He pulled out three stacks before finding a white envelope beneath all the cash.

Right. The mystery envelope he had found outside of his door just before everything had fallen apart. He had stuck it in the briefcase before he left Minnesota, meaning to check out what it was when he had a second. Everything had been moving so fast, he had forgotten about it.

It wasn’t a typically sized envelope, more like what you would see when you got a greeting card. It was thick and firm, indicating there was indeed some sort of cardstock inside.

He pulled out a card with a sad blue teddy bear holding a balloon and looking up at the sky.

He opened the card and black-and-white Polaroid pictures fell out onto the table beneath him. Inside the card it said, “My condolences for your loss.”

He picked up the pictures and his mouth dropped.

The photos were all of a boy. He sat against a wall, the floor below him made of wood. His eyes were covered by a black blindfold and his hands were tied behind him. He had dark matted hair.

Each photo introduced different angles of him from above, below, and the side. They showed cuts and ugly, deep grey bruises from different angles. The pieces of his face Karhi could see that weren’t hidden by the hair and blindfold were deformed and almost inhuman. He had been beaten, maybe even tortured.

Karhi dropped the photos, his hands shaking.

He needed to get the fuck out of here.

Sloane Briallen

We drove to the twenty-four-hour diner we used to frequent growing up. It was mostly staffed by late night servers who couldn’t care less about their customers, which was what we needed.

The whole theme of the diner was red and black—from the red booths with black tables to a matching counter with a red display case to the red-and-black checkered linoleum floor. The clicking of metal spatulas on a grill top filtered out from the kitchen pass-through.

There were two men nursing cups of coffee in the corner. From the looks of their clothes, homeless men trying to just be inside for an extended period of time. On the drive over, the car showed that the temperature had dropped down to the forties that night. Made sense why Genie was cold.

The server inside recognized Genie, smiling and waving at her. She brought us to a booth in the corner of the room and left us with menus.

Genie’s bronze-gold eyes were steady on the menu, but I could see she wasn’t taking anything in. She didn’t blink or catch that I was watching her.

She didn’t even notice when the waitress came up to us. I had to touch her hand before she looked away from the menu, eyebrows up in a question. When she saw the waitress, she smiled but it wasn’t bright like her smiles usually were.

She pointed to their classic burger on the menu and pointed to the fries under the side dishes. The waitress nodded and looked at me.

“Chocolate malt,” I said. “Thanks.”

She raised an eyebrow at a cold drink on a cold night but didn’t say anything. She took our menus and left. When I looked back at Genie, her eyes were on her hands, and she was picking at her nails.

I covered her hands with my own. It was a strange combination, our hands together. Hers were strong with short fingers, meant to carry heavy things and tell long stories. Mine were spidery and long, and they almost completely encompassed hers. Mine always seemed so awkward when I talked compared to her.

“What’s up?” I had to pull away a hand to ask, but I put it back immediately.

She bit her lip, looking down at where our hands touched. She pulled away one hand and struggled to form a word for a moment. Her hand was shaking.

After a moment, she said, “Can you tell me what happened to you first?”

I didn’t want to talk about what happened to me. I didn’t want to talk about Mickey and Bell, and moving to Minnesota, and becoming a vampire. I didn’t want to get into those feelings again. I didn’t want her to know how I let Karhi turn me into a vampire.

But I could also see that she didn’t want to tell me what had happened to her either. Why she was back with Mira. It hurt too much to talk, whatever it was.

I needed to be the adult here.

“Mickey and Bell disappeared on my eighteenth birthday.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh my, God,” she said softly. Her voice was subdued and heavily accented. Genie had been raised orally, but she preferred signing to talking.

I sighed. “They were out to find sticks for marshmallows over the fire for my birthday. They never came back.

“We searched for them for days. I led search parties, and there were helicopters and dogs. But days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months . . . when I graduated from high school, I had to get the hell out. I couldn’t stay there, and I couldn’t come back here. I needed somewhere new.

“So, I left. When I turned eighteen, I started to receive the payments from my mom’s life insurance policy. There was a lot of money there, and I had saved it. I used it to move to Minnesota.

“And then, on my nineteenth birthday, Karhi Emelyn turned me.”

Genie stared at me, lips parted in disbelief. What? she mouthed.

I grimaced, nodding.

“You’re one of Dusky’s?”

“Once removed.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, shaking her head. She opened her eyes, letting out a steadying breath. “Which one is he again? He’s a famous one, right?”

“He’s Ilona’s first child. The one who can look you in the eyes and make you forget what you were just doing or saying,” I nodded. “A neuropath.”

She grimaced. “Yikes.”

“That’s pretty much the life updates,” I shrugged. “I was like that and then Mira called, and now I’m here.”

I had stayed as detached as possible while telling the story. I didn’t want to talk about the deep depression I had sunk into or how it had been the reason I had let Karhi turn me. I didn’t want to talk about the nightmares after Mickey and Bell had disappeared where I found them dead. Or even worse, the dreams where they had come back alive.

Nor did I want to get into the fact that I was reasonably certain they were actually alive.

Genie had her hands back on the table; she was picking at them again.

“Your turn,” I said.

She bit her lip. “Mira will calm down eventually. Why don’t you ask her? She’ll tell you. She read our minds when we showed up at her house. She knows.”

I shook my head, reaching over to brush away some hair from her face. “No. That’s cheating.”

She shuddered and looked down. She didn’t make eye contact as she said, “There was so. Much. Blood.”

I blinked. “What? I told you not to follow me to where Annie—”

She finally looked up at me and her eyes were glassy. “There was so much blood. Their bodies weren’t even all in one piece. I never saw what happened to Rolly’s left arm. It wasn’t even in the living room. And where was Shirley’s right leg?” Tears leaked down her face as my stomach slowly turned in horror. “Some pieces were on the dining room table on a dinner platter. I couldn’t even tell what it was? Intestines? Their hearts? What was it?”

I stared at her, my mouth agape. Mira had told me that they found Shirley and Rolando, their adoptive parents, dead. But I couldn’t have imagined this . . .

What was I supposed to say? I’d only seen shit like that in the movies. I suddenly felt like the world’s biggest asshole for making her talk about it. She was just a fucking kid, and here I was asking her to relieve her trauma in the middle of a diner.

“Frankie grabbed me, and we ran back to Mira’s. We’ve been there since.”

She stared at the back of the booth, just to the side of my shoulder. She was right in front of me, but her mind was far, far away.

“When did that happen?” I asked, making sure I was fully in her range of sight.

She focused on me, coming back from her memories. “It was two weeks ago. Mira thought we needed you, so she started trying to find you. Then we found you were gone from Washington and had Amos look for you. And he found you.” She bit her lip again, tugging on it hard before saying, “And then Mikko never came back after fight night.”

Jesus fucking Christ. All of this, just in the past two weeks.

Genie continued, probably to distract herself more than anything else. “So, she called you because she didn’t know what else to do. Amos had already left on that case with everyone else, otherwise she would have called him first.”

Amos was a private investigator we’d known growing up. He was a shapeshifter who’d done a lot for us. He was still doing things for them, I saw. He and his sister and her sister’s husband—the man I’d namedropped to get Davie J to give me the new plates and registration for the Jetta—had been a big and good part of our otherwise tumultuous childhoods.

“I’m here,” I finally said. What else could I say to that?

She nodded, wiping her eyes.

My malt and her burger came. From there it became harder to talk. Which was honestly probably what we needed. I didn’t think either of us had had the time to just sit in a comforting presence in so long.

It was just past seven in the morning when we went back to Mira’s house. Something I hadn’t really understood until Genie told me explicitly—everyone had been living at Mira’s house this whole time.

When I had lived here, her house had been a base of operations. We would pop back in if we needed clean clothes or somewhere to crash that wasn’t a concrete floor. But things had changed over the past four years. I guess it made sense—once Mickey and Bell’s parents had adopted me, and Genie and Frankie had been adopted, where else was there for Annie and Mikko? They were never going to get adopted out. So, they moved in with Mira.

“Are they dating?” I asked Genie as I turned onto Mira’s street.

“Mikko and Annie?” She was looking a lot better now that we weren’t talking about how she found her parents dead.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “At the Samhain festival last year Mira slipped some cupid pixie dust in their drinks, and they almost fucked it out right there in the sand.”

I snorted. “Jesus. And we thought that’d never happen.”

“For real.” She smirked, chuckling.

I pulled up in front of the house.

“I’ll see you later,” I signed.

“No, come in.”

“They don’t want me here.”

“Fuck them,” she sneered. “Frankie’s been a fucking dick, and Mira is being ridiculous. I only need one mindreader’s seal of approval. Lina said you’re good, so you’re good.”She shook her head bitterly. “And I think our time at the diner was enough to show me who you are.” Her fists clenched.

I put a hand over hers, squeezing to reassure her. She glanced up at me, a small smile finding its way on her lips. “Thanks.”

I squeezed her hand again before opening my door.

We got out of the car and went up the walkway. I could only hear two heartbeats in the house, a human and a shapeshifter. I looked at Genie. “Where’s Lina and Mira?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “School? Mira’s dropping her off.”

My mouth dropped. “Right. Lina’s old enough . . .”

She smirked, opening the door and walking in. I followed her inside.

Annie still lay on the couch in the living room on my right. To my left was the dining room, where Frankie was eating cereal. When he saw me, he put his spoon down and glared at me. “Why are you here?”

I toyed with the idea of just knocking his bowl on the floor before he could see me move. Just to fuck with him and maybe put a little bit of the fear of Sloane in him.

But, considering he had found his parents dead, and presumably tortured, I decided to act like an adult.

“Frankie, kindly go fuck yourself.” I said it and signed it for Genie’s benefit.

His lip curled and he stood up, almost knocking his cereal over as he did. He glared at me, searching for words.

When he couldn’t find them, he stomped out the front door, slamming it behind him. Genie made a noise of frustration and glared at me. “Was that necessary?”

“Very.”

She gave the ceiling a long-suffering look before following him out.

I took the bowl of Trix off the table and walked into the kitchen. I spooned out the cereal into the trash before dumping the milk and setting the bowl and spoon in the sink. “Always cleaning up after his messy ass,” I muttered.

The kitchen had two entrances, one through the dining room, and one into the hallway that went from the front door to the back door. It let out right by the stairs and into another entrance into the living room.

Annie was still asleep on the couch. Her bandages were pristine, and she had mostly healed. I couldn’t smell any blood, and her heartbeat was strong, almost twice as fast as a human. Her acorn skin was a little paler than I’d like—closer to an old, scaly acorn top than the young nut itself in color.

There was an old wooden chair in the corner of the living room. Two low bookshelves sat catty corner to each other behind the rocking chair. There were children’s books stacked on top of them with library bar codes.

The bookshelves themselves were filled with worn books purchased from garage sales, used bookstores, and library sales. Comic books, young adult novels, some classics—I smiled at them. I had been an avid reader and it had rubbed off on the others. Mira had been diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid, but it had really been the mindreading that made it too difficult for her to focus on words. I used to read to her, and she would listen both to the words and to the images that formed in my head as I read.

A sudden gasp behind me made me spin to look at Annie.

She was sitting up, just barely, with one arm propped behind her. Her other arm was cradling her ribs. Her hazel-green eyes were wide, the whites visible as she stared at me.

I took a defensive step away from her, crossing my arms in front of me, clasping my forearms with my hands. I knew she could smell me. She would be able to tell I was a vampire.

But what would that mean for how she treated me?

Finally, she laid back on the couch, putting her hand to her head. “This what we’re doing now?”

Hesitantly I put my arms down. “Do . . . what?”

“Have you actually fed on a human?”

“No.”

She opened one eye to look at me before closing it. “Why am I here?”

“I found you half dead in a warehouse by Van Buren. Someone or something tore you apart just before I got there.”

“What day is it?”

“Uh . . . Tuesday.” She was either taking this surprisingly well, or she was in complete denial.

She sat up suddenly, cursing as she remembered her healing ribs. They were probably no longer fully broken anymore, but they weren’t fully back together, either. She looked around, holding one arm to her stomach, her breaths harsh and heavy. “Where is everyone?”

“Frankie left because I pissed him off. Genie went with him. Mira is dropping Lina off at school. And Mikko is missing.”

She stared at me for a moment. Then she shook her head. “No.”

“No what?”

“He’s not doing coke again.”

I pressed my lips together. I had been avoiding saying it to anyone. I couldn’t find him in any of our old haunts. And I was afraid to go looking in the drug dens I used to know.

“He’s been clean, Sloane,” she said, shaking her head again. “He wouldn’t go back to that. He ain’t done nothing since you left.” Her shoulders were tense, her eyes hard. She wouldn’t budge on this.

But she also never had to walk Mikko through the end of a high. Even if they were together now, I had always been the one to find him when he fell off the wagon. I had always been the one who had to clean him up afterwards.

“We’ll see,” I said. “I’ve been looking for him. He wasn’t with you, and it didn’t seem like he’d been in that building at all.”

She laid back against the side of the couch. “Last I saw him was Saturday night. I won and we split. He was gonna give the money to Mira, and I was gonna meet up with some of my homegirls at a party and come back the next day. And when I got back here, he had never came home.”

“And you been searching for him since?”

She nodded.

“What happened last night?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. The last I remember was walking down a street off Van Buren. And then . . . here.”

“How much did you win?” I asked.

“Six hundred.”

If I was still on base about coke prices, that would get him a couple eight-balls. If he had gone on a bender, it would already be gone.

Annie couldn’t read minds like Mira, but she still knew where my head was going. “He ain’t doing cocaine,” she growled. But the growl had a lot less heat than it should have. She was already drifting off to sleep again. Healing from injuries like hers was exhausting. I wondered if she would even remember our conversation.

I heard an engine outside. It sounded like the Tahoe. Mira was back. She and I still hadn’t really talked, and I wasn’t especially looking forward to it.

The trash in the kitchen was full and the perfect way to put off talking to Mira just a little longer. I took it out.

Her backyard was small, but cozy. Either side of it was blocked off by a wooden privacy fence. The back was separated from the alley by a short chain-link fence. Most houses in this neighborhood had put privacy fences up along the back of their yards to deter criminals, but nobody dared hit up Mira’s house for fear of what she, or any of her other band of misfits, would do when she found out.

I stuck the trash in the city garbage bin and headed back in the house.

Mira was in the living room, examining Annie. She glanced at me as I came in. “You talked to her?”

I nodded.

She stood, looking up at me. I was almost a foot taller than her. I raised an eyebrow, waiting to hear what she had to say.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“It shouldn’t have to take two mindreaders to vet me.”

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have had to defer to my five-year-old to figure it out.” She looked up, hazarding a small smile. “I’m really sorry, Sloane. And I’m really glad you’re here.”

Relief bloomed in my chest, and my shoulders relaxed for the first time since I had gotten the call from Mira.

“I was freaked out and it was all so much at one time.” She fidgeted at the hem of her shirt. “I guess I relied on instinct more than real knowledge. I know you. I shouldn’t have doubted you. Or Lina. She was so upset this morning, I almost couldn’t get her to school.”

I couldn’t help smiling at hearing that. I hadn’t even seen Lina in three or four years, but she was already so protective. She must have seen a lot in their heads growing up.

Mira pressed her hands against her nose; her voice was muffled as she continued. “I didn’t even realize Genie was gone until she was long gone.” She looked up at me from beneath her hands. “Do you hate me and Frankie?”

“A little.”

She winced.

“But I am glad to be home. The conditions are . . . less than desirable. But I’m still here. And you’re here.”

She smiled sheepishly, pulling her hands away from her face. “Come on.”

We moved into the dining room to sit at the table.

Something suddenly hit me, and I looked around. “Mira . . . where’s Molly?”

She smiled ruefully. “I wondered if you’d say something.”

She wasn’t in the house; I knew that. But I had hardly ever registered her before. Deadbeat mothers didn’t tend to occur to me.

“She was killed in a drug bust,” Mira said, looking down. “Supposedly she ‘assaulted a cop with a dirty needle’. More likely, she moved too fast, and they shot without looking.”

I smiled humorlessly. “Love cops.” The fake smile fell. “I’m so sorry, Mira.”

She nodded, biting her bottom lip. “It happened last October. Lina was here. She knew I was upset. It was the first time she used telepathy. That was when I realized I had to work harder to protect my baby and get us protection.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t have anything else to contribute.

“I do some odd jobs. But I spent so much time on these guys and her . . .”

“That you’re almost twenty-two and you have no real work experience, so no one will hire you.”

She nodded. “I tried to get a normal job. I worked at a CVS. But there were just too many people. I couldn’t block them out.”

I knew that. It was why I had my paycheck go mostly to her every two weeks.

She heard that last thought. “Yeah,” she said. “No, that money helped. You have no idea. I knew it was you.”

Of course, she had.

“And that, along with the money the others bring in, makes it easier. Especially the disability.”

Mira had been diagnosed with epilepsy because of her neuropathic abilities. She received disability benefits for it.

“I have money,” I said. “And I can get a job. I can—”

She shook her head. “I don’t want you to stay here with a bunch of deadbeats—”

I cut her off. “I stole money from Karhi. That’ll help us out. And I can come back and keep you afloat. I get inheritance from my mom, and I don’t need to eat. You have the house, and I can live here. I’m not going to abandon my family, okay? Not this time. We’ll get our shit together, just as soon as I find Mikko.”

A range of emotions flashed across her face before she finally said, “Okay.” She smiled for a moment, and it made me feel warm.

“So, you think Mikko is sleeping off a coke bender somewhere,” she said.

The brief moment of quiet I had felt when she smiled disappeared. “I don’t know, man. Maybe? They separated on purpose after she won the fight. He was supposed to come back here to give you the cash. Then he disappeared and Annie gets the shit beaten out of her while looking for him? We’ve both seen what happens when a dealer thinks they got ripped off. I don’t know how much the scene has changed in the past few years—but everyone knows Annie and Mikko are tight. They probably wanted money from her either because Mikko has disappeared with a bunch of coke or . . .” I didn’t say what the “or” was. I couldn’t think about Mikko being dead somewhere. I couldn’t.

“I don’t—” She stopped, looking at the front door quizzically. I followed her gaze, listening.

Heavy footsteps thumped up the front walkway. A moment later, there was a rapping on the door. “Phoenix PD,” a deep male voice called out.

I looked at Mira, confused.

“Fuck,” she cursed quietly, standing up. “Follow my lead.”

I hadn’t come across Phoenix PD in years. And most of it hadn’t been good.

She opened the door. A white cop in a button-up black shirt with black pants stood there. A gun and a taser were holstered on his belt along with a baton. His shoes were heavy black work boots with steel toes.

“Hello?” Mira asked. She only opened the door halfway.

“Mira Ríordan?” he asked.

“Who’s asking?”

“Officer Jared Hammer, ma’am.”

“Credentials?”

A look of annoyance passed across his face. Behind him I saw a police car parked in front of the walkway.

He pulled his badge off his belt and held it up for her to see.

After a moment, of scrutiny, she said, “Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for Jean Carwyn and Frank Cirocco. We were told they might be here.” He glanced at me for a moment before deciding I wasn’t important.

“Why are you looking for them?” she asked.

“We just want to ask them some questions about the deaths of Shirley and Rolando Castillo. We haven’t been able to find them, and we thought they might know something.”

Mira narrowed her eyes. “You can’t possibly think they killed them.”

“We just want to ask them questions, ma’am.”

“I haven’t seen them,” she shrugged. “They were here a couple days ago.”

“Ma’am, if you—”

He was interrupted by the radio attached to his shoulder. “Hammer, 10-19 to the station.”

Officer Jared Hammer turned his head and pushed his radio. “10-4.” He looked back at us. “Thank you, ma’am.” He turned away and went back to his cruiser.

I looked at Mira. “What was that?”

She shook her head, making a noise of frustration. She muttered her response to keep the cop from hearing. “Genie and Frankie ran as soon as they found their parents’ bodies. The police want to know why they didn’t report it. This cop isn’t really involved in it; he was pulled in to assist. Probably why he was quick to go back to his station when he was called.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I watched as the cop started up his car again and drove off. “Just what we need, Genie and Frankie with pigs.

“I told them to lay low after the deaths. I told them the police might suspect them.”

“And they didn’t listen. Fucking shocker.” I shook my head, turning to look at something moving in my peripheries.

Two men walked towards us. I hadn’t seen them coming up because the house next door had a row of hedges blocking off their yard from Mira’s.

The breath disappeared from my lungs like ice water had been dumped over my head. Cold shock spread through my chest, squeezing my heart.

Dully, I heard Mira say, confusion in her voice, “Mickey? Bell?”

“No,” I whispered, putting my hand to my chest and grabbing my necklace. The magic prickled through my shirt. I searched their arms.

There they were: cuffs on Mickey’s arms, bracelets on Bell’s.

I tightened my grip on my necklace. “Alive,” I whispered. My mouth was dry, my tongue like sandpaper as I spoke. “Here.”

“Sloane,” Mickey started, taking a step forward.

“No,” I said, holding up a hand. Ice froze my chest, desperation clawing at my throat to scream. I held it back. “No,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

I fled.

TW on sexual assault and coercion

Karhi Emelyn

Karhi opened his eyes and groaned. His head throbbed, and his mouth was sour. He rolled onto his side and felt hard tile beneath him. He was lying on the floor . . . what was he doing there?

He stood up, looking around the room, blinking harder. He was in a room in a house, maybe? The walls were painted a soft blue and the floor was pale slate tile. A fan hung from the ceiling, a switch for it on the wall. Light filtered through the windows with gauzy blue curtains.

He rubbed his head, trying to push off the headache. The last thing he remembered was falling asleep with Ilona in his arms. She had had one of her servants bring in alcohol, and they had gotten drunk. It had made all of the things he had to do with her a lot easier.

He found himself swallowing bile thinking about that. She made him so helpless. He was five hundred years old, and he was incapable of saying no to her.

Had she brought him here? Why? He had done everything she wanted. He had submitted himself to her, kept on pleasuring her even when he hurt and just wanted to go to sleep. He had catered to her every desire, let her into his mind. Allowed her to pick through him and look at any memories she wanted.

The same things he had done for her the night that he let Sloane leave from their first meeting without allowing Ilona time to play with her.

At least this time she hadn’t put him in a cage and made him pretend to be a dog.

His fists clenched, and he stood up. He looked down at himself to see that he was still wearing the green button-up and slacks he had worn to go see Ilona. He was fully clothed. His wallet was in his back pocket, but his phone was missing.

His last memory hadn’t involved any clothes. He had at least been able to get up and put his clothes back on, apparently.

He listened to his surroundings. A single, fast heartbeat came from outside of the room, further in the house.

He tried the door. It was reinforced with steel. And magic, as he learned when it zapped him as he tried to open it. He cursed.

He walked over to the windows and pulled aside one curtain to look out.

He didn’t know what he had expected to see when he looked out. But what he did see was not it.

He was in a residential neighbourhood. The yards were shabby, and some houses had an occasional boarded-up window. The sun was high in the sky, close to noon.

There were bars installed on the outside of his window. He couldn’t feel any magic coming off them. The window was nailed shut from the outside and the bars were made of iron.

He slammed his elbow into the glass, and it shattered. He heard a chair scraping outside of the room. Whoever was supposed to be watching him, then.

He didn’t stop, letting his claws grow out and scraping them across the bars. The sound and feeling of metal against his claws made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but he continued. They cut deep through the iron on the first past and it only took two more to saw clean through bars.

He reached for them and pulled, bending a bar inwards.

He heard keys outside of the room, and locks tumbled open.

He darted from the window to stand next to the door. The door opened, and a hand with a syringe filled with red liquid entered the room before whoever held it did.

The scent of shapeshifter, some type of dog, filled the room. He knocked the syringe out of the shifter’s hand with a kick and grabbed the hand, pulling it in.

The hand belonged to a man already shifting, nails growing into claws. He swiped at Karhi, and Karhi barely dodged it. He tried to make space between them, but the shifter moved too fast.

His vision pitched, pain like fire tearing across his back, and he slammed into the ground. He heard his ribs crack.

He rolled over to his side and saw the shifter going for the syringe again. He was partially transformed, hands turned to claws, a mane of shaggy black fur down his head and back—a hyena, then.

Karhi kicked out at the shifter, and he made contact with his back leg. The hyena cried out, a strange half-howl, half-scream, giving Karhi enough time to get to his knees. He raked his claws across the back of the hyena’s thighs and the hyena collapsed to one knee.

Karhi launched himself at the hyena, driving him into the floor. He kicked away the syringe and brought one arm around his neck and the other behind him in a triangle choke.

“Why am I here?” Karhi hissed in his ear.

The shifter didn’t reply, elbowing him in the ribs, right where they had broken.

The air left his body, agony exploding in his chest. His vision went white with pain, and he roared. The hyena went limp against him.

When he could see again, he realized he had snapped the shifter’s neck. Karhi snarled, and for good measure, made sure to turn the man’s head 180 degrees to make sure he was dead.

Karhi let him drop to the ground and straightened up, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut until the pain in his rib disappeared. His body was healing. Good. It hadn’t been that long since he had eaten, then.

He moved gingerly back to the window. He didn’t want to try to escape through the house when he could bend the window bars back to escape.

The dead man’s blood in the syringe had been the source of his headache and memory loss. It wasn’t lethal to human vampires like Karhi, but it was toxic, like a vampire roofie. He had no idea if Ilona had done this to him anymore. Dead man’s blood wasn’t really her style.

He finally pulled the bars in enough that he could crawl through the window and outside.

There was no one outside to intercept him and he fled.

He needed to get to his hotel. Change clothes. Take a shower. Sleep. Something. Anything to distract from what had happened in that house.

He barely knew what was going on as he made his way through downtown Phoenix back to his hotel. It was early afternoon, but downtown was crowded with people. He moved through the crowd like a zombie, barely registering people just in time to avoid them.

Until a teenager with curly brown hair rammed his shoulder into Karhi as he ran by. Karhi looked back at him and just barely avoided hitting a young girl running after the boy.

He heard shouting and a moment later, two cops ran past him, chasing the kids. The crowd parted to let them through, and Karhi saw when one cop tackled the boy. He went down shouting.

The girl continued past him for several yards before looking back and doing a double take. She slowed to a stop, seeing her companion down.

“Run, Genie,” he shouted at her.

The second cop tackled her, too. She didn’t make a peep except for a grunting noise when she landed on the concrete sidewalk.

The cop holding the boy shoved him into the ground, grinding his face with a knee to his back. The boy cried out in pain as the officer grabbed his cuffs and pressed the kid harder into the ground.

What the fuck was he doing? The kid was down and posed no threat.

“We just wanted you for questioning, but you sucker punched me,” the cop growled. “So, now that’s assault.”

The kid spat at him.

The girl wasn’t getting much better treatment. She didn’t have a knee in the back, but she did have a hand on the side of her head, pushing her into the concrete.

A crowd had gathered around the arrest.

“He’s a kid!” someone shouted at the cop.

Karhi turned away. He didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to see two kids get violently arrested for no reason. He remembered when the police used to be slave patrols. Those kids weren’t black, but their skin was dark enough, their eyes and facial features different enough from white, for it to probably not matter.

He bolted. He didn’t want to see any more violence right now. He had seen too much in the past twenty-four hours.

La Suite Royale was a huge building, at least twenty stories high. It took up a quarter of the block it sat on, the entrance at a street intersection. It was one of a chain of hotels owned by the Ruaidhrí family, the ruling monarchs of the living vampires.

It wasn’t until he was trying to get into his hotel room that he realized his wallet was missing.

Had . . . that kid pick-pocketed him while fleeing from the police?

He had to go back downstairs to the lobby to ask for a new key card. Fortunately, he was a VIP member, meaning he didn’t have to show any ID proving who he was. Which was good, considering his ID was gone.

In the room, he called the man who managed his accounts to tell him to cancel all of his credit and debit cards and reissue them. Karhi still had a hefty amount of cash in his duffel bag, so he wasn’t out of commission.

He had just gotten off the phone with his account manager, sitting down on his bed to climb in, when there was a knock at his door. He groaned in frustration, getting back up to answer it. He just wanted to go to sleep. He hadn’t slept well with Ilona, and he definitely hadn’t slept well after whatever happened that led to him waking up in that house.

It was a Lunette, holding out his phone to him. His brow furrowed, taking it from her. He had assumed his kidnappers took it or something. “What?”

“You left it at Casa Vampiria, and Carrick gave it to me after my meeting with Ilona this morning to give back to you.” She looked him up and down before saying, “You look like shit.”

He didn’t reply, turning from her to walk back into his room.

“I see you got the same type of room I did,” Lunette said, following him.

He glanced up. It was simple, just a bedroom with a bed, a small table with chairs, and a bathroom. A TV was mounted on the wall across from the queen bed above a dresser. The floor was carpeted with simple grey fabric. It wasn’t shabby, but it wasn’t lush either.

Normally when he stayed at La Suite Royale,he got something more lavish with a living room, a kitchen, and a minibar. The bathroom usually had a jacuzzi tub.

“Carrick booked the rooms, I’m assuming,” Karhi shrugged. “He never books the nice suites.”

“God forbid he pay Hazel a cent more than he has to.” Lunette rolled her eyes, sitting on one of the chairs at the small glass table in the corner. She levelled her cognac-coloured gaze on him. “Spill.”

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“What did Ilona do to you?” She clenched her fists. “What did she do to you because of that little bitch?”

Karhi had never understood Lunette’s utter hatred for Sloane. From the moment they met, they were oil and water. They couldn’t even be in the same room for longer than a few minutes.

“Nothing,” he lied. He had never told Lunette about what he had to do to make Ilona happy. He had done a lot of things to keep Ilona off Lunette’s back over the years. And if Lunette ever found out about any of them . . .

She glared at him. “Liar.”

That wasn’t to say she didn’t still suspect something.

“No,” he said, finding himself bitterly grateful for a way to distract her. “I woke up in a random house with no idea how I got there.”

That erased all her doubt and concern about Ilona. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”

He told her about what had happened to him that morning. He included his initial suspicions that it was Ilona, but now he was beginning to think maybe it hadn’t been her.

“Dead man’s blood . . .” she trailed off. “That’s an odd one. It’s hard to get that. The only people who sell that in the US . . .”

“The D’Aubignes, I know,” he said. “Some of them live in Phoenix, but as far as I know, they’re involved in illegal arms dealing here, not dead man’s blood.”

“Maybe that bitch is in town,” Lunette shrugged.

“Zero?”

“She carries it with her. How Theron travels with her, knowing she has that shit on her, is beyond me.”

“They are vampire hunters. And even though he’s a vampire, Theron uses it, too.”

She scowled at him.

He was getting off topic. “Anyway, what reason would those two have to do that to me?”

She didn’t have an answer for that, and he felt a bit of relief. He didn’t want to have to deal with Zero and Theron on top of Ilona and whatever the hell else was happening.

Karhi’s phone went off. He looked at it and groaned before answering it. “Hello?”

“I see Lunette brought you your phone back.”

He rubbed his eyes. They were itchy from exhaustion. “Yes.”

When Karhi didn’t bend over backwards to thank Carrick for returning his phone, Carrick said, his tone annoyed, “Ilona would like you to go visit the White Psychic to extend our respects to her.”

His brow furrowed. “The White Psychic?”

“As you know,” he said in a tone of voice that told Karhi he wouldn’t know anything at all, “Queen Hazel recently contracted with the White Psychic. To maintain friendly relations with the queen, Ilona wants you to go as an envoy to pay respects.”

Karhi hadn’t known about that. Ilona had to be furious. Rumour had it that the White Psychic was a neuropath who could read minds, do telepathy, and even kill people with her powers. Neuropaths could usually do one of those, but all three was rare. He hadn’t heard of one with that much power in decades.

But he couldn’t gain much enjoyment out of the idea that Hazel had an ally like that over Ilona. He was exhausted. Karhi sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it in a couple hours.”

“No, her only availability is in the mornings on weekdays. Go now.”

Karhi could hear the sadistic smile in Carrick’s voice as he spoke. It took all his composure not to snap at the dickhead. But he knew that if he rebelled against an order from Ilona, relayed through Carrick, it would make his life that much worse.

“Fine,” he said. “I need the address.”

Carrick rattled it off. Karhi didn’t recognize where it was, though he wasn’t very familiar with Phoenix outside of the Staetman Estate and downtown. He read it back, and Carrick confirmed.

“Alright.” Then he had an idea. He could get a dig in at Carrick while also getting more information about where he had been last night. “Carrick?”

“Yes?”

“What time did I leave Ilona’s bedroom yesterday evening?”

Carrick’s voice was tight, as if speaking through gritted teeth. “I don’t know. I arrived at ten last night, and you were gone. If you have no further questions, I am going to hang up.”

Karhi smirked, and Carrick didn’t even wait for him to answer. He hung up.

His smirk fell. So, he had probably left Ilona in the early evening. But the dead man’s blood had wiped any memory he had after he fell asleep with Ilona.

Had Ilona done that to him? He didn’t think so . . . it didn’t make sense. If she wanted to imprison him, she would just do it outright. He’d missed most of the early 1600s due to it. And one of the cholera pandemics.

“I’m coming with you,” Lunette told him.

He shrugged. “Sure.” He couldn’t blame her. The White Psychic wasn’t a celebrity, but she inspired the same kind of awe and disbelief. “I’m showering first though.”

“Please.”