Chapter 1

I need blood.

Hunger gnaws at me—thirst. Bloodlust. I can smell Caleb's blood. Fae blood smells like honeysuckle and sunlight.

Shifter blood? Pine trees and cold winds, snow and fur.

We've been traveling for more than twenty-four hours. The drive from Manhattan to wherever the hell the airfield was took at least six hours. The flight in that incongruously fancy jet—long, sleek, and black, with sumptuous leather seats and a TV screen Caleb refused to turn on, and drink service he wouldn't touch—was another twelve hours at least. We landed on some random airfield, quite literally a strip of blacktop in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by tall grass and trees in the distance, and dizzyingly tall, jagged, snow-capped mountain peaks. There was a vehicle waiting—a black SUV. Keys were in it, and Caleb helped me into the passenger seat, buckled me in, and got behind the wheel without a word.

He hasn't spoken a word to me, in fact, since he told me, back in Jersey City, that my grandfather is not my enemy, and that I should listen to him. Whatever that nonsense means.

It's not exactly nonsense, though. I know that. I'm just pissed off, scared, missing Caspian, and more than anything else, hungry . Or thirsty, or whatever.

We've been driving for four hours, now. Up, up, up, into the mountains. The air gets thin, and the engine struggles. I can taste the air—snow, wind, pine trees, and various animal scents, even though I am increasingly unblooded and do not need to breathe.

I would be unable to touch my vitality even if I hadn't locked it away from myself. It's getting dangerous, honestly.

Finally, I break the silence. "Caleb?"

He glances at me sidelong. Grunts—not even a syllable, just a rough, animal grunt.

"Caleb."

"Mmmm."

I huff. "Words. Use your words."

"What." It's a snarl. Vicious, angry.

"Hey, now. You kidnapped me , remember? Why are you so pissy?"

He sighs, another snarling sound. "Same reason you're turning into marble."

I glance down at my arms—they do resemble marble, my veins purple beneath the stone-like skin. "I need blood."

"And I need mana."

I frown at him. "Mana?"

A shake of his head. "Not now. I need to sleep. I need to shift. I need food. I have had none of these things in far too long."

"Poor you," I mumble.

His snarl, this time, is a clear warning. "Mock me at your peril, Vaer. All that prevents my wolf from chewing your arm off for a snack is my willpower."

"How do you know what my mother called me? Not my name, but what I am."

A shake of his head. "Complicated."

"Uncomplicate it."

"No."

I snarl, a dark, vicious sound. Even with these cuffs, I could hurt him. Could I kill him? I'm not sure. That I doubt I could is what stops me from trying. He's huge, and radiates lethal, primal ferocity, even in silence. He is covered in scars—every inch of his skin bears scars. Teeth and claws, bullets, blades, and burns. He's bigger than Fin—harder, denser. He looks like he could rip someone's arm off in human form—and probably has.

"Don't try it." He speaks in a rumble, his voice deeper than any sound I've ever heard come from a human being.

Rougher, too. As if each syllable is tossed in a rock hopper, chewed up, spat out, and reconstituted with all jagged edges.

"Try what?" I ask, trying to sound innocent.

"You can't take me. Not without magic, and maybe not even with it."

I snort. "With my magic, I could erase you."

He looks at me. "But you don't have your magic."

"How do you know?"

He shrugs one huge, hard, round shoulder. "Smell."

"Can you elaborate? Or would that go over your quota of syllables for the day?"

A soft snort. "I can smell magic. I smelled yours. I scented it when you hid it. Now you just smell like a vampire." An unreadable look, then. "And female."

That unreadable gaze scans me, head to toe. Scrutinizes. Assesses.

It burns, his gaze.

"Well, I am female, so I suppose I would smell like one," I snark.

Inside, though, I wonder what he means. Good male smell or bad? I sniff the air, but all I smell is him—pine trees, moonlight, pheromones, male musk.

Blood.

Fur.

I try to put it out of my mind, but I can't. "Sorry, but…what do you mean, female smell?"

He cuts a swift, sharp glance at me. "Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to."

"I asked, therefore I want to know."

"I'm a wolf, with a wolf's senses."

"Even in human form?"

"My senses aren't quite as sharp in my Waking body, but still far, far keener than any mortal, fae, or vampire." He glances at me again. "So, none but a shifter could sense what I can." Another pause.

I snort. "God, Caleb, just tell me I stink and get over it."

His jaw tightens. "You don't stink." He growls, a long low rumble in his chest I almost feel more than hear. "You smell like a woman . Like blood and sex and spent magic. I smell the blood you've shed. I smell the life inside you. I smell your bloodmate on you, and the sex you shared with him. I smell the touch of others—your coven. I smell your body. Not body odor, just…you."

I blush, cheeks flaming. "Geez. Okay." I tuck my knees together and under me, tugging the enormous T-shirt over my legs, trying to hide the scent of…all that.

"I didn't say it was bad." His voice is oddly…tight. Uncomfortable.

I look at him, and his jaw is tight and hard, his fists clenching the steering wheel so hard he'll leave imprints on the leather.

"Then why do you look so pissed?" I ask.

"Not pissed."

'Then what?"

He snarls, a sound of frustration. "I am an unmated male. You are a female. Your scent is…distracting."

"You don't have a mate?" Somehow, I assumed a powerful, attractive male like him would have a mate.

"No." Something about the way he bites out the word precludes any further questions.

I consider what he's saying. Eye him. "So, you're saying…you like how I smell?"

"Like is not the word." He hauls the wheel left, hand over hand, taking us on a sharp turn off the blacktop.

Mountain peaks stab at the sky all around, towering like the bones of old dead gods. The highway we just left is a black ribbon winding up between mountain faces, twisting and turning, rising and falling. Green grass studded with wildflowers spreads away on either side of the highway. Overhead, the azure sky is endless, spattered with puffs of white clouds. It's a view to take the breath away, everywhere I look.

We're on a narrow, rutted two-track arching over the horizon, jouncing and jolting so badly I have to hold my breasts down, which draws a long, blatant look from Caleb.

"Hey," I snap, "eyes on the road."

He says nothing, just fixes his eyes on the road ahead, although I catch him glancing every now and then.

Not that I'm innocent—I can't help admiring the way his muscles flex and shift beneath his golden skin, and the hard line of his jaw.

God, what's wrong with me? I have a bloodmate and a coven. I do not desire this male.

Gah—"I do not desire this male"? Who thinks like that? Me, apparently—less and less a mortal teenager, it would seem.

The two-track crests the rise, revealing a breathtaking vista of craggy mountains and endless sky and wildflowers by the acre, the track hugging the foothills, winding this way and that while angling toward a specific peak.

We follow the track, and the roughness of it means I'm focused on keeping my boobs from giving me a black eye rather than talking to Caleb, who, admittedly, doesn't seem to want to talk anyway.

Mainly, I'm looking for a distraction from the fear and panic regarding what's coming, and what's going to happen to me. The anger—the rage —simmering in the pit of my soul. The nascent seed of desperation to return to my bloodmate.

It's too powerful, all of it. But there's nothing I can do. I know I can't overpower Caleb; some sense—animal, primal, I don't know—just seems to know that even as an unblooded vampire I cannot beat him, strength against strength. He'll rip my arms off and beat me to death with them and not even work up a sweat.

And that's in his human form. In his wolf form? Forget it. Maybe… maybe with my magic, I could stand a chance. Possibly.

"Are all shifters like you?" I ask.

He glances at me. "No."

"I mean, are you more powerful than most?"

"Yes."

"So, I could probably take a different shifter."

"Possibly."

I sigh. "You take the strong silent type seriously, don't you?"

His gaze lands on mine, hard, unreadable. "I am strong, and I prefer silence to aimless chatter. So yes."

"Got it," I mutter. "Dick."

Do my eyes deceive me, or is that a ghost of a hint of a smirk on one corner of his mouth? Maybe. Or, just a twitch of annoyance. Could be either.

We follow the track down into a lush valley snugged in between a pair of towering, jagged peaks, farther and farther from the main road. And then the track turns toward the nearer peak, cutting back and forth in a series of switchbacks that take us higher and higher and higher, the engine straining in the thin air.

Within half an hour, the peak occludes all else before us, until there's nothing but the stark, bare rock seemingly so close I could touch it, but which is in reality still several miles away.

Closer, and closer, the track twisting back upon itself like an angry serpent, until the rock face is the entire world.

Closer yet.

Here, the track is not a two-track but a narrow single lane of crushed gravel. The tires crunch, the engine howls, and Caleb ignores me.

We round another switchback, and the track straightens, pointing directly at the face of the peak, which now is truly so close I could get out of the SUV, walk right up to it, and place my hand on the rock.

There's a cell tower, here, incongruously, at least two hundred feet high and surrounded by a chainlink fence topped with razor wire; just outside the fence is a small hut made of brick with a tan metal roof and a metal door. The track ends in a fifty-foot-wide circle of gravel around the hut. The peak towers overhead, carving away in both directions as far as the eye can see.

I hold my confusion inside, waiting to see what Caleb's plan is, here. Lock me in the hut? Maybe there's a secret base underground, accessed through the hut, secret-government-base-style.

Caleb slows the SUV to a crawl until we reach the farthest edge of the gravel circle. Something shudders in my belly, sizzles in my veins, bubbles in my brain like carbonation. My blood surges, my pulse pounding.

Caleb glances at me. "Breathe. It's a passive magical scan. It won't hurt you."

I glare at him. "I didn't think it would."

"You're panicking."

My pulse pounds, frantic and irregular. My chest is tight, and my lungs refuse to inflate all the way.

"I'm being delivered to my enemy. I'm mage-cuffed. My magic is out of reach. I'm unblooded, away from my bloodmate, and about to endure who knows what." I can't help a vampiric snarl, dark, all sharp canines and primal fury. "So yes, Caleb, I'm fucking panicking. Just not about the stupid scan."

He doesn't answer. Just waits silently, engine idling, in gear.

I don't ask what we're waiting for.

I find out soon enough.

The cell tower seems to waver, going blurry, as if my eyesight is a camera going out of focus, and then the hut shimmers, going a little too bright, and the fence dissolves like sugar in water, and then the entire thing—hut, fence, tower, everything—just…turns sideways and winks out of reality. The air shimmers, as if full of glitter lit by the sun, momentarily forcing me to squint…

My breath leaves me in an involuntary gasp.

A god-sized door, arched like the entrance to a Gothic cathedral, is built into the face of the mountain. Dark, ancient wood, black iron straps with bolts the size of my head. The peak of the arch soars at least a hundred feet overhead; the rock framing the colossal door has been carved into the form of giant, armored warriors, their hands pressed palm-to-palm to form the peak of the arch.

The mountain itself has been shaped, hewn, blasted, carved—I don't even know how—into cylindrical towers complete with crenelations and arrow slits and walkways upon which armored immortals pace back and forth, wielding hastaxi and fully automatic assault rifles. Windows reflect the sun here and there, carved out of the mountain face itself; even up at the very peak of the mountain, thousands of feet overhead, I catch the glint of sun on glass.

In front of the impossible doors stand three pairs of figures: a male and female fae pair, armed and armored as Elites—chitinous armor conjured by glamour, wielding hastaxi; a male and female vampire pair wearing Elite armor and wielding shocksticks in one hand and a long, thin, curved-bladed sword in the other, the blade naked; and a male and female shifter pair, in wolf form, sitting on their haunches, tongues lolling, eyes fixed on us.

One of the vampires prowls toward us, a mortal's slow, lazy amble. He halts outside Caleb's window and waits. Caleb lowers the window and stares at the vampire.

"Caleb." The male vampire's voice is a silky whisper, venomous and seductive. "Who do we have here?"

"The bounty. Open it." Caleb's voice is a rough, guttural snarl, ripe with command.

The vampire's mouth tightens at the command. "I need to inspect the bounty." A lecherous gleam infects his eyes, scanning my body, the oversize T-shirt leaving my thighs bare nearly to my ass.

Caleb snarls. "Try it." His eyes flare amber, and even I recognize it for the challenge it is.

The vampire backs away and lifts his wrist to his mouth. "Open the gate."

For a moment, nothing happens, and then the gates pivot open without so much as a rattle or rumble. Caleb feathers the throttle, inching us forward. I glance up: the guards on the walkway overhead have their hastaxi aimed at us.

I hate those things, the hastaxi.

Caspian…I wonder how he is. I reach for him, and I barely feel him. It's a staticky sort of connection, faint, guttering.

Cas? I murmur across the bloodlink.

Nothing.

Alistair?

Nothing.

I swallow hard, fighting panic as we inch closer to the doorway, and the cavernous black beyond.

No, no, no.

Caspian?

A keening noise escapes my throat. I can't feel him. I can't hear him. I can't reach him.

I rip at the mage-cuffs, strain at them, ignoring the searing agony as the parasitic magic in them scrabbles at me, ripping at the dregs of my magic—fire ignites in my veins, twists in my skull, stabbing behind my eyes, I push at the parasite, but the harder I grasp the more the fiery agony tears through me.

I feel huge hard hands clutch at my jaw. "Stop. Now."

Tears leak, but I refuse to let them fall—I release my slippery, painful hold on the magic and fall back to the seat, gasping. Shaking. I open my eyes to find Caleb watching me with sadness in his tawny eyes—they don't quite glow amber.

"Don't, Maeve." His voice is quiet. His grip on my jaw is firm, yet somehow gentle. "Save your pain. Save your anger."

"I can't feel him," I whisper. "I can't feel my mate."

"I know."

"It hurts." The pain is in my belly, in my heart, in my soul, in my magic. The pain of not hearing Caspian, not feeling him… it's everywhere, it's all of me.

"I know."

"You don't know!" I hiss, spitting the words so saliva spatters his bare chest. "You don't have a mate."

"I did." His lupine eyes tell the story—sorrow, old and crusted over, keloid.

"Don't give me to them," I whisper. "Please, Caleb."

"It's too late." For a moment, his thumb touches my lips, ghosting left to right. "They have my pack." His eyes shutter, closing away the emotion in them. "'To die, to sleep, perchance to dream, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come.'"

"Is that…"

"Hamlet," he mutters, "Scene Three, Act One."

"But what—"

He reaches over the console between us and unbuckles my seatbelt. Leans across me, and I smell him, pine and fur and moonlight, and feel the heat radiating off of him. He opens my door, and his lips brush my ear. "Sleep, perchance to dream. Find me there, Maeve. Find me in The Dreaming."

And then he shoves me out of the car; I hit cold hard concrete, rolling. I catch a glimpse of amber light flaring bright, hear a wolf's snarl, and watch four huge tawny paws bolting for the exit as the huge doors close, vanishing into the sunlight.