Chapter 31

Carwyn sat in Katya's house in Ukiah, his arm around Brigid as he drank a potent combination of blood-wine and donated human blood, complete with delicious, delicious thinners to keep it from coagulating.

Brigid saw him making a face. "Drink it. All of it. You still have two fairly large hollow spots in your person, and I'm not talking about the permanent one in your head."

"I'm drinking it." He wrinkled his nose. "But I don't have to like it." The chemical taint was why he normally never drank donated blood, but he needed to heal the stab wounds, and he didn't want to leave Brigid's side.

Carwyn and Brigid had bathed and changed out of their bloody clothes, Carwyn donning one of his most cheerful Hawaiian shirts to comfort himself, along with a pair of grey sweatpants and a pair of Bigfoot slippers he'd found at a gas station on the highway.

They were currently resting in their private sitting room with Baojia while the other soldiers in the house tended to the newborns and tried to explain what on earth had happened to them and why they couldn't just go home.

"So no one has any idea where Zasha Sokolov went?" Brigid asked, sipping her own glass of blood-wine.

Baojia shook his head. "It all happened so fast. By the time I finished dampening all the fire you two had stoked, Sokolov was gone. Carwyn had split his attention between fighting the Russian and you while you were fighting Ivan, trying to hold off Sokolov and still help you."

Brigid glared at him. "Did you think I wouldn't be able to handle Ivan on my own?"

"Don't ask me to ignore it when someone is trying to kill you, wife." He growled. "Being reasonable only stretches so far."

"It doesn't matter," Baojia said. "Sokolov slipped away in the confusion, and probably that's for the best. The last thing we needed in the middle of all that was a forest fire. My tracker found their scent, but that was it. They reached the river and that was the end."

"So the Sokolovs definitely know who we are," Carwyn said. "That's not great, but it's not unexpected."

"Why do the Sokolovs know you?" Baojia said.

Brigid wrinkled her nose. "We maybe interrupted their trafficking pipeline on the East Coast a few years ago?"

"Oh yeah. That would piss them off. Drugs or people?"

"People of course."

"Yeah, that'd piss them off." Baojia crossed his arms. "I had no idea Ivan was related to that gang. How the hell did I not know that connection? Completely explains why he always had access to money when he needed to start over."

"We'll deal with Zasha Sokolov in due time," Carwyn said. "There are other things to focus on right now."

"How's Summer?" Brigid asked.

Baojia shrugged. "She watched Ivan almost kill Raven—who's going to be fine; Summer did an amazing job with the triage—then she killed him using one of the most astonishing displays of raw power I've ever seen." The vampire frowned. "I don't know what to do with the kid. She's got the brains of a doctor, the skills of a soldier, and a hell of a lot of raw power."

"Some of that is probably purely related to grief," Brigid said. "The same way I brought down an entire house minutes after I woke up."

Baojia's eyebrows went up. "Exciting."

Carwyn squeezed her shoulders. "She always liked to make an entrance."

Brigid shook her head. "No. No, I did not."

"Oh right," he muttered. "That's me."

"I'm just saying," Brigid said, "that Summer's big explosion of power may not happen again for a long time. You might need to prepare her for that so she doesn't think there's something wrong with her."

"Good point." Baojia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's not going to be easy for her."

"It's never easy," Carwyn said. "But she's under Katya's aegis now. That means you and Lucien are both nearby."

"Hopefully Katya will be a good sire." Brigid squeezed Carwyn's hand.

"Don't worry," Baojia mumbled. "I'll keep an eye on her."

"And I'll take that back to the Mackenzies," Carwyn said. "Thank you, my friend."

"Thank you," Baojia said. "You helped Katya get rid of a very nasty problem in her territory. She'll owe you a favor."

"The house," Carwyn blurted.

Brigid turned to him with a frown. "What?"

Carwyn looked at her, then at Baojia. "Ivan's house. It belongs to Katya now. If she wants to repay the favor, we want the house."

Brigid's eyebrows rose. "We do?"

"It'll give us a base here," Carwyn said. "It's isolated and self-contained. The forest around there is coastal, so the humidity is better for you. And it has lots of room if the family wants to visit."

Brigid's smile was slow and sweet. "Our own Cochamó home."

"And we'll put a memorial there," Carwyn said. "For all the lost ones we weren't able to save." Carwyn looked at Baojia. "It's just an idea."

Three of the ten newborns Ivan had brought to the hunt were killed in the fighting before Baojia's people could save them. Their families, tragically, could never bury them or know what had happened to their lost children. The weight of that knowledge tore at Carwyn's heart.

Baojia looked at Carwyn with narrowed eyes. "It's a good idea. You realize, of course, that you'd be asking for free passage in her territory?"

"Do you think that will be a problem?"

"Depends on how well the Mackenzies take Summer's decision to choose Katya's aegis. You have prior allegiance through your daughter-in-law."

And he also knew Logan Mackenzie well. "I'll have a talk with the girl's grandfather if it becomes an issue."

Baojia smiled. "I'll let you know what she says."

"Good." Carwyn had essentially agreed to be an intermediary between the two clans if it came to that. He didn't think it would.

Baojia stood. "I'm going to take off. My boss has sudden custody of nine baby vampires, and I have a feeling this is going to make my life interesting for a while."

"We'll make sure to stop by the house before we leave," Brigid said. "Say hello to Natalie for us."

"Will do."

They waited for Baojia to walk out of their quarters and shut the door.

"Katya will agree," Brigid said. "Because you've basically guaranteed that the Mackenzies won't try to start an argument over Summer's turning."

He scoffed. "Logan Mackenzie isn't the type to start pissing matches. I already told Baojia the same."

"But you'll use the promise of your peaceful intervention as a bargaining chip to get a grand house?"

Carwyn shrugged. "We have the van, but we're practically living on the West Coast now. It's better that we have our own place."

Brigid smiled. "I thought you loved the van."

"Oh, I do." He picked her up and walked toward the bedroom. "But I confess, my blushing bride, that I also love having a king-size bed."

"Is that so?" She toyed with the collar of his flowered shirt. "You know, I hadn't thought about that."

"That's because yer a wee fae sprite I can fit in my pocket, Brigid Connor." He tossed her on the massive four-poster bed and lifted an eyebrow. "Want to see if we can break this one too?"

"You're still healing, Carwyn."

He leaned over her and took her mouth in a long, luscious kiss. "I do love a challenge."