Chapter 6

Chapter

Six

I was tempted—very tempted—to spin on my heels and walk away. I wanted nothing to do with this woman. There was a part of me, a big part of me, that wished I could ban her from having any interaction with Aiden or me or our daughter. But wolf packs didn't work like that. Family was all, and no matter how furious Aiden was with his mom, he would never eradicate her from his life.

And I would never ask him to.

But that didn't mean I had to be polite to her.

Her gaze met mine as I approached, her blue eyes and her expression carefully neutral. I pulled out a chair and sat down, my back to the window but feeling no warmer for the heat already radiating from the glass.

I raised a privacy screen to ensure our conversation wasn't overheard by the nearest gossip brigade members, who were already casting speculative glances our way, then crossed my arms on the table and leaned forward casually.

A movement that belied the tension radiating through me. "What do you want, Karleen?"

She smiled, though it was a flat, thin-lipped thing that never touched the corners of her eyes. "I came to offer you a deal. A truce, if you will."

"What makes you think I'd ever be interested in anything you could offer? What makes you think I would ever trust you—" I cut the rest off and sucked back the anger. I couldn't release it. Not here. Not in front of all these people. Which was probably why she'd chosen to come here rather than do this at the compound. She'd already done enough damage to her reputation in the eyes of the pack. Now she was trying to ruin mine.

It was possible I was being too harsh on her, but … I doubted it.

"What makes you think I want a truce?"

"For the sake of our family, I think it is needed."

"You're not my family. You will never be my family."

"My dear girl, you are marrying my son. Whether I like it or not—and I certainly don't, as you're well aware—that makes us a family in pack eyes."

I opened my mouth, then snapped it closed again and leaned back in the chair and studied her for a minute. I could see the tension in her. See the displeasure. "Ciara made you do this, didn't she?"

Surprise flicked through her expression before the neutral mask settled back into place. "She cannot make me do anything. Aside from the fact I am— was —alpha, I'm also her mother."

"And yet you're here because of her."

Her nod was a short, sharp, angry motion. "We had a discussion."

The emphasis she placed on "discussion" suggested it had more than likely been an argument. "About what?"

It wasn't hard to guess what it had been about, but there was a vicious little part inside of me that wanted to hear her say it out loud.

And the angry gleam that flared briefly in her eyes suggested she knew it. "About you. About my … attitude to you."

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that one.

"Which attitude are we talking about? The one that hates all witches because some psycho witch bastard raped your sister when you were both teens and she subsequently died in childbirth? Or the one that believes our daughter will be born an abomination?"

"I never said?—"

"Yeah, you did. Maybe not so much to anyone beyond the confines of your pack, but you certainly thought it." I gave her a sweet smile that was anything but. "You forget how very well Belle reads minds."

Her gaze narrowed. "I thought there was some sort of code amongst telepaths not to randomly read minds?"

"Depends on the telepath and the mind. It's much like the whole ‘threefold' rule that applies to us witches. For some, on rare occasions, the cost of spell bounce back is worth the price of getting a little retribution."

The flicker in her eyes suggested she hadn't missed the implication. But then, while she was many things, she wasn't dumb.

She drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. "Listen, I no more want this than you do. But Ciara is right. We are family. We must find a way to make this work."

She might be right, but I wasn't in a forgiving mood. Maybe it was the tiredness. Maybe it was just the desperate need for a little payback, but I nevertheless rose and leaned forward until my face was inches from hers. I could smell the scent of the soap she'd used that morning—lilac, with just a touch of honey—and the lingering hint of coffee on her breath. Saw the brief flare of surprise in her eyes and the ripple of anger through her aura. She didn't like being challenged, not in any way, but she didn't rise. Didn't make any sort of move, in fact.

Ciara's words had had more impact than she'd admitted.

"We will find a means of making it work when you fucking apologize and actually mean it. Until then, neither I nor our daughter will have anything to do with you." I paused, smiled sweetly, and motioned to the empty coffee cup sitting to her left. "That's on the house. Feel free to have another or even leave. I don't care."

And with that, I dismissed the privacy screen and walked away from her. She picked up her bag and left.

As the small bell above the door merrily announced her departure, the anger and perhaps a little self-recrimination began. I shouldn't have said any of that really, but, damn it, this was too important to compromise. My daughter was too important to compromise. At the very least she owed me and Aiden a goddamn apology for everything she'd said and done.

I checked with the kitchen to ensure Mike and Frank—our chef and kitchen hand, respectively—had everything under control, and bolted upstairs to my bedroom, closed the door, and rested my forehead against it for a couple of seconds, until the anger and the pounding of my pulse had eased. Then I stripped off and fell onto the bed. I didn't dream, but that intangible feeling of approaching doom nevertheless made for a restless sleep.

When I woke, it was to the comforting warmth of a body pressed against mine and the whisper of breath against the back of my neck. He smelled faintly of the citrus-and-ginger soap I kept in the shower, and his skin was cool and damp, meaning he'd only just joined me on the bed.

I turned in his arms and smiled as he drew so close my breasts were lightly pressed against his chest. "Good evening."

"It is now that I have you in my arms." His lips brushed mine, a sweet caress that barely hinted at the fierce desire that burned through him, around him. It was a heady scent. "I hear you and my mother had words this afternoon."

"Good God, the gossip lines in this place really are impressive."

He laughed, a warm sound that vibrated delightfully through my breasts. "It wasn't them this time. Ciara rang me and said she'd had words with Mom?—"

"From what I gathered, it was more a full-on argument. Your mother was most displeased."

"Yeah, she said that, too. And apparently her face was something of a picture when she returned to the compound. What did you say to her? More importantly, what did she say to you?"

I told him, and he laughed. "You seriously demanded an apology?"

"Well, don't we deserve one?"

"Yes. I'm just picturing her expression when you said that. Few have stood up to her—including me—for far too long. But I wouldn't be expecting my mom to apologize anytime soon. It's not in her nature."

"Hmm." I trailed my fingers lightly along his side to his hips, then slipped them down between us. His cock jumped under my touch, and desire curled through me, a hungry, low-down, burning ache that said, without even being touched, I was already ready for him.

He skimmed his fingers, with torturous slowness, down the side of my neck and then across the right side of my breast. Delight shivered through me, and that spark of hunger deepened in his eyes.

"I'm not expecting anything from her," I said softly. "It's an entirely different matter when it comes to you."

He raised a lazy eyebrow as his fingers continued their journey toward my hip. "And what might that be?"

"To stop playing around and get serious about satisfaction."

"Says the woman who is driving me to distraction with her delightful caressing of my cock."

"Said cock is obviously enjoying the attention. My counterpart is feeling decidedly left out."

"Perhaps I should remedy that?"

"Perhaps you—" The rest of the sentence was lost to a gasp as he slipped a finger into the heated heart of me and lightly brushed my clit.

He chuckled softly, then rolled me onto my back and began to devour me with lips and tongue, until I was a shaking, needy mess, unable to do anything more than simply plead for him to end the exquisite torture.

He didn't. Not immediately. He simply held himself above me for several long seconds, his gaze devouring mine, hot and heavy and yet so filled with love my heart swelled.

"I love you, Elizabeth Grace."

"And I love you, Aiden O'Conner." I hesitated, but devilment rose, and I couldn't help adding, "I doubt I will ever love your mother, however."

Amusement twitched the corners of his lovely mouth. "A normal man would find the specter of his mother being raised at such a critical moment in proceedings rather deflating."

I wrapped my legs around his hips and drew him down, shivering in delight as his body slipped into mine. "Just as well you're no ordinary man, then, isn't it?"

He laughed, kissed me, and then drove me to heaven.

The dream came again.

I walked barefoot through the forest, the air alive with luminous threads of moonlight, some far older and more powerful than others. Unseen shadows paced me, but there were only four this time, rather than five.

In this version of the dream, no one paced beside me.

Trepidation stepped into my soul, but the dream pulled me on.

Up ahead, the mage fire pulsed, its deep purple glow staining the trees once more, curling the leaves with its force. It seemed to dance from tree to tree, briefly reminding me of the way flames leapt.

It is what comes , instinct whispered, though whether it was mage fire or real, it wasn't saying.

As before, I left the trees and came out into the clearing.

As before, Roger lay between me and Marie. This time, there were only three stakes. I guess there was no need to pin what remained of his right leg.

Instinct twitched again. I narrowed my gaze and studied his heavily bandaged knee stump. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the rest of his leg did appear to be present, even if in a ghostly form.

Only it was different—more muscular.

Which made absolutely no sense.

"You may be wondering why I called you here again." Marie's melodious voice held just a hint of amusement. "And perhaps even how."

"Given I've changed location and you cannot possibly have gotten through the wild magic that protects the café so easily— not without me being forewarned—I would hazard a guess that this is some form of lucid dreaming or astral projection. As to how…" I shrugged. "While I would like to know, I'm thinking you won't tell me simply because you have no desire for me to prevent future occurrences."

"Oh, while it is true you are physically safe in your fortress, little witch, you could never prevent these meetings. Those who play with darkness can sometimes get leashed by it, however innocuous it might have seemed at the time."

I frowned. "I don't understand?—"

"Oh, I think you do. Or at least, you will if you cast your mind back to a certain spell you once performed. One that involved several drops of your own blood?"

Ah, fuck .

I closed my eyes and scrubbed a hand across eyes that didn't physically exist in this plane. I'd known at the time how dangerous that spell was. Had even been warned in a note Nell—Belle's grandmother—had left in an unfinished book called Spells from Uncertain Times .

I foresee a need for this in the distant future, it had said , but be wary of its use, dear witchling. The spell lies in the gray zone; it will not draw the ire of the council but it will make you more susceptible to the darker forces of this world.

I'd understood the danger of using a blood spell even without that warning and had accepted the danger it represented in order to protect Belle. I just hadn't understood the implications within that warning. Hadn't understood that, by performing that spell, I'd opened my spirit or astral being or whatever this was to being called into the presence of darker entities.

Marie laughed. "I can see from your expression that you have indeed remembered."

"Yes, and I take comfort in the fact that while you can call me, you cannot control me."

The fact that I'd moved against her will in our first meeting, utterly surprising her, suggested her control was at best partial rather than complete.

For now, that annoying inner voice whispered again. But that could so easily change…

I shivered and flexed my fingers, trying to ease the wave of trepidation. As usual, it failed.

"In some respects, you are right," Marie drawled. "But also, very wrong."

"I see that you and Maelle share another trait—you both love avoiding straight answers."

She laughed. "Why would I want to provide you with any real information when it is far more satisfying to see your confusion and taste the delicious acceleration of your heart?"

Did that mean she was as much an energy vampire as a blood one? Was that the danger these astral meetings presented? I didn't know, but I seriously needed to find out, and fast. "And yet you do provide real information when it suits you. So why did you call me here, Marie?"

"Perhaps I am simply charmed by your sparkling personality and scintillating conversation, and wish to hear more."

"And perhaps you wish to distract me from events happening elsewhere."

"Perhaps." Her smile flashed, all white teeth and sharp canines. "And perhaps I wish to emphasize the warning given to you yesterday, but in terms you may respect a little more. Place yourself in the middle of this fight, and I will destroy all that you hold dear. The fire that surrounds us is not real in this plane, but it could so easily become so in yours."

And with that, I was cast back into my body.

I woke with a gasp and sat bolt upright. The sudden movement woke Aiden, and he shifted and sat up with me, his arm slipping around my shoulders and tugging me against him.

"Another dream?" When I nodded, he added, "How? I thought this place would protect you from her?"

"So did I. I was wrong." I pulled away from him and climbed out of bed, tugging on a T-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts. "I need a coffee. And possibly pancakes. And bacon."

He rolled out the other side of our bed and pulled on his jeans. "You make the coffee; I'll do the rest."

I shot a narrowed gaze at him. "Can you be trusted with pancakes?"

"Hey, they're only flour and milk, right? Can't be too hard."

Right. "We'll switch roles. I need decent pancakes right now."

He smiled, though it failed to chase the concern from his eyes. "You're going to have to teach me to cook your favorite foods properly—if only for those pregnancy hankerings that apparently hit at the most inconvenient hours of the night."

"Keep a steady stock of chocolate and several packets of white chocolate caramel popcorn in the pantry, and we'll be just fine."

He blinked. "Caramel popcorn? When did that become a thing?"

"Monday. Discovered it in the Christmas food aisle at the supermarket."

"And you didn't share? I'm outraged."

"You were working." I padded lightly down the stairs. "And it was very moreish."

I flicked on the kitchen light, lit the stovetop, then got out everything I needed to make the pancakes. With the bacon frying in one pan, I poured the mixture into two others. Aiden came in, handed me a mug of coffee, and then leaned back against the metal prep counter. "So, tell me what happened this time in the dream."

"It followed much the same path as the previous one, but it's not a dream. It's"—I flipped a pancake and wrinkled my nose—"more an astral travel thing."

"How is it happening, though? I thought the reason we moved here was to prevent it."

"She confirmed the fact she can't physically access this place, so staying here remains prudent." I flipped the pancakes onto a plate, slipped it into the warmer drawer, and threw more butter into the pan followed by the mix.

"That only answered part of my question."

I flashed him a smile, though it was a little more tense than I would have liked. "Apparently, a spell I did a few months ago to protect Belle allows darkness to call on my spirit."

"Were you aware of this at the time?"

"Sort of? There was a warning that using the spell would make me more susceptible to darkness, but it was the only spell I could find to protect her from Clayton's very obvious intent to rape her." I flipped the next lot of pancakes and checked the bacon.

"Meaning you didn't care."

I certainly didn't. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat to protect her. I slipped the next batch of pancakes onto the plate, put the cooked bacon on another, and shoved both into the warmer drawer before making a final batch of pancakes. He and I couldn't possibly eat everything I was cooking, but I was betting Monty's nose for bacon would see him coming down the stairs sooner rather than later.

Aiden contemplated me for a second. "Can she control you in these dreams?"

"Not at the moment. But I need to ring Mom, so I might ask her to do some research."

He frowned. "Ashworth has more experience dealing with vampires than she does."

"Yes, but this is something else, and that spell—" I grimaced. "It was a blood spell, Aiden. A gray one, but nevertheless blood based. Ashworth might have contacts in the HIC, but Mom, as a member of the high council, has access to the restricted section of the National Spell Archive. That's where information will be found about it, if anywhere. Even Nell's book didn't really flesh out the implications."

When the last batch was done, I put all the warmed plates on a tray, gave it to him to carry out, then headed to the fridge to grab the toppings—raspberries, cinnamon butter, and maple syrup—then picked up the cutlery and my coffee, and followed him out.

Once we'd both filled up our plates, he said, "You said it followed much the same path, so what changed in this one?"

I hesitated. "There's a fire coming, but I'm not sure whether it's mage fire or real. The trees were certainly being hit by the former, but I just have this horrible conviction it might be the latter."

"Nothing much we can do about either until it happens. We're as prepared as anyone can be for a real fire."

Footsteps clattered down the stairs, and I looked around with a smile. "Well, that didn't take you very long at all."

Monty bounced down the last step and strode toward us. "And I do hope there's enough left to share, because otherwise I'm going to give you sad puppy eyes until you take pity and give me some of yours."

I laughed. "It's a brave man who'd take the food off a pregnant woman's plate. How's Belle?"

I knew she remained asleep, but I couldn't tell any more than that because of all the spells I'd woven around both our bedrooms to give Belle some privacy from the constant barrage of my thoughts. While both of us could raise a shield against the other—an ability that was definitely becoming stronger in me— it was nice to have an area where we didn't have to worry about shielding and could just let it all hang out mentally.

Monty grabbed the spare plate and helped himself to the extras. "She's sleeping easier, and the gauntness has all but gone. Why are you up so early? Dreaming again?"

"Yeah." I quickly filled him in, omitting the whole bit about the dark spell for the moment, because I didn't want to worry Belle. "I thought I'd ring Mom and ask her to?—"

I cut off the rest as Aiden's phone rang, the sound echoing sharply and sending my pulse into overdrive. While it might have nothing to do with any of our current problems, instinct was twitching, and that was never a good thing.

"Ranger Aiden O'Connor," he said. "How can I?—"

The woman on the other end didn't let him finish, and while she didn't in any way sound panicked, she was speaking so fast I didn't really hear much more than blood and bodies.

I sighed, gulped down my coffee, and rose. "We're up, Monty."

He blew out a breath. "It always happens when I'm enjoying good food."

"Then grab a container to take it with you. In the meantime, we need to get ready."

As Aiden continued talking, Monty and I ran up the stairs. After a quick wash, I exchanged my sleep shorts and old T-shirt for a pair of jean shorts and a supportive tank top, then grabbed a pair of socks and sat down on the bed. Aiden returned as I was pulling on my boots.

"What's happened?"

"Lynette was going for an early morning run and stumbled upon what she said could be a multiple murder scene."

"I take it you know her?"

He nodded and grabbed his socks and boots, sitting down beside me to put them on. "She's with the SES and has some experience with body retrieval."

The State Emergency Services was a volunteer organization that provided emergency help in natural disasters, road crashes, and rescues. And some of those definitely involved deaths.

"Did she say how many bodies we might be dealing with?"

"She's not sure. She peered through a broken window and saw at least one, but believes, given the amount of blood visible in the hall beyond, there were more."

"Did she recognize the victim she saw?" Castle Rock was at its base a country town, and most of the older residents did know each other by sight if not by name.

"No, though she did say the house was a rental and had only been recently leased."

"You think it could be our vampires?"

He glanced at me, his eyebrows raised. "Do you?"

"Maybe." I grimaced. "I did ask Marie if she'd called me to her last night in order to prevent me sensing their planned violence and perhaps stopping it, and she certainly didn't deny it."

"If she was behind this slaughter, what are the chances of the victims being connected to Maelle?"

"Fifty-fifty. She needs to rile Maelle into attacking her, but she also has a bunch of hungry vampires to look after."

"If she's determined to rile Maelle into attacking, why then demand she meet them at the court of justice?"

"She gave Maelle twenty-four hours. That's now past."

"Only just, and from the sound of things, these murders happened well before the deadline ended." He pulled on a T-shirt, then swept his keys and wallet from the side dresser and tucked them into his jean pockets. "Ready?"

I nodded and accepted his hand, letting him pull me up. Monty met us in the hall. "I left Belle a message just in case she wakes up fuzzy."

She'd certainly woken up fuzzy more than once, but that had never stopped her from reaching out to me to see what was happening. Monty was well aware of that, which suggested his note was probably more along the lines of a love note—he knew she adored that sort of stuff. Hell, she'd kept all the notes and poems past lovers had given her over the years—and it had been one of them I'd used in the blood spell. Trepidation stirred through me again, thick with the warning that I needed to uncover more about the spell's consequences. And fast.

I followed Aiden down the stairs, ducked into the reading room to get my backpack while Monty grabbed his breakfast, and then we all headed out the back. Aiden opened the truck's passenger door and helped me in, then ran around to the driver's side and started her up. He drove out at speed but didn't turn on the siren until we were away from the café. Not wanting to wake Belle, I suspected.

"Where are we heading?" I asked, reaching back to snare a bit of bacon from Monty's container. He gave me two. Either he was feeling generous, or he'd taken the warning about a pregnant woman's plate seriously.

"Moonlight Flats."

I bit into the bacon and frowned. "That area is close to town, isn't it? Why would Marie and her people risk setting up another charnel house in a place like that?"

"It's an acreage area rather than a housing estate, but we are talking about vampires here," he said. "And old ones at that. I get the feeling they don't think or act like us ordinary folk."

"Speak for yourself," Monty said. "There is nothing ordinary about me."

I snorted softly and wished I had something other than bacon in my hand so I could toss it at him. But I wasn't about to waste good bacon. "Yeah, but it's also only a couple of kilometers from the compound's boundaries, and plenty of wolves move through that area. They would have smelled death had Marie and her team been using it to store their meals."

"Most likely." Aiden slowed the truck fractionally, turned left, and then accelerated again. "From what Lynette said, the deaths probably all happened within the last six hours."

"Lynette's a wolf?" Monty asked, shoving the container between the seats so I could grab a pancake.

I shook my head. As much as I might want more, my stomach wasn't the steadiest beast of late and I might well end up regretting eating anything else if what we discovered in this house in any way came close to the mess we'd found in the cavern.

"No," Aiden was saying. "SES. I told her to move back to the road and ensure no one else entered until we arrived. I've called in Ciara, Mac, and Tala."

Tala was his second-in-command and hailed from the Sinclair pack. Neither she nor Mac had been there at the cavern, so he was obviously sharing the trauma around.

He swung right, onto a dirt road, but didn't slow down. Dust plumed around the truck, falling onto the windows, making it difficult to see much beyond them. Not that there appeared to be all that much aside from trees and the occasional flash of a building.

He skidded onto another, smaller road and finally slowed. Up ahead, leaning against a mailbox made out of an old milk drum that had been painted red, was a tall, thinnish woman wearing leggings, a tank top, and runners. Sweat still dripped from the ends of her brown ponytail, and her cheeks remained flushed from her run. Although it could just as easily be the heat. It might still be early in the day, but the air was already uncomfortably warm.

Aiden stopped beside her and wound down the windows. "No movement?"

"Nothing from inside, and nothing along the road. You want me to stay and help?"

Aiden shook his head. "I suspect what we'll find inside is something the SES can't help us with."

She nodded, her nose wrinkling. "I forgot to mention earlier that I turned off the gas—got a big whiff of it through the window, so you'll probably find my prints on the meter."

"Thanks. I'll send Jaz to get your statement later, so you can head home before the heat really hits."

"Awesome. Talk later."

As she turned and jogged down the road, Aiden released the brake and continued on slowly up the curving stone driveway. The house was a surprisingly modern-looking, L-shaped building with a pale green tin roof and matching metal window frames. A wide veranda ran along the building's front, and two large windows sat on either side of the overly grand-looking front door. The window on the right had been smashed, though if the amount of glass glittering on the veranda's concrete base was anything to go by, it had been broken by someone inside the house, not outside. A freestanding carport sat at the end of the driveway, just behind the house, and had one of those large people-mover vans parked underneath it. On the other side, only partially visible, was a large machinery shed half-filled with round hay bales.

Aiden stopped the truck at the front steps, and we all climbed out. The air was hot and still, and cicadas sang, but there was little other sound and no immediate indication that death and destruction awaited. Even the broken window didn't tell us much, as there was no indication of what had caused the breakage and certainly no sign of blood. I couldn't smell it either, but that could just be because the air wasn't moving enough to trail the scent across my nose.

But then, my nose was nowhere near as sharp as Aiden's, and given the flaring of his nostrils and the brief flash of resignation through his expression, it was certainly there.

"I'm not sensing any form of magic," Monty said, and glanced at me. "You?"

I shook my head. "Which is odd when you think about it. Even if this had happened hours ago, restraining and silencing multiple people takes a good amount of magic. There should be at least some remnants floating about."

"For us normal witches," Monty noted. "Not for someone like Marie."

Aiden handed us both silicone gloves and some of those pull-on boot protectors. "There's also the point that many of the bodies we found in the cavern had been bound by ropes and gags rather than magic. It's quite possible that's what happened here."

That had obviously been discovered after Belle and I had left, and it somehow made the whole situation even more appalling.

Aiden led us up the steps, his boots echoing on the old wood as he strode toward the door. He pulled on the gloves and booties, then glanced at me. "Nothing on the doorknob I have to worry about?"

"No."

He opened the door and warily pushed it wide, but didn't immediately enter. The air that stirred sluggishly past us—suggesting there was an air con on somewhere in the house—was filled with blood, death and, to a lesser extent, the eggy smell of gas. Weirdly, unlike in the cavern, there was no cloud of fear or pain, which was decidedly odd given the heaviness of the first two scents. But maybe there was some sort of magic at work here, even if I couldn't immediately sense it.

The hall beyond was wide and relatively short with a left turn at the end, which no doubt led to the longer L section. There were two doors, one on either side, and the flooring was tiles rather than wood. White tiles, which made the thick smear of blood that started on the wall itself and then continued to the end of the hall and around the corner starkly obvious.

Either someone had dragged his or her bleeding body away, perhaps in a desperate last attempt to escape, or whoever was behind this destruction had dragged them away. But why only one? Why not move the person who lay in the room to our right? I didn't know, but I suspected we'd find out soon enough. I shivered and rubbed my arms.

Aiden glanced at me sharply. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Unlike the cave, there's no shroud of emotion here."

"Which is another oddity," Monty said. "Whoever that smear belongs to had to be feeling something pretty damn powerful."

"Unless they were already dead when they were moved."

"The bulk of the blood scent is coming from deeper within the house," Aiden said. "But we keep together until we know what else might be waiting."

We both nodded. Once Monty and I had gloved up and put the boot protectors on, we cautiously moved on. The room to our left was a study lined with bookshelves, though most of the shelving was empty. The large antique-looking desk sitting under the front window was dust-covered, and the chair tucked in underneath it looked to have seen better days. What was interesting was the two mattresses sitting on the floor, both of them neatly made up. Maybe whoever had rented this place had been expecting guests.

Had those guests come bearing a grudge rather than gifts?

Instinct whispered no.

Instinct was fucking annoying.

We moved on cautiously toward the room on the right. I wrinkled my nose against the sharper smell of blood and Aiden reached into his pocket, handing me the tub of mentholated ointment without comment.

We skirted around the smear and went into the other room. It was a living area, though there was no TV or sofas, just a couple of mattresses on the floor. The body of a man lay sprawled face down on the carpet halfway between the door and the window. His hand was outstretched above his head, suggesting he might have been throwing something—maybe the something that had broken the window. There was blood in his hair, blood down his neck, blood on the back of his shirt, and … horror surged, and I couldn't help but step away from him. A large hole had been punched right through his body. I could see the bloody carpet underneath him. See the shattered remnants of bone, the torn lines of muscle and veins, and the streaks of yellow that looked like fat, both within his skin and without.

This hadn't been done with a gun, a shotgun, or even magic.

This had been done by someone powerful enough to physically punch a hole right through flesh. The imprint of a clenched fist had been burned into the carpet, and the blood that had leached from the victim's body had not fouled or hidden it. It was as if that imprint somehow repelled any attempt to do so.

This body—that imprint—was a warning.

For several seconds, none of us moved.

Then Monty sighed and said what we were all thinking.

"Well, for fuck's sake, the last thing we need to be dealing with is another goddamn monster."

"What kind of fucking monster can punch a hole through the middle of a man's body?" Aiden asked. "Are you sure this isn't the result of magic?"

"There's no magical residue, though it is possible it simply faded away." Monty squatted next to the body, carefully avoiding anything that might be evidence. "It has to be a monster of some kind—look at the size of that imprint. None of our vamps have hands like that."

"That we're aware of," I said, remaining right where I was. My stomach was behaving itself, but I wasn't about to push it. "We haven't seen all of Marie's crew, remember."

"True." He rose. "I'm thinking we need to see the rest of the bodies before we can make a judgment call on our killer."

Aiden nodded and led the way out. We followed the bloody smear down to the end of the hall and around the corner and found a second body. This one was a woman, and though she had a cleanish hole punched through her torso, her head was twisted at a strange angle and her face was visible. Her expression was one of horror.

So why were there no emotions staining the air? I really had no idea, and that was scary.

I gulped but nevertheless looked at the hole in her body, and the tile visible through it. Unlike the carpet under the first victim, there was no shadow of a fist here, but the tile had been smashed. Anything that could do that with a mere punch without doing serious damage to its hand and leaving at least some blood behind very definitely wasn't human.

As Aiden moved on, I dragged out my phone and took a quick photo so that I could ask Maelle if this was one of her people or not. Because if she was, then it was likely the rest were, too.

There was a bathroom next to the study, a toilet next to that, and at the end, before the hall turned right, a laundry. The door leading outside had been smashed off its hinges and lay in pieces on the floor.

Monty frowned. "They must have heard this thing enter, so why didn't they run? None of this is making sense."

"The other thing that's not making sense is the position of her body," I said. "If our monster came through this door, why was the woman running toward it rather than away? If she's lying where she fell, then she was hit from behind, not in front."

"It could be that we're dealing with two killers." Aiden said. "Let's check the rest of the house, because the crew will be here soon."

We moved on. The short hallway opened out to a kitchen-dining area, beyond which was a large, open living area. There were no bodies here. No smears of blood. Nothing to indicate anything monstrous had even passed through.

Another hallway lay opposite the kitchen, so we headed over. There were five doors along the corridor, along with what I presumed was a double closet about halfway down. The other doors led into bedrooms and all of them held bodies. There were five split between the first three bedrooms and one in the fourth. All of them had holes in their bodies.

But in the fifth … I sucked in a breath and retreated.

The fifth was an overly large bathroom that held God knew how many, because there was little more than bits of limbs, flesh, muscles, and bloody strings of intestines scattered all over the floor.

And obvious evidence that someone had rolled through the middle of it all.

"Whatever else might have been in this house, that is evidence that one or more of our vamps also were," I said, throat burning with the bile threatening to rise. "Maelle isn't the only one who loves swimming in the remains of her victims. Marie and Jaqueline apparently do, too."

Outside, sirens wailed, a sound that matched the scream in my head. It would get worse before this was all over. Much worse.

I gulped and backed away a little more. "I think I'll head outside, get some fresh air, and check the outbuildings, just in case."

Aiden's swung around, his gaze studying me. He didn't say to be careful, but the warning nevertheless glinted in his eyes.

I nodded at the silent request, then turned and got the hell out of there, leaping over the remnants of the laundry door and landing well past the two short steps leading out into the yard beyond. I stopped, rested my hands on my knees, and simply breathed deep in an effort to calm everything down. My stomach eventually settled, though the acidic taste remained in my throat. It wouldn't take much for my stomach to rise again.

I pushed upright, took the booties off, then walked around to the front of the building to grab some water from the back of Aiden's truck. He didn't have it on ice, so it'd be warm, but right then, I didn't particularly care.

An SUV stopped beside Aiden's truck, and Mac climbed out of the passenger side. He had the typically rangy build of a werewolf, with brown skin and hair. His gaze swept me briefly but assessingly. "You're looking rather peaked."

I half smiled. "Peaked is such a polite way of saying I look like shit."

He grinned, white teeth bright. "I am nothing if not polite. The boss inside?"

"Yeah, and so are a shit-ton of dead bodies."

"Just what we need on such a glorious day like today."

As he moved around to the back of the vehicle, Tala walked around the front and stopped beside me. She was about my height, with dark skin and silver-shot black hair. "Are we dealing with death by vampire or beastie?"

"A bit of both, unfortunately."

"Never a good thing." She glanced at me. "Congrats on the engagement, by the way."

"Here I was thinking you'd be in the against camp."

I couldn't help the surprise in my voice, and she raised an eyebrow, amusement lurking in her dark eyes. "Just because I thought you might have been a con woman when you first appeared doesn't mean I can't also believe you and Aiden are good together. And what is good for him is also good for us, because that man was a bear when you two split."

I laughed. "So Jaz said."

"Jaz probably understated it because she managed to be on patrol most of the time. I take it you're remaining out here?"

"Thought I'd do a sweep of the van and the outbuildings to see if there's anything untoward in them. My psi senses were getting a little overwhelmed by the bloodshed inside."

She made a low, somewhat growly noise in the back of her throat. "The sooner we get rid of these damn vampires, the better. And that should include Maelle, in my humble opinion."

"It's an opinion more than a few of us now agree with," I muttered. Question was, did the council dare do anything against her and risk retaliation?

Because she would retaliate, especially if things went badly for Roger and her mind—and impulse control—slipped any more than it already had.

Mac returned, handed Tala a pair of gloves and booties, then headed toward the front stairs. Tala gave me a nod and followed. As they disappeared through the door, I capped my drink, tucked it into the backpack's side pocket, then walked around the side of the house to check the van. I didn't open the front doors because a quick look into the cabin said there was no one in there, and it wasn't my job to be going through the glove compartment or center storage well for clues. But the rear section of the people mover had all the windows blocked out, and that very much suggested it had indeed been used as a mode of transport for vampires.

I guess the question was, whose?

I gripped the van's handle and carefully slid the door open. No stench of blood or flesh rushed out. The air wasn't pleasant, and oddly reminded me a little of the slightly sweet but musty scent that sometimes came from older people. Which, given the vamps we were dealing with were very old indeed, made sense. And it was certainly better than the scent of decay some fiction would have us believe they smelled like.

I closed the door again then headed around the back of the van and across to the machinery shed. The right half was filled with closely packed hay rounds, but the left was empty aside from a ride-on mower that didn't look as if it had been used in months—which meant someone else had to be looking after the lawns and gardens surrounding the house, because they were pin-neat—and an odd selection of rusted gardening tools.

I did a circuit around the accessible bits of the interior just in case I'd missed something, then headed out again, stopping to study the yard and the tree-lined fence to my right. Instinct twitched and I resignedly turned and headed down that way.

The huge old gum trees were in full flower, their pale creamy flowers contrasting sharply against the green of old leaves and the coppery bronze of the new growth. Their lemony scent filled the air, and I drew in a deeper breath, hoping to wash the lingering remnants of death from my lungs.

And smelled, underneath the lemony divineness, the hint of wrongness. Magical type wrongness.

I swore and scrubbed a hand through my hair. It seemed fate hadn't yet finished handing out clues, because that wrongness suggested someone had performed a spell somewhere nearby, even if no magical threads lingered in the air. It was probably the source of the punch beastie, but until I followed that faint scent, I wouldn't know for sure.

There was a part of me that really, really , didn't want to follow.

But that was cowardice speaking, or perhaps even the natural desire of a mother-to-be not to take risks.

And yet if I didn't, we'd all pay the price. Or so instinct was saying.

Instinct could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

Most times.

I blew out a breath and swept my gaze left and right. There was very little grass growing under the trees, thanks no doubt to the fact they were too close together and the shadows under their canopies rather dense. The fence dividing the home paddock from the sloping incline of the next one was a basic three-strand wire. The grass on the other side was far longer than it was here, making it difficult to see if anything or anyone lurked. If something did, it probably wouldn't be a vampire, given the sunshine, but until we had some idea what the beastie with the lethal punch was, it also had to remain a possibility.

I ducked under a low-hanging branch and stopped close to the fence. That's when I spotted the trail in the grass. Someone—something—large had run through this field fairly recently, heading toward the top of the hill.

It didn't take much of an effort to guess it had been our monster.

I climbed through the fence and walked over to the crushed grass. It was a wide, flat trail, and while I was no tracker, I was pretty damn sure it hadn't been made by anything human. Not given the way the footprints had impacted the otherwise hard soil.

I swung my pack around to tug out a bottle of holy water, and then spun a repelling spell around my other hand. I hoped neither would be necessary, but I'd learned the hard way it was always better to be safe than sorry.

I walked into the long grass, keeping to the right of the trail and damnably glad I was wearing boots. It'd be nigh on impossible to see a snake in this stuff before you stepped on the thing.

The wide line of trampled grass continued up the slope, but the closer I got to the top, the more instinct twitched.

I'd just about reached the crest when I spotted the large circular section of flattened grass and stopped. The feeling of wrongness swirled around me, and while there were no spell threads evident here, there were candles. Melted black candles, the type used in darker magics and summonings.

My grip momentarily tightened on the holy water, even though I had no immediate sense of danger. Nor could I see any indication of a pentagram on the ground, though the candles were sitting at what would be the five elemental points. There was blood here, too, I realized after a moment. I couldn't smell it from where I was standing, but the grass in the middle of the pentagram was stained with what instinct and experience told me was dried blood.

I carefully walked around the edge of the circle, looking for any indication the thing I'd been tracking had simply pounded through here and run on down the other side of the hill.

It hadn't, because there was nothing but an undisturbed sea of yellowed grass that swept down the hill to what looked to be a dry creek bed.

Whoever had summoned the demon had also sent it back to whatever hell it had come from.

Which was good but a little puzzling. I mean, why not simply leave it unleashed to cause havoc and keep us away from the fight, as Marie had tried with the basilisk? Did that mean she'd changed tactics after we'd dealt with her snake? Or that Marie wasn't responsible for the presence of this monster?

Once I'd returned to my starting point, I put the holy water back into my pack—though I kept the repelling spell twisting around my fingers, just in case—and rang Monty.

"I guess you found something," he said, by way of hello.

"A pentagram. Or, at least, the remains of one."

"Where?"

"In the paddock behind the house yard. You can't miss the trail."

"Be there in five."

He hung up. I tucked the phone away and squatted down, studying the stained area of flattened grass through narrowed eyes. While it was not unknown for dark sorcerers to use their own blood in a summoning spell—hell, we'd used Mom's up in Canberra to catch and question a demon—for the most part, an animal of some kind was used. The bigger the spell, the bigger the animal. When Marie had summoned the basilisk to cause chaos and distract us, she'd used a sheep, but there was nothing here to indicate any sort of sacrifice had been used. Not even feathers, and chickens were, for the most part, the animal used the most in summoning ceremonies.

At least, they were if the little I'd read about these things was true.

I rose and glanced around at the sound of movement. Aiden and Monty were striding up the hill, following my trail through the grass rather than the monster's. They stopped either side of me, Monty with his hands on his hips.

"Well," he said, after a minute, "that definitely looks like the remnants of a pentagram, even if we can't see any evidence of it other than those candles."

"Why would they leave the candles there if they've erased all other evidence?" Aiden had his phone in his hand, recording the scene as he spoke. "That's not usual behavior, is it?"

Monty grimaced. "Depends on the mage and what the intent of the circle is. In this case, it was probably used to summon and then dispatch our fisty demon."

"That still doesn't answer the question."

"It's possible she wanted us to find it," I said.

"Yeah, but which ‘she'?" Monty glanced at me. "You've done a safety check?"

I nodded. "I haven't stepped inside yet, though."

"Caution from you?" Monty raised a hand and touched my forehead. "No temperature…"

I laughed and smacked his hand away. "You're the reservation witch and the one with all the training. I figured that maybe you could sense or see something I can't."

"Yeah, we both know how unlikely that is." Monty leaned past me to look at Aiden. "You finished? We safe to enter and trample all over the scene?"

Aiden half smiled. "Trample away."

Monty warily stepped into the crushed circle of grass and approached the nearest candle. He squatted down beside it, brushed his fingers across the flattened grass, then rubbed them together. "No indication of ash or chalk used to mark out the pentagram."

"Both of those might be practical on solid ground but not here," I said. "She could have used her athame or even her index finger to draw it in the air, calling out the five points and then activating them." It did take more time and energy, which was why most of us didn't do it, but maybe that wasn't such a problem for a blood mage.

"It's generally a process used more for personal pentagrams rather than ritual ones, though," Monty said.

"Which does not discount the possibility of it being done here."

"No, but I wouldn't have thought a pentagram created in such a manner would be overly safe in a demon-summoning situation." He rose and moved around the circle, examining the other candles, with the same result. "What about the blood? Have you done a reading of it?"

The ability to sometimes touch blood and gain information or "see" who or what it had belonged to was a recent mutation of my psychometry ability, and one I tended to avoid using unless absolutely necessary, if only because touching blood somehow sharpened the connection and ultimately made it more dangerous.

"No, I have not," I replied.

"Do you want to do a reading of it?"

"That would also be a very sensible no, but I will, as it may be our only way of getting any sort of information." I wrinkled my nose. "But don't get your hopes up. Given how dried it now is, it's likely too much time has already passed for me to gain anything useful."

"Still worth a try, because right now, we've got nothing else."

I'm back online came Belle's still somewhat weary comment. I'll drag you back if anything untoward happens.

Why the hell are you awake? You need more sleep.

I needed to pee more . Amusement ran down the line. Never fear, I will stagger back to the bedroom once you're finished. Unless, of course, the blood leads to Maelle, and then I will grab a strong coffee to wake myself up, because we both know you will immediately go and talk to her.

I'm doing that anyway. I need to know if any of the dead are her people. But Monty can come with me.

Monty won't be allowed inside, and we both know it.

Yes, but it won't hurt to have him there.

It wouldn't hurt to have Ashworth or Eli there, either.

Aside from being overkill, Maelle could see that as a threat. I drew in a deeper breath and then returned my attention to Monty. "Belle's awake."

"Ah, good. Well, good for this process; not so good for her."

"She promised to go back to sleep once we're done."

She did not.

I ignored her, stepped closer to the stain, and squatted down. It was only then that I spotted the small, yellow, coin-sized charm almost hidden by strands of bloody grass. I pointed at the thing. "What is that?"

"Don't know." He squatted opposite me and held out a hand, letting it hover an inch or so above the token. "There's a vague pulse of magic coming from it."

"A spell?"

"Not any kind that I've come across, but we are dealing with a dark mage, so that doesn't mean anything. It could be just residue from whatever spell was used."

"Why would a blood mage need to use a charm in a summoning ceremony?"

"You're asking me that like you expect me to know the answer." He glanced up at Aiden. "You want to take a photo before I examine the thing?"

Aiden stepped forward, took several photos from different angles, then squatted next to me. "There's some sort of image etched on the surface of it."

"There is?" I squinted at the thing, but between the grass half covering it and the blood smudged over a good portion of the visible surface, it was hard to see anything else. But his eyes were far sharper than either mine or Monty's.

"Yeah, though it's faint." He opened one of the photos and enlarged the image and showed us both. On the visible part of the charm—the section not covered by the grass—was a faint, partial figure of a man-like creature with disproportionately large fists.

"What that image means," Monty said, his voice grim, "is that this charm is a demon summoner. They're supposedly very rare, not only because the fuckers are extremely dangerous but because few people actually have the skill or the magical power to create them."

"Maelle and Marie would have both, I'm thinking," I said.

"Yes, but the question is, which one of them created this thing?"

"If there's magical residue sitting on the thing," Aiden commented, "it likely won't be safe for Liz to touch it and find out."

Monty wrinkled his nose. "Possible, but from the little I know of them, they're inert unless activated and generally are only one-use items. But I don't know enough about them to be certain."

"What about Ashworth or Eli?" I asked. "Is it worth contacting them?"

"I'll ring them while you check the blood." He immediately rose and stepped away to make the call.

I tugged off a glove, then, after checking Belle was ready, warily brushed a finger across several strands of blood-stained grass. Nothing stirred across the psychic lines. I frowned and pressed a section of bloody grass between two fingers, but the result was the same. As I'd suspected, too much time had passed to get any sort of sense of who or what might have shed this blood.

I hesitated, and then shifted my fingers, letting them drift across the grass covering the charm. Energy burned across my skin, the pulse so bright and powerful it rocked me backward. I would have landed on my ass had Aiden not moved with lightning speed and somehow steadied me.

"You okay?" he asked. I nodded and, after a slight hesitation, he released me and then added, "What the hell was that flash?"

"A warning not to touch the charm."

"Meaning it's not a one-off charm."

"Definitely not." I rubbed my fingers together. Though the flash hadn't burned me, a slight residue remained, and my psi senses stirred. While I couldn't be absolutely certain, that residue felt more like Maelle than Marie. Which might not mean anything, given one was the fledgling of the other, but still … I glanced up as Monty came back. "Anything?"

"Yeah, they said not to touch the thing."

His voice was dry, and I gave him a lopsided smile. "Technically, I didn't."

"Technicalities often don't matter when dealing with this sort of shit. Ashworth's on his way with the appropriate tools to disarm it."

"Meaning he's come across them before?"

"Once, apparently. I described the image that appears on it, though, and he wasn't familiar with that type of demon. Eli's going to do a search to see what we might be dealing with."

I frowned. "We're not dealing with it, though. It was sent back to wherever it was summoned from."

"That's what we're presuming, but not necessarily the case."

"Huh." I pushed to my feet. "Did he say if he needed us all here? Because I have to go talk to Maelle."

"Is that really a good move?" Aiden said, rising with me. "If those are her people inside that house, she's going to be in a foul mood."

"I doubt her mood could get any fouler, given what is happening with Roger."

"Then wait for either Monty or Ashworth to go with?—"

"Monty won't be allowed inside," I cut in. "And if she did decide to attack me in there, it'd take him too long to break through the magic protecting her place to be of any use."

"That's presuming I could break through in any meaningful amount of time," he said. "And to be honest, it's likely that she's ramped up the protections since we were last there. I suspect it'd take a concerted effort by all of us to break in. By the time we did, Maelle would be gone."

Aiden's frown deepened. "I still don't think it's a wise move."

I leaned toward him and dropped a kiss on his cheek. "Whatever else Maelle is, she's not a fool. She may want to taste the wild magic in my blood, but right now she needs me to help her eradicate Marie and her crew. She won't do anything until after this fight is done."

He grunted, not sounding in the least convinced. But he dragged his keys out of his pocket and held them out to me. "Let me know when you're going in and safely out."

"Will do. And I'm not going in there alone—Belle is with me mentally, remember."

"I remember."

And still wasn't comforted.

With a quick grin, I dropped another kiss on his cheek, then turned and headed back down the hill, climbing through the fence before making my way around to Aiden's truck. After carefully reversing out, I drove out of the property and back into town. Once at Maelle's, I parked the truck and then reached down for the pack, pulling the silk-wrapped ring from the side pocket and tucking it into my jean shorts. I might yet need to find Roger, but instinct was twitching, and I wasn't about to gainsay her.

As I climbed out of the truck, a soft but luminous glimmer caught my eye.

Wild magic. Katie's wild magic, rather than the older wellspring's. And it struck me then that I really hadn't seen many threads from her wellspring over the last few days, and that was extremely unusual given she was usually right on top of anything bad happening in the reservation.

I held out a hand, and it wrapped around my wrist. While it was totally possible for me to contact Katie—or vice versa—without using the wild magic, we both tended to default to its use simply because it eased the drain on our strength.

Everything okay? I asked.

The old wellspring's influence spreads. The Fenna have been in contact with me. Us.

I blinked, even as unease stirred. Not for me, not even for the reservation, but for her. She and Gabe had sacrificed everything to become the newer wellspring's guardians, and it would really suck if, in an effort to protect the O'Connor compound and my daughter, I'd jeopardized their position.

What did they want?

To judge me. To judge my … suitability, I suppose.

They'd judged me, too, and while it now appeared I hadn't been totally rejected, I also hadn't been fully accepted. But Katie was in a totally different situation. She existed because of the wellspring—because her soul had been basically fused to it.

And?

And they offered to teach us to control and protect this place in the same manner as a full Fenna if I am willing to let you step into my spring.

If they're asking rather than demanding, that surely has to mean they can't break the hold you and Gabe have on the spring.

They never said that.

Well, they wouldn't, would they?

No came Gabe's comment, his tone deep and warm, but in many respects, they didn't need to, as that was the implication of them seeking permission . Katie is this spring's protector, and I'm hers. She might not be Fenna, but our dual presence gives us Fenna-like control over our clearing. But while we can watch over the greater reservation, we have no means to protect it. That is what they offered to teach us.

It would be brilliant if that were true, because it would definitely take some of the pressure from me, at least until my daughter was old enough to step into the position. Presuming, of course, that she wanted to step into it. Between my stubbornness and her father's alpha, often single-minded tendencies, it was always possible she'd refuse the life I'd committed her to. God only knew what would happen then, but I would back that choice if she made it. No matter what it might cost me.

Because there would be a cost. The Fenna might not be gods, but they were powerful, omniscient beings, and probably the closest we got to them these days. I rather suspected they would not appreciate a promise broken.

Did they say why they want me to step into your spring?

This spring is newer, fresher, and far less powerful than the main one, Gabe replied. They said you cannot control the old, that you are too old, too untrained, and it would destroy you. But that would not be the case with ours, apparently.

They also said, Katie added, you will need every ounce of power you can muster if you wish to defeat that which infests this place.

Oh, that was fucking good to know. Would me stepping into your spring mean I usurp your position and become its defender?

It hadn't with the older wellspring, but possibly only because they'd rejected me as unsuitable for all the reasons Gabe had mentioned, although at the time that hadn't really been clear. I'd just gotten stuck on the whole rejection point of it.

No, Katie said. It will simply allow you to use this one in the same manner as you do the older, but without the immediate danger of being consumed.

"Immediate" meaning it remained a threat if I overused it. I frowned. But I can already call to your spring's power.

Not to the same extent. That which entwines through your magic has mostly been old.

I leaned back against the truck and contemplated the building ahead, though I wasn't really seeing anything other than the multiple layering of bright magic that sparkled like a dark and dangerous rainbow in the heat of the day. That rainbow was definitely more intricate—more deadly looking—than it had been earlier.

Belle, what do you think?

Does it matter what either of us think? If you don't do it, the Fenna will throw another tanty.

I mentally snorted. You can hardly call threatening to destroy the whole compound a mere tanty.

Perhaps. Doesn't alter the truth of the comment, though.

Frustration and no small amount of angst stirred through me. While the thought of having the younger wellspring's power at my call—without fear of refusal or a personal physical cost—was undoubtedly tempting, I couldn't help but worry what it would mean for my daughter. I'd already bound her to one. Dare I risk further consequences—to her life, and to her freedom to choose what she wanted—by stepping into a second and possibly binding her to it? Because I suspected that's what might lie behind this request, even if it was couched as a means of helping me. What's your feeling on the whole thing, Katie?

I don't like what is gathering in this place. These vampires do not care for anything or anyone other than their own wants and desires. The killings will not stop no matter who wins their war. Their darkness will spread. I can see it, hear it, in the faint voices that rise from my wellspring.

Could the voices be telling you what you fear in order to get you to do what they want?

She hesitated . That's possible, I guess.

Gabe? Your thoughts?

I think we need to know more about the Fenna and their power before any further decisions are made, he said gravely. For what it is worth, though, I do believe they intend to help you.

I believed that too, but like he'd already said, we just didn't know enough about them to be certain we weren't causing future problems.

Tell them I'll think about it. I hesitated. Tell them to talk to me if they want me to do this, not you.

Katie's chuckle ran softly around me. Oh, I pity my mother. Between you and Aiden, your child is going to have one hell of a wild and stubborn streak.

That's presuming your mother is allowed to have anything to do with her, I said bluntly. Right now, that's not looking good.

When she sees your daughter, she will mellow. I promise you that.

I sniffed, unconvinced. Katie had been promising a change of heart almost since day one, and it still hadn't happened. As her threads unwound from my wrist and drifted away, I returned my attention to the club.

To see the doors open and Maelle standing inside the foyer, just beyond the creeping reach of sunshine.