It was as if an invisible barrier had been pulled back and a hook had caught in my chest, dragging me backward, urging me to leave before the sharpened fangs got too close to my heart.
At the same time, all I wanted to do was go forward, lean into it, lean into that pain until I bled dry.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That,” Raven said, “is a problem.”
Lula slowed the truck, had been slowing it for some time. She pulled onto the shoulder, dust and gravel crunching under the wheels.
Her hands were locked on the wheel, knuckles bone white. She bit at her bottom lip, and the smallest drop of blood formed there.
“I can block it.” Raven snapped his fingers, and I heaved a huge breath as if I’d just come up from the bottom of the ocean too quickly.
“Damnit,” I coughed, “warn a man.”
Lula swallowed, and swallowed, then wiped at her mouth with the back of her trembling hand.
I was shaking too.
“Sorry for the drama,” Raven said, “but I needed you both to experience it so you would believe what I’m going to say next. You felt that, didn’t you? You felt the beacon?”
“The hell kind of beacon is that?” I asked.
The hook in my chest, the call, the desire had been almost physical. Even though I hated the minutes I’d been in contactwith it, it left an ache behind. An ache that made me want it again.
Fucking vampires.
“It’s a…I supposegeiswould be a good term,” Raven said. “Compulsion works too.”
“A compulsion from whom? To do what?” Even as I said it, I knew the answer.
It wasn’t Raven who answered, though. It was Lula. “To fight Dominick for territory and power,” she said. “Or die trying.”
“That’s correct,” the god said. “Only other supernaturals can sense it. But really, it’s a call to one person.”
“Variance,” Lula said.
Raven nodded. “Variance.”
“Why is Dominick trying to lure him into a fight?”
“Variance was turned by Dominick,” Raven said, “but Variance refuses to fall under his heel. Vampires—most—become less reasonable as time passes. Dominick is very old and has been ruling over the vampires in his territory for a very long time. With Variance on his side, Dominick would move into the witches’ territory, turning them and creating a powerful, new supernatural.”
Vampire witches. The thought of magic-wielding vampires made chills run down my back.
“Does Dominick know that Variance is coming for his head?” I asked.
Raven nodded. “He’s counting on it. He wants to break him, destroy the man who won’t worship at his throne.”
“Why wait for Variance to come to him?” I asked.
“He needs the power of his own territory,” Lu said.
Again, Raven nodded.
“Does Dominick know we’re here? That I’m here?” Lula asked.
“I don’t think so,” Raven said. “Not yet.”
