“Our team hasn’t arrived, and they haven’t passed a red Range Rover with two bad tires, but Kojo says there are fresh tracks in the snow that match that sort of damage. He thinks we missed them and expects to find them gone. The snowmobiles are trying to follow the tracks, but it isn’t likely that the attackers will stick to back roads when the county has kept the main roads plowed.”
“Eli wanted me to take the time to silver cuff them.”
“In which case they would still be there, or their backup would have rescued them already and Eli would possibly be dead. Don’t second-guess yourself in battlefield situations.”
That sounded like Eli more than Bruiser, but I nodded and breathed in his scent, warm and citrusy and Onorio spicy. “There’s a vamp in the back. He’s temporarily bound to Eli. Eli shot him with an ash wood arrow in his belly and I broke his neck. He can be healed and bled and read.”
“Good thinking.” He paused, his hand unmoving on an ear tab. “Temporarily bound to Eli?”
“Yeah. Apparently as Dark Queen, I can do things with paranormal energies.” I gave him a brief description of what I had done.
“That is very much like the way I bind with Onorio energies.”
Which meant that I could, possibly, drain a vamp theway an Onorio could. Interesting. “Could you bind me? Could I bind you?”
Bruiser frowned, thinking. “Doubtful. Leo wasn’t successful binding you, and I am not as powerful as Leo.Anamcharamutual binding might be possible.”
“No, thanks.” I chuffed a breath and stood. “Love you, but I don’t need a third person in my brain.”
Bruiser’s eyes moved down my body. “You’re injured?”
I looked down and the tree rash had seeped through the sweatshirt in pinkish, bloody smears. “Nothing a shift to some other form won’t help.” I explained about the strange shift and the tree burn.
Although his concerned expression didn’t alter, I could have sworn that Bruiser smelled amused.
***
Inside, I ate a half-raw steak and trudged up the stairs to shower and shift and make plans. On the way home I had told Alex everything about the two groups of vamps in town, more to keep him occupied and not in a panic about his brother, and to give him something to do, than out of urgent necessity. He had called in online help in the form of Bodat, his gamer friend, to do research into Legolas. I was sure he’d have something soon.
The shower water was hot and painful on the tree rash, but I let the pain center me and hold me to thenowso I didn’t look at the water droplets of time. Droplets that might show me a way to keep my partner from getting shot. I kept my eyes shut and grieved and soaped and rinsed and let myself suffer. It was the very least I deserved.
When I was clean, I gave myself to Beast and let her choose the form I’d take. I took that pain too, as my due, and ended up a Jane-faced, unfanged, hairless half human with hard, fixed claws and long black hair. I dragged myself back upright from the shower floor and turned off the water. Dried my more familiar, healed body and pulled on athletic undies and black Lycra yoga pants along with a tight tee that covered my skin but left no doubt that I was ready for battle. I looked pale so I put onlipstick, red, the color of the Range Rovers and the color of Eli’s blood. So I wouldn’t forget that Legolas was mine. Added my double shoulder holster with the matching crimson grips—battle ready. The holster chafed my skin through the thin material, but I didn’t care. I changed out the ammo for silver. Hair down, barefoot, I opened the door to the hallway.
Ed stood in the hallway, waiting. He said nothing. I waited. He still said nothing. My tone noncommittal and uninflected, I said, “Ed.”
The silence stretched. I waited some more. Finally, he said, “I fear that in getting me free, you have shown Shimon all your cards. He cannot be beaten. He will attack this house and kill us all.” His voice was broken, hoarse.
“Follow me.” I turned and took the stairs at a springy fast pace that forced Ed to use his vamp powers to keep up. When I entered the central area I shouted, “Molly? Got a minute?”
“I got a minute, Big-Cat,” she whispered, sticking her head around the wall from the baking kitchen, “but if you wake up my babies I’ll skin you alive.”
“Understood. Edmund seems to think that we’ve showed the big bad ugly all our cards and that Shimon will win. What’s your professional witch opinion?”
Molly laughed, her red curls bouncing, body language looking innocent and prey-like, though her expression was definitely not prey. Her face was set in dangerous lines. “Not happening, Eddie. Not now, not ever.” She stared at my primo. Her scent was ripe and intense, the musk of an apex predator. She had been practicing her death magics and I wondered how many trees in the forest out back she had killed. “You look like you’ve been tortured, healed, and tortured again, my fanghead friend.”
“I’ll live.”
“Not really. Undead isn’t alive.”
“I’ll take what I can get until my mistress and my sworn family are safe.”
“Yeah?” She stepped around the wall, her hands fisted and a sprig of rosemary in her left. “You’ve been the prisoner of a mad vamp, possessed by his madder witch spirit.I’m guessing he left a little something-something inside your head. You gonna let me take a look?”
“I’ll die true-dead before I give up the sanctity of my mind again. No. You’ll have to trust me.”
“Trust?” She chortled as if he had said something witty. “Again. Not happening, Eddie. Not now, not until the Flayer is dead and eaten, though if we find a few days free, I could maybe create adetectionworking that might give us warning if you get a brain visitor.”
“Yes. Thank you. Should you find time,” Edmund said.
