“Wrists. Not throats.”
“Done.” He turned and left her kitchen. Cursing under her breath, Bedelia placed three small wood discs on the table, discs that could be used to reactive the wards. Her human daughters would be here soon. They could drop the wards and get inside fine because their blood was attuned to the wards. But they would need to start the wards up again. She looked around at the kitchen and checked in again on mama. All was well with her, at least. She had slept through the hammering.
Bedelia stopped at the hallway closet door, turned to the side, and prayed. It was a prayer of desperation and fear; tears pricked her eyes. When she was done, she pulled open the hallway closet door, picked up a second bag of tricks, and walked into the night to meet Lincoln Shaddock. Linc, who was the ‘father of the body’ of most of her daughters. The father of Liz and Cia. He had a right to be there to save them. God help her.
“We’ll take my car,” Linc said when she was ready.
Linc
Linc didn’t take her hand as he led her to his vehicle. Those days were long gone and all his fault. He’d been a vampire predator first and a lover second. And to use Bedelia’s mother’s words, a “thrice-damned fool.”
He opened the door to the car, and she slid in. She smelled of chamomile and his barbeque and that faint aroma of roses in her blood. No other woman in his entire long life had smelled so sweet.
He shut the door and went around to the driver’s side, waving away the driver. “Contact Alex Younger. Keep track of what we know about the scene with Elizabeth and Eli. Update me regularly.” If anyone could keep his daughter safe it was the former Ranger. But he was only human. The last communication he’d heard was that they were safe for now under ahedge of thorns, the demon was free, and the werewolves were most probably on the way to the campsite. It was a trap, and part of that trap was the result of his error for allowing Mayhew to live after his wife died. When the vampire got away during a breach of his clan home, Linc had known it would come back to haunt him, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it would result in danger to his daughter.
Alex Younger had found the Mayhew witch at the home she’d rented and had been tracking her activities via credit card use over the last week. It was not a fast job, even using the programs he’d created to access security cameras, bank records, and the GPS of her vehicle. Mayhew had met several times in restaurants with men who, three months ago had quit their jobs and changed their lifestyles radically. Alex said their appearances in public matched when the moon was not full, and when full, they disappeared. There was no proof that they were a small rogue werewolf pack, but he assumed so since Brute indicated a rogue rabid pack was in the vicinity.
Law Enforcement and all the necessary wildlife and park rangers had been notified, but there was no way any human agency could provide support in the dark in that terrain against a demon and a rogue pack. Worse, they could be infected. His people couldn’t. Jane Yellowrock, the Dark Queen of the Mithrans, had a call into the necessary elected officials, informing them that her people were handling it. But he and Jane both knew it was his job and his failure that led to this. He would owe her a great deal when this was over, and Lincoln hated owing anyone anything.
Linc got in and started the vehicle. Silent, they pulled out of the drive and headed toward Hot Springs, Painted Rock, and the enemy of his beloved. If Bedelia had any trouble dealing with the Mayhew witch, he would draw on the energies of his people, walk into the witch’s home, and rip off her head. No one hurt his family.
Bedelia
She had no idea what to say or how to say it. Not to Linc. But she could plan for the working. She hadn’t trapped a misbehaving witch in years. It would be a challenge; just thinking about it made her pulse rate rise and her breathing deepen.
Linc
He watched as she redialed Mable and listened in unabashedly. “Hey, Mabs. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes. You and Clara Anne stop at the bottom of the hill and call. If everything’s okay, you can come on up. I’ll have vampires at the perimeter to fight off the werewolves.”
“Ohhh. vampires? The pretty one?” Mabel asked.
Bee glanced at him from the corner of her eye and grinned. It was just a little wicked and his heart actually beat once. “Oh yeah. The cutie-pie Master of the City, as you called him once.”
“Is he still single?”
“He’s a woman-chasing, human-hunting, bloodsucker, Mabs,” Bedelia said casually, cutting him to the bone. “Why do you care?”
“It’s been a while,” Mable said with asperity. “I’d like a night of fun and wine and wild sex under the full moon.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Bedelia said, her tone as dry as the Sahara.
“You do that. Tell him I’ll bring the wine.”
Staring straight ahead, Bedelia ended the call.
Linc said, “‘A woman-chasing, human-hunting, bloodsucker’?” He touched his chest. “I’m decimated, Bee. I weep at the characterization.”
“Uh huh. You want a date with Mabs?”
“No. As I recall, your friend Mable is a scrawny bottle-blond who smokes clove cigarettes, marijuanadoobiesas big as cigars, and drinks far too much while sitting on her front porch and flashing her charms to passersby when she’s drunk.”
“Nailed it. She thinks you’re cute.”
“I am a gentleman of the highest order, well educated, a fine chef, and utterly charming. I am notcute.”
Bedelia laughed, the notes cascading through the vehicle like bells in a church.
Walls Linc hadn’t even known were built around his heart tumbled to the ground like the broken protections of Jericho.
