“Don’t disappear again,” he throws over his wide, beautiful shoulder. “I won’t like it as much the next time.”
I take a very long, hot shower and wonder why I’m not more concerned about losing a day or two. Because ... I’m not. At all. It’s not the loss of days that feels odd to me, only my reaction to it. Surely that should be the sort of thing that a normal person would find ... troubling, at the very least.
Yet try as I might, when I draw up the laundry list of troubling things that have happened recently, feeling loopy and giddy andrestedfrom some spell Savi cast doesn’t make the list.
When I leave Ty’s den, I’m thinking that I’ll head into the grand cavern, but I stop, still deep in the tunnels. Do I really want to explain myself and my impromptu vacation on the heels of the Connor thing? I don’t. That’s the easy answer.
A more complicated answer is that if I feel anything about my loss of days, it’s that I’m running out of time. Vinca is already in a vessel, waiting for her moment. Moments around here are usually moons. That means it’s three days to another bloody battle that’s not even my top emotional concern regarding the night in question.
Maybe I feel like there are loose threads that need addressing before the next potential apocalypse.
I told Winter on Christmas that I thought Augie was in a better place. Today there’s something kicking in me that tells me I need to go see if that’s true. I turn away from the communal caverns and head outthe back entrance. Then I run out into the woods instead, following that mining trail as it winds deeper into the Siskiyous.
I don’t know what I expect to see when I make the climb to the top of the crevice and peer down into it. I would have heard if something had happened to Augie. I expect him to be alive. It’s just ... what kind of alive?
Maybe it’s because I had an enchanted sleep, or because a creepy stalker I thought was a friendwatched me sleepwithout me any the wiser, butquality of lifeseems important to me today.
When I look down, I can see Augie huddled in his lean-to. He has all of his blankets wrapped around him, but he doesn’t look like he’s shivering. Or twitching like he was the last time. He’s sitting up. And when his eyes lift and meet mine, I can see that he’s lucid.
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if he can recognize me in my wolf form.
Either way, all he does is nod. Then he returns his attention to contemplating whatever it is that’s in front of him. Something inside him, I figure, because from my vantage point there’s nothing down there but him.
Him and whatever demons he brought with him.
Still, deep in my gut, I know that whatever happens and however it looks on the other side, Augie is going to make it. I’m sure of it.
I can tell Winter that the next time she asks.
When I get back to the den, Ty meets me in the tunnel outside his rooms.
I can see immediately from the look on his face that something’s wrong. I wait, and whine a little, shifting from paw to paw.
“More sacrifices,” he tells me. He doesn’t point out that if there are more, it means Connor wasn’t our only problem. I get there all by myself. “Looks like three goblin females, crucified—literally fuckingcrucified—and hung up behind Savi’s house.”
“Behind it?” I try to take that in. “But Ariel’s men and the pack were all over the place up there.”
“Exactly,” he says. “Now there are idiots in cloaks all over the place.”
“Great,” I mutter. “That sounds like a party.”
“No way is Vinca out there fighting in some minion parade,” Ty says. He rubs his hand over my furry head, and I lean into it. “All things considered, maybe you should be over with the oracle tonight. The vampires are already down there fighting, and I’m feeling like I need to jump in too. The fewer minions, the better.”
I think about the implications of that as we head out. Ty has all of our patrols on high alert, especially in the wake of the one-two punch that was Connor and my little weekend spell break. He handpicks a selection of the lieutenants he has here, the most promising of the younger males, and orders half of them to patrol the woods around Winter’s house. He takes the rest with him as he streaks off into the hills on the way to Ashland.
It doesn’t occur to me until I walk in the front door and sit down in a chair in the living room—where Winter is already sitting, gazing up with a curious look on her face as if the Christmas tree that’s sparkling at her holds the mysteries of the universe—that I was able to walk right in. She’s clearly not bothering to lock anything up any longer.
A few months ago this would have been a straight-up death wish. Tonight, however, I’m pretty sure it’s because our tough little human is starting to realize the place she occupies in this valley. That, and it probably means there are more of Ariel’s vampire warriors in the woods. Not to mention whatever spell Savi put on us, to ward us—though I doubt Winter trusts that any more than I do at the moment, since we have no idea if it works.
Then again, maybe she’s finally crashing out. No one could blame her.
“I take it you heard,” she says, without looking at me as I settle in my chair. “I saw it.”
“You saw ... the three of them? Goblin females, Ty said?”
“It wasn’t immediately clear that they weren’t the three of us.” Winter is sitting with her legs crossed in the armchair, and she’s playing with the cardsbetween her hands, though her gaze is unfocused and still aimed at the tree. This is how I know that she’s not done with her oracle shit.
“You thought it was us?” I blink. “You, me, and Savi?”
