:How many?:Rik asked.
:Two, one male, one female, headed into Eureka Springs. With somany vehicles and humans in the city, I’ll lose their scent if they don’t get out of the vehicle.:
:We’ve got eyes on them,:Nevarre reported.:Silver four-door sedan with Texas plates. The birds will track them into the city and let us know if they pass through or stop for the night.:
:Well done,:I told them all.:If they stop for the night, let’s get their names. Leonie’s looking for her consiliarius’ kin named Landry. Maybe they’re trying to make contact with another queen.:
:That’s a fairly common surname,:Nevarre replied.:I believe there’s even a restaurant franchise with the same name.:
I was aware of his words, even though I focused on the rolling tapestry in my mind. Usually I didn’t bother looking at humans—except for my friends and family. But maybe I could get a sense of these humans who’d been watching my nest before they disappeared into the city. It was easy to find them with Nevarre flying overhead. Xin raced cross-country to catch them at the next winding bend of the mountain road. My birds glimmered against the tapestry, lining the road into Eureka Springs like a string of black pearls.
I didn’t immediately sense any evil about them. They glowed like normal humans with a bright star-like quality that was indistinguishable to me from the billions of others on this planet. Though perhaps I could mark them somehow…
I used my index finger’s nail to lightly draw a bead of my blood. Ripples of power flowed across the tapestry, bringing all the texture and details to life. I could smell the pine and oak. The oily tar of the asphalt. The exhaust of the car. I pressed closer, stretching that drop of blood out to lightly touch the man, driving. The woman sitting in the back seat. Young. Familiar. Which was odd, because I didn’t know that many humans outside of House Isador’s connections. Then I remembered.
A petite redhead. She’d been on Galveston’s local new station when I’d ridden Guillaume out into the gulf to find Undina.
Rik made a low rumbling sigh.:You’re right, my queen. How did she find you so quickly? It’s been, what, forty-eight hours?:
:Why would a college student follow us home?:
Guillaume’s bond gleamed with a whisper of drawn steel.:Let alone have the financial resources to hire a car and come so far on a whim. I think one of us should pay young Regina a visit.:
I remembered what happened to the nosy saleswoman in Kansas City when she displayed too much interest in me. I’d barely seen G move, and her head rolled. She’d been tainted with Marne Ceresa’s blood.
I touched my droplet of blood I’d marked the young woman with. Not physically—just a metaphysical smudge so I could find her easily again. Opening my senses, listening, feeling for any other queen’s signature. I didn’t sense anything amiss, but I might not have been able to tell with the saleswoman, either. It’d been a subtle spell.
:I don’t want her killed until we know why she’s here. Let’s track her, find out where she’s staying, and see what she does. Sekh, can you look through her past and see what she’s been up to?:
:Absolutely, my queen. If I find anything remarkable, I’ll notify you at once.:
:I suggest having one of the human security guards tail her,:Guillaume said. :We’ll all stand out like a sore thumb among the humans.:
:Good idea,:Rik replied.
:I’ll pass the word on to Frank.:
:Nevarre, Xin, return to the nest once Frank’s team shows up.:
Rik didn’t say why aloud. There was no need. My Blood knew full well why my alpha wanted them all available. Pulling my awareness back from the humans, I listened to my body. I could feed. Certainly. But I didn’t feel out of control or desperate.
:That’s good,:Rik said.:We want to stay ahead of your hunger, my queen.:
He must have subtly nudged my sleeping Blood in the bond.Or perhaps they simply felt the stirring of my hunger. Daire began to purr before he even lifted his head off Ezra’s chest. Mehen pressed closer, but he was on my hair, which tugged my head down to the mattress. I’d forgotten to tame the wild mass of hair when I got out of the bathtub. Already dry somehow despite its thickness and length, the hair I’d inherited from my mother seemed to have a mind of its own. Tendrils curled around Mehen’s throat. Ezra’s legs. Rik’s waist.
Daire sat upright, his head sagging back as my hair drew his arms behind his back, binding his wrists together in the small of his back.
I smelled blood, which made my eyelids flutter open. I wasn’t even aware I’d closed my eyes while I drank them all in. Their scents flowed over me. The texture of their skin and muscle. As if my hair was simply an extension of my own awareness. I could feel them physically without anything else touching them.
“I wonder if you can feed through this hair?” I didn’t need Rik’s low rumble to tell me he was the one who bled. My alpha held his bleeding wrist over Daire’s buttocks and then swept his wrist out over the black blanket of my hair tangled around them.
Each droplet of blood into my hair made me quiver. The smell of his blood like hot, smoking rock and iron, glowing from the forge. “I can, yeah,” I said, my voice husky with rising desire. “But I want the pump and flow of blood in my mouth too.”
Mehen’s bloody forearm curled around my face. Not the one I’d bitten a hunk out of. “Are we allowed to feed this time?”
Rik didn’t answer right away, so I said, “Yes. If I’m going to start my period soon, then we have a week to pump everyone up, including myself.”
Leaning down so he could sink a bite into Ezra’s chest, Dairegroaned against the pull in his arms. “Please, Griz. You said I could have the hook once our queen joined us.”
