“Then you’re only being half of yourself. And you’ll die sooner. If you don’t feed properly, your lifespan will be reduced. You’ll get a measly hundred years if you’re lucky.”
“I can deal with that.” I head up the bank toward the road. “I’m going home.”
“Home to that strange little town of yours, where they don’t let humans in?”
“They let humans in sometimes, for festivals or surf competitions.”
“But you don’t really live in the town with the rest of them, do you? You live outside the limits, at the riding stable.” Her voice gives the last two words a bitter twist. “I find it revolting that you keep horses as pets.”
“They aren’t pets. I rescue and rehabilitate them.”
“But you make them work for you.”
“The horses we use for trail rides actually enjoy it,” I tell her. “I’m very careful about the clients I accept. It’s easy work for the horses, and in exchange they get the best of care.”
“Tell yourself whatever you want. Your life here is utter perversion. And it’s disgustingly selfish of you to keep expecting Anson and me to shoulder all the responsibility for Mother.”
“Let me get this straight.” I plant both hands on my hips. “You want me to come back to the herd so I can supervise Mother’s hunts until she’s so frail that she loses everyone’s respect, and then you want me to take her out into the surf and cut her throat with my teeth. You want me to watch while the herd eats her down to bones, and then you want me to mate with some new lead stallion I don’teven know. I’m supposed to stick around, suck up to the snarky mares of the herd, and become part of the strange inbred mess that our species has become?”
Valeria hisses her frustration through her teeth. “You constantly focus on the negative. You ignore the glorious history of our kind—”
“Bloody and psychopathic, you mean.”
“Fine!” She stalks toward me, her eyes hotly rose-colored, her teeth sharpening to points. “I tried to do this the nice way, but since you’re so resistant, we’ll try something else. Marlowe Reilly, you have been summoned by the alpha mare of Herd Aerouant. Youwillreturn to the Paddock and serve the collective. If you refuse, there will be consequences.”
“Like what?”
My sister smiles, slow and wicked. “Like the destruction of the life you’ve built. You can’t fool me, Lowe. The people of your precious town don’t want you around, not really. They don’t trust you enough to let you live within the town limits.”
“If I lived within the wards, I wouldn’t be able to get enough business for the riding stable,” I counter.
“Explain it all you want—we both know the truth. Your existence here is a fragile thing. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to comply with the summons, and if you don’t, I will destroy it all. The house you live in, the women who work for you, the buildings, the fences—everything. And the handsome fisherman fellow from the pond, too. You wanted him. Don’t deny it, I could smell it on you. Not just hunger, but lust. I will take him away, along witheverything else, and when it’s all gone, you will have no choice but to return to us.”
My own teeth change shape, developing daggerlike points. “That man means nothing to me. I don’t even know his name. Leave him out of this. And don’t you dare even think of touching Tess or Ashala, or any of the horses.”
“They’re meat-bags, Lowe. Blood and flesh and organs. Fat and viscera and bone. Nothing more.” Her transformation continues, her joints unhinging and her bones stretching. “Forty-eight hours.”
She shifts into her equine shape and delivers a long, whinnying shriek before galloping away in the opposite direction from Crescent Cove.
It takes me a minute to complete my own transformation. I’ve fought against it so effectively for so long that any shift is usually compulsive, involuntary. I’m out of practice at shifting when I need to, rather than when I have to.
As I race back through the woods toward the coast, I consider everything Valeria said. She promised me forty-eight hours. If she has one good quality, it’s that she keeps her word. And she’s right about one thing—violence and murder are part of our nature. If I know her, she’s half-hoping I’ll tell hernoso she can start destroying everything I love.
Two days, and then she’ll unleash bloody retribution for my failure to take my place in our family’s herd.
How am I going to get rid of her?
Going back to the herd is out of the question, but family loyalty is deeply ingrained with our kind. The summons of the lead mare is a powerful compulsion. Evennow I feel our mother’s call magnetizing my bones, twitching at the latent threads of guilt in my heart.
I could kill my sister before she can do any damage around here. But that would undo so much of the progress I’ve made with my personal growth and restraint.
I could go to the town council and explain the situation. I lease the land from Crescent Cove, so it’s possible they would help me. But since Spyglass Stables technically lies outside the barrier, I’m not sure the council would interfere. It’s more likely that they’d just tell me to leave and take the threat of trouble with me.
Maybe a local witch would agree to place a smaller barrier around my property to keep my sister out. But wards like that are expensive, and I’m saving up to replace the roof on one of the barns. Paying for the barrier will wipe out most of that money, unless there’s a witch willing to do the spell for free.
I don’t like asking for favors, especially from other supernaturals. Depending on one’s gifts, it can be difficult to make a decent living as a supernatural, and I’m a firm believer in paying people for what they can do. In this case, though, I might have to swallow my pride and beg for a favor, with the promise of paying it forward eventually.
Whatever I decide, it looks like I’ll need to attend the town council meeting tomorrow night—ortonight, I guess, because it’s nearly dawn.
