by Sadie Moss
When Neoma’s neck wound had mostly healed, the man pulled away. In the darkness, it was hard to make out his exact features, but I could tell he had shaggy brown hair, a lean frame, and high cheekbones.
“Come on, pets. Let’s get you home.”
He scooped both women up by their waists, holding their sagging bodies like sacks of grain. He was tall, but nowhere near as broad as Jerrett, Malcolm, or Sol. Yet his vampire strength was enough to let him carry the two women with ease. He hefted them a little higher, and they both grunted weakly.
Then he slipped away into the shadows.
I stared after them in shock. The weird sisters were vampires? Who was this man who had turned them? I tried to make my consciousness follow after them again, but instead, I felt myself being pulled away. I flew backward down the street, the rushing scenery disappearing into blackness.
A moment later, I slammed back into my body.
No.
Not my body. Someone else’s.
Those weren’t my large hands I looked down at. They were Malcolm’s.
When I cast my gaze up, I saw dense trees surrounding me, their bark almost purplish in the dusky twilight. My feet moved, and I walked through the forest, but I wasn’t controlling the movements. Malcolm was.
But I was inside his head somehow.
A barrage of unfamiliar thoughts and images assaulted me. I saw myself, covered in blood, my hazel eyes dull. Then a pair of blue eyes, shining with malice. Ariana?
Before I could process that, my consciousness sank deeper into Malcolm’s, and his emotions swept through me. It was as though I’d been absorbed into his soul, his entire essence laid bare before me.
I felt his guilt, the dark heaviness of it almost crushing me. I felt his anguish and remorse.
I felt his love.
It burned like a beacon in the tortured blackness of his soul.
And I knew—beyond any doubt, beyond what words could ever express—that it burned for me.
“Wildcat?”
His mouth formed the word, and Malcolm’s deep, rumbling voice spoke. Surprise rippled through me like an electric shock. Could he feel me inside his mind?
Yes! Malcolm, it’s me! Where are you? Please, tell me!
I screamed my thoughts as loudly as I could, but I felt Malcolm’s head shake, heard him huff a breath.
“You desperate fool,” he chastised himself.
And then I was falling out of his body, pulled through space once again.
This time, when I slammed back into a physical form, it was my own. My body jerked at the impact as if I’d fallen from a great height, and I gasped, my eyes flying open.
“Will! Shit, are you all right?”
Jerrett and Sol caught me as I sat up so fast my head spun. They each grasped one of my hands, steadying me. The runes on my body no longer glowed.
I heaved in gulping breaths. “I had… a vision.”
Sol’s brows furrowed, his light green eyes blazing. “What did you see?”
“The weird sisters,” I panted. “Witches. A vampire.” The last part of my vision flickered through my mind, and my breath caught. “And Malcolm. I know how to find him.”
5
Jerrett
“I thought you said you knew where to find Mal,” I groused, pushing a thick branch out of my way. Little patches of moonlight filtered down through the leaves above us.
“No,” Willow corrected, shooting me a mock-scowl. “I said I knew how to find him.”
“It’s just not a very scientific method, that’s all. I thought you’d have more of a plan than just ‘wander through the woods.’ I mean, no offense, but I could’ve thought of that.”
Willow slapped my arm lightly. She’d pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail, and she wore a pair of black cargo pants and a tight blue t-shirt. Now that we were out of the Penumbra, she had access to bras again—the only reason I was sorry to leave that place. She looked incredible though, not so much because of the clothes she wore but because of the spark in her eyes that gleamed in the darkness.
This was the most animated I’d seen her since she woke up after the fight with the shades.
And despite the shit I was giving her, I completely trusted her instincts. After telling us what she’d seen in her vision, including the fact that she’d somehow ended up inside Mal’s head, she’d insisted that she could find him.
This wasn’t quite the same as when she’d seen Niagara Falls in her vision of the church. It was more like following a weak radio signal or a living compass.
We’d piled into my car, Sol in the back and Willow riding shotgun, and just started driving. Following some nameless pull in her gut, she’d called out directions, guiding us slowly out of the city and eventually the state. Outside a large forest preserve in Vermont, she’d sat up in her seat like someone had zapped her with a jolt of electricity.
She’d told me to pull over, and hope had flared briefly in my chest as I caught the faintest whiff of Mal’s scent. Willow wasn’t wrong. He’d been near here.
Unfortunately, as good at tracking as Sol and I were, Malcolm was just as good at hiding. And he clearly didn’t want to be found.
The trail had gone cold a little way into the forest, and we hadn’t been able to pick it up again. So we were left relying on Willow’s Mal-seeking sixth sense.
“He’s here somewhere.” She glanced up at the darkened trees around us, chewing on her plump bottom lip. “I swear, this looks familiar.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it does. The same way every bodega on every street corner in New York looks familiar,” I joked.
Willow poked me, digging her finger between my ribs. “I’m serious. These are definitely the same kind of trees I saw in my vision. Malcolm has to be in this preserve someplace.”
I grabbed her hand, tugging her toward me. “Hey, I believe you, Will.”
She smiled, opening her mouth to speak. But her nose lifted into the air, a scent on the wind distracting her. Her pupils dilated, and I saw her lips twitch as if itching to pull back from her fangs.
Beside me, Sol had noticed Willow’s movement and lifted his nose too.
“Deer.” He smiled. “A small herd of them.”
I grinned. “Hungry, sweetheart?”
Willow snapped her jaw shut, looking at me in surprise. Then she grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess I am. Those blood bags Yuliya gave us were fine, but I… I sort of liked what we had at the Penumbra better.”
Pushing a branch out of our way, I gestured her through ahead of me. “Yeah, fresh is always better than bagged, even when it’s from an animal. We drink the bagged stuff in New York because it’s easier, but I gotta admit, I miss hunting.”
“Is it hard?” she asked, gazing up at me curiously.
“Hunting? Nah, not that hard. We’re predators, after all. It kinda comes naturally.”
She lifted her head into the air again, a wistful expression passing over her face.
A chuckle escaped me, and I gripped Sol’s shoulder. “I think our little vampire-fae wants to hunt, brother.”
His lips tilted up. “I think you’re right.”
“Come on, Will.” I lifted my eyebrows temptingly. “We’ll show you how it’s done.”
She nodded, looking nervous and excited at the same time. When I raced off through the forest, she kept pace with me, Sol just behind her. The family of deer picked up on our presence too late, scattering in panic as we burst into their midst. We cornered the weakest one, but I hung back, wanting to let Willow take the lead. The deer stood frozen, large eyes locked on us as we crept through the darkness toward it.
“You’ve got this, Willow tree.” Sol’s voice was low and soothing.
She moved forward slowly until the buck sprang into motion, bounding to the left. Suddenly, a wall of darkness sprang up before the animal. It reared back, backtracking and running in the opposite direction—straight toward us.
Willow reached out as it passed, grabbing its antle
“Holy fuck on a truck!” I glanced back at the strange black wall that had appeared out of nowhere. It was gone, and the forest looked untouched. “Did you do that, Will?”
“Yes.” She looked shocked as hell herself. “I’ve never done that in a fight before. I only really used glamour one time, to turn my hair blonde. I didn’t even think, I just did it.”
“And it worked like a charm.” Sol tilted his head up from where he crouched next to the animal. “It was a clean kill, Willow tree. He didn’t suffer at all. You did well.”
Willow grinned, pride and excitement lighting up her face. Her happiness dimmed slightly when she looked at the downed buck, and she met my gaze in the darkness. “I’ve never killed anything before. I don’t know if I should feel proud of myself.”
“We are predators, Willow,” Sol reminded her gently. “But we’re not monsters. There’s a difference.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Can you show me?”
Sol and I showed her where to pierce the buck’s neck to hit a vein, and I watched her feed. Her face slipped into an expression of pure bliss, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. For some vampires, their first kill was just one of many, not savored or appreciated or given any real thought.
But I knew it meant so much more to Willow. It was another milestone in her acceptance of who she was now. An admission that part of her was wild and untamed, and that it should be allowed to stay that way. And as she fed off the deer she’d brought down with her own instincts and hunting prowess, I hoped to God this wild creature would stay with us always.
When we had all had our fill, she rose, looking down at the deer’s body. “What should we do with it? It doesn’t seem right to leave it here.”
“It is, Willow. There are other scavengers that will come and take advantage of your kill too. It’s their turn now. You’re part of a cycle of life that most humans don’t pay much attention to. But it’s how the world works.”
“The sun will be up soon—we should make shelter for the day. We can resume our hunt tomorrow night.” Sol tilted his head toward the eastern horizon.
“Okay.” Willow nodded. Then her cheeks flushed, and she looked down at her feet. “Can you, um, give us a minute?”
I tugged my lip ring between my teeth, arching a brow at her. “You and the deer?”
Her blush deepened. “Yes.”
“Sure, Will.” Hiding my smile, I nudged Sol with my shoulder, urging him to start off through the forest with me.
Our footsteps were quiet, so even though she waited until we were at a distance, I still heard Willow’s soft voice when she crouched down by the buck behind us.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the felled animal, and my heart fucking melted.
Motherfucking Christ on a cracker. I love this woman.
6
Willow
As it turned out, we didn’t have to find shelter so much as make it.
We probably had about an hour before dawn. It was still fully dark, but the sky was beginning to turn a blue-gray on the eastern horizon. Once again, I’d given little thought when we left the house in New York about what would happen if we weren’t able to get indoors by daylight. I really needed to start considering that more carefully, or I was going to end up a smoking pile of ash by the roadside someday.
Luckily, my two vampire companions were more prepared than I was. We trekked a little farther into the forest before stopping in a small clearing. I was about to point out that we’d be even more exposed here than under the cover of trees when Jerrett pulled a small object from his back pocket. It was dark blue and about the size of a deck of cards.
I frowned at it. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when he tossed it on the ground and it expanded like a bouncy house inflating at super speed. Within seconds, a small tent sat in the clearing.
“Holy shit!”
Jerrett smirked. “I love when she says that.”
Circling the tent, I searched for poles, but found none. The fabric was somehow holding its shape on its own. It wasn’t the most flashy use of magic, but somehow the mundaneness of this little trick made it all the more mind-blowing.
“Do you just keep that with you at all times, in case of emergency?” I asked, looking back at Jerrett.
He shrugged, running a finger down the front of the tent. The fabric parted as if he’d pulled a zipper, and he gestured me inside. “I should, but I really don’t anymore. After a couple thousand years, I’ve gotten pretty good at finding shelter from daylight. But I wasn’t going to take the risk with you.”
My heart warmed at the protective gesture, and I hid a smile as I ducked inside.
The interior of the tent was nearly pitch black, and the floor was made of a soft, spongy material, like a mattress-top. Jerrett and Sol followed me inside, and Sol pulled the two flaps together, running a finger up the crease to reseal the fabric.
I heard another soft rustling sound, and a dim glow emanated from the ceiling, as if the fabric itself was giving off light. Jerrett and Sol stood before me, both grinning at my gaping expression.
“You’re so easily impressed.” Jerrett winked at me. “It’s fun.”
Pursing my lips, I tried to look offended instead of awed. “Well, you just pitched a tent in a couple of seconds. That’s impressive.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I can pitch a tent faster than that.” He smirked at me, tugging his lip ring into his mouth.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother.” Sol sighed, pulling me down to the soft floor beside him. My body draped comfortably against his, my head resting on his shoulder. “He’s been alive two thousand years, but at heart, he’s still a kid.”
Jerrett flopped down next to us, sandwiching me between his large body and Sol’s. “I’ll tell you a secret, Will. When you get to be my age, you realize there’s really no such thing as ‘grown up.’ When they say age is just a number, they really aren’t kidding.”
I chuckled, twisting my neck to look back at him. “So you’re admitting you’re immature?”
His ice-blue eyes glowed in the dim light. “Fuck no. I’m the most mature motherfucker you’ll ever meet.” He pressed a kiss to my nose, then nipped the tip of it gently. “I just define it a little differently than most people.”
“Ah. I see. In that case, you’re downright wise and sagely.”
My teasing smile slipped as I gazed into his eyes, trapped for a moment in their luminosity. His strong body was pressed against mine, spooning me from behind. Cradled between Jerrett and Sol, I felt utterly safe and protected. Heat built in my core at the feel of the two hard, muscled men touching almost every part of me, but my heart twinged when I thought of the third man who should be here but wasn’t.
I turned my head, nestling into Sol’s chest again. “Does Malcolm have one of these tent things with him?”
Sol reached up to run a thumb across my cheek. “No, Willow tree. But like Jerrett said, we’re good at finding shelter. And he’s smart. I’m sure he’s fine.”
The worry in his voice didn’t quite match his words, but I tried to let them soothe me anyway. Malcolm was fine. He had to be. I couldn’t accept any other possibility.
I wrapped my arm around Sol’s body, wriggled deeper into Jerrett’s embrace, and let sleep claim me.
It felt like I’d just drifted off when I jerked awake again, startled back into consciousness by a dream I couldn’t remember. My eyes flew open, taking in the dim interior of the tent.
Jerrett and Sol were asleep, their chests rising and falling evenly. Jerrett had flopped over onto his back, and I mirrored the gesture, lying between them and staring up at the ceiling as I tried to figure out what had woken me. I felt strange—my head was cloudy, and there was a tugging feeling inside me, as if I were a fish on a hook being reeled in by a fisherman.
I blinked, glancing dazedly down at the runes on my skin. Was it the weird sisters, Neoma and Samira, calling me?
But the runes hadn’t lit up. I could barely make out the fine white lines criss-crossing my skin.
I relaxed slightly, and as I stopped resisting the pull, I was struck by the strongest urge to leave the tent. Sitting up quietly, I crawled toward the entrance and ran my finger down a two-inch section of the wall. The fabric split where my finger touched, and cool blue light spilled into the tent through the opening.
Dawn hadn’t come yet. But it would be here soon.
The strange feeling inside me spurred me on as I zipped the fabric back up with my finger then phased out, standing and passing through the thin wall. Once outside, I turned to my left and began running through the woods, following the tug deep in my belly.
It was almost like shadow running, when each shadow seemed to pull me in as I ran from one to the next until my feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Except this time I wasn’t slipping into shadows, and I wasn’t sure what was pulling me.
A little voice in my head shouted warnings at me, but the fog in my mind made it impossible to process them. This was probably a bad idea, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. All I knew for sure was that I needed to keep running, needed to go… somewhere.
As I raced through the forest, the world around me began to brighten even more, the hazy gray pre-dawn light beginning to warm into a buttery yellow. The air seemed to change, becoming hot and stifling, and fear finally wedged its way into my consciousness, sharpening my mind.
I slowed my pace, breathing hard as I glanced around me. The tops of the trees above me were lit by the sun’s rays. In just a few minutes, the sun would be high enough in the sky to cast its light on me.
What the hell am I doing? What have I done?
Was this the work of the weird sisters? Had they decided to try to exert their power over me to make me kill myself?
-->
