My mouth worked wordlessly, having no idea what I was supposed to say.
“In a way, this bond gave me an excuse to be honest. For each of us to be honest.”
I slowly nodded. “It…seems complicated,” I admitted, not entirely sure how I felt about her interest in Natalie. It wasn’t that I had a problem with it but…I felt slightly jealous, as ridiculous as that sounded. I knew the double standard was unfair, even as I thought it. And I suddenly began to comprehend how Victoria must feel. And Natalie, for that matter. Did she feel like she was just our plaything to be dragged into bed when the mood arose?
“The fact that you bonding Natalie somehow crossed a vast distance to also entangle me in your web…” she murmured, smiling, “says more than anything else. I don’t know how I would have felt if I had been left out.”
I licked my lips, nodding slowly. “I thought about you,” I whispered. “I think some remnant of your blood inside me helped bridge the gap,” I admitted, having no idea if that was the reason for her inclusion in our bond.
She smiled. “We will have time to talk soon, Sorin. The three of us.” She squeezed my hand warmly, leaning up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek, holding it longer than necessary. She settled back onto her heels, smiling up at me. “Natalie was wrong. I don’t think you’ll be difficult to manage at all, Sorin,” she grinned, lightly tapping her finger on my nose in a playful gesture.
Then she was walking away, looking as if she had unshouldered some great burden that had been weighing her down. “What do you mean, Natalie was wrong?” I called out, confused as all hell.
Victoria spun on her heel, grinning wickedly. “She said you were a real…handful.” She clearly enunciated the word. Then she licked her lips and winked at me in a way that made my pants bulge, confirming my suspicion. “But I’m sure I can handle it. That we can handle it.”
My eyes widened and my heart thumped in my chest. Was she really talking about what I thought she was talking about? Was I reading too much into her words, thinking like a lecher?
She laughed at the look on my face. “I believe Dr. Stein is waiting for you,” she said before twirling around to continue up the next flight of stairs and rejoin the others, leaving me…
High and dry.
“Women are going to be the death of me,” I muttered to myself.
Then I began stomping after her, clearing my head for whatever Dr. Stein needed to talk about. She’d been busy lately, so I hoped she had some answers for me.
Because I had a lot more questions now.
It took me a while to make it up the stairs, but it gave me plenty of time to internally debate who I wanted to interrogate first: Dr. Stein, Isabella, or Nosh.
I finally stormed onto the tenth floor, wondering why I hadn’t just taken the elevator. Hyde and Poole grunted as they noticed me, and I saw Hyde hand Poole a wad of cash, grumbling unhappily. I narrowed my eyes at the pair. They had placed a bet on me?
For what?
Stevie stood beside them, casting an arctic glare my way before he shifted his attention to settle on Natalie, his thoughts obvious. I added him to my list before dismissing him.
Natalie and Victoria were seated on a nearby couch against the wall. They were speaking in hushed tones, obviously wanting their privacy. I eyed them suspiciously, wondering if I should be a part of their conversation. They noticed my attention and smiled mischievously before putting their heads back together.
Hyde gently elbowed Stevie, knocking him back a step. “You have anything to drink here? You look as sober as I feel.”
Stevie regained his stance and nodded, motioning the two over to a large table where I spotted a few coolers, a shelf laden with boxes and bags of snacks, and a few dozen bottles of water. Stevie opened one of the coolers to pull out a bottle of liquor, and then he scooped up some red plastic cups from the shelf before carrying it all back to the table. Hyde obviously wasn’t able to sit, so the three of them remained standing as Stevie poured the liquor into the cups and handed them out.
I turned away, scanning the rest of the space in search of Nero, but he was absent. This floor was much more crowded—the far half of the room was littered with more stacks of unopened crates, but a lot of the medical equipment was already up and running. Several glass-doored refrigeration units hugged the back wall, and I could see they were all filled with the bags of blood I had stolen from the blood bank with Victoria. I’d come up with a good use for them.
I’d accomplished a lot. Getting the necessary permits, arranging all the logistics of transporting the required materials, and scheduling the work of so many people to accomplish a single task…
It almost felt like a war. In a way, it was. I silently congratulated myself, feeling like I was getting back to the man I had once been. The most powerful man in the world—
Something cracked me in the shin hard enough to make me curse. “Gah!” I instinctively bent down to cradle it. Stein suddenly appeared beside me and grabbed me firmly by the ear, taking advantage of my vulnerable stance.
Then she was dragging me by the ear towards a side room, muttering unintelligibly under her breath, forcing me to hobble along after her or sacrifice my ear.
18
I noticed the wooden spoon hanging out of her white lab coat, proving her guilt in the random shin strike. I ignored the muffled laughter from my friends, knowing they wouldn’t have fared any better in my position.
I wasn’t going to hit an old woman, and she was doing important work for me anyway.
One rule for managing a proper household that I’d learned over the years was that you couldn’t kill the help. I convinced myself that it was the true reason for my obedience as she opened a door, jerking me by the ear again. She released it at the last second and swatted me on the ass with her wooden spoon for good measure—like she was corralling livestock into a pen.
I spun towards her with a stern glare only to find her standing in front of the door and holding out her hand in a calming gesture. I froze in confusion. A large glass window beside the door allowed me to see my friends in the main room—and for them to see me as well. Case in point, Hyde and Poole were craning their necks to get a glimpse at me.
“I didn’t want to raise any suspicion,” Dr. Stein said, “so I gave them what they expected to see.” She walked over to stand in full view of the window but turned to address me in the center of the room with her back to the glass. She lifted her arms angrily, but her face was entirely calm.
“Are…you okay, Dr. Stein?” I asked warily, wondering if this was worse than her waving her spoon—the calm before the storm.
“Make sure they can see you, and act like I’m yelling at you. We need to talk about the blood.”
I pursed my lips nervously, not liking this at all. “Okay.”
“Excellent. You are very good at pouting. Keep looking like that.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not pouting. I’m—”
“Even better!” she said, pointing at my face. “Just like that!” she snapped, still waving her hands. Then she began to pace towards the center of the room, forcing me to retreat so our apparent audience could see both of us through the glass.
I folded my arms stubbornly, still annoyed by her comment, but I was even more concerned about her anxiety. I’d never seen Dr. Stein like this. Never. “What did you find?”
She stopped and waggled a finger at me aggressively. “The usual way to run a blood test with modern science provides very detailed results, but it takes too long—days or weeks to get a full analysis. So, I had to go old school. Nero knew a tracking spell—using a strand of someone’s hair to find them if they go missing, for example.” I nodded, having used one before. “Nero was able to adapt the spell to my needs. A way to attract like to like.”
“And it’s reliable?” I asked. “If it attracts like to like, wouldn’t it connect any vampire to any other vampire? How specific is it?”
She blinked at me, then slowly nodded her ap
proval. “That is exceedingly clever of you, Sorin. It’s like an inert crystal I was studying under my microscope suddenly began to sing to me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you calling me—”
“As dumb as a rock, yes,” she said, waving a finger at me for the benefit of our audience—who were pretending not to be watching us. “Now. More listening, less speaking. I stress-tested Nero’s spell in every way imaginable. My first subjects were two unrelated vampires—Gabriel and Renfield. Thankfully, Nero’s spell showed no connection.”
I nodded grimly, considering the ramifications if it had shown a connection. It would have meant that any vampire could be used to locate and hunt down any other vampire. I shuddered. Magic was terrifying sometimes.
“Nero’s spell is quite limited in what it will allow you to connect. In fact, it is eerily reflective of what a full DNA test would have shown in a lab—something I’m very interested in exploring at a later time, by the way,” she said aggressively, as if I had tried to tell her no. “When I used Nero’s spell to test two siblings, it was noticeably weaker than a parent to their offspring.”
I waited for more, but she just watched me. “Okay. So why did you pull me in here? Did you test Nosh’s blood against mine?”
She licked her lips, looking suddenly uneasy. “Listen closely and pick up a piece of paper from the table. Any paper.” I frowned, choosing one at random from a nearby stack. “Okay, now angle your back to the window and pretend to read the paper, but what I really need you to do is watch the floor and listen closely.”
I followed her advice, leaning against a table with my back to the window. “Okay.”
She began to pace about the small tiled room. “On the floor, I’ve spread out various samples of blood—you, Victoria, Natalie, Stevie, Gabriel, Renfield, and mine.”
Pretending to read the paper, I used my peripheral vision to scan the room. Directly across from me, I noticed a small clear plate the size of a large coin on the tile floor. It had a drop of red in the center. As I casually swept the rest of the room, pretending to stretch my neck to either side, I noticed more of the blood samples equally spread out around the perimeter. One was only a few feet away from where I stood.
“That one is yours,” she said, discreetly pointing at the sample by my feet. “Now, watch closely because it doesn’t last long,” Dr. Stein said, pulling out a pad of paper and a pencil from her long white coat. Her hand was shaking, and I suddenly felt nervous. “I’m going to cast Nero’s spell and drop a sample of Nosh’s blood at my feet. You’ll see a strong connection to his blood relative. The person who shares his DNA. I’ve limited it to only connect to the samples rather than the actual person or we would have mass panic outside. This room is warded. What happens next is only for us—unless someone takes a closer look through that window.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Can’t you just tell me?” I asked in a soft whisper.
She shot me a stern glare and shook her head firmly. “This is something you need to see for yourself if you’re going to believe it. Make sure to maintain your composure. I suggest you keep leaning on that table,” she muttered. Then she began furiously scribbling on her pad. I felt a faint hum to the air the moment her pen stopped moving, making the hair on the back of my hand suddenly stand up. I saw a tiny strip of fabric fall from her pocket and she whispered a sinister word.
I flinched the second the fabric touched the floor, almost dropping my paper as my eyes shot wide open. Remembering Dr. Stein’s warning, I forced myself to appear calm as I stared down at the tile floor.
Crackling, golden beams of light, no thicker than a pencil, radiated outward from the strip of fabric—Nosh’s blood sample—emitting a faint, audible buzz.
Not just one beam like I’d anticipated.
Nosh’s blood sample looked like a star, casting lines of golden light to…
Every sample in the room.
None were thicker or brighter than another, which was impossible. I realized my heart was racing. Through my new bond, I noticed Victoria and Natalie suddenly coming to attention, picking up on my anxiety. I forced myself to calm down and met Dr. Stein’s eyes. She nodded ever so slowly before drawing a harsh line across her pad, hard enough to snap her pencil. The lights winked out, leaving us in silence.
“What does it mean?” I whispered.
Dr. Stein shrugged. “That Nosh has some serious explaining to do, because it’s impossible for him to be related to every sample. I tried to find a way to break my test, forcing a false link between two samples, and I failed. Nero tried as well, using magic to try and trick the spell. He failed. Repeatedly. The spell does not lie.”
I carefully set down my paper, regulating my breathing as I mentally went over my every encounter with Nosh, looking for some possible explanation. A chilling thought came to mind, and I froze. Nosh had worked for Deganawida…
Dr. Stein noticed my reaction, taking a slow step forward. “What is it?” she asked. “What did you just think of?”
I lifted my head to meet her eyes, hoping I was wrong. “What do you know about skinwalkers?” I whispered.
She dropped her pad of paper, staring at me in shock. “Nothing good…but I’ll do some research,” she murmured, sounding both shaken and angry that she hadn’t known.
I nodded. “You do that, Dr. Stein. And make sure everything is ready for the next storm. We don’t want to be caught with our pants down.” My eyes settled on the fabric with Nosh’s blood and I gritted my teeth. “Not again, anyway,” I muttered.
I turned towards the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To figure out what the hell he’s really doing here and get some goddamned answers. He’s being hunted by the witches, and I think we just found out why. We’re the only friends he has right now, like it or not.”
“I don’t think skinwalkers have friends,” she said warningly. “They are soulless monsters.”
I shot her a look from over my shoulder, allowing the blood in my reserves to completely cover my eyes in a rippling crimson pool. She gasped in surprise. I slowly nodded. “Then maybe he will feel right at home with me, because I am a soulless monster, too, Dr. Stein.”
“Take Hyde with you—if for no other reason than as a shield.”
I thought about it and shrugged. “Is his girlfriend awake? Isabella?” I asked.
“Yes…” she said, obviously confused by my change of topic.
“Good. Then I have multiple points of leverage,” I said, opening the door. “Find out whatever you can. Quickly, Dr. Stein. And get rid of this evidence. No one can know about this, because if he’s a skinwalker, he could be any one of us.”
“Y-yes, Sorin,” she stammered, sounding suddenly alarmed.
I let the door close behind me, clearing my eyes of the blood. That was the first time I’d come out on top with Dr. Stein, rather than her making me feel like an unruly child.
Things were looking up.
19
Questions zipped through my mind, and I honestly had no idea which one to focus on.
How had the infamous Medicine Man, Deganawida, not known that Nosh was a skinwalker?
Why hadn’t Nosh told me?
And what the hell was a skinwalker doing helping anyone?
As I’d heard it—from Deganawida, no less—skinwalkers were bad news. The tribe hardly ever talked about them for fear of drawing their attention—
“We’ve come to an understanding,” Natalie said, making me jump in surprise.
I turned to see Victoria and Natalie studying me intensely. I knew they had sensed my anxiety in the room, but they didn’t look very sympathetic right now. They looked predatory.
“About?” I asked, suddenly wary.
“Our bond,” Victoria said. “There are rules until we figure it all out.”
I scratched my head, struggling to switch my mentality from how to survive a skinwalker incursion to negotiating a legal document outlining apparent rules for our b
ond. I decided that going on the offensive was the best tactic. It had worked with Dr. Stein. “I made the bond. I get the final say.”
They turned to each other with matching baffled looks. Then they turned back to me, shaking their heads firmly. “No. Majority rules,” Victoria said.
I folded my arms, realizing that I should have hired representation. “Now, wait a minute—”
“We will share you,” Natalie interrupted, clapping excitedly.
“And each other, of course,” Victoria added.
My eyebrows almost jumped off my forehead.
Hyde choked loudly, spewing liquor all over Mr. Poole in a powerful stream of alcohol.
The barkeep let out a curse, wiping frantically at his face. “Ah! My eyes!”
Hyde quickly made his way over, doing his best to help his friend. I hadn’t even noticed they were still in the room! Thankfully, Stevie had left or this conversation would have become even more awkward.
“What about Stevie and the Crescent?” I asked, not wanting to talk about sharing in front of Hyde and Poole.
Natalie frowned. “I can no longer sense the pack. I don’t feel the bond to Stevie anymore. You dethroned him in that regard.”
“I became your alpha?” I asked, having feared that outcome—especially after seeing Stevie’s warm welcome a few minutes ago and hearing about his sudden temper the moment Victoria had first felt the bond hit her. I’d hoped to learn that my bond had just nudged his to the side, not that I’d broken it entirely. “I’m not sure Stevie will accept that so easily.”
She shrugged. “Then we will convince him. It’s not like you’re usurping his place in the werewolf hierarchy, and you didn’t try to take me from him, so there is no dominance challenge. It was an unanticipated consequence of you saving my life. He can’t argue with that unless he wants to indirectly admit that my life wasn’t worth saving—which would infuriate the pack.”
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