by Lisa Ladew
Gemma turned to her sisters and flashed them a look of mock betrayal, whispering hotly, “Dammit. Y’all keep putting the everweft on everyone, Riot’s gonna want one, and then it’s peace-out to nekkid puma buns.”
Goldie stared back, innocent as always, but Cora smirked and shrugged. “The guy was lugging a giant plastic pod everywhere. It was stupid.”
With Aven there, Jameson seemed ready to get to work. The Keeper stood in the middle of the road and turned in a circle, scanning their numbers. “That’s everyone.”
But a low growl came from above them, sending Gemma’s eyes searching the trees in hope. Shiloh didn’t even look up. “It’s Ryder.”
Jameson gave a curt nod. “Three switches, seven shifters, that’s two-on-one. Flint and Bryce, you’re with Goldie; Ryder, you’re with Cora and I; Shiloh, you and Dario have Gemma. Aven, you’re laying rice.”
Jameson shifted, becoming the enormous white wolf that, until now, Gemma had only seen in Resperanza’s living room.
Aven clacked his teeth once, then became an eagle again, pushing off from the ground with his powerful legs and soaring twenty feet in the air before swooping back down to snatch the bag of rice from Cora’s hands and carry it away towards the mine.
A few minutes later a voice she’d never heard before rang through Gemma’s head. That’s half the entrance covered. Gemma, I’m coming back for your bag. She held it up high and, sure enough, Aven snagged it from her hands seconds later.
Cora spoke to the group, her voice trembling with restrained aggression. “Time to go.” Before she even stopped talking, her feet were in motion.
Goldie nodded at Flint and the huge man become an even bigger grizzly bear, whose back Goldie clambered on, her arms wrapping around his broad, furry shoulders. Gemma sighed wistfully as the big bear set in motion. Must be nice to have a ride.
Soft fur brushed her thigh again, and Gemma looked down to see the black wolf on one side of her, looking up into her eyes. I got you, Gemma. I’ll be right by your side every second.
That’s what I’m afraid of, Gemma thought, but kept it to herself. A glance to her other side showed Shiloh had shifted as well, into a graceful snow leopard, with a round face and fur that matched her platinum hair. Gemma breathed easier. She sent a thought to Shiloh as the three of them started walking. Promise to fight me after this, okay? Hard.
Shiloh looked into Gemma’s eyes, as if searching for the reason for her request. Then Shiloh’s clipped voice appeared in Gemma’s head. You got it.
Gemma nodded and kept walking, but a chime behind her turned her head.
It was Bryce, still at the vehicles, stripped to his boxers and juggling his jeans to get to the phone inside. From the front of their moving line, Gemma heard Flint send back a disapproving growl.
Bryce grumbled, so low Gemma could barely hear him. “It could be important, ya know.” But he threw the phone into the SUV’s back seat and shifted into his grizzly, bounding past Gemma to catch up to his brother and Goldie.
* * *
Riot took the fork to the gold mine at speed, cutting his headlight and letting his puma do the work. Every bump in the road was as clear as if it was high noon, and he pushed his bike faster. The urgency he felt to get to Gemma was driving him ruthlessly.
He had to be there for her hunt. Didn’t want her going into battle without him. No matter how Riot might have tried to push back from The Cause in the past, being heartbound made it undeniable. If there was going to be a war, then dammit, Riot would spend it fighting next to Gemma. No matter what he lost in the process.
The moon caught his eye and Riot glanced high and to the left, to the bluff where he and Gemma had first Prowled. What he saw almost made him wreck his bike. He pulled over and cut the engine, wincing as the sound echoed too loud.
He was two hundred yards from him to the bluff, but Riot could clearly see a figure standing tall on the highest crest, the moon’s light behind him. His arms were raised, elbows out to the side, as if the man was holding something to his face. Riot squinted. Is it?… binoculars? But why would someone be out at night with…
The man lowered his arms, turned to the side, catching the moon’s light for just a moment, and the bottom dropped out of Riot’s stomach. Whoever was up there had a streak of white running through his hair from temple to collar. Fatherborne. And the only reason for a Fatherborne to be watching was if he thought there was going to be a show worth risking his life for. Which meant…
Trap! Riot couldn’t get his phone out fast enough, and when he did he couldn’t figure out who to call. He ended up sending a mass text to all the shifters whose numbers he had. Someone had to get it, right?
He ditched his bike to the side of the road, stripped and shifted, took off at a run for the gold mine. After a minute or two he passed J’s truck and Flint’s Range Rover, barely brushing against their front ends as he passed. Still warm. Haven’t been here long.
Riot picked up speed again, and with it Gemma’s scent, still lingering in the red clay racing past under his paws. The bright, fresh scent of her, the candy sweetness, it all made him push even harder. More than anything Riot needed to reach Gemma, to protect her.
But first you gotta prove you can handle the fucking basics, like showing up in time.
Chapter 39 - Bloodsucker Blitz
Not two minutes after they started walking in the direction of the gold mine, Gemma felt the muscles of her back and legs start to tighten and twitch, as if the bloodlust that was building inside of her was stretching its limits. Her hands itched to hold something. No, not something. My knife. She used her thumb to flip the snap on the sheath at her waist, freeing her weapon and pulling it out to grip tight. She picked up speed and in seconds she was running. Gemma could feel Shiloh and Dario on either side, keeping pace, but her focus was on her sisters.
Cora ran, too, her hair flying behind her in a stream. Goldie swung one leg over Flint’s humped back and used a ball of Breath magicks to help keep her upright as she hit the ground at a sprint. Nice move. The three switches pulled away from the shifters behind them.
Gemma’s energy felt different now, stronger, whether from being part of a group hunt or because of the ceremony they’d performed less than an hour ago. Is that all? Feels like it’s been lifetimes. But the ceremony had settled Gemma’s purpose deep inside her. There was no moral conflict here, no questioning the task at hand. There were vampires and she was bound to kill them, and kill them she would.
The gold mine came into view, Aven’s eagle perched on the crossbeam at the entrance and sending an all-clear signal straight to her brain. Gemma, Goldie, and Cora thundered through the space between the truck and the opening almost big enough to drive it inside of the mine. She heard Dario’s voice in her mind. Nothing. No women.
Gemma almost paused at that, to figure out the puzzle of why there were no women in the truck, but she couldn’t stop. Her basest instincts were pulling her deeper into the darkness of the mine, past the line of rice that she and her fellow switches conscientiously leapt over, not disturbing a grain. She heard the pause in their pace as shifters behind her did the same.
The mineshaft angled down and to the right, under the massive hills of dirt and stone, held back by decades-old engineering and luck. Her nerves jangled with the risks, but Gemma couldn’t stop. Couldn’t even slow down. All three switches took the shaft at a run, the lanterns hung at intervals on the wall all the light they had to guide them.
First Jameson, then Dario, squeezed past them to take the lead. Gemma smirked and sent the black wolf a message. Watch it, now. Don’t trip me with that big ol’ tail.
A chuckle came back to her. Girl, how you saw how big my tail was when I was standing behind a bush?
Gemma rolled her eyes, her stomach sinking as she thought to herself. Great, all I was missing was a hot, flirty shifter to make this way harder than it already is.
She knew it was needy of her, but dammit, Gemma missed Riot! Wanted him next to her now, inste
ad of Dario and his gorgeous everything that she would probably want to bounce on as soon as she stuck a vampire, and then regret the instant it was over. That was why she had told Shiloh to fight her. So that Gemma wouldn’t fuck it up and forget who she really wanted. Because even if Riot didn't come back, or if he did and he forgave her for Prowling with someone else, Gemma wasn't sure she would be able to forgive herself.
She needed to prove it, to herself as much as to Riot, that her love for him was bigger than everything, bigger than her destiny as a switch and the things it made her do. She needed to prove beyond a doubt that he was her destiny, too.
* * *
Riot’s ears twitched to front, catching noises from not much further ahead, banshee screams and cracks like tree branches shattering. He pushed harder, his furred legs aching with the effort. Finally the path curved and the entrance to the gold mine came in view. Green magicks drifted from inside, the wispy sparkles spilling out the sliver of opening between the entrance and the rent-a-truck parked in front of it, flowing with the updraft of air.
Fuck! They’re already inside! And now Riot had to make a choice. Stay out here and search for a possible trap, or get to Gemma’s side as fast as he could.
The need to see her, to be there for her, pulled at him. Just the thought of her hunting, Prowling with someone else… Riot gave an involuntary growl. There might not even be a trap! But still he couldn’t shake the thought.
Riot stalked around the entrance to the mine, sticking to the shadows. He cast a glance at the bluff, but he was too far away now to see what was what, or whether the Fatherborne was still watching.
The sound of feathers, high and to his right, and Riot turned, slashing out at whatever owl had made the mistake of hunting near him. But it was Aven. The eagle pushed back against the air, away from Riot’s claws, and shifted to standing. His voice was a barely-audible mumble as he scanned Riot’s green-glowing body from head to toe. “‘Nother fucking glowstick.”
Riot shifted, too, but stayed in the shadows, momentarily distracted. “How the fuck do you have clothes on, man?”
Aven clacked his teeth in response. “You getting in there?” He nodded toward the mine’s entrance.
Riot shook his head. “There was a Fatherborne on the bluff when I drove in, watching the mine. I think there’s a trap.”
Aven’s eyes narrowed, his head turning to the bluff. “There’s someone there, for sure. Have to assume it’s a bloodfucker.” Riot was impressed; he hadn’t known that Aven could see that far.
He shook his head to clear it. Focus, goddammit. “Only reason for him to watch is if he’s expecting something to happen.”
The eagle clacked his teeth again, looking at the hills that made up the mine’s ceiling, the red signs dotting the landscape warning of danger from cave-ins, rock slides. Riot didn’t like the way Aven was looking at them, either. What’s that, a million pounds of rock they’re fighting under?
Aven said, “Be right back,” and then a flutter of feathers again as the eagle took off. Riot shifted and stalked to the mine’s entrance, determined to get as close as he could to Gemma until Aven came back.
The entrance to the mine looked just like the ones in the movies, with thick, railroad tie-sized pillars and a crosspiece laid on top, the cracks in the weathered beams packed with clay. The cargo area of the truck that was backed up to the entrance was empty, Riot saw at a glance. What were they going to put in there?
He looked into the mine, peering deep into the darkness at the dirt floor and walls. A white stripe appeared to cross the ground from one wall to the other, and Riot crept closer, his puma’s belly low to the ground, his nostrils open wide. The scents of vampires and sweat and shifters and switches all swirled around and inside him, but as Riot got closer to the white line he smelled… rice?
It was. One long pile of rice, unbroken from wall to wall. What the fuck? He turned and padded back to the entrance of the mine, anxious to see if Aven had returned, and had just reached fresh air when Riot heard a scream behind him. The smell of pine and bitter herbs came with it. Vampire.
Riot whipped around, prepared to do whatever it took to hold the bloodsucker back until a switch could find them and kill the bastard. He saw the vampire, younger than the one Gemma had killed the night they met, running for the entrance in a black kilt and t-shirt, his light blond hair slicked back from his panicked face.
But the second the bloodfucker saw the rice, he stopped. What the-? Riot watched, Aven momentarily forgotten, as the young vampire dropped to his knees next to the line of rice and started picking up each grain, one-by-one, and setting them to the side.
He never even noticed the green light coming up behind him.
Chapter 40 - Close But No Cougar
The shifters in front of them slowed as they ran down the mineshaft, jostling Gemma and her sisters to get them to do the same. Jameson’s voice in her head now, serious and stern. Coming up on them. Fuck me, the smell…
Beyond the next curve Gemma could see a golden light spilling into the darker mineshaft. She ran faster and pulled further to her side of the shaft, prepared to peel off from the other switches and aim for the first vampire she saw. Shiloh and Dario angled with her. With her free hand and her short breaths Gemma blew a little ball of Breath magicks and curled her fingers around it. Try something, fuckers.
The three of them rounded the last corner together and Gemma had a vision of what looked like an underground harem. White marble columns at least thirty feet tall held up the vast ceiling which, although still rock, glittered yellow in the lantern light. Gold. We’re surrounded by it. Gemma’s magic surged through her body like a low-grade electric charge, her muscles seeming to vibrate with excess energy, every footstep making her bones thrum.
Black silk and satin hung in swaths, almost reaching the white marble floors. Piles of black satin pillows littered the floor next to each column, which, Gemma could see at a glance, were fixed with chains, shackles at the ends. Empty now, but Gemma shuddered to think about what - who - they usually held.
Scattered about the room, lounging on the pillows or leaning against the gleaming walls, were more than half a dozen vampires. Pale faces rose in shock, their gasps and shouts enough to make Gemma’s heart sing at the sound. May I present your last moments on earth?
As she aimed for the one furthest to the left, Gemma noticed that all these vampires looked even younger than the one she’d met that first night in the forest. In fact the one she aimed for, his eyes and mouth wide as he held up a fashion magazine in defense, didn’t look older than eighteen.
But she stuck him anyway, landing square in the bloodsucker’s lap and stabbing down into his chest before he got out more than a squeak of protest. Red light spilled out but Gemma didn’t wait around to see the show. She turned to find her next victim.
Goldie and Cora were fighting like mad. Flint’s bear was huge, bigger than he’d been outside the mine, and had one vampire by the leg, Bryce his other arm, and Goldie was just jamming her carving knife into his gut. Cora had caught a vampire trying to run and slipped her blade into his back, between his ribs, even as an overgrown white wolf she knew was still Jameson, plus regular-sized Ryder, brought him tumbling to the ground. When did J and Flint get so big?
Gemma heard a voice in her head, Dario’s. This one! She started to turn, to see what vampire the black wolf was charging for, but something caught her eye. Pale legs under a black kilt, just disappearing back up the mineshaft. Gemma mind-screamed in fury. He’s getting away!
Her thoughts touched on the rice at the mouth of the mine, but Gemma wasn’t sure she trusted that trick. Even if it did work, Carick said it only delayed the bloodsuckers, and he didn’t say for how long. She had to catch that one before he got out.
She heard voices in her head, calling her to come back, then to slow down, but Gemma ignored them. Vampire McKilty is going down.
He was fast, though, faster than Gemma had expected, and she was startin
g to wonder if she was going to be able to catch him. She smelled the fresh air that told her they were getting close to the surface, and put on a burst of speed. Sweat trickled down her temples and slid into her hair, pushed by the force of the air Gemma displaced.
When she came around the final corner, though, the vampire wasn’t running anymore. He was on his knees in front of the rice. Sorting it from one pile to another, his lips moving as he did so. I’ll be damned. Carick was right!
Gemma’s feet hadn’t even slowed. The vampire didn’t look up until she was ten feet away, and by then it was too late.
She jumped onto him from a yard off, knocking him off balance and scattering the rice everywhere. Whoops.
The vampire freaked out like he wasn’t even worried about Gemma anymore. He started crawling on the dirt floor, scooping the rice into his arms, screaming at her. “What have you done?”
Gemma pulled her head back, momentarily shocked. It’s rice, dude. Get a grip. Then she shrugged and advanced again.
The vampire scrambled away from her, towards the entrance, still trying to scoop up every grain of rice his hands touched. Gemma heard Shiloh and Dario come skidding to stop behind her, and Shiloh’s voice in her head. Kill it.
Gemma didn’t waste any more time, but nor could she pounce on this pathetic creature. A simple stab to his calf as he crawled away was all it took to make red light shoot out his mouth, aimed at the cave entrance.
A glance in that direction, though, showed Gemma something she had given up hoping to see. A round, tan cat’s face staring back at her, the black diamond mark on his forehead. Gemma shot her thoughts in his direction. Riot? You came?
She felt Shiloh come to one side of her legs, Dario the other. The big black wolf nudged her hand with his nose. Gemma, we need to get back.
I know that, she replied. Could feel the twitching need herself to kill more, to rip the entire nest to shreds, but… Riot had come? She looked at the puma again, his face turned to focus on something outside the mine. Gemma called him again with her mind. Riot, come hunt with me.
