by Larissa Ione
We? An uneasy sensation wound its way through Myne at the way Rike had worded his question. The male was a friend, the best Myne had ever had, and the clan had become the best thing ever to happen to him.
Which meant that it couldn’t be long before everything went to shit.
He looked out at the wall of snow beyond the cover. “I made arrangements for a female in the city.”
“Have you had her before?”
Myne shook his head. The number of females who had let him feed more than once could be counted on one hand. “She thinks she’s into pain.”
What a joke. It took someone mentally twisted, with nerve damage, or both to be able to withstand the pain of Myne’s titanium fangs.
The things had been great—at first. They’d punched through human flesh like nails through water. But then he’d discovered that the agony they caused vampires was nothing short of horrific. He’d tried to have them removed, but the titanium had fused to his bone, and the vampire-sympathizer dentist who installed them didn’t know why they caused pain to others but not him. It wasn’t until Nicole came along that he got his answer.
Turned out that vampires who had once been human were allergic to even the smallest exposure of their blood to titanium. About half of the born-vampire population also had a sensitivity to it. So Myne, in order to feed from a vampire female on the night of the full moon, had to find either an immune born female or a turned female who didn’t mind a little oh, my God, I’m going to die agony. Unfortunately, few of either existed.
Rasha was one of the few. A chance encounter at a vampire club in the city had turned into years of meeting every two or three months on the night of the full moon. She wasn’t immune to titanium’s pain punch, but for her, it also carried an erotic blow, one so intense that she would have met him monthly if he’d asked. But screw that; the only reason he stomached being with her at all was that he liked not being dead.
“For what it’s worth,” Riker said, “I don’t think Hunter would care about your past with Rasha.”
“Oh, yeah,” Myne muttered. “He would.”
Rike knocked his head back against the rock wall. “Dammit, Myne, just tell me what the fuck went on between you two.”
“It’s between me and Hunter.”
“You know you can trust me, right?”
He knew. He had opened his mouth to say as much when an angry scream, a shout, and a clatter broke through the snowstorm. Myne and Riker bolted into the cave, skidding to a halt as a pan lid sailed over their heads.
Rasha stood near the far wall, armed with the pot Riker assumed went with the lid. Aiden, Takis, and Katina were staring at her.
“What the fuck, bitch?” Katina yelled.
“I told you guys to stay out of my bags!” Rasha yelled back.
Aiden held up his hands in a screw it gesture and turned to Riker. “Chick is crazy. We weren’t looking through her shit. She’s delusional.”
Myne just shook his head. He didn’t like Hunter, but even he didn’t deserve Rasha. He thought back almost two hundred years and changed his mind. Hunter deserved her.
Unfortunately, the clan didn’t.
HUNTER AND AYLIN had played video games for two hours before she fell asleep, and Hunter wasn’t ashamed to admit he was disappointed when she’d dozed off. He’d planned to use the game to lower her defenses and start earning her trust. As Rasha’s sister and the daughter of ShadowSpawn’s clan chief, she was potentially an invaluable source of intel. But he hadn’t expected to enjoy her company.
After a few minutes of jaunty Super Mario music and gathering gold coins, he’d found himself drawn to her easy smiles. She’d learned quickly, and when he’d assured her she’d be able to play anytime she wanted while she was at MoonBound, she’d actually bounced in her seat.
But how much of that was an act? Nicole had credited Aylin with helping her to escape ShadowSpawn’s clutches, but even that could have been a setup. Nicole’s jailbreak had kicked off a battle that ended only because Hunter agreed to mate Rasha, and Hunter had wondered, more than once, if the entire thing had been orchestrated by Kars to get what he’d wanted for so long: influence inside MoonBound.
So Hunter had played video games with Aylin, using the time to lure her in and build a bond of sorts. But now that the storm was over and they were tramping back to MoonBound through the snow, he figured it was time to do a little prying. See how well his plan to win her over was working. Any insight into Rasha’s and Kars’s minds would be helpful.
Especially since he’d just gotten a text from Takis that read: We’ll meet you outside headquarters. Hurry. I’m ready to hand off Rasha to you. She’s . . . something else.
Something else? Hunter texted back.
Yeah. Something else besides civil.
Hunter cursed silently. He couldn’t believe he’d actually let himself think Aylin was Rasha. Maybe deep inside, he’d been hoping. Because Aylin . . . she intrigued him. She was an impossible combination of wary and unguarded, as if she didn’t trust others but wanted them to trust her. Her spirit seemed desperate to burst from her with an explosion of energy, but something was holding it back. She reminded him of a bird with clipped wings or a wolf on a chain, wanting to be free but unable to make it happen.
Of course, it could all be an act. Her father had once hamstrung one of his own young warriors, a male not even fully grown, and sent him to beg MoonBound for sanctuary. Hunter had taken the youth in, and the clan had nursed him back to health, only to have him poison their water supply.
Seven clan members had died, and now, forty years later, three still suffered from the effects of the poison. The kid escaped before MoonBound could catch him, but he’d fared no better when he arrived back at ShadowSpawn. Kars had reportedly wasted no time in slaying the male, whose injury had left him unable to hunt or fight.
No, Hunter wasn’t prepared to trust any ShadowSpawn member, and that included Aylin.
“I really need you to see Nicole when we get to MoonBound,” he said to her. “You’re still limping.”
They trudged through the snow more slowly than he’d have liked, given that the woods were full of humans, but clearly, her injury was still bothering her.
She’d been following in his tracks, but now she eased up next to him, her face partially covered by the hood of the jacket he’d scrounged from the cabin’s supply closet. He barely felt the cold, but she’d been shivering since she woke up.
“It’s not the wound,” she said. “I mean, the wound took longer to heal than it would for most of us, but I’ve always been a bleeder.” Her cheeks flushed, and he wondered if it was from the cold or the subject. “The limp is something I’ve had my whole life. I was born with a twisted thigh bone.”
“A twisted thigh bone?” He laughed, and Aylin stopped dead in the snow.
“You think that’s funny?”
“Hardly. I’m laughing at the rumors about you.”
She stiffened. “And what have the rumors said?”
“That you’re a hideous, deformed hunchback.”
A blast of wind blew her hood off, and she pushed it back into place with an irritated shove. “How very Shakespeare.” Hunter had heard of Shakespeare, but he had no idea what Aylin was talking about. He must have looked perplexed, because she added, “Shakespeare made Richard III of England out to be a deformed hunchback, which wasn’t true. He had a curved spine, but he wasn’t a Quasimodo.”
There she went surprising him again. “You must like to read.”
“Very much.” Tucking windblown strands of golden hair inside the hood, she started walking again. “You?”
He shook his head. “I can read, but I’m more of a video games and movies guy.” He offered her a hand to leap a narrow stream, but she waved him off and carefully stepped on stones to cross. “Do you like movies?”
�
�I haven’t seen many. Rasha brought a human movie device to the clan, but my father broke it.” Her voice took on a bitter note. “People were getting too many dangerous ideas, apparently.”
Using the opportunity to dig a little deeper, he asked, “And you don’t agree?”
She appeared to consider that. “I think,” she said slowly, “that when leaders control what their people see, hear, and do, they create an environment of fear and anger. Chained dogs turn mean for a reason.”
Either Aylin was a whole lot smarter than her father, or she was telling Hunter what he wanted to hear. In any case, he’d be wise to not underestimate this female. “That’s not much of a Raven way of thinking,” he pointed out.
“My clan follows the Way of the Raven. I don’t.” She glanced over at him. “Do you follow the Way of the Raven or the Way of the Crow?”
“Crow,” he said, but both were bullshit.
The myth of the raven and the crow had been fabricated by the original twelve vampires to explain their origins and hide the truth. To this day, many believed the story of how a raven and a crow battled atop the bodies of two dead Indian chiefs until the blood of all four mingled and the chiefs rose as vampires.
But those who thought the raven and crow fable was a load of crap sought answers in the scientific theory that involved a mutated virus within the Native American community. Which was true. Scientists just didn’t know that the virus had originated with a demon named Samnult.
“Rasha won’t like that,” Aylin murmured. “She’s as Ravengelical as my father.”
Not a surprise. That Aylin didn’t feel the same way was. Unless, of course, she was fucking with him.
“What can you tell me about your sister?” he asked.
Aylin jammed her hands into her coat pockets. “She’s older than me by seven minutes.”
“That’s not what I was looking for, but okay.”
She sighed. “Why don’t you just ask me specific questions instead of fishing?”
Well, she’d called him on that one. He wasn’t comfortable beating around the bush anyway, wasn’t sure why he’d even gone down that road. “Is she bitter about this mating?” he asked, putting it all out there. “Is she leaving a lover behind at ShadowSpawn?”
Aylin took a long time to consider her answer, which didn’t bode well. “Bitter? No. As for lovers . . . I don’t know.”
She was lying, but he couldn’t expect anything else from a sister trying to protect her twin. Or from a ShadowSpawn clan member.
“Are you bitter?” She scooped up a handful of snow and ate a bite. “Or giving up a lover?”
Fuck yes, he was extremely bitter. “I’m doing what I have to do in order to protect my clan.” Which meant giving up all his lovers.
He knew many clan chiefs, including his father, who either had multiple mates or one mate and multiple lovers, but Hunter had always believed that a leader was strongest when his attentions were focused only on one mate. And since he would never tolerate another male with his female, he couldn’t be a hypocrite.
No matter how much he despised Rasha.
Or how much he found himself liking Aylin.
WE’RE ALMOST THERE.”
“Great.” Aylin feigned a smile at Hunter’s announcement. She should be thrilled to get out of the cold, but for some reason, she dreaded their arrival at MoonBound.
“You must be anxious to see your sister.”
“Of course,” she said, but her response was more automatic than genuine. She cared about Rasha, but the thought of seeing her sister with Hunter made Aylin’s stomach sour.
They dropped into a narrow valley, and ahead, standing in a group near a cliff of moss-covered rocks, were several MoonBound warriors, including Riker. Draped in rich furs, Rasha stood apart from them like an ice queen, her expression carefully neutral, her posture stiff.
Riker acknowledged Aylin with the shallowest of nods, and she wondered whether he held his brutal treatment two months ago against her, even though she’d done nothing to cause him pain. In fact, she’d helped his female, Nicole, to escape.
Aylin hung back as Hunter broke away to meet Rasha. Rasha watched him approach, and Aylin didn’t like the calculation—and hunger—that gleamed in her sister’s eyes.
“Rasha.” He halted a couple of feet away, and Aylin experienced a shameful flicker of joy that Hunter wasn’t looking at Rasha the way she was looking at him, as if she couldn’t wait to see him naked.
Rasha inclined her head in greeting. “Hunter.”
Fat snowflakes began to fall from the featureless clouds above as he gestured to Aylin. “Obviously, I’ve met your twin sister.”
Rasha waved her hand dismissively. “Second-born.”
Hunter’s full lips curved into a tight smile. “Thank you for making sure I don’t mistake her for being firstborn. That would have been a disaster.”
His sarcasm was lost on Rasha, who nodded as if she’d just saved him from some sort of life-altering social faux pas.
“Did she tell you she’s staying until after the mating ceremony?” Rasha asked.
“She did.” Hunter gestured for them to follow. “Come on. The entrance to our warren is just a few yards away. We’ll have a celebratory meal prepared for your arrival.”
Rasha fell into step next to him, and Aylin took her place behind her sister as they moved toward a massive rock face. Three warriors remained outside, melting into the forest, while the other three brought up the rear, their hands hovering over the blades at their hips as if they expected Aylin or Rasha to attack Hunter.
“Will there be humans?” The eagerness in Rasha’s tone made Aylin cringe.
Hunter scowled. “Humans?”
“At the meal.”
“Ah. Fresh out. Venison is on the menu.”
“Disappointing.” Rasha sniffed with disapproval. “But I trust we’ll have humans for our mating celebration?”
“Why don’t you put in a request with our head chef. He’s very accommodating.” Hunter picked up his pace, but if he thought he could outrun Rasha, he was very mistaken. More than a century of living with Rasha had taught Aylin that lesson well.
He slowed a moment later, gesturing to a slab of moss- and vine-covered stone set deep into the side of the mountain. “You can’t see it, but there’s an opening here. The entrance is warded, so even if you know where it is, it’ll be invisible to you if you don’t have a MoonBound tattoo.” He glanced at Aylin, his gaze so much softer than when he looked at Rasha, and her heart fluttered stupidly. “I’m guessing you have a similar system in place at ShadowSpawn?”
“We do,” Rasha said. “If you’re lucky, you’ll see my access symbol soon.”
Aylin wanted to gag. Rasha’s tattoo was on her inner thigh, which meant that if Hunter saw it . . . yeah. Aylin didn’t want to go there.
Aylin hadn’t been as bold as Rasha. Or, more accurately, she hadn’t been given a choice about either the placement or the method of permanently etching the symbol into her skin. Her father had held her down and carved the raven’s skull into her back with a dull blade dipped in acid.
To Aylin’s surprise, Hunter didn’t respond to Rasha’s suggestive offer other than to say, “You’ll need to get a MoonBound glyph. I’ll have our mystic-keeper mark you on the day of our mating ceremony.”
A subtle tautness in Rasha’s jaw hinted at her annoyance with Hunter’s lack of interest in the location of her tattoo, but he didn’t seem to care about her irritation. He led them through hallways that grew wider, lighter, and cleaner as they went. Hard-packed earth gave way to stone and wood flooring, and the walls went from being little more than rough-cut rock and dirt to smooth surfaces made of sanded logs and polished stones. Native American artwork and carvings lined the walls, along with chalk drawings that looked like they were made by children.
Ay
lin trailed her fingers over the edges of a deer hide that had been used as a canvas for a painting of wild bison. “This is amazing,” she murmured.
Rasha snorted, no doubt preferring ShadowSpawn’s sparser and more gruesome decor, which, more often than not, included the bones and skulls of their victims—animal, human, and vampire.
“You like art?” Hunter glanced over at Aylin, and she couldn’t help but be pleased that he used a different tone of voice when he spoke to her than when he spoke to Rasha.
“No,” Rasha blurted, once again cutting off Aylin before she could so much as open her mouth.
“Somehow I guessed that of you. But the question was for Aylin.” Hunter didn’t even look in Rasha’s direction, his gaze fixed firmly on Aylin. She wondered if he could feel the daggers Rasha was staring into the back of his skull.
“I love art,” Aylin said, leaving it at that. Rasha already looked like she was on the verge of a volcanic eruption. She hated to be ignored, hated it even more when Aylin got attention that Rasha believed belonged to her.
A female Aylin recognized as Lucy, a youth ShadowSpawn had captured and held hostage with Riker and Nicole, crossed in front of them at a fork in the passage. Wearing baggy cargo pants and a bright orange hoodie that matched her short, spiky hair, she smiled shyly at Aylin, but when her dusky silver gaze lit on Rasha, she bared her fangs and scurried into the darkness.
Sudden tension bloomed, thick enough to burn her nostrils. Hunter wheeled around to Rasha, his sensual mouth little more than a grim slash. “What did you do to her?”
Rasha rolled her eyes. “We put her in her place. Simpletons are meant only for menial labor and pleasuring warriors. You can’t allow them to run free. It’s for their own good.”
Hunter’s expression turned thunderous, and a chorus of low growls echoed through the halls as Riker and the other two males inched closer. Anxiety spiked, and Aylin wondered if she was going to be made to pay for what ShadowSpawn had done to Lucy. Aylin had tried to help the girl, but Lucy had been held either in the dungeon or in the fighters’ quarters, and the best she could do was slip Lucy extra food and send her one of her own threadbare blankets for her bed.
