by Chloe Neill
We passed fields and farms and fast food and very occasional wildlife. A pair of deer frozen and staring in the middle of a cornfield. A raccoon, eyes flashing in our headlight as it scampered along the side of the road. And the approximately one million bugs that struck our helmets.
We’d ridden for a couple of hours when Connor pulled into a gas station with a diner along a dark stretch of road. The building gleamed in the darkness, and semis idled in the parking lot’s dark corners. We parked, removed our helmets. Alexei pulled up beside us, took off his helmet, pushed a hand through his hair.
“Coffee,” he said.
“Seconded,” I said, then climbed off the bike, still feeling phantom vibrations from the bike’s motor, and rolled my neck.
“You okay?” Connor asked.
“I’m great,” I said, not bothering to check my crazed smile. “That was amazing.”
“I’m glad you liked it, ’cause we’ve got several hours to go.” He smiled, ran a hand through his hair. “It’s the scenic tour of Wisconsin tonight. Albeit in the dark.”
“My favorite time of day,” I said, and tucked in locks of hair that had escaped from my braid. “It’s nice to get outside the city. We weren’t really a road-trip family. Much less a motoring one.”
“I’m shocked to hear that,” Connor said as we walked toward the door, his voice dry as toast. “When I think vampire, I think camping and muddy hikes.”
“My father was a soldier—four hundred years ago. He’s gotten used to high thread counts and temp control.”
“And what about you?” Connor asked, with what sounded like challenge in his voice. He held open the door as a man reached it, then walked through, sleeping child limp in his arms. “Thank you,” the guy mouthed silently, carried the kid to a minivan.
I glanced back at him. “Are you asking me if I can hold my own?”
“Yeah, I am.”
We walked into the small alcove between exterior and interior doors. There was tile on the floor, paneling on the walls, and an old-fashioned gumball machine in a corner, topped with a pile of real estate brochures.
I arched an eyebrow. “Not that I need to prove anything, given we fought the fairies together—and won—but I’ve walked forty miles of Hadrian’s Wall, hiked Lac Blanc in the dark, spent three nights in a tent in the snow in the Pyrenees. That acceptable?”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah. That should do it.”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing through the interior door. “I thought it might.”
* * *
* * *
We sat down at a booth along the diner’s front glass wall and ordered black coffee, which the pinafored waitress delivered in plain stoneware mugs.
I took a sip, grimaced at the harsh bite of what tasted like liquid creosote.
“Coffee’s shit,” Alexei said, staring down into it.
“It’s pretty bad.” I looked at Connor. “I don’t suppose there’s a Leo’s in Grand Bay?” Leo’s was my favorite coffee shop in Chicago.
“Leo’s is good coffee,” Alexei said. The most words he’d said directly to me so far, and since we agreed, I considered it a good step forward.
“No Leo’s,” Connor said. “But there will almost certainly be coffee, and it will probably have ‘north’ or ‘moose’ or ‘lake’ in the name.”
Alexei grabbed a half dozen sugar packets from the condiment holder, ripped off the tops, and emptied them into his mug. He piled the leftover paper into a neat little mountain, then took a sip of the coffee-flavored sugar, swirled it around his mouth.
“Did that help?” I asked.
“No,” he said, putting down the mug and wrapping his hands around the ceramic to warm them. “Just makes it sweet.”
“Alexei has a bit of a sugar problem,” Connor said.
“Sugar isn’t a problem,” Alexei said. “It’s a solution.”
“You riding dirty?” Connor asked.
Alexei humphed.
“How much you carrying?”
Connor’s voice, dropped to a whisper, had gone so serious, I thought we’d shifted to talk about transporting contraband across state lines. Especially when Alexei reached into a small leather backpack, pulled out a wrinkled and folded paper bag.
He unfolded the top, poured the contents on the table. But where I’d been expecting to see drugs or contraband, I found a hoard of candy. There were gummi bears, sour sharks, licorice, and lemon drops. A rainbow of taffy, a sleeve of candy wafers I didn’t think they even sold anymore.
“You’re hilarious,” I said to Connor.
He smiled at Alexei. “Told you that would make her nervous.”
“I won’t apologize for being law-abiding.”
“Long as you aren’t a square,” Alexei said, tracing the shape in the air with his fingertips.
I rolled my eyes. You could take the shifters out of Chicago, but that apparently meant bringing along their inner fourteen-year-olds.
“Shifters,” I muttered, and took a square of banana taffy. “Sarcasm tax.”
Alexei almost—but not quite—smiled.
I unwrapped the taffy, read the joke on the inside of the wrapper. “‘Knock, knock.’”
“Who’s there?” Alexei asked. At least he was game enough for a bad joke.
“‘Orange.’”
“Orange who?”
“‘Orange you glad you ate this delicious taffy?’” I read.
Alexei’s expression was grim. “That’s moronic.”
I smiled, handed him the wrapper. “You’ll have to take that up with the taffy people. Tell me about Alaska,” I said to Connor. “Has everyone made it to Aurora?” I popped in the candy.
Alexei snorted, stirred his coffee, metal on ceramic making a tinkling sound as he mixed.
“Almost no one has made it yet,” Connor said. “They take their time. It’s a tree,” he said, and unwrapped a bundle of silverware. He put the spoon on the table. “Main branch,” he said, then added the fork and knife so the blunt ends of all three touched, but the functional ends were fanned out. “Secondary branches,” he said, pointing to the fork and knife. “Most of the travelers take the main branch, but there could be as much as two days of riding between the first and last riders. That’s a long column with potential stragglers, and it’s hard to defend. So we use the branches. Two separate groups of shifters edge out from Chicago on routes that run alongside the main branches, but between fifty and a hundred miles apart. They ride ahead, scout territorial problems.”
“And provide a shield,” I guessed.
“Exactly,” Connor said approvingly. “They can close in from the sides if necessary, but they give the main Pack plenty of room to move. And spreading them out—keeping the main group smaller—tends to keep the locals calmer.”
“Tends to,” Alexei muttered. “But does not always.”
“Thus your last two weeks,” I said to Connor.
“Thus. Shifters in Colorado. Vampires in Arizona. Among other problems.”
“How’s Riley? I forgot to ask last night.” Riley was Lulu’s ex-boyfriend, a hunk of a shifter who’d been wrongly accused of murder when the fairies had worked to take over Chicago. We’d helped secure his release, and the moment he’d walked out of his cell, he’d joined the caravan.
“Better,” Connor said.
“He’s the knife.”
I looked at Alexei. “Leading the line?”
Alexei nodded, sipped his coffee.
I looked at Connor. “You want to tell me why Gabriel thought we might need backup?”
“’Cause the clan is run by assholes?” Alexei suggested.
I shifted my gaze from him to Connor, brows lifted.
“The leader’s arrogant,” Connor said. “I called my great-aunt Georgia to get the details about the initiation, found o
ut there’s been some dissent in the ranks over the last few months. Clan elders versus young guns, as far as I can tell, but I don’t think I’m getting the whole picture.”
“You think they’d hide something from Gabriel?”
“Yeah,” Connor said. “A Pack’s not like a vampire House. There are more of us, but we’re spread over a larger territory, so the local outfits tend to act like fiefdoms. That’s fine by the Apex. As long as everyone is treated well, things are run fairly. But sometimes they aren’t. I don’t know if that’s the situation here, but we’re hearing grievances, and the responses from the clan leaders don’t engender much confidence.”
“And that’s where we come in,” I guessed, and Connor nodded.
“Ought not pull the sword unless you have to,” Alexei said.
I smiled thinly. “Vampires don’t pull swords unless they mean to use them.”
He made a sound I thought was approval, but how would I have known?
“I’m going to gas up the bike,” Connor said, rising and pulling bills from his pocket, tossing them onto the table. “Pay that, will you, Alexei?”
He gave me a meaningful look, then walked out, leaving the two of us alone. And, I thought, trying to get us to talk to each other.
I looked at Alexei, found him looking back at me.
“How’s your family?” I asked him.
“They’re Breckenridges.”
“Rich, fancy, and condescending?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Pretty much. Yours?”
I considered my answer. “They’re Sullivans. Political, particular, and very focused on Cadogan House.”
“I think we’re supposed to be enemies.”
I looked up at him. “Are we? I mean, I know there’s no love lost, but I didn’t know there were active grudges.”
“I’d call it more lingering resentment.”
I nodded. I didn’t doubt he was telling the truth about his family—they were Brecks—but I think he was being sarcastic about the rest. His voice was so flat, it was hard to tell. On the other hand, there were shifters who didn’t like me, and they hadn’t bothered to mask the emotion, so I decided to play along.
“Okay. We should put on a good front for Connor, though. Especially since he went to all the trouble of assuring we’d talk to each other.”
He nodded, cast a dour glance out the window. “I don’t care for conversation.”
“So I gathered.” I finished my coffee, slid to the edge of the booth. “I’m going to do you a solid and let you out of it early.”
He looked at me, skepticism in every inch of his face.
“I have no argument with introverts,” I said.
“I’m not an introvert,” he said, sliding out of the booth to stand beside me. “I’m just a misanthrope.”
I grinned. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m a vampire.”
He was smirking when I turned back toward the door. I considered that a victory.
* * *
* * *
When the bill was paid and the gas was pumped, we gathered outside again. Alexei took off first without a word to me or Connor, taking the lead for this portion of the trip.
“He has a unique sense of humor. Dry as a bone.”
Connor smiled. “It took me a while to catch on to that. Figured he was just an asshole Breckenridge. He’s quiet around those he doesn’t know. But he’ll talk the ears off those he trusts. He’s smart, savvy, and loyal. And loyalty matters.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
FOUR
We saddled up again and headed northwest. Two more hours slipped by beneath a rising crescent moon that shone among a million diamond stars. We pulled off the freeway near our third (or fourth?) cheese curd castle, then drove through flat pasture to a small town with little more than a grocery store and a gas station. We turned into a neighborhood of tidy ranch houses with flowers on small porches, then into the gravel driveway of a low brick house. Flowerpots flanked the door, and a wrought iron bench held court beneath a picture window.
Connor turned off the bike, pulled off his helmet.
“Our second and final rest stop,” Connor said as the porch light came on, illuminating the front door.
“No Alexei?” I asked, pulling off my helmet and rolling my neck.
“He’s going to drive ahead, check the lay of the land.”
“That’s very vampiric of you,” I said with a grin, throwing back his comment.
“We occasionally have strategic thoughts,” Connor said with a smile. “But we try to avoid them as much as possible.”
A woman stepped outside. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, with light brown skin, dark wavy hair that just reached her shoulders, and the wiry form of a distance runner. And she wore a tank top over yoga pants and running shoes so brightly pink, they nearly glowed in the dark.
That she was shifter was obvious from her energy. She was also stunning, with wide hazel eyes, a generous mouth, and apple cheekbones.
“Connor,” she said, and held out her arms. She was just a little shorter than me, and nearly dwarfed by Connor when they embraced. He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“It’s good to see you.”
“And you. It’s been too long.” She put her hands on her trim hips, looked him over. “I think you’ve gotten taller.” She glanced at me, smiled knowingly. “And definitely more interesting.”
Connor smiled, and it was warm and happy. “This is Elisa Sullivan.”
“Of course it is,” she said with a smile, then reached out a hand. I walked up to meet them, and we shook, shifter power tingling in her touch.
“Marian Decker. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“And you,” I said. “Your shoes are amazing.”
“Right?” She looked down at them. “Running is my best friend and my worst enemy. But just seeing these makes me smile.” She opened the door, waved us in. “Come on in. Let’s get acquainted.”
* * *
* * *
The house’s interior was lovely. It had been gutted and remodeled, small rooms replaced with an open living and dining room, carpet replaced by hardwood floors, heavy cabinetry painted white. It was cheery and happy, and that was helped by the two giggling little girls who’d been captured in the arms of the man I guessed was their father.
“I’m Arne,” he said, a tall man with square shoulders, light skin, and short blond hair so pale, it was nearly white. The children squealed beneath his arms. “And these are Maddie and Roxie.”
They laughed as he swung them back and forth.
“Elisa,” I said. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
“You know me,” Connor said, tilting his head to look at the girls. “Hello, ladies.”
They stopped wiggling to look at him. “You’re the prince,” said the older girl, who I guessed was six or seven. She had light brown skin and curly hair pulled back into a bouncy tail.
“Something like that.”
“I’m a wolf!” said the littler one, closer to three or four, and bared her teeth menacingly. She had her sister’s coloring, but her hair was darker and made a halo around her face.
“A terrifying wolf,” Arne said, and put them carefully down. “Now, go play.”
The younger girl put her thumb in her mouth, held out her hand automatically for her sister’s. The older girl took it, and they ran down the hallway and turned in to another room.
“We’ve just finished up some soup,” Marian said. “Creamy chicken and wild rice, because we’re in Minnesota, of course. Would you like some?”
“I’d love some,” Connor said, then glanced at me.
I was starving, so I nodded eagerly. “As long as it’s not any trouble.”
“Zero trouble. Sit down,” she said, gesturing to the table as she moved
to the stove, where a blue enamel pot was waiting. She pulled down bowls from an overhead cabinet, plucked a ladle from a crock near the stove, and began to fill the bowls.
“That smells amazing,” I said as the scent of chicken began to slip into the room like smoke.
She brought the bowls to us—stoneware of a deep ocean blue—along with folded linen napkins and silver spoons.
“What would you like to drink?” Marian asked. “Coffee, water, tea? We’ve also got a fridge full of pop for company.”
“Water’s fine,” Connor said. “Riding always makes me thirsty.” He glanced at me.
“Water’s fine for me, too. Thanks.”
“Easy enough. I’m going to make some tea, and you’re going to eat. Arne?”
“I’m fine. You want help?”
“No,” she said, making a shooing motion with her hands toward the table. “Sit and chat. I’ll get this.”
“She uses this fancy tea,” Arne whispered as we tucked into our soup. “Has it shipped in from the UK, and she won’t let me touch it.”
“Shifter,” Marian called out as she filled a red kettle. “I can hear you whispering.”
“Also shifter,” Arne said back to her. “I know you can.”
Marian rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“The soup is wonderful,” I said, blowing on another spoonful. The chicken was tender and moist, the broth almost obscenely buttery, the wild rice the perfect texture between chewy and soft.
“Thank you,” she said, adjusting the gas flame beneath the kettle, stray water droplets hissing in the heat. “It’s Arne’s grandmother’s recipe.”
“Your grandmother is a genius,” Connor said to him.
Arne accepted that with a nod. “How was the drive?”
“Good,” Connor said. “Weather was fine, cops were few, and the vampire only screamed once.”
“There was no screaming,” I said dryly. “He managed not to drop the bike, although there were a few close moments.”
