more useful than some of the aberrations that have come to my attention.”
“I’ve heard the rumors, of course,” Theron said. “I’m looking into them, and trying to determine which of the wild speculations is most correct. So far, most of what I’ve heard has been barely credible, and some of it has been outright impossible … like vampires turning human.”
Kaleo nodded, his gaze going distant. “Indeed.”
“I heard about Brina,” Theron said. “What are you planning to do?”
“Legally, I suppose she’s mine, since she was before the change. I would appreciate it if you could help me spread the word that I will enforce that claim, should anyone attempt to harm her.”
“Do you intend to bring her in?”
“No, I think not,” Kaleo said thoughtfully. “I killed her once, and discovered then that she is a very different woman as one of us than she was as a mortal.”
“She’ll die,” Theron pointed out.
“Nothing beautiful lasts forever.”
Fala stared at the corpse in front of her as it rapidly deteriorated. It wasn’t rotting; she knew what it looked like when a body rotted. This one was decaying in a different way, like a mummy in dry sand.
Moira and Jager had both been unconscious, wrapped in wild dreams, for days. Fala had drawn on magic in order to sustain them, magic she had barely used since she was a human sorcerer. When they had woken, the three of them had hunted like wild animals, desperate to renew their strength. They had barely survived.
Apparently, some others had not.
The body in front of Fala, which she suspected would be dust within days, was wearing one of Silver’s thousand-dollar suits. It was also in his office.
Should she do something for him? Maybe she could bring a mortal in here, slit its throat over the body, and see if the cascade of blood would revive the decomposing ancient.
She kicked it instead, sending debris flying like ash into the air and causing the body to crumble further. That way, she didn’t have to wonder whether or not he would wake up.
She went looking for Aubrey, to see if he had survived this cataclysm. Given her bad luck, he probably had. It seemed like the younger vampires had fared better. Moira had been in better shape than Jager; Aubrey was younger than Moira by about five centuries. Sadly, he was probably fine.
Kyla leant her shoulder to clearing wreckage from what had, a few days before, been the entrance to the Dragon’s Nest club. More recently, it had been a sick ward for serpiente who had fallen ill, including Kyla’s brother, Lucien Cobriana.
Somewhere in the worst of the fever, Lucien had started raving in the ancient language, too rapidly for Kyla to follow with her limited understanding of the tongue and the fever filling her own brain. It had sounded like he was arguing with someone.
Then the ground had started to shake, as if the earth itself were shivering. Lucien had opened eyes that were no longer just the rust-red of cobra eyes but that had burned like liquid magma. He had grabbed her arm. Dragged her up. Shoved her to the door, and commanded,
He had evacuated most of the serpents in the nest, but when the ground had collapsed, it had swallowed him. Kyla hadn’t been able to inform the rest of the family, because no one had been able to reach
“Are you ever going to tell us what the hell that was all about?” Brent asked.
“Once I fully understand it, and know what I am allowed to tell you, I will consider whether or not I want to bother,” Ryan replied.
Samantha sighed. It had been a difficult few weeks. She knew that whatever had happened had involved others of her kind, but she hadn’t had enough power to participate in the fight … or to even know who was fighting, or over what, or who had won.
Ryan had only come downstairs to eat. Otherwise, they hadn’t seen him in days; he had been sequestered in his private ritual area, trying to communicate with the ancient powers to which his family had long ago tied themselves.
All he had reported so far was that there had been a major shift in power globally. No one currently in the room had been seriously affected, but word on the street was that many things had changed.
The three known as the Wild Cards sat around the same table where they often gathered to chat.
Rikai’s skin had returned to its flawlessly smooth porcelain, the scars hidden, and her muscles and joints were once again functioning as they had before the Inquisitors had treated her to the third degree. The elemental that had ridden her had been one she was already familiar with, a creature not of one of the pure elements—fire, earth, water, and air—but of agony and rage.
Xeke had fed once since they had returned from the forest, but it had been mostly out of habit. He suspected he didn’t need blood anymore. The power given to him by the elemental had shifted his needs. Thankfully, he had plenty of mortals willing to stay near him and sleep in his arms, keeping the power well fed and content … and he could still appreciate a macchiato, which this particular cafe made very well.
Renna leaned back and enjoyed her chai latte, already contemplating who she would choose as her narrator. As always, the others had been involved in forming the story, and she was left to write it.
Her power had changed, she thought, but who could really tell? She had been born an Arun witch, tainted by vampires, partially trained as a Triste, and now possessed more than one strain of shapeshifter power. All of that had been jumbled and reassembled. It would be fun to see what happened next.
She pulled out her laptop, flipped it open, and opened her word processor.
“I think the best place to start would be at Kendra’s Heathen Holiday,” Xeke said. “With Jay coming in from the snow.”
Renna nodded. She had visited the gala briefly, but too many people didn’t like her, mostly due to her propensity to tell the stories she learned, regardless of the preferences of those involved. But she knew how things had looked. She knew that Daryl’s
Yes, she would begin there.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AMELIA ATWATER-RHODES wrote her first novel,
