Bitten to Death

one last time.

Gesturing with my good arm for Genti to step out of the crowd, I had Trayton and Phoebe hold him as I pulled my knife. “You’ve got a lot to answer for,” I told the shaking vamp. “It’s hard to know where to start.” I nodded to Aine, who stood near the back of the crowd wearing a dark red veil, her hand steady on Admes’s elbow. “But I’m thinking you can give her some payback right now.”

I directed Phoebe to hold his arm over the case that held the fedora and, with one quick move, slit the sleeve of his fancy blue jacket as well as a foot-long opening in his skin. Phoebe snarled, her silver-painted eyelids crinkling with delight, as the blood poured onto the glass. “Trayton can remember you cheering as he fought,” she whispered into the vampire’s ear. “Your pain is like candy to me, suckster.”

“Put your fangs away,” I told her. “You know the deal. You bite somebody, you’re going to start a new fight I’m not willing to referee.”

She glanced at Trayton, who gestured for her to back off. He returned my grateful nod and added a slow wink that reminded me I wasn’t alone in this. I glanced down the line at Cole and Dave, who each gave me a sober nod. So good to have trusted people at my back again. It made even this tonnage easier to bear.

I stared back at the blood. Whispered, “Okay, Hamon. Now would be a good time to—”

He didn’t rise this time. Genti’s blood simply rearranged itself on the case, taking the familiar form of Eryx’s image. Nobody else reacted, which almost made me wish I could give one of them this extra eye I’d grown. Almost, but not quite. Maybe, I thought, maybe Dave was right. I could find all kinds of reasons to bitch and whine about my Sensitivity. About my potential love interest. But if I didn’t have either, where would I be?

“Is it done?” Eryx asked. He blinked, an odd movement that made droplets run down his cheeks like bloody tears. “No. I can still feel the threat to the Trust.”

“We’re outside your room,” I said. “I need your help to get in.”

The eyes closed again, the entire face clenching in concentration. Seconds later the barred gate blew open. “Good work,” I said, but the face was gone.

I went first, Jack trotting at my side. Hamon had also opened the door to the Preserve. The lights were even on. What a welcome.

I led the way to the center of the Preserve, surrounding myself once again with that sense of history you only get when someone a thousand years’ gone has crafted the items you currently share space with. But the costumes and shields, the magic bones and blood cups did nothing to help me brush aside the depression that wanted to crush me like a bug beneath its heel.

This is the right thing to do. The only way to save Vayl, I told myself. And, listen, it doesn’t mean anything has to change for him. Or between the two of you. Before cynical me could rip off a hearty laugh, I poured her a Jack and Coke and shoved her into the arms of a guy who owned a Ferrari. She shut right up.

I took my place beside the mask, which was blinking. Okay, pretend that doesn’t make you want to find the nearest bat and practice your home run swings on Octavia’s wooden head. It helped that I couldn’t have held one at the moment. Dave had immobilized my arm on the plane and, now that I was a pack member, Krios had willingly sent a doc to the airport for me in one of those mobile clinics set up inside an RV. He gave me a local anesthetic, a brace, and an urging to visit the hospital the second I had a spare day.

Cole came behind me, carrying the front end of Vayl’s litter. I allowed myself a spurt of happiness at the reminder that I hadn’t watched him die after all. Cassandra had been right. Which did us no damn good at the moment. My boss had entered some sort of coma state, and nobody could explain to him that his sons were still alive because they weren’t Cam and Cole to begin with.

The ice had begun to melt as soon as Vayl lost consciousness. But it had left his clothes a shredded mess. I’d found a thin yellow blanket on the plane, and that’s what covered him now, making him look like a sick kid who’s spent way too long in the nurse’s office waiting for his parents to pick him up from school.

Cam carried the other end of Vayl’s stretcher. Despite the pain in my collarbone, I could’ve danced across the floor to see both his eyes open, though their customary twinkle had been replaced by the grim face he wore in battle. He’d survived the fight only because he’d worn his own body armor, which had covered even more skin than Cole’s. Thank God for that, because the shooter’s bullet had hit him in the armpit. A death blow to any but a Special Ops trooper who was issued the best of everything.

Genti and his crew followed, guarded by Dave, who’d loaded his crossbow with a Bergman special. Which meant, as he’d reminded them, if any one of them decided to get snippy, they’d experience a repeat of the Koren incident. Only this time we’d all stand and wait until the smartass burned.

Niall and Admes, still escorting Aine, walked around to the side of the dais opposite mine. Disa’s guards were flanked by Kozma and his bears: burly, broad-chested men who looked like they spent their weekends braiding saplings into giant slingshots. They carried Disa on a second litter, which Tarasios walked beside, making sure the sword that still impaled her caused no more damage.

Trayton’s pack came last, led by Krios, who’d promised to make sure everyone behaved, even the hotheaded dockworker who’d been so ready to war the last time I’d seen him.

Yeah, I hadn’t left much to chance.

The second I’d understood what the vision wanted back in Skofja Loka, as soon as I’d realized all the ramifications, I’d pretty much called in all my favors. To orchestrate an event that would force me to betray my basic instinct. Which was to grab Vayl and get him as far away from the monstrosity of a mask at my side as soon as I could. But that, I knew, would kill him.

The guards laid Disa on the floor at the foot of the mask. Cam and Cole had already given Vayl a spot of his own on the carpet beside me. They flanked him in a good imitation of Disa’s former shieldmen, though each of my guys held an armed crossbow. The message should’ve been clear to the assembled Trust members. But I drew Grief and pressed the magic button anyway. Jack looked up at me when he heard the whir of working gears.

“Stay low,” I told him. He sat. Well, it was a start.

Admes, Niall, and Aine came to stand beside me. “Are you ready?” asked Niall.

I swallowed the obscenity that lay like salt on my tongue. But I supposed Niall saw it on my face, because he said, “Vayl will be an excellent Deyrar. And he should not have to give up his work with