Hot Blooded

lithe accent. “Selene would take it back from me if she was given the chance, but it’s mine now. I won it from her fairly.”

“The cross was the Lunar Goddess’s trinket?” I asked. No wonder it worked on the devil venom. It had been made for a goddess.

Naomi nodded slowly. “It was… yes.”

“See,” Tyler accused, pointing at Naomi. “This proves my point exactly. Naomi and Selene know each other personally. Did you know that?” He turned to me, his eyes blazing. “We can’t keep trusting them blindly, Jess! If we do, we’ll all end up dead. The Queen gave us two vamps who have a connection to the very Goddess we’re trying to kill. This isn’t an even game; it’s rigged.”

I ignored Tyler’s tirade for the moment and instead narrowed my eyes on Naomi, assessing. There was pain and some guilt in her expression before she finally glanced away. I ventured a guess. “You said you earned that cross with the blood of your servitude.” I pointed to her pocket. “You served

Selene?”

“Oui,” Naomi said thinly, turning back to face me.

“Willingly?”

She hesitated for a few beats. “Oui. ”

“Your Queen is very shrewd. I’ll give her that.” Sending two of her best, knowing they knew the enemy better than we did put us in a challenging position. “Did your Queen order you not to divulge this connection to us?” I asked.

“We were to give you the minimum assistance, as always. It is so for any duty. She needn’t have ordered us to keep quiet specifically; it would be expected of us.”

“Now that we know you’re connected to Selene, what happens next?” I asked. “If you served the

Goddess, you have inside information, things that will make defeating her easier. Now that we know,

what are you going to do about it?”

Tyler stood next to me, silent, his anger vibrating around us in waves.

A slow smile spread across Naomi’s features, making her appear both sweet and gruesome at the same time. She was still covered in dried blood, the white of her cheekbones standing out in bright contrast against the red. “Now that this information is out it seems the rules have changed.”

There was a gust of air and Eamon dropped beside her. “Naomi, you must keep your mouth shut.

Our Queen will not tolerate anything more. We are almost to the boundary. That was our only duty.

We will see them to the edge and leave—nothing more.”

Naomi uttered a single word in response. “Non. ”

11

“That is not what we are doing, brother.” Naomi put a hand on his arm, silencing him before he could form a rebuttal. He must have been lurking in the trees listening to us. My distaste for him heightened to new levels. “Have you forgotten what just happened here? Our duty was to take them to the entrance and to warn them of the dangers— all of the dangers. The winged devils were unexpected and much too far outside of her domain. Something is wrong here, different than it should be, and we will do our best to figure it out before it ends us all. The boundary lines have changed, and we will change accordingly.”

“That is not our job,” Eamon insisted. “Our duty is to fulfill the Queen’s orders, not to divulge unnecessary information or battle what waits for us inside those lines. The Queen will not suffer us if we do not follow her wishes.”

“You would choose to not repay a life debt?” Naomi quirked her head to the side. “You would choose instead to run with your tail between your legs yet again?”

“Of course we will repay the debt,” Eamon sputtered. “But we need to do it according to our laws.

We report back to our Queen and await her wishes. She will decide who owes and how much we pay.

That has always been our way.”

“My life was saved by one thing only: the blood of an immortal. To not repay such a gift immediately is unthinkable. We will repay the need, which means we will bring them to her door and give them the information they need to survive.”

“The Queen will be angry.”

“The Queen is diplomatic.” Naomi crossed her arms. “If I were to leave when the bearer of my debt is in need, we risk war with the wolves, do we not?” She shifted her gaze to me and raised an eyebrow.

“Um… yes. Absolutely,” I answered, following her lead. “Eamon, you can’t desert us now. Your

Queen wouldn’t want a war on her hands. As a rule, wolves must pay up immediately if they can.

Nobody wants a life debt hanging over their heads. If you don’t pay it now as needed, I could demand something bigger from your Queen once we return. Then where would you be? There’s not a doghouse big enough, especially with what I’m going to ask for.”

Naomi smiled, covering it up delicately with the back of her hand as she replied, “And once we arrive at Selene’s door, we will stay and help you defeat her. If we make it out alive, my life debt to you will be paid in full.” She inclined her head. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I said quickly.

Eamon gasped. “We will do no such thing! The venom has gone to your brain and made you rash.

It’s too dangerous. I will not willingly return to that place and suffer at her hands agai—”

“We will do it,” Naomi snapped. “You are my blood-kin first; my debts are yours to fulfill by honor. The Goddess will not harm us this time. We are smarter and stronger; we are not the children we once were.”

Eamon raged, his hands balled into tight fists. It looked like steam could possibly pour from his ears.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I interrupted, trying to diffuse the situation. “How long did you…

serve Selene? And why?”

Naomi turned to me, her eyes stark for a moment before she answered. “One hundred and fifty years,” she replied softly. “We did not understand the gravity of our decision at the time. We were fledglings recently turned by a low-level master. Once it was known our special gifts in tracking and sensing were”—she cleared her throat —“rare, we became a bartering tool to make our master wealthy.

He offered us to the highest bidder, which was the Lunar Goddess, but the Vampire Queen stepped in and gave us a choice—we could choose her or Selene. We were foolish. We thought being in the company of a powerful goddess would give us great power and ultimate status, that she could protect us better than our own Queen,” she scoffed. “But we were chained and treated like slaves for over a century. Unleashed only when she required us to do her bidding.”

“How did you finally escape?” I asked. I was both curious and appalled.

“She became lazy and began to leave us unattended for small periods. Then I happened across this.” She patted her pocket. “The cross can do more than just heal an immortal. It is a powerful weapon. While it was buried in Danny’s body, burning the poison of the Underworld, he was temporarily void of all his power.”

“Pardon?” Danny interrupted. “I hadn’t any power? That’s funny, because I didn’t feel any different. Though I was unconscious through most of it.” He was still on the ground, sitting upright now, but not ready to stand. We were all following the conversation closely. Ray had taken a seat on a nearby log, and Tyler stood stoically with his arms crossed, patient for now to hear her out.

“If it is used against Selene,” Naomi continued, “it will absorb her powers the same way, rendering her useless for the time it remains in her body. It will not kill her outright, but it will incapacitate her.

Once she found out that the cross could work against her, she sought to destroy it… but it was already lost.”

“And once she misplaced it—it was your property to find,” I finished.

“Oui. ” Naomi smiled like a shrew. “It was not my fault my jailer became careless and trusting in my company, that she mistook my placation for devotion and faithful servitude.”