Broken Bonds by Keri Arthur

Chapter Two

Afierce wave of heat and debris hit my back and sent me flying toward a tree. I twisted my body to avoid the trunk but crashed instead into the shrubs and stones that lay to the right of it.

I didn’t move. I didn’t dare. Bits of metal and wood and God knew what else continued to spear through the air, but the tree and the rocks protected me from most of it. The stuff that did hit was mostly splintered and didn’t hold enough force to pierce my clothes, let alone my skin.

After a few more minutes, the magic ebbed away. Ash continued to dance through the air, and a small plume of smoke drifted skyward, though there couldn’t have been much of the caravan left to burn.

I pushed upright, then screamed as pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before hit. Nausea surged and sweat broke out across my brow. Sucking in great gulps of air helped calm my stomach, but there was no calming or controlling the pain. It felt like someone had shoved a white-hot poker into my right shoulder and was gleefully twisting it deeper into muscles and tendons. My body shook, my arm burned, and my fingers were going numb—a sure sign I’d done something rather serious.

I shifted carefully, making every effort to keep the arm still, and then dragged the phone out of my pocket. It had, thankfully, survived both the explosion and subsequent crash relatively unscathed. After switching the camera to selfie mode, I raised it high in an effort to see what the hell was wrong with my shoulder.

And immediately wished I hadn’t.

A three-inch piece of metal as thick as a finger stuck out of my skin. Weirdly, it didn’t feel or even look like the wound was bleeding, though wounds further down my back definitely were. I tried to check them, but couldn’t bend my arm around enough. I swore and put the phone away.

Light swept across the trees lining the road below. A heartbeat later, an SUV appeared. Jaz, I hoped.

I took another deep breath that did little to help the pulsing agony or the growing fear, and then, as carefully as I could, extricated myself from the rocks. Nausea surged once more, and this time there was no controlling it. I braced my good arm against the tree in an effort to keep upright and was violently sick.

The soft sound of footsteps broke through the haze of pain, but before I could react in any way, a familiar voice said, “Lizzie? Are you okay?”

I weakly shook my head. I couldn’t look up; it was all I could do to remain standing right now. The metal seemed to be sapping all my strength.

“A bit of metal has speared my shoulder,” I somehow croaked. Goddammit, even talking was an effort. “I need you to get it out, Jaz.”

“That’s not a wise move, given we have no idea if that bit of metal is the only thing stopping you from bleeding out.” Her feet appeared in my line of vision and stopped several feet away. “I’ll call an ambulance. You do look like shit.”

“Do it after you pull the bit of metal out.” The burning was worse and I was starting to feel light-headed and dizzy.

“Lizzie, honestly—”

“Jaz, trust me, you need to do this. Now.”

She made a low growly noise and then moved closer “Okay, but it’s against my better— Oh fuck, Liz, that’s silver.”

I frowned. “What is?”

“That bit of metal sticking out of your back. It’s silver.”

“Why on earth would a caravan have silver in it?”

“I’ve no idea, but it means I can’t touch the damn thing.”

“You have to. It feels like it’s killing me.”

“Yeah, well, it will definitely kill me.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I need it out.”

“Fine,” she bit back, “but I’ll have to grab some pliers from the back of the SUV. And if you bleed out, I’m going to be very pissed.”

“Hurry,” I said hoarsely, but I was talking to air.

My legs gave out and I dropped heavily to my knees. The waves of heat radiating from the silver shard were now so fierce, sweat dripped down my face and spine, even though I was shaking with cold.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I’d somehow developed an allergy to the damn stuff. And yet both my knife and my athame were silver, and I handled them on a regular basis without problem.

Jaz returned and squatted next to me. “This is going to hurt, I’m afraid.”

“Not as much as leaving it in will, trust me.”

“I daresay we’ll discover the truth of that soon enough.”

She gripped the bit of silver with the pliers and, without fanfare, ripped it from my flesh. A scream tore from my throat; for several seconds, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel. And, God, it hurt.

But with the shard of silver gone, the waves of burning heat and thick nausea quickly eased. I still felt like crap, but at least it no longer felt like I was dying.

I finally looked up at Jaz. She was tall and slender, with lightly tanned skin and short, dark brown hair. She held the pliers and the bit of silver at arm’s length, her expression one of revulsion.

“I expected it to be bigger,” I said. “It certainly felt bigger.”

“It doesn’t take much silver to kill a werewolf.”

“I’m not a werewolf.”

Her gaze jumped to mine. “Indeed. So why were you reacting to silver like one?”

“I have no idea.”

I did have plenty of suspicions, however, and they all revolved around the wild magic and the changes it was making to my body.

But I wasn’t going to give them voice. Not to Jaz. Not to anyone. Not until I talked to Katie. She’d already told me that the wild magic would never alter my DNA to the point where I’d be able to shift shape, so why had I suddenly developed a werewolf’s vulnerability to silver? It made no sense.

But then, that could be said about many things happening of late.

I drew in another breath that did little to ease the lingering remnants of pain and added, “Maybe I’ve been hanging around Aiden too long.”

She snorted. “Maybe. Do you want a hand up or are you happy to remain right where you are until the ambos get here?”

“I’d rather move away from the vomit. It’s rather odorous.”

“That it is.”

She tucked her hand under my good arm and gently helped me rise. Niggles of pain flared down my spine, but I suspected they were due more to bruising than anything serious.

“Ready to walk on?” Jaz asked softly.

I nodded and did so. My legs remained wobbly, but I made it over to her SUV without them giving way again.

“Right,” she said, once I was safely sitting on a rock. “You want to tell me what the hell happened here?”

“The van blew up.”

“Obviously.” Her voice was dry. “The question is, why?”

“The most logical reason would be to destroy evidence of the crime.”

“I thought you said you’d discovered human bones? That normally means the crime is an old one.”

“This reservation rarely does anything normally—at least not when it comes to murder.” I tugged out my phone and transferred all the video files across to her. “Despite the state of the victim’s body, he’d only been dead an hour or so. If it had been any longer, his fear and horror wouldn’t have lingered in the air.”

She opened the files and silently viewed them. “The way his flesh is hanging off his bones suggests he was drained.” Her gaze came to mine. “Could we be dealing with a vampire?”

“A variation of, possibly, though I’ve never heard of one that drains not only muscle and fat, but every single organ like this thing did.”

“Yeah, but as you’ve already said, this fucking reservation doesn’t do anything normal. Would Monty know?” She paused and frowned. “Why isn’t he here? It is his job, after all. You’re only supposed to be a part-time assistant.”

“Yes, but I had no idea what I’d find when my psychic senses tugged me out here. It might have been—”

“Nothing?” she cut in with a snort. “When has that ever been true of late?”

Almost never. “As to where he is, he and Belle went down to Melbourne for the evening. Even if I had called him, he wouldn’t have gotten back here in time.”

“Melbourne, you say?” Speculation glittered in her golden eyes. “Does that mean they’ve finally stopped the verbal foreplay and plunged into the more intimate phase of their relationship?”

A smile tugged at my lips. “That’s a rather polite way of asking if they’re finally fucking.”

She laughed. “And do we know the date of when it happened? I have a fiver riding on it.”

My smile grew. “You and half the damn town. You didn’t win.”

Her eyebrows rose. “And you know this how?”

“Mike’s running the betting book, remember? Seeing he banned me from participating thanks to the possibility of insider knowledge, I helped keep track of all the bets. Notification of the winning date will be going out later today.”

“Suggesting their relationship only progressed recently.”

I nodded. “You were out by three days.”

“Damn.” She put her phone away. “Will you be all right here until the ambulance arrives? I need to section off and record what’s left of the crime scene.”

“I promise I won’t fall off the rock or otherwise collapse on you.”

Her expression suggested she wasn’t convinced, but she nevertheless rose and walked away. I shifted in an effort to find a more comfortable position, without much success. My butt cheeks were as tender as my back, and both would no doubt be displaying a wide range of colorful bruises tomorrow.

The ambulance and the fire brigade arrived a few minutes later, their red and blue lights lending the caravan’s remnants a bloody glow.

While the firemen strode over toward the still smoking remains, the two paramedics helped me into the back of the ambulance and did a full check.

“It appears you’ve gotten away with nothing more serious than a few cuts and bruising,” the older of the two said. “But we’ll take you to the hospital so they can fully check—”

“No,” I cut in. “Definitely not.”

He frowned. “Aside from the fact we can’t be certain the blast didn’t cause any internal injuries, silver sickness is a real possibility.”

“What the hell is silver sickness?”

“It’s a type of blood poisoning that sometimes happens after wolves have been stabbed with silver.”

“I’m not a werewolf.”

He blinked. “Then the silver shouldn’t have affected you the way it has.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “In the unlikely event that I do develop said sickness, what sort of symptoms should I be on the lookout for?”

“It mirrors the symptoms of sepsis, so dizziness, fast heartbeat or breathing, vomiting, slurred speech, that sort of stuff.”

“If anything like that happens, I’ll head straight to the hospital.”

He didn’t look at all pleased by this statement, but we both knew he couldn’t actually force me to seek further medical attention.

“Don’t drive yourself there,” he said, a slight bite in his voice. “Call us.”

I nodded. “I can drive home now, though, can’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I rose somewhat stiffly. “Thanks for patching me up.”

He nodded and helped me from the ambulance. I slowly walked over to Jaz, who was standing to one side of the van’s front end. All that actually remained of it was the floor substructure, two of the four tires, and the bed’s metal frame. The mattress and the body were nowhere to be seen. The spell had certainly done a damn fine job of getting rid of whatever evidence might have been here.

It would also have erased me if I’d been any slower.

“Whatever the hell caused this blast, it did a damn good job,” the darker-haired fireman was saying. “I doubt forensics are going to find much.”

“Which is exactly what the spell was designed to do.”

He glanced at me sharply. “I had no idea spells could do this sort of thing.”

“Spells can do just about anything you want them to.” I glanced at Jaz. “Do you need a statement or anything?”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Aside from the fact you recorded everything, Aiden would have my hide if I delayed you longer than necessary—especially when you’re obviously hurting like hell.”

“I’m not—”

“Liar. You want someone to drive you home?”

“I’d have to hang around and wait for that someone to arrive, and I honestly can’t be bothered. Besides, the painkillers should kick in soon and make everything better.”

She nodded. She knew me well enough now to know when it was pointless to argue.

“Just be careful. And if your psychic radar happens to go off again tonight, please ignore it.”

“Rest assured I will.”

She raised an eyebrow, expression disbelieving. “Rest assured you likely won’t—especially when you’ve shown no inclination to ignore the radar up until now.”

A fact I couldn’t deny. I waved goodbye and slowly walked back to my car. By the time I let myself into Aiden’s house and trudged up the stairs to the bedroom, the painkillers really had kicked in, and I was feeling almost normal—in a floaty, spaced-out sort of way. After a quick shower to erase the smell of smoke and destruction from my skin, I dropped into bed and was asleep within seconds.

Strident music woke me a few hours later. I muttered obscenities at the offender and, when that didn’t work, swept my hand across the bedside table and eventually found my phone. I wearily turned off the alarm and then pried open an eye to see if there were any messages from Aiden. There weren’t, and disappointment slithered through me. Which was ridiculous given he often didn’t make contact on the morning after a moon run with his family. Besides, Jaz wouldn’t have had time to make her report yet, so it was likely he didn’t know about last night’s events.

I ignored the inner whisper suggesting that had nothing to do with the lack of a message, and slowly climbed out of bed. I was as stiff as hell, but I could at least move without too much wincing, and that was always a bonus. A quick look in the mirror revealed I was indeed sporting an interesting array of bruises, but the numerous cuts and scrapes were already well on the way to healing. The area where the silver had stabbed me remained red and puckered, but there was nothing to indicate infection had set in, and both the burning ache down my arm and the numbness in my fingers had disappeared.

I might not be able to shift shape, but the werewolf-like ability to fast heal was definitely getting stronger. Which was probably just as well, given the dangerous situations I kept finding myself in.

I slowly got dressed, then headed downstairs. After making myself a quick breakfast—crumpets slathered with butter and an instant coffee to keep me awake on the drive to our café—I jumped into the Suzi and drove to Castle Rock.

Belle hadn’t arrived home from Monty’s by the time I got there. Either they’d slept in or were too involved in the pursuit of pleasure to realize the time. They were in the first blush of their relationship, after all.

I grinned and headed into the kitchen to do the prep for the day. Mike, Frank, and Penny—our chef, kitchen hand, and main waitress—all arrived before Belle did. When she did make an appearance, her thoughts were all sorts of chaotic, but her eyes sparkled and there was a decidedly bright glow of satisfaction swirling through her aura.

“Had a good night, did we?” I said, as she threw her coat over the nearby hook and then tossed her bag under the counter.

“The best,” she said, silver eyes bright with happiness. “Oklahoma was just amazing.”

“So the review said.” A smile twitched my lips. “But I’m thinking the show isn’t the reason for the glow.”

She gave me a stern look and raised a warning finger. “Go no further.”

“Oh, I won’t.”

“Good.”

“Decidedly so, I’d say.”

She whacked me. I laughed and added, “Oh, come on, after all the dancing to and fro between you two, you’ve got to expect a little ribbing.”

She sighed. “I suppose I should. And yes, before you ask, he’s very … adept in the bedroom.”

“A polite way of saying he got your rocks off multiple times.”

She grinned and didn’t deny it. “So, what happened to you last night? I had a vague sensation of trouble about one o’clock, but when I reached out, you were locked down tight.”

“Because I didn’t want to disturb your night.”

“That doesn’t answer the damn question.”

I waved a hand. “We had an event—”

“Define event.” Her voice was dry. “Because in this reservation, that could mean many things.”

I gave her a quick rundown and then added, “I’m a little stiff this morning, but otherwise okay.”

“And that niggling worry I can feel at the far reaches of your thoughts? The one you’re keeping from me?”

“I’m lucky I can keep anything from you.”

“Stop avoiding the question.”

I grinned. Belle wasn’t only a witch, but also a spirit talker and a strong telepath. She also happened to be my familiar—an event that had never happened before in all witch history and something that had not only changed my life but also saved it.

“I’ve just got a few things I need to ask Katie—nothing serious.”

Belle harrumphed. “Yeah, believing that.”

I smiled and nudged her with my good shoulder. “I wouldn’t lie to—”

“No,” she cut in, voice dry. “But evade the truth? Hell yes.”

I laughed, and we both got down to work. The morning rush came and kept us busy, though I mostly remained behind the counter making coffee, as it required the least amount of movement. I checked my phone a number of times over the course of the day, but there was nothing from Aiden. Had something happened within the O’Connor compound or during the run last night? It wasn’t like any of us outsiders would know—the wolves might share the bulk of the reservation with us, but the three home compounds were out of bounds.

At three on the dot, Monty made his usual appearance for afternoon tea. He was tall and well built, with crimson hair that gleamed like dark fire in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. He was also grinning like a cat that had just lapped all the cream.

A poker player he would never be.

“You can do the honors,” Belle said. “I don’t want to be starting any untoward rumors.”

I snorted. “Little late for that. Half the gossip brigade is here, three of whom won a sizable amount of money correctly guessing when you two would become an item, and all of them will know exactly what that satisfied grin of his means.”

“Yes, but I have no desire to add further fuel to the gossip mill fire. And I probably would, if I went out there.” She slipped his coffee and a thick slice of black forest cake on the tray with my cup of tea and pushed it toward me. “Off you go.”

I rolled my eyes, but picked up the tray and slowly wound my way through the tables to the one he’d claimed in the corner. There was a backpack sitting on one chair and his wet coat slung over the other.

I slid the tray onto the table and handed him his coffee and cake. “Heard a good time was had last night.”

“Heard you hit some problems last night,” he replied evenly. “Why didn’t you ring me?”

I just gave him the look—the one that said “don’t be daft”—and sat down on the remaining chair.

He grinned. “Well, okay, I’m glad you didn’t, because oh boy—”

I held up my hand to cut him off. “Details are not required.”

He chuckled softly. “I, however, do require them. I didn’t get much from Aiden this morning—”

“He was at the ranger station?” I said, surprised and perhaps a little hurt.

“Yes—Jaz was giving everyone a rundown of what happened last night.” He studied me with a slight frown. “I take it you haven’t seen him yet?”

“No, but he did start work reasonably early.” I was making excuses for him, and we both knew it. And as much as I wanted to believe his lack of contact had nothing to do with Katie’s warning, I knew in my heart it was a false hope.

Or was I looking for problems that didn’t currently exist, and doing him a disservice?

It was possible something had happened during the moon run last night—something that had taken precedence over everything else in his life. Especially given that, even at his busiest, he would normally have sent a text message asking if I was okay.

I slid the teapot and cup off the tray, then leaned it against the chair leg, out of the way. “Did they find any body fragments?”

He shook his head. “Though that’s hardly surprising, given the force of the explosion just about obliterated the caravan. You were damn lucky you weren’t more seriously hurt.”

“I can run very fast when the situation requires it.”

“One of these days, that’s not going to be enough.”

“One of these days, the echoes of an unguarded wellspring will stop washing onto darker shores, and this reservation will finally be free from the constant threat of evil.” I shrugged. “Until then, however, I have no choice but to do what I can to keep this place safe.”

“That task isn’t yours alone—”

“No, but I am the only one who can communicate with the wilder forces that inhabit this place.”

He grunted. It was not a happy sound.

I poured my tea, then picked up the cup. Like many of the items we’d salvaged from secondhand stores to use in the café, this cup had a history and a presence the sensitive could feel. While most would scoff at the thought that a mere cup could make a difference to a person’s mood, I knew from experience the wrong choice could have an unsettling effect. This particular cup had become a favorite of mine lately, simply because it held echoes of the loving relationship the woman who’d previously owned the set had been in. It had become my daily reminder that happiness was possible even if everything was threatening to fall apart.

“Did Jaz say anything about the footprint I photographed?” I added.

“They’re presuming it’s human rather than wolf.”

I frowned. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Something about the bone structure and weight distribution of a werewolf’s foot in human form being slightly different to that of an actual human.”

“I’ll have to investigate Aiden’s foot more closely.” I sipped my tea. “Did she say whether she managed to get out there and check it?”

“She did, but the drizzle had basically washed everything away, including whatever scent might have remained.”

“Bugger.”

“Yeah.” Monty scooped up a big bit of cake. “I take it you think the print belonged to whoever set the explosion spell?”

“I can’t be positive, but my gut says it does.”

“And your gut is rarely wrong.”

I couldn’t help but hope that when it came to Aiden and me, it was.

“Did you get any sense of what it was?” he continued.

I shook my head. “It was just a flash of white. I have no idea whether that meant he—or she—was clothed in white or simply had very pale skin.”

“And the magic? I know you said in the video you didn’t recognize the spell, but what about its feel?”

“It was dark, but not evil as such, if that makes any sense.” I sipped my tea. “It was also dark purple, a color I generally associate with revenge rather than magic.”

“There are dark witches who walk the line between good and evil—their magic tends to be more purplish, rather than the dark red of either blood witches or those who deal with demons.”

I frowned. “How can dark witches walk the line? If they trade with evil, they can’t be good.”

A smile touched his lips. “Not everything falls on one side or the other, Lizzie, especially when we’re dealing with magic.”

It did when a dark sorcerer was responsible for your sister’s death. “I take it you’ve met such a person?”

“Once—sort of—up in Canberra.” He shrugged. “He’d come to the archives looking for a book. According to Brenda—a fellow archivist who practically trampled me in order to serve the man—he was charismatic, powerful, and a complete enigma.”

I raised my eyebrows. “The fact he was in the main archives suggests he was there with the council’s permission.”

“He was.”

“But … how?”

He shrugged again. “Something to do with his parentage.”

“Meaning he came from one of the royal lines?”

“That was the talk.” He scooped up the remaining bit of cake. “I don’t suppose any of Belle’s books catalog the various types of vampires?”

The books he was referring to were the ones Belle had inherited from her grandmother. Nellie might have been one of the so-called “common” Sarr witches, but she’d gathered together a vast collection of extremely rare books on magic and the supernatural over the many years of her life. The collection should have been gifted to the Royal Witch Library on her death, but the majority of it had instead gone to Belle—something I suspected the High Witch Council might now be aware of. Which was why we were on the final stretches of converting them all to electronic format. If the council did demand we hand over the library, we’d still have a full record of every book.

“None of the ones I’ve read mentioned this sort of vampire,” I said. “But I’ll check the index and see what I can find.”

He nodded. “It’d be handy to know exactly what we’re dealing with when this thing hits again.”

“It could be a one-off event for a change.”

He gave me a wry look. “Since when has that ever happened?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Well, never, but there’s always a first time.”

“Not in this reservation, there’s not.” He leaned across to the other chair and opened his backpack. “I brought you a present.”

“Me?” I raised my eyebrows. “I’d have thought—given the very new relationship status—you’d be showering Belle with presents rather than me.”

Oh, came her amused comment, he is.

Oh? Do tell.

I’ll tell my secrets if you tell me yours.

I have no secrets.

Liar.

I didn’t bother denying it. She knew well enough when I was and wasn’t keeping something from her.

Monty dragged a rather heavy-looking book out of the pack and dumped it on the table. It was a thick, leather-bound volume that looked older than Methuselah. The gold writing on the cover had faded so badly it was unreadable, but my heart nevertheless beat a whole lot faster.

My gaze jumped to Monty’s. “Is that …?”

“It is indeed.” He spun the heavy book around. The title was no clearer, but it didn’t matter, because I knew exactly what it was. Earth Magic: Its Uses and Dangers. This was the book we’d been waiting for—the one that would hopefully give us some idea of what to expect when it came to the wild magic and its impacts on the human body.

I couldn’t be the only one to have survived a merging with the wild magic. There had to be others, especially given earth magic—as they’d called it at the very dawn of time—had been less volatile and more widely used by witches at the time.

I drew the book closer and reverently ran my fingers down the front of it. Images had been carved into the thick leather, but the book was so old and the leather so worn they were barely visible. I tracked the faint outline of a tree—the tree of life, I suspected.

“Have you read any of it?” I asked softly.

“Nope, because the damn thing is written in Latin.”

My gaze jumped to his again even as my heart sank. “Do you know anyone who can translate it for us?”

“Apparently, Eli can. He said he’d read through and convert the relevant sections for us as quickly as he could. I’ll drop it off to him as soon as I finish my coffee.”

“Good.” I finished my cup of tea, then collected the tray and pushed stiffly to my feet. “Are you and Belle heading out tonight?”

His grin was full of devilment. “I think it more likely we’ll stay in. Things to do, places to explore, and all that.”

“An image I did not need in my mind,” I said. But I certainly got them—at least until Belle abruptly shut the line down. The silence echoed with her amused embarrassment.

He laughed. “We’re all adults here.”

“Yeah, but you’re also my cousin, and I don’t want to be envisaging you all naked and sweaty with my best friend.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I never mentioned naked and sweaty.”

“You didn’t have to.”

His gaze shot past me. “Belle?”

“Didn’t shut her thoughts down fast enough.”

He laughed again. “Then I am definitely looking forward to tonight.”

I snorted softly and placed the empty plate and cups on the tray. After dropping them off in the kitchen, I headed back behind the counter to continue making the coffee orders and doling out cakes.

Aiden still hadn’t contacted me by the time we’d closed and cleaned up, and it was all I could do not to send him a text asking if everything was okay.

“And why shouldn’t you?” Belle handed me a coffee and leaned a hip against the counter. “You are in a relationship, after all.”

I scooped up some of my cheesecake. It was a triple chocolate sort of day. “Yes, but it’s one that is ending.”

“If that is what’s happening here, you need to find out.”

“Agreed, but we both also know I have a long history of sticking my head in the sand when it comes to relationships falling apart.”

A smile twitched her lips. “Hard to forget when you’ve had so few of them.”

I contemplated flicking a bit of cheesecake at her but decided it was a waste of good cheesecake and ate it instead.

“What are you going to do, then?” she asked. “Go home and wait for the man?”

“Absolutely not. I’m going to talk to Katie.”

“Can’t you contact her through the wild magic?”

“It has to be present. It’s not.” Besides, there were some discussions that were best done in person.

Belle frowned. “You won’t get any sympathy from her. Aiden is her brother.”

“I won’t even broach the subject of her brother.” At Belle’s rather disbelieving arched eyebrow, I grinned and added, “Well, maybe a little. But I also need to head across to the new storage unit and see if we’ve anything that mentions entities that can literally suck a man dry.”

“You don’t think it was a vampire?”

I shook my head. “It just didn’t have that feel.”

“I didn’t think it had hung around long enough for you to get any real sense of it.”

“It didn’t, but I have confronted vampires before, and this thing felt nothing like them.”

A car horn blasted outside before she could say anything. She glanced at her watch and then drained the remains of her coffee. “That’ll be Monty.”

“Enjoy your evening.”

“Oh, I will.” She picked up her overnight bag and then touched my shoulder lightly. “I’m here if you need me. Remember that.”

“I know.” I placed my hand over hers and squeezed lightly. “But I want you to lock down your thoughts and stop worrying about me. If I get into trouble and need your help, you know I’ll reach out.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

She studied me doubtfully for a moment. “I sense a ‘but’ in that agreement.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Because I’ll only reach out if the situation is something you can help with. I don’t want to be a spoilsport.”

“I’d rather you be a spoilsport than dead.”

“I’m not going to get dead.” I crossed mental fingers that I hadn’t just tempted fate.

She hesitated and then left. I finished my cheesecake and coffee, then locked up and jumped into the SUV. The Suzi might be cheaper to run, but all the recent rain had washed out the road up to the second wellspring. The SUV, with its bigger wheelbase and all-wheel drive, was definitely the safer option.

Once I was out of Castle Rock and on the open road, I turned up the music and happily sang along. I knew it was nothing more than a means of avoiding too much thinking, and I had no problem with that. I’d spent far too much of my life so far second-guessing not only other peoples’ motives and actions, but also my own. No matter what I feared, no matter what I thought, Aiden deserved the benefit of the doubt. The constant gnawing over what it all meant was absolutely useless.

Of course, telling myself that and actually believing it were two entirely different things.

The second wellspring lay within the St. Erth forests, which ringed the small town of Maldoon and was Marin Pack territory. Thankfully, I’d been given permission to visit the site as often as needed, but only as long as I went absolutely nowhere else.

I turned onto a gravel road a few minutes out of Maldoon and did my best to avoid the many potholes while keeping well away from the soft roadside edge and the long drop into the heavily treed valley below. But as I turned onto the track that led up through the scrub and the second wellspring, the psychic part of my soul stirred.

Something was out there.

I hit the brakes, turned down the music, and studied the shadows gathering beyond the headlight’s bright beams. Nothing moved through the trees, and there was no other sound aside from the rumble of the SUV’s engine. I glanced in the rearview mirror. The red glow of the brake lights lit tree trunks lining the road, and for no good reason, a vision of blood rose.

On the trees. On my face.

I blinked, and the vision disappeared. The trepidation didn’t. It suddenly seemed a very bad idea to be climbing this bitch of a road with night coming on and more rain on the way.

Besides, it wasn’t like I couldn’t come up here any other time. Wasn’t like I couldn’t call in a thread of wild magic and contact Katie if I absolutely had to.

The only reason I’d come up here was simply to avoid going home to emptiness. Which was dumb when I had plenty of times in the past.

I scanned the shadowy trees one more time, then put the SUV into reverse and carefully backed away from the goat track.

As I swung the wheel around, the lights caught a flash of white, and my heart leapt into my throat. The inner wild magic surged through my body, and sparks danced across my fingers, ready to be deployed against whatever moved out there.

The white thing tumbled closer, and I couldn’t help a sharp, somewhat nervous laugh.

It was a goddamn plastic bag.

I flexed my fingers in an effort to release the pent-up energy, then shifted the gear into drive and carefully drove back down the road.

Another flash of white, this time in the trees to my left. My breath caught, and I braked, tension pounding through me. It didn’t ease when I saw it was just another bit of plastic.

I scanned the growing shadows, looking for the threat I could feel.

Nothing.

But it was definitely out there.

What “it” was, and what it intended, were two questions the psychic part of my soul couldn’t answer.

I watched the plastic float off over the edge of the steep drop to my right, then drew a shaky breath and continued on.

I’d barely gone more than a few more meters when energy surged.

Energy that was dark and fierce and full of determination.

My own responded, exploding from my body so fiercely it tore a gasp from my throat.

But before I could do anything else, something hit the side of the SUV and sent it tumbling.

Straight over the edge of the road and down into blackness.