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I jog the rest of the way to our family home, my heart twisting as the now familiar silhouette of the Victorian mansion comes into view.
Edmond and I haven’t discussed where we’ll live after we’re married—there didn’t seem much point, not when we only expected the marriage to last six weeks—but I hope he’ll consider relocating to the Wonderfully madhouse. We can renovate the currently neglected fourth floor into a private apartment and vampire proof the bedroom so he can sleep there during the day. We’ll keep all the good parts of living with my sister, while also having privacy when we need an escape from the chaos.
I’m pretty sure Edmond will be on board. He adores Blaire and knows that Amy thrives when she’s surrounded by family. And with the fenced in backyard and abundance of critters coming and going from our place, Annabelle will never be lonely while the rest of us are at work or school.
Kitty’s going to love her, I’m sure.
Kitty loves everyone, even people she probably shouldn’t, like the cranky plumber who came to fix a leak and grumbled the entire time about how house krakens were a menace to modern plumbing and should be forcibly relocated to open water.
I’m hoping Kitty’s sweet nature won’t be a barrier to what I have planned, but if it is, I’ll address that problem when I come to it.
The most important part of doing hard things? Breaking the hard thing down into smaller pieces and tackling each piece one at a time.
Piece by piece, I can do this. I believe that.
I have to believe it, or this mission is doomed before it gets started.
Shoulders back and jaw set, I take the steps up to the house two at a time, unlocking the door and opening it to whisper, “Kitty, I’m home.”
Chapter Twenty
EDMOND
Ihit the ground and roll into the reeds at the edge of the river, my ears ringing and my body humming with a horrible sense of déjà vu.
I’ve practiced hand-to-hand combat and brawled with some of my rowdier vampire friends at the blood bars in Paris, but this is the first time I’ve been engaged in battle since I was turned.
The first time since that evening in France when I was still human, still a young man pretending not to be terrified as I ran into enemy fire…
Back then, I thought bravery meant the absence of fear. Now, I know that bravery is about doing what you have to do, even when it’s terrifying, and that the best way to build courage is by disciplining the mind.
I can’t afford to get swept up in the horrific stories unspooling inside my head. The dark memories of the past and the voice of doom, assuring me I won’t be coming home from this fight, have nothing to offer me right now.
The best thing I can do is breathe, stay alert, and remain in the present…
Forcing my clenched muscles to relax, I pull in a deep breath, and scan the area around me. In the near distance, I can hear the groans of one of my comrades in this mission, but I can’t see anyone nearby and the night has gone quiet in the aftermath of the blast.
There’s no sign of the person who fired that bomb, but it must have been fired. Nadar, our shifter tracker, would have scented a mine in his wolf form before we got close enough to set it off. But the riverbank ahead of us offers few places for a sniper to hide. The land beside the water is a mixture of sand and pebbles not conducive to growing anything larger than reeds and a few slim trees.
The lack of cover was discussed before we set out, but this is the fastest route to where the Shadowbane army has allegedly amassed, and we hoped we’d have the element of surprise on our side.
We might still have it, I realize, as the silence stretches on, broken only by the occasional groan and the soft burble of water flowing over stones in the center of the river. If the Shadowbanes knew we were coming, they would have had a war party here to meet us. That explosion would have been followed by a few dozen warriors, armed with stakes, descending upon us, or at the very least more explosions.
But if we were spotted by a lone lookout, he or she might only have one bomb or grenade, meant to be detonated to alert the rest of the Shadowbanes of danger.
And a lookout would be posted somewhere with a good view of the river…
I look up, searching the cliffs to my left. On a cloudy night, not even my enhanced eyesight would have been able to spot the man, but thanks to the moonlight, my gaze is instantly drawn to the small figure clambering up the sheer face of the rocks, He’s moving quickly, but not quickly enough to escape a vampire who can shift into a flying form.
Hopefully, Jamie is still fit to fly.
I surge to my feet and run toward the sounds of moaning behind me, my clothes heavy with water and dripping onto the stones beneath my feet. I stumble once but regain my footing quickly and hurry on. I find Jamie moments later, clutching a gaping wound on his forehead.
“Can you shift?” I ask, knowing there’s no time for first aid, not yet, not if we want to get to the lookout before he escapes.
There’s a chance the Shadowbanes didn’t hear that blast, and we might still have the luxury of taking them by surprise. And even if they did hear it, if we take this man prisoner, I can compel him to tell us more about what we’re walking into—how large is the army, when will they mobilize, and are they defended against the kind of attack we plan to unleash upon them tonight.
He could still save this mission, but we have to catch him first.
