Inside, the place smells of iron and bleach.
He’s alone.
Apron soaked through, stiff with dried blood. Fresh streaks stain the front, darker and still wet. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, forearms corded and smeared red. Hair flattened to his skull from sweat. Eyes rimmed in exhaustion.
He looks up when the door shuts behind me. “Rogue,” he says, voice sounding like gravel dragged over concrete.
I nod once. “You’re open early.”
A man, known only in our circle as‘The Butcher, ’snorts, scrubbing a hand down his face, leaving a diluted smear across his cheek. “Group of hunters staying up at the cabins. Came in late with a truck bed full of elk and two deer. Wanted everything broken down before sunrise so they can pack out and head home.”
His gaze drops to my hands, then back to my face. He knows what I am. Knows better than to ask more than he needs.
“Lucky for me,” I say.
He leans back against the scarred wooden counter. There’s no one else here. So no need to move away from prying ears. The fluorescent light hums overhead.
“What’ll it be?”
“Five gallons of cow’s blood,” I tell him. “Fresh.”
A flicker passes through his eyes, curiosity maybe, but he keeps it to himself. He pushes off the counter and disappears into the back.
I wait, listening to the metallic clatter of lids and the slosh of liquid as it fills containers.
He returns with sealed jugs, dark red shifting inside thick plastic.
Cash changes hands with no receipt and no unnecessary words.
He looks more tired up close. His shoulders are slumped.
“Long night?” I ask.
“Long season,” he answers as I slide some cash across the counter for him. He nods at me, our business done, and I lift the containers without effort, carrying them out into the dark.
The blood goes into the cooler in the truck bed.
Insurance, sustenance, a bridge between her current state and whatever control we manage to build in the coming days.
I slide back into the truck, glancing over at her to see she is still knocked out. So, I turn over the engine and drive. The wilderness swallows the road by increments, pavement giving way to gravel, gravel surrendering to dirt, civilization thinning until the only signs of human presence are the tire tracks I’m currently creating. Trees close in on both sides, old growth that predates the founding of this country, branches forming canopy overhead that filters daylight into something gentler, greener, ancient.
Pack territory.
The land recognizes me before I’ve driven half a mile past the invisible boundary my ancestors marked generations ago. Something in the air shifts… the forest itself acknowledging lycan presence and responding accordingly.
Charlie stirs in the passenger seat, her unconscious body reacting to the change in atmosphere even if her conscious mind remains locked in Hades’ imposed sleep.
Dawn breaks as the cabin comes into view.
Morning crawls over the trees in streaks of gold, probably pretty if I had the time to give a shit about scenery instead of the scion vampire beside me who’ll get a wicked sunburn if sunlight hits her in the condition she’s in. New vampires burn, not fast or painfully, but their bodies haven’t developed the tolerance Originals possess, haven’t learned the tricks that let older vampires tolerate exposure without learning to endure the sun. Think of it more as a sunburn, but she will be able to tolerate it fully. All vampires can—the sunlight-kills-vampires ideology isa myth. It’s like when you’re new, it’s more of an ache to their newly scion skin, which eventually dulls over time.
I park as close to the cabin’s entrance as the terrain allows, killing the engine and moving with speed that has nothing to do with urgency but everything to do with the clock counting down until Hades’ spell breaks and Charlie wakes in an unfamiliar place with her hunger still screaming and no idea where she is or why her skin is suddenly feeling hot instead of cold.
The cabin key hides where it always has, tucked beneath the third stone on the porch’s left side. The door opens on hinges that creak in ways that would bother someone who cared about stealth, revealing interior space that’s exactly as I remember it. One main room, a kitchen area against the far wall, a stone fireplace, and furniture built for function rather than comfort. A hallway leading to two bedrooms and a bathroom with running water, courtesy of a well and septic system my grandfather installed decades ago.
Rustic, isolated, and perfect for what we need.
I carry Charlie inside, her body still limp in my arms, her weight distributed in ways that make the task easier than it should be. The bedroom on the left has reinforced windows, the kind designed to withstand lycan strength during full moons, shifts when control becomes optional, and walls strong enough to contain what we become. Curtains hang heavy and thick, blocking potential sunlight with multiple layers.
