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“I don’t care who hates me. Just don’t take it out on my friends—” And then I paused. Crap. I knew who had sent them. At least, I was fairly certain. “Geoffrey and Leo sent you, didn’t they?” Behind me, Rhiannon gasped. “Get back, don’t let them near you.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure nobody was behind us.
The larger vampire snorted. He cocked his head to the side, his obsidian eyes gleaming. “Don’t worry your scrawny neck about it. We’re not out for the win. Yet. Just consider this visit a promise of things to come. Geoffrey loves the chase, and the hunt. But you’d better prepare yourselves, because when it’s time to get real, little girl, you can be sure there won’t be any place to hide.”
And then, in a blur so fast I couldn’t see them move, they were gone.
I stared at the front door. It was open, blowing in the wind.
“We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?” Rhiannon leaned close to me.
I nodded, staring at the snow that swirled in on the wind. “Yeah,” I said softly. “And somehow, I don’t think it’s going to get any easier. Not for a long time.”
Rhia and I managed to get Luna onto the sofa. I was attending to her wounds—the punctures were jagged and deep, and she’d lost a fair amount of blood—when Grieve burst through, followed by Kaylin and several guards.
Kaylin took one look at Luna, on whom he was crushing bad, and rushed over, sliding to the floor beside the couch. “Is she—” He glanced up at me.
“I’m not dead, if that’s what you mean.” Luna groaned and sat up, gently pressing her hand to the bandage on her neck. “But damn, I hurt, and I’m dizzy.”
“There’s no food in this place. We need to get you something to eat.”
Kaylin pulled a candy bar out of his pocket and pressed it into her hands. “What happened? Did you cut yourself? Lainule said there were vampires up here…” He glanced around. The guards had already spread out through the house, making sure the coast was clear.
“The vamps are gone, for now.” I let out a deep breath. “Geoffrey and Leo sent them. Luna…they…” My gaze went to the bandage on her neck.
Kaylin followed my look. “Those fuckers drank from her?”
His eyes grew dark. He was Chinese, and his long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He looked our age—around his mid-to-late twenties—but in reality he was more than a hundred years old. With a night-veil demon wedded to his soul, Kaylin walked in shadows. He played in the dark.
“Yeah,” I said slowly, standing so I could stop him if he tried to follow them. His eyes flashed dangerously, lighting with a fire I had seen only once or twice. “She’ll be okay, Kaylin. They didn’t feed enough to endanger her life.”
Waiting for a moment till he calmed down and sat beside her, I turned to Luna. “Can you tell us what happened?”
She shuddered. “I was on my way to the market—I wanted to make apple pie, but they didn’t have everything I needed at the Barrow. I thought I’d be fine. If anybody had to worry about going out alone during the day, I thought it would be you and Rhiannon. I argued with the guards until they let me go alone.”
“Right. I heard.” I’d vouched for her, told Lainule she’d be okay. I hung my head, sorry I’d ever opened my mouth. “You left around four, right?”
“Yes. I wanted to stop in at the bookstore to see if a book I ordered last week had come in. It felt so good to walk down the sidewalk without being afraid that the Shadow Hunters would be hiding in the alleys.” She grimaced and stretched her neck, wincing from the pain of the bite. Vampires could make you come by drinking from you, but the aftermath? Not so much fun. Kaylin and I helped her sit down again.
“I guess you should have taken a guard with you.” I stopped, realizing I’d just spouted off the same advice Rhia and I had refused to take. With a sigh, I shrugged. “What happened?”
“I stopped at a coffee shop after that, then the market. When I came out, it was just after sunset. I was waiting at a bus stop to return here when they appeared, out from the alleyway. Before I knew what was happening, they grabbed me and dragged me into the shadows. My packages were on the ground, and they pressed me up against the wall. One of them turned to look at me, and that’s when I realized they were vampires. I tried to look away, but…”
Vampires could mesmerize with their gazes, and Luna, as magical as she was, couldn’t possibly hope to stand up against them.
“They both fed on me.” Her voice was thick, and she blushed. “I liked it. They made me like it. I feel…dirty. Used.”
“Yeah, they do that.” I flashed a look at Kaylin that said, Don’t say a word, and then knelt beside her. “Did they do anything…else to you?”
She shook her head. “They dragged me into a limo. And then…we were here. I thought they were going to kill me, but the one—the bigger one—just told me that I was lucky this time. Then he grinned and said that next time, he’d finish me himself. He said my blood was sweet.” Another shudder, another look of horror. “That’s right when you came in.”
“Kaylin, take her back to the Barrow and make sure she’s okay.”
Kaylin said nothing but wrapped his arms around her shoulders and, once again, helped her stand. It was obvious she was weak. Luna was short, plump, and pretty. The demon within Kaylin’s soul had given him extra strength and speed, though, and he picked her up as if she were light as a feather and carried her out the door, calling to one of the guards to accompany him.
As they left, I turned to Grieve and Rhiannon. “Want to make a bet this has something to do with our meeting with Regina?”
“You need to take guards with you, since I am specifically not invited.” Grieve glowered. He hated it when I went into Lannan’s territory without him, but there wasn’t much we could do. Having them in the same room together was pretty much like holding a lit rag to a can of gasoline.
