AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This was a warning.
The first shot across the bow, so to speak.
Despite the heat, I shivered. It wouldn’t end here. There was no way it would end here.
Aiden took out his phone and recorded the scene, then pulled on a glove and carefully touched Rosie’s chin, moving it to one side in order to get a closer look at the bite.
“The bite here is smaller than the one on Karen’s neck,” he commented.
Karen was the teenager I’d failed to save not long after we’d settled in the reservation, and the reason Aiden and I had met in the first place.
“She was bitten by an adult male. If what Maelle said is true, then this was done by a vampire who looks no more than sixteen in physical appearance.” I hesitated. “I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that Rosie has the same physical characteristics as Maelle.”
His gaze snapped back to the dead woman. “Damn it, you’re right.”
“And wish that I wasn’t.” The inner chill was growing stronger. I rubbed my arms and added, “The thing that doesn’t make sense to me is, if she’s going to leave nasty little messages like this all over the reservation, why would she call in a basilisk?”
“You say that like you expect me to have the answer.” His tone was dry. “You’d think by now you’d know that, when it comes to magic, I never do.”
I smiled, despite the seriousness of the situation. “And I’d think by now you’d realize that when I’m asking these questions, I’m simply thinking aloud.”
His smile echoed mine, though it quickly faded when his gaze fell back to Rosie. “This is going to hit Connie hard. Even with Connie’s brother living here, they kept pretty much to themselves.”
“She must have thought it was worth it,” I said softly.
His gaze came to mine, but for too many seconds, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, because all that needed to be said was there in the gleaming depths of his lovely blue eyes.
Lovewasworth it. Love wouldalwaysbe worth it.
It might have taken him way too long to get around to thinking that, but damn it, now that he had, he was all in.
“I’ll have to call out Ciara and Mac,” he said eventually. “How likely is it that our vampire is hanging about?”
“With the day rising, very unlikely.” Most vamps avoided any kind of sunlight, for the very simple reason that it was deadly to them. “Do you mind if I walk around and see if I can find anything?”
“Remain within shouting distance.”
“I intended to, just in case I’m wrong and she attacks you.”
He snorted. “When are you ever wrong about those sorts of things?”
“People keep saying that and yet my record is not one hundred percent.”
“Yeah, but the one or two percent you do get wrong doesn’t mean much in the scheme of things.”
“That very much depends on whether you’re the one or two percent.”
Amusement flitted through his expression. “That is very true.”
He got out his phone and began making calls. I dropped my gaze to his neck and was relieved to see he still wore the protection charm I’d given him. He was strong enough in his own right to fight off a vampire attack, and the charm would fight off most magical attacks, but I had no idea if it would work against a basilisk. Even if it wasn’t a demon, the likely size of the thing suggested it could easily crush a man—or a woman—to death.
Still, the demon-repelling spell entwined within that charm should at least deter the basilisk, even if it didn’t outright stop it. It would certainly work better than bullets, which, unless they were blessed or made of silver, were basically useless against most demonic creatures.
I dragged out my phone and took a photo of Rosie so that I could show Maelle later, then looked left and right. I wasn’t picking up any scents that didn’t belong, and there was no indication of magic—hell, even the luminous threads of wild magic were absent, which was very unusual indeed, given its penchant for roaming the entire reservation. The niggle of concern rose again, and again I shoved it back down and forced myself to concentrate on the problem at hand.
I mentally flipped a coin, and then went left. Dust puffed upwards with every step, which meant there should have been some evidence of tire tracks had they come this way via a car. I had no idea if they’d used another road or had simply walked in, but given it was likely there was more than one fire access road crisscrossing the plantation, the former was most likely. I couldn’t imagine Maelle walking any great distance, so it was highly unlikely her maker would.
Despite the rising brightness of dawn, shadows still hugged the pines either side of the road. The forest floor was covered with a thick layer of needles, and while that layer might have been an arsonist’s delight, it was too dry to hold anything in the way of prints. As the road began to sweep to the right, I paused, not wanting to risk going any further. That’s when I caught the soft murmur of running water. If there were going to be any prints found, it would be on the softer banks of a creek, although given there hadn’t been any rain for days and the ground was bone dry, that wasn’t really likely.
