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PROLOGUE
The scene was chaotic, with Dallas and his men descending upon them and Emily screaming and running for the woods. It turned out Kevin's brother, Ted, and sister-in-law, Emily, were the ones who were trying to kill him. If it hadn't been for his beloved Archer and Archer's friend Dallas, Ted would have succeeded in killing Kevin. As it turned out, Ted was the one to leave this world.
"What's wrong?" Archer asked as he pulled back to look down at his beloved Kevin, who he was holding tightly to his chest, protecting him from everything around them. He then saw that Kevin was covered in blood, Archer's blood.
"Oh, my God, that bastard Ted shot you!" Kevin screamed as he saw the blood that was covering them both.
"I'm fine. Bullets don't affect me. It's a perk of being a vampire." Archer showed Kevin that his wounds were rapidly healing. The relief was overwhelming, and Kevin threw himself back into Archer's arms. Dallas walked up and cleared his throat to get their attention.
"Why don't you two head back to the cottage, and we will take care of things here." Dallas would see to the disposal of Ted's body and clean the scene.
“Where’s Emily?” Kevin asked, not really caring since she was as guilty as Ted.
"She grabbed Ted's gun and ran off into the woods. She's being followed by my men, but I doubt she will last long in these woods." Dallas informed flatly.
"Why?" Kevin asked.
"She has a gun and is covered in blood and just ran into cougar country," Archer stated.
“They’re real cougars?” Kevin was beginning to understand.
"They can be, and they're very paranoid when it comes to trespassers." Archer and Kevin headed back to their garden cottage in DuCane territory, while Dallas went into the woods after Emily.
CHAPTER ONE
Dallas followed the woman's tracks into the woods. She was disoriented and irrational and in cougar territory. She had taken the gun from her husband's corpse and was covered in his blood. She would be an easy target for the Cougars. The shifters that resided within the forest were a different breed than those who lived in town.
They were harsh and unforgiving, especially the cougar packs. Following the difficulty and upheaval of the last few years with rural shifters being captured and victimized, they tended to kill first and ask questions later. But who could blame them when often it was their own survival that hung in the balance.
Dallas could hear the cougars just ahead. They were tracking something or someone. He moved quietly but swiftly. Vampires have a speed and agility unmatched by any shifter species. He came up on a group of three who then dispersed. They were looking for someone, and Dallas assumed it was Emily.
“She’s in the area, I can smell her.” One of them muttered. “She’s armed and bloody and a danger to us all.” The same one continued with his rant. The other two remained silent and moved off in opposite directions.
Dallas followed one of them, a smaller version of the others and smaller than any cougar shifter he'd ever met. The small cougar dropped down into a gully, and Dallas remained on the edge, hidden by the dense forest but where he could see him clearly. He watched him move toward the river, and then he saw her.
Emily was waving the gun wildly around and raging nonsense. She was incoherent. Dallas was about to intervene when the cougar put his finger to his lips, indicating for her to be quiet. He then stepped forward, took the gun from her, and tossed it in the river. The others were yelling for him to report, but he was not responding.
This small shifter was ignoring his brothers cougars, which was not typical of the young members of cougar packs. Young cougars were strictly trained from birth to submit and follow their elders and leaders, or at least that is what he'd heard.
Dallas watched as the young cougar led the woman to the crossing of the river, which would allow her access to a road that was well-traveled. It was a place where she could receive assistance and escape cougar territory and the cougars. The young cougar waited until she was safely away before turning back the way he'd come and proceeded to cover her scent trail as he went. Dallas watched until the young cougar was out of sight, and he could hear the elder shifters chastising him.
"Stop wondering off, Andy." He snapped. "The woman needs to be found and dealt with before she comes after us and kills us in our beds."
"How do you know she's planning to attack? She looked delirious, not dangerous." The young one responded with an equal bite.
"She rushed onto our lands carrying a gun after there was trouble just outside our borders. Would you have us do nothing and let our numbers be decimated as before?" The elder shifter made an emphatic retort. It was a bit of a leap, but Dallas could understand the concern. The young one did not answer but rather walked away. He was not going to share that he'd helped the woman escape.
Dallas wasn't sure what to make of it all. He'd never witnessed the backwoods cougars doing anything for anyone but themselves, and they certainly did not stick their necks out for strangers. This shifter had him perplexed enough that he continued to follow and watch him for another hour before returning to the Palace and making his report.
Andy couldn't get Elroy or Ford off his back. The two of them kept after him to find that woman and deal with her before she killed them all. They were acting ridiculously, but then so was his brother Billy. The woman was delusional; out of her head, she was not a danger to them.
Billy was the leader of their pack, and he ran a very tight ship. He and his second in command, Ford Monroe, ran the pack like a dictatorship and guarded their land to the point they killed anyone who presented the slightest threat. Cougars were known for being reactionary and insensitive, and Billy ran his pack under the mantra, kill first and ask questions later. Many thought that was a joke, but it was not.
Shifters in the area had been victimized in the past, and many were tortured and killed in the name of magic and power. It was a terrible time, but Master DuCane found and destroyed those who sought to enslave the shifters. The Master received no appreciation for his effort since the lingering animosity that existed between the two species continued to make gratitude impossible. Cougars and Vampires were like oil and water and were meant to never mix according to Billy and the elders.
“Andy!” Damn, it was Billy.
"What?" He kept walking, and then his brother shouted again in that way that said pay attention or pay dearly, so Andy stopped and turned to look at him.
