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“What happens at nightfall?” Kylie asked as Leonard and Sandra headed back to theirrooms.
“Not all the legends about vampires are true,” West said. “But sunlight does burn them to a crisp. They can stroll around in the subway tunnels all right, but they can’t make any attacks above ground until the sun goes backdown.”
“So we’ve got some time to decide our next steps.” Nate leaned forward, running his hand over his thick chestnut-brown hair. “We should find out if there’s been vampire activity near any of the other city centers where they have their clans. New York is the biggest one—what else isthere?”
“Los Angeles,” Aaron said. “Las Vegas. Chicago. And Atlanta. But they’ve got smaller pockets scattered through the smaller citiestoo.”
“I don’t understand,” I burst out. “Why would they suddenly attack us like this? I know shifters and vampires aren’t, like, friendly, but this… the comment Sandra said she overheard… It sounds like they hateus.”
Marco grimaced. “There’s no love lost between vamps and shifters, that’s for sure. We keep the peace with our treaty rather than any affection on either side—the same as with the fae. It’s always been easier for both of our peoples to keep to our own territories rather than get into some kind of war. I don’t know why they’ve changed their minds aboutthat.”
“But it is war. No one could argue that. With guns that powerful…” I swallowedhard.
“We have our advantages,” Nate said. “We can prepare by daylight, but we know how to fight in the dark aswell.”
“We won’t be easy targets when they can’t take us by surprise,” Westadded.
I swiped my hand across my mouth. “Okay. So sunlight burns them up. What else can we use to our advantage? What else are they weakagainst?”
Marco raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. “After sunlight? I’d say what they’re most afraid of isfire.”
Chapter 2
Ren
The stone wallaround the canine estate looked more than solid enough to keep out automatic gunfire. But of course that wouldn’t help us if the vampires found their way over it. I bit my lip, considering it from where I stood in the frontyard.
“What else do we have to worry about with vampires? They suck people’s blood, they’re stronger and faster than regular people—but not more than us—and it seems like they’ve got access to heavy artillery… Can they do the whole transforming into bats thing? Leap tall buildings with a singlejump?”
Marco chuckled. “Shifters have the monopoly on animal transformations, princess, so no need to worry about that. And the bloodsuckers aren’t Superman clones either. Their biggest advantage is that they’re damned hard to kill, being already dead andall.”
“Sunlight does the trick,” West said, giving the sky a grim look. The sun was nearly at its noon peak, pouring summer heat over us. “And fire. A clean beheading. Not muchelse.”
“Wooden stakes?” Kylie suggested, making a sweeping gesture with her arm as if brandishingone.
“I don’t know anyone who’s tried that,” Nate said with a thoughtfulfrown.
Aaron would probably know—but he’d gotten a phone call five minutes ago and walked off around the house to talkundisturbed.
“Well, it’s not as if we’re likely to get close enough to stake any of them if they’ve got their guns blasting anyway,” I said. “Fire will do thetrick.”
But my dragon fire would only help the kin here on the canine estate. My thoughts leapt to the shifter village we’d spent a couple nights in after my alphas had first found me. All the kin there who’d been so awed to meet me, to know the dragon shifter had finallyreturned…
Those small settlements didn’t have big stone walls to halt bullets—and they didn’t have any dragons to pour flames down on their attackers either. Protecting my people would be a hell of a lot easier if there were more shifters likeme.
Maybe someday there would be. The thought gave me a twinge low in my belly. Once upon a time there’d been four dragon shifters—my mother and my sisters and me. If I fulfilled my bond with all of my alphas, then we could start thinking about raising children of ourown.
But not now. Not into a world like this. I could fight for the shifters with everything I had as long as I only had myself to protect. It was saving me, trying to save my sisters, that had held my mother back when the rogues had first attacked all those years ago. She’d only been able to save me, and only by leaving the rest of her peoplebehind.
Aaron emerged from the shadows around the house, fallen pine needles rustling under his feet. One look at his expression was enough to tell me he had more badnews.
“They hit one of yours too?” Marco said as the eagle shifter joinedus.
Aaron nodded, his mouth set at a pained angle. “A small settlement just up the coast from L.A. The vampires surrounded the village so they could shoot at anyone who tried to fly out. A few were able to make it, but most… It was a slaughter. Alice is seeing that the survivors are looked after.” He’d sent his sister back to the avian estate on the coast when the rest of us had headed to West’s, so he’d have someone he completely trusted overseeing his ownpeople.
My stomach turned. We’d had similar reports from the village of canine shifters near New York, an enclave of feline shifters not far from Atlanta, and a collective of Nate’s disparate kin a few hours outside Las Vegas. The vampires had made their bloody intentions crystal clear. But they hadn’t made anydemands.
“And we still don’t have any real idea what the vampires want?” Isaid.
