And we settled into some serious, heart-accelerating flirting. Over the phone, passion brought on no panic attack.
I hung up eventually. We both had to get up in the morning, but the call left me restless and not sleepy in the slightest. After a few minutes I got up and took a good look at the stitches in my face. They were tiny and neat, individually tied and set so when my face altered, they wouldn’t pull. Trust a werewolf to give me stitches so I could shift with them.
I stripped out of my clothes and opened my bedroom door. And as a coyote, I popped out of the newly installed dog door and dashed out into the night.
I covered several miles before heading out to the river and my favorite running ground. It wasn’t until I stopped to get a drink from the river that I smelled vampire—and not my vampire. I stood in the shallows of the river and lapped at the water as if I hadn’t sensed a thing.
But it didn’t matter because this vampire had no desire to remain unseen. If I hadn’t smelled him, the distinctive sound of a shotgun shell jacked into place was quite an announcement of intentions. He must have followed me from home. Or maybe his sense of smell was werewolf good. At any rate, he knew who I was.
Bernard stood on the bank, the gun held with obvious familiarity with the barrel pointed at yours truly. Vampire with shotgun—it seemed a little like Jaws with a chain saw, too much of a good thing.
I’d have preferred a chain saw in this case. I hate shotguns. I have scars on my butt from a close-range hit, but that wasn’t the only time I’d been shot—just the worst. Montana ranchers don’t like coyotes. Even coyotes who are just passing through and would never attack a lamb or chase a chicken. No matter how much fun chasing chickens is…
I wagged my tail at the vampire.
“Marsilia was so certain he’d kill you,” Bernard told me. He always sounded to me like one of the Kennedys, his a’s broad and flat. “But I see that he fooled her. She’s not as smart as she thinks—and that will be her downfall. I need you to call your Master so I can talk to him.”
It took me a moment to remember who the Master he was referring to was. And then I didn’t know how to do it. I had so many new ties, and I didn’t know how to use any of them. What if I tried to call Stefan and ended up with Adam here?
I took too long. Bernard pulled the trigger. I think he meant to miss me—unless he was a really bad shot. But several of those stupid pellets hit, and I yipped sharply. He had the next shell in the gun before I finished complaining.
“Call him,” Bernard said.
Fine. It couldn’t be that difficult, or Stefan would have told me more about how to do that. I hoped.
Stefan? I thought as hard as I could. Stefan!
If I’d thought he’d be in any danger, I’d never have tried it, but I was pretty sure that Bernard, like Estelle, was going to try to recruit Stefan for his side in the civil war Marsilia had brewing in her seethe. He wouldn’t try anything right away, and after the way Stefan had dealt with Estelle, I wasn’t worried about Bernard as long as the element of surprise wasn’t a factor.
Bernard was wearing jeans, running shoes, and a semicasual button-front shirt—and he still looked like a nineteenth-century businessman. Even though his shoes had a glow-in-the-dark swoosh on them, he wasn’t someone who would blend in with the crowd.
“I’m sorry you’re so stubborn,” he said. But before he could get the gun up for a final, painful-if-not-fatal shot, Stefan appeared from… somewhere and jerked the gun out of his hands. He swung it by the barrel into a rock, then handed the not-so-useful remains back to Bernard.
I waded out of the water and shook off over both of them—but neither reacted.
“What do you want?” asked Stefan coolly. I padded over to him and sat at his feet. He looked down at me and before Bernard could answer his first question, he said, “I smell blood. Did he hurt you?”
I opened my mouth and gave him a laughing look. I knew from experience that the couple of birdshot in my backside weren’t deep, probably not even deep enough that they would need to be dug out—fur has many advantages. I wasn’t all that happy about it, but Stefan didn’t have a wolf’s understanding about body language. So I told him I was fine in a way he couldn’t mistake—and my rump hurt when I wagged my tail.
He gave me a look that might, under other circumstances, have been doubtful. “Fine,” he said, then looked over at Bernard, who was twirling the broken shotgun.
“Oh,” said Bernard. “Is it my turn? You’re through coddling your pretty new slave? Marsilia was certain that you were so fond of your last flock that you wouldn’t have the stomach to replace them soon.”
Stefan was very still. So angry he had even stopped breathing.
Bernard braced the shotgun on the ground and gripped it one-handed, butt up—leaning on it as if it were one of those short canes that Fred Astaire used to dance with.
“You should have heard them screaming your name,” he said. “Oh, I forgot, you did.”
He braced himself for an attack that never came. Instead, Stefan folded his arms and relaxed. He even started breathing again, for which I was grateful.
Have you ever sat around while someone held their breath? For a while it doesn’t bother you, but eventually you start holding your breath with them, willing them to breathe. It’s one of those automatic reflexes. Fortunately, the only vampire I associate with much likes to talk—so he breathes.
I sat at his side, trying to look harmless and cheerful—but looking around for more vampires. There was one in the trees; she’d let herself be silhouetted briefly against the sky. There was no way to communicate what I’d seen to Stefan as there would have been with Adam. He’d have read the tilt of my head and the paw on his foot. Bernard’s verbal attack hadn’t had quite the effect he’d expected… or at least been ready for. But that didn’t seem to faze him. He smiled, showing his fangs. “She had only you left,” he told Stefan. “Wulfe’s been ours for months, and so was Andre. But he was afraid of you, so he wouldn’t let us do anything.” There was a world of frustration in the last two words, and he jerked up the gun, threw it casually over his shoulder, and began pacing.
For the first time, he looked to me like what he was. Somehow, before, he’d always looked like an extra from a Dickens movie—someone full of pomp and circumstance and nothing more. Now, in motion, he looked like a predator, the Edwardian facade nothing but a thin skin to hide what was beneath.
Estelle had always unnerved me, but I discovered I hadn’t been afraid of Bernard until just then.
Stefan stayed silent while Bernard ranted. “He was worse than Marsilia, in the end. He brought that thing… that uncontrollable abomination among us.” He paused and stared at me. I dropped my eyes immediately, but I could feel his attention burning into my skin. “It is good your sheep killed it, though Marsilia couldn’t see it. It would have brought upon us our doom—and she did us the second favor by killing Andre.”