PROLOGUE
MERRY
I had no idea what I was doing.
None.
Okay, so that's partially a lie.
I did know I was packing up my meager belongings and my computer. Then, I was getting the hell out of town.
Where to?
No clue.
I laughed to myself at the little mental rhyme and then shook my head in disgust. I'd been alone for so long that I was beginning to talk to myself, not just out loud, but in my own head. And not in the ordinary way that a person might talk to themselves silently.
No, I had to be amusing.
Or slightly creepy.
As I stuffed the last t-shirt in my suitcase, I glanced around the sterile studio apartment that had been my home for the last six months. There was little more than a bed in one corner, a kitchenette in the opposite corner, and a garage-sale sofa in front of a giant big screen TV from the 1990's that had to weigh a couple hundred pounds. I assumed the owners left it there because it was too heavy to move.
I'd already packed up my small supply of non-perishable food and eaten the last two bananas I had. My clothes and laptop were all ready to go.
The only thing missing was a destination.
But I had to leave. There was an instinctive part of me that was screaming I needed to run as fast and as far as possible. That someone, or something, was coming for me and I wanted no part of it.
Considering what had happened to me nearly a year ago, I wasn't going to question that instinct.
Being held hostage by an insane witch with a scary pet vampire that drank life force instead of blood had cured me of any skepticism when it came to sixth senses.
Magic existed. Evil existed.
And both had promised to return for me.
I sure as hell didn't want to be easily found when it did.
As I stared around the crappy apartment, it came to me.
Austin, Texas.
It was as if someone whispered those words in my ear, calling me to a safe haven.
Again, I didn't question the gut feeling that I should head in that direction. Logic had no power against the sort of magic I'd faced.
Seeing as Austin was several states from St. Louis, maybe it would make it even more difficult for Rhiannon to find me when she came back.
And I didn't doubt that she would return. Though she was a powerful witch, I'd dealt with women of her sort before. The kind that were cold inside, cunning, and cruel.
Somehow, they always got their way.
Probably because they didn't care who they destroyed on the path to success.
While I might not have the magic to fight her, she didn't have the technological know-how to track me, which was why she'd kidnapped me in the first place. She'd needed my computer skills.
I made sure to pack every item I owned and donated my single sheet set, blanket, and small collection of mismatched dishes. Every other piece of furniture, cabinetry, and even the walls, had been wiped down from top to bottom. Then, I intended to cleanse the room with burning sage just to be on the safe side.
A year ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of cleansing a room with smoldering dried herbs, but after watching Rhiannon do it on more than one occasion, I wasn't going to discount it any longer.
Once that was done, I would be on my way to Austin.
And, hopefully, to safety.
CHAPTER ONE
MARCUS
She's coming.
My eyes flew open as the words echoed in my head.
I sat up and threw the blanket off my legs. The room was still dim, but I could see the first watery light of dawn slipping around the edge of the blinds.
Rubbing a hand over my sternum, I leaned over and tried to take a slow, deep breath.
As always, the dreams made my chest feel tight, as though I couldn't take in enough air. Then, there was the headache that accompanied it.
I winced as the first throb hit behind my eyes. I knew Ava would have cuffed me on the back of the head for calling them dreams when, in reality, they were visions. As a powerful sorceress, she would know the difference, I suppose.
But, still, if they happened in my sleep, what else should I call them but dreams?
Mostly they were nightmares that featured the same woman. A woman who'd been trapped and terrified by Rhiannon.
I tried to take comfort that the woman was no longer in danger because Rhiannon had been imprisoned in a magical realm by a deity, the Goddess herself. But from the dreams she shared with me, I doubted that the woman knew.
Rhiannon had wrought so much pain the year before she was caught and sent elsewhere. She'd tried to destroy Macgrath, a man I consider a brother, the one who had turned me into a vampire to save me from death on the battlefield. When that didn't work, she went after his mate, Ava.
Unfortunately, she'd underestimated Ava's powers. And her connections to the Goddess.
In the eleven months since she'd been banished, Ava and Macgrath had worked to heal the damage Rhiannon had caused not only to them, but to others.
Like Caleb.
In her quest for more power, Rhiannon had used ancient magic to create an animavore, a soul eater.
Once a normal man, Caleb now required the life force of others to live. Through Rhys, the only other animavore in existence, he'd learned to feed without hurting or killing humans and he'd learned to control his power.
Seeing as how Rhys had found his way to Ava just before Rhiannon's reappearance, and met his mate at Ava's shop, I had to believe that it was fated.
Rhiannon had also been the cause of a rift between Macgrath, Callum, and me. The three of us had fought side-by-side for over a thousand years, yet she managed to tear us apart with ridiculous ease.
Those wounds were beginning to heal, but I doubted it would be as quickly or as easily as the ones between Macgrath and Ava.
As the ache behind my eyes began to lessen, I turned my thoughts back toward my dream and the woman.
She'd been in the car, driving through the night.
Coming to Austin.
And, though she didn't realize it, she was coming right to me.
The knowledge was both heady and weighty.
From her nightmares, her memories really, I knew that she no longer felt safe and that she feared Rhiannon's return.
I hadn't told a soul about the dreams. They were too painful. Too intimate.
I not only saw what she did, but I felt her pain, her fear...the utter helplessness.
Also, there was the fact that she was the hacker who'd helped Rhiannon hide her tracks. The computer wizard that Callum couldn't track, no matter how hard he tried.
That was saying something, because not only did his fingers move with preternatural speed, his brain seemed to as well. There were very few hackers who could outdo Callum and he'd been more than a little pissed at his inability to track not only Rhiannon, but the hacker as well.
It also amused me because if he'd had any clue that he'd been chasing a woman, he would have been doubly irritated and even more intrigued.
Despite the tight band of pain that still surrounded my skull, I found myself smiling.
Maybe I could introduce them someday.
My smile faded at the thought. I doubted that would happen. Ever.
The woman in my dreams was coming to Austin and I would likely never meet her. Even if I did, I imagined she would fear me as deeply as she feared Rhiannon and Caleb. If not more.