Uncaring of the weather and unaffected by its temperature, he moved through the falling snow and cocked his head, hearing some groans, a grunt, snarling, and then a woman’s voice.
“Please, stop,” she begged. “You’re hurting me.”
Hmm. Prey? Orion sped a short distance into the woods, following the scent of blood. He saw a few wolves torn apart, one an injured lycan trying to drag himself toward a fallen packmate. He could tell them apart because the wolves looked mundane, but the lycan was in his much larger, direwolf form, and he saturated the area around him with the scent of magic.
Orion followed the sound of weeping deeper into the trees, tracking the scent of fear and broken pine.
A dozen lycans battled amongst themselves while two of them nipped at a gorgeous woman in tattered clothing. Her pale breasts heaved and her long, muscular thighs pushed past her torn gown as she tried kicking them away.
Intrigued at the smell of her rich blood trickling from a bite at her thigh, he hurried to dispatch the lycans bothering her. As he killed the two, he noticed a large structure just behind her, past the trees. The castle loomed over them like a white mountain, stern and forbidding. Distracted by the feel of pressure on his wrist, he looked down.
A lycan was trying to rip his hand off, but Orion had tempered skin, his frame toughened by the rush of adrenaline-fueled bloode hardening beneath his epidermis. He shook the lycan free before ripping his—no, her—head off, then handled the others.
Once he’d taken care of disabling—not outright killing them all because where was the fun in not giving lesser beings the chance to try to kill him again—he followed the enthralling scent of sweet blood to the woman clutching at her dress, trying to hide her pale skin.
“You smell good,” he growled, hungry and curious, because her scent didn’t taste human on his tongue as he licked at the air.
“Did you kill them all?” Her voice shook, and though she appeared young, her eyes held the knowledge of someone far older. “They wanted to eat me.”
“A few of them are still alive.” He thought she looked annoyed, but she blinked, and the smell of fear wafted from her like a fine perfume.
“Y-you’re not like them. D-do you p-plan to eat me too?” She blinked bright blue eyes at him, her long, dark hair whispering over her shoulders, as if caught in a breeze despite the lack of wind in the trees. The snow had stopped falling, and a spear of moonlight bathed the woman in a glow, highlighting her loveliness.
He smiled, mesmerized by the strange blue light around her. “You plan to offer me a sip?” He looked her over, focusing on her neck. “Trust me, it’ll feel good.”
She blinked, her eyes wide. “You want to drink my blood?”
He stalked her, pressing her back against a nearby tree. “I do.” Ready to hypnotize her if necessary, he wasn’t prepared for her to tilt her head and close her eyes.
Supplicant, she whispered, “Then drink, vampire.”
Too bemused by the call of her blood to realize she should have been more alarmed, he leaned close and bit. A burst of power exploded in his mouth and traveled throughout his body.
So sweet. He drank more, gulping her down, and the sweet turned bitter. A choking thickness made it hard to swallow. Then fire, boiling his bloode, caused him to fall to his knees in agony.
A throaty laugh accompanied his pain, a hiss of black magic licking his bloode.
Then the world turned dark.
CHAPTER
TWO
Three days later
Lake City (Seattle), Washington
Kaia clutched the cell phone held to her ear and did her best not to roll her eyes, but dealing with her mother made that all but impossible. “I’m not dating right now, Mom.”
“I see that, Kaia. So disrespectful.”
“What?”
“You’re rolling your eyes.”
Not yet. “Mom, we’re on the phone. You can’t see anything.”
“I know what I know.”
Kaia did roll her eyes and sighed loudly. “What did we say about you staying out of my personal life?”
“Darling, you don’t have a personal life.”
“Harsh.”
“But true.”
A loud grumble from the background distracted the conversation, and for once it wasn’t any of Kaia’s roommates, who had been working overtime on the same case at MEC, leaving her alone in the house. She continued to thank her lucky shells that she’d gotten her dream job at the repository. Dealing with books beat dealing with bad guys any day of the week.
From her mother’s end came a low moan, then swearing, something sucking, a gurgling, then more swearing before some rabid barking and snarling.
Kaia had a bad feeling. “What was that?”
Her mother gave a tinkle of a laugh. “Oh, just a few new men in my life. They’re divine.” That caused her to laugh harder. “I’m kidding. They’re not godly at all. Far from it. But I’ve one in particular who’s quite handsome.” A pause. “These three are a little long in the tooth. Almost... wolfish, you might say.” She giggled.
Sabine Belyaev never giggled unless she had someone splayed out and bound on an altar, typically on the throes of death.
Kaia hadn’t planned on visiting her mother for another few weeks at least, as long as she could manage to put off the trip. But now she’d have to make the time. The last time she’d felt uneasy about her mother, Sabine had nearly sacrificed Kaia’s ex-boyfriend to Pazuzu, a Babylonian demon.
Fortunately, her mother had seemed more interested in flirting with Pazuzu than slitting Sean’s throat. So she hadn’t been overly annoyed to find Kaia had “accidentally” sent her ex home in one piece. Just a small misunderstanding. Sure.
Still, the lecture Kaia had received about not visiting unless expressly invited hadn’t been pleasant. She’d left in tears, but at least the White Sea Witch had been appeased.
Kaia said nothing about her mother’s wolfish playthings, determined to keep the peace. The daughter of divorced parents, Kaia did her best to remain neutral. Her father made it easy. Her mother, not so much. Sabine had no problem getting nasty, so Kaia tried to remain pleasant and funny and not too confrontational.
Unless she could get away with it.
“Hey, Mom, aren’t we due for tea this week? I haven’t been to the castle in a while.” Her mother kept moving it, hiding the pocket dimension somewhere in the Sound ever since Kaia had rescued Sean.
“No, I don’t think so. In any case, I’ll be out of town until next Friday. Hold on.” Her mother muttered to herself. “I leave tomorrow, so... How about next weekend?”
“Oh, Sunday the sixteenth? That would work for me. We’re cataloguing for the book sale next Saturday.”
“Perfect. I’ll jot it down.”
Kaia waited. “Where’s the conference? I don’t remember you mentioning it.”
“I didn’t? Must have slipped my mind. It’s a national potions and elixirs conference.”
“Aren’t they the same thing?” Kaia knew better and only said that the bug her mom. The newer generations mixed the terms all the time, but old school witches and mages clung to tradition.