After ten or fifteen miles, we left the divided highway, and Connor slowed the bike to pick over a gravel road bordered by evergreen trees and steel gray boulders.
He came to a stop at the end of a line of vehicles—bikes, trucks, and SUVs—parked along both sides of the road. We dismounted, removed helmets, ran fingers through tangled hair. And, without the bike’s rumble, could hear the sounds of happy children and chatting adults through the whisper of leaves.
A few muscular men and women stood around in black shirts and pants, casting suspicious gazes at us before looking away.
“Security?” I asked.
“It’s a private event,” Connor said. “Especially since humans don’t know what they are.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. I’d expected to see a park shelter with coolers and balloons, or an overlook where shifters had swagged streamers and drank beers. Instead, trees made a canyon on both sides of the road.
“You’ll see,” he said with a smile, and offered his hand.
I took his hand, enjoyed the satisfaction that flashed in his eyes when I linked our fingers together.
Connor ducked into the trees, and we followed a well-worn trail I probably wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t been with him. We walked maybe a quarter mile, and I was glad I’d opted for boots without stiletto heels, which wouldn’t have worked well over uneven ground and loamy leaves. As the sounds of celebration grew louder, we passed birch trees with curled silver bark, hard-edged boulders that looked like they’d been spewed from a volcano, and delicate white flowers sprouting in blank spaces in the undergrowth. And behind it all, a soft static that it took me much too long to realize was water.
A long, dark shape slithered across the trail, and I stopped short, only just managed not to squeak.
“What?” Connor asked, fingers tensing around mine. “What’s wrong?”
“Snake.”
“It was harmless. Just a garter snake.”
“Don’t care. I don’t like snakes.”
He looked at me. “How do you not like snakes?”
“Biological mandate,” I said. “They slither. I don’t like things that slither.”
“But you both have fangs.”
I slid my gaze to him. “Shifters and skunks both have fur.”
“Fair point.”
“You have no issues with animals?”
“I’m not afraid of any animals, reptilian or otherwise.” His smile was cocky. “I’m wolf and human. That’s two Apex predators for the price of one.”
“Or twice as much trouble in one package, depending on your perspective. And I’m pretty sure if you were being hunted by a great white shark you’d have some fear.”
“There’s a solution to that: Don’t swim in the ocean.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic, and skirted the edge of the trail, where the snake had disappeared.
The sound grew clearer as we edged toward a creek, water trickling like tiny bells over rocks as it raced ahead of us.
And suddenly, the ground disappeared.
We reached the literal end of the trail—and the world opened up. Forest gave way to stone—a rust-colored plateau half as big as a city block. Connor stepped down from the trail, offered me a hand as I jumped down beside him and moved forward, stared openmouthed as I turned around.
Not just a plateau, but waterfalls. The creek had rounded behind us, spilling over a stone cliff before tumbling over cataracts below it, then moving through a narrow groove in the rock across the plateau. Tiki torches had been lit along the edges, casting flickering light and shadows across water and the stone bluffs along the far side of the plateau, black and red and orange stone marked with trees and what looked like a high trail. Even with the dark dome of the sky above us, it was like being in a canyon of color.
For the second time tonight, I was speechless. “I don’t have the words,” I managed, walking toward the rockbound stream. There were pools of water here and there, collected in smooth divots in the rock that had been worn by time or rain or the stream itself. The water disappeared over the edge of the plateau on the other side.
I walked forward and watched it tumble down another set of cataracts, lights from more torches glittering like diamonds.
“What do you think?”
“It’s . . . amazing,” I said, looking back at him. “Absolutely amazing.”
“It should probably be a state park,” he said. “But it’s privately held, and the owner’s a friend of the clan.”
I turned around, found Alexei standing right behind me.
“Jesus,” I said, feeling bones jolt against skin as I startled. “What is wrong with you?”
He grinned. “Did I scare you?”
“You disturbed me.”
“I scared you.”
“No, that’s not really the emotion.”
“You should probably look down,” Connor advised Alexei.
He did, saw the small dagger I’d drawn in the blink of an eye, held near his groin.
Connor leaned forward. “Did she scare you?” he asked Alexei, whose expression was dour.
He lifted his hands. “Initiation’s a bad time to pull a knife on a shifter.”
“And you shouldn’t startle a vampire when she’s surrounded by shifters in a foreign territory.” But I slipped the dagger away again.
“Truce,” Alexei said, and took a step backward, putting a little more space between us. The boy could learn.
“I thought you weren’t armed,” Connor whispered.
“It’s a very small dagger. You never know when you’re going to need one.”
“For the sake of peace,” Connor said, “try to keep it hidden.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You did the introductions?” Alexei asked Connor.
“We did. Cash was an asshole.”
“So, as expected.” He looked at me. “You appear to have survived.”
“I mostly stood there and tried to look stern.”
“Wise choice,” he said with a faint smile.
“What did you find last night?” Connor asked.
“Nothing useful. Ground in the woods didn’t hold footprints. No fur, no scent of non-shifter blood.”
“In other words,” Connor said, “no sign of the animal.”