A searing pain tore through my shoulder. Air rushed into my lungs, the black nothingness threatening to swallow me replaced by a dizzying explosion of stars. Gagging, I began to hack. Through a haze of pain, I rose on three paws. The vampire was backing away through the snow, clutching his wrist to his chest. A second later, he ghosted out.
The wind gusted, shards of ice pelting my muzzle as I took in the scene across the valley below. Topher had been joined by West, the two of them fighting side by side to drive two vampires back. The fang-head who’d nearly strangled me had rematerialized across the field at the barn with one of his friends, where Ethan was cut off from getting inside. Favoring my injured leg, I set off across the field, the cold blurring my vision as I cut between rows of trees.
Everybody down.
The command slammed into my mind like a rifle shot. My knees gave out, hard-packed earth rushing up to meet me. Shots rang out. Lying motionless in the snow, I shivered as the high-powered crack of a sniper rifle cut through the frozen night, jolting through my chest like an electric current.
Brody’s power drew on moon magic, relied on his target having shifter blood flowing through their veins for him to be able to affect them. He couldn’t control a vamp unless they’d been feeding heavily from one of us and it was close to the full moon. But he and Cal were deadly on the shooting range any day of the week.
And okay. So sometimes we broke the rules, too.
The second my oldest brother released me, I lurched up. Two bloodsuckers had been hit and from the looks of things, the others were now trying to ghost out. The vampire nation wanted Topher, and now they had confirmation he was here. If we didn’t end this tonight, Blood Moon would be painted with a permanent target, and no way in hell was I letting that happen.
The undead I had fought out in the field cradled his shattered wrist, blood trailing from a graze wound in his side. Ethan and West hurried up beside me, breathing ragged.
“Wait!” Lacey burst from the barn. Relief coursed through me. Her jacket was torn. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She and Hayden were dragging a bound and gagged vampire between them. And damn if she wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Ethan rushed to Hayden, yanked the undead from her hands and passed it off to West. “You okay?” he said roughly.
She caught the front of his tactical vest, pulling him to her for a kiss. “Hell yeah. Now that you’re here.”
He growled, wrapping her in a fierce hug and murmuring something into her hair that the wind stole away.
I barely noticed any of it. Charging across the clearing, I cradled Lacey’s face in my hands, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. “You scared the hell out of me, sweetheart.”
She gripped my wrists, thumbs stroking the backs of my hands, staring up at me like she never wanted to let me out of her sight. Suddenly she blinked. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just a scratch.” I kissed the constellation of freckles below her left eye.
“Oh, okay.” Catching my hand, she pulled me over to the med kit. I let her fuss with bandages and gauze, content to watch her little frown of concentration as she blew the hair out of her eyes, reassure myself that she was here, alive.
“What happened back there? You just disappeared. I thought—”
“The vamp who ambushed me had a vial of the Project Eclipse drug, was going to dose me with it, but at the last second, one of the others stopped him. Apparently, it’s in short supply. Besides, they wanted to use me to lure the rest of you here.”
“You blocked me?”
“August knew where we were the entire time. We weren’t in any real danger.” She turned to the vampires down in the snow. “We need them alive. It’s time we got answers.”
“We’ll turn them over to the Council—”
Just then Topher broke away from the group. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. Not when he knocked me aside. Not when Cal, coming upon the scene with Brody and Naomi, shouted out a warning. Not until the vampire lying bleeding in the snow extended a hand, and like a wounded animal, Topher reached out for his former master.
Time crystalized as the terrible scene unfurled around us, already set in motion, impossible to stop. Hayden reached out to grasp his scarred arm. Cal spoke in a low but urgent tone. Topher didn’t seem to register any of us. And now I was kicking myself for thinking a haircut and clean clothes somehow changed the equation after the guy had been held prisoner and tortured for a year.
Topher’s fingers were inches from the vampire’s bloody hand when West slammed into him from behind, tackling him into the snow.
“Get them cuffed,” someone shouted. There was a scramble for shackles. Brody leveled a rifle at the head of the female undead, but it was too late. With a sharp crack, both vampires vanished, leaving only a trail of crimson blood staining the snow.
Cal swore. “Think there’s any chance the owners thought all those sniper rounds were a car backfiring?”
Ethan made a derisive sound under his breath. “After midnight? Out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Yeah. We gotta get outta here.” Brody surveyed the field. “Cal, you and—"
But before he could finish, West yanked Topher up by the collar and slammed him up against the side of the barn. “Do you have a death wish?”
They were both covered in snow, chests heaving, faces inches apart. Topher bared his teeth. “Go. To. Hell.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Dude,” I started, but West cut me off with a growl.
“No. I get that they fucked you up. Royally. I’ve tried to be patient. You want to take out my family in your sick quest to go back to them? You can get a goddamn bus ticket for all I care. I’m done.”
They glared, frozen breaths swirling together. Brody shot a look at Cal, who subtly shook his head. And then—
“They’re going to kill my brother,” Topher exploded, shoving West away.
West staggered back, snowflakes swirling eerily down around us as we all gaped.
“Toph—”
Visibly shaking, Topher sagged back against the barn. “Kieran’s the one who took me in after our mom and her boyfriend took off, okay? The shifters holding me at the compound said all along if I ever tried to run, they’d kill him. They knew our home address, knew the bar where he worked. The night I escaped, I called him, told him what happened to me. He didn’t believe me, said I was full of shit. I think… fuck, I think he thought I was high. I told him he had to disappear.”
“I didn’t know.”
They locked eyes for a long moment. Topher’s gaze flitted away.
“If I don’t go back, they kill him, get it? So save me your self-righteous bullshit, boy scout, when we both know you’d do the same goddamn thing if it were one of them in trouble.”
He jerked his chin at me, Brody, Cal and Ethan, silently looking on.
I asked quietly, “Are you sure they have him?”
Topher bent over double and coughed, looking frailer and more haggard than ever. Like we hadn’t been feeding him at all these past two months. No, like he’d been purposefully starving himself as punishment. I met Cal’s eyes across the clearing. His expression was grim.
“By now? Yeah, I’m sure. No way could he have survived on the streets this long.”