Blood Sacrifice (22 page)

“Yes, well.” I smiled at him. “Go on, go call Isabel, love. I’ll be right here.”

“The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.”

—Aristotle

M
orning came all too soon. Niko had arrived back with Bea around one-thirty and I’d promptly put her to bed, despite her protests. A few quick healing spells later, she was fine and out like a light. Niko had elected to remain with Tucker in the living room. Adam and I had shut ourselves up in the main guest room, as the priest was in the other room. I’d had a long conversation with Isabel and she’d given me a few more tricks of the trade. I’d bundled Tucker up in spells and blankets so he could sleep. She’d said sleep was the best way for him to heal now.

“I want to involve Sheriff Larsen,” Adam said as we readied for bed. Odd thing doing this in the middle of the night. It was normally our peak time. We’d be up and about, Adam doing business in his office, me in mine—a new perk thanks to my being the heir. Some nights I’d skip my own lessons and paperwork and help Adam out or I’d spar with my brothers.

“Do you think that’s a wise move?” I asked. “Carlton’s
going to ask all sorts of awkward questions—the primary one being why the hell we’re not at the Wild Moon and why we’re staying at Bea’s. Last time I talked to him, he thought we were on vacation. He’s not dumb, Adam. He’s going to be suspicious.”

“Keira, we’re limited in our choices. The four of us came back of our own accord. I can’t call in our troops, so to speak. I can’t risk them, too.”

I flipped the ceiling fan on high and slid under the covers. “I know that. Just as I know that what happened to Tucker tonight is likely the result of a hex or curse. I’m positive that touching that gravestone triggered it.”

“It’s not just that.” Adam slid in next to me and shut off the bedside light. “We’ve broken Truce. Even if we leave the premises now, we’ve already crossed that line.”

“Then tomorrow, we go back to the Wild Moon,” I said. “In for a penny, in for the entire fortune. We’ll bring Bea—”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’ve already exposed her. She won’t be safe with us.”

He was right. Bea would be better off elsewhere. “How about we send her to Dixxi? Her condo in town is big enough for Bea, Noe, and Tio and Tia. I don’t want any of them here.”

“A good idea. Perhaps one of the deputies can run them into San Antonio tomorrow.”

“We should—”

“Tucker’s not going to be at full speed yet, and you’re not going alone.”

“No, you’re right again. I’m sorry. I’m not thinking.” I kissed his shoulder. “Promise me that you’ll keep reminding
me, okay? I’m not used to this—to being heir, to being the one that has to duck and cover while others take the heat. It used to be so simple.”

“I’ll promise that if you’ll promise one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You let me tell the sheriff everything. I think it’s time he knew.”

I pushed away and sat up. “You want to
what
?”

“We need another ally, Keira.” Adam pulled me back down into his embrace. “I know,” he whispered. “It goes against everything you were ever taught, but we need someone on our side here. He’s not beholden to us, not bonded, but he is a friend.”

I muttered a few choice words under my breath then let out a sigh. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

Adam laughed. “Okay.” He kissed my forehead. “I know it’s not easy for you, love. You’ve barely had enough time to realize you are the heir, much less learn how to react as one. Let’s get through tomorrow, talk to the sheriff and get Bea and her family out of the way and safe, then we’ll go back home.”

“To the Wild Moon.”

“Yes. To the Wild Moon.”

I sighed, content for now. We had a plan, albeit not much of one, but we had to move forward.

At dawn, I woke and left Adam to sleep some more. I needed to check on Tucker. As I entered the living room, I smiled. Poor Niko was contorted in the armchair, one long arm dangling over the side, his head at a weird angle. I hoped vampires didn’t get cricks in their necks, or he was in for a doozy.

I crept as silently as I could to Tucker’s side, wary
of being caught out again. He looked to be fast asleep, his breathing regular, normal. Good. Instead of actually touching him, I used a simple diagnostic spell, the same one I’d used on Bea last night.
Brilliant, no fever
. I turned away, ready to let him keep sleeping. Niko’s hand touched mine as I passed.

“He’s fine, Niko,” I whispered. “No fever. Why don’t you go on back to bed with Adam. I’ll take watch for a while.”

Niko looked over at Tucker, then unbent himself, rising from the chair. He nodded at me, leaned over and touched his lips to my brother’s forehead. Without a word, he walked down the hall, disappearing around the corner. I went into the kitchen and pulled out coffee and filters, enough to make a huge pot. After getting that set up and started, I returned to the chair and curled up in it, watching my brother sleep.

When the phone rang, I started out of a light doze, leaping to get it. It was the land line.

“Hello,” I said, trying to keep my voice down so as not to wake Tucker.

“It’s Carlton.”

“Hey.”

“You weren’t answering your cell phone,” he said. “I tried the ranch, but no one answered there, either. So I tried to call Bea to see if she knew—”

“Yeah, my phone’s busted,” I said. “Sorry.”

“How’s Bea?”

“Good. She’s sleeping.” The coffee’s aroma began to perk me up. I tucked the receiver into the crook of my neck and shoulder and poured myself a cup. “Were you needing something?” I asked after a moment.

“Are you staying at Bea’s?” Carlton asked.

“For now, yes,” I said. “I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“Keira, what’s going on?”

Oh, brother. It really hadn’t taken him long. Our sheriff was no dummy. He’d been in the top ten at the police academy in San Antonio. He was sharp, attentive and very, very good at his job. Only he didn’t know anything about our special natures.

“What do you mean, Carlton?” I blew on my coffee as I frantically tried to buy myself a little time. Was he asking about Bea? About us being back in town? What?

“I drove by the Wild Moon last night,” he said. My heart sank. Damn it. He knew we’d closed up the place. Not typical for a quick vacation. “There wasn’t anyone there. The place looked abandoned. Are y’all leaving?” A note of sorrow crept into his voice. I knew by “y’all” he wasn’t really wanting to know about all of us. He meant me.

“Leaving?” I gulped down more coffee. “No.”

“Then why close up the ranch?”

“Personal reasons.” My mouth reacted before my brain could process what I was saying. Oh, yeah, like that was going to stop him from asking questions.

“You’re okay? I get the feeling you’re not and you’re just not saying anything.” More sorrow tinged with worry.

“I’m fine.” I was doing an awful lot of that lately, having to tell people I was fine. I was, mostly. Only there was a part of me that wasn’t. That part stayed awake all day and all night, fretting about how we were going to get ourselves out of this mess. I’d wanted action instead of inaction, and had gotten my brother hurt—a man that I’d never seen hurt physically. Ever. Bea’s café
had burned down, as had the deli, and no doubt there was damage to all the shops in the strip center. Did they have fire insurance? I fervently hoped so. If not, I was going to help out financially. What good is a fortune if you can’t share it? I didn’t know for sure that the fire was the result of our breaking Truce, but I couldn’t dismiss it. I’d either started some sort of chain reaction when I’d foolishly touched that tombstone, or the arson had just been a harbinger of the “annoyances” breaking Truce brought. Whatever it was, we were smack in the middle of it and I had no more choice but to keep moving forward and hope we could succeed. I needed to. We had to win this game of Gideon’s—or battle—whichever the case may be, as well as concentrate on finding my lost clan chief.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m just tired,” I said. “I was up late with Bea.”

“I think you and I need to talk,” Carlton said.

“We are talking.”

“No, face to face.”

I sighed. “Carlton, what is that going to accomplish exactly?”

“I don’t know, but I’m asking you as a favor.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Thank you. When you call me back, use my cell. We had to close the office because of smoke and water damage. We’re taking dispatch calls out of my house.”

“I will.” Great. The entire strip center damaged meant the only remaining stores in Rio Seco were effectively gone. If the sheriff’s office had sustained damage, then so must have the dry cleaners and the video store. Damn it. Just last week, after the deaths in the pack resulted in the wers closing the deli and moving
out of Rio Seco, Jacob—an undercover Texas Ranger and werewolf helping with the investigation—had said that the center looked sad. Now fire, smoke, and water had damaged or destroyed the rest of the businesses. Perhaps Gideon was right—we had killed our village.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” With that, Carlton ended the call.

I switched off the receiver and put it back into its cradle on the kitchen counter.

I went back to the living room to curl up in a chair and sip my coffee as I watched Tucker and thought things through. Adam wanted to bring Carlton into our confidence. To out us. Did that make sense? Would that stop Carlton from worrying so much, or would that simply enmesh him in our own tangled dilemma? Bea already knew about us. She’d clued in to my family’s secret early during our teen years. When the adults noticed she spent nearly all her free time at our house, they’d pretty much figured she’d become a de facto daughter and there was no need to hide anything from her. She’d learned about vampires and wer much later, but she’d accepted it. Carlton, however? There was so much baggage between us—our mutual past, the fact that I’d run away from our relationship. Now he was married, had kids… a family that could be endangered. As sheriff, and before that a police officer in San Antonio, he’d always been in a dangerous profession. I know he still cared for me, even though I’d broken his heart. He’d never understood exactly why I’d dumped him; I’d not been able to explain that his being human was the one thing that kept me from being able to be his true partner. Considering all this—maybe telling him
was
a good thing.

Adam could be right. If we revealed ourselves, maybe Carlton could finally get whatever closure he was missing. I suppose the only question left was: Could he handle the news that there was far more to the world than he imagined—and that the “more” was about as bizarre and weird as it got?

I dozed off as I pondered the various ramifications of coming out to Carlton, my now-empty coffee cup dangling from my fingers.

“A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half cracked.”

—Bernard Meltzer

“I
would like to try to Summon my father,” Adam said as he exited the bedroom. Tucker had woken, weak, but better. He’d wanted to go to sleep in a real bed, not on the couch, so I’d helped him to the guest room where I’d woken Adam. Adam and I were now both in the living room, its curtains still drawn tight and sealed with duct tape to keep out the sun. I didn’t know the exact time, but it was somewhere around midmorning.

“So you’ve decided to call in the troops?” I teased as I bustled about the kitchen rustling up some food for me.

Adam glared at me in mock anger. “Not the full cohort. Just one soldier. I decided that it won’t hurt,” he said. “My father can handle himself, besides, he may be able to help us.”

“Fight whatever it is that’s ganging up on us?” I asked. I found a few energy bars stashed in an upper cabinet and snagged those. Tearing the wrapper off one,
I took a big bite and chewed. “Will he come?” I asked around a mouthful of food.

“That’s disgusting,” Adam said.

“Sorry.” I swallowed. “I’m starving. I didn’t mean to speak with my mouth full.”

“Not that so much as… that’s not really food, is it?” He eyed the packets with distrust as I joined him.

“These? Energy bars. Full of protein.” I tore the wrapper off a second one and practically inhaled it. My belly felt hollow. “No, they’re not exactly tasty, but they are quick energy.”

His brow rose as he watched me devour a third, then a fourth bar. “I’m sure there is more food. Didn’t Tucker buy groceries?”

“He did, but it would take too long to cook something.” I licked the wrapper of the last bar and tossed it into a small trash bin. “So, now, your father?”

Adam settled next to me on the couch, his long limbs sprawled in front of him, arms crossed behind his head. I’d not seen him this relaxed in a long time. “I believe I’ve figured out what I need to do,” he said. “I’ll need some privacy, so must wait until we return to the Wild Moon tonight.”

“That, or we could take the van,” I suggested.

“Tucker’s van? The one with no windows on the sides?” Adam sat up.

“It’s still at the ranch,” I said. “I could go there now and bring it back—”

“Keira, what did I say…”

I patted his arm. “About going alone, yes, yes, I know. I wasn’t planning to. Tucker’s weak, but feeling better. We can swoop in, get the van and swoop right back out again, none the wiser.”

“Magick doesn’t work that way,” Adam protested. “It’s not like a surveillance camera that one can avoid.”

“I can drive fast.”

“And magick is faster. We wait until dark.”

I grumbled and wiggled into a more comfortable position. Once again, I waited.
For what? To breach yet another boundary?

“Had you given any more thought to my suggestion? That we take the sheriff into our confidence?” Adam prodded my side. I knew he was teasing me, trying to reconnect in the best way possible. We’d had no real time to ourselves lately, no real time to be alone, to make love, to reconnect. He’d barely fed, only doing so when I’d insisted. Feeding from me shouldn’t be hurried, he’d protested. It was as much an act of love between a bonded pair as was sex. I’d felt the lack as much as he did. Taking blood from me wasn’t a one-way street. I gained energy from him as he took it from me. We needed it to keep ourselves on an even keel. Not that a few days would hurt us, but it sure made things more difficult.