River Marked

“You can’t come in,” she said. “You need to leave. We’re not to disturb him, and Ford …”

The floor of the entryway was filthy, and my nose detected sweaty bodies, mold, and the sour scent of old fear. The whole house smelled like a garbage heap to my coyote-sensitive nose. It would probably have smelled like a garbage heap to a normal human, too.

“I’m going to disturb him, all right,” I told her grimly. Someone obviously needed to. “Where is he?”

When it became obvious that she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, I walked farther into the house and bellowed his name, tilting my head so my voice would carry up the stairs.“Stefan! You get your butt down here. I have a bone or two to pick with you. Stefan! You’ve had enough time to writhe in self-pity. Either kill Marsilia—and I’ll help with that one—or get over it.”

Rachel had resorted to patting my shoulder and tugging at my clothes to try to get me back outside the house.“He can’t go outside,” she said with frantic urgency. “Stefan makes him stay in. Mercy, you have to get outside.”

I’m tough and strong, and she was shaking with weariness and, likely, iron deficiency. I had no trouble staying right where I was.

“Stefan,” I bellowed again.

A lot of things happened in a very short period of time, so that I had to think of them later to put them together in the proper order.

Rachel sucked in a breath of air and froze, her hand on my arm abruptly holding on to me rather than pushing me away. But she lost her grip when someone grabbed me from behind and threw me onto the upright piano that sat against the wall between the entryway and the living room. It made such a huge noise that I mixed up the sound of my impact with the pain of my back hitting the top of the piano. Reaction to countless karate drills kept me from stiffening, and I rolled down the face of the piano. Not a fun thing. My face hit the flagstone floor. Something crashed into a limp pile beside me, and suddenly I was face-to-face with Ford, the big scary guy who inexplicably seemed to have thrown himself down beside me, blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth.

He looked different than he had last time, leaner and filthier. His clothing was stained with sweat, old blood, and sex. But his eyes, staring momentarily at me, were wide and startled like a child’s.

Then a faded purple T-shirt spilling over ragged dirty jeans, and long, tangled dark hair blocked my view of Ford.

My protector was too thin, too unkempt, but my nose told me that he was Stefan almost before my brain knew to ask the question. Unwashed vampire is better than unwashed human, but it is not pleasant, either.

“No,” Stefan said, his voice soft, but Ford cried out, and Rachel let out a squeak of sound.

“I’m all right, Stefan,” I told him, rolling stiffly to hands and knees. But he ignored me.

“We don’t harm our guests,” Stefan said, and Ford whimpered.

I stood up, ignoring the protest of sore shoulders and hip. I’d have bruises tomorrow, but nothing worse thanks to sensei’s sometimes brutal how-to-fall sessions. The piano looked like it would survive our encounter as well.

“It wasn’t Ford’s fault,” I said loudly. “He’s just trying to do your job.” I don’t know if it was true or not; I suspected Ford was just crazy. But I was willing to try anything to get Stefan’s attention.

Still crouched between Ford and me, Stefan turned his head to look at me. His eyes were cold and hungry, and he gazed at me as though I were a complete stranger.

Better monsters than he had tried to cow me, so I didn’t even flinch.

“You’re supposed to be taking care of these people,” I snapped at him. Okay, so he did scare me, which is why I was snippy. Get-scared-and-get-mad wasn’t always smart. I, raised in a pack of werewolves, certainly knew better. But looking at Stefan and what had happened to his home made me want to cry—and I’d rather get scaredand mad than do that. If Stefan thought I pitied him, he’d never let me help. Criticism was easy to take.

“Look at her—” I gestured toward Rachel, and Stefan’s gaze followed my hand in response to the command in my voice, command I was just learning to borrow from Adam. There were a few perks to being the Alpha werewolf’s mate.

Stefan jerked his gaze back to me as soon as he realized what I’d done, baring his fangs in a way that reminded me more of one of the werewolves than a vampire. But the snarl died from his face, and he looked at Rachel again.

The tension eased from his shoulders, and he looked down at Ford. I couldn’t see the big man’s face, but his body language clearly said “surrender” to my pack-trained sight.

“Merda,” said Stefan, releasing his hold on Ford.

“Stefan?”

The menace was gone from his face, but so was all trace of any emotion. He appeared almost dazed.

“Go get showered. Comb your hair and change your clothes,” I told him briskly, striking while he was still weak. “And don’t dawdle and leave me at the mercy of your people for very long. I’m taking you out tonight to watch some bad movies with Warren, Kyle, and me. Adam is out of town, sothere’s a slot open.”

Warren was my best friend, a werewolf, and third in the Columbia Basin Pack. Kyle was a lawyer, human, and Warren’s lover. Bad Movie Night was our therapy night, but sometimes we invited people we thought needed it.

Stefan gave me an incredulous stare.

“You obviously need someone to hit you with a cattle prod to get you moving,” I informed him with a sweeping gesture that took in the disreputable state of his house and his people. “But you got me instead, your friendly neighborhood coyote. You might as well give in because I’ll just a

One side of his mouth turned up.“Warren is a werewolf. He doesn’t need a prod to get cows moving.” His voice sounded rough and unused. He glanced down at Ford.

“He’s not going to hurt anyone soon,” I told the vampire. “But I can drive most people to violence given enough time, so you should get moving.”

Abruptly, there was a popping noise, and Stefan was gone. I knew he could teleport though he seldom did it in front of me. Both of his people jerked reflexively, so I guessed they hadn’t seen him do it much, either. I dusted off my hands and turned to Rachel.

“Where is Naomi?” I asked. I couldn’t see her letting things get into this state.

“She died,” Rachel told me. “Marsilia broke her, and we couldn’t put her back together. I think that was the final straw for Stefan.” She glanced up the stairway. “How did you do that?”

“He doesn’t want me to get the cattle prod,” I told her.

Her arms were wrapped around herself, her mutilated hand clearly visible. She was bruised, bitten, battered—and she said, “We’ve been so worried about him. He won’t talk to any of us, not since Naomi died.”

Poor Stefan had tried to curl up and die because Marsilia had sold him out—and he’d done his best to take the remnants of his menagerie with him. And Rachel was worried about him.

About him.

“How many of you are left?” I asked. Naomi had been a tough lady. If she was gone, she wouldn’t have been the only one.

“Four.”

No wonder they looked bad. Four people couldn’t feed a vampire all by themselves.

“He’s been going out hunting?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think he’s been out of the house since we buried Naomi.”

“You should have called me,” I said.

“Yes,” said Ford from the ground, his voice deep enough to echo. His eyes were closed. “We should have.”

Now that he wasn’t attacking me, I could see that he was thin, too. That couldn’t be good in a man transitioning from human to vampire. Hungry vampire fledglings have a tendency to go out and find their own food.

Stefan should have fixed this before it got so bad.