Lilith Saintcrow - Taken

“So she ran.” Eric nodded. “Smart, very smart. Where would she go?”

Jesus. “We’re this close to losing our shaman. If another Family finds her—” He stopped, aware he was saying something he shouldn’t. He’d told them she was theirs. They had to believe that.

Silence crackled through the interior, broken only by the low hum of the engine. Brun made a small, helpless little noise, and Julia went back to soothing him. For once, she was in a giving mood—and her twin seemed to be the only person who could spark that gentleness in her anymore.

Let it be. That’s not your problem right now. Your problem is getting that shaman back. “Where would she go?”

It wasn’t hard to guess, really. He just needed a few minutes to think it out. And to calm the bubbling, blood-tinted fury burning behind his breastbone.

That would help. But he was so far from calm, he doubted he’d get there anytime soon.

Eric sighed, his fingertips worrying at his cuff. “I don’t know if she has any money. Maybe she has friends around here?”

She said the only person who would pay a ransom for her is dead. There’s something to do with her husband, and —A blooming red rose of rage threatened to block his vision, and he had to take a deep breath and concentrate on the fading scent of ice and moonlight filling the van. Not thinking clearly. Come on, Zach. It’s up to you now.

“Is it just me,” Julia said, “or are we seeing a lot of bloodsuckers lately?”

It’s not just you. Something else is going on here. I knew we were being followed, even though I tried to write it off as just nerves and grief. “I think we’ve stepped into something.”

“With that little bleeder? Who the hell would want her? Other than us,” Julia hastily amended, seeing Zach’s eyes shift in the rearview mirror. “Shush.” Her hair dropped forward as she bent over Brun, suddenly very interested in calming him down again.

Flashing lights boiled behind them. Zach checked the mirrors and moved over, and none of them spoke until the cop car had cruised by, its siren tearing a hole in the night. Not looking for us, thank God. Maybe looking for something else. Eric would have left a fake license-plate number and misdirection with the clerk at the front desk, and would have paid with cash and shown an ID that bore no relation to his real name.

Just another part of life on the run.

“What are we going to do?” Eric asked.

Do? That’s right. It’s my job to figure out what to do. That’s why I never wanted to be alpha; even if I was strong enough, I’m not smart enough for this. “We go back. I leave you lot in a safe place with the van, I go find our shaman and bring her back.”

“But if there’s upir …” Eric glanced at him, gauging how far he could push the issue. It was what a second should do; it was what Zach had done for years with Kyle.

He wished with a sudden vengeance that he was doing it again, and someone else was dealing with this clusterfuck.

“I don’t know just what’s going on yet. I’ll go and get the shaman. Won’t be that hard.” I’ll bet you anything she went home. And lucky me, peeking at her purse. I have an address to start at. “And while I do, all of you will stay with the van and behave. Especially you, Julia.”

Her head jerked up. “You think I want to get anyone else killed?” she snapped. “And you’re going to blame me for this, too?”

He winced inwardly. Outwardly he checked the gas gauge and began working his way toward the freeway. Either he stood by what he said and blamed Julia for losing the shaman, or he stepped up like an alpha and took the responsibility he’d been avoiding for a good thirty years.

What a choice. It’d be so damn easy to blame his sister, blame anyone . But a real alpha didn’t do that. The real alpha stepped up and took responsibility.

“The upir aren’t your fault, Julia.” He kept his eyes on the road. “But Kyle was . That was my fault.” Her voice broke. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

“Kyle was alpha.” The words were bitter; they tasted like the acrid reek of fear and grief. “He knew the risks, Julia.” And he let you run wild, didn’t bother to teach you to control yourself. Not sure he could have, you might have unzipped his guts and saved the goddamn rabid bloodsucker the trouble. You wouldn’t have meant to, but still. He was too weak. “I need you to stay calm and help Eric while I’m bringing our shaman back, and I need you to not have one of your fits while I do it. Clear?”

Unmollified, she bent over Brun. “You’re blaming me.” Low, and her whole posture expressed submissiveness, but she was right on the edge. It was usually how her fits started. He could smell the anger on her, combat rage replacing itself with a low-level growl of irritation, working itself up to a whipsawing screech of fury.

“If you keep going, Julia, I’m going to pull this car over and put you in the restraints.” He said it quietly, but his pheromone wash boiled with his own leashed rage. “You are not going to be the queen of this little drama. This one doesn’t belong to you.”

Amazingly, she subsided.

Eric slumped in the passenger’s seat, making himself smaller, and Zach was suddenly aware of his own anger, musky deep red leaking out through his pores. He took a deep breath, and a freeway sign loomed up like a big green beacon of salvation. “Don’t worry,” he said to them, to Kyle’s ghost, to the smell of his own failure. “I’ll get our shaman back and we’ll head south. It’ll be nice and warm. We’ll be a Family again, we’ll be part of our Tribe and go to meets. We can settle down. Have a nice house out in the country and run whenever the moon’s full—or whenever we feel like it.”

“That’d be nice,” Brun said quietly, surprising them all and muffled by the damp hotel towel clamped to his face. “Can we get a house with stairs? I always wanted to slide down a stair rail.”

“That’s up to the shaman. But I don’t think she’d object.” If we get her back. If I can make her understand. The on-ramp unreeled under them, Zach laid on the gas, and the trouble swirling through the van receded just a little bit.

Just that little bit was enough, though.

Morning came gray and fuzzy, and her alarm clock sent up one shrill shriek after another. Sophie pried one eye open and was faced with a choice: an extra fifteen minutes in bed, or a long, very hot shower to take the curse off the song of stiff pain her body had become.

She ended up hitting the snooze button, then decided a shower would be better and dragged herself off her mattress. It was a chore struggling to her feet, and she stood swaying for a few moments. The more she thought about it, the more just unplugging the alarm clock and climbing back under the covers seemed like a better idea than anything else.

But she had to make rent. If she didn’t, her problems would be bigger than werewolves.

The bitter little laugh that called up bounced off her blank bedroom walls. What problems could be bigger than werewolves and vampires?

Don’t think of Unpleasant Things, Sophie. The next thing is taking a shower. Just do the next thing, and the next. After all, she knew what the bigger problem would be. It would be homelessness, or getting thrown out of her degree program, or the police pounding on her door demanding to know what happened to Lucy.

So Sophie flicked her alarm clock off and shuffled in to take a shower. It was all she could do. And after that was dry toast for breakfast, and the usual hurry to catch the bus.