Virgins and Vampires: Blood Falls (The Blood Falls Book 3)

My name was Rhiannon of the House of Gatlin, but most of the time they called me by my nickname, Rain. It’s partially a play on the beginning of my name, but mostly the nickname started when I was a baby. I cried incessantly.

Unless it was raining.

At the time no one understood why I was so miserable. The House of Gatlin’s primary gift is our ability to see and understand psychic energy. My relatives’ gifts range from being able to interpret the Plane—the metaphysical plane of existence that all samhain are sensitive to but humans are not—to empathic abilities.

I had them all. Every single gift ever bestowed to the House. But most of all, telepathy. Even as an infant I could hear everything thought in every mind for miles. It was too much for little ol’ me. The only relief I got was the rain. In general, everyone stayed inside. They grew quieter. Everyone, myself included, lulled into calm by the white noise. Those elements were the only relief I felt, aside from picnics at Blood Falls. The roaring water also did a fantastic job of blocking out the voices in my head.

Thus, the nickname Rain. Since it was so close to my real name, it stuck hard.

It was a well-known fact in the House of Gatlin that I was extremely powerful, and most of the other Houses were aware my gifts were unusually strong, but the exact nature and scope of my abilities was only known to Shoshanna as the Head of our House, my immediate family, and my best friends, Bridge and Cass. It wasn’t quite a secret. It was just keeping that information as private as possible for as long as possible. A need-to-know basis, so to speak. That meant my world was quite small. Small and sheltered. And I savored every chance I had to step outside of my carefully guarded routine.

Therefore, I slid to the foot of Blood Falls first thing that morning. My room was nice but nothing compared to being outside, breathing fresh air, and feeling the sun on my skin. It was cold but there hadn’t been much snow in a couple of weeks, so it was a little easier to make the short hike up to the House of Wren. I was excited to spend the afternoon with Kris, but before then I had work to do.

The House of Wren sat on top of a mountain. The main house looked like an enormous treehouse from the outside with wide wraparound porches, windows that opened out to the fresh air, and a pitched roof. Everything was made from trees on their land. From the house to the outbuildings to the furniture inside. A small open area sat between the house and the barn. It wasn’t currently being used as a barn. Instead it was home to Kris’s workshop and apartment.

Just as I hopped up the first step to the house, Kris called my name from the barn doors. “Hey princess!”

I whipped around as he stepped out of the shadows, a dirty rag in his hand and grease all over his grey t-shirt. He wore a red flannel over that, rolled to his elbows. He also had on his usual jeans and boots. The visible forearms made my mouth go dry, but the backwards baseball cap? Well, my panties were damp now. Especially with the stubble he was sporting after his clean shave for the Solstice.

“Hey Kris!” I swirled my hands through the air and ever so awkwardly pointed at the house behind me. “Got work to do!” Way to go, Rain. Remind the hot male you’re younger than him!

He finished wiping the grease off his hands and stuck the rag in his back pocket. “Making any progress?” He stopped, resting his hands on his hips as he squinted up at me. As a Wren, he was a powerful shifter. He was also able to use the Plane to morph the space around him, move faster than lightning and lift more than seemed possible. As kids he performed tricks that made me laugh.

But now? All I could think about was how those gifts must come in very handy in bed.

“I think we’re about to make some huge progress, actually. Getting the Heida records has filled in a lot of gaps. Now we just have to put it all together.”

“You’re not mad at me about last night, are you?” All the teasing disappeared from his eyes, replaced by an apology.

A small part of me wanted to shovel some of his shit right back at him and pretend I hated him now, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “No Kris. I didn’t appreciate your methods but I do understand your reasoning.”

He shuffled another step closer, grinning as he looked up at me on the steps. “Good because I’m looking forward to taking you out this afternoon. Get some real adrenaline pumping through our veins this time.” His gaze locked with mine.

And for the life of me I couldn’t look away. He must think I was a ridiculous girl with a crush the way I stared and swooned around him. “You don’t have to, you know.” The closer he got the more I could feel him. He wasn’t even that close but I swear I could feel his heat through my winter coat, tingling all over my skin. “Take me four wheeling, that is.”

“I want to. If it helps, I’ll take you out all the time. I know how much relief it brings me and I don’t have a tenth of the ability you have. I want to help.”

He just wants to help. “Okay. But if you change your mind I won’t be offended.” Nope. I’ll be devastated. Stupid crush.

Kris shook his head. “Go get your work done, princess. I’ll come find you when I have the Jeep ready.” He turned and sauntered back to the barn while I hurried up the steps and away from all his masculine energy.

“Rain! Good to see you!” Dray, Kris’s oldest brother pulled me into a hug.

It was my first time seeing him since he returned from his trip to the Black Forest with Cass. “Good to see you too! Was your trip helpful?” I felt none of the same tingly excitement around the oldest Wren. Not only was Dray blissfully Fated to his Mate, Rhysa, but I had never, ever looked at him as anything other than Dray.

Unlike his brother, who I couldn’t stop thinking of as a male.

“Lots to talk about,” he said. “Good and bad.”

“I can’t wait to hear all about it. Library?”

Dray held his hand out. “Ladies first.”

The inside of the House of Wren reminded me of a cabin. Wood furniture with soaring ceilings, large stone fireplaces in every room, and cozy lighting. The library was a thing of beauty. Floor to ceiling bookcases covered every wall except for the fireplace. Twin couches, large wooden desks, candles everywhere. There was even a secret reading nook behind one bookcase, and a secret stairwell that led down to the wine cellar.

It was one of my favorite places after Blood Falls. I swear the books forced psychic energy out of the space so the words printed on the pages could fill the air instead. I always felt a little calmer inside this room, a little more at ease. I loved it here.

“We’re only missing Ivy now!” Cass clapped her hands excitedly. She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the couch. “How are you feeling? Good night of sleep?”

“I’m good. Rested.” It was the truth. Well, mostly the truth. In reality I was still pretty tired. The kind that no amount of sleep seemed to fix. Plus I woke up all sweaty and hot from a dream where I did actually slap Kris and it somehow turned into a make out session.

Apparently the Kris that lived rent free in my head liked a little sparring with his romance.

It made me wonder if the real Kris did too.

“Hello! Earth to Rain!” Cass waved her hand in front of my face.

I blanched. “Sorry. Daydreaming.”

Her eyes lit with a curiosity I needed to redirect. “Oh? It wouldn’t happen to be about a certain someone who got you all riled up last night, would it?”

“Ew no! That would be way too weird. Can you imagine?” I pretended to be disgusted.

Cass laughed. “Not that weird.”

I gave her a look.

“Okay fine. It would be weird if you got it on with one of my brothers because then gossiping about your sex life would mean imagining them having sex too.” She gagged.

Exactly. Kris and I made no sense. None.

“Then what was that all about?” She waved at my head again.

I swear my friend could hear my thoughts even though I was absolutely sure my mind was locked down. So I told her a version of the truth that would stop her questions. “He wants me to talk about what happened in the rift. We disagreed and things escalated more than they should have.”

“His emotions have been running high,” she nodded, “more so the last couple of days. Maybe I should check on him. I try to give him his space but sometimes I think we give him too much.”

I thought of Kris in his barn. Always smiling, happy to lend a hand, quick with a joke, but retreating back to his barn apartment. Alone. “Has he always preferred the quiet?” For as long as I could remember, Kris was always on the fringes. Not antisocial, but not in the thick of things either. But then again, I hadn’t noticed him the way I notice him now, so maybe I was misremembering.

Cass shrugged. “Always? When we were small he’d be in the mix. Knocking over block towers, driving toy trucks over our dolls, and then all of a sudden he’d be done. He’d just stand up and leave. Bethany would find him playing alone in his room or reading a book. Happy as can be, just…done. And when we got older he was just as likely to hang out as he was to beg off and stay in. Why?”

I shrugged, trying to hide the hint of blush that graced my cheeks whenever I thought of Kris these days. “I guess I relate? And maybe I’m a little envious? He seems to need the quiet like me, but he also seems to genuinely enjoy the time he spends with others.”

“Aw, Rain.” Cass grabbed my hand in hers. “You don’t enjoy spending time with me?” She fake pouted, sticking out her bottom lip. “You’re breaking my heart!”

I pushed her over. Cass went willingly, giggling the whole way. “Drama queen!”

Drama queen. The words echoed in my mind. Memories of Kris calling me princess. He got me riled up and normally I hated those kinds of interactions, but last night I didn’t feel that way at all. It was fun.

Ivy Volci appeared near the windows. But it wasn’t her sudden appearance that silenced everyone in the room. It was the male that appeared beside her. Ender Volci. Her brother. He came to some of our meetings, so it wasn’t entirely shocking, but he wasn’t scheduled to join us today. He was the House of Volci’s version of Dray. Both liked to be in charge, both carried the charisma to lead, neither was quick to trust.

Alphas gonna alpha.

And sure enough, Dray covered the distance in a few long strides. “Ender.” He stuck out his hand to the wolf.

Ender shook it heartily. “Sorry to drop in unannounced, but my morning cleared up.”

“You’re always welcome. Ivy.” Dray nodded a greeting to the beautiful young female wolf.

Ender and Ivy could not be more different. Ender, like most wolves, was enormous and imposing. His hair was dark, eyes piercing, and had a permanent stubble. Ivy, on the other hand, was willowy. Blonde, green eyes, like a princess. But she commanded a room in her own way and I admired her for that.

“This will be interesting,” Cass whispered. “Ender and Aethel have been fighting like cats and dogs lately. I thought he was avoiding her at all costs.”

Aethel was a year younger than Kris and three older than the twins. And sure enough she glared across the room, following every move he made until her brother Vic came over and whispered something that wiped the look off her face.

“All right.” Ivy strode over to the large wooden desk that served as our command center for archival research. Beside it was an old-fashioned chalkboard on one side, whiteboard on the other. “We have a lot to catch up on. Now that Solstice is behind us we need to make some serious progress. Dray, would you like to start?”

The head of the House of Wren gave her a nod. “My trip to the Black Forest was enlightening.”

After the battle at the House of Axl and the many revelations we learned there, Dray and Cass traveled to the main House of Wren in the Black Forest. He was there to share with them what we saw about the other dimension, but also with the hopes they’d have information we needed as well.

The Ancient War was never supposed to be fought again. That was the idea. It was why our ancestors put impenetrable doors over the most vulnerable spots in our world.

But the other side had other ideas and the War would return if we couldn’t find a way to stop it.

In light of that, I was put in charge of combing through the archives of the Houses, looking for as much information as possible that still existed about the Ancient War. It started in my own House of Gatlin, then joined forces with my best friends here at the House of Wren. We just got back from the caves where the House of Heida stored their records.

“They already knew.” Dray’s statement rang through the air. “Not everything, but they were well aware of the activity at the doors. All the testing, the crossovers, even the instability around the House of Axl. Once I filled them in on what happened, they pulled their smug heads out of their asses and got on board with sharing everything.”

Ender shook his head. “Trying to pull a power move over your House? There’s no honor.”

Dray shrugged. “We’re from the same genetic line but there’s been very little in common between our Houses for hundreds of years. The only thing that matters now is that we’re not fighting each other. We’re on the same page.” Dray detailed the specifics of what the Wrens of the Black Forest knew about the activity around the doors. Namely, it was a hell of a lot more than any of us realized. “It goes back damn near sixty years. Ever since the breach.”

The breach between our worlds killed Dray’s parents and altered his entire timeline. It reset his connection to the Plane and made him a dragon shifter. It linked him to Rhysa, making them Fated Mates.

“You’d have thought they’d share that kind of information with you,” Ender gritted out, clearly ready to take up arms with Dray. “No honor at all.”

Dray, however, was strangely calm. “Let’s worry about that another time. Rain, what did the Heida have for us?”

The spotlight fell on me and I felt the tingle of a dozen minds focusing in my direction. The aura around me warmed and hummed but the wall held. “The Heida records are far more complete and go back several hundred more years than anything in our Houses.”

“Damned hermits are good for something,” Ronan Argo muttered. He served as the House of Argo’s representative and was in a terrible mood. I found him intimidating, which was an interesting thing since I didn’t find Dray or Ender particularly intimidating. Large and powerful? Yes. Scary when they got mad? Absolutely. But that was directed anger. Ronan seemed to be angry all the time. And that was all the difference.

Leena, who was mated to the future king of the Heida, kicked him under the table. “They’re not hermits.”

Ronan shrugged. “They’re isolationists. Same thing.”

Leena was about to go off so I interrupted their exchange before we went off the rails. “Because the Heida have never split Houses like the rest of us, they have a complete record. Well, as complete as can be. And since they generally don’t put a lot of weight on the past, the archives have been mostly untouched over the centuries. This is an important resource, no matter what you think of the bear shifters.”

Leena stuck her tongue out at Ronan and Ronan glared back.

“What I’m starting to understand is this: our swords and armor may be more important that we realize.”

I felt more than saw the group’s attention grow more focused. “According to the Heida records, they were forged in the Ancient War. After years of defeats they finally found a combination of metals that would hold up. The bond between wielder and sword may be more important than we thought as well. It may be that the connection between our world and the Plane, focused in the sword, is a key to fighting beings in this other world.”

“Did it say that?” Ender stroked his stubble, eyes unfocused in thought.

“No. That’s my interpretation based on everything I’ve absorbed so far. Like I said, no one has records that go back to the War. The Heida accounts are stories passed down through several generations before being written into the record.”

“Like humans talking about Atlantis,” Cass grumbled. She was a huge history buff, which was why she was so helpful to the research project.

“No one ever said Atlantis wasn’t real.” Bridge elbowed her. “I still think humans confused one of our Houses with the fabled city.”

Her twin sighed with frustration. “It blew up. The volcano blew, the humans told stories, the stories got out of hand. It’s a game of telephone on an epic scale.”

“Which is why we can’t trust these Heida stories any more than the humans trust the tales of Atlantis,” Ronan said.

Leena kicked him again.

“Humans only live a few decades. Handing down stories gets distorted quickly. We’re very different,” I reminded him.

“Let’s take a look.” Ender moved to the desk. “Walk us through it, Rhiannon.”

Three hours later I had most of them convinced my theory was sound. At least the general theory. Ronan thought I was making some pretty big leaps about the sword bonding and the Plane and Ender agreed with him. Dray was on my side, thanks to his special connection to his sword’s dragon egg and Rhysa’s ability to bond with it too.

I stood up and stretched my back, feeling woozy. That’s when I felt him. Kris. I knew he was there. I felt him near the doorway. He probably didn’t want to interrupt since we were so busy. The war took precedence over everything, even mental health trips to the great outdoors.

I appreciated that. But I was also more than ready to escape.

“Can we analyze the metals?” Cass asked Dray and me. “Get an idea of what these swords are really made of?”

“I think Kris would be the one to put in charge of this. He does a lot of metal work,” Dray said.

“And Gigi.” The other Wren sister was a genetic specialist and super smart. “I think she might have a lot of insight if we can get her some data.”

Dray nodded. “I agree. I’ll read them in on your theory and get them started on the research. Good work, Rain.”

I tried to smile, to let him know I appreciated the kind words, but it didn’t quite reach my lips and I was sure I ended up looking more like an exhausted puppy with big eyes. The world tilted a little and I put my hand out to steady myself on the back of the couch.

Suddenly he was beside me. “That’s enough work for today.” Kris took my hand and pulled me towards him.

Cass frowned up at her brother. “But we still have a ton to do.”

Kris turned to ice, those blazing eyes of his quieting everyone. “Rhiannon has been through a lot. She needs a break or she’ll be no good to any of us.” He began pulling me to the door.

“What is happening right now?” Cass launched after us, hands on her hips.

“We’ll be back in a couple of hours!” Kris threw a goodbye wave over his head meant to end the conversation.

The only problem was that I wanted him to answer Cass’s question.

What was happening right now and why did it feel like Kris wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him?