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

“I need you to stop fixating on who I’m aligned with and what I might do, Shoshanna. We have a serious fucking problem and instead of dealing with that, you’re worried that we’re standing in the House of Wren library. Really?” I was on my last thread with my Head of House.

Kris, who stood in an obviously protective stance beside and a smidge in front of me glowered. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. The moment we returned to the House he grabbed his preferred weapons. All the Wrens did. “For now, she’s safer here with my siblings than under your roof.”

Shoshanna shot him a menacing glare then erased it because, quite frankly, he was right, no matter what she wished was the truth. “You’re all half Gatlin. Remember that.”

I felt Kris’s siblings behind me. They weren’t used to having their loyalty questioned and it showed, even if I couldn’t feel it the way I was used to. “All I knew before today was that Aunt Matylda and her husband parted ways decades ago. No one ever bothered to tell me he tried to take control over me.”

Shoshanna had the good sense to look ashamed. “Your parents and I believed it was in your best interest to keep the ugly past in the past. We didn’t want that shadow hanging over you.”

“Maybe when I was a child. Shoshanna, I’m a fully mature adult who has a right to know anything that might affect my life.”

“We didn’t think he’d ever come back!” She threw her hands in the air. “Was it wishful thinking? Maybe. Maybe.”

“Houses split,” Kris said, his voice low and firm. “We split from ours. But this isn’t a difference of opinion on leadership. This is about the very power of your House. This is about Rhiannon’s life.”

I swear he was about to pull his sword and behead Shoshanna right in front of everyone. He was that angry.

At my request, Shoshanna brought only Rever with her. He stepped forward with a hand slightly up. “Let’s focus on the here and now. It’s probably safe to assume there’s at least one spy in the house, maybe even the Guard.”

“They may even be part of our research effort,” Cass pointed out. “We shouldn’t trust anyone.”

“Well we have to trust someone,” Rever said, “or we’re about to mount the saddest defense in history.”

“How many did Rhine take with him?” I asked. How did Aunt Matylda marry someone so horrible?

“One hundred and thirty-seven that we know of. How many are wolves in sheep’s clothing, sleeping amongst us, I have no way to know,” Shoshanna said. She turned to Rever. “Do your best. Prepare as many as you can but do it quietly.”

He bowed slightly and slid away, but not before glancing at me and then catching Kris’s attention. The males traded a quick nod.

“I could shift, take them by surprise, and burn the house to the ground with my fire,” Dray offered, even though the idea made him look like he was smelling rotten fish.

Rhysa glared at him. “That means I’m going to. You can’t shift without me.”

Every vein in Dray’s body suddenly bulged. “Like hell you are.”

“Like hell you’re going alone!” She shot back. “What if you can’t return to your samhain form?”

Kris shook his head, dispelling the fight before it blew up even more. “They’ll just scatter like ants. We need to contain them. If they run they’ll just regroup and we’ll still have a problem. If they believe they have the advantage they’ll hold their ground and fight us.”

“And what about the watcher?” Shoshanna asked. “They’re willing to break the code to keep an eye on Rain. They could be watching us now. We have no idea how compromised we really are.”

“I can look,” Rhysa offered. “My gift is different than Rain’s but similar in many ways.”

“Yes, give it a try,” Shoshanna agreed.

“I think we can trust my family to help,” Rhysa said. “They have too much riding on Rain’s gifts to help reach my mother. They wouldn’t risk her safety.”

“And of course our Mates will help,” Bethany said. “And they’ll know who they can trust within the House of Sato.”

“Atsila and his brothers will help. They don’t even like the Houses,” Leena said with a shrug.

The House of Heida really was the most trustworthy since they despised anything outside of the North. I started to count in my head, surprised at the number. We’d still be outnumbered almost three-to-one, but it was a sizable force and we would hopefully have the element of surprise.

“We’ll rendezvous here at midnight,” Dray said with a nod. “We need to get this done quickly, before they surprise us again.”

The group broke up, but before Shoshanna left, she came to me. “Your parents want to see you. They’re…well there’s no easy way to say they’re freaking out. Your mother is out of her mind and your father is pacing a hole in the floor. And just so you understand how upset they are—they’re in the same room.”

Oh shit. “I can’t come back to the house with you.”

“Maybe you can meet somewhere?”

“Tell Alan we’ll meet to go over the work we discussed,” Kris said.

A brilliant idea! Dad would know immediately Kris wanted to meet at the old house and no one else would have the slightest idea.

Shoshanna craned her neck to glare up at Kris. “You won’t even tell me where this is? What if he doesn’t understand?”

“He’ll understand,” Kris glowered, “and no, I’m not telling you shit until I know Rain is safe.”

Her right eyebrow arched as she tore her gaze away from my incredibly hot male, and swung it over to me. “At least I know you’re in safe hands. Stay safe Rhiannon and I’ll see you at midnight.”

“Don’t sit anywhere I can see or hear you. Just in case. We have no idea what this watcher is capable of and I don’t want to give away your location because they can see what I can see.” Rhysa made herself comfortable on the couch in the library.

I quickly explained everything I knew about the mysterious consciousness I saw and felt on the Plane, and now she was ready to see if she could sense them too.

I stood well away with Kris in a corner while she did her thing. He stood behind me with his arms around and clasped at my waist. He rested his head on top of mine. “If it weren’t our real lives, I’d think it’s pretty cool to be in the room with two of the most powerful samhain ever to live.”

“That’s an extremely grandiose statement.” It made me feel like a grain of sand in the ocean. I was just me. I wasn’t this thing Kris said. He was exaggerating.

“Grandiose or not, it’s true. No one has Rhysa’s gifts. We all felt her Awaken. We’ve seen what she can do. Those are facts. Your gifts are different but similar, and just as incredible. You can’t say Rhysa is special and then turn around and say you aren’t.”

Chastised, I kept my mouth shut. “I appreciate all your help.”

“I don’t know why you just said that. It’s not help. It’s my life. You’re my life.”

My heart skipped a beat. “But your brothers and sisters didn’t need to step up. They’re calling in favors…”

“Princess, this is for all of us. I love you, so this is easy for me, but for everyone else? It’s necessary. You heard Rhysa. You’re important to reaching her mother. You’re important to your House, but you’re important to all of ours too. Your Destiny is written into ours and we can’t let a radical try to change that. We’ll lose the war without you. Besides,” he turned me to face him. I looked up, up, up, over his strong shoulders, the muscles that wrapped up his neck, past his stubble, to his dark, hungry eyes. “If any of us are locked up, we’re one step away from all of us being chained and our powers used to benefit one instead of all. I don’t know what the hell has happened to us that brought us here, but war or not, as a species, we need to purge this shit.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Samhain society was based on our peace and freedom. We didn’t fall to human urges for power and control, or greed and wealth.

Except lately it seems to have come to just that. The Axls tried to consolidate power and it destroyed them.

Or maybe this was always the way. Maybe I was just too young and idealistic to realize this was the natural order of things.

“That’s some freaky shit, Rain!” Rhysa said from the couch.

I jumped in Kris’s arms. “I’m here.” Kris gave me a squeeze of comfort, then took a kiss.

It all soothed me just like he wanted it to, so I was able to turn and walk back to the couch looking confident when in reality I was starting to feel like a wagon with all loose screws and pieces starting to fall off.

Rhysa leapt to her feet and started pacing and shaking her hands. “Okay, so aside from the ever-present darkness that looms over the timeline these days, there is definitely a presence. It’s like a freaky shadow hanging out in the,” she waved her hand through the air, “well, the shadows. That was a really poor choice of words but it’s accurate.”

“What’s your gut tell you?” I chewed on my lower lip and cracked my knuckles.

“Okay so I see the Plane mostly through the lens of the timeline, but like, more than that because, you know, superpowers. Anyway, it’s like railroad tracks. I see them moving forward through the timeline.” She lifted her hands and wiggled them like jazz hands. “Shadow monster in the sky. And then over here,” her hands swooped down and to the other side, “in the shadows is this presence. I’m guessing it’s your watcher. I can just feel their…presence. Fuck, my vocabulary is actual trash today! It’s like they’re there, and they’re watching everything. Like from a watchtower.” She rolled her eyes at her repetition of the word watch.

“If they’re watching everything then they probably have no idea where I am.” That was good at least.

“Yeah, but you drop your block and you’re going to look like a beacon on the Plane and they’ll jump on you like a hawk on a field mouse.” She stopped and put her hands on her hips, glaring at the carpet. “They’re expending an enormous amount of power to do this. Like, enormous. The only time I’ve spent that much time on the Plane, I was dying.”

Which made me think of her mother. “They’d only be drawing that much power if they were tied to their body.” It was the connection to both Planes at once that took so much energy. “When you were poisoned you weren’t fully tied to your body. Your mother saved your life by keeping you from drifting off. Your mother isn’t fully tied to her body either.”

“Well then this watcher is either my mother, which makes no sense because why would she do that to someone after all the things that happened to her and me and my father. So no, it can’t be her. Which means someone else has gone to that extreme. That’s one hell of a strategy.”

All to capture me and use my gifts. I guess they thought I was worth it. My stomach flipped and sank. “They’ll be deadly dangerous if they’re willing to go this far.”

“What the hell is their endgame?” Kris murmured. “You’re powerful, but they have to have a purpose for it, right? They don’t just want to be powerful for the hell of it.”

And that’s what really made me nauseous. “Maybe they see what’s coming too. We’re all working together but they’re out there on their own, trying to prepare?”

“Maybe.” Rhysa shrugged, not looking too convinced.

“I don’t see how knowing their motivations is helpful,” Kris said. “They’re power-hungry assholes who want to lock Rain up. That’s all that matters.”