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With Damien and Jeff stumbling behind us, we walked the narrow path through the trees and up a low rise, which gave way to a snowy field, still dotted with the remains of last year’s cornstalks . . . and marked by the columns of the invading army.
They’d found us.
Chapter Nine
THE SPOILS OF WAR
There were hundreds of shifters, some in NAC jackets, some in animal form. All behind the front line—which consisted of the Keenes, Nick, Ethan, Catcher, and Mallory—and waiting for orders.
Ethan searched the marching bulk, body stilling when he finally saw me, as he took in the chains on my ankles and whatever concoction of blood and dirt had stiffened on my face. His body went rigid, his eyes hot with fury, and I feared he’d begin the charge himself, ripping through elves in order to punish them for my injuries.
I’m fine, I assured him, hoping to delay First Blood, and glad he couldn’t hear the hoarseness in my voice.
Sentinel, he crisply said. You’ve managed to get yourself into trouble again.
They nabbed me as I was walking down the sidewalk, I assured him. And I think the Canon needs updating.
Evidently, he responded, and there was a gravelly edge to his voice.
How did you find us?
Damien sent an alert before he was taken. The shifters scented out the rest of it.
The elf’s fingers still wrapped tightly around my arm, we marched forward, creating another line of troops. Behind us echoed the muted and rhythmic thud of boots on soil. The elves had their own army, and quarters had been called.
They stretched out beside us, shifting their short rows to form three long lines with Rockette-level precision. They raised their bows and tucked arrows into the strings, the silver arrowheads glinting in the moonlight, the air thick with tension and magic.
Our escort pushed us to our knees, where we knelt on hard, frozen ground in front of our colleagues and loved ones, enemies at our backs, weapons in their hands.
Ethan looked calmly at the elves, his body stiff and hiding the fear and anger that I knew ripped at him. But fear was a nasty motivator, and we didn’t need another supernatural war brewing outside Chicago. Not when events there were tense enough.
They were attacked, I told Ethan. And they think we—the Pack and vampires—were the culprits. They followed us, took us in. They must have been waiting for an opportunity to get us alone.
Ethan murmured to Gabriel beside him, probably offering the intel.
“You have breached our peace,” said the elf. “You shed First Blood. ”
“We have shed no blood,” Gabriel said. “We were attacked last night without provocation. Several members of our Pack were injured. Four are dead. ”
That didn’t seem to register with the elf. “One of ours is gone. We seek retribution in equal kind. ”
As if those words were enough to justify murder, he lifted the sword ominously.
I braced to move, to fight back, but Ethan beat me to it. He unsheathed his katana, catching the moonlight like Excalibur might have. And he was Arthur, blond and strong and proud, willing to destroy a kingdom for his Guinevere.
“You make one move with that sword,” Ethan said, stepping forward, eyes furiously green, “and you’ll have every vampire in the world hunting you down. Beginning with me. ”
The elf’s eyes narrowed with keen pleasure, as if the thought of taking on a vampire—or a world of them—was a prize, not a threat.
But Gabriel wasn’t keen on the destruction of his kingdom, his Pack, or his allies. He put a calming hand on Ethan’s arm.
“If you commit violence,” Gabriel said to the elf, “you will breach the contract between us. ”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and while he didn’t speak to me, it was easy to guess the line of his thought. The Pack had a contract with a species that wasn’t supposed to exist—which had apparently created a village just outside Chicago—and no one had bothered to tell us about it.
“You breached the pact first,” the elf said again, his voice growing irritable and sounding not unlike an ornery child. “We claim the right of retribution. ”
Gabriel watched him for a moment, considered. “Support your claim. ” And when Ethan began to protest, Gabriel held up a hand. “I would hear precisely how the elves believe we wronged them. ”
“It was glamour,” the elf said, damning me with a look. Glamour was the particular magic of vampires—the mythical ability to seduce and control others. But the ability to glamour varied significantly from vampire to vampire. Ironically, I couldn’t glamour worth a damn.
“We were together for our midday meal,” the elf continued. “We’d just taken our mead when the fog began to thicken. ”
That was a strong defense for me and Ethan. Fog or not, midday meant sunlight.
“What kind of fog?” Gabriel asked.
“Mist,” the elf said, looking up, posing the word as a half question. It was a guess, and one about which he still had doubts. “Thick. And there was magic in it. ”
The elf’s eyes went slightly out of focus, as if he was remembering precisely what he’d seen—and how it had felt. “Magic that swayed. Magic that seduced. It invited,” he said, eyes focusing on me again. “It propositioned. ”
“You were propositioned by magic mist?” Gabriel mildly asked.
The elf looked back at him, glared, and ignored the question, continuing with his story. “We were overpowered by the magic, by the glamour. Like the undead, without control of ourselves or our bodies. We were drunk with magic and made senseless by it. Some lost awareness of the world. Some fought. ”
He swallowed visibly and clearly was uncomfortable. “Some copulated, there in the middle of the feast, rutting like animals. We are not prudes,” he said. “But this was not about mating, about strengthening the clan. There was no lust in their eyes. No love. Only death. ”
I slid Jeff a quick glance, and he acknowledged with a small nod. We’d seen those flat eyes before, in the harpies who’d attacked the first night of Lupercalia.
This time, sympathy slid through my irritation. However incorrect the elf’s conclusions about the cause of the trauma, there was no doubt his people had been violated.
“I do not remember all of it; most of us do not. But we recognized its insidiousness. It was glamour. ”
“And the First Blood?” Gabriel asked.
“Niera,” the elf said. “One of the mothers of our clan. We awoke some hours later when the sun was nearly set, half naked, violated. She was gone. Her house was empty. ”
Gabriel frowned. “If she is missing, how do you know First Blood was shed?”
“Elves do not leave the clan,” the elf insisted. “Mothers do not leave the clan. ” He smoothed a hand down the front of his tunic, seemed to soothe himself. “Because she would not leave us, First Blood was shed. Thereby, our claim is justified. ”
“Not against us,” I said. My throat was still raw, the words hoarse, but the sound carried on the wind well enough.
“You have a claim against those who attacked you. We were not those people, and you’re in the wrong. ”
The elf reached out to slap me for the second time, but I’d grown tired of the show. I was a vampire and, more important, a woman who’d rather go down with steel than with cowardice.
I reached up, punched his forearm to force him to release my katana. My hands were still bound, but I stretched the manacles as far as I could and just managed to snatch the dropping katana with my other hand. I jumped to my feet, spun the sword in hand, and waited.
I heard Ethan’s warning in my head—Sentinel!—but it was too late for that. Spurred by my audacity, the elves formed a tight circle around me and Jeff and Damien, a thousand arrows pointed in our direction.
I ignored the welling fear and considered my odds, estimating I had a forty percent chance of taking out an elf or two before they to
ok me out. I gave myself a four percent chance of surviving the fight.
“Steady now,” Damien murmured.
“Do you see?” the elf said, gesturing at us. “Do you see the violence?”
“I see a woman attempting to protect herself against false allegations,” Gabriel said. “All due respect, you’re wrong. If the attack happened midday, vampires could not be responsible. They cannot face the sun. ”
“The fog—,” the elf said, but Gabriel stopped him with a hand.
“It is irrelevant. A little moisture does not protect a vampire from sun. Besides—they were in our facility during the day under lock and key. ”
“You are also Other,” the elf said with a sneer.
“Other and mourning our dead,” Gabriel said. “We were attacked and put four of our own in the ground. Whatever happened here, we had nothing to do with it. ”
The elf looked at Gabriel and considered the evidence. Wrong or not, he was in a bad spot. If he backed down, he looked like a coward. If he authorized his elves to let fly their arrows, he’d truly break the contract with the Pack.
“Perhaps a truce,” Gabriel offered.
The elf looked suspicious. “Of what manner?”
“Both our clans have been attacked by magic. Those attacks might be related. We are part of the human world, and we are investigating the attack. We will continue to do so. If Niera cannot be found, there is nothing we can do. But if she did not leave by choice, if she was taken, we will find her, and we will bring her home to you. And that will resolve the perceived breach. ”
The elf glanced back across his army. I didn’t know if they could communicate telepathically, but he seemed to seek their input.
“We accede to your request,” he said, turning to Gabriel again. “You will send a messenger under flag, and we will meet you here again and receive our mother. If this matter is resolved to our satisfaction, the clan will fade into the canopy again.
“But if it is not—if you protect murderers or engage in more treachery—the détente between our clans will be nullified. We will not fade, nor will we share this land that we inhabited before the rest set foot upon the soil. All of our clans will come forth. All of our villages will be visible once again. And humanity will pay for the transgressions that have accumulated in the meantime. ”