“Over the land?” Ethan asked.
“The land, its use and control. The population. Possessions. Love.”
“There’s a feud,” Ethan concluded.
“There was a feud,” Nessa said, her despair obvious. “It had been so long—I thought we’d moved past it.” She looked up at Ethan. “I’m so sorry. So sorry that you’re here, now, and this is going on. I thought—”
“Do not trouble yourself with us,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s focus on what’s happened.”
She looked down at her hands, streaked with dark and drying blood, her nails stained with it, her fingers shaking. “They’ve killed him. Punished him for our transgression, for marrying me. They’ll come for me next.”
Ethan’s body tensed at the hint of trouble to come, of war, before relaxing again with resigned acceptance. “We won’t let that happen.”
It wasn’t clear she heard him, with her gaze still on her stained hands. “His blood. This is his blood.”
“Why don’t you wash up?” Ethan suggested. “Call your Clan, let them know where you are. They can send a message to the sheriff that you’re here. He’ll want to question you.”
He’ll want to know she didn’t run away in guilt, I thought.
Nessa nodded, rose, and walked to the end of the room, disappeared through a doorway. A moment later came the closing of a door and the sound of running water.
I kept my voice quiet. “Do you trust her?”
Ethan frowned. “I have no reason not to trust her.”
He’d told me before we left Chicago that Nessa had been a friend of two Cadogan vampires, Katherine and Thomas, siblings originally from Kansas City. They’d stayed in touch with her, and she’d visited them in Chicago. That’s how Ethan had met her several decades ago.
“I’ve known her for many years, Sentinel. And while I’d say we were more acquaintances than close friends, I certainly don’t know anything that suggests she’d have killed her husband.” He brushed fingertips across my cheek. “I wouldn’t have knowingly brought you into danger.”
I had no doubt of that. And yet, here we were. I looked through the windows to the valley beyond, the moon arcing across the sky. Ethan’s sense of honor and loyalty made it exceedingly unlikely he’d abandon this woman to what might be a very ugly fate at the hands of a mob.
“I know,” I said, and took his hand. “This isn’t going to be a vacation, is it?”
“Ah, my Sentinel,” he said, and pressed his lips to my forehead. “It was a nice thought, wasn’t it? That’d we’d find peace in this beautiful country?”
It was a wonderful thought. But at the second knock at the door—this one an ominous pounding of meaty fist against heavy wood—I realized how far away it was.“Villagers with torches?” Ethan said, only partly joking.
Not villagers, I guessed, given the hot animal magic that began to seep into the house.
Shifters.
***
Half a dozen shifters to be exact, standing in the front yard like a gang of regulators come to mete out justice in the Wild West.
Ethan and I stood alone on the porch, katanas at the ready. And since we were outnumbered and probably outmagicked, with bluffing skills at the ready. My expression was fierce and determined, even if my heart beat like the wings of a small bird inside my chest.
A shifter stepped forward, and he cut an imposing figure. Broad-shouldered enough to be a defensive lineman, with a square jaw and deep-set eyes, his hair long, thick, and multi-shaded, threads of brown and blond mixed together. His brows and stubble were darker, his eyes ice blue and swirling with knowledge, with power. I’d have put his age at twenty-eight.
The rest of the shifters—men in a variety of ages—bore a passing resemblance to him and shared his ferocity. Their magic, animal and raw, vibrated just enough to hint they were fully armed.
Guns, I silently reported.
But Ethan wasn’t intimidated by weapons, shifters, or most anyone else. His expression was utterly bland. “And you are?”
“Rowan McKenzie. We’re here for the bloodsucker.”
“McKenzie,” Ethan repeated, ignoring the demand and the epithet. “You’re related to Taran?”
“Rowan is Taran’s cousin,” Nessa said. Ethan kept his gaze on Taran, but I looked back, found her in the doorway behind us. She stepped forward, walked across the porch to stand beside us.
The contrast between us and them—between cold and pale vampires and sun-kissed and golden-skinned shifters—was undeniable.
“The rest of them are McKenzies, as well,” she added. “Apparently Rowan believed he needed to bring his crew.”
“My cousin is dead,” Rowan said, and at that the rest of the shifters slapped their hands against their hearts and screamed to the sky. The sound—full of grief and anger and jagged magic—raised the hair on the back of my neck. And not in a good way.
“My husband is dead!” Nessa called back. “My lover. My mate. Someone murdered him in our home.”
“Someone did,” Rowan agreed, his eyes on her. “Tom told us Taran was killed. We know you did it, and we’re here to bring you to justice.”
“I didn’t kill my husband,” she said, now an edge in her voice as grief transmuted to anger.
It was the first time she’d said the words outright, but I believed her, as far as that went.