Max called for a witch to be brought to the island to open a portal for us. That gave me time to take a long needed shower. I’d become far too comfortable walking around in nothing but mud.

During my time in hiding, Abby had retrieved my clothes from the cave and washed them. Wearing nothing but mud had become too easy. When I stepped out of the shower my clean clothes and supplies were waiting for me.

Ever since the attack, Max seemed on edge. As he paced back and forth in the waiting room I decided to distract him while getting some much needed answers.

“In the cave, you were very convincing, even though I knew that wasn’t you.”

He somehow understood what I was driving at and answered my unspoken question. “I used to be with a vampire.”

“What? Are you telling me you tried to seduce me with moves you picked up from your ex-girlfriend? Okay, I changed my mind I seventy percent hated that.”

Julian entered the room and announced, “It’s time.”

We headed outside where a silver haired woman was running her hands over the air. Everywhere she touched, sparks would fly. She moved the sparks in a circle again and again until something new appeared on the other side. Once the portal was stable, she took a step back and gestured for us to go through.

I didn’t know how I’d fair in their realm. I might have been allergic to something or unable to breathe the air. I could think of a thousands things that could be different enough not to bother them but kill me instantly. But Abby was in danger, so I pinched my nose and dived in like it was a swimming pool and I was aiming for the deep end.

Pushing through the portal was like breaking through a membrane. Magic tingled across my skin. When I reach the other side I could sense I was on a different world. The sun had a strange purple hue that reflected eerily on the leaves. The air smelled crisp and clean but also little metallic. I spun around with my arms stretched out and awe of everything around me. “I can’t believe I’m on another planet.”

Max closed his eyes smiling as he took in what must’ve been for him the sounds and smells of home. “I felt the same way when I first visited Earth. I just wish we’d come here under better circumstances.”

“Yeah, let’s figure out who would dare send someone to cut Abby’s throat and introduce him to whatever afterlife you people believe in.”

“I don’t really think Abby was the target.”

“It doesn’t matter if they were aiming for her Julian they attacked her and that just can’t happen again. If you haven’t noticed us humans are pretty fragile. Abby can’t survive whatever this was. And I’m gonna make sure she doesn’t have to.” I looked around there was nothing but trees in every direction. “So where to?”

“We’re not far from my castle. Let’s go there grab a change of clothes before we travel to the palace.”

I gave him a look of disbelief. “You have a castle? Is it a really big cave that you just call a castle?”

He chuckled. “No it’s a real castle. It was a gift to my family from the Corvus House for centuries of service.”

He started heading east I follow behind him. “Corvus?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s the name of Julian’s house.”

We walked for hours making me wish instead of boots with a thick heel I’d worn gym shoes to rescue Abby. But I tried to keep the complaints to a minimum. After all, I’d ran for two days straight in those same boots when I was hiding from Max.

In order to distract myself I asked, “So, who do you think ordered the hit on Julian?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s highly unusual for vampires to turn against their own. If the assassin had been a vampire from Earth then it’d obviously be about the mess we’ve made with you and Abby, but Sanguinese don’t care about The Veil so the attack must have been over something else.”

“Sanguinese?” The word seemed familiar. “Is that Latin for blood or something?”

“Something like that. Our realms have been in contact for a very long time.”

That made sense. “So you’re saying your people were influenced by Roman culture. I get it.”

He laughed. “No, I’m saying that Roman culture was shaped by ours. Didn’t they seem to have quite a few oddly advanced ideas given the time?”

I couldn’t even wrap my head around that. Everything I’d ever known about anything had been wrong. How does a person keep going knowing something like that? My life had been one success after another. After I’d shot the man that killed Abby’s parents, I was branded a hero. I graduated top of my class and got recruited into the bureau. I made it through my training with honors. I have top security clearance. But it turns out I didn’t know anything about squat. None of us did. A world full of humans just fumbling around in the darkness, completely oblivious to everything going on right under their noses.

I hated it. I hated feeling lost and helpless and out of control. My hand went to my gun. And that made me feel even worse, would bullets stop any of the things I might run into?

Max and Julian both worried that I would try to run back to my old life and end up contaminating everyone around me. But they didn’t get it. I didn’t want to go back, not knowing everything that I knew. How could I spend every day worried about things like the rising price of coffee or the dry cleaners failing to get the stain out of my favorite shirt when there were other realms and werewolves and magically cloaked islands. I wasn’t naive. I didn’t think I could go back. My only concern was protecting Abby. This world was too dangerous for her. She needed someone to look after her. Someone that wouldn’t use her as a sex toy.

“So from what you’ve told me, I gather that vampires as a whole are pretty awful. What about other species? Are you a typical werewolf?”

Max smiled wistfully as he considered how to answer that. “Yes and no. Every pack has it’s unique quirks shaped by circumstance. My ancestor was born the second alpha to a packleader. Usually in that case the siblings end up in a fight to the death over control of the pack, but Brody couldn’t bring himself to kill his own brother, so he left. He wandered alone until he was captured by fae and forced to fight for the entertainment of the fae court. After years in captivity, a young Sanguinese royal met the same fate. But the vampire wouldn’t surrender. Instead he plotted an escape. In the end, only Cario and Brody survived. My ancestor pledged his life in service to Cario Corvus and when he took a mate and had children, his progeny made the same pledge. The trust and friendship between my pack and House Corvus has shaped us for generations.”

Okay, even I had to admit, it was touching. I smiled at the image playing in my mind. “So does that mean every Corvus bloodsucker has a green-eyed pup prancing behind them?”

The light faded from Max’s eyes. “Not anymore. They are all gone now.”

All of them? He couldn’t possibly mean his entire pack, could he? Was Julian all he had? What would happen to him if I actually managed to kill his charge? I knew what it was like to sacrifice everything for someone else. Losing Julian would probably shatter him.

I put my hand on his arm, trying to convey with my touch how truly sorry I was for his loss. After that we kept our heads down and walked in silence. I knew he’d been moving slower than usual to keep pace with me, but now the weight of his pain was tangible. It slowed his every step making it easier to stand beside him.

We reached the edge of a clearing and I gasped at the sight before me. “You said it was a normal castle!”

He looked at me and shrugged. “It is.”

His definition of normal was an intricately carved mountain side with vegetation and waterfalls cascading down the stone walls. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen and so beautifully incorporated with it’s surroundings I stood in awe. “A castle is a stone box with a high wall and slits for windows. This is a piece of art.”

He pointed at the base of the mountain. “Well, I have a moat.”

The sparkling river that ran past the front of the structure only counted as a moat in function. Nothing about it hinted that it existed for utility purposes.

As I gawked in disbelief, Max became defensive. “It was built by vampires. They value aesthetics highly. I assure you, fully manned, the castle could hold back an invading army indefinitely. It’s more secure than the palace. As a matter of fact, that’s why it was built, as a place to protect the royal family if ever an invasion threatened to reach them.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. He thought my issue was with security. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. How can you have a home like this and yet choose to live in a cave?”

“I haven’t been here since I was a child. When I was twelve, I went to the palace so that my father could train me to replace him as Julian’s personal guard. The war wasn’t going well and my father felt his skills would be of better use as a general. Our pack was suffering too many losses and Father worried that it was the vampire generals being reckless with werewolf lives.”

“And were they?” I needed to know as much as possible about his world if I had any hopes of helping him.

“No. The real problem was that we were engaged in a war we had no hope of winning. The Deabru would have overwhelmed us no matter what we did.”

“I bet they couldn’t breach your castle.” I grabbed for anything in hopes of distracting him from his melancholy which draped over him like a cloak ever since our conversation began.

“The Deabru are flying demons with the speed of a vampire and the strength of a werewolf. They would take this castle in under an hour.”

Ouch. “So what stopped them?”

“We managed to capture the sister of their king. As long as we held her he wouldn’t press forward into our territory.”

“Wait, if you have this demon guy’s sister, maybe that’s who sent an assassin after Julian as payback.”

Max shook his head. “No, she died centuries ago.”

“If he had such a huge advantage, why didn’t he conquer you after she died?”

“Claudia.”

“Who?”

“Julian’s sister. She married the Deabru king in order to secure a peace between our peoples.”

“So did Julian just throw her to the wolves or did he order her as her king?” I realized I’d used wolves to refer to the demons who’d wiped out Max’s entire pack. If this realm had any sort of political correctness, I just shat all over it.

But he didn’t seem to notice my little faux pas. “Julian was already on Earth when she left to meet with the Deabru king.”

Well, that didn’t make sense. “But you just said that you were on the brink of war. He really dipped out at a time like that? Maybe she’s the one who hired the assassin.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” There was an edge of irritation in his tone.

“Well, you said this happened hundreds of years ago, right? That’s centuries of being married to a demonic warlord, she’s probably changed a lot since the last time you’ve seen her, we should start—”

“It wasn’t her! Dammit!” Max roared.

I jumped back. He’d never spoken to me like that before. This was obviously a sore subject for him. But before I could respond, he stormed off leaving me to make my way to the castle alone.

What the hell was wrong with him? If his king didn’t make a habit of kidnapping and eating people maybe assassins wouldn’t be after him and I wouldn’t have to dig through a painful past. But why would he get so defensive over—

I used to be with a vampire.

His words from earlier hit me full force. His ex couldn’t be Julian’s sister. I mean if it was her, then she went off and married the man responsible for the annihilation of his pack. No one could be that heartless. But from what Max told me about vampires, being heartless was a point of pride for them. Wow… what a fucking bitch. If we ever came face to face, I’d shoot her, for Max. Nothing lethal, just one in the leg.