Nathan kept Vicky’s hand in his as they made their way downstairs the next morning. They’d spent the rest of yesterday in bed, and as much as he’d like to do so again today, they both had things to do.

He’d told his followers he planned to become a vampire, but Nathan didn’t know how they would react to the knowledge he was one. He could lose more of them, but he couldn’t do anything to stop that. No matter the consequences, he wouldn’t have chosen differently. Every second of his transition was worth sharing this bond with Vicky, and he would gladly do it again if he had to.

Glancing at Vicky, he was pleased to note the color back in her cheeks and the shadows gone from her eyes as she fairly bounced along beside him. His mind brushed at the edges of hers, an ever-present connection he welcomed. He’d witnessed the love between Ronan and Kadence, but he’d never realized how deep the bond ran between them or the power that came with it.

The change hadn't heightened his senses, but it had increased his strength. Nathan didn’t have to fight anyone to know he was stronger; he felt it in everything he did. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten used to it yet, and the shower wall had a few more dents, he’d broken the headboard off the bed, and torn the knob from the bathroom door.

He would have to be careful around humans and hunters until he completely adjusted, but he enjoyed this newfound power. However, more than this added strength, he loved seeing Vicky relaxed and radiant as she strolled beside him.

His free hand flexed, stretching the skin over his knuckles as he stepped into the crowded dining room. The room was large enough to hold fifty guests comfortably, but nearly a hundred hunters were crammed inside as others worked to dish out pancakes and oatmeal. The chatter died away as more and more noticed the two of them standing in the doorway.

Nathan kept his shoulders back as all conversation died away. At his side, Vicky smiled and waved to Elfry who, after a minute, waved back at her. The wave broke the hush, but the returning chatter had a speculative tone to it now. Vicky slid her hand from his as Asher and Logan approached.

“I should go speak with Elfry,” Vicky said. “I don’t want her thinking we planned your change and never told her.”

“Do you think it makes a difference?” he inquired, curious as to what she would say.

“Oh, yes,” Vicky replied. “These hunters stayed because they believe your course of action will preserve your race, but they also stayed because they look to Elfry for guidance. She’s wise as well as kind, and she holds sway over them.”

“Is that why you developed a friendship with her?”

“Maybe in the beginning, but I enjoy her company. For a well-bred hunter woman, she has a dirty mind and some downright filthy tales. She’s fun, smart, and snarky. She’s a lot like me.”

Nathan’s eyebrows shot up at this statement. It was the last thing he’d ever expected anyone to say about Elfry.

Vicky playfully bumped his hip. “Some of your perfect little wives weren’t such perfect widows,” she said with a wink. “Unless, of course, they were obligated to marry again.”

Nathan recalled the widowed hunter who was his first while he was in Mexico with his father. He’d assumed that woman had been a rarity amongst their kind, but of course, she wasn’t. Most hunters were widowed young; they would still have urges and seek to fulfill them.

He thought he’d gotten past his old-fashioned view of the women here, but he still had a ways to go, and Vicky would get him there.

“I’ll be back,” Vicky said and kissed him before slipping into the crowd.

He almost went after her but stopped when Asher and Logan arrived at his side. From around the room, other hunters approached. He had to deal with their curiosity and questions before he could return to his mate.

Vicky settled across from Elfry at the table and folded her hands before her. The older woman smiled, but Vicky saw a distance in her gaze that hadn’t been there the other day.

“It wasn’t planned,” Vicky said bluntly, knowing that was how Elfry preferred to handle things.

“No?” Elfry inquired.

“No,” Vicky said. “But you know how things can change or escalate.”

“Oh, I know about escalating,” Elfry replied, and Vicky heard the innuendo in her voice.

“It’s the worst when it escalates too fast, and then it’s over.”

Elfry’s boisterous laugh drew startled glances from those closest to them. “I hope our stalwart leader doesn’t have that problem.”

“Definitely not,” Vicky assured her and found her eyes drawn irresistibly back to Nathan as he stood surrounded by a growing group of male hunters. The remaining women were all surreptitiously looking at her and Elfry; most weren’t discreet about it.

“You love him very much,” Elfry said and rested her hand on Vicky’s.

“I do,” Vicky confirmed as she met Elfry’s warm, hazel eyes.

“Good. I feel like love is something the hunters have been missing for years.”

“You all love and care for each other. I’m an outsider, but I can see that as clear as day.”

“Yes, and many of us grow to love our spouses, but it’s not the same. My husband was a good man; I cared for him deeply. However, when he died, I wasn’t devastated. Who knows, maybe it’s better not to have your heart torn out, but after two hundred forty-eight years of living, one of the things I wish I could have experienced was a love so deep it was worth dying for. Maybe, if I’d been blessed with children, I’d have grown to love my husband more, but I’ll never know.”

Vicky squeezed Elfry’s hand. “There’s still time for you to find love.”

“He’d have to be worth me dealing with the bullshit of living with a man again, instead of just having sex with them.”

Vicky laughed so loud she almost fell off her chair. She loved this woman and her unexpectedly straightforward way.

“They can be annoying,” Vicky agreed in between bouts of laughter.

“Oh, yes,” Elfry said and wiped the tears from her eyes.

When the chatter around them died down again, Vicky turned to watch Ronan and Kadence enter the room. Vicky waved at Abby, Aiden, and Maggie when they stepped through the door behind the couple. Abby waved back, elbowed Aiden, and said something over her shoulder. Brian appeared for a minute before nodding and turning away. Striding past Kadence, Abby, Maggie, and Aiden started toward her.

“That’s my brother, Aiden, and his mate, Maggie, and that is my sister, Abby,” Vicky said to Elfry as she pointed to each of them.

“That woman is your sister?” Elfry asked and gave her a playful wink.

“I know, we don’t look anything alike.”

Vicky was about to say something more when Nathan’s strange, scattered thoughts skittered across her mind, jolting her. She leapt to her feet, prepared to attack something, but froze when she saw Nathan and Kadence hugging each other.

There was no threat, but why were his thoughts so chaotic? And why was Ronan gazing around the dining area as if he were about to tear the heads from everyone within?

Nathan’s arms clinched around Kadence when, the second they touched, images burst through his mind so fast he couldn’t grasp any of them. And then, he felt time slowing for him as it had so many times over the years. He could almost feel the infinite tunnel of space spreading around him while the images gradually coalesced into scenes.

When Nathan looked around him now, he found himself standing with Kadence in the center of a dozen broken bodies littering the ground. Bodies with the familiar faces of the hunters who had split off from him to go their own way. Carnage surrounded them, but most of those who’d left were missing from the scene.

Then, the images shifted, and this time stars swirled around them before Joseph filled the picture. Joseph stood outside the circle of the bodies, smiling as he surveyed the destruction with a couple of hundred Savages flanking him.

Hatred boiled through Nathan while he gazed at the face he loathed. His time with Vicky had made him realize there was more to life than death and fighting, but he would make sure Joseph died.

Then, the scene faded away and the noise of the dining room crashed into Nathan’s ears again. He released Kadence and inhaled a shaky breath as he struggled to assimilate what he’d seen with the world around him.

Ronan’s eyes glistened the color of rubies as he gazed between the two of them. Nathan turned to find Vicky stalking toward him, her eyes also a vibrant red. Aiden, Maggie, and Abby stepped out of her way but fell in beside her when she walked by them.

“What was that?” Nathan asked Kadence.

“That was the pathways,” she whispered as she pushed back a strand of her silvery hair. “But normally the pictures come so fast I can’t grasp them. I started glimpsing some of this vision last week, but all I could absorb were feet scattered across a blood-soaked ground, and I never saw Joseph, until now. Somehow, you slowed the vision down and made it possible for me to see more of it.”

“Time has a way of slowing for me,” he murmured.

“What?” she asked.

Nathan glanced around the crowded room before jerking his head toward the door. He reclaimed Vicky’s hand when she stepped beside him. When she gave him a questioning look, he squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“We need to talk,” he said to Kadence.

• • •

Ronan, Lucien, Killean, Saxon, Declan, Kadence, Brian, Abby, Maggie, and Aiden gathered in the library with him, Vicky, Logan, Asher, Elfry, and Roland.

“Time has always had this weird way of slowing for me,” Nathan said as he paced from one end of the pinewood floor to the other. “It doesn’t happen often, and I’ve never mentioned it to anyone, and it usually occurs when I’m in battle, but not always. During my transformation, I had this weird experience of being in some kind of tunnel as time slowed enough to reveal our stars and planets to me, along with galaxies and worlds beyond ours.”

“Was that the tunnel in my vision today?” Kadence asked. “Because I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Yes,” Nathan replied.

“How is this possible?” Aiden asked.

“I was able to locate things occasionally before I turned,” Brian said. “Becoming a vampire amped up my ability. Years of practice has honed it.”

“So they were both born with something that intensified when they became a vampire?” Saxon asked.

“Sounds like it,” Brian said.

“So what does that mean?” Lucien inquired.

“They’re like yin and yang to each other,” Vicky said as she gazed between the fraternal twins with dawning realization. “They can experience their ability on their own, but it works so much better when they’re together. Kadence’s ability is useful but also sounds frustrating.”

“It is,” Kadence confirmed.

“And Nathan’s ability helps him in a fight, it’s sporadic, but you don’t make it sound frustrating.”

“It’s not,” he said.

“Different but similar,” Vicky murmured. “Male and female. Too fast and too slow. Opposites, but together, they work. They knew they were different before their transition, but their powers were unlocked further when their DNA twisted into something new, like Brian’s. And being twins… well, you don’t have to be a twin to know there’s a special bond between them.”

She glanced at Abby who grinned at her.

“The twin bond is special, and in Kadence and Nathan, it’s forged gifts meant to be used together,” Vicky said.

“It’s been almost seven hundred years since the hunters had twins and over a thousand since a boy-girl set was born. With the power of their bloodline….” Elfry’s voice trailed off as she studied the two of them.

“Many believed your birth to be an omen of doom or great joy, myself included. I think we have our answer now. You’ve changed the way things work already, brought together two factions who were at war for thousands of years when they never should have been, and you’ve been given great gifts. Our people have been stubborn, but they’ve been wrong. They’ll see that with this development,” Elfry stated.

“I wish you were right, Elfry, but I don’t think you are,” Nathan said kindly. “Many will see this as they want to see it, either as a sign of good fortune or doom. Some will think it means nothing, but all will twist it into what they want it to be.”

Elfry opened her mouth to protest before her shoulders slumped in resignation. “I wish you were wrong.”

“So do I. But Kadence’s vision revealed Joseph is going to attack the hunters who left here. The hunters he didn’t slaughter outright were missing. We have to figure out where the other half of the stronghold went. That’s the only way we can save them.”

Killean abruptly stepped from the shadows. The anger and distress in his eyes was the most emotion Nathan had ever seen from the man, he didn’t understand it, but the vampire didn’t say anything to reveal what he was thinking.

“I can help with that,” Roland said. “I placed a tracking device in one of their suitcases. I never planned to reveal their location unless it was necessary. They deserve a right to their freedom, but they were foolish to leave, so I made sure I could keep tabs on them. They’re in New Hampshire.”