“Lethe.” Head swimming, I jerked upright, groaning when the world sloshed. “Where’s Lethe?”

“Woolly offered her one of the guestrooms,” Linus said. “She’s staying down the hall until she recovers.”

The gwyllgi wouldn’t be happy giving up their den in the woods, but I was glad to have her under Woolly’s roof where we could keep tabs on her.

Throat tight, I forced my lips to move. “The baby…?”

“Their daughter is fine.” He caught me against him before I slid off the mattress. “You saved her.”

“Lethe?”

“She was eating a hamburger the last time I saw her.” He laid me back against the nest of soft pillows on what I realized was my bed in my room. “You’re the only one in danger at the moment.”

“I don’t feel so hot,” I admitted.

“You need to feed.” Linus pierced the tip of his index finger with the knife he bought to replace the one I stole from him and stuck it in my mouth. “You must replenish what you lost. This is the fastest way.”

Copper hit my tongue, and I moaned. This wasn’t how I’d pictured feeding from Linus, if we ever got that far, but I wasn’t complaining. He was delicious. Better than a fresh hot chocolate from Mallow delicious.

This much blood straight from the vein was a thrilling rush I hadn’t expected, his familiar taste amplified tenfold. Richer, bolder, he intoxicated me, and I got drunk on him.

It didn’t take much. As a vampire, a half vampire, I was a total lightweight.

“Your color is better,” Linus mused. “Do you need more?”

“Can’t hold ’nother bite,” I slurred. “Bite. Bite? I didn’t even use my teeth.” I meant to poke at my canines, but I shoved my finger up my nose. For a second, I worried it was stuck, and that made me laugh harder. “I don’t have fangs. Do you care if I don’t have fangs?”

“I love you just as you are,” he assured me, removing my finger before I scratched my frontal lobe with all the wiggling I was doing trying to free it on my own.

“You’re okay with being finger food?”

“Yes.”

“’mkay.”

Head thunking back against the pillows, I slept.

“I have a headache,” I groaned, eyes opening on a dark room. “Got any aspirin?”

Two pills dropped on my outstretched palm, and a glass of cold water followed. “You’re a cute drunk.”

“I’ve been drinking your blood every day for months—years. Why did it make me loopy this time?”

“You’ve been drinking two tablespoons of blood diluted in a smoothie.” He sat on the edge of the bed next to me. “There’s no way to know how Maud was feeding you, or your mother for that matter, but they must have diluted it as well for you not to notice the taste. You drank the better part of a cup last night, as near as I can tell. That’s eight times your usual amount, and it was pure.”

Woolly prodded me gently, her concern a pang in my temple, and I pushed reassurance her way.

A commotion drew my attention to the lawn. “What’s going on out there?”

“The family of the gwyllgi you killed is howling for blood, literally.”

“That dirtbag challenged for second in the pack. What did he think was going to happen?”

“Dominance battles are rarely to the death,” Hood said, entering the room. “Most end in submission.”

This one should have—it would have if the challenger hadn’t cheated after tucking his tail.

“He tried to kill Lethe,” I protested.

“No.” A vicious edge sharpened his tone. “He tried to murder our child, her heir. It was a political move.”

“How is that any better?”

“I’m not chastising you, Grier.” He bowed his head. “There will be repercussions for what happened last night, but I don’t blame you. I thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for saving our child.”

“Ernst Weber attacked after submitting to Lethe,” Linus argued. “He acted dishonorably. Lethe won the match. We were all there. We will act as witnesses if required.”

Brow furrowed, I glanced between them. “Weber was the challenger?”

“Yes.” Hood sighed. “His family has been pack for eleven generations. The alpha won’t like this.”

“Let me know if I can help.” I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. “Anything I have, anything you need, it’s yours.”

“Thanks.” Hood crossed to me and gave me a brief hug. “You understand the concept of pack better than he ever did.”

“Can I visit Lethe?” I peered through the door into the hall. “Does she feel like having a visitor?”

“She’s sleeping now.” Hood softened his expression. “I’ll come get you when she wakes.”

“We’ll be downstairs,” Linus told him. “Grier needs to eat, then she and I have to talk.”

Hood returned to his mate, and Linus stood to leave so I could shower and dress.

Woolly’s presence lingered in the room, so I asked for privacy through our bond.

A vibrant image of kids playing on the lawn flashed in my head, but she vanished after her parting shot.

“You don’t have to go.” I folded then unfolded a corner of the sheet in my hand. “You could stay.”

“All right.” He covered my hand with his. “I’ll get my grimoire and wait on you out here.”

“I don’t know if I ought to feel glad you didn’t misunderstand the invitation or sad you didn’t offer to get slippery with me.”

“You’re worried about Lethe.” His cool touch soothed. “You won’t believe she’s all right until you set eyes on her.” He laced our fingers. “What we had wasn’t about sex, and what we have now isn’t either.”

Mischief prompted me to lean in close. “You do want to have sex again, though, right?”

“Yes,” he choked out. “I do.” His cheeks turned rosy. “When you’re ready.”

I rocked forward and planted a smacking kiss on him. “I just had to know.”

He touched his lips. “What?”

“You still blush.” I slid off the bed and winked at him. “I was going to miss it if you’d stopped.”

“I doubt sex has cured me,” he said dryly.

“Good.” I headed for the bathroom. “I like knowing you’re as affected as I am.”

Humming under my breath, busy looking as innocent as possible, I stripped in the doorway.

“How could there ever be any doubt?” he murmured and decided to join me after all.

After a shower that didn’t do much to get either of us cleaner, we headed downstairs for breakfast. Linus started blending, and I was about to check in with—brace for it—the Grande Dame to see if the Elite had uncovered any leads in Odette’s disappearance, when Cletus swam into being beside me.

He trailed his icy fingers along my cheek in hello, and it stunned me anew that he was Maud, that she was here, and that I had never connected his touches with hers.

For Linus’s benefit, I pinned on a bright smile. “What news?”

The wraith leaned forward, infringing on my personal space, but I wasn’t alarmed until I heard Linus shout as Cletus enveloped my entire head in his hood.

The world fell away, and a void whirled around my face. Frigid wind slapped my cheeks, and through my watering eyes, I squinted as a scene swam into focus.

“I cannot go back,” a soft voice murmured from beyond a gauzy veil I couldn’t part. “I will not.”

“My love, you must.” Shadows twisted before me, twining into the forms of a man and a woman locked in an embrace. “There is no other way.”

Straining to hear more, see more, I plunged deeper into the darkness, but the couple swirled away.

The oppressive gloom shifted colors to gray, and Corbin stood before me, looking at Cletus.

“Grier,” he said, addressing me directly, “so far I’m being treated like a prince. The clan isn’t thrilled with my sudden arrival, but Lacroix is winning them over to my side. He can hold the minds of an entire room of vampires who have sworn blood oaths to him.” He darted a quick glance behind him at a door. “The clan masters are resistant to Lacroix’s demands, but he always gets his way in the end. Their people…” He shook his head. “They have no clue what’s happening around them or to them.”

A thud against the door had him turning away from Cletus.

“I don’t know what your grandfather’s agenda is yet, but he’s gathered between nine hundred to a thousand vampires here if my math holds.” He looked back at the wraith. “We have to free these vamps. I can’t imagine anything good will come of this, and that’s not just my prejudice speaking. He’s got the numbers and the control to force the Grande Dame to submit to his demands.” He shrugged. “Whatever they are.”

The transmission swirled away, and sensation returned to me in a rush of tingles.

Fingertips bit into my shoulders, and light stabbed me in the corneas while I thrashed like I was drowning.

“I’m okay,” I gasped. “I’m okay.” Linus clamped my face between his palms to hold me still. “I’m okay.”

“You keep saying that,” he said, eyes searching mine, “but it’s not convincing me. What did it do?”

For him to relapse into calling Cletus an it instead of a he, even if he was a she, meant he had been in serious panic mode.

“He showed me…things.” I cut my eyes toward the wraith. “I always assumed there was a skull in there, but there was nothing.”

“There is, and there isn’t.”

Wiping a hand over my face, I rid myself of the darkly creeping sensation. “Did he show you too?”

“No.” He indicated the wraith hovering in a corner like a kid in time-out. “He seems to believe he reports to you now.”

A wraith fused with his soul who had decided I was his master sounded like a recipe for disaster.

Good thing I didn’t plan on breaking up with Linus any time soon.

“He was spying on a couple having an argument. I couldn’t see them, and I couldn’t hear them well.”

“He must have been incorporeal at the time. His level of substance affects the clarity of his visual and audio feedback.”

“Why would he show them to me?” I considered the shadow figures intimate conversation. “Do you think he was snooping on Lacroix?”

“It’s possible,” Linus allowed. “That would explain why Cletus remained hidden.”

“After that weird blip, he cut straight to Corbin.” The way he addressed me and not Linus made me wonder. “Hmm.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Corbin is using Cletus like a video diary, and he’s addressing his entries to me. Maybe that’s why Cletus brought the message to me instead of you?”

“The fact a wraith can reason out that it should bring a specific message to a specific person is worrying enough without it risking a secondary bond through sharing its power—however briefly—with you.”

Forgetting about Corbin for a second, I asked, “A secondary bond?”

“It’s rare, but it has happened. Wraiths choose who they bond to, and some bond to multiple people.”

“That drags fragments of your soul through other people, though.”

“Yes.” His lips twitched. “You begin to see why bonding with a wraith is dangerous.”

“You’re saying Cletus could bond with me too? If he makes that decision, do I get a say? Or does he dunk me in his hood one day and bam! We’re three-way soul mates.”

“A normal wraith wouldn’t initiate contact with a necromancer, let alone a bond. It would decide between the practitioners courting its favor. But Cletus is not a normal wraith. His behavior becomes more erratic as time goes on. I can’t predict what he might do if he felt your life were in danger.”

The wraith cocked his head as he listened to our conversation, and I hoped Linus hadn’t just given Cletus any ideas. That he had his own ideas was, apparently, a bad thing.

“Back to Corbin.” I would have to digest this latest tidbit later. “He says Lacroix has gathered upwards of a thousand vampires to him. They’re sharing a clan home. Corbin says they’re under his thrall. That he can control a room full of the blood-sworn vamps. He suspects they might not be there of their own free will or acting under their own power.”

“Lacroix is dismantling the Undead Coalition.” Linus folded his arms across his chest. “Why?”

“Corbin isn’t sure yet.” I told him the rest. “He says Lacroix has the numbers to overthrow the Grande Dame.”

Black swirled off his skin as Linus went preternaturally still. “Is Mother aware of his location?”

“I meant to fill her in when I visited her at the Lyceum the other night but…” we ended up talking about you, “…we discussed Odette’s disappearance, that segued into Maud, and then she asked me to leave.”

“Maud is a tender subject for her.” He drummed his fingers on his elbows. “I need to see her. She must know about this. Any threat against the Society, no matter how vague, must be reported to the Grande Dame.”

“I’ll grab my kit.”

“You’re coming?” He dropped his arms to his sides. “To the Lyceum? To see my mother?”

I suppose I deserved that. The Lyceum wasn’t my favorite place nor his mother my favorite person.

“I made the call to shelter Corbin. I embedded him in Lacroix’s inner circle. She’s your mother, but she’s also the Grande Dame. She’s going to act in the Society’s best interests.” And in her own. “I’m not letting you face the consequences alone. Besides, the intel he’s feeding us ought to get him and me off the hook.”

The outline of his tattered wraith’s cloak flickered over his shoulders then vanished. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we hope she feels the same way as Woolly,” I said with a wink, “and we offer her our firstborn.”

Linus gaped after me as I hit the stairs to collect the backpack of supplies from my room.

I don’t think he moved the entire time, including his mouth, which still hung open when I returned.

“Give me some credit.” I crossed to him and tapped under his chin until his teeth clacked together. “Do you really think I would hand over our kid?”

Dazed, he stared down at me. “Are we having kids?”

Woolly rustled the curtains in the living room, and the lights dialed up so bright a few bulbs shattered into glitter like she was tossing it at a parade.

“Maybe. One day. I’ve got my hands full with Oscar for now.” I picked at the buttons on his shirt. “Does that work for you?”

No hesitation. “Yes.”

Both of us had baggage from our childhoods, and both of us would be gun-shy about strapping it onto the backs of the next generation. We had been raised in different worlds by women with very different standards, skills, and strategies on child-rearing. Not to mention I was goddess-touched. What would that make any child of mine? Mix in Linus’s status, and we had to hope the Eidolon condition wasn’t hereditary as well.

“You must have had more sex if you’re down here planning how many kids you’re popping out.”

I pivoted toward the stairs and spotted Lethe at the top.

“Lethe.” I sprinted up to her for a hug that turned bone-crushing when she reciprocated. “You should be resting. I was coming to visit you. You didn’t have to get out of bed.”

“Grier.” She clamped her hands on my shoulders and held me at arm’s length. “You healed me.” She ran her fingers through her hair in emphasis. It was longer and showed a good three inches of brown roots. “I am one hundred percent back to normal. Better than normal. Look at my arms.” White lines once marred her tan skin, souvenirs from dominance fights over the years, but they had vanished. “I don’t have a single scar. I’m as pink and shiny as a new baby.” She wiggled in place. “Speaking of Baby, she’s been dancing the samba for hours.”

“The baby…moved?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “Look at this.” She peeled up her shirt, a saggy tee borrowed from Hood, to reveal a noticeable bump. “Watch it.”

A few seconds later, a flutter twitched above her stretched navel and then another and another.

Head swimming, I sank onto the topmost step. “What did I do?”

“The healer has never seen anything like it. He ultrasounded me while you were sleeping. The baby is six to eight weeks ahead of schedule, judging by her size. And it is a girl. A girl. We have a grainy black-and-white printout to prove it. How cool is that?”

“Very.” I tried for more enthusiasm. “That’s fantastic.”

“You saved her.” Lethe dropped beside me and slung her arm around my shoulders. “Do you get how amazing that is? You saved her life. We owe you a debt that can never be repaid.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” I leaned against her, glad to have someone to prop me up while this sank in. “I only wish I had been faster.” That I had never had cause to test my skills on her. “There are…repercussions…to using my magic in certain instances.”

“Linus told us about Amelie. He explained the possible complications.”

Bless him for trying to spare me even that small pain.

“I’ve healed Linus several times without him showing any of the side effects you’ve mentioned.”

“You saved my daughter’s life.” Lethe stood and helped me to my feet. “I don’t care if my bun pops out of the oven tomorrow. She’s going to pop. You did that.”

“Bun? Oven?” I forced a laugh. “You’re hungry again, aren’t you?”

“Only always.”

“I have to go,” I started. “We’re off to see—”

“—the Wicked Witch of the Deep South? Yeah. I heard.”

“You’ve got a bad habit of eavesdropping.” A habit that carried over from her work at the Faraday, no doubt.

“People who share secrets in public can’t complain when they’re overheard.”

“We’re in my living room.”

“Technically, we’re standing on the staircase. It’s a literal gray zone.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I noticed Hood lurking in the hall. “Return the patient to her suite, please.”

“Gladly.” He swooped in, scooping her into a bridal carry. “Call if you get into trouble.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Lethe started kicking and elbowing him. “Either you’re going with her or I am.”

A low growl rumbled through Hood’s chest, but Lethe didn’t bat an eyelash.

“I promise not to leave the house.” When that didn’t work, she sweetened the pot. “Out of respect for you, and my blood pressure, I won’t even peek out the curtains into the backyard to count the number of sniveling cowards I’m going to have to eviscerate to reclaim my honor.”

“You have a notepad on the nightstand,” Hood countered. “You’re making a list of names.”

Lethe rounded her pretty green eyes. “Those could be baby names for all you know.”

“We’re not naming our daughter ‘Fucking Rat Face Marsha Dover’ or ‘Flaming Asshat Rhonda Bent.’”

“‘Flaming Asshat Rhonda Bent’ Kinase.” She tried and failed—spectacularly—at looking innocent. “We can call her Hot Buns for short. I can picture it now. Mom, the Alpha of Atlanta, presenting her firstborn grandchild as ‘Little Ronny Hot Buns.’”

“You’re clearly delusional and require extensive bedrest,” I told her. “I’ll be forced to order copious amounts of takeout so that you don’t have to leave your room until we get back.” I checked with Hood. “The healer is still here, right?”

“Woolly offered to let Shane stay the next few days to monitor Lethe.”

“Good.” That was one less thing. “We’ll meet you at the gate.”

Hood set out with Lethe while I used an app to order the items she yelled for as Hood carried her away.

Linus greeted me in the foyer, breaking off a conversation with Woolly to smile at me. “Ready?”

“Hood is tucking in Lethe, and we’re meeting him at the gate.”

Anxious about Lethe, about the baby, about Odette, I forgot the challenger’s family had set up camp.

Woolly kept them off the lawn, but they were scattered along the edge of the property. I counted seven men and four women. They spotted me and started calling for Lethe’s blood. They dressed well enough, in jeans and tees for the most part, casual, normal, but the flash of their teeth and crimson sheen in their eyes outed them as supernaturals.

“Woolly?” I shut the door behind Linus. “Can you make sure Lethe doesn’t have to hear this?”

A few notes of a bolder melody swelled around me as she ramped up the wards to muffle the noise.

“We’ll ask Mother to send a contingent of Elite to clear the property. We can’t risk the neighbors getting interested in the gathering.” Harshness edged his voice. “And, while I respect that physical challenges to dominants are necessary for maintaining a healthy pack, I won’t allow you to be caught in the crosshairs of a power bid.”

The tattered cloak materialized around his shoulders on a chill breeze that blew hairs into my eyes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I clamped my hand over his wrist before he stepped off the porch. “You’re not leaving without your sigil.”

The scythe had appeared in his hand by that point, and his deep cowl flickered like a hologram.

Another woman might have felt silly sweeping the hair away from his nape and drawing on a sigil designed to keep him safe, but I didn’t have that problem. He led a dangerous life, and I made it even deadlier by association. I would do anything to keep him safe. A few scratches of my pen were nothing.

Amusement glinted in his dark eyes when they met mine, but he let me fuss over him with a tiny smile.

“Now we can go.” I capped my pen, took his hand, and we bolted for the gate. “Hood ought to be on his way.”

From here, the gwyllgi couldn’t get to us, but we had an ideal view of the scope of the problem.

Now I counted a dozen more strangers loitering in the road and along the edge of the woods.

The odds sucked, but hopefully they wouldn’t be a factor for Hood. I still had no idea where he parked the van since he didn’t use the garage at Woolworth House, but he must have mapped out a back way to reach it since he always beat us to the gate.

“There’s Hood.” Linus touched my elbow. “We should hurry.”

The cloak and scythe earned him nods of respect from the gathering as we passed the stragglers.

A few of them sniffed in my direction, their eyes popping wide in realization I was pack.

The confusing combination of a necromancer packmate and a potentate in hunting mode helped us escape unscathed, but I was grateful they didn’t ID our driver. I would have hated to kill another gwyllgi.

One incident might earn me a slap on the wrist, but two? That would draw the pack’s—and through them, the alpha’s—attention to me. All I needed was for Lethe’s mom to rule that being pack meant the other gwyllgi could challenge me to settle their scores too. If that happened, the measures they had taken to protect me just might condemn me in the end.