I woke to Margot’s warm body pressed against my own. We’d spent the night in her shelter. It was permanent. A small cabin that didn’t move. She’d briefly told me before she mumbled off to sleep that they were transitioning the population into non-movable homes. I hadn’t really cared where we slept. My pack would follow my scent to find me if they needed me, and she had been naked and pressed up to my naked body.

Sleeping naked had been her idea. I’d never have suggested it. But now here I was hard, pushed up against Margot as sun shone into her small but clean home, bringing with it an end to the bliss filled dream I’d been living since I woke up from the Vampire haze. I smoothed her hair off her face. There was a daywalking Vampire to be dealt with and my pack to maintain, but for just a second I wanted to stare at her and dwell in the sheer magnitude of the fact that I’d bit the heck out of her and she liked it.

My mark was right there where her shoulder met her neck. She’d not even been concerned with infection. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d doctored it up. That hadn’t happened. It didn’t even look red, just like it was healing. I’d heard my saliva had healing properties. Wow. I was overthinking this.

She sighed in her sleep and nestled closer to me. I’d have loved to just lie here and never move again. So why was I awake?

Something had made me wake up. What was it? I pulled out of bed. My nose itched, and my ears rang. Okay, I needed to sit up and pay attention. That much was for sure. As quietly as I could, I dressed in my clothes and stepped out of the cabin, hoping Margot could stay asleep.

Metal hit my nose and it made me want to sneeze. I wasn’t used to the scent anymore. Cities gave off this scent en masse but Genesis hardly qualified. What else did? Vampires. I’d scented this kind of mess the last time I’d been below ground in a Vamp hideout. It was the middle of the day. That could only mean one thing.

The originals were coming.

I whirled around into the cabin where Margot slept.

“Hey.” I kissed her on the cheek while I gently shook her awake. “We’re about to be attacked. Get up. Sound the alarm. They’re coming for the Vamp we have captured.”

Margot was out of bed impressively fast for a non-Werewolf. She didn’t ask me how I knew. Her eyes jumped around in their sockets. She was working all of it out.

“He’s in the jail. Other side of the complex. I’ll get the alert out. What do we do?”

I kissed her again. That might have been the last time if this was going to be as bad as I thought it was going to be. “You hide. You run. You are not in any way equipped to deal with this.”

I rushed out of the enclosure, nearly colliding with Ben, one of the younger of my packmates. He looked about forty. I’d never asked him. He’d have scented this mess, too. “Go. Grab everyone. They can fight. These guys are brutal but beatable. If they bite us, they don’t kill us. At least not in our Wolf forms. They will kill the humans.”

He nodded. “I don’t want them to, Jason. I like being back around them. It’s like… a return.”

I actually understood him perfectly. They’d not been particularly nice to us thus far but that was fine. This was the closest any of us would ever get to being back to the life we’d had stolen from us. I wouldn’t let the last beacon of humanity I’d ever see disappear from the Earth. There might be others but I wasn’t getting anywhere near them to discover if they still existed or not with my own eyes.

These humans were somehow mine to protect and the answer for why that was simple, Margot was here. My fangs wanted to explode in my mouth, my body to shift and I gave into the urge. In the middle of Genesis I transformed into my Wolf body and rushed to the jail where they’d hidden the Vamp, skirting the population and ignoring the fear I got from the people I passed.

They had a lot more to be concerned with than me. An alarm sounded. Margot must have told whoever had to know this was happening, but it did nothing to ease the scent descending on me. The Vamps were very close now.

As I got to the jail, Chad arrived panting. “Looks like we’re on the same page.”

He swung open the door, and I tore inside. The Vamp paced the container, his eyes red, and no evidence of humanity left. He snarled, and I might have been nuts, but I swore with his thin pink lips the distorted monster smiled at me. Yes, he knew what would happen. I’d killed two of them now and not brought on the nightmare that was heading our way. It was because he was alive that they were coming to get him.

I could respect the idea of not leaving a man behind if I wasn’t on the other end of this mess.

Chad sighed. “What are you going to do?”

He needed to get out of the way. I growled, and he stepped back, at least getting the idea that I wanted him not where he was. He pointed at the container. “I can open it for you. That I can do. Then you can do whatever you’re going to? Do me a favor, Jason, and don’t get killed saving us all again. Once in a lifetime for self-sacrifice was enough.”

I nodded my head, agreeing he should open it, not that I wouldn’t do what had to be done. I wasn’t self-sacrificing; this was all about saving Margot. Of course, he had no way of knowing that yet, and I didn’t owe him an explanation to begin with.

I dragged the hissing Vamp out of the container by holding onto his neck with my teeth and pulled him along with me. Outside, people cried out, their horror a palpable energy surrounding me. I didn’t want to know if they were afraid of me or afraid of the Vamp. It was probably both of us. Two monsters out in the daylight together. That was fine. This monster was going to try to save the day.

As if such a thing were possible…

I dragged him all the way out, my grip on his neck having to be just right. He clawed at me, which hurt and unfortunately meant I was probably once again going to have to live through the ordeal of knocking out after this was over. I hated weakness in myself even if it came from things out of my control.

I hoped the original Doubleday, the one who had cloned herself over and over was rotting in hell. She wasn’t Margot. As Chad had put it, her body hadn’t done the things the first Doubleday had done. These Vampires were a fresh spot of hell. Where had they even been all these years?

Those were not answers I was going to get right now. Instead, I ran as fast as I could with the Vamp in my mouth as far away from Genesis as I could get. I knew where I was headed. Listening, I could hear the originals changing course. I’d been right. They were honing in on this guy. I ran harder.

They were going to chase me and that was exactly what I wanted.

Panting, but not letting go of my Vamp, I finally arrived at the cliffs. I was going to fall apart soon, but not until I got this thing right where I wanted it. A plethora of angry Vamp growls surged through the air. They’d caught me. I’d known it was coming. Those fuckers were fast.

I still had their compatriot in my mouth. He was still alive, barely. But then again I wasn’t doing so well myself. If I had to guess, I’d had just about too much of their venom in me now. There might be a threshold upon which I couldn’t take more.

I was pretty sure I’d reached it. But we were on the edge of the cliff. I smelled twenty Vamps but I didn’t turn to look at them. Instead I bit down hard, tearing the Vamp’s throat apart before I flung the Vamp I was tired of tasting out of my mouth and over the cliff. A roar sounded louder. They had different noises than regular Vamps. Those guys could speak sometimes and mostly hissed.

I looked down the cavern. The Vamp was under the water. If he’d somehow survived my tearing out his throat and throwing him over the side of the cliff then more power to him. I was pretty sure he was dead. As I was about to be.

I turned to face the furious Vamps. I didn’t really know how I knew they were angry except that maybe it was one of those things I understood because I’d be angry as hell if they’d thrown my pack mate over a cliff after killing him.

Well, if I was doing this then I wasn’t going to die in my Wolf form. I’d always sorted of hated it. I shifted back. They all made that roar again.

“Where have they been storing you for all these years? Did they just unfreeze you to come after us? Isn’t there anything else you’d all like to do?”

I put my hands on my hips as they all rushed toward me. I’d had Margot for half a minute and that was more than I’d thought to have. This time my death wouldn’t be quite so pathetic. I could go out with my head held high knowing I hadn’t done nothing but fuck up the entire time I was alive.

I held up my hands. “All right, let’s get to it.”

An arrow shot out from behind them whizzing past one of the Vamp’s ears. It whirled around. What in the fuck? I sniffed the air. The wind was blowing the wrong way and hard. Or maybe it was just that I was going to fall on my ass any second.

Who was shooting arrows? Growls sounded next. That was my pack. Were they shooting arrows? The world tilted sideways, and I nearly stumbled backward off the edge.

“Watch it, Jason.” That was Micah’s voice. Another arrow. “The last thing we need is you dying like that.”

Arrows buzzed. They wouldn’t do any good. If it had been so simple, they’d never have needed me. These originals were arrow proof or something. But then I smelled flames. What was burning?

I stumbled down to my knees. My hands were shaking. I was going to lose consciousness soon. “You fools should get out of here.”

My pack leapt. I lifted my head to observe the scene as best I could for as long as I could. They were moving impressively. I wouldn’t have given them credit for being such good fighters but I supposed they’d stayed alive somehow, even despite their rather stringent non-aggressive behaviors. They must be able to defend themselves better than I’d thought.

Huh. That was interesting.

The world blacked out, and I fell. I didn’t know if I was going forward into the Vamps or backward over the cliff. Neither seemed like particularly good news.

I opened my eyes slowly. I’d really better not be in a cloning machine. I should put that in writing somewhere. If I died, do not clone me, like people used to have do not resuscitate orders. I looked around. I felt like hell and waking up cloned didn’t hurt. It was confusing, like for a bit I hadn’t known exactly who I was before my sense of self rushed back, but I was fully cognizant of being Jason Kenwood.

I groaned and Margot stood over me. “You’re absolutely out of your mind. You dragged that thing in your mouth while letting them chase you with no help?”

She was pissed. I could taste her acrid anger. “Are you mad because it was a stupid plan?”

Her fury blazed through in the heat of her gaze. “I’m mad because you can’t go from making love to me, sleeping naked next to me, holding me in your arms all night, to almost dying as you collapse into a horde of Vampires that your packmate Ben has to drag you out of.”

Well, at least I knew what happened now. “Honey, that is exactly what our life is like. You know it. I know it. And I will risk my life when and how I see fit to protect you. That’s how this works. You’re mine to take care of.”

Tears pooled in her eyes but didn’t flow down her cheeks. “You scared me.”

I took her hand in mine. She was strong. Margot must always have to be. “I’m sorry about that part of it.”

“I don’t want this to be our existence.”

I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed it. “I think it’s possible to have happiness, to have a future, even in rough times. In fact, I think it might be even more important to do so given the circumstances.”

I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the table. “Is everyone okay?”

She nodded. “They ran off. Your Wolves took down two of them. I’d be surprised if it’s permanent. And I got almost no study time with the Vamp you threw over the cliff, but I did learn some things.”

I cared but only in as much as Margot cared. “How can I help?”

She side-eyed me. “You can not get killed.”

“Margot…”

The door opening interrupted us. Chad strode inside. “The patient is okay?”

“He is now.” She brushed my hair off my forehead. It was such a gentle, loving thing to do that it stole my breath from my body. It was then I realized she’d not covered up the mark where I bit her either, not even to put on a shirt that might disguise it slightly. She was in a V-neck. Werewolf women might do that, but not really even then since they’d had to pretend to be human and there would have been questions about a mark like that, that would have gotten too much attention.

My mother had lived in turtlenecks.

Everyone here had to know what it meant. Had they given her a hard time? Were they going to throw her out? We didn’t have the structures yet to make her comfortable. How would I keep her safe?

She spoke again. “They have thick hearts. We took one of the dead bodies and we looked. It’s why the stakes aren’t working. It’s like their bodies have created an extra shell around the heart. We can’t pierce it. We stick the stake in and nothing happens.”

“But it’s different with me. I’m not going for the heart. I’m going for the neck. That’s why it works.”

She nodded. “Yes, so the Warriors who get close to them need to treat them like they used to take off the heads of Werewolves.” She winced, and I pretended to not hate that my mate knew so much about beheading me. This was just how it was. I couldn’t fix any of it. “But Glen may have an even better way. He’s working on something. He won’t say what.”

Chad took my arm and helped me entirely off the table. I’d never been this unsteady before. I’d have to pull it together fast. “Are my Wolves okay?”

“Yes, we were seriously glad to have them. Reminded me of the times we used to fight together back when, or wait, that never happened with me. I was dead. By the time I came back you were off being crazy." He grinned. Margot and I looked at each other and then at him. What did he want with this?

Chad rocked back on his feet. “I just think we should start addressing the elephant in the room. Or the Wolf as it may be. We all have an interesting history. But we’re clearly going to have to deal with each other for a long time. You can kill those things. You’re strong as hell. Strikingly so. We could barely keep up with you and you had a Vampire in your mouth. You’ve mated Margot. She’s the clone of a crazy person but so far seems to be pretty stable. She’s our doctor, and what’s more we really like her. So I guess we’re all family now.”

Margot cleared her throat, which was great since I was having a hard time finding anything to say and the sound at least filled the moment. Finally, she spoke. “Chad, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you string so many words together. I’m not sure I know what you wanted to get across but…”

“What I want to get across is that you and your pack should go pick out permanent spaces. You live here now.”

He walked from the room. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Did he just order me to live here?”

“I think he did.” She turned to me. “I mean, obviously he can’t make you do that if you don’t want to. Where were you thinking we’d live now?”

I sighed. “Keeping you safe is the most important thing in my mind now, even above taking care of my pack.” They had seemed remarkably more capable of handling themselves than I’d given them credit. Still, I needed to talk to them about what happened and I guessed about staying here, too.

She put her hand on my arm. “I keep myself pretty safe. It’s you who keeps landing on this table.”

I bent over so we stared each other right in the eyes. “The first time I saw you, I had to save you from the Vamps.”

She smirked. “Well, maybe I can’t always take care of myself just fine.”

I kissed her. It had been too long since I had, and she melted against me. How on earth were we supposed to make this work? How was anything supposed to gel? Chad had just ordered me to stay, but it didn’t necessarily mean I was going to. What did it matter? She softened against me, tugging me closer. I loved how sometimes she took control.

I picked her up in my arms. I was weak, but I’d always be strong enough for this. She wrapped her arms around my neck. “Take me back to my cabin?”

“Yes.” I kissed her neck. She smelled like me. The thought dawned on me slowly. I was in her pores, my mark had done what it was supposed to do, and whoever scented her would know that she belonged to me. How had this happened so quickly?

She stared into my eyes. “You should put me down before you fall over.”

“Not going to fall over.”

Margot scrunched up her nose. “If you say so.”

I spent the next few hours showing her all the ways I wasn’t going to fall over. Even when I was deep inside of her.

I lay in the dark stroking her back. I outlined the letter J with my finger. Yeah, I was just that pathetic but I’d own it. How had this happened?

She sighed in her sleep, and I pulled her closer. I’d keep her safe in the darkness from the monsters. It took a monster to stop the monsters. Chad had ordered me to stay. It chafed me to just obey, but I could have a literal pissing contest and still end up hanging around because it was the right thing to do, or I could hold onto Margot in her sleep and just get on with it.

I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to her back. I’d stay like this and never move again.

Only the scent hit my nose again. I raised my head. The Vampires were back. They were coming again. We needed a better alarm than my senses. What if I’d been fully asleep? I kissed Margot’s shoulder. “We’re going to have problems again.”

She opened her eyes. “Damn it.”

“We have nothing they want here right now. No Vamps on ice somewhere, right?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “You just publicly executed one, made a fool out of them. They’re super smart. Not communicating with us but clearly communicating with each other. They may very well be coming for nothing more than revenge.”

I sniffed. They were closer. My Wolf never wanted revenge. It had wanted family. Now it just wanted Margot.

She touched my arm. “They need to fight them back. And we need to go. We need to follow them back. Do you think it’s possible?”

“I can. Assuming they’re not here specifically to kill me. I can chase them and see where they go.”

My mate shook her head. “Not alone, Jason. You need me for this. Great, you can follow them, but you won’t know what you’re looking for when you get there. I have to do this. We have to.”

I sighed. “Margot, that makes it more complicated.”

“Maybe not.” She walked toward me, picking up her shirt while she did. “I’ll ride on your back.”

Once, a long time ago, I’d had a device Rachel used to strap herself to me. It had kept her upright. “That might work. We have to worry. And we have to go see Rachel.” If she still had the stuff then we could make this happen. If not, she was going to have to hold on like hell.

Worry wafted over her. Margot never flinched. If I didn’t have superior scenting skills, I’d never know. She never faltered when it came to danger, but the idea of going to see Rachel scared her. I ran a hand through my hair. “I’ll go alone. Get the med bay ready for you to leave.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Just because it frightens me to see the two of you together, and yes I know you can smell it, doesn’t mean that I don’t have to do it. If we’re all going to live here and that’s an if, I can’t be intimidated by the thought of her with you. She’s here. We’re here. Let’s go. How much time do we have?”

The alarm sounded. Someone had alerted the watch. That might be one of my Wolves. I sniffed the air. “Ten minutes.”

“Let’s run.”

On two legs she could keep up with me. Shifting would make me quicker, but I’d exerted so much energy lately fighting these things that I didn’t want to waste any shifting while I should stay in my Wolf form.

I followed my nose. I’d never been to Rachel and Chad’s place but I found it with no trouble. There were certain perks to my shifter status. One of them was I could follow my nose. I could have just asked Margot, too, I supposed. I wasn’t used to having anyone with me. Margot knocked on the door.

It took a second, and then Rachel threw it open. Her face was a mask. I couldn’t read her, and I didn’t care to try. She might have something I needed. Before I could speak, she paled. “Is it Chad? Is he dead?”

“What?”

Margot shook her head fast, grabbing Rachel’s hands. “No. Sorry to frighten you.”

Rachel let out a long breath. “Okay. We’re under attack. But that’s standard somehow. What’s going on?”

“I need the harness if you still have it.”

Rachel met my gaze. For the first time, I saw the girl I used to know. I didn’t love her, she didn’t love me. That was all fine. But we’d known each other through many circumstances. “Come in. I’ll see if I still have it.”

“Thanks.”