Frostbound

Chapter 13

Wednesday, December 29, noon

Lore’s condo

Lore dreamed of demons. Not half demons, not hellhounds or incubi, but the real thing, pitiless and hungry. He dreamed of them chasing the hounds through the Castle corridors, shredding the stragglers with claws as cruel and curved as the blades of warrior fey.

Run! Run quickly! He was dreaming a memory, his breath quick with the echo of panic.

But there were the demon’s searing balls of energy, sailing low over their heads, singeing the fur from their backs. The heat cut like a razor. Lore flattened his ears against his head, making himself as long and low as he could. He heard a yelp of pain. One of the other hounds wasn’t as quick or as lucky.

The tunnel narrowed, the side tunnels coming less and less frequently. They ran so fast, the stonework blurred into a gray wash. They were being stampeded. At the end of the tunnel was a dead end. It was a trap!

There was one last chance, barely a crack in the wall to wiggle through, that would get them to safety. One by one the hounds dove for it, the youngest first, then the mothers, but it was taking too long. Everything in the dream slowed to an excruciating slowness. They wouldn’t all make it through . . .

Stop!

Lore jerked awake but lay still a moment, letting the scene shred and fall away in the calm, rational daylight. He tried not to remember the old Alpha turning, hurrying the other hounds past, and putting himself between the demons and the pack.

The old Alpha. His father.

That was the end of the dream, but Lore hadn’t witnessed his father’s death yet again. He’d awakened in time. For once.

Lore had been the last through that crack in the wall. There had been others who’d died.

Lore had just turned eighteen. He’d become the new Alpha that day.

It was a long time ago. He could feel the pressure of the nightmare like something scrabbling at the doors of his mind. It wanted to finish, to show him the whole gruesome scene. No. Don’t think about it.

Lore sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself into the waking world like a swimmer breaching the waves. Wake up! There was a new threat to the pack and the yoke of responsibility was on his shoulders now. Get up, get moving.

But he slipped into a different dream. He saw Mavritte, one of the female hellhounds, looking at him with accusation in her eyes. “Do I not please you?” she asked, and then held up a long, thin knife, ready to strike it into his heart.

Lore came fully awake with a jerk, heart pounding. He looked around, letting the shock of the dream fade and the objects in his apartment become familiar and welcoming again.

He’d slept through the morning, making up for the long night. Because his bed was otherwise occupied, he’d curled up in dog form, taking advantage of the soft lambskin throw in front of the TV. Now he got to all fours, shook himself, and padded to middle of the room.

A glance out the balcony doors told him the world was buried in snow. It was still coming down, the stuff mounding into a white caterpillar along the balcony rail. Along the streets, cars were slowly disappearing into drifts. Lore couldn’t believe so much had fallen, and it was still coming down. A hush had fallen over Fairview. There was no hum of traffic—a bad omen for the state of the roads.

He thought of the dream of snow, and the mysterious terror he had to face. He thought of the she-hound Mavritte and the knife. Prophecy? Or anxiety that, as Alpha, soon he had to choose a mate from the pack? The urge to bond rode him like a constant thirst, and yet there was no one he wanted. It was a diplomatic disaster, and he couldn’t even lie about it.

If only one of the hounds fascinated him half as much as the vampire in his bed. But we never want what’s good for us. With a mutter of disgust, Lore turned from the window and headed for the kitchen.

Calling his magic, his hound form fell away, dissolving to mist and reassembling in his two-legged body. The sensation was like falling, every cell surrendering the subtle tension that glued it to its neighbor—floating free a terrifying instant—then gathering himself back together with the whoosh of an inhaled breath.

As the coffee brewed, he shook cereal from a box, feeling pleasant anticipation as the nuggets of Cap’n Crunch pinged into his bowl. Changing forms made him hungry.

Females were only one of his problems. There was the fire, the murder, the election, and the mysterious vampires he had met last night.

Where do I start?

Lore finished the cereal and looked in the fridge for something else to eat. He hadn’t gone shopping in a while, so all the good snacking food was gone. How do I expect to catch the perpetrators of dark sorcery, arson, and murder if I can’t even remember to buy groceries?

Annoyed, he pulled open the vegetable crisper and then quickly shut it. Prophets save me! He was a hellhound, not a biologist.

When it came to keeping the peace in Fairview’s nonhuman community, the hounds were basically hired muscle. They guarded VIPs, broke up bar fights and sat on troublemakers until the sheriff, Alessandro Caravelli, showed up to dispense justice. The hound/vampire partnership worked, but now one half was on holiday. Lore would get the job done, but he missed Caravelli’s knowledge of the supernatural community outside of Fairview.

Unfortunately, the vampire had booked his holiday before the election date was set. He was missing all the fun. Lucky bloodsucker. Not that Caravelli didn’t deserve a break.

The vampire was vacationing in Madrid, traveling with his wife, his wife’s grandmother, his baby daughter—that was a long story—his wife’s sister and her husband, and their eleven-year-old girl. The women were witches, the brother-in-law an ex-immortal still settling into life in the twenty-first century. That was one Christmas family vacation sure to be memorable by anyone’s standards.

Lore pulled his head out of the fridge and tried the cupboards instead. There were dog bones and strawberry Pop-Tarts. He went for the Pop-Tarts, stuffing them in his old toaster.

Caravelli had been excited about the trip. This would be the vampire’s first vacation in—what had he said?—a hundred and fifty years. He was finally getting some personal time, leaving with a good conscience because the hellhounds were there to keep an eye on things.

The Pop-Tarts popped just as the appliance started to smoke. Time to fix it again. Lore pulled the plug out of the socket and grabbed a tart, burning his fingers, and ate it over the sink.

I can’t call Caravelli at the first sign of trouble. That would be the worst thing—a holiday ruined, Lore losing face in front of the pack, and what would happen to Talia? For now, it was better if the Fanged One stayed in Spain, safely out of the way. The airports were probably snowed in, anyway.

Lore chewed, feeling a nagging sense of guilt. Murder, arson, and dark sorcery weren’t exactly minor problems. Lore had a responsibility to ask for help if he needed it. He had a right to pride, but not to arrogance.

Lore started on tart number two.

He’d be an idiot if he didn’t ask for information. Lore looked at the clock. It would be night in Spain. Stuffing the last of the tart in his mouth, he picked up the phone and punched in Caravelli’s cell number.

The vampire answered on the third ring. “Caravelli.”

“It’s Lore. How’s the holiday?”

“Women like to shop,” he replied in sepulchral tones. “The only thing keeping me from eating someone is that I am mercifully unconscious during the vast majority of store hours. And it’s a good thing the queen pays me well. I apparently need to keep my wife in overpriced shoes.”

“Better you than me.” Lore didn’t buy the longsuffering husband routine. There was a vibrancy in Caravelli’s voice that said he was really having a good time.

“Is this a purely social call?”

“No. I met three vampires last night who made my nose twitch. Their names are Nia, Iskander, and Darak. Do you know them?”

He heard his friend catch his breath. Given that vamps didn’t breathe unless they were talking, that was saying something. “What were they doing?”

“Drinking at the Empire. They say they came into town for the election.”

“They weren’t causing trouble?”

“Not when I saw them.”

“You’re lucky. They’re rogues. More like the rogues. They’ve been around since the time of Nero.”

Lore’s grasp of human history was vague, but he knew that was a very long time. “What do they want?”

“It’s hard to say.”

“That’s helpful.”

“They have a particular hatred for authority, probably because they began life as Roman slaves. Darak was a gladiator, famous in his own time. There are crowned heads who tremble at the mention of his name.”

Yeah, whatever. “What did he do?”

“Whatever he wanted to. Basically, the gladiator doesn’t pick favorites when it comes to the vampire clans. That’s why they hate him. He’s more likely to show up, cut off the heads of both sides of an argument, and then shower their wealth on the gardener and the scullery maid. He thinks he’s Robin Hood.”

The reference was lost on Lore. “And he got away with killing both sides?”

“No one will stand up to him.”

We’ll see about that. Lore rubbed his eyes, still feeling his late, late night. “There’s more. You’re going to be home in three days, so you should know.”

“Know what?”

Lore told him the rest, keeping back only the fact that Talia was asleep in the next room. For a long moment afterward, Caravelli was silent. “I’ll try and get an earlier flight.”

“Finish your vacation. Don’t spoil it for your family. What I need you to do is to get the queen to delay her arrival. She’d just be another target we need to guard.”

“She’s on my speed dial.” Caravelli didn’t have an easy relationship with Omara, but he looked after her interests. “Look, I want to be there to help.”

“I’m just doing legwork right now. Recon. I’m not pulling the trigger on anything until I know exactly what I’m up against. And I’ll warn you that it’s snowing hard here. The airports may not be open.”

Caravelli made an exasperated noise. “Can I do anything else?”

“No. That’s it. I’ll call if anything else comes up.”

“Good. Keep me up to speed.”

“I will. Bye.”

“Later.”

Lore put the phone down, mulling over what to do next. He would welcome Caravelli’s return, but he couldn’t count on it. Not with this weather.

He was on his own.