Renegade E-Book

Lorelei Bell

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Returning to the Dark Veil, Sabrina faces new challenges and adventures.

Her mission is to find Princess Aljehambra, who has been abducted by the handsome Hawk, one of Drakulya's sons. Once again, Sabrina finds herself in an age where horses and trains are the only mode of transportation, and where outlaws, vampires and wizards try to stop her at every turn.

But her true love is waiting in the wings, and she's determined to find her way - no matter the cost.

A compelling urban fantasy, 'Renegade' is the eighth book in Lorelei Bell's Sabrina Strong Series.

Leseprobe

Renegade

SABRINA STRONG SERIES

BOOK EIGHT

LORELEI BELL

Contents

I. The Request

1. Night Visitations

2. House Helpers

3. Mr. Jangles

4. Legal Eagle & Evidence

5. Lawbreakers

6. Travel Light

7. New Adventure

II. The Journey

8. The Royals

9. Wizards & Dragons

10. Double Agent

11. The Journey Begins

12. Injuns & Thieves

13. The Calvary

14. Fort Fulton

15. Nightly Visitations

16. Shades of Hell

III. Enter the Hero

17. Elvira

18. Subterfuge

19. Conquest

20. Reality Check

21. Spit Hits the Frying Pan

22. Confessions

23. Wizards & Spirits

24. The Factory

25. The Escape

26. Enter the Werewolf

27. The Return Home

28. A New Life

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2023 Lorelei Bell

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

Edited by Tyler Colins

Cover art by Lordan June Pinote

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

To all of my fans: thank you for joining me and Sabrina in her many adventures!

PartOne

The Request

Chapter1

Night Visitations

The pounding on my front door interrupted my small, happy moment. I hadn't had too many of those as of late.

“Sabrina! Sabrina, I know you're in there. Open up!” A pause. “I need to talk to you!”

“Go away!” I said, hoping he'd take the hint. The person hammering on my door was my werewolf friend, Hobart. I was so tired of men trying to keep an eye on me, filling up space in my home, eating my food … I told Hobart I wanted to be left alone tonight. That translated well, didn't it?

“I need to speak with you. I have a message from Vasyl.”

I didn't want to hear anything Vasyl had to say. He'd left me, and that was that.

“Okay, answer your phone, at least!”

“No!” I yelled from my chair. My phone was … I wasn't sure where, but I wasn't going to answer it, and it was turned off anyway. And for that matter, I couldn't move from the chair I currently occupied. Not without crutches. So, screw him.

Besides, this was my favorite part of the movie, Wyatt Earp, with Kevin Costner playing Wyatt Earp. He'd gotten himself a cup of coffee and a cigar from one of the places he either owned or visited (it wasn't too clear). Then one of the brothers came running in, telling him that the “cowboys” were waiting for them down at the O.K. Corral. I knew shit would hit the fan now, mainly because I'd seen it a couple of times before, but it had been a while. I used to watch it with my father. We used to have popcorn and he would have a beer, and I would have a cola. Oh, how I wished those days could come back.

What would Wyatt have done, or said to Hobart, I wondered? Maybe he would have given one of his eloquent yet quiet speeches that made men back down. “Lady says she wants to be alone. You have a problem with that?” He would give Hobart a flinty glare, and knowing he was a werewolf, would threaten him with a silver bullet.

I turned up the volume and continued watching. Sure, it was on video (yes, I still had a video player instead of a DVD, but my father resisted upgrading), and I could watch it any time I wanted. And I wanted to watch this particular movie tonight. I really didn't know why. But this was one of my father's favorites. I missed him so. This weekend would have been his 45th birthday. I supposed it was why I wanted to be alone and watch this movie to remember him by, since he’d died five months ago.

That, and also another person in my life had died. This time it happened because they had been with me, and the bullets were meant for me, but he was in the way of the slug's trajectory.

I had to shut down my thoughts, unplug myself from reality, and go back to watching the video. That famous face-off at the O.K. Corral—which lasted only about 30 seconds—with guns blazing from both sides. I had forgotten the aftermath where Morgan Earp, Wyatt's brother, got assassinated while playing pool one night.

The blood leaked out from beneath him, coloring the snow … I felt a wash of disbelief … this was my fault … my fault he was there with me …

I continued watching the intense train ride where Wyatt and the others were taking Morgan's body back to California. It was dark when they got off the train somewhere, and these jerks—the Clantons and the McLaurys—were setting up an ambush. Wyatt managed to kill one of the leaders of the gang. He shot him with both barrels of a shotgun, and kept shooting him with both handguns until they are empty. Revenge tended to do that to you, I guessed. You go a little crazy with the need to pay back your enemy who shot a loved one. Yes, I understood that.

“Yeah!” I shouted and pumped my fist while watching the scene. Then I took a sip of the wine cooler—a berry flavor I was quite fond of. This was my second—no, my third. Yeah. I was feeling no pain, as they say. I was only slightly aware that it had become quiet outside, and Hobart had stopped beating on my door (good).

I moved to set the bottle down and it was lifted out of my hand before I could do so. Startled, I looked up and found an extremely tall blond vampire standing behind my chair. He put the bottle under his nose and sniffed. His lips curled in disgust.

“Hey! Who said you could come in?” I blurted. If I could, I would have been up out of my chair in a shot. But my broken leg hampered this. A good thing he was a friend—in a convoluted sort of way—or I would have sicced the Dagger of Delphi on him, that is if I had a clue where the damned thing was.

“Do you think it wise to be drinking in your condition?” he asked in his sultry baritone, completely ignoring my question.

“What condition would that be?” I challenged, struggling to move in my father's large La-Z-Boy. I wasn't supposed to put a lot of weight on the leg yet, and I had it raised on the footrest, doing exactly what I'd been told to do. Relaxing. Getting up from the chair quickly was not gonna happen.

“I understand how you feel,” he said, walking away from me in that smooth vampire way, through the dining room, and into the kitchen.

“You do, do you? Hah!” I said, my voice overly loud. Why was it whenever Tremayne showed up, I lost my composure and couldn't give a witty comeback? He simply had that effect on me.

In the next moment, the clink of glass indicated he had thrown my drink into the wastebasket—which further irked me. He stepped back into the dining room.

“I thought you were in L.A.,” I said, looking at him when he reappeared and stepped through the dining room, filling the six-foot wide doorway—which, by the way was impossible for any normal sized man, but this was Tremayne.

He put his large hands out to his sides. “I'm ba-aaack,” he said with a toothy smile.

“Why? I thought you were going to live there. Take over the western half of Vampire Junction, Mr. Big.” There. An improvement. When out of witty comebacks I went for jadedly flippant rejoinder.

“I went to straighten out my brother's will and all the crap that Ilona left for me to wade through. There's still more to be done, but I can't do much right now because the estate is in escrow.”

“But who's taking care of things out there?” I asked. Like I was worried or something? It had no bearing on my life whatsoever. At least, I hoped not.

“I sent Stefan out there. He's now in charge of the western half, and I'm back as magnate of the Eastern half.”

I made the appropriate “huh” sound, just to sound halfway interested. I wasn't sure how I felt about Tremayne being back within sixty miles of where I lived, since Chicago was the base headquarters of the eastern half. Already he was a thorn. Last month, I had let him into my house. I knew I'd be kicking myself for doing that. Yep. Here I was kicking myself. But I reminded myself at least Stefan was thousands of miles away from me, not trying to bed me.

“Let's get back to the subject at hand,” Tremayne said.

“Which is?”

Tremayne paused, seemed to chew on what he wanted to say to me for a long moment. That was unusual for him. He usually steamed ahead, everything be damned. But at the moment he looked like he was struggling with what he was going to say. Then he said, “I learned that a friend of yours died? Some guy you dated a while back?” he said, leaning a shoulder up against the aged oak threshold, his head just brushing the top of it. A good thing the wood was oak. It did well standing up under the weight of Tremayne.

Surprised, I licked my lips. “Who told you?”

“Hobart.”

Right. He wouldn't have called his master Vasyl, because Vasyl would likely suck me dry (because of his sudden desire for my blood). He called Tremayne instead. Damn vampires. This was exactly the reason why Tremayne was, at one time, not supposed to be around me because of his “drinking” problem. The more things changed the more they stayed the same.

He glanced down at me from where he stood. Tremayne, who looked like The Hulk's slightly slimmer, less green and handsomer brother, made my nine-foot ceilings look low with his seven-foot stature. When in a good mood, his eyes were a clear ocean blue, but when angry, they turned dark and stormy. Tonight, the color was somewhere in between, and I couldn't tell if he was happy to see me or irritated with me. His fangs weren't out, so I knew he wasn't excited to see me, thankfully; they were as long and as sharp as the icicles hanging from my house's gutters at the moment. Well, maybe not quite that long, but pretty darn close. But more importantly, they weren't out. Thankfully.

“So, he blabbed that to you, did he?” I frowned, not looking at him, picked up the remote, found the pause button, and paused my movie. This sucked eggs.

“He did.”

I stared at the TV. Deciding to simply turn the movie off, I reached for both remotes and turned everything off. “I wanted to be alone,” I said. “My father's birthday is on Sunday. I wanted to remember him by watching this movie. It was his and my favorite.”

“What's it about?”

“Wyatt Earp. He was born in a small town in Illinois.” I clicked the remote and the machine went through little clicking and whirring sounds and ejected the tape.

“Cowboy?”

“Lawman,” I said and looked up at him. “You know he never took a bullet? Even at this one part, where one of the cowboys shot at him repeatedly, bullets never hit his body. His long coat and boot took hits, but not him.”

“So, he lived to be old?”

“He was 80, I think, when he died in 1923,” I explained, looking away. “I got to see his grave in Colma, California, with my dad. I was seventeen at the time.”

A silence rose between us. Then he stepped across the room and swiped his fingers over the surface of the TV screen and looked at it. “This place needs to be cleaned.”

“I'll call Merry Maids tomorrow,” I said flippantly.

“What did you eat tonight? Pizza?”

“No. My sister-in-law made me lasagna. It was good.” I'd been home two days from the hospital. My right thigh was in a cast. It hurt a little bit and I was on pain medicine. Days ago, Mrs. Woodbine had shot me there, breaking the femur. The doctor called it a transverse break—a horizontal break—and I was lucky the slug hadn't hit an artery.

First, she'd shot Jack Rasmussen in the chest, badly wounding him before she shot me a few minutes later. Jack had been air-lifted to another hospital, where he died. He would never have walked, I was told, if he had survived. Now, Mrs. Woodbine was up on murder charges along with her son, Mark. I'd been able to stall the thoughts about all this by watching the movie and hoped to numb my brain a little with the wine coolers. Why did he have to come and ruin it all?

“I'm staying the night to make sure you'll be alright,” Tremayne said. “Then you're going back to the Towers to stay in the penthouse.”

“No!” I grabbed one crutch and made a feeble attempt to look mutinous. This was difficult, especially since I couldn't stand, face him, and put both fists to my hips. But I frowned deeply.

“Yes, you are!” he countered. “You can't expect your sister-in-law to keep bringing food over here for you, while she has her own family to take care of, her own house to clean,” he added and looked around the place.

Yeah, it was a shambles, but hey, I didn't have a house cleaner, a maid, or a gofer. Unless you counted Rick, who would have done it all for me with a snap of the fingers, but I wasn't about to take advantage of a good friend and leprechaun.

“That's what family does!” I blurted.

“Look. You have a maid, a cook, and a butler sitting around doing nothing at your penthouse.”

“I didn't care for those people. Besides, they're crooks!” They had stolen or were attempting to steal an expensive collection that belonged to Malcolm. They'd almost succeeded too. “Besides, it's not my penthouse,” I argued.

“It is until I say it isn't!” he shouted back, and I swear to God the rafters above shook. I jumped at the sound, gazed up at him.

His gaze went above his head like he had X-ray vision, and asked, “How many bedrooms are there upstairs?”

“Five, plus a bathroom. A small bathroom. Only two bedrooms are furnished, and one is for vampires.”

“You sleep down here, don't you?” He remembered where my bedroom was, surely. He'd been here just last month for the first time to steal me away from Vasyl and keep me ahead of the demons who wanted to kill me. Oh, and to bed me. He'd paid dearly for that terrible mistake (tee-hee- hee).

He moved away from his position and out of my vision. Snooping, he looked into the bathroom which opened out into the dining room, then he returned.

“I sleep in that room.” I pointed with my thumb behind me to the room that was closed off by the envelope door. To anyone else, it looked like an oak panel. It opened by sliding into the wall (I assumed that was where the name “envelope” came from). It was unique to this old house. Plus, the French doors that opened off the living room into the den (once upon a time, back in its heyday, it was called a parlor). A beautiful set of oak stairs opened from that room near the front door, which faced the road. The other set of stairs opened off the dining room—not as nice. Someone had once said that farmhands had slept up in the attic, and would have used these stairs, not the main ones, back when it was an actual working farmhouse. The house was built in 1904, or there abouts, and had been a dairy farm up until the seventies. My mother and father had bought the house in 1985. The bathroom that I used had once been a bedroom. There was an indoor toilet in the basement—one of the first in the county. (Believe me it was yucky and, of course, no longer in use. But, hey, they'd had pit toilets back then, so they were modern by standards in the early 1900s.)

“That might work,” Tremayne said, nodding.

“What might work?”

“You're going to bed. C'mon.” Tremayne moved toward me.

“What? Are you my nurse now?” I asked the once-upon-a-time Viking.

He stood over me and gave me a glare that looked half-warning and half-amused. “My bedside manner is not something you'll want to experience.”

“No. I think you're right about that.” Aw, hell. As a matter of fact, I didn't exactly want to be this close to him again. And on that one issue, I had experienced it. But here I was, an invalid. With only crutches to get around on. No way I could run from him.

He bent down and lifted me easily from the chair and carried me to the door of my bedroom. He paused in mid-stride to my bedroom. We looked at one another. I had my arms around his thick neck. This wasn't going to be one of those romantic moments from a paranormal romance book where the vampire swept the human woman off her feet and took her into the bedroom, and they experienced the best sex they had both ever had. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen.

I arched my eyebrow. “What?” I asked when he said nothing and didn't move forward.

“Where's that fucking dagger of yours?” We had been intimate a few times in our past. The last time I'd really like to forget (but couldn't seem to.)

The last time he had tricked me into a bedroom, the Dagger of Delphi had nearly killed him because it had been wielded by Dante. I'd kept that a secret from him to this day. He thought the Dagger of Delphi, which had a pure silver blade, had magically come alive and jammed itself into his heart while he was making love to me (his version, not mine). He'd nearly died. If I hadn't given him a few pints of my plasma, he would have.

“It's on top of a building in downtown Moonlight.” So I thought.

“You sure?”

“Positive. I saw Hobart throw it up there after it stabbed Mrs. Woodbine. I haven't seen it since.”

That I hadn't thought to go and get it told you something about my mental and physical condition. I was the sibyl, after all. The Dagger of Delphi was my weapon of choice to kill demons, vampires, and the like. As it turned out, Mrs. Woodbine was neither a demon nor a vampire. But there was a very good explanation for her terrible behavior, which included torturing women who she found guilty of doing the “Devil's work”, and burning down people's houses, for the same reason.

Turned out, she'd had a rather nasty entity from another dimension, or world, cohabiting inside her, telling her to do these things. It took a diamond touched to her to drive it out, and then a pencil driven into its chest to send it back to wherever it had come from—or maybe it had died (we weren't completely sure which) because of the carbon in the lead. We'd learned that the thing was extremely allergic to carbon. I knew that was weird, but there you had it. The diamond and pencil had worked on it, and that was all I knew. And Mrs. Woodbine was currently behind bars.

Tremayne paused for another ten seconds and then, with vampire magic (because the old ones always had some frightening magic to unlock and open doors and windows), he unlocked my bedroom door without so much as touching it, and the oak panel slid open all on its own, wide enough to give him access to my bedroom … a very scary thought My throat went dry when I tried to swallow.

Two of his giant steps brought him into my bedroom, and two more brought him beside my bed. He set me down in the semi-darkness on the mattress. To tell the truth, this was not my idea of a good thing—the king of vampires in my bedroom and me all helpless. My stomach flipped a few times.

My light flicked on, illuminating the room in all its magenta glory. Well, shoot, he'd used his vampire magic to turn on the light, too. Was he in control of everything? I had no idea he could turn lights on and off, too.

He pointed down at me. “You wearing that to bed?”

I looked down at my gray sweats. “Yeah. Why? Not sexy enough?”

He let go a withering hiss and turned away. “You need to brush your teeth?”

“You gonna do that for me as well? I need to pee too,” I said, and smiled when he glared at me.

He walked out of the room, in a graceful way that vampires all had. You'd think a big one like him would make the floor creak and he'd lumber around like John Wayne. Not at all. “Just a minute.” He came back with my crutches. “Here. Do what you need to do. I'll be in here if you need me.” He stepped outside my room, rolled the door back, leaving six inches of it open.

I grappled with my crutches, got up, and hobbled to my bathroom. I liked that the bathroom had two doors. One that I could gain access to via my bedroom, and the other that led to the dining room. It was why I had turned this room into my bedroom after my father had died. He'd had his office in this ten-by-fifteen room. I wanted to be downstairs, where I was close to everything since I lived alone. Of course, since having become a sibyl, I'd had all sorts of visitors and people who had stayed with me. Most of them men. Not all wanted to make love to me, but most did, including Tremayne. But that was in the past. I really hoped it was, anyway.

Using my left leg, I leaned on the counter and did a few things in the bathroom without too much trouble. I could bend my right knee some, as the break was further up, but I was supposed to stay off it as much as possible. Going to the bathroom was awkward as hell. I knew it would mend quicker than a normal human, since I'd been bitten by a werewolf, and wounds tended to heal quicker for whatever the reason. Plus, I'd had some vampire blood in the past, which enhanced things as well. Lucky me.

I was not going to get into a nightgown with Mr. Magnate of the Eastern, and or Western Half of the United States only ten feet from me. The TV came back on. I wondered what a vampire would watch on TV all night. Late night talk shows? Creepy movies? I didn't have cable, so he couldn't watch anything nasty, thank God. He turned down the volume. Vampires had excellent hearing too.

When I was finished, I hobbled back to my bed. A thin wedge of light from the TV cut across the floor from underneath the door. He'd turned out the light next to the chair. Vampire's eyes were very sensitive.

I stopped and noted that my bed covers had been turned down. My lips twisted, and I blinked hard with disbelief. This was a magnate, a thousand-plus-year-old vampire who had probably killed thousands of people for their blood without the slightest concern about them, who had turned my bed down. For some reason, my mind drummed up how he had been near death from silver poisoning from the aforementioned dagger incident.

Earlier this month, and at his request, I went to where he was being tended to, in the middle of Kansas. He was on his deathbed—literally dying in front of me. I donated my plasma to him that very night.

This was a new experimental treatment they'd told me. Parts of him were flaking off, fingers and part of his nose were gone. His hair was falling out, and the stench was awful. It had been a last ditch hope that plasma instead of blood would cure the silver poisoning. A second donation was needed, and I obliged once I got home after twenty-four hours.

Obviously, it had worked. Our relationship had made a few weird twists and turns since we'd met back in October. Who was I to question how he would take care of me in my time of need, since he owed me his life? Seems we had been paying each other back ever since. I supposed it was his turn to help me mend.

I had to soften my bitchy attitude toward him. I didn't know why I was so upset—no! I knew. Bitter from him trying to trick me into bed with him. Which he had. It was all to impregnate me and assure him of being returned to magnate status and get the demons off my ass. Didn't work. Sure. Tonight, I wanted to sulk and be left alone, but maybe this was better. A master vampire in the other room while I slept. I was still on the demons’ “death wish” list, and he could watch over me. How sweet of him. Yeesh.

Tremayne sat in my living room, enjoying something on TV. Sounded like a talk show; there was laughter, clapping, and such. He chuckled twice at something said. One of those weird twists in our relationship had gone from his wanting to bed and bite me, to him handing me over to his son, Stefan, in order to mate with (yeah, that went well, didn't it?), and now he was keeping me safe from demon boogie men. The whole let's-get-the-sibyl-pregnant-so-that-the-demons-will-stop-hunting-her-because-she-would-theoretically-be-pregnant-with-the-Dhampir scenario had been put on hold … had it? When had that happened? I didn't trust that. Besides, I had other fish to fry. Or not fry.

Stefan had begun to scare the pee out of me when he was in charge after my husband, Vasyl, had left. I was happy at the news that he was now out on the west coast, nowhere near me. I was into Bill right now. He wasn't here tonight because he had been hit with several disasters at once. First of all, Emma (aka Mrs. Bench), his grandmother, had died and the will was going to be read tomorrow. He'd also had had a break-in at some point around the same time she had died. And Mrs. Bench's cat had somehow disappeared the night of the break-in. The theory was that the cat (who Bill claimed hated him), ducked out when the burglar came in. He didn't sound extremely worried about it, but it had been his grandmother's cat, and he needed to find it.

“Is the TV too loud?”

Tremayne's voice so close, coming through the six inches of open door, that it startled me, and I jerked my head around to see his large head there in the opening. “No,” I replied.

“If it is, I'll turn it off.”

“I'm fine,” I said. “I really didn't feel like turning in anyway.”

“You need your rest.”

I gave him a wet raspberry.

“I'll make you sleep,” he threatened.

I didn't say anything to that. He'd had my plasma. He'd be able to tell if I was awake or sleepy, or hurting or frighten … or thinking about sex. But he couldn't make me do squat. I had the mystical ring which had forever cauterized any and all vampire thrall of any sort. So there.

He turned off the TV (or muted it). “Hello?” that deep voice of his said.

He was answering his phone, I slowly figured out.

“U-huh. Why should I care? … What?” He paused. “Oh. Alright. I'll ask.”

I perked my ears.

“Sabrina?” he called from the next room.

“Yeah?”

“Hobart said someone's inside the woman's house across the street.”

“Really? What's happening?” I asked.

“Says there's a light on over there.”

“Maybe it's Bill.” I hoped it was. That meant he'd come here next and shoo Tremayne away. Me and my thrilling life.

“She says it might be Bill,” he said, sounding exasperated to be bothered like this. “I don’t know. Why do I care what the fuck is going on across the street?”

“What sort of car is in the driveway?” I called out and used my crutches to get me to the door, which I slid back enough so I could hobble through.

“I didn't ask,” he said, sounding put out.

Bill's car was white. I thought it was a Lexus, or something like that. Expensive, in any case. “Why is Hobart still here anyway?” I asked, looking down at the large vampire trying out my father's relaxing chair, his feet up. He fit in it better than I did. Go figure.

“She wants to know why you're still here,” Tremayne said into the phone. He listened and said to me, “He was plowing your drive because it was drifting shut.”

“Oh. Let me talk to him,” I said, reaching for his phone, leaning on one crutch. He handed over his phone. “Hobart?” I said into the phone, leaning on my good leg to hold the phone.

“Yeah,” Hobart's gravelly voice came in my ear.

“What do you see?”

“Well, right now—oh … the lights went out, just now.”

“Is Bill's car in the drive?”

“There ain't no car in the driveway,” he said.

“You'd better drive away.” I moved a little closer to my picture window. It was difficult to maneuver with a phone to my ear and crutches in both hands. I did the shoulder scrunch people did when they had their hands full to hold the phone.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You want I should call police?”

“No. I'm the neighbor. You calling would sound odd. I'm going to call Bill first. Good night, and thanks,” I said. After he said good night, I hung up and looked at Tremayne's phone in my hand. “Here.” I held out the phone to him. “I've got the sheriff's police on speed dial. But I need to call Bill first.”

“Is it really necessary?” he asked.

“Yes. I need my phone.” I looked around, thinking where I'd had it last.

“Where's your phone?” Tremayne rose to his feet. He reached and took his phone from me.

“Uh,” I said, still thinking. Eventually, it came to me. “In my bedroom.”

“I'll get it.” He walked back into my bedroom.

“I don't believe you're here to babysit me. What gives? You don't go out of your way to do charity. Fess up.”

He strode out of my room with my cell phone in hand. It looked tiny in that huge paw. “Actually, I have a job for you, but I had no idea how badly you'd been hurt … again,” he said and handed me the phone. “I could heal you with my blood,” he offered.

“No!”

He looked like I'd slapped him.

“I mean, thanks, but no. I have to be seen in public.”

He gave me a what-the-hell? look.

“If people see me walk around like I'm fine, no crutches, people will ask what happened to the story that I'd been shot by Mrs. Woodbine.”

He still looked like I had to connect the dots for him.

“I have an appointment to see a lawyer tomorrow.”

“Oh. I see,” he said.

If I had wanted to, I could have asked Bill to heal me—which didn't require me drinking anyone's blood. But the reason was still the same. I had to look as though I were recovering, and I didn't think I could fake it too well.

I hit Bill's number in my contacts. He answered almost right away.

“Bill, it's me. I wouldn't have called, but is there anyone who should be at Mrs. Bench's house tonight?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Hobart said he noticed some lights on. He was leaving my place, telling me about it, and then the lights went out.”

“Oh, hell. I have no idea,” he said. He paused for a breath. “I wouldn't think that anyone has the right to be there, and I'm the only one with keys.”

A chill went through me. “Then, I'm calling the police. I wanted to make sure with you, first.”

“Yeah. Call the police, and then call me back,” he said and hung up.

I was about to do that when I felt it: the Knowing, combined with something else. I could only feel it as a vibration in the atmosphere. I went completely still, listening with all six senses. I was a touch clairvoyant. Nothing got past me that was off-the-grid. I had that quirky supernatural knowing-the-future and magical auric field. The slight jarring of the atmosphere came up through the balls of my feet. Yep. Magic. I would know this atmospheric change anywhere. I had felt it when I was in Mrs. Bench's house when I was about to receive the mystic ring. The whole house had shaken as though a 6.8 earthquake had erupted beneath us. At the moment, this was slight, but it was building.

Then a slight trembling started under my feet.

“Did you feel that?” I couldn't hide the panic in my voice. I shot Tremayne a look.

“What?” Tremayne looked at me expectantly. “I feel nothing out of the ordinary.” He shrugged.

The vibrations were so slight that I would think no human would pick them up, but certainly a vampire would. Then it kicked up a notch, or maybe it was moving.

“Don't you feel that? It's like when we were in the woods looking for Lindee, and we felt the ley line vibrate. Only, it's really building.”

“You have an affinity for it, Sabrina. But yeah. I do feel something.” He paused while we both assessed the weird sensation. “You have a ley line going through your house, don't you?”

I nodded. “Mine and Mrs. Bench's. Someone is using it.” I paused. “Oh, God.” I moved toward the curtains where he now stood.

We both peered out toward Mrs. Bench's house. The lights were out. It was dark there, like it should be. But I thought I saw some sort of weird glowing through the windows.

Tremayne looked down at me. “Someone with powers is visiting your neighbor's house?”

I nodded again. I figured he'd see something, or someone, roaming around in the dark. “Yeah. Someone more powerful than she was.” I licked my lips. I hadn't ever been able to “read” Mrs. Bench's house until I was inside it. I knew now it was because of her wards. But a few minutes ago, although I could not get a read on who or what was inside Mrs. Bench's house, I'd gotten the signature of someone with a lot of power.

“Demon?” he asked.

“I-I don't think so. Why would a demon need lights to see?” My skin prickled and I shivered.

“Good question.” Tremayne's last words were barely out of his mouth when the whole house shook. Like a locomotive had derailed right next to the house and fell over on it.

“Shit!” We both said, and I jumped with a little shriek.

But then I went into a full-blown vision. I had no time to think or say anything; it came on like gang busters and I blacked out.

Chapter2

House Helpers

My eyes opened and the first thing that filled my vision was Tremayne hovering over me. The cold touch at my temples told me that he had used his vampiric mind-touch to bring me out of the vision that would have put me out for hours.

I pulled in a breath to speak. Tremayne jumped, pulling his fingers away. His startled look was replaced by one of annoyance.

“Welcome back,” he said, his expression softening. At least the lights were on. “You okay?”

“I will be once you're off my bed.” I gave him an annoyed look.

His knee drilled a hole into my memory foam mattress. He rose from my bed, and it gradually returned to normal. “You've really got to get over your fear of me. If I had wanted to do something—anything to you—I could have, you know?”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

He frowned deeper.

“Thank you for not doing anything to me,” I said. “And for bringing me back,” I added for good measure.

“You jabbered quite a bit during this one. I have no idea what you were saying, though.”

“The other languages I speak tend to be ancient, and dead.” Like you, I'd wanted to say, but really had to bite my lip to hold it back.

“No shit.” He stepped away from the bed. “We'll try this again. I'll be out there.” He pointed toward the living room. “In the morning, someone else will come to keep you company and watch over you.”

He was out of my room in less time it took for him to say this. He slid the door partly closed, leaving about four or five inches open.

I got to review what had just happened—what I could remember—by myself in the dark. Oh, yeah. I was about to phone the police about an intruder in Mrs. Bench's house when someone or something used the ley line that extended from my house to Mrs. Bench's house. My brain was coming up to speed, I thought. Who had been in the house and why?

“Here,” Tremayne's voice caught me mid-review. He re-entered my room, my cell phone in his large hand. “Someone's trying to get in touch.” He held it out to me.

I recognized Bill's number. I grabbed the phone from him and opened it. “Thanks,” I said to him. Into the phone I said, “Hello?”

“Hi. What's going on? I've tried calling you—”

“Yeah. I went into a vision. Someone's been using the ley line that goes through mine and Mrs. Bench's house. I felt it. Then, I had a vision, but I can't remember it.”

“Who's there with you?”

“Uh, Tremayne,” I said, squeezing my eyes.

“Why is he there?” His voice was even, but I could tell he wasn't calm about this information.

“Protecting me.”

“Likely story.”

“Well, you're somewhere else. Hobart had to leave.” Wait. Did he? Or had my memory been altered by my vampire visitor?

“I don't like him being there,” he told me flatly.

“Tremayne? I don't either. Look. Even if you don't trust Tremayne, you have to trust me. Besides, I can toss him across the room if I need to. I can lock the door, too,” I reminded him.

From the living room came, “Hey! I heard that! My hearing is twenty-twenty.”

I rolled my eyes. I was pretty sure you didn't measure hearing like eyesight. “Keep your nose out of my business, Mr. Twenty-Twenty!” I shouted back.

“Sabrina?” Bill asked in my ear.

“I'm fine. Everything is fine. Will you pick me up tomorrow?”

“No. I can't pick you up. Can Hobart drive you?”

“I should think so,” I said, curling my lip. I did not want to ride in Hobart's snowplow to the lawyer's office in town. “Will you be able to make it?”

“I should be able to make it there, but I might be running a little late. What time was the appointment? I've got it on my calendar, but I can't go to it while I'm on the phone.”

“One-fifteen.” Just thinking about talking to a lawyer about all this gave me a big-time stomach cramp.

“Got it,” he said. “I'll be there as soon as I wrap up my business with the family lawyer, and the funeral director.” He paused. “You sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine. Don't worry. I'm going to try and get some sleep. I'll lock my bedroom door.”

“As long as you're safe, that's all I care about.”

“Okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow.”

We hung up and I heard the TV still going in the living room.

“If you lock that door and fall or something, I'll have to crash through it,” Tremayne said. Him with his “twenty/twenty” hearing.

“I told Bill that so that he wouldn't worry,” I said. “I'm not locking the door.”

“Good, because I'd hate to have to pay for a new one and hire people to put it in. I'm sure it won't be easy. I haven't seen a door like that since the turn of the century.”

Right. He'd been alive then. He'd been alive before electricity, motorized vehicles, baseball, and hot dogs.

I rolled my eyes again. “Whatever. I'm going to bed now. Keep the volume down on the TV.”

“No problem,” Tremayne called from the next room and the volume went way down, and I could barely hear it. Well, maybe he had thirty-thirty hearing.

It took me a long time to relax after that business with the activation of the ley line, and then my vision. But I did finally drift off.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up trying to move, wondering why my right leg felt so oddly thick. Then it dawned on me that I had a cast on it. My room, being that it was on the north side of the house, was dark enough, and my bed warm enough to lull me into the idea of sleeping a little while longer. But that was when I smelled coffee.

My brain caught up with things automatically. Tremayne had to have departed at some point before dawn. Wherever he went—probably to Tremayne Towers—he had to leave before the sun came up. Hopefully, he would find my “vampire” room upstairs nothing near to his exalted expectations and comfort zone and go to his fancy penthouse in Chicago. I tried to imagine him trying to sleep in the twin beds pushed together up there and had to dismiss that. Yeah, at seven feet tall, he needed a king-sized bed.

I presumed he may have let Hobart in, and he was the one now making coffee in my kitchen. Hobart wasn't exactly the man I wanted to wake up to over a cup of coffee. Don't get me wrong, he was a good friend and all, but that was it. I had no attraction toward the rough-looking, tattoo-riddled Were.

I tried to ignore the smell of coffee, but that wasn't happening. Not only that, my stomach growled. Plus, if I didn't have to pee so bad, I'd have tried to ignore that as well.

I struggled out of bed and found my crutches nearby. I would never be so happy as when the day arrived that I could finally chuck these things, even though I'd only been hobbling around on them a few more days. I paused in my motions, as my Knowing took in exactly who was here. Not Hobart, and not just one person was in my home, but two. Both male. I had no idea who these two people were, but they were … different. At least they weren't supernatural. My stomach twisted with anxiety over meeting them.

If I didn't have to take care of my personal needs right away, I would have walked, well, bumbled into the kitchen to meet these two head on and find out their story. I already knew their names. Being a clairvoyant sometimes saved me from stupid assumptions before I entered a room. Or a house.

As it turned out, I didn't have to go all the way into the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later, when I opened the bathroom door, which opened into the dining room, there they were. Two young men, in their twenties, stood near the dining room table wearing black jackets over dark vests and white shirts, white gloves, and conservative ties. In the looks category, they were of similar build: thin, but not very tall.

The blue-eyed blond had long-ish hair styled in a disarray of different lengths. The other, sporting black-rimmed glasses, had black hair, with a bleached blond topknot that fell over his eyes, and was slightly mussier than his blond counterpart; the dark lengths in the front were much longer, hanging down over his eyes, but trained and moussed in place. They were brothers. These reads were easy for me to get, as they were good broadcasters.

They beamed at me. “Good morning, mistress,” they said in stereo.

I looked at the dining table, surprised to see a sterling silver coffee urn—which I knew I didn't own—and breathe in other aromas coming from under a domed platter. I could definitely detect eggs and bacon with my nose. Okay. So, maybe they could stay. They were cute, in their own convoluted way.

I twisted my mouth and looked back up at them. “Did Tremayne send you all the way out here for little ol' me?”

They nodded, grinning. “He texted us,” the blond said.

“Oh, introductions! This is Kaleb with a 'K',” said the one wearing glasses.

“And he's Sebastian.” Kaleb held out his hands toward the other man.

“You two are brothers,” I said.

“Yes,” they both responded, looking somewhat stunned.

“You used to work at the Tremayne Towers.” I squinted. “I'm getting Letitia from you.”

“Oh, she's good,” Kaleb said, sounding impressed.

“Tremayne was right about her,” Sebastian agreed.

His brother nodded.

“We were Letitia's servants.”

“Reserve servants, when she needed us,” Sebastian added.

“Until her death, that is.” Kaleb looked down and away, lengths of hair swaying slightly as his shoulders seemed to tremble.

“There, brother, it's okay,” Sebastian consoled his brother, patting him on the shoulder. To me he said, “Kaleb was very fond of her.”

I nodded at his somber explanation. She had been impaled in the heart by a wooden bolt from Toby Hunt, Nicolas' scion. She had been Tremayne's life-time mate for many centuries. “I'm sorry,” I said. Too many memories surfaced then, and I had to cut them off before I went down that particular path.

“Oh, you needn't apologize,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. The long dark strands swung back and forth. He reminded me a little of a Shetland pony. A thin one. He had narrow shoulders like his brother, who was slightly taller; both were under six feet tall. Possibly five eight and five seven.

“No. I mean, I'm sorry for your loss. I can see you were very fond of her. From everyone who knew her, I can see she was someone who everyone loved,” I said.

“Hard to believe it of a vampire, but yes. She was an easy mistress to serve. Not too terribly demanding,” Sebastian stated.

“Plus, she gave us wonderful bonuses, and paid vacation, and other perks.”

“Don't forget the wheels, Kaleb,” Sebastian reminded him.

Kaleb's eyes widened. “Really super wheels. It's a good thing we could borrow the SUV today in order to get out here.”

Sebastian nodded and turned to me. “Anyway, we hope we can serve you in your time of need, mistress.”

I smiled. “I've never had a broken … anything.” Glancing down at my leg as I stood with the crutches under each arm. “And this is really nice what you've set up here.” I nodded toward the prepared table.

“I hope you don't mind, but we took the bedroom with the twin beds,” Sebastian said. “It reminds us of our boyhood.”

“No. That's fine. If you need anything at all, blankets or whatever, just ask. Sorry that my house isn't quite the luxury of a penthouse.”

“Oh, it's charming.” Kaleb’s eyes glinted under his blond locks as he took in the room. “I especially like the envelope door and French doors. Don't you, brother?”

“Absolutely! I'll be busy rearranging the furniture,” Sebastian said.

“Oh, and I've watered your Christmas tree for you,” Kaleb told me. “It was looking rather dry this morning.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I hadn't even thought of it, as I'd been so busy being shot at and all. Maybe having house help wasn't such a bad idea after all.

I moved toward the table, hoping for an easy transition from standing to sitting, but I wasn't looking forward to it. Both servants stepped toward me, going to either side and helping me take a seat at the closest end. Anticipating my move to the chair, Sebastian pulled it out for me.

“Here, allow us to help you.” Sebastian had no sooner said this and both men grabbed each of my arms and steadied me until I could settle my clumsy self into the chair. In a few seconds, they managed to move my chair closer to the table by lifting it with me in it. They were stronger than they looked.

I was a little embarrassed about being helped. Admittedly, I didn't like this intrusion at first, but I realized there'd be no way I could have made my own breakfast. It was hard enough for me to make coffee. Once I was settled, Sebastian poured the coffee and Kaleb lifted the silver lid on the plater of food he'd prepared. Exactly what my mind had conjured: two eggs (over medium), homemade biscuits, and three strips of bacon.

“Thank you,” I said, humbled by their hard work at an elaborate breakfast display, as well as their help.

“Is there anything else you would like?” Kaleb asked, settling the plate in front of me. He had this odd look, a combination of worry and pity. They must have wondered how I had been hurt, unless they'd learned it from Tremayne himself.

“Milk, if I've got some?” I asked, hopeful.

“Coming right up, mistress.” He twirled and trotted off to get it.

Sebastian placed a folded newspaper next to my plate. I looked at it. It was the local paper. I didn't get the paper anymore, since my father had passed away. I wasn't into reading bad news. I looked up at him questioningly.

“I bought it for you when we went to get food for the house,” Sebastian explained. “You know, you were completely out of nearly everything.”

Yes. Hard to go to the store when you're walking around on crutches. How would I move the cart around? Oh, wait, I'd have to ride one of those damned electric carts. Wouldn't that be fun? Not. “Uh, do I owe you something for the food?”

“Not at all,” Kaleb said with a large glass of milk in his hand. He settled it near my plate.

It looked cold and I wanted to drink half of it right then.

“We used a card for your purchases,” Kaleb explained in answer to my question about their using their own money for my food and such. “Tremayne picks up the tab.” He looked at his brother and they both laughed. My eyebrows arched.

Sebastian placed the cream and sugar bowl next to my cup. “If there's nothing else?” he asked, hands together, bowing slightly, bangs dangling over his eyes.

I shook my head, adding cream to my coffee. “I'm fine. Thanks. This is great!”

The two stepped away, disappearing back into the kitchen. In a moment, over their softly spoken give-and-take conversation, there came the sound of pots and pans being loaded into the dishwasher.

Famished, I picked up my fork. I hoped Kaleb or Sebastian was a good cook. They wouldn't have that much to do cooking-wise for a vampire mistress, I wouldn think. I dug in and found the still-warm eggs, bacon and biscuits were delicious.

My eyes darted to the paper between bites. The paper was folded so that I could only read a couple of words from the headlines. The words “Victim Dies” was part of the headline on top. Okay. I had to put my fork down and open the paper. My morbid curiosity was rewarded when I read the full headline: “Victim Dies from Gunshot Wounds - Local Woman Charged

in Death”.

My lips trembled. Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision. The cup in my fingers clattered to the table. The shock of reading it in a paper was no less horrible.

If it weren't for me, Jack would still be alive. All this time, I had been hunted by demons, Ilona Tremayne, and Mrs. Woodbine. I'd never thought about the possibility of someone else getting hurt. But this last incident came too close. Someone I once cared for had died as a result of someone else's actions.

My nose ran and all I could find was the napkin to blow into.

“Uh-oh. Something's wrong with our mistress, brother,” one of the two in the kitchen said.

I looked up from dabbing my eyes. “It's nothing,” I blubbered. Oh, God. I didn't like blubbering and carrying on in front of people, especially strangers.

“Oh, dear, it's not the eggs, is it?” Kaleb asked, coming to my side to inspect my plate.

“No. Everything's great,” I said, still dabbing my eyes with the now tear-soaked napkin. “My friend died.”

“Oh? Who?” Kaleb cocked his head to peer at the paper next to my plate.

“That's just terrible. Is there anything we can do for you?” Sebastian asked, and then looked around for a tissue box.

“Is this the person who died? You knew him?” Kaleb’s finger pointed to the newspaper's story.

I nodded.

“Here, let me get you a proper tissue.” Sebastian left my side. He entered the living room and came back with the box of tissues.

“Thank you,” I said, plucking a couple and blowing my nose and soaking up my tears.

Kaleb picked up the newspaper and began to read: “'The press release states that Sabrina N. Strong, 21, had been with Jack M. Rasmussen at a local restaurant. The two were going to their respective cars in the parking lot at the corner of Walnut Street and Main when Marry Woodbine shot at the couple, hitting Rasmussen …'” Kaleb took in a sharp breath. “Oh, how terrible!”

“You knew this Mr. Rasmussen?” Sebastian asked.

I nodded. “We dated for a while. Um, months ago. We weren't dating anymore, and just ran into each other that day.”

“Listen to this.” Kaleb cleared his throat and read in a nice clear voice, “‘“Things became very confusing,” Detective Coombs said. “At some point, Mrs. Woodbine was struck in the chest with a sharp object and went down. After which the (ambulance) was called.” Detective Coombs would not elaborate about the wound to Mrs. Woodbine, nor would he comment on who had stabbed her, or what had happened to the weapon. At some point after the ambulance had arrived, however, Mrs. Woodbine still had the gun in her possession and shot at Ms. Strong. The shot hit her leg, breaking it.’”

Mouth open, Kaleb looked down at me. “We wondered what had happened to you.”

“Oh, you poor dear,” Sebastian said, refreshing my coffee and patting me lightly on the shoulder.

“Brother, listen to this!” Kaleb read on. “‘“We still do not know how the Woodbine woman managed to hide the gun and fire it. She was down and unresponsive after the EMTs got here,” Detective Coombs had said. “It is still not clear if the police are still searching for the weapon, or weapons, which caused a small puncture hole in Mrs. Woodbine's chest, coming mere centimeters of her heart.

“'If it had gone any deeper, she would be dead,' Dr. Keith Holmes stated. Mary Woodbine has been charged in the attempted murder and murder of both Strong and Rasmussen, respectively. Woodbine is being held for a bond hearing.’” Kaleb lowered the paper he had been reading and looked at me with a grim face. “Good heavens!”

“If there is anything my brother and I can do for you, anything at all, you just tell us!” Sebastian moved a jelly jar closer to me. “More jelly?”

“More anything?” Kaleb asked.

“No,” I said, a chuckle bubbling up through a soaked tissue.

“A hug?” Kaleb suggested, giving me the pity look.

I chuckled on a little hiccup. “No. You two are wonderful.”

A startling thought suddenly jarred me. The police were looking for the “object” that had stabbed Mrs. Woodbine. Up until this point, I hadn't considered that the dagger had not penetrated her heart—obviously, because she was still alive. One thing was for certain. I had to get the Dagger of Delphi back.

It was a little odd that the dagger had not returned to me, as was its ability and habit. I had called to it after being released from the hospital, but it never showed.

“I need my crutches,” I said, struggling to turn and slide out of my chair.

Sebastian helped me move my chair back.

“Let us help you.” Kaleb surged forward on one side of the table and Sebastian on the other. With their help, I was standing with my crutches, and moved for the door.

“Open the door, one of you, please,” I said.

“You're not going outside!” Kaleb looked startled.

“No. I'm going to stand at the door and call for something.”

“What? The kitty? We fed it the kibbles we found, and some milk,” Kaleb told me.

Holy crap, had they done everything this morning? A good thing I didn't have cows to milk.

“No. But thanks.” I eyed them. “Maybe the both of you should go back into the kitchen until I need you again.” I wasn't sure what they would make of a dagger flying out of nowhere into my hands.

The two shared worried and confused looks as though shooting telepathic signals to one another. For all I knew, maybe they could.

Sebastian opened the door and Kaleb stood at the kitchen threshold, watching, looking worried.

“Be careful, mistress, whatever you're up to,” Sebastian said, looking back at me. He leaned forward, unlocked the door, and opened it with white gloves. I suspected that they were told to wear gloves at all times while in my house. That small detail did not go unnoticed by me. It would not be good that they touch any surface with ungloved hand and I got a read.

When the cold air outside hit me, the jolt sobered me up enough to concentrate on what I had to do. Sebastian stood a foot away, his eyebrows raised. The wind whipped at his hair while he stood at the doorway, waiting.

“Better to just wait in the kitchen,” I said. I was not certain how much of the unusual life I led they had been informed of. Possibly they only knew that I was a touch clairvoyant, and that Tremayne held me in high esteem, and that I needed their help.

“Very well, mistress,” he said, bowed, and together they stepped back into the confines of the kitchen.

I sighed, looking at the brilliance of the day, snow reflecting light back into my eyes, blinding me. I squinted. The porch was nearly snow-free, so I carefully stepped onto it, my breath clouding in front of my face, and my nostril hairs freezing almost right away. Jeez, it was cold as hell out here!

“Okay,” I muttered. “I know it can hear me, so … here goes.” I inhaled and let out on my next words—not too loudly, because the dagger could “hear” me. “Dagger of Delphi, come to me.” I closed my eyes, thinking it might help. I didn't know why. Maybe because in movies they did this when magic was performed.

I leaned on my crutches, knowing it would take a while for the thing to come to me. How far away was it from here to Moonlight? Ten or twelve miles? When I drove there, it took me about ten or so minutes, so it couldn't be far. I remembered when it had stuck itself into Bill's car windshield in Colorado, and it hadn't taken but a few moments for it to come flying back to me up the mountain road.

I brimmed with an unnerving expectancy, waiting, and watching. Minutes passed, and while standing there I became too aware of the cold. I looked out across the white fields and the frigid blue sky, in the approximate direction of town. It's not coming. It isn't going to come. Maybe it can't.