Third of the Winterset Coven Page 6

  “Yet,” Evan whispered.

  Aric’s smile was empty and didn’t reach his demon eyes. “Can’t you feel it?”

  Evan looked around the room and opened up his senses. If he concentrated enough, there was something heavy in the air. “What is that?”

  “It’s him. His name is Vlaric. He’s talking to Shane in his dream. He doesn’t need to be invited in. He’s already here.” Aric jerked his chin toward the sleeping vampire. “He doesn’t need to lift a single finger. He’s right where he wants to be. Inside of our heads.” Aric stooped and picked up the stake, left the room. From down the hall, he said, “He will destroy us from the inside out, and watch as Nicole’s safety crumbles around her, and then he will take her last.”

  Shit.

  Evan backed out of the room and strode down the hall toward his own, pushed the door open in a rush. Nicole was sleeping soundly, curled up on her side, hugging a pillow, her face relaxed.

  He let off a sigh of relief and ran his hands through his hair, paced at the end of the bed.

  Okay, if the killer was like Aric…if he could get into people’s minds, that was a huge problem. He wasn’t just some psychopath serial-killing vamp. He was a psychopath serial-killing vamp with a terrifying amount of power.

  He could stake Shane. Fuck, Shane had been in the coven for so long. They didn’t get along all the time, but it wasn’t his fault if the monster was using him. He hadn’t betrayed them yet.

  Okay, if he took Nicole from here, the killer wouldn’t have a reason to go after his coven. If he took the end game—Nicole—out of the house, he would disrupt the game, because that’s what this was to that asshole, right? A game. A lethal cat and mouse game.

  If he took her out of here, he forfeited some of her protection, though. He took her from Sadey and Dawn, took her from her support system. And look what the monster had done to him? Evan had never sleepwalked in his life, but he’d just taken a wooden stake from Nicole’s purse and nearly killed Shane in his sleep, and for what? What if he took Nicole from here and he woke up like this standing over her?

  He wanted to retch. Evan ran his hands through his hair hard. Think.

  Maybe if Nicole left and hid somewhere not even Evan knew, she would be safe. On her own. With a very powerful vampire stalking her.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  His phone buzzed on the nightstand where it was plugged in and sitting on top of Nicole’s book.

  She winced in her sleep, and he rushed to answer the unknown number that came across the caller ID.

  Before he could answer with a greeting, a deep, rumbling male voice came through the phone. “You’ll stay there.”

  Chills rippled up Evan’s forearms, and he sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. “Who is this?”

  “The who doesn’t matter as much as the what. I just saw what will happen to you. What I see is that you will die. You all will. Everyone you love. I can’t change outcomes. I’ve tried so many times. I sat here knowing I can’t call you. It’s not my place to warn you, because what will that do? It will take time away from you. It will take joy. It will take the last happy hours of her life and yours. I’ve never given a shit about vampires, but your coven has changed. It’s allowed shifters and humans in, and over time, you’ve learned acceptance. It’s done good for a community. She deserves happiness. Nicole. She was supposed to be important.”

  “Important how?”

  “She was supposed to help rebuild your coven. She and Dawn and Sadey were going to teach it kindness. Fate had plans for you, and then she changed her mind. You’ve weeded out the bad ones and grown strong as three. Your coven was going to poison all covens. Poison them into being better.”

  Supposed to, supposed to… Evan still wanted that for Nicole. Wanted a life! “If you can’t change our fate, then why are you calling me with this?”

  “Because, for the first time, my father had a different vision than me. Stay where you are.” His last words cracked with power.

  Chills, chills, chills, raising the fine hairs all over Evan’s body. Was it? Was it him? Could it be?

  The who doesn’t matter.

  “What are you?” Evan asked.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line.

  And then…

  “I’m the Novak Raven.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Well, what did Weston Novak say?” Garret asked Evan from across the sprawling dining table.

  Evan cast Nicole a quick glance, but she couldn’t read his expression. “He said there are two possible outcomes, but we need to stay here in the coven house.”

  “I have a shift at work tonight,” Dawn said from beside Garret. “I can’t call in. The other bartender is in Cancun.”

  “And I have two appointments with clients today,” Nicole uttered, tugging her sleep shirt down her legs so she didn’t show her lace thong to the entire coven. She couldn’t cancel on them when she had already been out for a week, healing up after the attack. She’d just gotten back into the swing of things at her office, and one of her clients today was close to crisis. She needed her session today.

  “You look tired,” Sadey murmured to Aric.

  “We’re all fuckin’ tired,” Shane growled out from his place at the end of the table. “Dipshit woke us all up with a vision from the Novak Raven? Really? He’s in the Bloodrunners. Remember them, Aric? Their alpha put your arm in the sun and gave you that handy-dandy burn scar. She shamed you, and now we’re going to listen to a bird shifter who had a bad dream? Really?”

  “Speaking of bad dreams, what did you dream about, Shane?” Evan demanded.

  “I dreamed of some asshole standing over me with a stake, Evan.” Fire ignited in Shane’s eyes. “Yeah, I fuckin’ know. The killer,” he said with air quotes, “showed me what you were doing. The killer of humans. Humans! Like all of us sitting at this table have hands clean of blood.”

  “He’s killing innocent women in the woods,” Evan growled out.

  “You don’t give a shit about those women!” he shouted to Evan. “You give a shit about a Nicole. That’s it. You’ve never even given a second thought to a feeder before, but you attached to this bitch, and I can’t figure it out. She must have a magical pussy because you are setting our entire coven on fire just to shack up with her—”

  “Enough!” Evan’s powerful voice echoed through the room. Only Evan wasn’t in his chair anymore. He was holding Shane by the throat against the wall. “Say one more fuckin’ word against Nicole, and I’ll rip your fucking head off and stay awake for a week just to watch you try to re-grow it back. Then you can talk to me about blood on my hands.”

  “This is what he wants,” Nicole murmured. “This is my fault.”

  Evan shoved off Shane and sauntered back to the table. The look Shane gave Evan’s back brought a sick feeling to her stomach. She’d only seen hate-filled evil in someone’s eyes like that one other time, and that was the way the monster, Vlaric, had look at her.

  “I dreamed of draining her,” Shane murmured. “Maybe it’s Vlaric putting that in my head like Aric thinks, or maybe I just want to kill her and watch you suffer until the end of time.”

  Evan stopped, body tensed, a look of murder on his face as his shoulders heaved with his breath. He looked at Nicole and then turned his head just enough to give Shane his profile. “Why? Why do you all of a sudden hate me so much?”

  “Because, Third, I can see your bond to her. I can see them between all of you. Disgusting bonds. You’re freaks. I tried to be on board with how soft you were all making the coven, but a human, Evan? You’re a fucking vampire. A vampire. Everyone else is food. And you aren’t just fucking your food. You’re falling in love with it. How. Pathetic.”

  Evan turned to Aric, and in a smooth, emotionless tone Nicole didn’t recognize, he said, “He needs to leave, or I’ll kill him.”

  “Truth,” Sadey murmured, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at the metal table before her.


  Dawn nodded and agreed in a softer tone, “Truth.”

  Aric stood and locked his arms against the table. He lifted his gaze to Shane and told him, “There is no more room in this coven for you.”

  Shane pushed off the wall and lifted his chin in the air. His black eyes held nothing but hate. “I wish Arabella was here to see how pathetic you turned out to be.”

  “My maker was a psychopath,” Aric said coldly. “Why would I concern myself with her opinion? Or yours?”

  Power crackled through the air, and it was hard for Nicole to drag in a breath. The air felt like concrete, clogging up her lungs, and she couldn’t drag her gaze off her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  These vampires were so much more powerful than they let on.

  She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe! Frozen in her seat, she gasped in short bursts, praying that the heavy weight in the air lifted so she could survive this.

  When a cold hand slid to the back of her neck and squeezed comfortingly, she finally inhaled a long, relieved breath. Evan. Safety. Everything was okay.

  Garret let out a sigh and chewed the corner of his lip. He leaned forward, his bright green eyes intent on his king. “Do we trust the Bloodrunners? After everything, can we trust them?”

  Seconds stretched on as Aric looked them all in the face. “I don’t think we have a choice. He didn’t tell us what the other vision was.”

  “What other vision?” Nicole asked. This was all so confusing. People—shifters—could tell the future? They were seers? Or psychics? She didn’t understand anything about these Bloodrunner people.

  It was Sadey who answered. “If Beaston or Weston Novak have a vision, everyone in the shifter community knows you listen. They’re never wrong. This time they each have a different vision. One, we die. Two, we live.” She looked to Aric. “I know you were at war and things happened, but down to their core, the Novaks are good. I think we should trust him.”

  Aric’s Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed hard. With a nod of his head, he said, “Shane, it’s one pm and daylight. You can’t leave right now and survive. At six-fifteen, when the sun sets, you are banished from this house and from Winterset forever.”

  “For a human? Just like that, huh?” Shane asked.

  The king of the Winterset Coven offered a quick glance to Nicole and then another nod for Shane. “Just like that.”

  Evan came to stand right beside Nicole, hand still comforting on the back of her neck. “Weston spoke of Nicole’s importance to this coven.” He lifted his chin higher. “He didn’t say shit about you.”

  Across the table, Sadey and Dawn hid smiles behind pursed lips. Garret and Aric’s eyes were pure black and their faces fierce, fangs exposed behind their savage grimaces. They looked as if they would rip Shane’s throat out at any wrong word.

  There was a shift happening in this house, in this coven, and they were choosing Nicole. She didn’t know how to feel. Part of her felt awful for shaking up a coven of people she already cared so much about, but the other part of her felt accepted at the same time.

  Shane gave an evil, soulless smile and looked at Nicole. “Well done, you.”

  And then he disappeared into a fog of purple smoke.

  Chapter Ten

  One more hour until sunset.

  She, Sadey, and Dawn had been quietly cleaning the house for the last two hours while the boys slept like the dead. It wasn’t like the home needed to be cleaned, but watching television made them all feel too antsy. They’d needed to move and do something productive, so the entire kitchen and living room were now deep-cleaned.

  Nicole checked the time on the microwave for the dozenth time and then folded the dishtowel she’d been cleaning the counters with and set it on the ledge of the stainless-steel sink.

  While the vampires rested in the bedrooms below, Sadey and Dawn were upstairs with Nicole, playing bodyguard. Oh, she knew what Evan had asked them to do—watch her while he was passed out. Vampires slept hard.

  Turning from the newly cleaned kitchen, she said, “I’ll be so happy when nightfall comes and Shane can go—” Nicole gasped and flinched back from the monstrous snow leopard that was stalking her way.

  Dawn was in her human form, standing in the living room, just staring at Nicole with dead eyes, so the animal must’ve been Sadey. “S-Sadey?” she squeaked out, inching down the length of the counters, “it’s me.”

  Her pupils were so blown there was only a thin ring of gold in the snow leopard’s eyes.

  “No, no, no, Sadey, this isn’t you. This is someone playing with your head.”

  The cat stalked closer. God, she was big. She easily weighed more than Nicole, and her massive paws extended long, curved claws every time one hit the wooden floor.

  Never give a predator your back.

  She walked backward around the kitchen island. Sadey was herding her toward Dawn, and it scared her. Dawn didn’t look right, tracking her with soulless gold eyes.

  “Evan!” she called out.

  Sadey hissed and lurched forward a few steps. Too close, too close!

  “Oh, my gosh,” Nicole murmured, putting her hands out in a calming gesture. She was shaking so bad. Evan, please help me!

  She had to walk right past Dawn to get to the living room, where Sadey seemed determined to force her to go. All the hairs rose on her body the closer she got to Dawn’s stoic figure. Something was so wrong with her. So wrong.

  “Dawn, wake up,” she pleaded. “Please wake up.”

  Dawn didn’t move at all except for her eyes...watching her, watching her.

  Sadey was stalking closer, which had forced Nicole to stop hesitating at the kitchen island, and scoot closer to Dawn. When Nicole was just a few feet from her, Dawn flinched. Startled but the sudden motion, Nicole let off a shriek.

  Dawn just lifted her hand and pointed her finger toward the door. “You should go outside where it’s safe from the vampires,” she said in a voice that echoed with hollowness.

  “Bu-but the Novak Raven told us to stay here. Evan told me to stay here.” Evan, Evan, Evan!

  Dawn shook her head, and the color came back into her eyes. For a split second, she looked scared, and then her pupils dilated again and her face went slack. “You should go outside. It’s safe out there.”

  She was lying. Dawn was lying, and Sadey was herding her toward the door while Evan was sleeping. She wasn’t safe outside. She wasn’t safe in here either. Think!

  Power crackled through the air. As soon as Shane appeared by the door, she locked her legs against any forward motion. Getting close to Dawn had been terrifying enough. Shane would definitely attack her.

  “Yeah, Nicole, go outside.” His voice was twisted with a cruelty that dropped her stomach to the floor. “You’ll be safe out there.” He pushed the door open. “Allow me.”

  Sunlight filtered in across the floorboards. Shane stood beside the door, out of the ray of light that infiltrated the room.

  When she glanced at Dawn, beads of sweat were pouring down the sides of her red face. “Run, Nicole,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.

  “Evan!” Nicole shrieked as she bolted for the sunlight.

  While Sadey charged, a guttural snarl in her throat, Dawn fell to her hands and knees, the sounds of her breaking bones popping through the room.

  Shane’s smile made her sick as she reached the doorway, and quick as the strike of a cobra, he reached out and yanked her arm. She felt the warmth of the sun on her cheeks for a split moment before he pulled her back into the shadows of the house. His claws dug into her arms, and his eyes turned solid black as he yanked her toward his opening mouth.

  Smoke…so much purple smoke exploded around them, and right when she closed her eyes to prepare for the pain, she was shoved backward.

  She yelped as her tailbone hit the floor and, terrified, she looked up to see Shane standing in the clearing smoke, his body burning. The smell of burning skin filled her senses, and she gasped in horror as th
e corpse’s legs snapped at the knees, and he fell into a pile of ashes.

  Evan was behind him with a stake in his hand, his face looking gaunt and monstrous, his eyes black as night. Lips curled back, he turned to Sadey and Dawn’s snow leopards, who were stalking his way. “Stop!” he roared in a monstrous demon’s voice.

  The cats didn’t even pause.

  “Aric! Garret!” he yelled. Evan shook his head hard and dropped the stake, fell to his knees in the ashes, then gripped the sides of his face and snarled. “Fuck. Fuck! Shut up! Get out of my head!”

  Aric and Garret appeared in the hallway, eyes black and empty, and Nicole knew her time was up.

  “No,” Evan murmured, shaking his head. “Aric, fight Vlaric! Push him from your head!” When he slashed his claws out at Sadey who was getting too close, she hissed and backed away by a few feet. “King! Protect us!”

  Aric pitched forward, and his eyes cleared. “Get her out of here,” he choked out, and then his eyes went black again.

  Chest heaving, Evan uttered a curse and wrapped his arms around Nicole just as the snow leopards and vampires charged for them.

  It felt like her entire body broke apart as Evan disappeared into the smoke and bats. She couldn’t draw a breath as they sped through space. Then she hit the ground hard and sucked air into her screaming lungs. The ground was dirt, and there was a row of old tractors against one of the walls. There was a loft full of hay bales. They were in a barn. A barn? A barn during the daylight hours.

  “Evan?” she called, panicking.

  “I’m okay,” he said in a hoarse voice. In the deep shadows under the loft, he stood, but as she scrambled toward him, she could smell it again—burning flesh.

  “Oh my God, oh my God!” she cried as she reached him. His skin was burned and smoking, and his clothes were nothing but scorched tatters, adorning his open, blistered skin.

  “Listen to me,” he murmured. “Fuck.” He shook his head hard. “When he opened his eyes, they were black, then blue, black then blue. He was straining so hard. “You have to run.”