CHAPTER FIVE || THIERRY
I t wasn’t like the other dreams I’d been having lately. For one thing, there was blood on the sidewalk. Not nearly as much as a horror movie might show, but enough to know whoever had lost it hadn’t survived.
I stood staring at the large bloodstain for a long time, almost as though in a trance. It had dried to a deep, dark rust where it soaked into the concrete. It had been here for days. But there was no body. No source.
Then, from the corner of my eye, a flicker of movement at the far end of the street. But when I looked, moving oddly slow, as though the air itself was too thick, everything was still. I was alone.
I frowned.
The sun beat down on me, but I didn’t feel it.
I was standing on some kind of historic Main Street in a town that must have been prosperous when first built.
The wooden buildings on either side of the deserted street were two stories tall and pressed tightly together, with only narrow alleys between them.
Quaint, in that contrived way meant to make people long for a “simpler time” that never really existed.
Shops were advertised above the awnings on matching carved wooden signs painted gold: a bookstore, a café, an old-timey pharmacy supposedly in business since 1941, if the gilt lettering on the window was true.
A handful of boutiques looked expensive enough to bankrupt the entire vampire population of Seattle.
Strangely, cars lined both sides of the street, but not a soul was around. All the stores appeared closed, despite it seeming to be midday.
I stepped away from the bloodstain and peered through the pharmacy window. A sign hastily scrawled in Sharpie on printer paper was taped to the glass: The Rookwood Pharmacy is closed until further notice. We apologize for the inconvenience.
My brows knit. Odd. No reason given. No date to reopen. Doubly strange, considering the town must have relied on this place for medicine.
Inside, shelves had been overturned, pills and bottles scattered across the floor. Another puddle of blood near the registers had already soaked into the hardwood floor. It must have been spilled days ago. Again, no body.
If I focused, I realized the very air—even outside—smelled faintly metallic. As if the whole town had been bathed in blood.
Further along, more shops bore taped signs. Some were locked, lights off, no explanation at all, as though the shopkeepers had left in a hurry.
But the cars were still here. Far too many for that.
Something bad had happened in Rookwood.
Time passed, and I suddenly became aware of him.
Abruptly, he was walking beside me, as though he’d been there all along.
I hadn’t heard him approach. He’d simply…
materialized. I couldn’t feel the oppressive heat of the sun, but I could feel his warmth, and his scent—just as it had been that first night in the forest clearing a month ago—curled around me. Church incense and freshly cut grass.
Home.
I shoved down the longing his scent stirred and ignored him, peeking into more shop windows. Overturned shelves. Scattered goods. Another bloodstain, near the back of one of the shops.
He followed silently, close behind.
After several minutes, I grew annoyed. I wasn’t sure if it was his presence or his silence that frustrated me more.
Finally, I broke down and glared at him.
He gave me a mild look, lips twitching with amusement.
I didn’t speak. He didn’t either.
Fuming—or trying to—I turned away. On principle, I hated that he’d found me again. But I couldn’t deny that his presence didn’t feel bad. It didn’t feel like an intrusion. Instead, it felt… easy. My body wanted to relax, to shed anger. I had to cling tightly to my annoyance.
I don’t want him, I told myself firmly. I don’t.
But I still glanced back. I still traced the line of his jaw, his broad shoulders, the piercing blue of his eyes—so much darker than mine, like sapphires at midnight, glittering under a full moon.
His hair was unkempt, too long, with dried leaves tangled in it.
Dirt streaked his face. Sweat shone on his brow.
Then I froze.
Wait. How had he gotten here?
For that matter, what was I doing here?
I blinked, realizing for the first time he was completely naked. He had been all along. I just hadn’t noticed.
Reality wavered, surreal, like nothing was quite solid except this man beside me. And though I knew him biblically, I didn’t even know his name.
My mate broke eye contact, looking past me. His brows drew together, eyes darkening. Dangerous.
Dread coiled in me.
The world seemed ready to split apart.
Slowly, I turned to see what he was staring at.
If my heart had still been beating, it would have frozen.
The rest of me certainly did.
Twenty feet away, Godric stood in the middle of the street, watching us. His expression was strange, vacant.
Beneath his feet was another puddle of blood, fresher than the others, glistening in the sun.
And as I watched, it spread. Expanding in all directions without a source, becoming a sea of red that swept over the street, climbing cars, scaling walls, drenching buildings.
The entire time, Godric’s gaze never left mine.
The blood rushed toward me. Somewhere in the distance, someone screamed—a high, keening wail people only make when there’s nothing left to do.
I jerked awake.
My eyes snapped open. I sat up in bed, blinking against the cool darkness of my room. Shades drawn. Alone.
The empty town, boarded-up shops, blood, Godric in a sea of red—it had all been a dream. The man I’d met in the woods—now that I was awake, I was avoiding the “M” word, thank you very much—had been a dream too.
I’d dreamed of him every single night since that first encounter. Always the same. He never spoke. He barely even looked at me.
One would think that if he were just a subconscious manifestation of repressed desire—or whatever psychobabble is in vogue this decade—there’d be more actual desire involved. But he hadn’t touched me.
Not once.
Not since the forest.
Still, something had changed. My dreams were sharper now, more vivid.
Far more lucid, as though I were truly there.
I’ve never paid much attention to dreams before—they were fleeting ghosts, hazy and murky at best. I’ve had a handful of lucid dreams over the years, but not every night for nearly a month solid.
It was all very… odd.
And the memory of that crimson wave still clung to me, unease settling deep.
“None of which is important,” I muttered, staring at the crack between the curtains and window frame, where a thin scrap of light leaked into the dark. “It was all just a dream.”
I tried hard to believe that.
* * *
“You look cranky,” Derek Evans—which was almost certainly a fake name—commented the moment I walked into the bar.
The dark-haired, broad-shouldered man sat at one of the round wooden tables on the outer edge of the room.
A glass filled to the top with clear liquid rested in front of him. “Didn’t sleep well?”
“I sincerely hope that’s water,” I said, frowning. “And my sleeping habits are none of your business.”
“It’s gin and tonic,” he said, casting his drink a glum look and sighing. “Minus the gin.”
“Finally tired of every day passing you by in a drunken haze?”
“Maybe every other day. Or every third.” He paused, studying me intently. “I’m trying to live my life a little better, every now and again. I’ve been working on it for a while.”
“With the number of vampire friends and acquaintances you have, you could just have one of us hypnotize you into stopping anytime you want.”
“I’d prefer to try on my own first,” Derek replied. His dark eyes held mine. Then he said, “Something’s wrong. What’s up?”
Far too perceptive, as usual. Normally, I liked that about Derek—unless it was pointed at me.
I gave him a disdainful look, meant to kill the conversation. “Just because I find you less insufferable than most humans doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
He snorted, as though I’d said something funny.
“Don’t mind him,” James said, coming to the end of the bar. “Thierry gets grumpy when he first wakes up.”
He wore a black apron and watched us with a bemused expression, a lopsided smile on his lips.
Despite being mated to Pierce—progeny of the vampire king of Seattle and therefore technically one of the highest-ranking people in the city—James insisted on helping behind the bar once a week.
Whenever I asked why, he said it kept him grounded.
Fair enough. Being surrounded by supernatural creatures every minute of the day probably did make one crave a bit of normalcy.
“Yeah, he probably woke up hangry,” Derek said sagely, nodding. Then, to me: “You ought to eat something.”
“Or someone.” I gave him a steely look. “Are you offering?”
Derek snorted again, shaking his head, unbothered. “Believe it or not, I’ve had worse offers. But no thanks.”
My curiosity ticked up, and I had to stop myself from prying.
Derek had wandered into Nathaniel’s Place one night years ago and never really left.
He wasn’t anyone’s mate. He wasn’t one of the donors we paid to keep the city’s vampires fed.
He’d never expressed interest in becoming one of us.
Nor did he seem especially interested in vampires at all.
By the time he figured out he was surrounded by bloodthirsty beings—after one of his drinking buddies forgot himself and moved too fast—he’d already made friends with half a dozen of us.
He asked if he was in danger. We told him no—vampires in Seattle don’t feed without consent, ever.
He shrugged, said it was about what he’d figured, and moved on with the night like it was nothing.
The only other human I’d met with such a nonplussed reaction was James.
But he, at least, made sense: his fated mate was a vampire.
And if that wasn’t enough, he was blood-bonded to Pierce, which gave him constant insight into his mate’s thoughts and feelings.
He understood our kind far better than Derek ever would.
He knew that, underneath everything, a vampire is still just a person.
Derek’s easy acceptance made him an oddity. But he’d been a regular for years, close friends with several vampires, and no one knew a single thing about him—other than his claim of being from Wisconsin.
He didn’t have even the faintest hint of a Midwestern accent.
What did creep in, when he was drinking heavily, was a Southern drawl he clearly tried to hide. If I had to guess, I’d say Georgia. Which meant Derek, like me, had spent a good part of his life on the run.
From something. Or someone.
Whatever. Not my problem. Though if it was someone, and they came here with harm in mind, it would likely be the last thing they did. I’d grown rather used to his presence.
Derek, of course, had no business knowing that.
James pulled me back with, “Here,” and passed me a tumbler of blood. My body craved it, but the sight of the crimson liquid made me shudder. Still, I took it.
It was just a dream, I reminded myself. It meant nothing.
“Poppy called,” James added.
I scowled. “Delightful.”
“It’s the third time this week. You keep ignoring her.”
“It’s a bad idea to ignore a witch,” Derek said, shaking his head as though he knew anything at all.
I frowned at him. “Exactly whose side are you on, human?”
He snorted, unrepentant. “Preferably the side that doesn’t get me stuffed into a boiling cauldron.”
“Call her,” James said quietly, before I could retort. “You can’t still be mad at her for failing. She’s willing to try again. And the next full moon is in a couple of days.”
Naturally, I wasn’t angry. Nor had she failed.
Her last attempt had gone beautifully. I could leave anytime I pleased, sail off into the sunset, and start dragging murderous vampires back by the handful.
The plan had worked. The next step was to try it on a vampire who’d lost every trace of humanity.
And if that worked, everything would change for me.
I’d leave my position here. I’d already helped Nathaniel create peace and safety for the city’s supernaturals and humans.
Hell, he was fast on his way to solving Seattle’s homelessness crisis—he and every vampire in Seattle, plus most of the witches.
Partly to unite the city. Partly because Ethan, his mate, had opened his eyes to how bad some people had it.
And because the two of them had unofficially adopted Nimue, the young unhoused person they’d met at the young adult homeless shelter Ethan used to work at.
She was in college now on their dime, calling them every week, full of excitement about the books she was reading. She wanted to be a librarian.
Leave it to Ethan and Nathaniel to choose the most boring one of the bunch.
But the point was, I wasn’t needed. Not really.
And then there was the thing I couldn’t say aloud: that I had already met my mate the night Poppy cast her spell. And if I admitted it, everyone would know.
And then would come the questions. They’d want to know how I felt. They’d be horrified that I had looked my golden chance for an eternity of domestic bliss square in the face and then run the other way.
“She’s going to be at the council meeting tonight,” James said. “You might as well speak to her first. You can’t avoid her forever.”
I downed the glass of blood in two gulps, barely tasting it.
James was a friend—one of the people I’d foolishly let in—and now he thought that meant he could give me advice. My fault. Give someone an inch, and they’ll take a mile. And then ask for more.
I scowled at Derek and James in turn. “Watch me.”