Chapter 26 Sable
SABLE
My blood ran cold.
I can feel them.
The vampire trackers circling Orion territory slid through my awareness like shadows cast by an unseen fire.
They pulsed as pressure points in my skull, each one a migraine waiting to happen.
My vampire heritage answered theirs, calling across miles of forest and stone like a twisted supernatural homing beacon.
At least three of them. Not on Orion lands yet. It’s just a matter of time.
The knowledge came unbidden and unwanted, and it was absolutely terrifying in its clarity.
I pressed my palms against my temples, trying to shut out the sensation, but it was like trying to ignore my own heartbeat.
The connection existed whether I acknowledged it or not, threading through my consciousness with increasing insistence.
“What is that?” Logan asked, his nose in the air. Kenza and Killian entered behind him.
“Smells like fucking,” Kenza announced with her usual tact. “Un-fucking-real.”
“Enough, Kenza.” Logan shut her down with his alpha authority, but his attention remained focused on whatever scent had caught him. “I’m not talking about that.” He looked at Killian. “Do you smell it too?”
“I’m not sure,” Killian replied, his voice hoarse. “I’ve been smelling vampire since they first entered our territory. This isn’t quite that. Or maybe it is. You think they’re closer than we thought?”
“You okay?” Rhys asked me, trying and failing to look casual while his hands shook with barely controlled withdrawal.
“Something like that.” I couldn’t tell him the truth, that I was tracking the vampires through some twisted vampire GPS system embedded in my DNA. That every moment I used my ability to track them, I was probably sending signals right back to them.
Rhys studied my face with the golden eyes of his wolf. Our forced proximity had made him uncomfortably observant, able to read my moods like weather patterns.
“Stop,” he said quietly.
“Stop what?”
“The guilt. The self-loathing. The Sable emotional cocktail.” He shifted, as if searching for a position that didn’t make his withdrawal symptoms feel worse. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Everything. I’m not telling you everything.
He cocked his head. Shit. I heard that.
My breath caught in my throat. That was supposed to be a thought only for myself. Had I lost all control of my thoughts through our bond?
Logan shook his head, apparently missing our silent exchange.
“I must be scenting them through the wind patterns. Which can only mean they’re close.
” His eyes swept over Rhys and me, taking in details that probably painted an uncomfortable picture.
“We’ve got updated intelligence on the vampire situation and the Council. ”
The vampire presence in my head pulsed stronger, closer. On Orion lands now.
Northwest, circling toward the main settlement.
I glanced at Rhys to see if he’d caught that mental slip, but his attention had shifted to Logan, and it appeared I had my thoughts back to myself.
“They’ve established a base camp just inside the Blackwood border,” Killian reported. “At least six confirmed vampires, possibly more.”
But only three are on Orion lands, I thought, careful to keep my observation buried Rhys didn’t hear.
“After what you both went through in Blackwood, I don’t want you on the front lines when they arrive,” Logan continued, then paused, a troubled expression flickering across his face.
“But?” Rhys prompted.
“I distinctly sense they’re coming here.
To the safe house.” Logan’s jaw tightened as he looked directly at his brother.
“I don’t think they want me, or they wouldn’t be heading this way—they’d have come to the main town.
They want you. And there’s no fucking way they’re getting to my last remaining brother, my beta, my only family—”
“Hey.” Rhys crossed the space between them and placed a steadying hand on Logan’s shoulder. “I look rough, I know that—”
“You smell fucked up,” Logan added bluntly.
“—but after what we faced in Blackwood,” Rhys continued, shooting me a meaningful look, “I think Sable and I are best placed to learn the real reason they’re here.”
Don’t tell him, I pleaded through our bond. Don’t reveal what I am. Not yet.
I’m not, he replied. I caught the underlying tension in his mental voice.
Another pulse hit my head, stronger than before. The vampire who’d been circling northwest was closer. Close enough that I could taste his commitment to his mission on the back of my tongue—metallic and cold and utterly determined.
“That’s rich,” Kenza interjected. “I’ve been scouting out vampires since I was a pup, but the compromised beta and traitor Heraclid think they can take this on?”
“Back off, Kenza,” Killian interjected. “Show a little respect.”
I looked around the room, weighing my words. What I was about to suggest would expose more than I wanted to reveal, but it might be the only way to save everyone.
“We can use their own methods against them,” I said. “Track their movements, anticipate their strategies. Prepare with information instead of just force.”
Kenza’s eyes narrowed to slits. “And how exactly would we do that? We’re wolves, not mind readers.”
But I am, I thought. At least when it comes to vampires.
“I’ve always had enhanced senses,” I said slowly. “Abilities that might be useful in this kind of situation.” I smiled at Kenza, hoping the expression conveyed exactly how much I wanted to punch her in the face. “Crux benefit.”
“What can you do?” Logan asked, his alpha instincts clearly picking up on my reluctance to elaborate.
Before I could answer, Rhys swayed hard enough that he had to catch himself against the wall. The withdrawal was accelerating, probably triggered by the stress of the meeting and the approaching vampire that his wolf could sense even if he couldn’t consciously identify it.
“You need to rest a second,” I said, knowing it was a mistake, but unable to watch him suffer.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his pupils were dilated.
“You’re not.” I moved toward him without thinking, my body responding to his distress before my mind could catch up. The bond between us was taut with his pain, making my own chest ache in sympathy.
“Sable,” he said quietly, warning threading through his voice.
I was already reaching for him, my hands finding his face to check his pulse and assess the damage our temporary physical separation had caused.
The moment my skin touched his, electricity crackled between us like I was touching a live wire.
My vampire nature recognized his wolf, and both supernatural sides surged toward each other with desperate relief.
The transformation was immediate. Color returned to Rhys’s face, his breathing deepened, and the tremor in his hands disappeared. My own abilities surged with renewed power, the vampire presences in my head becoming clearer, more defined.
Which was when I realized everyone in the room was staring at us.
“Interesting,” Kenza said. “Care to explain why touching him makes you both look like you’ve been plugged into a power grid?”
Shit.
I dropped my hands, but the damage was done. Rhys looked better—healthier, stronger, more like the formidable beta he was supposed to be. I could feel my own abilities humming with renewed energy. The connection between us was obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.
“It’s complicated,” I said lamely.
“Uncomplicate it,” Logan demanded with enough alpha authority in his voice that my spine straightened in automatic submission.
One of the vampire presences in my head spiked so violently that I gasped and staggered.
Close. Too close. Moving fast.
“Someone’s here,” I breathed.
“What?” Logan’s body shifted into combat readiness.
“One of them is—” I spun toward the window, my enhanced senses screaming warnings. “Northwest. Maybe a quarter mile and closing fast.”
“How do you know that?” Kenza demanded.
There was no time to explain. Through the window and among the trees, I caught a flicker of movement that was too fluid, too purposeful to be anything natural. A shadow that moved independently of wind or light, flowing through the forest with a predatory intent that made my hybrid nature recoil.
“Everyone take cover,” I snapped, vampire instincts taking over. “Now.”
To their credit, they didn’t argue. Behind furniture, under windows, in the kitchen—years of pack training kicked in, and within seconds the room was clear of obvious targets.
I sent out a pulse from my fingertips to sense how close he was and to temporarily cloak our position.
I could still feel the presence approaching.
Not just hunger. Recognition. He knows I’m here.
“Sable,” Rhys said, from where he’d crouched behind the couch, “what’s happening?”
“A scout,” I whispered, peering around the edge of the curtain. “Testing our defenses.”
The shadow crept closer, its attention brushing down my spine like cold fingers. Probing. Looking for weaknesses in whatever magical defenses the pack had erected around this place.
He didn’t know I could feel him, didn’t realize my hybrid nature made me a living radar for his kind. That arrogance would be his undoing.
I let my own power unfurl—not the silver magic everyone expected from me, but the darker heritage I’d spent years suppressing. Vampire calling to vampire in the spaces between trees, using frequencies that bypassed normal supernatural senses entirely.
His presence stuttered in surprise, then surged forward.
Found you, his mental voice whispered across the supernatural frequencies only we could access.
Did you? I whispered back and struck.