Sunfall Read online

  The Humvee’s engine roared in our ears, making all but the most necessary conversation impossible between the front and back seats. Alexa curled up with her back against my side, allowing both of us to remain vigilant even as we stayed in close contact. The forested landscape outside the windows passed in a dark blur broken only occasionally by the ghostly reach of the moonlight.

  Several hours into the journey, Alexa lifted my right hand and pressed her lips to my knuckles. “I think we should buy a home in the country.”

  I smiled, daring to glance at her for just a moment before returning my attention to the night. “Tell me more. I want to be able to see the picture in your head.”

  “There are several,” she said, barely audible above the throbbing engine. “Sometimes I think of a large house on its own mountain in Vermont or New Hampshire. Other times, I see a smaller home on the coast. Massachusetts, maybe, or Maine.”

  “We could combine those visions if we bought a mountainous island.”

  She laughed. “We have more money than I’d ever dreamed of, but not enough to purchase an island.”

  “Not yet,” I conceded. “But we will. We will, baby.”

  When she let out a quiet sigh of contentment and shifted against me, I felt my heart expand as though it were a balloon. Before Alexa, my life had been a constant battle—against my family, my expectations, and sometimes even myself. She granted me a measure of serenity I’d barely known to hope for. Even now, with the very pillars of our world in jeopardy of destruction, the core of my soul knew only peace.

  My satphone rang. As the call connected, the sound of gunfire pierced my ear. Heart suddenly thundering in my chest, I shouted for Foster to pull over.

  “Val!” Summers’s voice was labored. “Ran into Brenner’s scouts. Car totaled. In a firefight.”

  “Stay put! We’re coming to get you.”

  “Don’t—”

  The call went dead, swallowing whatever he had been about to say. “Summers? Summers! Damn it!”

  “Tell me their position,” Karma said, her voice eerily calm as she struggled to keep her jackal from reacting to the emotional moment.

  I read off the coordinates logged by the phone. As she keyed them into the GPS, I double-checked the readiness of my pistol before stuffing it into my waistband.

  “We can be there inside half an hour,” Karma said. “Maybe less. Devon, you’ll want to keep on this road to—”

  “Wait,” Foster cut in. “Are we sure we should go charging into this? Didn’t I hear Leon say ‘don’t’ before the connection broke off?”

  “We have no idea what else he was going to say,” said Alexa.

  “But our first commitment is to Tian and the mission.”

  I handed my shotgun to Alexa, threw off my seat belt, and opened the door. “We are not leaving them to fend for themselves. Get the fuck out of that seat. I’m driving.”

  Displeasure was written in every line of Foster’s face, but she obeyed. “If this goes to shit, Val, I’m holding you responsible.”

  “Works for me.”

  No sooner had the back door closed behind her than we were in motion. I pushed the vehicle to its limits, swerving around hairpin curves and accelerating down steep slopes, capitalizing on our momentum.

  With less than a mile to go, I checked my seat belt. “Choose your targets carefully,” I shouted over the engine’s whine. “The scene could be a mess.”

  “One thousand feet,” said Karma as we made a steep, winding ascent. “Seven fifty.”

  The throb of the engine eased as we crested the slope. I kept the accelerator fully depressed, and we rocketed down the far side.

  “Lean right!” We careened into an S-turn, and I felt the car lift onto two wheels for several breathtaking seconds before finally crashing back to earth. And then, quite suddenly, we were upon them.

  The other Humvee had somehow turned onto its side and was dangling precariously off a steep embankment to the right, just a hundred feet ahead. Gunfire arced between it and two Jeeps blocking the road.

  “Brace!”

  Allowing instinct to guide me, I braked hard and swerved, sending the car into a dizzying series of rotations. When its back fender broadsided one Jeep and sent it tumbling off the road, satisfaction trumped the bolts of agony that shot up my arms and into my shoulders. As soon as our car came to rest, I threw open the door and somersaulted out, flowing back onto my feet without a hitch. I zigged and zagged in an effort to stay out of the line of fire, but my footprints were easily traceable. No sooner had I pressed my back to a large tree for cover than the hollow thunk of bullets into bark erupted all around me. At least I was drawing their fire. If they were focused on me, Alexa would be safe. She would also be dangerous.

  I closed my eyes to heighten my hearing. Weres made very little noise even in human form, but the quiet snap of a twig and the soft rustle of undergrowth to my left might not simply be the night air. Holding my breath, hands closed around the grip of my firearm, I waited for my adversary to make another move.

  The dull thud of deadweight impacting snow brought the darkness alight with renewed gunfire. I spun toward the sound and shot one of Brenner’s soldiers in the head as he raised his own weapon to fire at Alexa. Jaws bloodied, she stood atop the body of another man, his neck bent at an impossible angle. Our gazes locked for one inexpressible moment before she bent to satisfy her hunger.

  I watched over her while she fed, combing the surrounding woods for any sign of attack. Despite the visibility of our most recent battle, I sensed no reinforcements. Once Alexa had finished, we slowly worked our way back toward the vehicles, darting from tree to tree. As we finally reached the road, Karma and Constantine, both in human form, stepped out in front of the tilted Humvee and began debating whether it could make the rest of the trip.

  My first instinct was to force them back under cover. If any of Brenner’s scouts were still lurking in the darkness, Karma and Constantine risked getting picked off. And then I realized they had positioned themselves as bait.

  I gestured to Alexa to move left while I went right and then picked my way slowly across the frozen landscape, alert to the smallest sign of disruption. A gust of wind made the pine needles rustle like bones. Several feet away, a thin layer of snow fell from an overburdened branch.

  Suddenly, a black blur whizzed past me only to be brought up short by the throaty report of a shotgun. Blood fountained into the air, warm and metallic, burning through the snow as it fell. I ran forward toward the shooter, pistol extended, giving voice to the scream of rage that welled up in my throat. He died quickly, and I collapsed to the ground beside Alexa. She had seen him. She had saved me.

  The shell had ripped into her chest, but even as her heartbeat faltered, her body blurred. She emerged into human form naked, gasping, curled in a pool of her own gore. Almost immediately, her teeth began to chatter.

  I slipped one arm under her neck and the other beneath her knees, heedless of everything but the need to keep her safe.

  Chapter Eleven

  My brain had split in two. As I emerged onto the road, part of me remembered to call out “Clear,” and “I need a blanket,” even as fear and anger and the need for vengeance curdled in my gut.

  I knew the moment Karma and Constantine scented all the blood. Karma gasped. Constantine took a step toward me.

  “Is she all right?”

  Karma ran for the back of our Humvee, and I heard warped hinges protest as she opened the trunk. Moments later, she spread out a blanket on the ground at my feet. I lowered Alexa down to it as carefully as if she were made of glass, then cupped the side of her face with the hand that wasn’t covered in her blood. She blinked up at me, her breaths coming fast and shallow. I wanted to bury my fist into the asphalt. Why did she look so dazed? Why wasn’t she speaking?

  “Val.” Karma rested a hand between my shoulder blades. “Tell me what happened.”

  “She was shot in the heart.” My voice snarled on
another surge of fury. “Her pulse…I felt it falter. She was almost gone, and then she shifted.”

  Constantine crouched next to us. “Sometimes, when a transformation is motivated by extreme trauma, there’s a bit of shell shock afterward.” He uncorked his canteen and pulled an energy bar out of one vest pocket. “May I?”

  I nodded and he gently slipped his hand behind her head, raising her into a sitting position. When he tilted the canteen against her lips, she sipped at the water. That small, simple movement sent relief cascading through so sharply that my breath caught.

  Karma leaned in close. “You’re covered in her blood, Val,” she whispered. “Go change. We’ll get her to eat something, too. She’ll recover quickly.”

  I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, but neither did I want to remind her of the trauma she’d just endured. Forcing my legs into motion, I backed away from the blanket and hurried to our vehicle. Across the road, Malcolm, Summers, and Foster were trying to right the second Humvee. Without a care for modesty, I stripped, rolled my soiled clothes into a bundle, and scrubbed myself quickly with clean snow. My skin grew taut and pebbled, but I didn’t feel the chill.

  As the signs of Alexa’s near-death experience melted onto the pavement, her voice pierced the night like a lighthouse beacon. I dressed quickly and hurried back to the blanket, where Karma was helping her into new clothes. When she saw me, she closed the distance between us with no regard for her bare feet. I cradled her face in my hands and kissed her tenderly.

  “That was too close. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, palms stroking over my shoulders. “A little shaken up at first, but that’s passed.”

  I pulled her close, resting my cheek against her silky hair. “You saved my life. Again.”

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she murmured against my clean vest. “It was instinctive. You would have done the same thing.”

  For a long moment I blocked everything out—the biting cold, Summers hurling invectives at the Humvee, the urgency of our mission. Alexa was alive and in my arms, her heartbeat synced with mine.

  “We need to move,” Malcolm ordered, breaking my reverie. “The Humvee is a lost cause. We’ll take their operational Jeep.”

  While Alexa laced up a new pair of boots, I joined the small group transferring our supplies between vehicles. Within minutes, we were ready to leave. I glanced at my watch, steeling myself for the tense hours ahead as we tried to outrun the daylight.

  Malcolm shared my sense of urgency. “Stay together. The Jeep will lead. If we push hard, we can arrive before sunrise.”

  Foster didn’t argue when I took the wheel, and Karma conceded the passenger’s side to Alexa. I set a blistering pace away from the scene of the shootout, channeling my leftover adrenaline into navigating the sharp curves of the mountain road at top speed. Whenever I could, I rested one hand on Alexa’s knee. Anchoring myself.

  The Jeep was much quieter than the Humvee had been, and as we drew closer to Prince George without further mishaps, the conversation turned to the object of our quest. Rumors abounded about Tian, Blood Prime of the Sunrunners—the largest and arguably most powerful vampire clan.

  “How old is she?” Karma asked. “Does anyone actually know?”

  “Rumor has it she’s the oldest vampire alive,” said Foster. “But no one except her most trusted servants knows anything for certain.”

  “Even Helen has never met her,” I chimed in.

  “Really?” Alexa sounded shocked, and Karma’s expression mirrored her tone.

  For the majority of us, Helen Lambros epitomized power and success. She oversaw the most important district of the Consortium and had charge of the Order of Mithras. Over two-hundred years old, she commanded the respect of her peers around the world. And yet, she had never been invited to a face-to-face with Tian.

  “You had quite a few dealings with her lieutenant, didn’t you, Val?” asked Foster.

  “Bai. Yes.” I saw again the motionless form on the stretcher—shoulders dislocated, ribs a mass of bruises, face beaten to a bloody pulp. Brenner’s soldiers had not been merciful. They had delivered him alive, but without immediate medical intervention, he would have certainly died within hours.

  “What’s he like?” asked Karma. “Did you learn anything more about Tian from him?”

  I thought back to my business transactions with Bai. We had only met twice, once in my office at the bank and once in my suite at Tartarus. He had been an impressive negotiator, but never once had his professional façade slipped—except to betray the impersonal and unrelenting thirst that was the shared legacy of all vampires.

  “Charismatic, but cold. A shrewd businessman. Accustomed to getting what he wants.”

  “It sounds like he learned from the best,” said Alexa.

  Silence descended then, and I glanced at the clock to find that it was past five o’clock in the morning. Sunrise was just over an hour away.

  I smoothed my palm over Alexa’s thigh to get her attention. “Will you call Malcolm to confirm Tian’s coordinates? And then let’s go over the route a few times.”

  I didn’t say what I was thinking—that there could be no mistakes now. One wrong turn might mean the difference between life and death for Foster. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror, but she looked out on the gradually brightening sky with an inscrutable expression. I reached for Alexa’s hand and squeezed it briefly, hoping she could understand just how thankful I was to be able to watch the day dawn with joy and not despair.

  After exchanging a few words over the satellite phone, Alexa began to punch numbers into her GPS.

  “No change. Malcolm says she’s settling in for daylight. The safe house is in the suburbs, south and west of Prince George.”

  The road led us down out of the mountains into a wide valley, where signs of human life became more and more prevalent. I eased off the accelerator. The last thing we wanted to do was attract the attention of local law enforcement.

  Prince George, Alexa informed us as she read from the GPS, lay at the junction of two mountain ranges and two rivers. Right now, the latter were most likely frozen.

  “Maybe we should come back for a ski vacation,” I said. “You know, when we’re not so preoccupied.”

  Alexa laughed. Karma smiled and shook her head. Foster didn’t react. Her entire being was focused on the east. Nothing I said or did would be able to distract her from the dread that welled up in each altered cell of her body.

  I turned from the highway onto a sinuous country road running parallel to one tributary of the river. Houses sprang up more and more frequently, punctuated by restaurants, general stores, and small shopping centers. Alexa directed us into a neighborhood where the homes looked as though they’d been stamped out by a cookie cutter. Nondescript boxes covered by steep roofs—a testament to how heavy the snow could be, I guessed—they only varied in the color of siding, trim, and shutters.

  “This reminds me of my hometown,” said Alexa.

  Karma reached forward to squeeze her shoulder. “This reminds me of Jersey.”

  Tension trumped my urge to laugh at her wisecrack. We scanned the streets for any sign that Brenner’s soldiers had managed to head us off or track down Tian’s location, but on the surface at least, everything seemed normal. Slowly, the neighborhood was coming to life in preparation for the new day. Lights were just flickering on in several houses, and a few early-risers were out collecting their newspapers or warming up their cars. One man walking his dog stopped to scrutinize us as we passed, but his attention wasn’t prolonged.

  “Caravanning with a Humvee isn’t exactly helping us keep a low profile,” I said.

  “It would be much worse if we weren’t in northern Canada.” Karma pointed to several of the driveways ahead, where trucks and Jeeps were in high supply. “We won’t stand out too much.”

  As I turned onto a cul-de-sac, Alexa pointed straight ahead. “That’s the one.”

  The
house was beige, its shutters and door crimson. A minivan, windows rimed with frost, stood in the driveway. I pulled alongside the curb and turned off the engine.

  “You’re sure.”

  Alexa glanced from the GPS to the house and back again. “Positive.”

  I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes until sunrise. If we were wrong, or if this was a trap, Foster and Summers would pay the ultimate price. No one had emerged from the vehicle behind us, so I took the initiative. As I stepped onto the driveway, I positioned the car door as a shield between my body and the house while I scanned its windows for any sign of a weapon.

  “Looks quiet,” Alexa said as she joined me.

  And then the garage door opened. Alexa at my side, I moved forward just far enough to see inside. Clean swept and empty save for a set of shelves at the back holding several boxes, it didn’t look like a hideout—which was, of course, the point. Neither did the tall man who stood in the entrance look the part of a servant of the most powerful vampire in the world. He wore a faded pair of jeans and a dark sweater, and he beckoned urgently to us.

  “Inside,” he hissed. “Quickly.”

  “Babe?” I knew she could tell his species by scent.

  “He’s human.”

  Of the humans who were aware of the existence of vampires and wereshifters, some had allied with the Consortium and some against. I couldn’t help feeling suspicious, but we were running out of options.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that the occupants of the other car had formed a loose semicircle behind us. At Malcolm’s nod, we joined the man inside the garage. He shut the door immediately and drew a thick dark curtain across its windows. Foster’s eyes closed briefly, her shoulders loosening in relief.

  “Too fucking close,” muttered Summers.

  “I am Jonah,” the man said. “One of Lady Tian’s personal servants.” He withdrew a small rectangular device from his pocket. “Before I can allow you to enter, your identity must be verified.”

  The portable fingerprint device worked quickly, and within a few minutes, Jonah was leading us into the kitchen. It looked exactly as I had expected—medium-grade appliances, linoleum tiling, and faux-marble counters. A chrome-plated teakettle was steaming on the stove, and the scent of garlic and soy sauce lingered in the air.