Page 32 of Happily Undead in Dark River

Finally, the pressure of his power subsided around the room, pulling back into Brody like an attack dog he could command.

“Miranda has renewed the wards, at a significant cost. She assures me that they would hold against an army of vampires.”

I could feel the weight of every set of eyes in that room. I could almost read their thoughts; who will protect them from the vampire inside their wards?

There were several issues discussed at the Meeting House that night, everything from an apple shortage due to severe weather in another part of Canada, to evacuation plans in the case that Miranda’s wards failed. I’d eventually taken a seat beside Tex and settled in, resting my head on his shoulder. I was getting hungry being this close to his jugular, but I kept it in check. I didn’t want to prove Brody’s mother right.

Eventually, around midnight, everyone drifted away to their homes, and I stood stiffly in the back corner, trying to be inconspicuous. I’d expected resistance, but the glares I got as people shuffled out seemed to be a bit extreme considering these people had never met me. I guess Brody’s mom was a little more compelling than Nell or Brody imagined.

Brody and Nell were the last to leave, talking quietly, their heads tilted close. Brody’s eyes shifted to me, a small, private smile on his lips that dragged one from me too. Finally, they both walked over. Nell smiled broadly at me. “Right. It was nice to meet you, Raine. Come to dinner tomorrow night with the family.”

“Uh, will your daughter be there?” I asked, wincing.

Nell shook her head sadly. “No. She has guard duty tomorrow. She is shackled by her views, that one.”

With that, she left surrounded by other, equally as old women.

“No, Mr. Nell?” I asked Brody on the way back to his house.

He shook his head sadly. “No. He died in the Shifter Wars when I was a teenager. He was Alpha before me.”

Poor Nell. Poor Brody, to be Alpha so young.

We walked back toward Brody’s house and I appreciated the silence of the town. There was no power out here, the whole place was run off the grid. Solar, wind power, hydro; this town was a testament to sustainable living. They had working farms, growing and selling seasonal produce. Hunting groups cultivated and caught herds of goats, deer and wild sheep. The whole place was pretty amazing. The stillness of the night was calming out here, something else I hadn’t been able to appreciate given that Dark River was at its busiest this time of night and I was basically trapped inside of a day. Just the peacefulness of empty streets.

Brody gripped my hand and pulled me off the path and onto a dirt track into the woods. “Come on, Pup, switch forms. I have a surprise for Rainey, and I can’t walk there human slow.”

Tex stood on the path, looking awkward as hell. He peeled off his shirt and pants and boxers until he was standing naked in the middle of the street. Shifters, right?

Then his body stretched and contorted, and where Tex had stood was a huge Python. Its body was the circumference of my torso, and it had to be over twenty feet long. It slithered over, its long body undulating sinuously. It wound its way through my legs, it scales soft and warm. It curled its tail and sat up so it was eye height. It had Tex’s amazing blue eyes. “You’re beautiful,” I whispered, running my hand around the slick muscle of its body. “Bet you miss having thumbs though, right?”

Brody laughed. “Come on, you overgrown slinky. I got something special to show you both.” He started to run through the darkness, and I ran after him. Between one breath and the next, he shifted into his fox, his clothes left behind in the woods. I ran faster to keep up with the agile fox. I could hear the steady crunching as Tex slithered faster than I imagined possible behind us. Definitely faster than the average python.

The fox gave me a toothy grin and yipped, hurdling a log. I jumped too, laughing as my head flowed behind me, my blouse billowing in the slight breeze. I felt free in the darkness.

Chapter Seventeen

We ran for fifteen minutes before Brody the Fox skittered to a stop and shifted back to a very naked Brody the Human. His long hair blew around his beautiful bronze skin, and he looked as wild and free as these woods. My heart constricted in my chest. I loved him. So very much.

Tex transformed behind me. “Dude. I’m a python. We aren’t marathon runners, you know?” he puffed out.

Brody made a rude noise. “We’re here. Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Follow me.”

An odd scent tickled my nose, and I felt like it was a scent I should recognize. We walked a little further, and the ground was rough and uneven. I heard Tex curse behind me, his fingers touching the waistband of my pants as he slid down the steep incline.

Finally, the path evened out. “Okay, open your eyes, Red.”

The smell was sulphuric. He’d brought me to the most beautiful little grotto with a natural hot spring. The steam was visible in the moonlight, and the water was an inky mirror.

“Wow,” I breathed. I was peeling my clothes off even as I said the word. I looked over my shoulder. “It’s a hot spring. Lucky you are already naked,” I said to Tex, whose nose was twitching.

Brody waded into the water, and he looked like a forest god. I reached out for Tex’s hand, putting it on my shoulder, as I stepped into the pool. The steaming water burned my toes for a moment, but my body acclimatized slowly as I walked toward Brody. He was sitting down on what must be a natural rock bench on the other side of the pool. Submerged up to my waist, Tex dropped his hand from my shoulder and I let my body sink into the water, moaning. It was so good. Every muscle relaxed into the water, I just wanted to sink further and further down. So I did. I didn’t need to breathe, so I let my weight carry me to the very bottom. I looked up at the full moon, my hair swaying in the water like seaweed. Eventually swam back up because I knew it would freak the guys out if I stayed down too long. I was totally going scuba diving one day when I could stand the sun.

I waded over to Brody and sat in his lap. “This is perfect,” I whispered into the cacophony of the night. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close. “You are perfect. This is just a natural phenomenon.”

He set me between his knees and rubbed my shoulders in the hot water. Oh. My. God. It was bliss. I was dead. It was better than sex. Okay, that was an exaggeration. Better than any sex I’d had before being turned into a vampire. There, that's more accurate.

Tex sat further along the bench and hooked one of my feet with his hands. He rubbed my feet while Brody worked the knots from my shoulders and I wanted to cry. How had I gotten so lucky? How had the worst night of my life resulted in some of the best moments imaginable? There was nothing sexual about the gesture from either of them, everyone was just completely relaxed as we floated there and talked. We talked about what Tex would do now he was a permanent citizen of Dark River and Nîso. We talked about what it was like to be Alpha, and Brody gave us both a short history of the Shifter Wars that had killed his father and their former Alpha, Brody’s grandfather. Apparently, it used to be every Pack for itself, but when they decided to join the Convocation, there was an argument about how they would be represented. Should it be the Wolf Shifters, who were the most prolific? The Shapeshifters, who were longest lived? A mythological, who usually had little to do with the modern world but had strict, sometimes outdated, moral codes? Each race thought it should be one of theirs. That argument turned into bloodshed, with a war that went for nearly a decade and killed a large portion of the adult populations of a lot of different races. In the end, they found a shifter type that had no allegiance to any clan. A practical immortal. A King among Shifters. A motherfucking Dragon shifter. Then apparently they created the Shifter Council, their version of the Vampire Nation, to nut out any problems before it came to war. They did it all democratic-like, by vote.

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