Page 7 of Blood and Magic
I glanced back at my sister. “We’re done here.”
“Sure,” she said. I turned to leave, but she grabbed my arm to stop me. “I need to see you back after the next moon.”
“Right,” I answered, knowing I had no intention of doing that. Whatever had been done to me had no prognosis. I’d just have to wait it out until I eventually recovered or wasted away.
I followed Fenris through the underground tunnels connecting our homestead buildings. He rambled about the upcoming shipment and how he’d volunteered to help out at Vanderbilt Ranch, especially when he found out I’d been volun-told to run things.
“You’re gonna need me,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of land and more cattle than I’ve ever handled before.”
While he talked, I thought about what I’d say to Kodiak and if there was any way to get out of this. I had to find Marx. I had to clean up this fucking mess before he came back for more blood. If I knew anything about those bloodsucking pricks, they wouldn’t let something like this go. We’d attacked them, stolen the president’s fiancée, and killed half their nest. He’d be back, and we’d have to be ready.
Once upon a time, we used to have bad blood with the Vanderbilts, too. Uther Vanderbilt thought the Bastards had killed his wife, so he made a deal with the Scorpions to send them into pack territory during a full moon. They took out nearly two dozen males, females, and children, our parents included, before the previous alpha was able to stop them.
It had been this rage that sent me to Vanderbilt Ranch all those years ago.
I thought I could get revenge. I thought I could infiltrate them and learn their secrets and report back to Kodiak. I’d never counted on developing a friendship with Guin Vanderbilt. I’d never guessed she’d turn out to be a shifter, too. I’d spent one summer with their family before coming home with a whole host of new problems to keep me up at night.
Then, six months ago, Sol crashed her SUV on Bastard territory and was rescued by Orion. While stuck at Fiver Cabin with the veep, Lycan, and Poe, she’d gone through the transition—a painful process where the shifter magic activated inside a human, a kind of second adolescence. Pack children couldn’t shift; the magic would be too strong and overwhelm them, potentially killing them. It was only when a shifter reached their early to midtwenties that their preternatural side took root, and they needed another shifter to help them through it, to lie with them and give them their magic in blood, saliva, and seed.
I’d been the one who helped Guin. Orion had helped Sol. Now, they both turned into a fox every full moon with the rest of the pack. When it was just Guin, she changed on her own on Vanderbilt property. Now that it was the two of them, I didn’t know how they kept it from the rest of their siblings. But that wasn’t my problem.
Once that mating had been sealed, Kodiak struck up a stupid deal for a reciprocal work share. We helped them with their land, they injected our homestead with cash, and never two nicer bedfellows did such former enemies make.
“Anyway,” Fenris said when we got to Kodiak’s office. “You’re the right guy for the job. It’ll be good for you to get out of the den and back out on the pasture. And I’ll be there to help you.”
I nodded but didn’t acknowledge how much I disagreed with him. He clapped me on the shoulder and turned to walk away. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself against the onslaught I was about to face before knocking twice on Kodiak’s door and waiting for his reply.
When I walked inside, the alpha sat behind his desk, writing on a piece of paper. At six-six and well over two hundred fifty pounds of muscle, he made the furniture look like a tea set for a little girl. That was how he’d gotten his road name. He was bigger than a grizzly as a wolf and damn near as terrifying in both forms.
“Vermillion,” he said, glancing up with a smile as he gestured to the seat in front of him.
I took a deep breath and sat as I tried to unclench my muscles. Working at Vanderbilt Ranch wouldn’t be hard, not even close to a stint up at Fiver Cabin. That tiny fucking shack was in the middle of nowhere on top of a mountain. Why we hung on to it, I’d never know.
“You wanted to see me?” I cleared my throat and met the alpha’s gaze. Because he was so connected to all of us, he saw through me. His typically brown eyes were flecked with red when his beast was close to the surface, and now, both of them read me like a book.
“How are you doing?” Placing his elbows on the sides of his chair, he steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, awaiting my answer.
“Fine,” I said. Not technically a lie, even if it wasn’t the entire truth.
“You look…” His incendiary gaze swept over me, from my dirty blond hair down to my shitkickers and back up again. “Tired.”
A million retorts bounced around in my head, each one more petulant than the last. But I didn’t say any of them. Kodiak wouldn’t put up with it anyway, and I didn’t feel like adding an ass-beating to my itinerary.
“Are you sleeping?” He raised an eyebrow.
“C’mon, Prez,” I said. “I already got the grill from my sister. Do we have to go through the formalities? You need me to take over Vanderbilt Ranch.”
Kodiak pursed his lips. “That’s right, I do. With Orion leaving for his honeymoon and half the damn council on a run, you’re my best option. You used to moonlight there in your early twenties, right?”
I nodded, ignoring the lump in my chest at the thought of returning to my old stomping grounds. I didn’t know why. Guin and I had left things on friendly terms. She’d even helped bring me back to life last November. Something about venturing back into quasi-enemy territory set my teeth on edge and had my wolf stretching in preparation for a fight.
“So it shouldn’t be too much of an issue to take things over from Orion for a few weeks.” He phrased it like a statement rather than a question.
“No,” I replied. “I’m happy to help.”
Kodiak narrowed his eyes. “Are you?”
“Sure.” I coughed to clear my throat and tensed to keep myself from squirming under his stare. I was a dominant wolf, high ranking in the pack. But the alpha was alpha for a reason. The only one who could come close to matching him was Orion, and even then, Kodiak could pummel him in minutes.
