The chilly and breezy fifty-degree afternoon felt more like a hot beach day in August around Aric. The closer he drew me in, the more the warmth accelerated between us. If anything, I needed a cold drink to squelch back the intensity. “No, thank you. I’m fine, wolf.”

“How about wine with dinner following our walk?” Taran suggested.

Aric’s hand skimmed down my back. “Even better,” he murmured.

We reached the end of the alleyway and stepped onto the worn, frozen path. The snow had melted, but it seemed the grass hadn’t quite recovered from the winter’s bashing. The rain and warming sunshine of April would soon resuscitate it. Come summer, the shop owners would struggle to maintain the large section of lawn. For now it lay asleep. Parts of it yellow, other parts balding. Only a few shoots of green daring to make an appearance.

The path widened as we traveled up a small incline leading into the forest. “Would you like to have dinner with me?” Taran asked Gemini. She tried to sound casual, but I recognized the underlying hope. He hadn’t, after all, responded to her suggestion.

Gemini gave a stiff nod but didn’t speak. And his silence wasn’t due to his shyness. His entire demeanor changed as the thick-pined forest swallowed us whole. His dark watchful eyes took everything in. Except he wasn’t the only predator reacting to unknown territory. Aric’s touch turned from affectionate to protective once the trees shadowed the path and blocked out the faint afternoon sun. My tigress stepped forward, sharpening our sense of smell, sight, and hearing. Even Taran knew better than to speak. Chitchat didn’t allow the full use of our senses.

My ears focused on the sounds of the forest, ignoring the way Taran’s boots passed along the hard ground. Ravens cawed in the distance and a few chipmunks and rabbits scampered along the crisp pine needles. As we drew farther in, the sounds of the forest reduced to the brush of branches in the wind. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Just us.

The world of the living vanished in one gradual space of time. “Do you feel that?” I whispered to Aric.

Aric nodded. “Yeah. Stay close to me.”

Funny. That was usually my line to my sisters when evil was afoot.

The path curved to follow along the Truckee River. The melting snow from the mountains had caused the river to rise to the edge. Chunks of ice slid over the roaring rapids. I shuddered, dreading an accidental soak. Swimming remained a skill I’d never mastered. And by the looks of the raging stream, it wasn’t an optimal place to learn. Note to self. Avoid having some scary evil thing take you for a dip.

The firs along the river dwindled. Benches fashioned from tree trunks rested between the more open spots. A beautiful place to enjoy, I supposed, minus the intensifying creepiness digging a hole into my chest.

The growing heaviness forced Gemini to escort Taran next to me so he and Aric could flank our sides. But then something stirred in the wind, like the heavy sweep of an invisible sail. Pained howls blasted my ears, and the gallop of massive paws shook the ground beneath our feet, sending pebbles to roll like marbles along the trail. Taran instinctively reached for me. The wolves didn’t possess her ingrained response. Then again, they never had my unique ability to rely on. I grasped their wrists and shifted the four of us far beneath the ground. My rare gift broke down our bodies into tiny molecules, minute enough to pass across the packed earth. We surfaced in the thickness of the woods just as a herd of black bears raced past us along the path.

We probably could have sprinted out of the way, but I would have risked contacting one of the bears. Animals and my “weirdness” didn’t play nice. With my protective shields down, I’d fall to the ground in a massive seizure and emerge as Celia the Bear. Considering that I’d have no way to change back to Celia the sort-of-human or Celia the formidable tigress, shifting us from harm seemed like the ideal way to go.

Aric’s and Gemini’s mouths parted as they examined their forms. I’d never shifted them before and they seemed surprised all their important parts remained intact. “Sorry. I didn’t have time to warn you.” My face heated, but my unease kept me from experiencing the full range of my humiliation.

“It’s all right,” Aric said. We stepped back onto the path cautiously, unsure what lay ahead. Aric didn’t finish watching the bears disappear around the bend. Instead his preternatural side searched where I searched, in the direction they’d run from. “Gem,” he said, his voice bordering close to a growl.

Gemini slipped his sweater over his head, revealing the muscular T-build common of all wolves. Taran’s jaw fell open and I think she might have drooled. “Will you hold this?” he asked.

She nodded. This time it was her turn to fall speechless. Gemini cracked his neck from side to side. A large black wolf punched his head through Gemini’s back, sniffing the air. Like solidifying ink, he slid his powerful form onto the hard soil and sped off in a blur of black. The human half of Gemini that remained blinked his dark eyes. “Come. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Gemini’s ability to split into two remained, hands down, the coolest supernatural feat I’d ever seen. Taran squeaked when he whisked her into his arms and raced after Aric and me.

My tigress made us fast, faster than wolves. Common sense, and the realization that “danger lurked, Will Robinson,” kept me from bolting ahead. Aric still felt I moved too quick despite being a breath behind me. “Don’t get ahead of me, Celia.”

“I found it,” Gemini’s low voice said behind us. “This way.”

The path veered in two separate directions. One led deeper into the woods. Gemini kept us on the one paralleling the river.

The sour stench of death stung my nose just as Gemini’s other half appeared before us, baring his teeth. We followed behind him. Our pace slowing as we ambled down a small, steep hill where an abandoned mill hugged the edge of the river. The large broken wheel sat in the water, moving just enough to squeal. The rest of the large structure dented inward where the moss-covered roof had partially collapsed. A death trap in the making, and one long forgotten. Someone should have demolished it decades ago, but the small town didn’t strike me as possessing funds to see its destruction through.

The closer we neared the mill, the more the foul odor increased, its acidic scent sharp enough to make my eyes water. “Son of a bitch,” Taran muttered. Her blue eyes blanched to clear. Something skulked inside. And it didn’t want us there.

Aric whispered into his phone. “We found something. Track us.”

“On our way,” Koda said on the other end.

Gem eased Taran onto the ground as we crept onto the rickety porch steps. A few good tigress strikes and the moldy and graffiti-lined brown building would collapse inward. Too bad we had to investigate before sending it, and the malevolence lurking inside, to hell’s trash heap.

A padlock the size of my palm lay discarded on the mud-splattered floor, its hook twisted as if broken off. Slowly, Aric opened the creaky door.

Foot marks cut into the thick layer of dust. Drops of dried blood splattered like raindrops alongside each step. My growl rumbled in sync with the wolves. My tigress didn’t like it here. But she hated what waited even more.

Pockets of light trickled through the holes in the wall, illuminating sections here and there in the otherwise pitch-black room. The increasing aroma of death forced my claws and fangs to shoot out. I barely kept my tigress from emerging.

A set of stairs led up to the second floor. A small office with a door opening to another room sat to our far left. The vast room on our right housed bent and broken pieces of metal office furniture. This must have been the area where the administrative staff worked back when the mill had still struggled to stay open.

We abandoned the small sectioned-off area without so much as a sniff. After all, the revolting fragrance of sulfur permeated stronger to our right. A few folding chairs leaned against the dirty 1960s wood-paneled walls, and a tattered armchair lay tucked in the corner. The calendar push-pinned into one of the panels remained opened to February of many years past.

We followed Aric through the large room, trailing the footsteps, and of course, the blood. I bit back a gag, the smell of decay threatening to bring up my lunch. Taran swore beneath her breath. She didn’t have to possess an inner beast to sense the death. Death slapped at our faces and demanded respect.

The roar of the river echoed from the back. Likely a section of wall had caved in based on how loud the sound of rushing water carried through the mill. We passed through a small room where the branches of firs poked through the busted sections of moss-eaten walls. Despite the growing Grim Reaper aroma, I thought we’d have to cover more of the building until we found our quarry.

I thought wrong.

The mill opened to one enormous area strewn with burlap sacks, broken rakes, and, oh yeah, a stack of corpses. Most girls got flowers, or maybe chocolates on their dates. I got dead bodies. Lots of them. Lucky me.

Taran stumbled away, choking back her sickness and burying her face into Gem’s chest. Aric gripped my arm, offering me comfort. He didn’t need it. He witnessed death as often as I witnessed life as a labor nurse. And yet as much as I wanted to mirror Taran’s actions, my tigress kept us in place and took in the horror.

Four males lay slumped like a deck of cards toward our right, their bodies rigid, but no obvious signs suggesting cause of death. The lack of decomposing flesh and the few flies circling their forms suggested they’d met their demise fairly recently.

And yet as gruesome as I found them, they didn’t compare to the na**d woman left abandoned in the center of the room. My hands trembled. Perspiration slid like ice against my chilled skin. Her clouded eyes stared blankly at the ceiling while an expression of sheer terror and agony froze the features of her young face. Her entire abdomen appeared chewed open from the inside out and her half-eaten bowels lay over her h*ps like wet ropes. Flies swarmed her and took their fill. Small water bugs crawled along her bloody nails. She’d clawed at the splintered floor. God only knew the pain she’d endured before her heart had mercifully stopped beating.

Part of me wanted to run screaming. The other part struggled not to release my tears. Humans generally feared me. Their fear often manifested into dislike and more than often hate. I’d been mistreated to the point of cruelty throughout my life. But as horrid as others had often behaved, no one deserved to die like this. No one.

Aric pulled me into him, his voice harsh yet gentle all at once. “You don’t have to look, Celia. And you don’t have to be brave. If you prefer, Gemini can escort you and Taran outside.”

I shook my head, unable to rip my gaze from the poor soul in the center of the room. “No. I’ll stay.”

Aric gave me one last hug before releasing me and stepping forward. He said I didn’t have to be brave. So I wasn’t. I stayed put as he and Gemini’s wolf examined the bodies. They inspected the males first, circling their forms and drawing in their scent. I stopped trying to work so hard to smell. It remained my last-ditch effort to keep from hurling. All the dead men had their mouths open. They probably had screamed until their last breath. A cricket crawled out of one whose tongue hung open. That’s when I stopped looking as well.

I heard Aric and Gem’s wolf tread toward the woman. They paused. “Do you see what I see?” Aric asked, rage clipping his words.

“Yes,” Gemini’s human side answered. He clutched Taran close against him with his head lowered. I supposed he could see with his other half. “Two burrowed out in separate directions.”

I forced my mouth open. “Two what?”

Gemini raised his dark almond eyes. “Demon children,” he answered.

CHAPTER 5

Taran’s shakes turned into full-out convulsions. She jerked when I touched her, burying herself deeper against Gemini. I didn’t want to scare her further, especially now that it appeared her dreams were transforming into reality. Nor did I care to frighten myself more. As it was, I wouldn’t sleep until roughly the following spring. And yet I asked. Despite my reservations and the aching pain claiming my belly, I asked. “What are demon children?”

Gemini stroked Taran’s hair, probably debating whether to explain in Taran’s presence. Aric’s body heat warmed my back, preventing me from jumping when his arm circled my waist. “They’re the extremely rare offspring of a demon and a human female.”

“How rare?”

“Very. The last one we’d heard of was the one my great-uncle prevented from being born.”

“So then, how did this happen?”

“A witch likely called the demon forth and used that poor woman to incubate the spawn.”

I took a chance and glanced over at the men. Bad mistake. More hungry bugs had found them. “That doesn’t explain the men.”

“No. It doesn’t. Something else ate them.”

I swerved my body to face his. “Ate?”

Aric nodded. “Their bodies are drained of blood.”

“But not from infected vampires?”

“No. Definitely not. Vampires lick their fang marks to seal the wound when they’re done feeding. It’s an ingrained response. Infected vampires aren’t in a frame of mind to maintain their practiced habits. All they care about is quenching their thirst.”

I wasn’t a racist. But I hated infected vampires. All of them. They were big, green, mean, and hard to kill. On the plus side, they didn’t breed. I straightened to my full height. Yeah. Like that made me tougher. “Do demons drink blood?”

“As they consume flesh and organs, yes, but they would have left bite marks.”