We loaded them up and headed home, the interior of the van replete with five screaming babies who took turns seeing who could out yell who.

“So, as the Tracker who stopped a demon horde, does this feel like something of a letdown?” Liam spoke loudly to be heard over the kids.

Perhaps if I hadn’t experienced all the death that had come for me and my friends, or maybe if I hadn’t seen how dark it could be when all hope was lost, the moment might have felt like it was never going to end.

“Not in the least,” I said softly, knowing he could hear me. “Not in the least.”

Six months later . . . .

Pamela jiggled the two violet boys on either side of her hips as they tried to use her as a climbing apparatus. “Bam, Rut, stop pulling my hair!”

Marcella toddled toward me, Zane right beside her as I lowered Kav to the floor, his blue skin still baby soft. “Put them down. They want to wrestle, let them go at each other.”

With a sigh, she did as I said, and the three ogre babies immediately crawled all over each other, squealing and laughing. Zane joined in—he was big enough to hold his own—but Marcella held back, watching, her eyes never leaving the four boys.

Ophelia had gone to her babies and brought the eggs back to the farm one by one. Five eggs, one with a hairline crack in it. Though she said it wasn’t a problem, I knew she was worried. I couldn’t do anything to help, though I couldn’t help but worry with her. Only time would tell if the worry had any merit.

We settled into Liam’s old house, but it was barely big enough, and we were talking about moving. He started up his own business, and he and Pamela were working to follow up leads on cold cases that could have a supernatural bend. A part of me wanted to rebuild out on the farm, despite the things that had happened there. The bloodshed was that of our friends and family. If it meant their spirits were closer, I didn’t mind in the least.

As for me, I’d been stuck in mommy mode for long enough that it was easy to forget there was anything else. That I’d ever been anything but this herder of children.

That didn’t mean I’d given up my workout routine, or my weapons training.

I wasn’t an idiot.

A single knock of the door was about to change all that. Three sharp raps snapped my head up and I flared my nostrils, but I all I got was human floating under the door. “Go ahead and get it, Pam. I think it’s safe.”

She went to the door and opened it slowly. A young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty stood on the doorstep. He was built lean and gangly, and for a second my heart skipped a beat, thinking it was Alex. That he’d come back to us. The kid cleared his throat and a thick accent coated his words.

European from what I could detect, but couldn’t pin down where on the continent. “I’m sorry, but I have heard this is where the Tracker lives. And maybe she could help me. My family needs help. Are you her? Rylee Adamson?”

He looked past Pamela to me, and the need to do something, anything, to ease his pain rose in me. The Blood of the Lost was no longer in me, but my heart was my heart, and it beat to help others. There was nothing I could do about it.

“No, I’m sorry. My name is Rylee O’Shea.” I held out a hand and he shook it slowly. “And I am a daywalking vampire.”