Decebel started to speak but Fane rested a hand on his shoulder. "Just go with it, man."

Jen winked at her mate, who didn't look like he just wanted to go with it.

"So that's number three today," Jacque said as she took the offered water bottle from her mate. For being such a supernatural group, they sure didn't look too super. The wolves and faes’ clothes were clean, thanks to Peri’s handy dandy fae magic, but not even fae magic could wipe away the emotional filth that seemed to be collecting on them with every encounter.

"I think we can get four more in today," Peri said before taking a swig from her own bottle.

They were standing in a city park in the great city of Atlanta. And with Nissa’s assurance that she was using fae magic to glamour them into not looking like a group of supernatural killing machines, they'd all kicked back on a bench, tree, or the ground to rest.

"Four more?" Sally asked, looking slightly green.

Peri nodded. "One of the cities is in Colorado. So instead of us going there, I'm going to contact Dillon’s" —she glanced at Jacque— "mate, Tanya. Nissa is going to flash to them and lead them in an attack there. Then there is a coven in Missouri."

Jen groaned. "What the hell? I feel like we're chasing hordes of cockroaches all over the freaking nation with no end in sight."

"Alston will go to the Missouri pack," Peri continued, as though Jen hadn't just had a four-year-old moment, “and lead them in an attack on that coven while we are going to continue on to New York City and then to Dallas.”

Jacque leaned back against Fane who was leaning against a tree behind her. “How are we going to take out all of these covens?” she asked Peri and then looked at her father-in-law. “It will take us months to find them all, and they are probably going to start catching on, if they haven’t already. Who’s to say they don’t move or just start multiplying? Wait.” She narrowed her eyes. “How do vamps come into being? Are they born, made, or what?”

Alston was the one who answered her. “Actually vampirism is a disease caused by a virus. The human myth that a vampire must drain a human and then give them their blood in return is merely that—a myth, as are most of their ideas about supernaturals. The vampire does indeed have to bite the victim with an intent to infect them. They then inject the virus into the victim’s bloodstream. But biting to feed on them will not turn a person into a vampire.”

“How long is the incubation period of the virus?” Sally asked.

“It takes six days for the virus to fully infect the host,” Alston answered.

“So basically they could start making vamps as fast as we can kill them,” Jacque said as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

Peri understood Jacques worries; she had thought of the same things.

“I don’t have the perfect solution for you,” Peri admitted. “I’m trying to keep from getting every wolfpack in North America involved, and I have other wolfpacks dealing with the whole Volcan crap. I could see if the elves would be willing to help—”

Peri’s words were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Cyn.

“Speak of the devil,” Jen said with a grin.

“I am not an elf,” Cyn told her in her usual matter-of-fact, no-nonsense way.

“No, but you’re doin—OW!” Jen lifted the foot that Peri had just stomped on.

Peri stepped away from Jen just in case the she-wolf decided to retaliate. “Cyn, glad you could join us,” Peri said with a small amount of bite in her voice. She’d expected the fae warrior two days ago.

Cyn met Peri’s eyes and, because Peri knew her, she saw the pain there.

“What’s wrong?” Peri asked, stepping toward her.

“I was delayed in coming because, before I was about to flash to Romania to join you, I decided to check in on the pixies who have been monitoring Canada. It took me awhile to track them down. I picked up their trail of magic on the outskirts of Toronto. But they weren’t alone. Someone was following them.”

“Please don’t tell me what I think you are about to tell me,” Peri said in a deadly whisper. “Please, Cyn.”

“I am sorry, Perizada. The vampires got to them before I could get there.”

“They killed the little pixies?” Decebel asked through gritted teeth.

Peri felt as though she couldn't breathe. She tried to suck air into her lungs but her throat was so constricted that none could get through. Why the hell couldn’t she keep her people safe? Why, at every turn, did it feel like she was failing?

“What about children?” Vasile spoke up. “Have there been any more children missing or killed?”

“I honestly don’t know. The pixies that were helping in the United States have fled after finding out their kin were murdered,” responded Cyn.

“Now we have no way to monitor the kidnappings or deaths,” Peri spat.

“I do have an idea about that,” Cyn explained. “We are going to need to start monitoring the humans’ police force.”

"Perizada." Her mate’s voice rushed into her mind and the concern, urgency, and love that came with it eased her enough that she could breathe again. "Are you alright? Do you need me?"

"I always need you." She paused and considered Cyn's news and then swallowed her pride as she turned to her mate. She told him about all of their concerns regarding the sheer number of covens and how quickly the vamps could multiply. She told him about the pixies and how that they now had no real way to monitor the abductions and deaths without going through the human police. She explained that every time they took out a coven all of the death and horror was hurting Sally and that the residual magic left after the vamps were killed was causing some intense emotions for them all. "I don't know what to do. We can't just do nothing, even though the problem seems so much bigger than our little band of heroes. What do I do?"

Peri listened to the group milling around her, talking quietly amongst themselves as she had stepped to the side to converse with her mate through their bond. She could feel his mind at work and knew that he was attempting to see things from multiple angles, not just the ‘kill all vamps’ angle that she seemed to have latched onto.

"Get in contact with Tayna and have her wolves deal with the coven in Colorado and any that you know about that are nearby. There is no reason they can't help. Also get in contact with Tyler, the Springfield Alpha, and have him deal with the coven in his territory and any other covens nearby. You don't have to do it all, love. Lean on those willing to help."