One Fell Sweep

CHAPTER 14

I walked to the end of the driveway. Maud had fought with me. She wanted to go down herself, but I won. It was my inn, after all. She was watching my every move from the inside. If anything happened to me, she would keep the guests safe.

The seed was a living thing, a little baby Gertrude Hunt just waiting to be planted. The inn seeds weren’t just rare; they were almost nonexistent. Sometimes we got two in a century; sometimes only one. I was a little girl the last time an inn produced a seed. It wasn’t ours, but we celebrated for three days. All the chores had been canceled. We had a big dinner and my parents were so happy. A new seed was a celebration of life. It meant a new inn to be nurtured and grown. How the hell had the Draziri even found one?

I made it to the end of the driveway. The lone Draziri eyed me. She was young, probably still a teenager, with intense blue eyes, a cream-colored face, and a long mane of pale feathery hair that darkened to deep lavender at the ends. The same design of silvery threads as the one Kiran Mrak wore decorated her forehead, which meant they were related. She seemed delicate and fragile and I had the distinct impression that if I punched her, her bones would shatter.

She opened her backpack and leaned toward me. The seed lay inside, a light brown sphere about the size of a basketball lit from within by magic, cradled in a net woven of wet greenish strands. The back of the backpack was missing and the green strands burrowed straight into the Draziri’s flesh.

Bile shot into my throat. I forced it back down. The seed was caught in a Gardener’s web. A parasitic organism, it bound the seed and the Draziri girl, feeding on the Draziri. Now the fear made sense. The seed should’ve sprouted by now. It had exhausted all the nutrients within its shell and grown too large. The web had coated the shell and kept it in place, turning the protective pericarp, the outer portion of the seed, from a shelter into a prison. Trapped and unable to grow, the sprout of the new inn was slowly dying.

If I severed the seed from the girl, the web would likely pull the shell apart. The moment the seed was free, it would root and sprout. But it couldn’t sprout here. This place was already occupied by Gertrude Hunt. Its roots stretched far; its branches spread through the fabric of time and space, altering it forever, and the area of that distortion was much wider than the town of Red Deer. Two inns couldn’t coexist in such proximity. They had to be hundreds of miles apart.

If I let the seed sprout here, it would die. Gertrude Hunt would feel its birth and its death, and if my inn realized its presence was responsible for the death of a sprout… It would never recover. I wasn’t even sure it would survive. I wasn’t sure I would survive.

How do I fix this?

A Gardener’s web could be removed, given time and proper feeding. I had done it before, when I was the gardener in my parents’ inn. I could do it again, given the opportunity, and the Assembly would be able to do it even faster.

I had to get the seed away from this girl and I had to do it with the Gardener’s web intact.

“What do you want?” I asked.

The girl held up a small screen. Mrak’s face appeared, his white hair framing it.

“Do I need to explain why you can’t harm her?”

“No.”

“Good. She is wearing a medical unit. If you are thinking of pulling her inside and erecting that barrier, the moment the barrier cuts off my signal, the medical unit will release a hormone which will detach the web, killing it. Have I made myself clear?”

No void field, or the seed would sprout. Got it. He understood way too much about how the inns worked. Someone was supplying him with this knowledge. None of the innkeepers on Earth would help him. It had to be someone from the outside. Perhaps the same someone who sent a corrupted innkeeper after us on Baha-char. Once I resolved this mess, I would have to bring all this before the Assembly.

“What do you want?” I repeated.

“I’d like us to talk, like civilized people. Let’s have a conversation, so we can come to a reasonable compromise. Please let her inside.”

It was a trap. It had to be a trap of some sort.

If I let her in, I would be leaving the inn wide open. But if I said no, and the seed sprouted, even if it was five or ten miles away, it would perish. I had to preserve the seed. It was an inn, a life.

I was at my strongest on the inn’s grounds. I had to get this seed away from them. Nothing else mattered.

“Decide, innkeeper. This child is terrified. It’s a heavy burden for someone so young.”

She did look terrified. She was actually trembling. “Don’t try anything,” I said. “I’m not in the mood to be kind.”

“I give you my word. I simply want to converse.”

I dropped the void field and watched her step onto the inn’s grounds.

The seed reached for me. It was weak and pitiful, and it needed me. My magic churned. Gertrude Hunt sensed the seed and was forging a connection. I grit my teeth. No.

The inn tried again.

No. I erected a barrier and poured my power into it.

If it connected to the seed and the unthinkable happened, Gertrude Hunt would perish. I had to shield it from the connection. But I couldn’t shield myself. The seed was reaching out and the compulsion to comfort it was overwhelming.

The Draziri pondered me. There was no way I was letting her inside the inn itself. It would be almost impossible to keep Gertrude Hunt from bonding with the seed.

“Come with me.”

I led her to the backyard and waved my hand. A patio slid across the grass, carrying with it two chairs. Her eyes widened. I sat in one chair and pointed at the other. The young Draziri sat, cradling the backpack.

We were in the middle of the yard, far enough from the house.

Gertrude Hunt leaned against my barrier. The seed stirred. Weak, hesitant tendrils of its magic slipped out, seeking the connection.

I’m here. Don’t be frightened.

The seed touched my magic and calmed. Just like a baby with a lullaby.

“The Hiru are an abomination,” Mrak said from the screen. “They are revolting. They are everything that is wrong with life. Life is beautiful, like this girl in front of you. Like the seed she carries. The Hiru must die.”

“Do you actually believe that?”

“It is enough that my people believe it.”

“You’ve destroyed their planet,” I said. “There are only a handful of them left, those who were out in space away from their home world. They are not fighting you. They just want to live in peace.”

“So does my mother,” Mrak said. “She wants to die in peace, knowing that she and all of her clansmen will find paradise.”

“Where did you even get it?” I asked. “The seeds are very rare.”

“I have connections.”

“Was the dark creature that stalked me at Baha-char also yours?”

He took a fraction of a second to answer. “Yes.”

He lied. He hadn’t known about it. I saw the surprise in his eyes.

“Did your connection become proactive and send it to chase me?”

“As I said, the creature was mine.”

“That creature is a living darkness. It is death and corruption. Whoever made it has dark designs and they won’t let you live.”

“You’re a remarkable creature,” Mrak said. “Here I am, offering you that which you hold most dear, and you’re trying to get information out of me. You would make such an interesting pet.”

“In your dreams.”

He leaned on his elbow. “What would you let me do to you for the sake of this seed?”

And this conversation went sideways.

“You don’t have to answer. You would do anything. You would debase yourself, but you don’t have to. Give me the Hiru.”

“There is something wrong with you,” I said.

“The time for insults has passed.”

“I don’t mean it as an insult. There is truly something deeply wrong with you. How is it that you never learned to be a person?”

He stared at me. “I am a person.”

“You flew across countless light-years to a neutral, peaceful planet to kill two creatures that haven’t harmed you in any way. For that purpose, you threw away dozens of your people, and now you sit here and make nasty comments about torturing me as if it somehow fixes everything and makes you victorious. What kind of a person does that?”

He looked taken aback.

“Staying here isn’t going to bring your dead to life. Killing defenseless beings who just want to be left alone won’t win you any absolution. Think about it. What kind of religion mandates that? Why would anyone want to be part of it?”

“Give me the Hiru.”

“Your mother is dying and that’s tragic. But all things die. If you had a choice to save a child or an elderly person, you would save the child, wouldn’t you? Children are the future. They are what carries us forward as people. You’re throwing away your young fighters. Look at this girl you sent in here. She’s terrified. You’re the head of her clan. She trusts you and obeys you. Shouldn’t she get something in return?”

“She knows her duty,” he said.

“Let’s say you kill the Hiru. Where would that leave you? You still will have lost the future of your clan. It will be generations before Flock Wraith will recover. It’s your responsibility as a leader to keep your people safe and take care of them so they can prosper.”

Doubt crept into his eyes. “What’s a few short years in this world compared with an eternity in paradise?”

“You don’t believe that. If you believed in paradise, you wouldn’t have killed an onizeri. What if there is no paradise, Kiran? What if it’s a lie?”

He knew. I saw it in his face. He knew their paradise was a lie, but he had come too far. “You are a heretic,” he said, his voice calm. “An unbeliever.”

I lost him. For a tiny moment, I got through, but now I lost him. “So are you. Why don’t you just leave? Leave and live your life the way you want to. You’re free to make your own choices.”

“No,” he said. “Freedom is an illusion. We are bound by restraints on every turn. Family, clan, religion, morals, duties; all those are restraints. For someone on the crossroads of worlds, you’re naive.”

“If you can’t have your freedom, then what’s the point of all this?”

“Give me the Hiru. Nobody has to know. We can do this in a way that leaves you blameless. I promise their deaths will be swift and painless.”

I wanted the seed. It called to me. I’d been playing for time, but I thought of nothing. No brilliant plans. No elaborate ruses. I felt so helpless.

“There is nothing to think about, innkeeper,” Mrak’s voice floated from the screen, soft, seductive. “The seed for two lives which are lost anyway. They have no planet. Their technology is dying. They can barely keep themselves alive. Death is a mercy. Make your decision.”

“Please give him what he wants,” the Draziri girl whispered. “Please.”

It felt like I was being ripped in two. The seed was right there, crying, begging to be saved. I could feel the two Hiru inside the inn. They were in the war room, probably watching all of this on the big screen. They stood very close. I wondered if they were holding hands.

“Please.”

I heard my own voice. “The safety of the guests is my highest priority. You will find no sacrifices here.”

“It is a pity, innkeeper.”

The Draziri girl cried out. Web shot out from her, clutching at me, binding me and the Draziri into one. She tore at her clothes. A bumpy metal object was attached to her chest. A door-maker, a small concentrated explosive used to breach the hulls of spaceships. A faint whine cut at my ears—the bomb was armed. Detonation was imminent. I had seconds.

There was no time to get free.

I flung open a door to the farthest connection the inn had. The orange wastes of the planet Kolinda rolled in front of me under a menacing purple sky. The door opened onto a cliff.

I lunged through the gateway, taking the Draziri girl with me, and slammed the door shut behind me. We fell off the cliff and plummeted.

This was it.

I hit the ground. The impact shook my bones. The backpack with the seed landed on top of me, the web stretching, binding it to me.

I blinked, trying to regain my vision. We’d fallen onto a narrow shelf along the cliff. The chasm yawned below us.

“Help!” The Draziri screamed.

Where was she?

The green web stretched from me over the edge of the shelf.

I crawled to the edge. She hung below me. The web binding us was so thin. Gray splotches spread through it. It was dying.

I reached for her. My fingers came a foot short. If I pulled her up, I could rip the bomb out.

“Help me!”

The web snapped. She plunged down and vanished in a fiery explosion.

Behind me the seed sprouted. I sat up. A glowing shoot with two leaves stretched from the remnants of the shell. Tears rolled down my face. It was too weak.

Its magic cried out, seeking a connection. It was scared and alone. I cradled it in my arms, bonding with it, sheltering it, reassuring it that it wasn’t alone. It was an inn and I was an innkeeper.

The tiny sprout wound around me.

It found peace.

And then it died.

There was no light. Only darkness. Neither cold nor warm. It just was. It surrounded me and I had no will to break through it. There was no point.

“Dina!”

Sean picked me up. He kissed me. He hugged me to him, but I felt nothing. The darkness was too thick.

He was calling my name, but I had no will to respond.

He looked terrified. I didn’t care.

“Dina, talk to me. Please talk to me. Please.”

I felt nothing.

“Say something. Anything.” He squeezed me to him again. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

We jumped up then, and he carried me up the cliff and through the rip in reality back into Gertrude Hunt.

The inn’s magic reached for me. I watched it try. It battered against the wall around me and fell back. There was no point. My little inn had died. I held it and then it died. I felt it die and I died with it. Everything was over.

My sister cried and hugged me. My niece cried, too. Orro brought me cookies. Caldenia said something, so did Arland. None of it mattered. There was only me and darkness.

“Fix her!”

My sister again. Some other innkeeper. Tony. His name was Tony. He looked like he saw a walking dead. That’s what I was. The walking dead. Breathing. Listening. Watching. But nothing alive remained inside.

“I can’t. She bonded with the seed. She couldn’t let it die alone, so she connected. Her inn is dead.”

“Her inn is right here,” Sean snarled.

“The inns are organisms of immense power,” Tony said. “They root through different dimensions, they distort reality, and they create matter out of basic components. People forget how powerful they are, because they obey the innkeepers, but their magic is immense. An inn requires an innkeeper. It can’t exist without one, so it forms a symbiotic relationship with a human and then it directs all of its magic and power into strengthening that bond. The innkeepers exist in the microcosm of the inn for years, exposed to their magic and influenced by it. They undergo a change we don’t fully understand, because the inns exist on planes and levels we can’t comprehend. We do know that preserving and bonding with the inn becomes the very essence of the innkeeper’s being.”

He paused, looking them over.

“If the inn had sprouted anywhere within a ten-mile radius of Gertrude Hunt, Gertrude Hunt’s magic would smother it. This inn would’ve felt the death of the seed and it would likely die itself and kill all of us within. She couldn’t let that happen. She took the seed out of Gertrude Hunt’s area, but once she’d done that, Dina was outside of her power zone.

“At the moment of its birth, the inn has only one objective: to find an innkeeper. That little inn on the cliff was weak and fragile, because it had been trapped in its shell too long, but its power was still greater than any of us could imagine. Dina couldn’t let it die. It’s the same instinct that would make a human dive into ice-cold water to save a drowning baby. The inn was terrified. It sought a bond, and Dina comforted it and bonded with it, because that’s who she is. She couldn’t let it suffer and die alone. The bond, as short as it was, was real. When the seed died, in that moment, on that cliff, she lived through the death of her inn. Innkeepers do not usually survive this. She knew it would happen. She sacrificed herself for our sake, for Gertrude Hunt, and for that little seed.”

“But she’s still alive,” Sean said.

“Technically, yes.”

“What do we do? There has to be something that can be done?” Arland demanded.

“There is nothing that can be done,” Tony said. “I’m so sorry.”

Above us, far within the inn, the corruption awoke within its prison. It smashed against the inside of the plastic tube, coated it, burrowed into it, and made a tiny crack. Gertrude Hunt screamed, but nobody heard it.

We lay in bed. He held me. His arm was around me. I couldn’t feel it.

“This is the part when you tell me, ‘Sean Evans, get out of my bed. You’re not invited.’”

I said nothing.

“I will stay here with you,” he said. “I’m not leaving. I’m not taking you to the Sanctuary.”

The darkness thickened, trying to block his voice, but I still heard him.

“I love you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t let anyone take you away. You’re not alone. Just come back to me, love. Come home.”

Time had no meaning in darkness. The darkness was jealous. It pushed everything else out. Joy, anger, sadness. Life.

They brought me to the heart of the inn. I lay in the soft darkness, while around me the inn wept tears glowing with magic.

Maud was crying again. “Why isn’t she bonding?”

“Because her inn already died,” Tony said. “Right now you are the only thing keeping Gertrude Hunt from going dormant.”

“But she was only bonded to it for a minute.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s beyond our reach. If Gertrude Hunt can’t reach her, nobody can.”

“I wish she never saw that fucking seed.”

“She couldn’t help it. No innkeeper would be able to resist a sprouting seed. It is who we are. We tend to the inns. That she saved Gertrude Hunt is a miracle.”

Maud growled like a vampire. “I hate this. Fucking Draziri. Fucking Assembly. She asked you for help and you did nothing. Nothing!”

“I’m so sorry,” Tony said.

The corruption slithered out of its prison, and dripped out, one molecule at a time.

Sean picked me up off the floor and carried me away.

“It’s a simple plan,” Sean said. “Simple plans are best. Tomorrow is New Year’s eve. Lots of noise, lots of fireworks. The perfect cover for us. We bring all the remaining parts of the Archivarius together at the same time. Arland and Lord Soren will get one, Tony, Wing and Wilmos will take the second, my parents volunteered to bring in the third, and I will get the fourth.”

“Alone?” Arland frowned.

“I’m taking Marais with me. We bring them all here at the same time and complete the Archivarius. The Hiru are on board. They know where all of the parts of the Archivarius are now.”

“The Draziri will pull out all the stops,” Tony said. “We’ll have a full-out assault.”

The corruption slithered closer.

“Let them,” my sister said. “Let them all come. I can’t wait.”

“It will be too much,” Gabriele said.

“Yes,” Corwin agreed.

“I’ll talk to our people,” Wilmos said.

“Will we still have Christmas?” Helen asked. She was sitting on the floor by my chair, hugging my leg.

It was suddenly quiet.

“Yes,” Sean said. “We will still have Christmas. It’s important to her. We will kill every Draziri, until there is nothing left but blood and bodies. And then we’ll have Christmas.”

The darkness around me grew a little thinner.

He never left me. He talked to me when I lay in bed with an IV and he lay beside me and held me. He talked to me when he carried me to the bathtub. He sat with me when the inn moved me downstairs during the day. He held me when Maud cried because it hurt her to look at me.

He told me he loved me. He joked. He read books to me. He held my hand.

The world hurt. There was no pain in the darkness. I wanted to stay wrapped in it, but he refused to let me go, always there, connecting me to the outside like a lifeline.

I was lying on the blanket under the Christmas tree. Above me the lights twinkled in the branches. So many lights. Olasard, the Ripper of Souls, lay next to me, making muffins on my blanket.

“How long will you keep this up?” Sean’s father asked.

“As long as it takes,” Sean said next to me.

“It’s been four days. Maybe…”

Sean looked at him.

“Okay,” Corwin said. “Forget I said anything.”

He left. The Hiru came and Sean took me to their room to float in their pool and look at the sky I made for them.

“We are so sorry we’ve brought this on you,” Sunset said.

“You should’ve given us up,” Moonlight whispered.

“That’s not who she is,” Sean said.

“We will always remember,” Sunset said. “Always. Every one of us. If we survive, our children and our children’s children will always remember.”

“The Archivarius arrives tomorrow. Will your people be ready?” Sean asked.

“Yes,” the Hiru said at the same time.

“Are you ready to go upstairs, love?” Sean asked me.

“Does she ever answer?”

“She will answer when the time comes.”

“What if she won’t?” Moonlight whispered.

“She will,” Sean said. “She’s a fighter. I have faith in her.”

He picked me up out of the water. The darkness grew a little thinner.

His hands were warm.

“This is getting old, my dear,” Caldenia said. “You and I have an agreement. I expect you to honor it. Get up, now. You don’t want to spend your life like a lump of wood. The scaled creature made a totem of you and he keeps putting different medicines on it and dancing around it. It is getting annoying. Get up, dear. We do not let our enemies win. We claw their hearts out and devour them. You have work to do.”

“Mango ice cream. It is the best thing I’ve ever made. Will you please eat, small human? Please. Please eat, small human. Please.”

The mango ice cream melted on my tongue and a distant echo of its taste slipped through the darkness to me.

Flowers bloomed around me. I sat submerged to my neck in the tub inside the vigil room. A chorus of four voices prayed over me, urgently, forcefully, trying to pour their vitality into their words. My sister’s voice blended with Arland’s and Soren’s, Helen’s high notes underscoring the important parts.

Magic moved among them. A trace of it slipped through to me. I curled around it. It felt so warm.

The prayer ended. Maud wiped the tears from her face.

Arland stepped close to her and put his arms around her.

“Will she ever wake up?” Helen asked.

“I don’t know, my flower,” Maud said.

“Do not despair,” Lord Soren said. “This is her home. My grandfather had all but given up on life. He lay down to die and refused to take food. Yet when House Wrir came to break down the doors, my grandfather rose from his deathbed and led our House to victory. Lived another three years after that until his heart finally gave out. You should’ve seen the funeral. Now that was—”

Arland looked at him.

“Right,” Lord Soren said. “The point is, the Draziri will come for the Hiru. They will bring every fighter they have left. They will attack this inn. Your sister will never let that stand.”

Tony walked into the room. “We’re about to head out.

“We’re also on our way,” Arland said.

“Good luck, everyone,” Tony said.

The corruption slipped through the inn, gathering above them, inching ever closer. They didn’t feel it, but I did. There was something similar about the corruption and I. We existed in a similar place, shrouded in darkness, disconnected but aware. I watched it slither its way through Gertrude Hunt. It was moving through my inn.

My inn.

Tony stepped out. The corruption halted, waiting.

Arland turned and knelt on one knee before my sister. “Wish me a happy journey, my lady.”

Lord Soren turned to Helen. “Come with me, little one.”

“Why?”

“They need to talk.”

They walked away. My sister and Arland were alone.

“Don’t do that,” Maud said.

“Do what?”

“Don’t kneel in front of me. My husband used to kneel before me. It didn’t keep us from being exiled. It didn’t keep him from throwing away everything that we built together. I hate this vampire custom. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m not your husband. It means something to me.”

“Please don’t.” Maud sat on the root and covered her face with her hands. All her strength disappeared. I did that, I realized. A painful twinge gripped me and faded slowly.

“I will return,” Arland said. “I would be by your side if you’ll have me. I would have you if you allowed it.”

She dropped her hands and looked at him. “Arland, I’ve been married and widowed. I have a child. She isn’t your child…”

“Right now she’s no man’s child. She should have a father, who will teach her and treasure her. I will do that for her. I love you, my lady.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“And I would love Helen as my own.”

“Don’t.”

Arland rose. His face was grim. “I’m no poet. I’m a soldier. So, I’ll just tell you the way it is, as clumsy as it sounds. When I first saw you, it was like being thrown from a shuttle before it touched the ground. I fell and when I landed, I felt it in every cell of my body. You disturbed me. You took away my inner peace. You left me drifting. I wanted you right there. Then, as I learned more of you, I wanted you even more. You want me too. I’ve seen it in your eyes. You taught me the meaning of loneliness, because when I don’t see you, I feel alone. You may reject me, you may deny yourself, and if you choose to not accept me, I will abide by your decision. But know that there will never be another one like you for me and one like me for you. We both waited years so we could meet.”

He left the room.

Maud looked at me. “Say something, Dina. Please say something to me.”

I wanted to tell her that she was afraid of being loved, because her husband betrayed her. That she shouldn’t throw away this chance at being happy. But there was too much darkness between us.

“I will be back,” Sean whispered into my ear.

A fire built inside me. A pressure that strained at the empty darkness. It hurt. The pain suffused me. I tried to escape but there was nowhere to run.

He brushed a kiss on my lips.

The pressure broke and I screamed. Don’t go! Don’t leave me! I’ll be all alone.

“I’ll be back soon.” He let go of me and went for the door.

He didn’t hear me. How could he not have heard me?

He stepped through the door.

Wait. Don’t go.

It closed behind him.

Wait.

Wait for me.

I sat on the porch, watching late afternoon slowly bleed into the evening. Maud had put my favorite robe on me, the blue one that our mother made. I looked like an innkeeper even if I didn’t feel like one. My sister had decided I should have the front row seat, so I would “snap out of it.” Beast lay on my lap. At first, when Sean had brought me in, she hid as if she didn’t recognize me and it scared her. Then, little by little, Sean coaxed her into my bed on the third night. Now she sat with me, sad and occasionally trembling.

Caldenia sat in a chair on my left. My sister stood on my right, holding my broom in one hand, and her sword in the other. In front of us the backyard stretched with the clearing behind it. Helen sat by my feet, holding her knives. The Hiru waited in the kitchen, out of sight.

Sean would come back. He promised to come back.

The corruption waited above me. It had flowed through the inn, filling the spaces between the branches. Gertrude Hunt had tried to stop it, but it escaped the inn’s grasp. Everyone forgot about it, but it was there, biding its time. It wanted something.

Maud, feel it. You will feel it if you just reach out.

Helen hugged herself by my feet and looked up, at the inn.

Maud!

“It’s about time,” Maud said.

“Are you up to this, my dear?” Caldenia inquired.

“I’ll have to be. What about you? Is all that plotting and talking you’ve been doing ever going to pay off?”

“All in good time.” Her Grace smiled, showing sharp teeth.

Maud looked at me. “Dina, please help me.”

I was trying. I was honestly trying.

A rift opened in the middle of the lawn. The werewolves from Wilmos’ shop walked out of it dragging a big metal box. They waved at us, planted the box on the ground, and the brown-skinned werewolf armed it through the panel on the side. The box unfolded like a flower, sending out a complex antenna-like structure made of shiny small cubes and triangles, each rotating in different directions.

“What is that?” Caldenia asked.

“That’s the projectile dampener,” Maud said. “It disrupts the path of kinetic projectiles and negates energy and heat weapon targeting. Very short range and outrageously expensive. We’re renting it for the next two hours. It cost us an arm and a leg. If… when Dina wakes up, she’ll kill me. I wiped out her budget. But if the Draziri want a piece of us, they’ll have to fight for it in my sword’s range.”

She bared her teeth.

“Were do you want us?” the female mercenary asked.

“Here is fine.”

They took up positions around the porch.

“Damn the Assembly,” Maud muttered. “We could’ve used help.”

“For all the reverence Dina shows for the ad-hal, I have yet to see a demonstration of their power,” Caldenia said.

“Trust me, you don’t want to witness that, Your Grace.”

I struggled to rise. My sister was preparing to repel an assault on my inn and all I could do was watch and scream into the silence wrapped around me. I had to move. Even if I could just twitch a finger.

A pale light ignited in the middle of the field, elongating into a glowing filament, like the wire of a lit lightbulb. The fabric of space ripped and Sean’s parents burst through the gap, two massive werewolves dripping blood, one dark, the other lighter. The darker one carried an Archivarian slung across his back.

They ran across the lawn. The rapid staccato of high tech rifles chased them. None of the projectiles landed.

Move. Stand up. Do something! I had to do something. I dug my fingers into the darkness and strained to rip it.

Sean’s father shook the Archivarian off at Maud’s feet. My sister focused. Gertrude Hunt responded sluggishly, swallowing the Archivarian.

The two Hiru walked out onto the porch, slow, ponderous, and stopped next to me.

“What are you doing here?” Maud said. “We agreed you would stay safe in your room.”

“We’re the reason for this fight,” Sunset said.

“Let them see us,” Moonlight said. “We are not afraid.”

“We will give them a target, so the Archivarians can be retrieved,” Sunset said.

Maud sighed and called out, “We’re about to get rushed.”

The werewolves pulled out their knives.

One moment the woods were empty. The next, Draziri leapt from the branches in unison, like a flock of predatory birds taking flight. So many… They landed and sprinted across the open ground on their elegant legs, like weightless dancers, Mrak in the lead brandishing a wicked silver blade.

I tore at the darkness. It held.

Caldenia studied her nails.

A tall Draziri, his hair the same white as Mrak’s, buried his knife in Mrak’s back. Mrak cried out. The other Draziri pulled the knife free and flipped it in his fingers, falling into a fighting stance. Mrak spun around. “You dare!”

“You are unfit to lead!” the other Draziri snarled. “You’re weak. You failed again and again. We’re bankrupt, hunted, and dying, all because of you! It’s time for a new power to head this flock.”

They clashed, their blades meeting together with a sharp clang. The invading Draziri broke, splitting. Two-thirds tore into each other. The rest kept running toward us.

“Divide and conquer.” Caldenia smiled. “I do so love that phrase.”

The werewolves rushed into the approaching Draziri.

A brilliant red light pulsed above the grass and spat Arland and Lord Soren onto the lawn, an Archivarian between them, smack in the middle of the clashing Draziri. Their armor smoked. Arland roared, baring his fangs. Helen roared back from the porch, her daggers held wide by her side.

The Draziri fell on them. The two vampires cut a path to the porch, working side by side, their movements practiced and sure. Skulls crunched, blood weapons whined, attackers screamed and died.

Blood splashed on Arland’s face. He snarled as a Draziri fighter buried her blade in his armor.

Maud dropped the broom and ran across the grass, slicing through the Draziri as if they were butter. Helen dashed after her mother. Beast leapt off my lap and bounded after her.

I pounded on the darkness. What are you doing? Use the inn!

“Right now would be an excellent time to step in, my dear,” Caldenia murmured.

I ripped at the darkness with all my will.

A female Draziri blocked Helen’s path, brandishing a large knife. Beast lunged at her. Her jaws with four rows of teeth locked on the Draziri’s ankle. She howled as her bones crunched. Helen jumped onto the female Draziri and slit her throat.

Someone do something, damn it!

Orro ran out of the kitchen, huge, dark, all his spikes erect, thundered over the grass, snatched Helen up by her clothes and dragged her back to the inn.

“No!” Helen kicked her feet. “No!”

He opened his mouth and roared into her face. “Stop!”

She froze, shocked. He dropped her by my feet. “Protect Dina!”

Helen snapped her teeth at him, but stayed put. Beast trotted back to her and flopped on the porch, her mouth dripping blood.

My sister finally remembered that she had powers. The second Archivarian slid into the lawn, spinning like a corkscrew. Maud fought next to Arland, cutting and slicing, her blade so fast, it looked liquid. He was grinning, his face splattered with blood.

A hole opened, and Sean walked out, dragging the third Archivarian out. Marais followed, his clothes covered in soot, his hair wet with slime, his eyes far away, lost in a thousand-yard stare.

Sean.

He came back to me. He came back! The darkness in front of me shrank, thinning. I wanted to stand up so badly, everything hurt.

Marais grabbed the Archivarian by the arm and muscled him toward the porch. Sean followed, quiet and precise, cutting down opponents before they had a chance to notice.

Magic whispered through the lawn, slipping through the emptiness around me. A circular doorway opened silently and Tony, Wing, and Wilmos walked out, bringing the last Archivarian with them. Tony wore a plain brown robe. He carried a broom in his hand.

Wilmos picked up the Archivarian and ran across the grass toward me, Wing scampering after him.

Tony stayed where he was. He looked around him, his nice face oddly serious, and pulled his hood over his head. His broom darkened to black, flowing into a staff, its tip glowing with red. His robe turned the color of blood, spreading like the mantle of some king, moving seemingly on its own, and beneath that robe and inside of his hood was darkness, cold and empty darkness, the kind that lived between the stars.

I reeled back, shocked. Of all the people, I would’ve never guessed Tony.

The ad-hal reached out and touched Mrak’s shoulder. An unearthly voice emanated from inside his hood. It was the kind of voice that stopped your heart.

“Be still.”

Mrak stopped moving. His opponent stumbled back, his face horrified.

The corruption awoke and surged forward.

Magic drowned the clearing, ancient and cold. I felt it even through the darkness. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose. It flowed among the Draziri and held them in place.

Behind me the corruption dripped from the ceiling to pool on the kitchen floor.

Arland spun around toward the creature that used to be Tony, focusing on the new threat.

“No!” Maud threw her weight on Arland’s sword arm.

“You have been judged by the Assembly,” the ad-hal said. “You have been found guilty.”

Mrak just stood there, a lost expression on his face. Nobody moved.

The corruption spilled from the doorway, rising like a foul cloud, emanating its putrid magic. I tore at the darkness. It’s coming. Look! Look, damn you!

Someone screamed.

The foul cloud slithered toward the ad-hal across the grass. It wasn’t hiding anymore. He raised his hand. His magic rose to block it, but the corruption flowed through it and kept going. I felt him pour his power out and the corruption swallowed it and wanted more.

It would infect him. It had wanted him all along.

Sean stepped between the corruption and the ad-hal and raised his knife. His eyes were pure amber.

The corruption would kill him. I would lose him and that couldn’t happen. I’ve lost too much already. I lost my father, my mother, and my brother. Even my sister was lost for a time. I’d lost the seed of an inn.

Nobody would take Sean from me. I loved him, he loved me, and he was mine.

No. Not today. Not ever.

Not in my inn.

A towering wave of rage swept through me and burst through the darkness. The wall blocking me tore apart, its shreds melting into nothing. The power of Gertrude Hunt hit me all at once, the inn suddenly triumphant, giddy that it finally felt me and we connected. The broom landed in my hand. I was on my feet, and I didn’t know when I got up or how. I raised the broom and poured all the inn’s power and all my magic through it.

The broom glowed with bright blue. A wall of pure magic surged up in front of the corrupt cloud, a brilliant blue barrier separating it from Sean. The cloud smashed into it and recoiled.

Sean smiled at me.

A phantom wind stirred my hair and the hem of my robe—the inn’s magic surging into me. The corruption shrank, hugging the ground, but there was no place to go. This was my inn. The soil, the trees, the air, all of it was mine. I wrapped the barrier around it, locking it into a sphere of magic.

It jerked up, trying to flee, but I took it into the fist of my power and squeezed, harder and harder. I squeezed it because I loved Sean, because I loved my sister and my niece, because the Draziri made me live through the death of a tiny inn, because the Hiru had sacrificed everything, and because nobody and nothing would ever get away with threatening one of mine, guest or family, on the grounds of Gertrude Hunt.

The corruption thickened under the pressure of my power, collapsing in on itself.

It hurt, but I barely noticed. I squeezed. I wanted to feel it die.

The sphere pulsed with white, contracting.

The corruption within burst into blue flame. It howled as it burned, its shriek cutting across my ears, sharp and painful.

Nobody said a word.

It burned until it disappeared into nothing.

I looked at the Draziri. My robe turned black. My face must’ve been terrible, because even trapped within the ad-hal’s power, they tried to shrink back. He didn’t let them move.

“The inn is yours, innkeeper,” the ad-hal said.

“You may begin,” I told Sunset.

The Hiru walked off the porch, each step a slow torturous motion. The Draziri and werewolves moved apart, giving them a wide passage, some on their own, others pushed by the ad-hal. The Hiru’s mournful voice echoed through the backyard, fading into the encroaching twilight.

“You destroyed our home. You murdered our families. You almost killed our people. You sentenced us to eternal exile, because no other planet could sustain us. Today you will learn why.”

The nine tubes rose from the ground, each holding a member of the Archivarius within it. The plastic tubes sank back into the earth. The nine beings stepped toward each other, their arms raised in front of them, forming a ring. Their fingers touched and melted, blending together. Flesh flowed like water, turning into a whirlpool and uniting into a whole.

I bent physics to keep the backyard hidden from the street. The residents of the Avalon subdivision were not ready for this.

A giant knelt on one knee on the lawn. He was human in shape, but his head had no features, except for a dark slash of a mouth. Werewolf fur sheathed him, each strand long and translucent. Stars and galaxies slid over the fur and his feathered Draziri mane, as if the depth of the infinite Cosmos reflected in him. A Ku crest rose on its head. Quillonian spikes burst from his shoulders. He opened his mouth, and within the darkness, two white vampire fangs gleamed. A pair of wings opened behind him, glittering with stars. The Archivarius had mirrored us the way his body mirrored the night sky.

YOU ASKED A QUESTION, a soft voice said. I HAVE THE ANSWER.

Sunset raised his head. “The innkeeper must have her payment first.”

The cosmic being turned toward me. ASK YOUR QUESTION, INNKEEPER.

I would only get one question. Where, no, what, no… “How can I find my parents?”

The Archivarius paused. Silence reigned. My heart was beating too loud. Please let them be alive.

SEBASTIEN NORTH.

Who was Sebastien North? What did that mean?

The Archivarius pivoted back to the two Hiru. It was enormous and the Hiru seemed so small next to it, two ants talking to a colossus.

Around the perimeter of the backyard, ovoid portals opened, and behind each the other Hiru stood, waiting, dozens of them. We were looking at the entire species.

“Please,” Moonlight said. “Where is our new home?”

A cold rush of magic tore through me in a second. A vast portal opened behind the Archivarius, as tall as he was. Beyond the portal a beautiful landscape spread under a breathtaking sky. Glowing flowers, indigo and turquoise, bloomed in the shadow of majestic burgundy trees, their long weeping willow branches shimmering with pale green leaves. Strange blossoms grew in the meadow of silver-green grass that rolled gently to a sea, the water so transparent that every vibrant burst of color underneath was crystal clear. Long emerald-green seaweed rose among the cream-colored coral in the shallows studded with underwater plants. Bright fish darted beneath the waves, and above it all, a glorious sky reigned, awash with gentle pinks, blues, and greens.

Sunset took a step forward, walking to the portal as if he were asleep. Five feet away from it he stopped. Metal clanged. His body fell apart. Pieces of machinery tumbled down, gears fell into the grass, lubricant gushed, and a luminous creature flew up from the remnants of machinery and hovered above the grass. It took my breath away.

The Draziri screamed as their god spread the delicate veils of its wings, burning with all the colors of an aurora borealis. A tiny glowing strand stretched from its graceful neck. On it Helen’s Chrismas ornament dangled.

Sunset spun once and slipped through the portal, hovering just beyond its boundary, waiting.

All around us, the Hiru stepped through the portals and entered the clearing, forming a long slow line. Moonlight, the first in line, walked up to the pile of Sunset’s space suit. Her metal shell fell apart and she surged up, her wings silver, black, and white, glowing like the moonlight that inspired her name. She slipped into the portal.

They came one by one, shedding their space suits, luminescent and heartbreaking in their beauty. I realized I was crying. Somehow Sean made it next to me and he held my hand. Arland put Helen on his shoulders. She watched the Hiru assume their true form and there were stars reflected in her eyes.

Some Draziri had collapsed. Others stared, shocked, their expressions lost. Mrak wept. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

On and on the Hiru went, until the last of them paused by the portal. He was old. Burns and scars dented his space suit. He turned to me. A once-mournful voice issued forth, tuning triumphant. “Thank you, innkeeper. We will never forget.”

His space suit joined the pile on the grass and a creature the color of sun fire slipped through the portal to its new world.

“Wait…” Mrak whispered to the Hiru.

The portal collapsed.

The Archivarius rose. Its wings beat once. It flew into the night sky and vanished.

Mrak’s shoulders shook. He stared at the spot where the portal had been a moment ago.

“You and I have unfinished business,” the ad-hal said. A gateway opened behind him, a swirling pool of darkness.

Mrak turned, like a chastised child, and together they walked into it, the ad-hal’s fingers still on Mrak’s shoulder.

“Where is he taking him?” Helen asked.

“Nowhere good,” Maud told her.

The Draziri left, shell-shocked and lost, held together by the Draziri who had attacked Mrak. He turned out to be Mrak’s cousin. Before Her Grace retired to make herself presentable for dinner, she informed me that she’d had several conversations with him and in her opinion he wasn’t a complete idiot. I allowed them to go. The fight was over and I had never wanted this fight to happen in the first place.

The werewolves stayed. They were tired from fighting and hungry, and they wanted to talk to Sean and his parents. They crowded into my front room, loud and growly. I glanced into the front room, hoping for a glimpse of Sean, but I could barely see him, crowded by the mercenaries. It would have to wait. That was okay. We had time now.

Orro cornered me in the kitchen. “The holiday dinner was supposed to include eleven beings. Now that number is doubled!”

Aha. “Does this mean you’re unequal to the task?”

Orro puffed out, looming over me. “I am a Red Cleaver chef!”

I nodded.

“I require two hours.”

He spun on his foot.

“Thank you for the ice cream,” I told his back. “It was the best thing I have ever tasted.”

His spikes rose, shivering, and he sped off into the kitchen.

I raided Gertrude Hunt’s very old wine cellar, picked several bottles at random and let the inn take them to the Grand Ballroom. The tables I used during the peace summit were still stored underneath, and I pulled two of them out, arranged the bottles there, and asked Orro to serve some bread and cheese when he got a moment.

Once he was done, I headed to the front room. “Gertrude Hunt welcomes you to our Christmas feast. We’ll serve refreshments now. Follow me, please.”

The werewolves fell on the wine, bread and cheese like hungry beasts. Sean brushed by me and squeezed my hand, before they dragged him with them. Wing and Marais joined them. Wing was beside himself at being treated like a hero. Marais was slowly thawing. I’d provided him with a room and a shower to freshen up, and he looked much better now, without slime covering his hair. A couple of glasses of wine and he would be able to go home to his family. He still had that owlish, not-quite-right look in his eyes, but all in all he was handling this rather well. I’d have to thank him later when things died down.

Maud stopped next to me. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

“I’m going to pop over to Baha-char for a few minutes,” she said.

“Why?”

“To buy presents.” She grinned.

“Do you have money?”

“No, but I have a ton of the Draziri weapons to trade.”

Ooo. “What am I getting?”

“I’m not going to tell you and I won’t let you snoop either. You were always a terrible sneak, Dina.”

“That’s a lie. I’m an excellent sneak.”

She hugged me, hard. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m getting there.” I was feeling kind of wobbly, and if I stopped doing things and talking, the echo of the little inn’s death tore at me, but I would survive. I had a lot going for me. I had people who loved me. I mattered to them and when I fell, they caught me and put me back on my feet.

“Are you going to leave with Arland?” I asked.

“I haven’t decided.”

“Do you love him?”

She sighed, her face pained. “I’m trying to figure that out. He’s going to ask me to marry him tonight.”

“How do you know?”

“I spied on his conversation with his uncle.” Maud sighed. “I’m so stupid, Dina. I stood there like some love-stricken teenager and when he told his uncle he wanted to marry me, I felt… I felt things.”

“Are you going to accept?”

“No. I barely know him. I’m a mother. It’s not just my life at stake here. It’s also Helen’s. Besides, you would be left alone again.”

“I’m not alone.” I tilted my head and glanced at Sean. He must’ve felt me looking, because he turned and looked back at me. “I have someone, too.”

“It’s like that then?” Maud smiled.

“It is. If you like Arland, I’m sure he will find a way to let you figure out if you love him.”

“This crest—” she touched the crest on her armor “gives me the right to enter the territory of House Krahr as a free agent. If I turn him down and he invites me to come with him anyway, I may do that.”

“You will always have a place here. And it’s not like you’ll be far away. Arland pops over any time he pleases. If you give Arland a chance, he will take care of you and of her. You need someone to take care of you, Maud, whether you want to admit it or not.”

“I want more than that.” She bit her lip.

“I know.” I had no questions as to why Arland threw himself at that flower. He did it for me and Sean and all the others, but most of all he did it for Maud and Helen.

Maud stared away. I glanced in the direction of her gaze and saw Arland. He was looking back at her, and his eyes were warm and wistful. He never looked at me like that.

“It’s going to be difficult,” she said. “I’ll be an outcast again. I bring no money, no alliances, and no benefits. Only me and Helen. It would be Melizard all over again, with having to prove my worth. His family never did accept me. It would take a lot of work to win over another vampire House.”

“You will roll over them like a bulldozer. By the end of this year, they will be eating out of your hand. Lord Soren is already making plans.”

“What? How do you know?”

I thought of telling her about our conversation on the subject of family military service and genetic abnormalities and decided it would be more fun to leave it a surprise. “Just a feeling I have.”

She squinted at me. “What are you not telling me?”

“You should go and try it,” I told her. “Gertrude Hunt isn’t going anywhere. You can always come back. Once I figure out where to start looking for Mom and Dad, I’ll reach out.”

Her face turned grim. “Sebastien North.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who that it? What that is?”

I shook my head. “No. But I will find out.”

“Maybe I’ll track down Klaus,” Maud said. “He should be told.”

“Good luck,” I told her. “I’ve tried. If you find him, punch him for me for disappearing.”

She hugged me. “I’m off to shop.”

“Go!” I told her. “Time is short. Tomorrow is Christmas Day.”

She grinned and took off.

A presence entered the inn. A moment later Tony stumbled into the ballroom, his face worried. “Did I miss dinner?”

“No.” I grinned at him. “An ad-hal, huh?”

He shrugged. “Sorry about that. You know how it is. We can do nothing without a directive from the Assembly. I would’ve come sooner if they’d let me.”

“Thank you for showing up.”

He sighed. “The Hiru attained space flight long before the Draziri. The best we can determine is that the Hiru, in their exploration of the galaxy, stopped on the Draziri planet. Somehow the early Draziri saw them in their natural form. Concerned that they were unduly influencing an emerging civilization, the Hiru had withdrawn from the Draziri planet. They are pacifists by nature and 99.999% of the planets in our galaxy are lethal to them. They couldn’t survive without their suits, which they hate, so there was no reason for them to stay. But the Draziri had never forgotten them. Over the years, the Draziri developed their religion right along the lines of the typical religions of early emerging civilizations: a creator god who sits in judgment and sends people to heaven or hell and they modeled this god on the image of the Hiru, a beautiful being who was a legend. The religion grew into a planetwide theocracy.”

“Then the Draziri developed space flight and stumbled on the Hiru,” I guessed. “Which proved that their religion was a lie. There was no creator god. There was just an alien species.”

“If that fact became public, their entire social structure would have collapsed,” Tony said.

“And the Draziri priests wanted to keep their power.”

“That too. They destroyed the planet before the general population could learn that the Hiru existed and then declared a holy extermination of all Hiru. At first, the Hiru didn’t understand why, then when they did finally figure it out, some committed suicide to show the Draziri who they were killing. When they succeeded, the temple guards would destroy everyone who witnessed the Hiru’s true form and then blame the deaths on the Hiru. People do horrible things in the name of keeping things just the way they are.”

“Where did you take Mrak?”

“There is a little planet in the corner of the galaxy,” he said. “Its sun is dying.”

“I thought suns took billions of years to die.”

“Not this one. It and the entire star system are slowly transitioning out of our dimension. The change has killed most of the biosphere and now the planet has entered the in-between stage, where it exists neither in our space-time nor in the new one. It’s a ghost of a planet. I left him there. He no longer needs to eat or to breathe. He can’t kill himself. All he can do is exist alone among the barren rocks on the shore of an empty ocean, watching the sun grow dimmer every day.”

I shivered. “How long…”

“Not too long. Maybe another twenty years or so. A mind can only take so much.”

“What then? Will he just sit in the dark forever?”

“No. I will get him before the sun dies and end it. If he goes mad before then, I’ll end it sooner. Imprisoning a mad creature would be cruel.”

And that’s why seeing an ad-hal was never a good thing. I had to change the subject.

“Do you know anything about Sebastien North?”

He shook his head. “But I do know something about Michael.”

The memory of Michael’s corruption-ravaged body flickered before me. “What?”

“He was an ad-hal,” Tony said quietly.

I took a step back. “Michael?”

He nodded.

“The corruption took him, killed him, and when it fled his body, it focused on you.”

“I know,” he said. “Michael isn’t the only ad-hal who disappeared in the past several years. Something is hunting us.”

The ad-hal served as our protectors. Without them, we would be defenseless.

“This is for you.” Tony handed me a small card. “I was going to wait until tomorrow, but since we started talking, let’s do this now.”

I opened the card. Three words in black ink. You are summoned. The Assembly was summoning me. My actions would be scrutinized. I would have to answer hard questions.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “The rallying point is at my father’s inn. I’ll be there to testify. You can bring Sean, too. You’ll need to introduce him to the Assembly.”

“Um…”

“You know you have to do it sooner or later,” Tony said. “It will be okay, Dina. You’re not the only innkeeper to survive the death of an inn, but you joined a very exclusive club today. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

“Yes, in the morning.” I forced a smile. “Today is Christmas Eve for us. I served some very old wine.”

Tony rubbed his hands. “Then I’m going to help myself.”

“You totally should.”

He hurried to the tables.

I turned and walked away. I had two hours before the feast. I needed to take a shower and think.

I had just finished my shower when my magic told me Sean was coming up the stairs. I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the door. He was holding a bottle of wine and a tray with some delicious-looking pastries.

He saw me, in a towel, with wet hair on my shoulders. A wolf looked at me from inside his eyes, a wild wolf, hungry, feral, scarred, and every inch mine.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

He stepped inside and set the platter and wine on the bed. A quick dash of anticipation mixed with anxiety rushed through me.

“I put my house on the market,” he said.

“When?”

“Three days ago.”

I was still lost three days ago. He sold his house while I was still out, not knowing if I would come back.

“I have an offer. I accepted it.”

“What if I hadn’t come out of it?”

“I knew you would,” he said.

“How?”

“You don’t give up. And…” He raised his hand and touched my cheek. His rough fingers grazed my skin, caressing. The breath caught in my throat. “You wouldn’t leave me.”

We stood next to each other. Suddenly I was very aware that I was wearing nothing but a towel. The wolf was looking at me through Sean’s eyes, so close, if I reached out, I could touch him.

“This is the part where I should probably do that thing Arland does,” Sean said quietly. “Where he announces that he isn’t a poet, but a humble awkward soldier, and then composes a sonnet on the spot.”

“But you come from the planet of warrior poets. It shouldn’t be a challenge for you.”

“So I’m told.” His amber eyes shone, catching the light of the lamp. His gaze snagged on my lips. He was thinking of kissing me. The realization sent electric shivers through me. I bit my lip. His breathing quickened.

“About that sonnet,” he said.

“Yes?” It felt like my whole life depended on what he would say next.

“I love you.”

That was all I wanted to hear. I didn’t even know until now how much I wanted him to say these words to me. He’d said it before, when I was under, but it was different then. Now it was everything.

“I’ll never leave you,” Sean said. “If you want to stay an innkeeper, I will be one with you. If you want to do something else, I will do that with you. Whatever comes next, I’ll be there, because I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”

I took a step and closed the distance between us. His strong arms closed around me. He bent down and kissed me. He’d kissed me before, but those times paled before this one. He didn’t just touch his lips to mine. He drank me in, seducing, compelling, conquering my mouth. It was an full-out assault, all or nothing. He was offering himself to me and he wanted to know if I was his. I melted into it. I had never wanted anything more.

His hands tightened around me. A shiver ran down my back. His fingers slipped into my hair. I put my arms around him, trying to get closer to the heat of his body. He made a low masculine noise that drove me wild. I fumbled with his T-shirt. He pulled it off, revealing a hard chest corded with muscle, and then he caught me into his arms. My towel slid to my hips. My cold nipples pressed against the heated wall of his chest. I felt so hot, like I was on fire. His hands roamed my body. He made that noise again, that hungry male noise that made me lose my head.

My towel slipped to the floor. He let me go for a breath and then he was naked. We stared at each other in the moonlight slipping through the small window of my bedroom. The silver light slid over him, playing on his broad shoulders, his powerful chest, the ridges of his stomach, and lower, where his hard length made it obvious just how much he wanted me. His eyes glowed like liquid amber, heated from within by intense need. There was no softness in him, just dangerous, lethal strength. He was my wolf, half in the light, half in the shadow. I loved him so much.

I opened my arms. He came to me and swept me off my feet. I kissed his lips, his stubbled jaw, his neck… He dipped his head and nuzzled my neck, his tongue hitting just the right sensitive spot. The burst of pleasure dragged a moan out of me. We landed on the bed. The platter with wine went flying and the inn caught the bottle before it shattered. His mouth slid lower… His tongue grazed my nipple, painting heat over it, the sensation so intense, my whole body tightened in response. An insistent, impatient ache built between my legs. I wanted him to make love to me. The anticipation was killing me. I sank my fingers into his hair and wrapped my legs around him.

“Do you need me to slow down?” he asked, his voice a ragged growl.

“No, I need you to speed up.”

“I can do that.”

He looked into my eyes and thrust inside me, into the liquid heat. Pleasure swept through me and I cried out, thrusting my hips up to better meet him. He kissed me and thrust again, straight into the center of my ache, turning it into bliss. He moved inside me in a smooth rhythm, each thrust stoking the fire until I couldn’t stand it anymore. My body shuddered and waves of pure pleasure swept through me. His body tensed, clenched, and I felt him empty himself inside me with a hoarse groan.

I lay my head on Sean’s chest and rubbed my foot along his leg. He was smiling in the moonlight. It felt so good to lay next to him. Like nothing in the galaxy could hurt me. So that’s what happiness felt like. I’d almost forgotten.

“Should we get dressed?” he asked, sliding his thumb along my shoulder.

“It’s our inn. They’ll wait for us.”

They would wait, but others wouldn’t. I raised my head and looked at him.

“What is it?”

“The Assembly summoned us.”

“Are we in trouble?” He grinned at me.

“Yes.”

He pulled me closer, his arm around me.

“I don’t want tomorrow to come,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“All the problems will come back tomorrow. The Assembly, the ad-hal, the corruption…” I was so happy right now. I wanted it to last a little longer. Just a few more hours.

“You won’t have to deal with your problems alone,” he said.

I hugged him tighter.

“We’ll look for your parents together,” he said.

I kissed him. A light sparked in his eyes. He pulled me on top of him. His mouth closed on mine—

Beast scratched at the door.

“Aunt Dina!” Helen called. “Mom said…”

I collapsed on Sean’s chest, face down.

“… to tell you that you should wrap around your private time because Orro’s head will explode.”

A quick patter of feet announced her running down the hallway. Beast whined at the door, putting extra sadness into her crying just in case I failed to notice it.

Sean patted my back.

I rolled off him. He kissed me again and we got up off the bed.

“One thing,” Sean said. “I’m not wearing a robe.”

“My father wore a robe. All innkeepers wear robes.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Sean Evans, don’t you start with me.”

He bared his teeth at me and bit the air, clicking them.

Tonight was the feast, tomorrow would bring problems, but it didn’t matter. Sean was right.

No matter what the universe threw at me, I wouldn’t have to face it alone.

The Ripper of Souls jumped on the empty bed and regarded us with his witchy cat eyes. Great. We’d had an audience all along. It was probably absurd to be scandalized by a cat, but I was still embarrassed.

Sean frowned. “Where did you get this cat?”

“He was trapped in a glass box in a PetSmart.”

“Did you notice he has a collar?”

“I noticed. I thought about taking it off, but he seemed to like it, so I let him have it. This is my first time owning a cat and I don’t want to damage our relationship.”

Sean grabbed Olasard and held him up.

“I don’t think you should manhandle him like that. I’ve just gotten to the point where he comes when I call him and lets me pet him.”

“Lights,” Sean said.

The electric lamps snapped on. Gertrude Hunt had obeyed him. Huh.

He held the cat out to me, parting the fur with his fingers to expose the collar. A small metal plaque embedded in the blue nylon caught the light. Two letters, engraved in elaborate cursive, shone on the plaque.

S.N.

Sebastien North?