Welcome to New Hastings. The sign flew past as my bike roared along the almost deserted road, and I smiled grimly, not expecting a warm welcome when I got to my destination. After the way we’d parted, Sara wasn’t going to be happy to see me. The memory of the hurt in her eyes as she’d turned away from me had stayed with me all weekend.
I still wasn’t sure what I was doing here. I’d picked up my phone half a dozen times yesterday to call Paulette, and each time something had stopped me from making the call. It could have been the waves of anger coming from my Mori every time I thought about having someone else make this visit.
Or it could have been the questions burning in my mind ever since Friday night. Sara was definitely Mohiri, and we had a bond. I could feel it; my Mori could feel it. Why, then, hadn’t she shown a hint of recognition or a sign she’d felt something? The more time that passed, the more I had to see her again to make sense of it all.
And how the hell had she survived alone all these years? I could see the werewolves keeping her safe from predators, but how had her demon not driven her insane? Could it be related somehow to the reason her Mori was so quiet? The more I’d thought about it, the more I wondered if her Mori could be sick. I’d heard of it happening, and there had to be some explanation for all of this.
The idea of Sara or her Mori being sick sent a chill through me. It’s not that, I reassured myself. An ailing Mori would cause the person to fall physically ill. Our symbiotic relationship gave us our demon’s strength, but also their weakness. If her Mori was sick, she would be too, but she’d looked healthy when I met her in the club.
My Mori fluttered excitably a few seconds before I rounded a bend in the road and spotted the girl on the bicycle. I didn’t need to see her face to know who she was.
What in God’s name is she doing out here alone? We were on the outskirts of the small town, and I hadn’t seen any houses or buildings for the last few miles. After what had happened Friday night, I was shocked to find her out alone, even in daylight. Most people in her situation would still be terrified from an experience like that.
I passed her and started to ease off the gas, but the fear I saw cross her face changed my mind. This wasn’t the best place to talk to her anyway. I figured she was heading home, so I decided to go on and wait for her.
It wasn’t difficult to find the three-story brick building she lived in. I parked the Ducati in front of the coffee shop next door and leaned against the front of the shop to wait for Sara. Ten minutes later, she appeared at the end of the waterfront and pedaled toward me. When she was a few hundred yards away, I felt her presence and my Mori pressed forward happily.
Sara obviously didn’t share the sentiment, and she wore a scowl when she stopped in front of me.
“How did you find me?” she asked curtly.
I couldn’t help but admire her spirit. “What, no hello after everything we’ve been through together?”
Something like annoyance flashed across her face. “Hello. How did you find me?”
Sensing that the direct approach was the only way to go, I said, “I tracked your friend’s license plate.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
When I’d decided to come here, I thought I’d known exactly what to say to her. But facing her now and seeing her confusion and alarm, I knew this was not going to be as easy as I’d planned. I stepped away from the building. “We need to talk.”
“Talk about what?” There was a slight quiver in her voice, and her shoulders tensed as if she was going to run.
“You look ready to flee. I don’t bite, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought about the other fellow.”
Her wry humor took me by surprise and pulled a laugh from me. She was smaller than the average Mohiri female, and she didn’t have any physical strength or fighting ability based on what I’d seen the other night. But she had fire, and there was nothing cowardly or weak about her.
“You sound like you’re well recovered at least.” I’d worried she might be traumatized once the reality of what had happened set in, and I was relieved to see her looking whole and well. She was wary of my reasons for being here, and I couldn’t say I blamed her.
“I’m not here to harm you, and we really do need to talk.”
“What could we have to talk about?” Her brows drew together. “I don’t even know your last name.”
I smiled. “It’s Danshov, and your last name is Grey. Now that we’re acquainted, can we talk?”
She chewed her lower lip, and for a moment I thought she was going to say no.
“Okay.”
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” The conversation we were about to have was not one I wanted other people to overhear.
She looked around. “We can go down to the wharves. They’re usually pretty empty this time of day.”
“That will work.”
I waited for her to put her bike up. She was quiet when she came back and started walking with me toward the wharves. I wondered what she was thinking, and how long it would take her to ask me the point of my visit. She didn’t strike me as a person who would wait long for answers.
For my part, I was curious about how a Mohiri orphan ended up in a small town in the middle of Maine. I’d done a little digging this morning and found out that the Alpha of the Maine pack lived in New Hastings. One of her friends was the Alpha’s son and the other was his nephew. Sara was in with the most powerful werewolf pack in the country.
“How long have you been friends with the werewolves?” I asked as we strolled along a long, empty wharf.
There was a brief pause before she answered. “A long time.”
“And your parents don’t mind?” I already knew she lived with her uncle, who was her legal guardian, but I wanted to get her talking about her parents.
She tensed up beside me. “It’s just me and my uncle, and he likes my friends, but he doesn’t know what they are. He doesn’t know about any of this.”
“Do you mind if I ask about your parents? How did you come to live with your uncle?”
“My parents are gone. My mother left when I was two, so I don’t remember her.” Her voice held an edge of anger, but I sensed deep pain in her too. “My dad died when I was eight. Uncle Nate is his brother.”
Her answer confused me. Orphans were always the offspring of a male warrior and a human female, but according to her, her father was human. It was conceivable for a female warrior to be away from a stronghold long enough to have a child, but our mothers were very protective of their young. I couldn’t see one of them leaving her child unprotected with a human, even if he was the father.
“Do you know your mother’s maiden name?”
She stopped walking and stared at me suspiciously. “Why do you want to know about my parents? What do they have to do with anything?”
“Answer my question, and I will answer yours.”
She walked away, and there was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice this time. “Her name was Madeline. I think her maiden name was Cross or something like that. She abandoned us. I don’t really care who she was.”
I stared after Sara as the meaning of her words hit me full-on like a freight train. It can’t be. Madeline had always been selfish, but even she would not abandon her own daughter.
Sara stopped walking and faced me. “What’s wrong?”
It hit me then why Sara had looked familiar to Chris and me. She bore a resemblance, not to her mother, but to her grandmother, Josephine.
Khristu! She’s Tristan’s granddaughter.
I struggled to keep my expression and voice neutral even though I was reeling inside. “Madeline Croix? That was her name?”
“It could be. I’m not sure.” She frowned nervously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I glanced away from her, trying to think of how to proceed. I’d known I was going to have to explain certain things to her, but the bombshell she’d dropped on me had thrown me for a loop. Madeline was alive and she’d had a daughter.
“I just haven’t heard that name in a while,” I said. “If she is the Madeline I knew, it explains a lot to me.”
“Well, it doesn’t tell me anything, so why don’t you fill me in? You said you would answer my question if I answered yours.”
“I will.” I started forward, waving at some overturned wooden crates. “Let’s sit. This is a good place to talk.”
We sat, and I turned to look at her. The move brought me close to her, and my eyes were drawn to her mouth. My body grew warm, and my Mori shifted excitedly at her nearness.
Khristu, get a grip.
I raised my gaze to hers. “You didn’t know who the Mohiri were before the other night. How much do you know about us now?” I figured the werewolves had told her what they knew, which wasn’t a lot.
“I know you guys are vampire hunters, and you and the werewolves don’t like each other. That’s pretty much it.” She shrugged, but the interest in her eyes told me she was more curious than she let on.
“I imagine your friends don’t talk about us any more than we do about them. Would you like to know more about the Mohiri?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.
Her answer pleased me more than I wanted to admit. “You seem very familiar with the real world, but how much do you know about demons?”
“Nothing, except to stay as far away from them as possible.”
“What if I told you there are thousands of types of demons, and that vampires are one of them?”
She frowned, and there was a note of fear in her voice when she spoke. “I’d ask you if you are deliberately trying to scare the hell out of me.”
I rested my elbows on my legs. “I am not here to frighten you.” I didn’t want to upset her either, but she had to hear this if she was to understand the rest of what I had to tell her. I could already tell from her reaction to my question about demons that this wasn’t going to go well.
She looked down, and I followed her gaze to the hands clenched in her lap.
“Do you still want to hear about the Mohiri?”
Green eyes met mine again. “Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
She smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through the clouds. I had to look away so she couldn’t see what I was feeling. Hell, I didn’t know what I was feeling.
I began to recite the story I had learned from my sire when I was young. “It all started two millennia ago when demons learned how to leave their dimension and walk the Earth in corporeal form. Most of them were lesser demons, and they were dangerous, but not a major threat to humanity. But then a middle demon called a Vamhir appeared. It took a human host and gave the human immortality…and the thirst for human blood.”
“The first vampire,” she said in a hushed voice.
I nodded. “The demon soon learned how to make more like him, and before long there were thousands of vampires. The Earth’s population was small back then, and ancient civilizations were virtually defenseless against the vampires’ strength and bloodlust. If left unchecked, the vampires would have eventually overrun the earth and wiped out humanity.
“So the archangel Michael came to Earth to create a race of warriors to destroy the vampires. He took a middle demon called a Mori and put it inside a human male, and had the male impregnate fifty human women. Their offspring were half human/half demon and they had the speed, strength, and agility to hunt and kill vampires. They were the first Mohiri.”
I watched the play of emotions across her face: revulsion, amazement, disbelief.
“The Mohiri are demons?” she asked hesitantly.
“Half demon. Each of us is born with a Mori demon in us.”
“You mean you live with a demon inside you like…like a parasite?” Her face paled, and she pulled back several inches. If I had any question about whether or not she knew what she was, her reaction answered it for me.
“Exactly like that. We give the Mori life, and in return, it gives us the ability to do what we were created to do. It is a symbiotic relationship that benefits us both.”
She stood abruptly, and I thought she was going to run. Instead, she walked to the edge of the wharf and stared at the water.
“You’re not planning on jumping, are you?” I asked lightly, trying to allay the fear I sensed in her.
She looked at me, and my gut twisted at the confusion and anxiety I saw in her eyes. “Why are you telling me all this?” she asked in a small voice.
Her distress drew me like a magnet, and I moved to stand in front of her.
“Because you need to hear it.”
Her eyes widened. “Why? What does this have to do with me? Or my parents?”
“I’ll get to them in a minute. First, tell me, haven’t you wondered why you’re different from everyone else you know?”
Before I told her what she was, I needed to know what she felt around me. Bonds were not one-sided. I could sense her Mori, and all mine wanted to do was touch her. How could she stand this close to me and look so unaffected? Even if she had no idea what she was, she should feel something.
“D-different? I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
She shook her head. “Listen I –”
My eyes locked with hers. I felt for the new bond stretching between us and pushed against it gently. Immediately, her demon responded and reached out to me. My Mori fluttered happily, and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction. She might not recognize our connection, but her Mori did.
Suddenly, it was like a wall slammed down between us, pushing me away from her. I barely had time to react before she spun away from me, her eyes dark and frightened.
“Sara?” I reached a hand toward her.
“I have to go.” She moved past me without looking in my direction.
I sighed. “Running away won’t change anything, Sara.”
She ignored me so I tried another approach. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”
She stopped walking but didn’t look at me. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I think we both know that’s not true,” I said to her back.
Her eyes were ablaze when she turned to confront me again. “What about my parents? Did you know them?”
“Not your father. But I knew Madeline Croix for many years.”
Disbelief crossed her face. “You’re only a few years older than me.”
“I’m older than I look.”
The fire left her eyes. “So what are you trying to tell me? How do you know Madeline?”
There was no easy way to say it; she was going to find it hard to take no matter how I put it. Sara had to hear the truth about her mother so she could accept who she was.
“I watched her grow up.”
Her head moved from side to side, and denial filled her eyes as she stared at me. I watched emotions cross her face as she processed my words. I wished there was something I could do or say to make this easier for her.
“No!” She turned and fled.
“Sara,” I called, but she ran faster. “Damn it,” I muttered, going after her.
I moved past her and stopped. As she collided with me, her palms pressed against my chest to steady herself, and I felt their heat as if they were touching my bare skin. A wave of need pulsed from my demon, but I refrained from touching her. She was as skittish as a colt. The last thing I wanted to do was frighten her more than she already was.
A gasp slipped from her. “How –?”
“Demon speed, remember?”
“Someone could have seen you.” She backed up, pressing her lips together.
“You and I both know that people see only what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. But just because a person chooses to not believe something, doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
The double meaning in my words was not lost on her, and she wrapped her arms around herself defensively.
“How can you be so sure?” Desperation filled her voice as she fought the truth. “There must be more than one Madeline Croix.”
“I was sure of what you are before I heard her name. As soon as I saw you the other night, I knew.” I stared at the water, afraid of what she might see in my eyes. “My Mori recognized yours.”
“What?”
“Mori can sense each other when they are near. It is how one Mohiri always recognizes another.” And my Mori would know yours anywhere.
She started to shake her head.
“They are never wrong,” I said with gentle firmness.
“I…”
I searched her eyes, looking for recognition in them. “You felt it, didn’t you?”
Her lower lip trembled, and I finally saw what I was looking for. When she gave a tiny nod, an emotion I couldn’t define made my chest constrict.
Solmi, my Mori growled softly.
“This can’t be happening,” Sara whispered.
I gave her a small smile. “There are worse fates, you know.”
“You’re telling me I have a demon parasite inside me, and I’m supposed to be okay with that?” Fear colored her voice, but I knew it was only fear of the unknown. She would lose that when she got to know her people and accepted what she was.
“It’s not as bad as you make it sound,” I said.
She winced, her internal struggle visible on her expressive face. “No, it’s worse.”
I felt the urge to comfort her, but there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t scare her away. Paulette would have known exactly what to say.
“I know this is strange and frightening, but you are not the first orphan we’ve found. You will adjust as they have.”
“Orphan?”
“It’s just a term we use for young Mohiri who were not born to our way of life,” I explained when she recoiled. “They have no idea who they really are until we find them.”
Her eyes widened. “Then there are others like me?”
“Not exactly like you. The others have been much younger.” By at least ten years. It shouldn’t be possible for her to be standing in front of me, but she was. One more piece of the mystery surrounding her.
“What does that matter?”
I searched for the gentlest way to explain it without frightening her more. “Our Mori need us to survive as much as we need them, but they are still demons, and they have certain impulses and wills of their own. We learn from an early age to control those urges and to balance our human and demon sides. Otherwise, the Mori will try to become dominant.
“Orphans who are not found young enough to be trained grow up with deep mental and emotional problems, tormented by their demon sides. The worst cases become severely schizophrenic and end up in institutions…or they kill themselves.”
She shuddered, and I could only imagine what was going through her mind in that moment.
“How old was the oldest orphan you ever brought in?” she asked.
I thought about the blonde trainee at Westhorne. “The oldest reclaimed was ten, and she was the exception. The others were no more than seven.”
“Ten?”
“I know what you’re thinking; I see it in your face. You are Mohiri. I know that with one hundred percent certainty.” I took a step toward her, and my Mori tried unsuccessfully to reach out to hers. “What I don’t know is how you learned to subdue your demon without training. I’ve never seen control like yours. Your Mori is practically dormant.”
When she retreated again, I didn’t follow. She needed space, and I wouldn’t push her.
“Is that why I’m not fast or strong like you?”
“That and we reach maturity around nineteen or twenty. You should already have noticed some of your abilities starting to show by now, but you’ll have to learn how to use your demon side to enhance your physical abilities.”
Her face blanched.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. It’s just so much to take in.”
“It will take time.”
My words failed to comfort her, but she appeared to collect herself. “So, what else can you do besides move really fast and catch people falling off buildings? What other powers do you have?”
I tried not to think about her falling in that alley. “Powers?”
“You know, can you compel people like vampires do or read minds or heal things? Stuff like that.”
Her expectant expression drew a laugh from me. “No special powers or compulsion or anything else. We have the speed and strength to fight vampires. That is all we need.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No, I’m just trying to understand it all.” Her eyes moved slowly over my face. “How old are you? And I don’t mean how old you look.”
Her gaze snared me, and I almost forgot to answer. “I was born in eighteen twenty.”
Her jaw dropped. “Am I…?”
“Yes. Once you reach maturity, aging will stop for you, too.” Growing old and dying were two things most humans feared. Knowing she would never have to worry about that should ease her mind a little.
“Oh.” Her chin quivered, and I was surprised to see something akin to sorrow fill her eyes.
“That upsets you?”
She nodded and rubbed her shivering arms.
Concern filled me, and I moved to give her my leather jacket. “You’re cold.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Her shoulders heaved as she took a deep breath. “What if I don’t want to join the Mohiri?”
My Mori growled unhappily.
“You don’t join. You are Mohiri.”
She lifted her chin. “What if I don’t want to live with them, and I just want to stay here? You said yourself that I can control this demon thing better than anyone you’ve ever seen, so I don’t need your training.”
I knew my next words would hurt, but she had to understand what all of this meant for her. “You don’t belong here anymore. What will you tell people when you stop aging? What will you do when everyone you know here grows old and dies? You need to be with your own people.”
She flinched. “These are my people.”
“That’s because they are all you’ve ever known. Once you get to know the Mohiri –”
“No!” Anger burned in her eyes. “I knew a Mohiri, remember? All she did was abandon me and my father. My loving Mohiri mother deserted us, and my dad was murdered by vampires. Where were my people then?”
Stunned by her outburst, I stared at her. “Vampires killed your father?”
Her laugh was bitter. “Pathetic, isn’t it? You’d think someone like me would be a lot less likely to be taken in by a vampire, considering my past and my genes. Some warrior.” She started walking at a fast pace toward the waterfront again.
I walked beside her. “That vampire, Eli, knows what you are now. He’ll be looking for you. Vampires love nothing more than draining Mohiri orphans. We deprived him of that pleasure, and he will not forget it.”
She stumbled slightly, but didn’t stop walking. “I thought you said he wouldn’t get away.”
“He was more resourceful than most.” I cursed myself again for letting the vampire escape and for being the cause of the fear that had crept back into her voice.
“Well, if he does come back, he’ll think I’m in Portland, right?” she said hopefully. “There’s no way he would know to look for me here. Besides, this is werewolf territory and the werewolves are doing sweeps of Portland to find the vampires.”
“The werewolves might not catch him either.” Eli had evaded the pack for the last three weeks. He might not be stupid enough to come this close to the Alpha, but I’d seen how much he wanted Sara.
She glared at me. “Are you trying to scare me?”
“No, but I will not lie to you either.”
When we reached my bike, she faced me with her shoulders back and her arms crossed. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for you saving my life because I am, more than I can say. But your way of life, your people – I don’t belong with them.”
Her statement made waves of agitation roll off my demon. I wasn’t too happy either. But short of forcing her to go with me, there was nothing I could do.
Solmi, my Mori insisted. It wanted its mate, and it sent me a vivid image of me carrying her away.
Ignoring the demon, I pulled out a small card and handed it to her. “This is my number. Call me if you need me or when you reconsider your options.”
She took the card and looked at it for several seconds before she put it in her jeans pocket. “I won’t reconsider.”
The set of her jaw told me she wouldn’t be easily persuaded, and I would not force her to leave. Something told me she would never forgive me if I did. I’d never cared much about people’s opinions, but the thought of this girl hating me did not sit well with me.
“One more thing.” I took a small sheathed dagger from an inner pocket of my jacket and held it toward her. “You may feel safe here now, but as you found out Friday night, danger can find you when you least expect it.”
She shook her head, but I put the knife in her hand before she could pull it away. I watched her unsheathe the dagger and study the silver blade with open curiosity. Seeing her holding one of my weapons gave me an absurd rush of pleasure. I grabbed my helmet and donned it before she could see the smile tugging at my lips.
I mounted my bike and turned my head toward her. “I’ll be seeing you, Sara.”
Very soon.
