Page 18

ARCHER

Marlowe and Elias had left after breakfast to make sure they made it back in time for the Wolfcrest Construction holiday party, and rather than spend all day in bed until Marlowe’s scent disappeared, I’d decided to get right to work and headed to the University of Chicago campus.

After checking in at the front desk, the beta male librarian took me into the special archives room for shifter collections. “We have gloves over here. Please refrain from touching any of the materials with your skin. You can take pictures without flash, but no scanning or photocopying. And no food or drinks, please. If you need anything I’ll be at my desk.”

Once the door was closed, I started pulling books, working off a list of titles and topics I’d researched ahead of time and thought would be the most insightful.

Shifters and vampyrs were terrible record keepers—a fact I was painfully reminded of while I sorted through the scant material available. For most of our history, we had needed to keep our existence as secret as possible. That meant not leaving any written proof that could be used against us.

Individually, humans were typically fine. Shifters like my colleague at UW-Eau Claire occasionally intermingled with them, with varying levels of success. And as far as I knew, human women were usually willing participants in vampyr servaglios. But as a collective, humans were dangerous. They feared what they didn’t understand, and were always a much bigger threat

to us than we were to them.

For shifters and vampyrs, we were really only threats to each other.

Although to be honest, I’d always found this so-called feud between us strange. We both preferred living under the radar, so open fights were risky. We didn’t compete for food, land, or resources. Mike’s obsession with Marlowe had been unprecedented, and likely due to her supposed unique powers. It was probably the first time something like that had happened, so I couldn’t imagine us fighting over our omega population, either. That most likely would have been noted in my previous research on Marlowe’s designation.

So why did we fight?

Gloves on, I set the first book on the table carefully, ready to dig in.

The librarian came in around six to let me know that the archives were closing in an hour. I hadn’t even stopped to eat, I’d wanted to work as much as possible in the hopes it would get me home faster.

My eyes felt dry, and I squeezed them shut for a moment before moving on to the personal diary of a shifter soldier I’d randomly found out of place on the stack.

March 21, 1924

Blasted Arizona sun - I’ll never understand how anyone can bear it. Spring has just begun and yet I feel as though I’m in the throes of summer. Francis, well, he finds my suffering too amusing. Only a vampyr would relish such a torment, what with their cold blood. Shifters don’t fare well in this dry, desert heat.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Why would a shifter soldier be talking of a vampyr as though they were friends?

I will let him have this joy, however. He lost most of his brothers in Scotland, where the fae managed to break through our defenses only four months ago.

The priestesses are working tirelessly to close the veil here in Sedona, and are nearly through with this one.

Or so we’re told.

They say the barriers between our worlds have nearly all been spelled, and soon we’ll keep those wicked fae soldiers away from our females and pups for good. And away from the vampyrs, who they were surprised to see alive and thriving in this world.

The fae cruelty is unlike any I’ve ever known. Even compared to the horrors the humans committed against each other in Europe, the ruthlessness in which they fight, delighting in tearing us apart with their sorcery, makes one wonder if the Moon really does protect us after all.

My heart pounded—could this be real? Or even a true account? Nothing in our history mentioned fae, or vampyrs and shifters fighting together.

I picked up my phone to start taking pictures of every page— there was so much to go through—when I noticed the barrage of texts and calls I’d apparently missed.

…Archer, you need to drive your ass up here ASAP.

Fuck. It was my first day finally getting some research done, and I already needed to leave. This diary could be the breakthrough I needed to finally fill in all the missing pieces, though.

I weighed my options, then sent a silent apology to the library and archive gods and tucked the diary into my bag. I was almost afraid it would disappear if I tried to find it again, and I didn’t have time to get photos of the whole thing.

I reached through the bond to gauge the emergency in progress. Nolan was enraged and terrified, and Elias was worried. But Camden, Julian, and Marlowe were fine. Happy, even.

Whatever was going down, they weren’t involved in it yet.

I cursed the other part of this horrible timing—it was the height of Chicago rush hour. I’d be lucky if I made it back before midnight.

Me: I’m on my way.

I winced at the bag holding the stolen diary as I left the library, and headed back to Maiingan Hollow.