Page 24 of Taming His Vampire Mate

I turned toward the voice.

It was the female werewolf. She nudged Jeremy.

He blinked, his gaze sliding toward me.

When I glared at him—in your dreams, wolf—he swallowed and looked away again.

“Lindsey is right,” Jeremy said after a beat of awkward silence. “When the veil between this world and others thins, it can bleed creatures into ours. Monsters capable of wiping out an entire town. Perhaps this dream was a warning.”

His words got a reaction. Every witch at the table stared at him in disbelief.

“How, precisely, would a wolf know about interplanar fissures?” Tatiana demanded. “They’re an exceedingly rare study of magic. Not to mention, they’re extremely unlikely to be the cause of what happened to Rookwood.”

She was right, of course. That wasn’t the cause of Oscar’s vision. His vision had been meant for me alone.

Jeremy frowned at her. “No disrespect, ma’am, but that’s what we do. Wolves guard the thin places. Our pack has done it for generations.”

Everyone traded puzzled looks. But that made a certain kind of sense. If witches were wary of letting other supernatural creatures get to know their ways, wolves were outright isolationists.

Lindsey spoke up. “Jeremy is exactly right. There are thin places in the mountains. The whole area has been unstable for months. We think the bleeds will start again soon. If they’re active where we are, it’s possible they’ve become active somewhere else too. Sort of like earthquakes happening along a fault line.”

“Wait.” Nathaniel’s head snapped up, eyes widening. “You said in the mountains? As in theCascadeMountains?”

I understood his alarm. It was the first we’d heard about the possibility of monsters from another reality coming through portals. Especially given that the Cascades were only an hour away from Seattle by car. And much closer for anything that could run inhumanly fast.

Lindsey nodded at him. “We have a warlock in our pack. He and our pack elder believe the entire area is unstable again. Creatures could start passing through at any time.”

“What sorts of things?” Tatiana demanded, her expression thunderous. “Why were the witches not informed?” Her voice rose, and the lights flickered overhead. “How is this the first we’ve heard of these ‘bleeds’?”

“You are being informed. Emma and Daniel only came to this conclusion a few days ago,” Reed said, giving her a thin, mirthless smile. “Besides, we weren’t all such good friends before, were we? Wolves have always kept to ourselves.”

“What other secrets do you keep?” she pressed.

Jeremy’s gaze flicked to me, then away. “The important part is that we came here to tell you now.”

“Excuse me,” the mayor cut in, her voice carrying. “I’d like to revisit Tatiana’s point. What do you meanmonsterscome out of these—err—”

“Bleeds,” the police chief supplied grimly, rubbing his temples.

“If you’re asking what they look like—have you seenAlien?” Reed said. “What comes through is a lot like that. And they eat people pretty indiscriminately. Usually.”

The mayor blanched. Most of the other humans did, too.

“Our pack will need backup,” Jeremy said. “If the bleeds are starting again, it’s just a handful of us guarding a massive area.”

“And the very first thing you do is ask us for favors,” Pierce snapped, outrage sharpening his voice. “After what you did, you have no right to be in this room, much less ask for help.”

Jeremy went pale but stared him down, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

I had the sudden—and utterly ridiculous—urge to defend the wolf. I shoved it down. Pierce had every right to his fury. What Jeremy had done was indefensible.

I stayed silent.

“And you think this phenomenon could account for an entire town vanishing?” Poppy demanded, cutting through the tense silence. Her gaze slid from Lindsey to Reed and then settled on Jeremy.

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, giving me a strange look. “It could.”

Poppy traded a hard glance with Ethan, which he matched exactly, giving her a sharp nod. They weren’t telepathically connected, but they’d grown up together—along with Poppy’s brother Tobias—and were still best friends. They were also training to be co-leaders of the Seattle coven once Tatiana stepped down. Sometimes I saw glimmers of who they would someday become: powerful, decisive, and perfectly in sync. This was one of those times.