Chapter 33

“You three are all on my shit list.” Thad paced Tyra’s living room with his hands clasped behind his back. Smoke actually seemed to be coming from his ears.

Tyra struggled to remain still where she stood. For once, it was clear that getting in her brother’s face wasn’t the answer.

Anton, who was perched next to her on a bar stool in her breakfast nook, reached to take her hand. “He has a right to be angry,” he whispered. “We’re all under stress here. Let him vent.”

“Goddamn right I’ve got a right to be angry.” Thad pointed a finger at Anton and then at Tyra. “Look, no offense, man, but we agreed, Ty, that it would be best to let him go.” He whirled on Xander. “And you. You said you wanted to go talk to him. I didn’t hear anything about you hauling his carcass back to the estate, and I don’t think lying by omission is the kind of shit you want to pull with me when you’re trying to get your ass put back on active duty.”

Xander’s jaw clenched, but he stayed silent. Probably wise.

Anton slid off the stool and took a step forward. “Thad, if you want me to leave, I will.”

“What?” Tyra jerked. He’d promised her that he would stay. “Anton.”

Anton held up a hand. “And I’ve also promised Ty that I won’t leave her again. So you see, that would leave me in the somewhat difficult position of having to go back on my word, but I’ve got to respect your laws in this little world, and I will.”

Thad and Anton moved toward each other in the center of the room, two stags about to engage in a horn lock. Meanwhile, Xander and Tyra made eye contact from across the room. They’d fought together but had never really been friends, yet suddenly in this unlikely scenario they were on the same page, and that page had a whole lot of annoyance written on it. Each in their own way had managed to put aside baggage and worries and past hurt to come to terms with bringing Anton back here to the estate, and Anton and Thad were still having a pissing match over it.

She rubbed her eyes. So much had happened, and she was bone weary. She wanted to be angry at someone, but she was even almost too tired for that. “Thad.”

Someone knocked hard on the front door. When she opened it, she recognized the man as the father of Thad’s house manager, Ivy. He didn’t come to the house much but she’d seen him on her rare visits to the Elder Council meetings. His name escaped her at the moment. Gus… Gunderson. No, it was a color, maybe, like… Gray. Black?

It was then that the cluster of other vampires caught her attention, all residents of the estate and all wearing such grimly determined faces that she wondered why they weren’t carrying torches and pitchforks. Ugh. Why hadn’t she seen this coming?

She hadn’t wanted to.

“Let us talk to the wizard,” the elder said.

She narrowed her stare at the elder and then panned over the rest of the crowd. It was a mix. Mostly elders and some civilians who lived on the premises, but she was relieved to note that not many of her teammates were in the group. There were, however, females and children. For the children, it was paramount that this be resolved peacefully.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t think so. See, you guys have this whole angry-mob thing going, and he’s done nothing wrong.”

All this did was get them agitated and restless and jostling each other. Clearly, her negotiation tactics needed work. Her pulse quickened. The front door opened and her heart pounded even more. Fear that Anton might decide to throw himself to the wolves dueled with concern that Thad might come out here and put himself in danger in front of his angry subjects.

Hot shame washed over her as she moved to guard the door from whoever was coming out of it. From the moment she’d woken up in that shelter, she’d handled all of this so damned badly. “Xander.”

He smiled broadly, and his fangs flashed in the moonlight. His body language was at ease, and she was at once comforted and confused. What did he know that she didn’t?

He raised a hand, even as he ushered Tyra behind him with one arm, which made her blood simmer. He didn’t have to protect her, after all.

“Good morning, everyone. Evening, Elder Grayson.”

Grayson, that was it. Tyra resisted the urge to thunk her forehead in front of the crowd of restlessly shifting bodies.

Xander cleared his throat. “Listen, I get that everyone’s a little upset over Tyra here sleeping with the enemy and all that.” He jerked a thumb in Tyra’s direction.

Her eyes widened. Oh, he did not say that.

But he had, and bless his traitorous little heart, he was still talking. “But I want everyone here to understand something. I was the one responsible for bringing the wizard back to the estate, so don’t anyone blame Tyra here for that.”

More murmuring and restless shifting from the peanut gallery. A baby cried near the back. A baby. Someone had actually brought a baby. Jeez. Elder Grayson stepped forward. “What the hell is this about?”

***

Xander leaned his shoulders against the cold of Tyra’s beige vinyl siding and cracked his knuckles. He gazed up at the sparsely populated sky and the three-quarter moon and hoped that Tam, wherever she was, would be proud of him for this. He’d like to think so.

He scanned the crowd populated with young ones and females who had no business getting swept up or even standing by as witness to what would surely go down if they let Anton come out of Tyra’s house. Certainly, no good could come of letting this get out of hand. He hadn’t brought Anton back for that.

Next to him, Tyra leaned back against the door, and despite the distance between their bodies, heat radiated off her. He would bet any amount of money that her body was strung tight, and he wouldn’t blame her. She didn’t know what he had planned, and even Xander himself didn’t know how his message would be received.

He lowered his eyes and assumed a somber expression. It wasn’t hard, thinking of Tam. “Most of you know I lost my mate a few months ago.”

The crowd stilled considerably, uttering a few murmurs of agreement or understanding. Some eyes got wider. Folks were listening. Good.

“We had a fight.” Tears pressed behind his eyes, and he let them flow because this was not a time to be stoic. This was a time to get anger to shift, and if it shifted to sad, then all the better. “And when I returned from patrol, she’d left a gift and a note saying that she’d bring back my favorite food. But she never came home. Even with all of us out there on patrol, the wizards still manage to grab a vampire or two some nights and one night it was my Tam.”

He ignored the snot drip that landed on his boot. “So nobody gets it more than I do, what it means to have a wizard living inside our estate, you know?”

From the creased foreheads and wide eyes on the vampires crowded around Tyra’s stoop, it wasn’t clear that they did know. The inferno radiating out of Tyra dialed down a notch but he didn’t dare look in her direction. Somehow, that was the key to keeping his composure.

He jerked a thumb toward the door. “That guy in there, he was there when Tam was…” He swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. “When they claimed her power. He was kind enough to share with me that she wasn’t conscious when they did it. She didn’t… hopefully feel any pain.” Tension radiated out of Tyra, but Xander needed to keep going before he lost his shit. “He’s a good man who was born in a bad place. He helped us kill their leader, and he has knowledge that can help us defeat these bastards once and for all. Isn’t that what we really want?”

Everyone seemed too confused to respond. Jeez, everyone, superior species, much? “Come on, eye on the prize, folks.”

Tyra stepped forward. “Guys. Anton was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wants to help us defeat the wizards. Wouldn’t you like to see us put an end to the fighting?”

Didn’t he just say all that? This time, thank fuck, murmurs of assent rose from the crowd. Next to Xander, Tyra blew an audible sigh of relief. Only Elder Grayson remained stern and unmoved. Xander met the elder male’s gaze directly.

“If that wizard starts trouble, I’ll be the first to make him pay for it. You have my word. But we only shoot ourselves in the foot if we take him down before he’s helped us defeat the wizards. And isn’t that our true goal? Besides, we’re not any better than the wizards if we’re out here forming lynch mobs without cause.”

The rest of the group murmured more heartily this time. Xander straightened and peered up at the sky. “Good. Now I suggest everyone get their children back to their homes. Dawn is approaching, and none of us can defeat the enemy if we’re burnt to a crisp.”

Slowly the murmurs became grumbles, and everyone turned and trekked back to their homes. Elder Grayson was the last. His long, silvery hair waved in the morning breeze as he studied Xander with a look reminiscent of a small-time crook whose dastardly plans had been thwarted. That reaction didn’t make an awful lot of sense, but Xander made a note to mention it to Thad, just in case.

Xander started when a warm hand wrapped around his and, before he could process, arms as well. Then Tyra’s forehead landed on his shoulder and her mass of curly hair was blowing into his face. She hugged him hard—the kind of hug his grandmother used to give when he was a child. In response, he used to say, “I can’t breathe when you do that.” But this time he didn’t say a thing. Didn’t do anything but hold on.

“I don’t know exactly why you did that, but thank you.”

He nodded against the top of her head. “It was the right thing to do. And like I said, I want revenge. For Tam’s death. For your father. For all the ones we’ve lost.” The very thought charged him with energy and motivation he hadn’t known in months.

He’d make it up to Tam for not saving her.