Ivy stepped back and tried to scream but it came out as a whimper that acted as a signal. It took only a moment for them to surround her. The tall one licked his lips, and even in the dim light of the alley from her location behind the dumpster, Michaela could see how huge his dilated pupils were.
“Look at you, standing with the garbage, where you belong. Should have stayed in your own country.” A high, wild giggle escaped him and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Too bad. Now it’s time to have some fun.”
Then he reached out and grabbed Ivy’s arm.
* * * *
Cormac stood in the shadows, watching the young woman, Ivy, as she stood against the group of men who now circled her. Men. Humans were brutish, with the same dominance displays as animals, and some were only happiest when they were inflicting pain on others—and even better, had it witnessed by their cronies. Michaela was nearby, masqued and hiding behind the dumpster. She must be too panicked to act. Not what he expected from her, but even the strongest warriors could freeze.
One made contact with Ivy and her strangled moan made his rage spike. On the rooftops above sat a flock of pigeons, the only animals in sight. He could bring them down, send them to Ivy’s aid. Even as the thought occurred to him, a surge of power blasted up from the ground as the intense desire to connect with the dolma overwhelmed him.
He could bring it all under his control again—the trees, the drooping dandelion growing from a crack in the asphalt. It had been 312 years, 5 months, and 13 days since he’d had this.
No.
It took all his willpower but he managed to pull back, dampening his thoughts and forcing them away from the dolma. He had to. Too much would send an upwelling in the natural world that even Tismelda would sense.
He would not break his vow to keep his caintir power hidden, and his sister and forest safe.
However, his brief weakness had been enough to turn fifty pairs of beady eyes towards him before fluttering down. A thick, gray-brown cloud surrounded Ivy and her attackers, whose swagger crumpled as they tried to beat the birds off with weak slaps and shrill squeals.
Even as the flock of pigeons descended, the figure near the dumpster abruptly grew two feet taller. Cormac gaped. The being with the cadaverous face and wicked fangs worthy of a saber-toothed tiger had to be Michaela, but masquerada only took on human forms. He didn’t even think they could take on the masques of other arcana.
The nightmarish vampire-Michaela loped over and took hold of the leader’s hand, giving his arm a vicious twist. Cormac winced as he heard the bones crack and grind. The human’s agonized scream was enough to send the others running. Michaela hissed into Blondie’s face and Cormac saw him whimper and clutch his ruined arm to his chest. He doubled over as she gave him a vicious kick to the groin.
“Leave this place.” The voice was every horror movie come to life. It brought shivers to Cormac’s spine and he wasn’t surprised when the damaged man desperately tried to pull himself away, the birds pecking at his face. He groaned and stopped, lying in an oily puddle.
Ivy had already gone running, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Cormac strode over to Michaela. She made a superb vampire but, as he watched, became herself again.
They regarded each other.
“I didn’t know you could take on arcane masques,” he said evenly, though the vampire had been more of a human perception of a vampire than any vampire he’d come across in real life.
“I didn’t know you could summon a bird army.”
Detente. He glanced down at her hands, which didn’t tremble in the least. Apparently he had been wrong about her fear. “Are you injured?”
“No. How did you call the pigeons? Why pigeons?”
“Why don’t we discuss this later?” He nodded to the twitching human.
Michaela ignored the human, now vomiting in pain. “Ivy. I need to check on her.”
She dashed out and down to the street, making sure not to take the same route as Ivy. Cormac kept close as Michaela peeked around the corner. A group of people were soothing a young woman who cried as she pointed back at the alley.
“She’s safe,” Michaela said with relief.
“You’re not going to see her?”
Michaela had already turned to walk away. “Why? To tell her what happened? That I transformed into a giant vampire to save her life?”
A siren shrieked in the distance as Cormac followed. “Good point.”
She stumbled as they ducked into a side street and he instinctively laid a hand over hers. Her skin was warm and he was astonished when a shiver ran through her.
Then even more surprised when he felt a strange twist in his gut, a warmth that replaced the cold anger that had filled him.
Impossible. They didn’t even like each other.
Yet he hadn’t imagined that shiver. Or his matching reaction.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“Heard you leave and flagged a cab.”
“No, I mean my masque.”
He could tell this bothered her, and at least this gave him the upper hand. “Instead of that, why don’t you tell me about sneaking out past your Watcher? Your council-mandated Watcher?”
She grimaced. “Look, sneaking sounds so—”
“Correct? Dammit, you could have been killed.”
Michaela glanced around and when she turned back, a thick man with glaring eyes and heavy, pale brows stared back at him. He had no neck, just a solid trunk of muscle from his ears to his shoulders.
He reeled back. “Good God. What is that?” Was it more disturbing to see her as this hulking man or as the ghoulish vampire? He shivered. Both were wrong.
Yeah, like talking to birds is totally normal.
“I am Yuri.”
Her clothes had stretched to the ripping point around the masque’s husky barrel of a chest. She must have considered her point made because she shifted back into her natural self.
“Who the hell is Yuri?”
“I am a masquerada,” she said with heavy patience. She stepped close to him, so close he could smell the tuberose that wafted from her skin. “Not a human woman. Frankly, even if I was a woman, I wouldn’t need—or want—you to take care of me.”
“I was right to intervene.”
“I’m the judge of that.”
“You could have been injured,” he said evenly.
They arrived at the car. She glared at him. “I needed to check on Ivy and I had it under control. They were only humans.”
“What if they hadn’t been?”
“Get in the car, Cormac. Now.”
“Not until we discuss this.”
“Here? You want to discuss this on the street.”
“Yes. Better start talking.”
She opened the door with a savage yank. “Fuck you I will. Walk if you don’t want to drive with me.”
“I need to drive with you, remember? I’m the Watcher. Mandated to be with you every minute. Watching your every. Goddamn. Move.”
“Let’s get this sorted, right now. I don’t like being with you. I don’t like you around me. I don’t like having you hanging over me, breathing down my neck as I try to work.” She blew her breath out and controlled her voice. “Yet I bowed