I threw myself back onto the pillows, my eyes squinched shut, like I could force myself to sleep through sheer force of will.

  I finally fell into a fitful doze, with my phone still clutched in my hand. And for once, I was grateful that I didn’t dream.

  Chapter Eight

  An earthquake struck, my bed shaking, springs digging into my spine before I shot upright.

  “Rise and shine, Sweetling,” Lorcan warbled, and he bounced his knee on the mattress again, jolting me up into the air. “Have I got a fun adventure planned for you.”

  I flopped back onto the bed, groaning. My hair was a tangled mess around my throat and shoulders. I was so tired, my eyes even felt gritty. This was garbage, I thought mutinously. I was a vampire, the undead. I should not have been able to have a sleep hangover. Why did vampires even need sleep? Ridiculous.

  What was worse? When I closed my eyes, Lorcan leaned his weight forward, and nearly bounced me right off the bed. Luckily, one thing that had improved with my involuntary change was my reflexes. I managed to lash out, digging my fingers and toes into the mattress like a cat refusing to get in the bathtub, and kept myself from being flung onto the floor.

  “Oh, my Goddess! What are you doing?” I yelled.

  Lorcan just laughed, loud, and way, way too joyfully for whatever the spell time it was.

  “Come along, my dear.”

  “What do you want, you horrible man?”

  “I told you.” He rattled the bed again, but not hard enough to send me into orbit, at least. “I thought you could use some cheering up, so I arranged an adventure! But you’ll have to hurry and get dressed, because we don’t have much time.”

  I managed to resist rolling over and burying my face back into the pillows, but only because I knew Lorcan could, and would, lift up the box spring to roll me entirely onto the floor. “What does that even mean?” I grumbled as I sat up and rubbed my weary eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  The last part came out a lot closer to a whine than I was comfortable with, but I was dealing with a heartless creature, one that apparently delighted in my misery, because he just laughed again.

  “Twenty minutes. Oh, and sweetling?”

  Lorcan paused until I lifted my head enough to glare blearily in his general direction.

  He grinned, flashing both gleaming fangs.

  “Make sure you wear sneakers.”

  ***

  I’d expected the worst. Maybe worse than the worst. The sneakers comment had me picturing ‘nature hikes’ that were barely a step up from a grim death march, or some kind of physical training, which while necessary, wasn’t fun or an adventure. Or, worst of all, Lorcan had somehow found some kind of dentist symposium on better fang care he was going to drag me to.

  The horror.

  Instead, at an hour after sunset, we were pulling up outside a well-lit building that I realized was a stable.

  Almost against my will, I sat up straight in the passenger seat of Lorcan’s fancy car. He hadn’t let me drive, and considering the state of the road we’d had to turn down to reach our destination, I couldn’t exactly blame him. Those potholes probably had their own time zone, they were so huge. At least if his precious car ended up scuffed, it wouldn’t be my fault.

  The stables were huge and sprawling. I had no idea just how many animals it could hold, but I could tell it was a lot. There was a barn, too. A huge red building with white painted trim. It looked like someone had searched for the most picturesque, stereotypical building labelled a ‘barn’, and then relocated it to this place.

  Through the gap between the barn and the stables, I could see a long line of fence and dozens of horses wandering around, munching on grass and hay. Their tails flicked, shooing away flies as they wandered.

  I’d been staring so long, Lorcan had actually come around to my side of the car and opened my door for me.

  I shot him a look. Okay, yes, there was a little frisson of excitement at the sight of the place, but there was also a big old dollop of anxiety brewing in my gut. I hadn’t been near anything horse shaped since I was a toddler, I was pretty sure. And that had been a sleepy, fat little pony at some birthday party or other. Not a tall, strong, powerful animal that could step on me, and would probably freak out at having a large predator perched on its back. Assuming that I was assuming right about why we were even here.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Lorcan, trying not to let my nerves show in my voice.

  I shouldn’t have bothered. Lorcan was pretty darn attentive to the moods of Depraysie women. It was probably what had kept him alive and unhexed while dealing with Wanda. His wicked grin had softened into something a little less alarming, and he offered me a hand like I was alighting from a carriage instead of standing up from a low-slung sports car.

  “Well now,” Lorcan said, playing up his Irish brogue. His eyebrows pinched together, like he was thinking hard, but there was still that little curl of a smirk that never quite seemed to fade. “I know it’s been a while for you, Sweetling, but this is what other people call ‘fun’ so I assumed you might well find it ‘fun’ also.”

  I tried to give him the glare he deserved, but it was a fight to keep my own lips from twitching up. “Thanks for clearing that up for me. Take it easy with the details, next time. No need for me to get so bogged down in useless information.”

  He laughed, grinning hard enough to flash the points of his fangs, and then he tugged me out of the car before closing the door again. “Come on. You’ve been cooped up in that blasted hotel room for far too long. Why not indulge?”

  “Indulge?”

  He nodded. “Yes, do touristy things! This is supposed to be a vacation, isn’t it?”

  “Apparently,” I grumbled. “But horseback riding? In the dark?”

  The sun had set, and while the deep purple sky was heavily spangled with stars, even more than I could see in Haven Hollow, I wasn’t sure that was enough for a horse to see by. Or were we just going to walk in circles in a barn? Because that sounded… well, pretty boring, if I was being honest. I mean, I could walk in circles all on my own, without the potential of getting bitten, thrown, or trampled.

  “This isn’t the usual kind of stable.” Lorcan hummed. “Besides, we’re practically in the wild west.”

  “So?”

  “So, that means we’re legally obligated to go horseback riding.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with that logic.”

  He chuckled. “Just be grateful I’m not making you wear the cowboy hat I spotted in the hotel gift shop earlier.”

  I shuddered. “You monster.”

  He grinned again, and half dragged me around the side of the building and through the little door around the corner. Part of me wanted to dig my heels in, just out of principle. It was never a good idea to let a man think they could just drag you around and push you to do what they wanted you to. But part of me was a little curious. Plus, Lorcan’s artless joy, like a kid seeing a toy for the first time, was sort of contagious. I still wasn’t sold on the whole ‘sit on a huge animal’s back and hope for the best’ thing, but I was willing to suspend my objections until I knew a little more.

  The first thing I noticed when we walked into the barn was that it smelled. It wasn’t necessarily a bad smell, but it was strong. Hay, and dust, and clean straw. The warm musk of healthy animals. If I closed my eyes, I could hear the thick, heavy pulse of the horses’ hearts. The rush of their blood as it thundered through their veins, faster than a human’s and almost as enticing. Bodies shifted, straw rustled, and somewhere, a horse nickered. It wasn’t a fearful sound, but maybe a wary one.

  Which, fair. Two vampires had just walked into their house. That would be enough to kick off any prey animal’s fight or flight. And while they were big, and powerful, and fast, horses were, after all, prey animals.

  It was a good thing I’d slugged back two full bags of blood before Lorcan had herded me into the car. I really didn’t want to know what horse blood tasted like and, furthermore, there was no part of me that wanted to injure the incredible animals. No, I’d rather just admire them.

  Lorcan had been smart about insisting I down two bags of blood (no doubt because he didn’t want me to attack the horses either), going so far as to press the second bag into my hands when I’d finished draining the first. He’d cooed something about me being a ‘growing girl’, that had almost made me toss it back into the cooler just on principle, but I was hungry, and it had felt so very, very good to have blood flowing across my tongue. Especially when I didn’t think too hard about just what it was I was drinking.

  A ripple of unease moved through the stalls. There was more shifting from the horses. Little huffs of breath. The nervous stomp of wide hooves.

  I tensed. I might not have been super into the riding idea, but that didn’t mean I wanted to panic in a building full of too-big animals, all of them armed with dangerous hooves. I might heal fast, sure, but getting trampled would still hurt.

  Lorcan didn’t seem fussed. He just stood there, waiting, hands in his pockets like there was nothing at all to worry about—like he went horseback riding every day of the week. He kept his shoulders relaxed, his weight on one hip. While I warily eyed the nearest stall, he seemed lost in his own world, like he didn’t even realize where he was standing.

  A loud bang echoed through the building as one of the horses decided to kick one of the wooden walls, in nervousness or warning, I had no idea. But it had my shoulders shooting up around my ears. Coming here at all was probably a mistake. I didn’t want to spook the horses. If they all started freaking out in their stalls, they could get hurt. And that was the last thing I wanted.

  I was just about to back right out the door and forget Lorcan’s entire hare-brained scheme, when all the tension that had been riding the air like a thunderstorm about to break, just… faded away.

  A man strolled down the aisle between the stalls, ambling towards us at an unhurried pace. He was dressed pretty casually, in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt that seemed to be a uniform in this part of the country. No cowboy hat, but maybe he’d just washed it and now it was hanging out to dry. Or maybe a hat would have just irritated the tips of the pointed ears I could see faintly, sticking up through his thatch of shaggy dark hair.

  Okay then—he had to be fae of some kind. And we were vamps and we were clearly upsetting his horses. I was worried we were going to cause some kind of incident, until I caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were wide, golden, and as he crossed one of the lanterns in front of his face and the light fell over him, the pupils retracted into thin slits. He had eyes like a cat. That was pretty cool. He also had a friendly smile on his face, and up until I saw it, I hadn’t realized just how starved I was for even just neutral interactions. Having people glare at me constantly was taking a toll on me, though I’d never admit as much to Uncle Fox.

  As the man came closer, the horses all settled back down. The tension bled out of the air, and one or two even stuck their heads out of their stalls as he walked by, lipping at his hair or angling their heads for a pat.

  Not a faerie. It didn’t quite fit. But he was definitely something supernatural, and I didn’t need the ears or the kitty-cat eyes to tell me that. There was just a… feeling around him. A kind of confidence, or peace that flowed around him. There was something about his aura too—it was powerful and even as I pondered the subject, I felt myself relaxing. Even my shoulders were easing down from the tense hunch they’d been in around my ears.

  He was also very tall. Like, wow. I’d never seen someone who was so close to seven feet before, other than Roy. But Roy was a sasquatch, so that was understandable. This guy was definitely not that. Still, even looming over both Lorcan and me as he drifted closer, he wasn’t physically threatening, at all. Honestly, and it was stupid, but it was the best comparison my brain could come up with, he kinda sorta reminded me of a Capybara.

  “Mr. Rowe,” he said, in his deep voice as he reached a hand out to Lorcan. “Good to see you again.”

  Lorcan grinned, not wide enough to flash fangs, but it was still a happy smile. He then tugged me forward by an arm around my shoulder. “Good to see you again, Oleksy. This is my daughter, Aster.”

  Right, fake names. I smiled, and it felt a little tentative on my face. “Hi.”

  Oleksy reached up, scratching at his hairline as he looked us over. “Pleased to meet you, Aster.”

  “Thanks,” I answered with a nervous smile. “You too.”

  “Got any experience with horses?” he continued.

  One good thing about being the walking dead was that I couldn’t really blush anymore. I mean, maybe if I absolutely gorged on blood, but for the most part, my skin stayed pale, even when I was feeling like I’d been suddenly pushed on stage to star in a play I didn’t have the script to. “No, not really.”

  “That’s okay.” Oleksy nodded, like he was trying to reassure me. “Marigold is very patient with new riders.”

  He turned and ambled away down an aisle, and I took the chance to turn and give Lorcan a look that I hoped managed to convey all the various levels of ‘what’ that were going through my head. “Marigold?”

  Lorcan patted my shoulders, but he then pressed his lips into a firm line, which was an obvious tell that he was trying not to laugh at me. The jerk.

  “It will be fun, Astrid, I promise,” he whispered. “It’s been a long time since I was on horseback, but it can be very freeing. It will give you a chance to clear your mind.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  That did kind of sound nice. And I was mostly just happy to be away from Jinx Junction. Just being a few hours away from the angry witch vibes was worth its weight in powdered mandrake root. Especially after that vision Jenny Greenteeth had showed me.

  A vision that wasn’t necessarily going to turn out to be anything more than nothing, I reminded myself. Sure, witches didn’t think much of vampires, and we were maybe close to being on the verge of another potential Blood War, but that didn’t mean Sheriff Boline would just gun me down in the street like we were starring in some kind of old west show down, right? No, that didn’t sound right.

  Maybe the vision was simply a reflection of my own fears? That made a lot more sense, the more I thought about it. The woman was scary powerful, and having her almost go ballistic when she caught me talking to her daughter had probably spooked me more than I’d realized. That must have been what the vision was about. Not the future, but my own anxiety.

  Divinations could be like that, sometimes. Even witch divinations could be like that. So, it made sense that a fae, who were far more meshed in emotions than witches were, would latch onto something like my own fear. Especially when directed by a Jenny Greenteeth, who were kind of notorious for being terrifying, on account of the drowning and eating people thing.

  Just my own anxiety. A mental flinch. Yeah, that was all it was.

  Anyway, getting out into the air sounded pretty good. And I had to remind myself that falling off a horse probably wouldn’t result in anything worse than a dinged sense of pride, which was so much better than all the things that could happen to me in town.

  Okay, cool—horseback riding it was. Bring it on.

  Still, watching Oleksy slowly disappear down a line of stalls, I just couldn’t help leaning a little closer to Lorcan. It was probably rude, but I was so curious, I just had to ask.

  “So… Oleksy. What’s his deal?”

  Lorcan’s brows pinched together over the bridge of his nose. With swift, deft movements, he started rolling his sleeves up to the middle of his forearms. “Oh, he’s some kind of spirit. A stable guardian, I believe he calls himself.”

  “A what?”

  He cocked his head to the side like he was trying to remember. “Ovin… Ovin something. He’s excellent with horses. And none of the animals here are garden variety animals.”

  “They aren’t?”

  He shook his head. “Otherwise, a nighttime trail ride would be a little too dangerous.” He smiled then and steered me down the aisle towards where Oleksy had vanished. “We can see in the dark, of course. But ordinary horses and night vision don’t really mix. They’d walk off a cliff in the dark. Or, more likely, spook at every hint of movement in the night.”

  Okay, horseback riding was starting to sound more miss than hit again. But we were already here. And it was clear that Lorcan had gone to a bit of effort to set this whole thing up, so I could suck it up and cling to the back of a huge animal for an hour or whatever.

  It would be fine.

  Chapter Nine

  Marigold, as it turned out, was a surprisingly chill horse with a gorgeous buckskin coat and a long, silky black mane.

  She was nimble, happy to amble along at a pace that didn’t make me cling to the huge bulky saddle, and was also more stubborn than Maverick and Wanda having a discussion about magical theory. I had to laugh inwardly at the thought of their most recent squabble in which they both were arguing the same point, from opposite sides, but absolutely refused to admit it.

  Luckily for me, Marigold followed Lorcan’s horse, a glossy coated bay, like the point of a compass needle follows true north. I wasn’t sure I could have taken her off road if I’d tried. Well, maybe if I dismounted, picked her up, and then ran off into the fields with her. And even though I absolutely could have carried her with my new vampire strength, doing so seemed like a good way to get bitten or kicked. So, I tucked that plan away for only the most cringey of scenarios.

  The area outside Jinx Junction had a surprising amount of forest. I’d always pictured Texas as more of a desert. Like the set from any western movie: tumbleweeds, piano music, sheriffs that gave you an evil squint and told you it was best to be out of town before sunrise.

  Well, I was still thinking it would probably be best if I took my imaginary sheriff up on his warning. But here I still was.

  And as to here—sitting astride a huge horse—I’d been stiff as a board when I’d first managed to scramble my way up into the saddle. Then I’d found myself clinging to the horn and feeling like I was going to fall off if I so much as breathed wrong. Marigold hadn’t liked that. She’d tossed her head, her ears pinned to her neck, until Oleksy stroked her nose and mumbled a few words in a language I didn’t understand. Apparently, Marigold did though because then she’d proceeded to release the biggest, most dramatic sigh—like she was succumbing to her fate of carrying me around like an anxiety ridden bag of potatoes. Seriously, could horses win Oscars? Because, if so, she should have been in the running. I’d never felt so judged in my life, and I’d grown up among both witches and cats.