Page 19 of Forsaken By Night

A dark-haired male she’d heard someone call Takis tipped his chair back and pulled a leather-bound book off the shelf behind him. He flipped to a flagged page with more flourish than was probably needed for the situation. He seemed to be enjoying this. They all did.

“For followers of the Raven,” he said in a deep, ominous voice, “death is the acceptable penalty. For followers of the Crow, any punishment is allowed, and no punishment is considered too harsh.”

Oh, God. She had no idea what the Raven and Crow stuff was about, but she hoped like hell these people leaned toward the Crow.

Hunter’s cool gaze never left Lobo. “And what is the punishment for assaulting a pregnant female?”

Tehya’s gut did a slow roll as Takis flipped pages. “That’s a little more complicated,” he said. “The laws take into account circumstance and whether the crime was committed by a clan member or an outsider. But basically we’re talking about anything from imprisonment to lashes to staking atop an anthill.”

Tehya felt sick to her stomach. Had Lobo saved her life only for her to be slowly eaten by ants?

Smiling grimly, Hunter gestured to Lobo. “Now, answer my question.”

Lobo clenched his teeth and sat back in his seat, regarding Hunter with eyes that glittered with contempt. “Fuck you.”

Thunderheads formed in Hunter’s eyes, and once again the hairs on the back of Tehya’s neck stood up. He nodded at Aiden. “Take him to the dungeon.”

“No!” Tehya leaped to her feet. “He’s just trying to protect me. All of it—it’s all my fault.”

“Tehya,” Lobo snapped. “Don’t say another word.”

“Why?” she yelled, fed up with all the rules she couldn’t fathom. “I don’t understand. They could kill you.”

Slamming his palms down on the table, he flashed his fangs at her. “I don’t care. I need you to be safe.”

“You don’t care?What about whatIcare about?” she shot back. “I don’t want you to die. Did you think about that? You’ve kept me safe for the last twelve years, and now it’s my turn, you stubborn idiot.”

“Your turn? You don’t think you’ve kept me safe?” He laughed, but the sound was bitter and hard. “I’m alive because of you, Tehya. After MoonBound kicked me out, I had nothing to live for. I was a zombie looking for a bullet to the brain. You gave me purpose. A reason to live.”

Tears stung her eyes, but before she could say anything—not that she knew what to say—Hunter stood.

“Enough.” He jammed his finger at her. “I know this territory like the back of my hand, and not once in twelve damned years have I, or any of my warriors, laid eyes on you.”

“Yes, you have,” she said quietly, ignoring Lobo’s madly shaking head. “Except I didn’t look like this.”

Hunter’s brows drew down in confusion. In fact, everyone traded bewildered glances, but it was Nicole who turned to Tehya in amazement.

“Oh, my God,” Nicole said, her voice tinged with awe. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re... the wolf.”

As the room exploded in conversation and questions, Tehya watched Lobo sag into his seat as if drained by disappointment. She couldn’t stand the way he was looking at her, as if she’d betrayed them both. How, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that Hunter had been determined to punish him for not talking, and she couldn’t allow that to happen.

Hunter held up his hand and called for everyone to shut the fuck up. Once everyone was seated again, he turned to Tehya. “Look, I don’t know much about skinwalkers, but I know they can’t hold any form but their own indefinitely. So unless you spent most of your time hiding, and then only coming out into the open as a wolf, you’re lying.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would think she was lying, but with no way to prove that what she was saying was true aside from shifting into a wolf and possibly never shifting back, she knew she had to be convincing. Lobo’s life might depend on it.

“It’s true, I swear.” She told them what she’d told Lobo, that she’d barely been turned into a vampire when she shifted into a wolf and was never able to shift back.

Skepticism wafted through the air, its scent similar to singed hair, and Tehya wondered if her sense of smell would always be so sensitive. It was useful to gauge emotion—but just once, couldn’t some emotion smell like chocolate? Or bacon?

“You’re saying you were turned into a vampire twelve years ago?” Riker asked, and when she nodded, he added, “How? And why aren’t your eyes silver?”

Even though more than a decade had passed, the wounds still felt raw, and she trembled a little as she spoke. “I can’t explain my eyes. They’ve always been this color. As for the rest, I was working as a dental assistant while going to school to be a dentist. Then my mom got cancer. She died six weeks after the diagnosis.”

Tehya inhaled deeply, willing herself to not break down. She and her mother, Cherie, had been close, each the only person the other had in her life. A secret had bonded them, and once Cherie was gone, Tehya’s life fell apart.

“The pressure and stress got to me, and I made some bad choices.” She’d partied too much and hung out with a wild crowd, and one night she’d found herself at an underground blood club on the outskirts of Seattle. Because, hey, all the cool people were illegally feeding and sleeping with vampires.

“I was drunk and stupid, and I let a vampire bite me.” She grimaced, hating herself for being so reckless when she’d spent twenty-four years being responsible, the kind of person the government didn’t look at too closely. “The really messed-up thing? He didn’t even get any blood, because the place got raided by VAST. They collared or killed all the vampires. The one who bit me is probably someone’s slave now.”

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