Page 20 of Forsaken By Night

She’d always been disgusted by the vampire slave trade, something humans had legalized long before she was born. Vampires were stronger, faster, and superior in almost every way, but humans overwhelmingly outnumbered them, and free vampires spent their time in hiding, subject to being hunted for bounties or captured for the slave trade.

“Wait.” Nicole scowled. “If Vampire Strike Team forces interrupted, how did you exchange blood with the vampire?”

“I didn’t.”

“You must have,” she insisted. “Worldwide man-datory vaccinations against the saliva-borne vampiric infection have been in effect for decades. The failure rate of the vaccine is practically nil. Humans can only turn if they’re introduced to the blood-borne version of the virus.”

Never let a vampire bite you, sweetheart, and never tell anyone where you’re from or that your vaccination document is forged. Never.

Funny how her mother’s words, drilled into Tehya since she was three years old, were ringing loud and clear in her ears now, but that night when the vampire was plunging his fangs into her throat, her mom had been as silent as she was dead. And the funniest thing was, none of those warnings mattered now.

“I was never vaccinated.” She slid a glance at Lobo, who was watching intently, puzzling her out the way he did a hunter’s cruel snare or leg trap before he disarmed and destroyed it. “My mother paid a lot of money to have my immunization record falsified.”

“Why?” he asked, but she had a feeling he was already close to the answer. It had never taken him long to figure out a trap either.

“Because the vaccine is fatal to my father’s people.”

Every eye in the room fell on Nicole, and it was Riker who posed the next question. “Is that possible, Nicole?”

Nicole nodded, almost numbly. She shifted in her seat, fidgeting like a kid in a dentist’s chair who was about to have a cavity filled.

“Once worldwide vaccination became mandatory,” she said finally, “pockets of anti-vaxxerswere rooted out. Most had resisted for ideological reasons, but one group, a native population in Canada, the Kleemut tribe”—she looked over at Tehya almost apologetically—“they resisted out of self-preservation. The vaccine was lethal for them. They would die within twenty-four hours of getting the shot. A lot of the Kleemut went into hiding. They were hunted mercilessly by Canadian and international VAST forces, and those who were caught were never seen again by anyone outside of a Daedalus lab.” She gave Tehya that look again, but this time the apologetic expression was steeped in shame, and that was when it clicked. Nicole must have worked for Daedalus, the company that had revolutionized vampire slavery and created the vaccine against the vampire infection. They were the most lovedandhated company on the planet. “Your father was a Kleemut Indian, wasn’t he?”

“I never knew him, but yes.” Tehya fixed her gaze on a bear skull hanging on the wall, its surface painted with scenes of ancient Native American bison hunts. “My mom changed her name and fled to Seattle when she found out she was pregnant. They didn’t want anyone to ever suspect that I’m part Kleemut. She got one letter from my father, and then she never heard from him again. Apparently, he wentmissing.” She turned to Nicole and was surprised to see that the doctor’s expression was still tight with guilt. Whatever she’d done in her past was a source of pain for her, and right now it didn’t matter that Nicole was supposed to be the enemy. She’d been nothing but kind to Tehya. Offering a tentative smile, Tehya said softly, “Thank you for trying to help me, and I’m sorry I attacked you for it.”

Nicole blinked, obviously expecting neither gratitude nor an apology. Even Riker looked a little startled. “It’s okay,” Nicole said. “You must have been terrified to wake up in a strange place. And with two legs instead of four.”

Lobo tugged at the rope around his wrists with his teeth, and she almost laughed. He didnotknow that in order to chew through something—like shoelaces or a drawstring on a pair of sweats—you had to use your back teeth. With a curse, he settled his hands on the table again. “Your mother wasn’t a native, was she?”

Not even close. “Except for her name, she was as Scottish as Loch Ness.”

Lobo nodded, more to himself than anyone else. “That explains the skinwalker glitch.”

“I’m not following,” she said, and a murmur of agreement rose up from around the table as everyone turned to Lobo.

He didn’t look at anyone else, kept his gaze focused solely on her. “According to lore, most skinwalkers are born vampires, but all of them come from pure Native American blood. You were born neither a vampire nor a purebred native. You shouldn’t have this ability at all, so it’s not a surprise that you can’t control it.”

“So why did I shift back in the lab, when I hadn’t been able to do it on my own for years?”

Nicole blew out a long breath before speaking up. “I did a little reading up on shape-shifters after Hunter told me about Lobo. If what I read is true, skinwalkers who are injured while in another body will revert to their true form when they die. It’s likely that you were so close to death that your body shifted, and in doing so, you healed.” She gave Tehya a pointed look. “I would recommend that you not shift into a wolf again.”

Good call, Doc. “I don’t even know if I can.”

“How did it happen before?”

God, this was so embarrassing. How could she admit that it had been a total accident? “I’m not sure. I’d turned into a vampire, and I was terrified I’d get caught. I didn’t know what to do, so I drove until my car ran out of gas.” She’d been in the mountains, hungry, alone, with no idea how to survive. And then she’d heard it. A wolf howling in the distance. Then another. And another. They’d seemed to be singing to each other, so in tune that she’d felt the ties that held the pack together. “There was a family of wolves that... I don’t know... I heard them, and they made me want what they had. I had this urge to join them, and I felt this pull... and the next thing I knew, I had four legs and fur. I tried to switch back, but I couldn’t.” She shook her head. “How did I get this ability in the first place, if it’s something so rare, let alone unheard of in someone like me?”

Lobo cut a sharp look at Hunter. “It seems that the impossible has become possible lately.”

Whatever subtext was at play here struck a nerve, and Hunter went taut. “What do you mean?”

Lobo shifted his gaze to peg Riker with a meaningful stare. “I know about your son. I always thought invisibility was a myth.”

Tehya tried not to let her mouth fall open. And failed. So shehadn’tbeen seeing things that day she and Lobo had been out patrolling the forest and they’d come across a young vampire who had disappeared and reappeared twice before their eyes.

“Bastien is... unique,” Riker said, a note of pride in his voice.

Hunter sat back in his chair and surveyed everyone. “I think I’ve heard enough. Lobo, I’ll honor your request to keep Tehya safe. We will welcome her as a MoonBound member. I’m sure we can use someone with dental training around here. Vampires are probably a dentist’s wet dream. Nicole, unless you want to pursue her attack against you—”

---