CHAPTER
ONE
May, Seattle
Thick,white clouds crowded a waxing moon, bright beams of moonlight fighting to pierce the lush canopy of Seattle’s West Duwamish Greenbelt. The largest contiguous forest in Seattle, it had over five hundred acres in West Seattle from the tip of Pigeon Point to Westcrest Park.
Douglas fir, Western Red Cedar, Madrona, and various willow species of trees loomed over trillium and nettles blanketing the forest floor. The greenbelt, often hiked by locals and tourists alike during the day, gave home to ducks and raptors.
Hawks and owls were commonplace in this green forest as well.
Not so the majestic eagle-owl staring down at a large black wolf watching six vampires feasting on a few unlucky humans.
Finally. A bit of good fortune.
The hunt for the idiot group of upir currently dining on humans had been ongoing for two weeks too many. Khent had much better things to do, like hunting down a hell-sent necromancer…
He shifted on the tree branch, his eagle-owl form a pleasant diversion from his new reality. Taking constant orders from a goddess he didn’t worship and new kin he’d been forced to accept gave him headaches. Though technically, they’d been bound for a year and a half, it still felt new to him.
Below him, the wolf silently shimmered and shifted into the form of a large man crouched on one knee. The only blond vampire Khent had ever met and a royal pain in the ass, Rolf never played by the rules. Not even the ones Khent followed.
After a moment, Rolf stood tall and cleared his throat.
The upir froze. Of the ten vampire tribes, the upir were the least impressive. They had speed and strength, yet their biggest claim to fame came from their sheer numbers. More upir existed than any other tribe of vampire.
Khent sighed then drifted to the ground and shifted so that he landed on two feet instead of talons.
“What do you do here, Night Bloode?” one of the upir said to Rolf. “This is not your place.”
Looking over their prey, Khent shook his head and answered for them, “Not yours either, you bottom feeders.Upir.” He sneered. “So common.”
Several of them flashed their teeth and rushed him and Rolf. But before the upir could reach them, they ran into something that stopped them in their tracks. Some spell Rolf had cast, perhaps?
Rolf exploded in laughter while the upir swore at him and tore at…
Khent narrowed his eyes. “Is thattape?”
“Ultra strong packing tape, bitches.” Rolf chortled. “Took me a while to wrap around those trees. Suckers.” Rolf shot the finger at the creatures looking more undead than unalive.
And yes, there was a difference.
Vampires, the most powerful of all the magir—those nonhumans dwelling in the mundane plane—did have heartbeats, werenotconsidered the undead, at least not among the intelligent and educated, and hated each other more than they hated anyone else.
“Get it, Khent? Suckers.” Rolf kept laughing at his own joke. “As in, blood suckers.”
“Rolf, I’d tell you to grow up, but if you haven’t in nearly a thousand years, I don’t think there’s any hope for you.”
“None at all.” Rolf rubbed his hands together, the draugr never as serious as he should be.
Their clan, the Night Bloode, had managed what no one in thousands of years had thanks to a meddling goddess and a shit-ton of magic.
Vampires from six different tribes lived and worked together.In harmony.
Khent, a reaper, ran patrol with Rolf, a draugr. And both of them remained alive and in one piece instead of instinctively carving each other’s hearts out.
Normally, vampires outmatched every magir in terms of power and strength. To keep them in line, the gods had cursed them long ago. For thousands of years, only family blood-drinkers could coexist in peace.
Which meant these six upir had to be kin. But they weren’t local. Khent knew all those in the Seattle Bloode clan.
