Nashville
11:00 p.m.

Raven had felt her, the weight of her presence, long before she stepped on the twig. He didn’t know who she was, other than she wasn’t a friend. She was strong, this one, but still no match for him. There was strength, and then there was the immutable power of steel and brass, a reality that couldn’t be argued with.

She’d fled quickly once she’d known he was awake. He stood, stretched, slipped the pistol from his waistband. A friend at reform school had taught him the right way to handle the weapon; he’d been an eager student. The cold steel warmed to his palm. He held it lightly in his grasp, finger alongside the trigger, gun pointing down the length of his thigh. He wouldn’t raise it until he was ready to use it. It was a small caliber weapon, so in order for it to be effective, he’d need to be close.

Like his parents.

Blood flooded his groin at the thought of the two of them, cowering in the living room like rats being sold to a lab. That day, the longest of his life, would never retreat from the recesses of his mind.

His bitch of a mother had walked in on him and Fane and freaked out. They’d known, of course—that’s why they’d split them up, sent him away.

“It’s not natural,” his father had spit at him, the disgust ripe in his throat.

“Natural enough for you,” he’d shouted. “You’ve been fucking Fane since she was four.”

“I have never laid a hand on that girl, and you damn well know it.”

“Sky, how could you say such a thing?” His mother, her eyes pleading, lost in a world they didn’t want to understand.

“Ask, Mom. Ask Fane. She’ll tell you. I had to sleep in her room, blocking the door some nights, to keep him off of her. But what we have is different. We were made for each other. We’re in love. You can’t stop us.”

The arguments had gone on and on and on, but in the end, his parents shipped him away. They divorced, his mother silently applying for a dissolution of the marriage for irreconcilable differences; his father signing the paperwork, face pinched white. They’d never spoken after that night, using e-mail to correspond about their family. His mother had always known, he was sure about that. Faced with the undeniable truth, the reality of letting her baby daughter be violated by her loving father for all those years, she just wanted to get away.

It had worked for Jackie Merritt. She quickly found a new man, a good man in her eyes, a soldier, one bred for violence and mayhem who was as gentle as a lamb with her. She remarried. Fane acted out, but Jackie could turn the other cheek, knowing that she was safe from both her Schuylers. Seeing what she wanted to see was Jackie’s greatest asset.

Until the night three weeks ago, when Raven had come home. Jackie had entered Fane’s room without knocking, the smile fading to horror as she watched her two children bucking together on the bed. Raven, fed up with the constant haranguing about a love that was as natural as it was fulfilling, called a family meeting, insisted that they come. Sat them down in the living room of his father’s house, took Fane in his arms and explained that they’d been married. It was handfasting, yes, but that was as legal as a priest and a church in the eyes of their religion.

Their parents hadn’t taken it well.

Raven had been standing a few feet away, the gun in his waistband, watching them fight with bemusement. Like it mattered? He caught Fane’s eyes and rolled his own. She nodded, it was time. It was amazingly simple—his father first, so he couldn’t fight, from behind and to the left, then his mother. They collapsed together, mouths open in remonstration.

The sudden silence was breathtaking.

It only took thirty minutes to dig the pit; the basement was old, the concrete cracked and worn. Dump the bodies, snip off the fingers they needed for their spells, mix up some quick-set, and they were free.

Sweating, tired and jubilant, they had sex in the living room, on the couch, mingling their fluids with the blood of their parents. No one could keep them apart anymore.

That first taste was enough to convince him that it was time to deal with all the rest of the people who’d shunned and abused him. The Immortals would not be stopped.

He came back to himself, realized he was standing in the open, the moonlight glistening on the dew-wet grass. The fog was heavier now; the wisps and tendrils flowed around his feet as he started to move. The woman was in her car, back to him, talking on the phone. He needed to make sure she didn’t see him slinking up behind her. He crouched low, below her line of sight in the rearview mirror. He inched forward, closer, closer. She finished her call, dropped the phone in her lap, laid her head back against the headrest.

Now.

He burst around the driver’s side of the car. The door was locked—he’d figured it would be. Using the butt of the gun, he shattered the glass, grabbed the woman by her hair, dragged her out the window. She was small, light, fine-boned. The long hair was a perfect handle, he was able to maneuver her entire body out and onto the ground. He perched over her, pinning her down, legs on either side of her. She struggled and bucked, tried to scream, but he punched her with his free hand.

She was pretty. Her skin was very pale, he could see the flush of color the imprint of his knuckles made across her cheek. Encouraged, he punched her a few more times, and she stopped screaming. Blood rushed from her nose, and her lip was split. He reached down on impulse and licked her face, savoring the salty essence of her heart.

He realized he had a throbbing erection. Well, why not? This slut was out here spying on him, she deserved everything she got. He held the gun to her temple, and she stopped fighting. Carefully, he reached back and slid her dress up, over her thighs. His questing fingers found her panties. There was a rending tear and they were off. She started to struggle again, so he hit her with the butt of the gun, slicing open a slit in the soft skin of her forehead. Her head snapped back into the dirt with a dull thud.

He undid his jeans—it was hard to handle the buttons over his erection with one hand, but he managed. He shifted back and down, pushed his body between her legs, using his knee to force hers apart, and thrust, hard, landing home with one shove. She screamed, high in her throat, legs flailing against him, and he jabbed her head with the gun again to shut her up. She was fighting him now, each stroke shifting him back and forth so he didn’t have to do any work at all. He leaned over her, took both arms and trapped them against the ground over her head with his left hand while he finished, a blinding white orgasm making him forget who and where he was.

The breath came hard in his throat, his eyes came back into focus. The woman was keening, crying, trying to wriggle away from him. He was heavy enough that she couldn’t shift him without work, but she finally managed, pushing him off her, slipping into a ball a few feet away.

It was taking him a minute to catch his breath. He didn’t know who she’d called—he needed to leave. Should he kill her? He’d never raped anyone before; he hadn’t used a condom, there would be evidence. It wouldn’t matter in the long run, he’d seen the hourglass in Fane’s room, the small grains of sand slipping inexorably toward their finish, had known it to be a sign. No, he’d leave her here. But he was going to make damn sure she’d never tell anyone.

He fumbled his fly closed and stood, brushing the leaves and grass off the knees of his jeans. She saw him moving, got to all fours and started trying to crawl away. He walked to her—she wasn’t going quickly, more like a snail than a crab—and kicked her in the ribs. She landed on her side, the breath going out of her in an audible whoosh.

“Tell anyone, and I’ll kill you. Do you understand me, bitch?”

The woman was saying something he couldn’t understand. It sounded like an incantation of sorts. He listened closer. She was whispering, hands on her stomach.

“Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inana.”

The Goddess chant? What the fuck? Who was this person?

He asked her name, she just shook her head, continued the incantation.

Raven felt dread begin to build in his stomach. Fear. He’d never felt such fear. He needed to get away. He needed to get away now. He stumbled backward, falling onto his ass, scraping his hands and elbows. The gun dropped a foot from him; he turned over onto all fours, grabbed it and ran. The Rat was parked on the other side of the road, back in the brush, off the path so no one from the road would see it. He hurried to the vehicle, fumbling the keys and the gun. He had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

Rattything acquiesced when he put the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life. He pulled away from the grove, bumping over the shoulder and onto the road.

He turned right, up McCrory Lane, toward the highway. He had one more place that he knew he could go. One place that had been a refuge, long in the past. He pointed the car east and drove into the night, the echoes of the Goddess chant in his ears. He didn’t see the flashing blue lights congregating behind him. He didn’t see anything at all.