Lucky Break (Chicagoland Vampires #10.5)(2)
Author: Chloe Neill

But the skiing wasn’t the point . . . The trees were.

“Those are aspens, right?” Aspen stakes were the only kind that could kill vampires.

“They are,” Ethan said, both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, as he maneuvered the vehicle around bends he probably could have handled better in his own sleek Ferrari. But the Orangesplosion had been his choice.

“Is it ironic that you chose for our vacation a place full of tools for vampire hunting?” And the type of tool, I thought, that had once brought him down and turned him to ash.

“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s Colorado, or this particular part anyway. And I’ve no intention of being staked now or later.”

I didn’t doubt he was earnest, but I still knocked on the dashboard to ward off bad juju. I’d seen too many things in my year as a vampire to doubt the danger to him—especially considering his new position—or the efficacy of precautions, even superstitious ones.

Ethan turned onto a side road, asphalt becoming bumpy gravel and hairpin turns. The sound of the creek grew louder, joined now by the tumble of rocks beneath the car. We snuck by a sheer granite wall that was so close to the road I could have reached out and touched rock or the water that trickled down it.

One more curve, and the road opened suddenly into a wide valley between aspen-covered hills. In the middle of the meadow stood an enormous log and stone building, precisely the type I’d expected to see in the wilds of Colorado. Huge beams, giant boulders, and a roof made of red metal sheets folded together at the seams like architectural origami. The steep roof pitched at angles here and there, and the entire house glowed golden as if every room was filled with candles.

A porch extended across the entire front of the house, its railing made of wide hewn logs. A stone patio sat to the house’s right, scattered with heavy wood furniture and adorned with a stone-surrounded hot tub that steamed in the chilly spring air.

“And here we are,” Ethan said, pulling the car to a stop in the wide, curved drive. “Welcome to Ravenswood.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said, opening the door and hopping out onto ground still soft from recently melted snow. I crossed the patterned stone walkway to the porch.

The word “Ravenswood” was burned into the wood of a thick sign that hung from two hooks above the door. The silhouette of a raven, just as dark, perched above the second “o.” I wrapped fingers around one of the beams that supported the porch’s wide roof, the wood cool and slick as plastic. Adirondack chairs were situated here and there, and a swing of the same hewn logs hung from the far end. I imagined passing a night rocking in the swing, book in hand, Ethan at my side.

Still. While the style of the house wasn’t surprising, the size was. I glanced back at Ethan. “I thought we were staying at a guesthouse.”

He grinned. “This is the guesthouse.”

“Damn,” I said. “How big is the main building?”

“Large,” he said, gesturing to a path that led downhill and into the woods. “The house is through the woods, should you need to goggle,” he added with a grin, then pulled the bags and our scabbarded katanas from the back of the vehicle before closing the hatch again. He handed the katanas to me, then pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the heavy wooden door.

“Welcome to your vacation, Sentinel.”

The house’s décor echoed the exterior. Wood floors, log walls that gleamed like honey, and at the end of the long front room, an enormous fireplace that rose two stories to the vaulted ceiling. The furniture was leather and oversized, arranged to face a wall of windows that opened to the valley beyond.

A glass door led to a wooden deck that flanked the window wall and mirrored the one on the front of the house. I opened it, walked outside, gasped at the view. The valley spread before us like a gift, mountains rising high on either side, a small river moving sinuously through the middle until it disappeared into the distance. Green had begun to sprout through ground spotted with snow, and the entire scene was illuminated by a moon that hung heavy in the sky.

Ethan’s body pressed warmly against mine, wrapping his arms around me as I stared greedily at the view, memorizing every outline, every boulder and crag and curve of trickling water.

“Perhaps the world isn’t so narrow after all,” he said.

I nodded, smiling as a warm breeze, the breath of spring, rustled my long, dark bangs. “Maybe not.”

We stood there together for a long, quiet moment, until our eyes had adjusted to the darkness and our ears to the unusual silence. Chicago wasn’t a quiet city. Even Hyde Park, which was miles away from downtown, had a constant level of noise. Air traffic from Midway, cars, neighbors, dogs, sirens.

At first, there was nothing. But as our ears grew accustomed, sounds emerged. The slip and fall of water around rocks. Wind rustling through grass, frogs and crickets hiding among the spears of it. The creak of wood as the house settled, as if it, too, was relaxing into the darkness.

The sudden pealing of the doorbell was an explosion of sound. It rang once, then again, with obvious urgency.

Ethan cursed, released me, glanced back.

I instantly went on alert. “Who knows we’re here?”

“No one in the state, as far as I’m aware, other than Nessa and her husband.”

Nessa McKenzie was our host, the owner of Ravenswood and its accompanying main house, the leviathan that lurked down the wooded path.

I followed Ethan to the door, waited beside him as he checked the security peep and pulled it open without a word.

She stood in the doorway, a vampire in the form of a voluptuous brunette.

Her hair, a dark mane of curls, pitched forward over one shoulder. Her eyes were big and brown, and streaks of blood stained her hands and her dress.

“Nessa,” Ethan said, with obvious surprise and concern as he looked her over. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Taran,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s dead.”

2

“Come inside,” Ethan said. He took her arm, pulled her gently into the foyer, and closed the door again.

“Nessa this is Merit, my Sentinel.” Taran is—was—her husband, he silently added, using our telepathic connection.

Ethan put a supportive hand on her back, the familiar line of worry between his eyes. And although he didn’t speak the words—silently or otherwise—I could read his thoughts well enough: What have we stepped into now?