Chapter 1
"Watch your attitude."
"I am," Vic said through gritted teeth. Her hands were clammy where she gripped the Cessna's yoke and gently adjusted the plane's level. The weird, intermittent rattle from the engine worried her. She tried to discreetly inhale a calming breath. It didn't work.
"We're five miles away from the Jackson airport. What's next?"
Her first landing. Ten miles from the airport, Dex had abruptly announced she was now in charge of all landing procedures. Dozens of times, she’d been with and watched him land the plane with barely a noticeable bump. The way her heart was beating, she'd be lucky if she didn't gouge a crevasse in the runway. "Compass heading, altitude, attitude, airspeed, rate of descent," she said, and risked a look to her right.
Dex in the copilot seat didn't differ much from Dex in his chair in front of multiple computer screens. Only he didn't wear aviator shades in his basement office.
He was sitting back in the copilot seat, arms folded over a standard black t shirt that seemed painted onto his muscular torso and biceps. Tattoos, both runic and military peeked from under his sleeve, although the ones on his left were longer and ran below his elbow. She'd swear on a stack of any religious texts that some of them moved by themselves. His jean-clad legs were casually crossed and he was looking out the window to his right.
"Correct," he said, his tone giving her no hint he might be worried. "Contact the tower."
"Copy."
Vic got directions and clearance from the Jackson tower. Her fingers lingered over the autopilot switches.
"No," Dex said, still looking out the window."
"But I haven't done this before."
"You have, in the simulator."
"But this is real life," she said through her teeth.
His head turned, and even through the aviators, she felt the intensity of his stare. "Every pilot has a first landing by themselves. You're no different."
"I don't want to crash."
"Nobody does. But there has to be a first time. Focus. You know what to do."
Vic inhaled another stuttering breath. The controller's voice cracked in her ear. She replied, "Jackson tower, Cessna 6683 copy, runway 27."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dex give a small nod. High praise from Red Canyon's IT genius.
The sky was cloudless, an intense mesmerizing blue. Her heart took a tiny leap. At times like this, she understood why Dex loved flying. Earth below, sky above, wide beautiful vistas all around. She loved the colors, the textures, and with a sudden pang, she remembered that part of her life in the before times.
She'd been a typical rebellious teenager in a very atypical family with no patience for a daughter who refused to step into the expected mould.
The plane crested the last table mountain and the runway appeared ahead. Behind them were the greens and yellows of plains coated with dense prairie grasses. Ahead were tree-covered foothills and sharply eroded granite peaks that sometimes looked like teeth ready to crush. She would have drawn the outlines with inks, then captured the colors with pastels.
"Vic." Dex's calm voice brought her back to the now.
"I see it," she said, biting her lip and scanning the instrument cluster.
"Easy," he said, "You can do this."
Vic flexed her fingers on the yoke. The tower controller confirmed her heading and gave her final clearance to land.
A hundred feet, seventy feet, the runway just ahead. Gently, Vic kept easing the yoke forward. Thirty feet, twenty. The runway was underneath, her nose aligned with the center.
Adjust airspeed, gentle descent, the back wheels touched down and bounced. Vic gasped.
"Easy," Dex said again.
Again, the back wheels touched, and she pushed the yoke the last bit forward and the front hit the runway, bounced, and then settled. Vic braked, panting, terrified, relieved, as the Cessna answered her commands and slowed.
Sweat coated her hands on the yoke as she taxied towards the hangar Dex rented for Red Canyon's business aircraft and his personal plane collection. She stopped, cut the engine, and rested her head on her hands that still gripped the yoke.
"Adequate," Dex said as he opened the door on his side and leapt out to place chucks under the front wheel. He rounded to the door on her side and politely knocked on the aluminum. She looked up, dismayed as she saw his lips twitch. His Darkness was amused.
He opened her door, his lips curving into thirty percent of a real smile. Her anger simmered. "Why did you make me do that?"
He offered her a hand to get down, which she batted away and leapt to the ground. His smile widened. "The first time I did a landing by myself, the plane I was in had been hit by German anti-aircraft fire and had lost part of a wing. I was a gunner, and my pilot had been shot. While we were spiraling in the air, I had to crawl out of my seat, toss away his body, then take control of a plane when I knew just barely the basics of flying a biplane. I missed the roof of a French farmhouse and crashed into the side of their barn."
Vic stood, shocked. Dex sharing details of his history usually amounted to single word replies or brooding silence. "That was multiple sentences," she said. "And a biplane? World War I?"
He nodded. "Royal Flying Corps before it was folded into the RAF."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"So suspicious."
"Can you blame me?"
He heaved a mighty sigh, his smile fading. "Do you remember what Mara said when the pack was deciding what to do with Josh?"
"Sure."
"The human world is a lonely place for a creature on their own."
"I'm very familiar."
"So am I," he said. "You're a brave person, Vic, but you also need to see that you are capable of more than you know."
Vic folded her arms. "Wow, did you get that one from a fortune cookie?"
Dex's expression tuned to his normal stoic lack of any expression at all.
He turned and headed into the hanger and Vic trotted to keep up with his long strides. "Do you want me to check the engine for the source of that weird rattle?"
Dex removed his aviators, and she recoiled a step at the anger in his eyes. "No," he said, calmly, too calmly. "I want you to do a standard post-flight inspection. I'll check the engine."
Vic gulped, collected the checklist from the peg by the hangar door and, head down, started at the plane's tail, the better to avoid Dex now that she'd pissed him off. Slowly, she examined the plane's exterior, running her hand over the metal to feel for any new dents or loose panels. She examined the tail hinges, checked hydraulic lines for leaks, and inside the cabin collected their used coffee cups and the empty blood bags they'd sipped from. She recorded their flight time and added it to the tally of total engine hours. And then she retrieved the package they'd been sent to get.
Dex knelt by a tool kit from the hangar. From the pilot seat inside, Vic she watched him open the engine cowling and plunge his arms and elbow deep into the engine. "Doesn't that burn you? We just landed, the engine is still hot."
Dex stepped back from the engine and held up a piece of metal between the tips of a pair of needle nose pliers. "A loose bolt," he said. "And yes, it's hot, but I didn't want to let this sit so close to the exhaust."
"Wow," she said as she leapt down. "How did you know?"
Silence and his standard expressionless gaze. She tucked the clipboard under one arm and folded her hands demurely in front of her. "Sir, the post flight inspection did not reveal any abnormalities."
She watched him run his tongue over his teeth, then drop the bolt into an outside pocket of the toolkit. "Help me tow this back into the garage. I'll do the rest of the engine check once it's cooled down."
Vic nodded, aware she had once again prodded him too much.
Together, they pushed the Cessna into its spot in the hangar, vampire strength making it easy to move the plane. Dex left the engine cowling open. "Get the car," he said to Vic.
She nodded and caught the keys he tossed to her. There was a definite fall nip in the air as she strode around the side of the hangar, beeped that SUV open then climbed inside and guided the car around to the front of the hangar. Yellow aspens coated the far hillsides, and with her vampire hearing, she heard the collective shiver of thousands, millions of leaves in the breezes off the mountains. It was so peaceful here, so different from other places she'd lived.
Dex was just locking up a she pulled to a stop. The aviators were back on and with a sharp motion of his hand, he waved her out of the driver's seat.
Vic rolled her eyes, hopped down, and went around to the passenger side. As irreverent as she could be, she respected Dex's authority and especially the fact that he'd never, ever lifted a hand to her when she'd pushed him.
He slid in the driver's seat and motored out of the Jackson airport, then onto the ring road that led around the town proper. This time of year, Jackson was filled with leaf peepers, too many cars, too few parking spots. Crowds of tourists seeking the perfect social media picture to wow their followers or the family back home.
They drove in silence until Vic couldn't stand it any more. "So, why did we pick these up?" She angled her head at the box in the back seat.
Dex turned onto the Red Canyon back entrance road. "These kardics were recently discovered at a mine in Chile. Sabrina wants to test them against the Romanian stones and assess geologic similarities and differences."
"Do the witches down there know about their potential to heal?"
Dex shook his head. "Unknown. After their European trip, Cressida had to return to her duties on the East Coast, so Solange is on her own in Santiago. This has happened very fast, but I'm sure," he said, glancing at her after he maneuvered around a rockfall, "Solange is on it."
The boundary lay just ahead, a glittering undulating, warp in the air. Humans could not see it. Most could feel it, but might not be permitted to pass through. Dex drove straight on. The magic, Mara said, was complex and very old, and would learn to recognize friend or foe and act accordingly.
Vic shivered as they passed through. It felt almost like going through pleasantly warm water except she could breathe. She opened her mouth, closed it, then decided to be brave and cooperative. "Do you want me to take the rocks over to Sabrina?"
"Please." Dex pulled into the parking lot by the auto shop and waved at Jake as the older werewolf looked up from the car he was servicing. "Remember, we're all invited to dinner with Mara and Royce tonight. The new guy arrives today. In fact," he said, glancing at his watch, "He might be here already."
"The new security guy?"
Dex nodded. "Royce's Army Reserve buddy. Drake, I'm sure will be ecstatic to hand over security duties."
Vic grabbed the box from the back seat. "Doesn't Drake want to hand off Quartermaster stuff now that's he's officially Beta?"
Dex gave her a look. She lifted her chin. He sighed. "Now that we know Josh was slow-walking applications to try and entrench his own influence, Royce is going on something of a hiring spree. He's got applicants for Quartermaster, more coders, AI specialists. I told him we're big enough to need an HR person. We need Drake to do what he does best, which is hardware and firmware."
Vic trotted beside him as they wound their way through the path among the trees toward the main buildings. "Sabrina says they've decided on a date."
That earned her raised eyebrows. Well, look at that, she thought. She knew something before His Darkness. "Or maybe it's she's decided and he has yet to find out."
"She's got a big family."
Vic gave a dramatic shiver. "I wouldn't know what to do with that many relatives."
They emerged from the woods and saw an unfamiliar car in the parking lot by the security office.
Vic gasped and ran up to it, setting the box aside so she could caress the vibrant blue side panel. "1966 Pontiac GTO, two doors, rear drive, 400 cubic inch, V8 engine, and," she gasped, almost falling to her knees as she looked inside, "A four-speed manual transmission. I'm in love."
Dex grumbled behind her. "A beautiful ride."
"It must be his," she said, picking up the box and thrusting it at Dex's arms. "I've got to meet him."
She trotted up the walkway to the security office, craning her neck to see inside as Drake had left the screen door in place to let fresh air waft inside.
She barreled in, almost colliding with the tall, muscular man standing across the desk from Drake. "Is the GTO yours?" she said breathlessly.
Drake looked up and smiled. The man turned, and Vic caught her breath. High cheekbones, square jaw with a pointed chin, ruthlessly short hair, mocha latte skin and green eyes. He didn't answer.
"I'm Vic," she said, holding out her hand.
"And I'm her boss," Dex said behind her.
