Queen of Night (Thorne Hill 6)

Historically, witches and weres get along just fine. Occasionally, you come across an alpha who wants to try and prove they’re just as strong as we are, but all it takes is one little spell to put them in their place.

And that, of course, doesn’t go over well.

But you just can’t compete with magic, as we proved a thousand years ago when the vampires tried taking on all of the witches and warlocks. If werewolves were to have a natural enemy, I suppose it might have been vampires at one time.

Both vampires and werewolves have increased speed and superhuman strength. But vampires are dead, giving them an advantage over weres in many areas. Vampires drink human blood and werewolves—in their wolf form—eat flesh and muscle, making them not in direct competition with each other. For the most part, they leave each other alone with the random battle-of-strength type of fights thrown in there.

Usually, the vampires win. That whole instant healing thing really comes in handy when your opponent can pull your flesh off your bones with their teeth in just seconds.

But as far as enemies go, the one thing witches, werewolves, and vampires can all agree on is our hatred for hunters. We’ve been persecuted, shot, hunted, and burned. Werewolves, like witches, are born with their powers. You can’t get bitten and turned into a werewolf, just like you can’t have a spell cast over you to become a witch.

There are rumors some packs are rather inbred as a way to keep family lines pure and to guarantee that the child born will be a full werewolf. A human and a were can come together and have kids, but there’s no promise a half-human, half-were kid will be able to shift like their werewolf parent is able to.

“The kids were pretty drunk,” Ruby assures everyone. “They were ranting about a werewolf and aliens and sounded pretty crazy.”

“The cops have to know something is going on in this town.” Evander cuts into his food. “They might not be the brightest, but you’d have to be pretty damn dull not to catch on.”

“The cop who showed up today was the same one who questioned me after I stopped the demon in the root cellar the day before my wedding,” I add ruefully. “If memories need to be wiped, I’ll have Lucas do it.”

“It’s more than memories,” Kristy replies, looking a little nervous. “There were reports filed and things put into the computer system. Are you worried they’re going to investigate you further?”

I quickly shake my head. “It’s not like they’ll find anything.”

But they could. Because I killed someone, someone human, someone whose family could be looking for him. Anxiety starts to make its way up my spine. If anything, Roger’s family will think he was killed by demons. He was a hunter, after all, and it’s not like hunters are rule-abiding citizens.

And there’s no body. No murder weapon. The police can investigate me all they want.

“True, and even with the existence of vampires, people are still denying anything else is out there,” Ruby adds.

“Hell, some people still think vampires are humans with some sort of blood sickness,” Nicole quips, shaking her head.

“They won’t take the report of werewolves seriously,” Evander starts. “But they will take a vicious animal attack seriously. The last thing we need is a band of redneck hunters walking through our woods with rifles.”

“Our warding will keep them away,” Naomi says confidently. “And if it doesn’t…well…it might be fun to scare them off ourselves.”

“Ohhh, that would be fun,” Nicole giggles, looking at her twin. “We could make them think they’re crazy.”

“And shoot at each other,” Naomi suggests. They both look at me, waiting to see what I’d do to drive the hunters away. I open my mouth only to snap it shut.

“We’ll put up another warding. Keep them away.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Naomi mumbles.

“We want to make them think there’s nothing here,” I remind them. “Not give them reason to investigate further. You never know if one of the nons might be a believer.”

“That’s a good point,” Evander agrees. “There are a handful of nons who believed vampires were real before they came out of the coffin, and even more who believe in other supernatural powers, like witchcraft and ghosts.”

“We’ve warded nons away for centuries,” Ruby says. “We’ll keep warding them away.”

I nudge Kristy’s arm. “And come on, guys, this is the fucking Feast of the Blood Moon. We’re supposed to be getting drunk and running around in the moonlight naked. Except I can’t drink so you have to do it for me, okay?”

“My clothes are staying on,” Kristy says firmly, and Nicole, Naomi, and I all laugh.

“I seem to remember two years ago there was a certain incident where you lost your pants.” I cut into my steak, mouth watering. I’m starving and suddenly craving meat bad.