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STACEY BRUTGER

AN INSIDIOUS EVIL ENDANGERS THE FRAGILE PEACE BETWEEN THE HUMANS AND PARANORMALS. IF WAR ERUPTS, NEITHER SIDE WILL EMERGE UNSCATHED.

Raven will go to any extreme to locate the missing member of her pack, even confront her murky past that still has the power to haunt her. A wild hunt leads her to an isolated mountaintop, where she and her pack are taken captive, and she learns that her nightmares are all-to real and more dangerous than ever. Every minute is a struggle to stay alive against the humans who would use her kind as nothing more than test subjects in their fanatical search to create the ultimate weapon against paranormals.

EVERY MINUTE IS A STRUGGLE TO STAY ALIVE…

Determined no one else should suffer the tortures she endured as a child, Raven risks everything to destroy the labs, even bringing her pack to the brink of annihilation. If she can’t make peace with her past, she will not only lose her pack, but incite an all-out war between humans and paranormals.

This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.

Cover artist: Amanda Kelsey of Razzle Dazzle Design (www.razzdazzdesign.com)

Editor: Faith Freewoman (www.demonfordetails.com)

DAY ONE: THREE WEEKS AFTER RYLAN DISAPPEARED

Static nipped painfully along her skin while Raven stared broodingly at the city glowing in the distance. Clouds brewed overhead, moisture heavy in the air as she gathered up all the delicious power and focused on the horizon.

Her black hair swirled in an invisible wind, the silver streaks shimmering in the darkness. She concentrated on the energy coiling around her, drawing the current inward, and the strands of her hair gradually settled around her shoulders as she absorbed every ounce of energy.

Closing her eyes, she unleashed everything she’d gathered in a brutal wave of pure electricity.

The volatile charge rumbled through the clouds, growing, spreading, until lightning forked through the air.

She followed the zap of energy when it hit the ground, followed while the earth soaked up the power, then studied everything she spotted in that one millisecond.

Humans.

Animals.

A few shifters.

A gaggle of witches.

But no vampires.

No sign of Rylan at all.

Swallowing a frustrated growl, Raven opened her eyes, determined to start over again if that was what it took to find him. She gathered the seething current around her, ignoring the spikes of pain that slammed into her skull while she struggled to hold onto the burning strands in her grasp.

The power was willing to obey, but she was just too weak from the continual abuse. She’d been at it for five hours, and the city was at the edge of her limits. She had spent every night for the past three weeks on the rooftop of her house, searching for Rylan.

Despite allowing the dragon to rise beneath her skin to boost her abilities, she’d found exactly nothing.

As electricity whirled around her, she pulled it into her body again, refusing to give up, the voltage making her brain feel like it was being boiled in acid. Energy could go anywhere and everywhere, allowing her to slip into houses, subway stations, and even jump into airplanes flying overhead.

But no matter where she searched, she found no signs of Rylan.

He couldn’t have simply vanished.

Frustration bubbled over, and the current she struggled to contain fizzled to nothing, leaving her battered body slightly singed. Panting to catch her breath, she thought about the first time she met Rylan, and the beginning of their unlikely friendship.

Though she was only a teenager when they met, she’d spent her whole life as a prisoner. When her parents discovered she was more than human, they sold her to a medical laboratory without a qualm, not caring that she was only three years old at the time.

She’d been going through a rebellious stage when Rylan entered the scene, and the doctors were getting frustrated at her defiance. They locked him in a room with her, granting him permission to feed.

Becoming a chew toy was to be her punishment.

Rylan refused.

After a week of slow starvation, they’d became friends. Unable to bear seeing him suffer, she freely offered him her blood, not knowing the consequences would haunt them both for the rest of their lives. Some element in her blood bound them together, but

worse, it gave Rylan, and any other vampire who tasted her blood, the illusion of life.

Rylan quickly became addicted, which strained their friendship. If the doctors discovered the truth, they would torture her relentlessly in an effort to duplicate the effect. He vowed to never lay a hand on her again, and swore to protect her from that day forward.

Even years later, he came whenever she asked for help. This time, instead of being able to enjoy an easy week doing nothing more strenuous than watching over her house, someone invaded her territory, injured one of her people, and took Rylan captive for his trouble.

Every piece of evidence led back to the labs. She and Rylan barely escaped with their lives the first time. She wasn’t sure if she could find a way to get him out again.

Though she could tell he was still alive, she had no clue where to find him.

She’d searched everywhere, questioned everyone, but Rylan’s whereabouts remained elusive.

At night, when her hope of finding him weakened, she’d swear she could hear his voice calling her for help. She would jerk awake in a heavy sweat, her breathing erratic, unable to distinguish whether his plea was reality or a nightmare.

All she knew was that if she didn’t find him soon, Rylan would eventually succumb to the insanity of bloodlust, turning him into the very monster he feared most. She also knew he would hold out as long as possible, trusting that she would never give up searching for him.

Crouched on the edge of the rooftop, she gripped the cold stone of the waist-high wall beneath her feet, and began the process all over again. Pure energy began to pool inside her, the power searing along her veins, her body too tired to control the burn anymore.

Her dragon stretched under her skin, claws piercing the aching muscles along her spine, wanting to be free to hunt.

Rylan was theirs.

Only a few more grids remained to be search, but Raven was afraid she already knew the answer.

Rylan was beyond her reach.

If she wanted to find him, she would have to venture out beyond the safe life she’d built for herself. Her stomach churned at the thought of dangling herself out as bait. The brick beneath her hands crumbled under her brutal grip, and the need for vengeance swelled through her.

“Raven.”

She whirled, ready to leap at the intruder. It took her brain precious seconds to recognize her visitor, and she blinked in confusion. “Griffin?”

Raven fought the dragon’s instinctive urge to attack. When she took a deep breath to calm her raging emotions, the smell of freshcut cedar she associated with him seeped into her, easing the compulsion to kill.

The man hadn’t changed since the first time she saw him, when he was locked inside a cage by a serial killer they’d both been tracking. Working together to escape had forged a reluctant bond between them.

He was lean, his dark hair a mess, his eyes splintered a vivid green that pierced her anger. Everything about him screamed rogue, intense and fierce and ready for action, but he kept the wild energy tightly leashed. Though he’d gained weight, he retained his scruffy appearance—of an outlaw, which was funny, considering he worked with the police as a consultant.

“What are you doing here?” Raven dropped from her perch, watching him closely. She was disturbed that she’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even noticed when he arrived.

“I was told I could find you up here.” He didn’t say anything more, continuing to study her, as if deciding on how to approach her.

Or maybe he stared because she looked so horrible, since she’d only been able to sleep in fits and starts for the past few weeks.

She’d been on the rooftop for hours, her clothes were damp from the mist saturating the air, or maybe she looked different because he hadn’t seen her since her dragon awakened.

Other shifters watched her with fear or awe.

Both reactions left her decidedly uncomfortable.

All she ever wanted was to remain invisible, but since she was one of the few female alphas in the paranormal world, it was no longer an option.

Raven released the energy whirling around them, gritting her teeth at the shock of pain. The dragon dragged its claws along the insides of her ribs, not wanting to be tucked away.

When she had herself under control, she narrowed her eyes. “Tell me.”

He smirked, his body relaxing, as if he’d come to a decision. “The council sent me.”

She stalked forward, barely resisting the urge to growl. “You came here to spy for your father.”

Instead of anger, Griffin grinned. “No, and it’s driving the old man crazy that he no longer has the power to control me. One of the few perks of being a rogue.” His amusement dropped away. “The council is uneasy about the weather; the pack and clans are getting nervous at the show of power.”

Raven snorted. “They sent you because of a tiny storm?”

Griffin moved for the first time since he stepped onto the roof, slowly leaning against the waist-high wall, his dual-tone eyes a bit unnerving while they studied her. “A massive storm that hasn’t let up for three weeks. A storm that reeks of power.”

Raven squirmed a little at the accusation, then went on the defensive. “I’m not challenging them. I’m just trying to find one of my own.”

Griffin shook his head. “That’s not good enough. Lots of people have gone missing over the years. It’s never a good thing when the paranormals are on edge. It leads to fights, and eventually war.”

Unable to stand still, Raven began to pace, her movements short and abrupt as she strode back and forth. “You can’t ask me to just forget about Rylan. I won’t stop searching for him.”

Griffin shoved away from the wall, stepping right into her path. “You’re not the only one with people missing. Grow up. You’re an alpha now. You’re not allowed to do whatever you want without consequences. Being a Region, working with the police to solve

paranormal cases, protected you from the repercussions of your rash actions, but you’re retired.”

The words were like a slap in the face. “Then what do you suggest I do? I won’t leave Rylan to rot.”

Tension eased from Griffin when she didn’t go for his throat. “Treat it like a case. People will respect your need to fight for your pack, but not at the cost of upsetting the delicate balance among the paranormals in the process.”

Raven stilled at his words, sensing a hidden undercurrent. “What do you know?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, lines of strain bracketing his mouth. “There are a lot more missing paranormals than what’s warranted. We always expect a few people to disappear or die, but some of the missing shifters are pack members.”

Shifters never left their pack without notifying their alpha where they were going. Position in the pack was too hard-won and prestigious to simply walk away from, especially since it would condemn them to become a rogue or worse, they would revert back to slave status.

Dark suspicions began to brew at the back of her mind. “Only shifters?”

Griffin shook his head. “Every paranormal sect has lost people. They’ve just vanished.”

The situation sounded all too familiar…the labs. Humans had grown fearful when the paranormals emerged from the shadows. War erupted, and too many people died on both sides in a senseless war. An unsteady truce between the races had been forged, held together by nothing stronger than a gossamer web.

Humans wanted to possess their own monsters, and secretly began to create an army of specially bred paranormals. She’d seen the results of their experiments, the hybrids they created, abominations who lived for the kill. She had destroyed the lab that held her prisoner for most of her life, but not without cost. Many people died, their deaths staining her soul so black no one would consider her innocent.

Unfortunately, there were more labs out there.

There were always more.

Her rebellion only forced them to become more secretive.

But one thing hadn’t changed—they had continued to take the unwanted, those who wouldn’t be missed.

Until now.

They were becoming bolder.

Their torturous experiments demanded stronger paranormals to create bigger and badder killers.

She feared that Rylan was now languishing in one of those hellish prisons.

Griffin stared at her expectantly, and she shied away from his too-intense gaze. He wanted something from her, but asking would put him in her debt. “What do you want?”

He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding, her question giving him permission to speak. “Go to the council with me and demand that they allow us to investigate. I need help on this case. It’s too big for the humans—too big for me to investigate on my own. Even retired, you’re the best. If we want to find these people alive, you need to stop wallowing in self-pity, step up and dosomething.”

Anger shimmered around her at his challenge, static rose between them, and she twisted the blue strands of current between her fingers. Energy snapped around her hands, and she allowed the spark to grow into a sphere, lightning flashing almost continuously in the small globe. It took an enormous amount of effort to keep her power in check, but the practice helped keep her mind human, preventing her from devolving into an animal with only the instinct to hunt.

“Why has no one else done anything?” Raven demanded. Griffin snorted, but didn’t look away from the crackling sphere in her palm. “And admit a weakness? That they couldn’t protect their own people? They’re too proud.”

She rolled her eyes. “So you come to me instead.”

He lifted his head, his green eyes glowing, his wolf staring boldly back at her. “You care more about saving people than your pride. And people respected you even before you became an alpha.”

Raven closed her fingers over the sphere. Pain stung her hand like a swarm of wasp until the globe finally cracked like glass, and she allowed the energy to soak back into her skin. “You’re trying to lure me out by dangling a case in front of me.”

He only shrugged.

Raven felt herself unbending. All her instincts told her Rylan was no longer in the city. If she wanted to investigate, she needed permission to search outside her territory. The easiest way would be to gain council approval. “Who would be the lead?”

Griffin grinned, knowing he’d won. “I doubt the council will agree to allow me to investigate unless someone with more power than I hold makes the…request.”

She grimaced. He meant demand. “And without it, the police won’t allow me access to any files, not in an official capacity.”

He nodded grimly, then held out his hand. “Partners?”

Raven hesitated, knowing her touch could be deadly. Shifters could handle a lot of abuse, but she didn’t enjoy inflicting pain. Nor did she relish the idea of touching him, since she could accidently pull his wolf to the surface.

Lack of physical contact led to a lonely life, but her pack was determined to pull her back into the land of the living, even if they had to do it with her kicking and screaming the whole way. Taking a deep breath, she held out her hand. “Agreed.”

Before they could touch, a deep growl rippled through the air.

Raven whirled, instantly spotting the large, blurred shape hurtling toward them. Without thinking, she stepped in front of Griffin and called up a sphere of energy. It was sloppy, the snap of current biting along her flesh. The globe was barely formed when she lobbed it at the dark shape.

A bright flash of light flared in the darkness when her grenade hit its target, illuminating Taggert in his werewolf form. He was over seven feet of pure muscle and determination. A roar of pain was ripped from his throat, the sound reverberating in her chest, then he somehow managed to pull that power into himself, quickly absorbing it. Instead of slowing him down, he used the energy to make himself even stronger and faster.

Unstoppable.

“Halt. Friend.” Raven lifted her hand, keeping herself between the two men when Taggert began circling them.

Taggert was the only one of his kind remaining, the true twolegged werewolves having long since gone extinct more than a thousand years ago. When she unknowingly brought him home from a slave auction a few months earlier, her powers had infected him, activating his dormant DNA, causing him to shift into this alternate form. She was afraid she had destroyed him, but he considered it a blessing, a way to keep her safe.

She was the last known dragon. She and Taggert were the only two remaining true shifter royalty living, and he was determined to keep her alive by any means necessary.

Those who knew the truth both feared and revered them. The world was changing, and they were either going to save everyone, or doom them to another devastating war where no one would emerge unscathed. And until the council could figure out which, they couldn’t afford to exterminate them.

An uneasy truce existed between them…for now.

Taggert sniffed the air, slowly drawn forward, as if unable to resist her touch. He only stopped when her outstretched hand came to rest against his chest. A soft rumble tingled against her palm, and she found herself stroking him, the movement easing away the tension in her spine. He melted down until only a human man stood before her, his eyes glowing a vivid yellow.

“We’ll catch up later.” She absently brushed her fingers over him, unable to resist temptation, marveling at his power, then hastily yanked her hand away before she became any more distracted. “We’ll finish our training in the morning.”

He gave a subtle nod, almost like a bow. Without a stitch of clothing on, he should have looked ridiculous, but ridiculous was not the word that came to her mind as she gazed at him. Though he’d never been shy, the recent changes had given him a sexy confidence that was eye-catching.

He calmly strode around her, then past Griffin with barely a glance, his fangs flashing in warning. Griffin swiveled to keep him in

view, his normally tanned skin a few shades paler. Seconds later, Taggert leapt over the side of the building without a moment’s hesitation and disappeared.

He was trusting her to keep herself safe.

It was the only reason he left without a fight.

With his new abilities, he’d transformed from a sweet boy to a man determined to keep her safe, constantly training, pushing himself to his limits.

Griffin turned toward her, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “So the rumors are true.”

His scent had turned slightly sour with fear. Something in his expression gave her pause, and then the truth dawned on her…he was terrified. Tendrils of dread worked its way under her skin, the deadly vines wrapping around her heart and squeezing. “He has phenomenal control. He’s not a berserker, a mindless killing machine that the legends claim.”

Griffin shook his head, his eyes dilating until they appeared black. “You misunderstand. He’s devoted to you. I have no doubt he will obey you in all things. His mission is, and has always been, to keep you safe. What worries me is the council. They can never know. They’re already disturbed about the amount of power you wield.”

A hint of unease crawled over her skin. The dragon went still at hearing the threat, then pushed forward until her skin ached, her body feeling too small to hold the beast. Raven stood balanced on a precarious edge between her old and new life. She came to the startling realization that she was no longer afraid of her dragon. She trusted the beast would do whatever possible to protect those she’d claimed as theirs. “I won’t let them harm him.”

The dragon grumbled in agreement and a spill of energy swirled around her, her skin hardening when tiny scales slotted together just below the surface. She flexed her fingers, marveling at the strength. To a human, she still looked normal, but with her enhanced senses, she could see tiny lines etched along her skin, defining each scale.

Griffin noticed the change immediately, and lifted his hands in surrender, his head slightly tilted in submission. “When anyone in the paranormal community becomes too powerful and threatens the

council’s authority, they’ve been known to send assassins to take care of the problem.”

That gave her pause, her mind flashing to Randolph, their most renowned executioner. The man had been human at one time, but a short stay in the labs turned him into one of the most effective, efficient killers the world had ever known. Much to her chagrin, he was fascinated by her unique abilities so similar to his own.

Nor would this be the first time that Randolph was sent after her.

Though he hinted about pitting himself against her, she didn’t think he would go after her in an unfair fight simply because the council ordered it.

He even implied that they were friends.

That meant they would send nameless, faceless killers instead.

“I have no interest in taking over the council.”

Griffin shrugged. “Rumors are already circulating. You’re already changing the paranormal world, breaking laws that have remained in place for hundreds of years. While a few people have protested what they consider your abuse of power, more believe we need to change in order to survive, or we’ll become extinct.”

“That was not my intent. All I’ve ever done was protect my pack.” While Griffin had a very strict sense of duty to others, similar to her own, she couldn’t forget that he was also a rogue with his own agenda.

“You might not have a choice.” His voice softened. “Pack animals follow the most dominant alpha.”

The implications slammed into her with the force of a sledgehammer. “How do I stop it?”

Griffin shook his head. “I’m afraid it might be much too late. If it comes to war, they will follow you…even the council. The last war nearly destroyed us. You might be the only one who can save us.”

Raven rubbed her brow, trying to ease the gathering headache. “No pressure.”

Griffin snorted. “Tomorrow night we’ll go to the council, where you must convince them you’re their servant, willing to do their bidding. The only way you’re going to get what you want is by proving to them that they want the same thing.”

DAY TWO: AN HOUR BEFORE SUNSET

Raven paused outside her office, able to hear the pack arguing, even through the closed door. While they wanted to help find Rylan, they weren’t willing to risk her life in order to do it. When she opened the door, the din subsided.

She nodded at Dominick, who was seated behind the desk. He’d held the pack together when they first escaped the labs, and she never cared to take back the reins, since he was so much better suited to the role.

Seven people stared at her expectantly, and she took a deep breath. “I know we’re all thinking the same thing—the labs are back.” Tension in the room swelled, a low growl filling the air from all directions as their beasts threatened to take over. High emotions could easily turn any situation deadly, since it might trigger them to change into a deadly animal at any moment.

“I also know none of you like Rylan, but if the labs are truly back, they won’t stop until they’ve recaptured as many of us as they can.” Jackson narrowed his eyes at the threat, almost like he was convinced she would vanish from under his very nose. She’d met him at the lowest point in his life….after he had lost his ability to shift, which put his position as a pack enforcer in jeopardy. He’d been relegated to minor duties, and practically fell into her lap. His fierce loyalty won a place in her heart, but when she healed his wolf,

his alpha demanded his return. She risked her life to win Jackson back, firmly cementing his place in her pack.

When she tore her eyes away from him, her attention landed on Taggert, where he leaned casually against the wall, his stare no less intense than Jackson’s. Neither wolf was happy with her right now. Thankfully, Durant was caught up in an emergency session at Talons, so he couldn’t stop her from doing what needed to be done to protect her pack.

London, an enormous Kodiak bear who was her security specialist, stretched out his legs, his chair creaking in protest. “You claimed Rylan as one of us. We won’t leave him behind.” His shoulders were stiff, clearly still blaming himself for Rylan’s disappearance, since the vampire was taken on his watch. Though she didn’t blame him, he couldn’t let it go. “What would you have of us?”

Raven exhaled in relief. “In the past, I’ve always clung to the background, doing my best to avoid drawing attention. To keep us together, I had to prove that I was mentally strong enough to ground a pack and keep us alive. That decision is now going to put every step we take under scrutiny.”

“You were always an alpha,” Dina protested. She was the caretaker of the group, and one of the strongest women Raven had ever met. Nothing got the chipper little fox down.

“Maybe, but ever since we made my position official, it put us under the dominion of the council. The last place we want to be is on their bad side.” Raven glanced down at her hands, remembering the blood on them, the hundreds of people she killed to escape the labs.

Worse, she feared the killing wasn’t over.

“What would you have of us?” Jenkins was a chameleon, his kind extremely rare. Despite his slim build, hatred burned in his eyes. The labs had nearly destroyed him trying to harvest his DNA, and he was determined to do whatever it took to strike back at them.

She met the eyes of each person in the room. Her closest friends. Her only family. “I’m going to petition the council to allow me to open up an investigation, so we can discover what’s really

been happening to all the paranormals who have been disappearing.”

London stood, his chest expanding as he inhaled deeply. “When do we leave?”

They trusted her…just like that.

Raven should have been thrilled, but the thought of going back to the labs scared her shitless. She swallowed hard, then nodded once. “Tonight.”

The door was flung open, and she saw Nicholas standing on the threshold. She discovered his corpse abandoned across her driveway only three weeks ago, and his presence was a testament to his ability to heal.

When they captured Rylan, they left Nicholas’s skinned remains for her to find.

Vampires only died by beheading or the removal of the heart. While skinning Nicholas wouldn’t have killed him, it was excruciating for the victim, and took time and skill to accomplish.

Instead of giving him the normal blood baths, she’d given him her blood. In a week, he was able to remain conscious without screaming in pain from the tiniest touch of air. By week two, his skin was beginning to grow back, appearing like melted wax, his features gradually returning, so he resembled little more than a half-made clay figurine. His once long hair had just begun to sprout.

And as of yet he could give them no information about who had taken Rylan and tortured him.

He limped into the room and bowed to her. “Take me with you.”

Behind him, she could see a group of young shifters milling about in the hall, trying to appear as innocent as possible, pretending they hadn’t been caught eavesdropping. They were all orphaned and hers to protect.

“No.” Jackson pushed away from the wall. “She’s only allowed three people when going before the council. In case there’s trouble, she needs everyone there to be at the top of their game.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes, but the effect was ruined by his nearly transparent eyelids, and the fact that his eyelashes had yet to grow back. While her blood had accelerated his healing, it also gave

him an illusion of life he hadn’t felt in decades. Her blood was addictive. An obsession. She didn’t like the way he hungrily watched her, as if trying to decide what to nibble on first.

“Mistress—”

“Jackson’s right.” Dominick rose from behind the desk. “Durant is at the club. His loyalty to you is unquestionable, but his club’s affiliation with the council complicates things. I suggest you leave him as neutral. Take Jackson and London with you. Might I also suggest that you bring young Luca?”

Raven lifted her brow at his unusual choice. “Why?”

“Two reasons—he’s learned a lot about magic since he’s been here, exposed to your own unique style of power, but I also think it would give you an edge with the witches. He’s got talent, but people will underestimate him.”

Luca snapped upright from his casual lounging position in the hall, coming to stop in the doorway. He wisely said nothing. She suspected he wasn’t even breathing, he was so still. Instinct warned her that trouble was coming. If they wanted to survive, they needed to work as a pack.

Ever since Luca joined her household, he’d been practicing his magic. He was a wizard, unable to cast any spells on his own, since he lacked the ability to collect the energy needed to power his magic. However, her house practically teemed with power…energy from her that had seeped in to the mansion over the years.

At first, she’d been worried the current would infect him as well, but he seemed to have a natural repellent…she suspected his ability to use the magic was what prevented it from contaminating his blood. Not only could he cast whenever she was near, he also managed to create charms that held a small spark to use whenever he had no access to any power.

While it still scared her to see him use the current she’d considered a curse for so long, he reveled in it. He was advancing farther and faster than anyone could have anticipated. She’d seen him in a fight, and she trusted him to give everything he had in order to protect her.

Raven nodded slowly, accepting Dominick’s counsel. “We leave in one hour.”

Luca let out a whoop of excitement, jumping in the air with a fist pump. A second later, still beaming, he disappeared with the rest of the kids when they charged up the stairs.

BATTLING NERVES, Raven reluctantly parked the car and turned off the ignition. Like the first time she saw Talons, the nondescript warehouse sat crouched in the shadows. Menace hovered around the building, warning the unwary to back away.

The dragon used her eyes to peer out at their surroundings, eager to come out and play.

And instantly noticed they were being watched.

The street where they parked was deserted, no traffic, no hint of pedestrians or clubbers, as if they knew better than to venture down monster alley.

Trespassers could get eaten.

Luca’s excited chatter gradually faded under the grim atmosphere.

London and Jackson patiently waited for her to move first.

When no one attacked, Raven grabbed the door then paused. “Stay alert. We’re no longer alone.”

Without waiting for a response, she exited and took the lead. The temperature was cool, a hint of winter in the air. The night sky remained overcast, ready for her to call down a storm.

As they neared the building, shadows shifted. Raven stopped and tensed. The dragon pressed forward, and energy swirled around her. Static crackled between her fingers, and she wove them into a familiar pattern, a sphere of electricity beginning to take shape.

Griffin stepped forward, hands raised in surrender, his gazed riveted on her hand. “You made it.”

His covert approach made sense, since rogues needed to be sneaky and undetected if they wanted to survive.

Raven closed her fingers, crushing the globe, sucking in a sharp breath then shaking out her hand at the bite of pain. Energy didn’t want to fall dormant, fighting her every step, before it gradually faded away. “I’m surprised to see you. Rogues are not usually invited to council meetings.”

He raised a brow, his eyes finally lifting to meet hers. “You don’t know.”

Raven frowned, not liking surprises. “Know what?”

“Rogues have an alpha and territory thanks to you. We’ve earned the right to attend the council meetings.” He lowered his hands, shoving them into his pockets. “Jamie and I decided to show you our support.”

Raven repressed a growl. “You’re putting them in danger.”

He snorted. “Rogues are always in danger. There is no getting around that. You’ve protected them as much as you can. Now they want to do the same for you.” He paused, turning to nod at the building behind him. “They know what they have to lose, but they also have the highest number of missing people. They can help make our case.”

When she opened her mouth, Jackson placed a hand on her arm. “Trust them.”

It went against everything in her to put others in danger, but both men were right. There was more at stake than just them. With a scowl, she shrugged off his hold and marched toward the door. When she entered the club, she found the unnatural silence jarring.

The hallway was empty, a last reprieve before she faced the council. There was no décor in the confining space, except for one prominent word clawed into the heavy wooden panels. Drawn forward, she lifted her hand, letting her fingers sink into the grooves.

She shivered, swearing she could feel the presence of Durant’s tiger where he so boldly marked his territory.

“Holy shit, that’s cool.” Luca stopped at her side and lifted his hand to mimic her, but stopped short of touching, as if he sensed the intent behind the word…mine.

The club had its own rules, and Durant ran it with an iron fist.

This was his territory.

You messed with it, and you messed with him.

A slight pressure brushed against her shield, a polite knock, and Raven recognized the signature. “Durant?”

“Pleasebecareful.Idon’t like thetone oftheclub. Something’s wrong.”

Her senses sharpened. “Atrap?”

“Uncertain.” He hesitated just a fraction of a second, the action telling.

“Keepyourdistanceuntilweknowmore.”She would not put him in danger, or have him risk ownership of his club on her account.

His tiger gave a rumble of displeasure, but he didn’t protest. “Agreed.”

As he severed the connection, his essence wrapped around her like a giant hug, and his natural calmness seeped into her. She pushed through the second door and entered the club with more confidence than she had all evening.

The room was packed, with over three hundred people crowded into the space, and all of them some sort of paranormal. Raven was surprised they were waiting so passively, since their more primal side was known for striking first and asking questions later.

Everyone was tense, and she could sense their curiosity pressing against her shields. Raven had no doubt that they came because of her. While some might be counted as friends, she didn’t recognize the majority.

“Oh, shit.” Luca’s voice was only a breath of air, and echoed her sentiments exactly.

She expected unease or awkwardness, but there was a calculation in his expression when he surveyed the room. He took in the exits, the biggest threats. The amulets subtly brightened under his shirt when he began to invoke a spell, his magic splashing against her like a brush of cobwebs.

The spell snapped into place around them.

A shield.

Those who wished them harm would not be able to pass without receiving a nasty shock that would knock them on their asses, but

not enough to pull their beasts forward.

Griffin’s observation about the paranormal community being uneasy was correct, but he had underestimated the strength of their disquiet. They came tonight to judge her. She could almost see the bloodthirstiness in a few of them, their fear urging them to rip her apart.

Her gaze connected with Durant’s from across the room. He leaned casually against the wall near his office, his pose deceptively lazy, but his golden eyes gave away his agitation. He was big and lean, everything about him polished and unruffled…until you noticed the stiff way he held himself.

It took all his willpower to keep from coming to her.

The heat in his eyes kicked up a notch when he caught her gawking at him, and she felt her face warm. A smirk kicked up the corners of his mouth, and he relaxed at her telling reaction.

Movement at the other end of the room caught her attention, and she reluctantly tore herself away from the distraction that was Durant. Jamie and two of his pack members rose. They wove around the tables and strode toward her, their attention locked solely on her. Some people glanced away in disgust, others bared their fangs, but not a one raised a hand against them.

Jamie stopped before her and gave a short bow, showing his allegiance. His men followed suit. Then they swept around and stood at her back. The men were big and vicious, their beasts close to the surface, violence waiting to erupt.

She wasn’t sure how they were able to do it, but they kept their calm.

The aggression level went through the roof. Murmurs ran throughout the room, a few packs shifted uncomfortably, while a number of others stood straighter, their claws slipping free from their skin, their fangs flashing as their lips curled back.

Ignoring all of them, Raven focused on the biggest threat in the room.

The four men and one woman seated on the dais at the back of the room.

The infamous council.

They were the strongest of the paranormals, purebreds of their species, and had fought tooth and claw for their positions. They studied her impassively, and a sudden suspicion left her chilled in its wake.

“You summoned me.” Raven didn’t doubt it for a second, no matter what Griffin believed. She needed to tread carefully, already able to feel the steel jaws of a trap ready to snap around her neck.

“A few concerns about your recent behavior have been brought to our attention.” Donaldson sat in the middle, the spokesperson and leader of the group. Power was tightly leashed around him, and he contained it with iron control. The imposing wolf reminded her of Griffin…the father and son a matching pair in strength and power. He gave nothing away while he watched their approach.

Raven cocked her head, hearing an undertone to his voice. They’d worked well together in the past, but shifters always did whatever was needed to protect their own. She understood his unspoken warning to tread carefully.

“This is an official inquiry,” Donaldson continued.

The old wolf at the end of the table held up his hands. “Before we begin, let’s clear the room of the unwanted.” Hatred burned in his eyes as he stared at her group with disgust, as if they’d invaded his territory and pissed on his shoes for good measure.

He was old school down to the bone, and clearly despised rogues.

And he obviously blamed her for their presence.

“Actually, they have every right to be here. They have their own alpha, they have territory, and they have the numbers. They pass the stringent rules required to attend.” Raven refused to back down. If she relented, any ground the rogues had gained in the past few weeks would be for nothing, and the shifters’ kill first and ask questions later rule for rogues would continue unabated. “What happens tonight will impact them as well.”

The old wolf puffed up, affronted that she would challenge him. He opened his mouth to retaliate, when the witch spoke. “I would like to hear what they have to say.”

Heloise was the only female, and the only witch. She looked regal—a beautiful, cold queen. Her light coffee-colored skin gave her an almost ageless appearance. Most would assume because she was a woman, she would be the weakest link. They would be wrong. Her spine was made of pure steel, ruthlessness second nature to her. If anyone had any doubts about her intent, all they had to do was peer into her spooky, deep brown eyes. They were so dark they appeared almost black. Shadows moved in their depths, tortured souls withering in torment, begging for mercy. Raven saw flashes of the past in those eyes, when voodoo priestesses ruled the world.

Heloise gave her a slight nod, and Raven knew that she would receive no more concessions from the board tonight. Raven had risked her life to save Heloise’s coven, but it didn’t mean they were friends—more like uneasy allies, and only if Raven stretched the truth a bit.

“Agreed.” The vampire of the group resembled a teenager, but there was a stillness to him that belied such innocence. She could practically feel the blood of the dead he’d consumed throughout the centuries saturating his body. There was something in his expression when he looked at her that worried her more than anything… curiosity.

The old wolf growled, and Raven smothered her smile of relief at passing the first hurdle, resisting the urge to antagonize the wolf further. From this point forward, things were going to become progressively worse.

The large cat sighed dramatically, his leg lazily swinging where it rested over the arm of his chair, almost like the annoyed twitch of a tail. Raven didn’t mistake him for weak, knowing he could spring into action at a moment’s notice. His gaze dropped from the ceiling to sweep over her dismissively. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we? The council has concerns about your growth in power. Tell us, have you gained the ability to shift forms?”

Shifters learned to change at puberty. If they couldn’t shift at that time, they almost never mastered the skill. Those who couldn’t shift were considered weak, and not worthy of notice. Raven lifted

her chin, not at all ashamed. She felt more comfortable in the shadows. “No.”

An uneasy silence crawled through the room when no one spoke. Then the cat snorted and turned toward the council, dismissing her. “She’s not a true shifter. Problem solved.”

“I disagree.” Heloise shook her head, her eyes locking on Raven. “We’ve heard rumors that you plan to challenge the council for rule.”

Raven went lightheaded at the thought—she’d rather be turned over to the labs—and the true reason for her being summoned became startlingly clear. “I have no interest in taking over anything. My goal is to find my missing pack member.”

“But you don’t dispute that you have the power to take the leadership if you wanted.” Heloise’s voice was silky smooth. “You have nominal ability to use magic. You have some sway over the shifters and vampires. Your association with the rogues is troublesome to more than a few packs.”

Understanding dawned.

They were scared.

If she didn’t answer very carefully, she would find herself challenged over and over again, until she was dead, and everything she’d worked for…her pack…would be dismantled. “The council works because there’s more than one person in charge. It offers equality, a balance, so one person can’t destroy us from within. No single ruler would work in these modern times.”

A full minute of silence fell. Durant pushed away from the wall, and she shook her head just a fraction. He looked pissed, before reluctantly subsiding, his arms crossed, as if to stop himself from charging forward to pick her up and carry her to safety.

Her pack shifted, Luca standing next to her, while the others spread out a bit more, as if preparing to fight their way free.

The tension in the room thickened, and her patience snapped. “We have more pressing concerns. I want permission from the council to investigate the reports of missing people.”

“Shifters travel in and out of different territories all the time.” The old wolf shrugged away her concerns as unimportant.

“I think that’s exactly what you’re supposed to believe, but what about the others? The ones who aren’t shifters?” Raven refused to give up.

“You mean your missing Rylan.” The vampire tilted his head in inquiry.

“Him, yes, and hundreds of others who have gone missing in recent years.” Her heart ached at the mention of Rylan’s name, and she carefully adverted her eyes to avoid being mesmerized. Something about this vampire’s nearly black eyes raised her hackles. “You think I had something to do with his disappearance.”

“You’ve already been cleared.” The young vampire shook his head, the intelligence in his gaze revealing his true age. “Rylan has gone missing on and off throughout the years. Why is now any different?”

He looked willing to be convinced. He didn’t believe Rylan simply walked away any more than she did. “I think they were purposely taken. Rylan would never have left the pack defenseless. He was in charge while I was away.”

Donaldson spoke for the first time. “Taken by whom?”

Raven debated what to say, knowing they wouldn’t believe the truth, but lying was out of the question when some shifters could sense falsehoods. “I believe the humans have begun their experiments again.”

A number of shifters in the room scoffed at the thought of humans taking shifters against their will. Donaldson just sighed. “Myths.”

Raven knew she’d lost them. No shifters would believe that a human could overpower them. She couldn’t let it go that easily. “And if it’s not?”

“Then they were weak and deserved to be taken.” The cat waved a dismissive hand, losing interest and returned to studying the ceiling.

She was appalled and pissed. “You’re underestimating humans. War is coming. We might have strength and power on our side, but they have the numbers. And if their experiments are successful, we won’t stand a chance.”

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But, better yet, four of the happiest weeks of his life were subsequently spent in that same hospital to which he had first been taken relating to all and sundry his amazing adventure, he being interviewed by no less than five representatives of Sunday editors and eleven reporters for city dailies, all anxious to discover just how it was that he had been blown through water and air up through so great a thing as a river, and how he felt while en route. A triumph.

Rivers may be smart, but saints are smarter, thanks be.

And, to top it all, seeing that his right hand and arm might possibly be crippled for life, or at least an indefinite period (the doctors did not know), and in grateful appreciation of the fact that he had refused to deal with various wolfish lawyers who had now descended on him and urged him to sue for a large sum, he was offered a substantial pension by the company, or its equivalent, work with the company, no less, at good pay for the rest of his life, and a cash bonus into the bargain, a thing which seemed to solve his very uncertain future for him and put him at his ease. Once more the hand of the saint, you will certainly admit.

But, lastly, there was the peculiar spiritual consolation that comes with the feeling that you have done your duty and that a great saint is on your side. For if all these things did not prove that the good St. Columba had kept faith with him, what could? To be sure the river had attempted to do its worst, and had caused him considerable fear and pain, and perhaps St. Columba did not have as much control over the river as he should or as he might like to have, or—and this was far more likely—it was entirely possible that he (McGlathery) had not at all times deserved the good saint’s support. But none the less, in the final extremity, had he not acted? And if not, how would you explain the fact that the tug Mary Baker was just at hand as he arose out of the water two thousand feet from shore? And why was it, if the saint had not been trying to help him, that the hospital doctor had seen to it that he was hustled off to a lock just in time—had seen, indeed, just such a case as this before, and known how to handle it? Incontrovertible facts all, aren’t they?—or if not, why not?

At any rate McGlathery thought so, and on Sundays and holidays, whether there was or was not anything of importance being celebrated in his church, he might have been seen there kneeling before his favorite saint and occasionally eyeing him with both reverence and admiration. For, “Glory be,” as he frequently exclaimed in narrating the wonderful event afterward, “I wasn’t stuck between the shield and the tunnel, as I might ’a’ been, and killed entirely, and sure, I’ve aaften thought ’tis a miracle that not enough water come in, just then, to drown ’em aal. It lifted up just enough to let me go out like a cork, and up I went, and then, God be praised, it shut down again. But, glory be, here I am, and I’m no worse fer it, though it do be that me hand wrenches me now and then.”

And as for the good St. Columba—

Well, what about the good St. Columba?

T VCONVENTION

IHIS story was told to me once by a very able newspaper cartoonist, and since it makes rather clear the powerfully repressive and often transforming force of convention, I set it down as something in the nature of an American social document. As he told it, it went something like this:

At one time I was a staff artist on the principal paper of one of the mid-Western cities, a city on a river. It was, and remains to this hour, a typical American city. No change. It had a population then of between four and five hundred thousand. It had its clubs and churches and its conventional goings-on. It was an excellent and prosperous manufacturing city; nothing more.

On the staff with me at this time was a reporter whom I had known a little, but never intimately. I don’t know whether I ought to bother to describe him or not—physically, I mean. His physique is unimportant to this story. But I think it would be interesting and even important to take him apart mentally and look at him, if one could—sort out the various components of his intellectual machinery, and so find out exactly how his intellectual processes proceeded. However, I can’t do that; I have not the skill. Barring certain very superficial characteristics which I will mention, he was then and remains now a psychological mystery to me. He was what I would describe as superficially clever, a good writer of a good, practical, matter-of-fact story. He appeared to be well liked by those who were above him officially, and he could write Sunday feature stories of a sort, no one of which, as I saw it, ever contained a moving touch of color or a breath of real poetry. Some humor he had. He was efficient. He had a nose for news. He dressed quite well and he was not ill-looking— tall, thin, wiry, almost leathery. He had a quick, facile smile, a genial

wordflow for all who knew him He was the kind of man who was on practical and friendly terms with many men connected with the commercial organizations and clubs about town, and from whom he extracted news bits from time to time. By the directing chiefs of the paper he was considered useful.

Well, this man and I were occasionally sent out on the same assignment, he to write the story, I to make sketches—usually some Sunday feature story. Occasionally we would talk about whatever was before us—newspaper work, politics, the particular story in hand —but never enthusiastically or warmly about anything. He lacked what I thought was the artistic and poetic point of view. And yet, as I say, we were friendly enough. I took him about as any newspaperman takes another newspaperman of the same staff who is in good standing.

Along in the spring or summer of the second year that I was on the paper the Sunday editor, to whom I was beholden in part for my salary, called me into his room and said that he had decided that Wallace Steele and myself were to do a feature story about the “love-boats” which plied Saturday and Sunday afternoons and every evening up and down the river for a distance of thirty-five miles or more. This distance, weather permitting, gave an opportunity to six or seven hundred couples on hot nights to escape the dry, sweltering heat of the city—and it was hot there in the summer—and to enjoy the breezes and dance, sometimes by the light of Chinese lanterns, sometimes by the light of the full moon. It was delightful. Many, many thousands took advantage of the opportunity in season.

It was delicious to me, then in the prime of youth and ambition, to sit on the hurricane or “spoon” deck, as our Sunday editor called it, and study not only the hundreds of boys and girls, but also the older men and women, who came principally to make love, though secondarily to enjoy the river and the air, to brood over the picturesque groupings of the trees, bushes, distant cabins and bluffs which rose steeply from the river, to watch the great cloud of smoke that trailed back over us, to see the two halves of the immense steel walking beam chuff-chuffing up and down, and to listen to the drive of the water-wheel behind. This was in the days before the

automobile, and any such pleasant means of getting away from the city was valued much more than it is now.

But to return to this Sunday editor and his orders. I was to make sketches of spooning couples, or at least of two or three small distinctive groups with a touch of romance in them. Steele was to tell how the love-making went on. This, being an innocent method of amusement, relief from the humdrum of such a world as this was looked upon with suspicion if not actual disfavor by the wiseacres of the paper, as well as by the conservatives of the city. True conservatives would not so indulge themselves. The real object of the Sunday editor was to get something into his paper that would have a little kick to it. We were, without exaggerating the matter in any way, to shock the conservatives by a little picture of life and love, which, however innocent, was none the less taboo in that city. The story was to suggest, as I understand it, loose living, low ideals and the like. These outings did not have the lockstep of business or religion in them.

II

Well, to proceed. No sooner had the order been given than Steele came to me to talk it over. He liked the idea very much. It was a good Sunday subject. Besides, the opportunity for an outing appealed to him. We were to go on the boat that left the wharf at the foot of Beach street at eight o’clock that evening. He had been told to write anything from fifteen hundred to two thousand words. If I made three good sketches, that would make almost a three-fourths page special. He would make his story as lively and colorful as he could. He was not a little flattered, I am sure, by having been called to interpret such a gay, risqué scene.

It was about one-thirty when we had been called in. About four o’clock he came to me again. We had, as I had assumed, tentatively agreed to meet at the wharf entrance and do the thing together. By now, however, he had another plan. Perhaps I should say here that up to that moment I only vaguely knew that he had a wife and child and that he lived with them somewhere in the southwestern section

of the city, whether in his own home or a rooming-house, I did not know. Come to think of it, just before this I believe I had heard him remark to others that his wife was out of the city. At any rate, he now said that since his wife was out of the city and as the woman of whom they rented their rooms was a lonely and a poor person who seldom got out anywhere, he had decided to bring her along for the outing. I needn’t wait for him. He would see me on the boat, or we could discuss the story later.

I agreed to this and was prepared to think nothing of it except for one thing. His manner of telling me had something about it, or there was some mood or thought in connection with it in his own mind, which reached me telepathetically, and caused me to think that he was taking advantage of his wife’s absence to go out somewhere with some one else. And yet, at that, I could not see why I thought about it. The thing had no real interest for me. And I had not the least proof and wanted none. As I say, I was not actually interested. I did not know his wife at all. I did not care for him or her. I did not care whether he flirted with some one else or not. Still, this silly, critical thought passed through my mind, put into it by him, I am sure, because he was thinking—at least, might have been thinking—that I might regard it as strange that he should appear anywhere with another woman than his wife. Apart from this, and before this, seeing him buzzing about here and there, and once talking to a girl on a street corner near the Mail office, I had only the vague notion that, married or not, he was a young man who was not averse to slipping away for an hour or two with some girl whom he knew or casually met, provided no one else knew anything about it, especially his wife. But that was neither here nor there. I never gave the man much thought at any time.

At any rate, seven o’clock coming, I had my dinner at a little restaurant near the office and went to the boat. It was a hot night, but clear and certain to bring a lovely full moon, and I was glad to be going. At the same time, I was not a little lonely and out of sorts with myself because I had no girl and was wishing that I had—wishing that some lovely girl was hanging on my arm and that now we two could go down to the boat together and sit on the spoon deck and

look at the moon, or that we could dance on the cabin deck below, where were all the lights and musicians. My hope, if not my convinced expectation, was that somewhere on this boat I, too, should find some one who would be interested in me—I, too, should be able to sit about with the others and laugh and make love. But I didn’t. The thought was futile. I was not a ladies’ man, and few if any girls ever looked at me. Besides, women and girls usually came accompanied on a trip like this. I went alone, and I returned alone. So much for me.

Brooding in this fashion, I went aboard along with the earliest of the arrivals, and, going to the cabin deck, sat down and watched the others approach. It was one of my opportunities to single out interesting groups for my pen. And there were many. They came, so blithe, so very merry, all of them, in pairs or groups of four or six or eight or ten, boys and girls of the tenements and the slums—a few older couples among them,—but all smiling and chatting, the last ones hurrying excitedly to make the boat, and each boy with his girl, as I was keen to note, and each girl with her beau. I singled out this group and that, this type and that, making a few idle notes on my pad, just suggestions of faces, hats, gestures, swings or rolls of the body and the like. There was a strong light over the gangway, and I could sketch there. It was interesting and colorful, but, being very much alone, I was not very happy about it.

In the midst of these, along with the latter half of the crowd, came Steele and his lonely landlady, to whom, as he said, this proffer on his part was a kindness. Because of what he had said I was expecting a woman who would be somewhat of a frump—at least thirty-five or forty years old and not very attractive. But to my surprise, as they came up the long gangplank which led from the levee and was lighted by flaring gasoline torches, I saw a young woman who could not have been more than twenty-seven or -eight at most—and pretty, very. She had on a wide, floppy, lacy hat of black or dark blue, but for contrast a pale, cream-colored, flouncy dress. And she was graceful and plump and agreeable in every way. Some landlady, indeed, I thought, looking enviously down and wishing that it was myself and not he to whose arm she was clinging!

The bounder! I thought. To think that he should be able to interest so charming a girl, and in the absence of his wife! And I could get none! He had gone home and changed to a better suit, straw hat, cane and all, whereas I—I—dub!—had come as I was. No wonder no really interesting girl would look at me. Fool! But I remained in position studying the entering throng until the last couple was on and I listened to the cries of “Heave off, there!” “Loosen those stay lines, will you?” “Careful, there!” “Hurry with that gangplank!” Soon we were in midstream. The jouncy, tinny music had begun long before, and the couples, scores and scores of them, were already dancing on the cabin deck, while I was left to hang about the bar or saunter through the crowd, looking for types when I didn’t want to be anywhere but close beside some girl on the spoon deck, who would hang on my arm, laugh into my eyes, and jest and dance with me.

III

Because of what he had said, I did not expect Steele to come near me, and he didn’t. In sauntering about the two decks looking for arresting scenes I did not see him. Because I wanted at least one or two spoon deck scenes, I finally fixed on a couple that was halfhidden in the shadow back of the pilot-house. They had crumpled themselves up forward of an air-vent and not far from the two smoke-stacks and under the walking-beam, which rose and fell above them. The full moon was just above the eastern horizon, offering a circular background for them, and I thought they made a romantic picture outlined against it. I could not see their faces—just their outlines. Her head was upon his shoulder. His face was turned, and so concealed, and inclined toward hers. Her hat had been taken off and was held over her knee by one hand. I stepped back a little toward a companion-way, where was a light, in order to outline my impression. When I returned, they were sitting up. It was Steele and his rooming-house proprietress! It struck me as odd that of all the couple and group scenes that I had noted, the most romantic should have been that provided by Steele and this woman. His wife would be interested in his solicitude for her loneliness and her lack of

opportunities to get out into the open air, I was sure. Yet, I was not envious then—just curious and a little amused.

Well, that was the end of that. The sketches were made, and the story published. Because he and this girl had provided my best scene I disguised it a little, making it not seem exactly back of the pilot-house, since otherwise he might recognize it. He was, for once, fascinated by the color and romance of the occasion, and did a better story than I thought he could. It dwelt on the beauty of the river, the freedom from heat, the loveliness of the moon, the dancing. I thought it was very good, quite exceptional for him, and I thought I knew the reason why.

And then one day, about a month or six weeks later, being in the city room, I encountered the wife of Steele and their little son, a child of about five years. She had stopped in about three or four in the afternoon, being downtown shopping, I presume. After seeing him with the young woman on the steamer, I was, I confess, not a little shocked. This woman was so pinched, so homely, so faded— veritably a rail of a woman, everything and anything that a woman, whether wife, daughter, mother or sweetheart, as I saw it then, should not be. As a matter of fact, I was too wrought up about love and youth and marriage and happiness at that time to rightly judge of the married. At any rate, after having seen that other woman on that deck with Steele, I was offended by this one.

She seemed to me, after the other, too narrow, too methodical, too commonplace, too humdrum. She was a woman whose pulchritudinous favors, whatever they may have been, must have been lost at the altar. In heaven’s name, I thought to myself, how could a man like this come to marry such a woman? He isn’t so very good-looking himself, perhaps, but still.... No wonder he wanted to take his rooming-house landlady for an outing! I would, too. I could understand it now. In fact, as little as I cared for Steele, I felt sorry that a man of his years and of his still restless proclivities should be burdened with such a wife. And not only that, but there was their child, looking not unlike him but more like her, one of those hostages to fortune by reason of which it is never easy to free oneself from the error of a mistaken marriage. His plight, as I saw it, was indeed

unfortunate. And it was still summer and there was this other woman!

Well, I was introduced by him as the man who worked on some of his stories with him. I noticed that the woman had a thin, almost a falsetto voice. She eyed me, as I thought, unintelligently, yet genially enough. I was invited to come out to their place some Sunday and take dinner. Because of his rooming-house story I was beginning to wonder whether he had been lying to me, when she went on to explain that they had been boarding up to a few weeks ago, but had now taken a cottage for themselves and could have their friends. I promised. Yes, yes. But I never went—not to dinner, anyhow.

IV

Then two more months passed. By now it was late fall, with winter near. The current news, as I saw it, was decidedly humdrum. There was no local news to speak of. I scarcely glanced at the papers from day to day, no more than to see whether some particular illustration I had done was in and satisfactory or not. But then, of a sudden, came something which was genuine news. Steele’s wife was laid low by a box of poisoned candy sent her through the mails, some of which she had eaten!

Just how the news of this first reached the papers I have almost forgotten now, but my recollection is that there was another newspaperman and his wife—a small editor or reporter on another paper—who lived in the same vicinity, and that it was to this newspaperman’s wife that Mrs. Steele, after having called her in, confided that she believed she had been poisoned, and by a woman whose name she now gave as Mrs. Marie Davis, and with whom, as she then announced, her husband had long been intimate—the lady of the Steamer Ira Ramsdell. She had recognized the handwriting on the package from some letters written to her husband, but only after she had eaten of the candy and felt the pains—not before. Her condition was serious. She was, it appeared, about to die. In this predicament she had added, so it was said, that she had long been neglected by her husband for this other woman, but that she had

suffered in silence rather than bring disgrace upon him, herself and their child. Now this cruel blow!

Forthwith a thrill of horror and sympathy passed over the city It seemed too sad. At the same time a cry went up to find the other woman—arrest her, of course—see if she had really done it. There followed the official detention, if not legal arrest, of Mrs. Davis on suspicion of being the poisoner. Although the charge was not yet proved, she was at once thrown into jail, and there held to await the death or recovery of Mrs. Steele, and the proof or disproof of the charge that the candy had been sent by her. And cameras in hand, reporters and artists were packed off to the county jail to hear the accused’s side of the story.

As I at once suspected on hearing the news, she proved to be none other than the lady of the Ira Ramsdell, and as charming as I had at first assumed her to be. I, being one of those sent to sketch her, was among the first to hear her story. She denied, and very vehemently, that she had sent any poisoned candy to any one. She had never dreamed of any such thing. But she did not deny, which at the time appeared to me to be incriminating, that she had been and was then in love with Steele. In fact, and this point interested me as much then as afterwards, she declared that this was an exceptional passion—her love for him, his love for her—and no mere passing and vulgar intimacy. A high and beautiful thing—a sacred love, the one really true and beautiful thing that had ever come to her—or him —in all their lives. And he would say so, too. For before meeting her, Wallace Steele had been very unhappy—oh, very. And her own marriage had been a failure.

Wallace, as she now familiarly called him, had confessed to her that this new, if secret, love meant everything to him. His wife did not interest him. He had married her at a time when he did not know what he was doing, and before he had come to be what he was. But this new love had resolved all their woes into loveliness—complete happiness. They had resolved to cling only to each other for life. There was no sin in what they had done because they loved. Of course, Wallace had sought to induce Mrs. Steele to divorce him, but she would not; otherwise they would have been married before this.

But as Mrs. Steele would not give him up, both had been compelled to make the best of it. But to poison her—that was wild! A love so beautiful and true as theirs did not need a marriage ceremony to sanctify it. So she raved. My own impression at the time was that she was a romantic and sentimental woman who was really very greatly in love.

Now as to Steele. Having listened to this blazoning of her passion by herself, the interviewers naturally hurried to Steele to see what he would have to say. In contrast to her and her grand declaration, they found a man, as every one agreed, who was shaken to the very marrow of his bones by these untoward events. He was, it appeared, a fit inhabitant of the environment that nourished him. He was in love, perhaps, with this woman, but still, as any one could see, he was not so much in love that, if this present matter were going to cost him his place in this commonplace, conventional world, he would not be able to surrender to it. He was horrified by the revelation of his own treachery. Up to this hour, no doubt, he had been slipping about, hoping not to be caught, and most certainly not wishing to be cast out for sin. Regardless of the woman, he did not wish to be cast out now. On the contrary, as it soon appeared, he had been doing his best in the past to pacify his wife and hold her to silence while he slaked his thirst for romance in this other way. He did not want his wife, but he did not want trouble, either. And now that his sin was out he shivered.

In short, as he confided to one of the men who went to interview him, and who agreed to respect his confidence to that extent, he was not nearly so much in love with Mrs. Davis as she thought he was— poor thing! True he had been infatuated for a while, but only a little while. She was pretty, of course, and naturally she thought she loved him—but he never expected anything like this to happen. Great cripes! They had met at a river bathing-beach the year before. He had been smitten—well, you know. He had never got along well with his wife, but there was the little boy to consider. He had not intended any harm to any one; far from it. And he certainly couldn’t turn on his wife now. The public wouldn’t stand for it. It would make trouble for him. But he could scarcely be expected to turn on Mrs. Davis, either,

could he, now that she was in jail, and suspected of sending poisoned candy to his wife? The public wouldn’t stand for that, either.

It was terrible! Pathetic! He certainly would not have thought that Marie would go to the length of sending his wife poison, and he didn’t really believe that she had. Still—and there may have been some actual doubt of her in that “still,” or so the reporting newspapermen thought. At any rate, as he saw it now, he would have to stick to his wife until she was out of danger. Public opinion compelled it. The general impression of the newspapermen was that he was a coward. As one of them said of his courage, “Gee, it’s oozing out of his hair!”

Nevertheless, he did go to see Mrs. Davis several times. But apart from a reported sobbing demonstration of affection on her part, I never learned what passed between them. He would not talk and she had been cautioned not to. Also, there were various interviews with his wife, who had not died, and now that the storm was on, admitted that she had intercepted letters between her husband and Mrs. Davis from time to time. The handwriting on the candy wrapper the day she received it so resembled the handwriting of Mrs. Davis that after she had eaten of it and the symptoms of poisoning had set in—not before—she had begun to suspect that the candy must have emanated from Mrs. Davis.

VIn the meantime Mrs. Davis, despite the wife’s sad story, was the major attraction in the newspapers. She was young, she was beautiful, she had made, or at least attempted to make, a blood sacrifice on the altar of love. What more could a daily newspaper want? She was a heroine, even in this very moral, conservative, conventional and religious city. The rank and file were agog—even sympathetic. (How would the moralists explain that, would you say?) In consequence of their interest, she was descended upon by a corps of those women newspaper writers who, even in that day, were known as sob-sisters, and whose business it was—and this in advance of any proof of crime or indictment even—to psychologize

and psychiatrize the suspect—to dig out if they could not only every vestige of her drama, but all her hidden and secret motives.

As I read the newspapers at the time, they revealed that she was and she was not a neurotic, a psychotic, who showed traces of being a shrewd, evasive and designing woman, and who did not. Also she was a soft, unsophisticated, passionate and deeply illusioned girl, and she was not. She was guilty, of course—maybe not—but very likely she was, and she must tell how, why, in what mood, etc. Also, it appeared that she had sent the poison deliberately, coldly, murderously. Her eyes and hands, also the shape of her nose and ears, showed it. Again, these very things proved she could not have done it. Had she been driven to it by stress of passionate emotion and yearning which had been too much for her to bear? Was she responsible for that—a great, destroying love? Of course she was! Who is not responsible for his deeds? A great, overwhelming, destroying love passion, indeed! Rot! She could help it. She could not help it. Could she help it? So it went.

Parallel with all this, of course, we were treated to various examinations of the Steele family What sort of people were they, anyhow? It was said of Steele now that he was an average, fairly capable newspaperman of no very startling ability, but of no particular vices—one who had for some years been a serious and faithful employé of this paper. Mrs. Steele, on the other hand, was a good woman, but by no means prepossessing. She was without romance, imagination, charm. One could see by looking at her and then looking at so winsome and enticing a woman as Mrs. Davis why Steele had strayed. It was the old eternal triangle—the woman who was not interesting, the woman who was interesting, and the man interested by the more interesting woman. There was no solving it, but it was all very sad. One could not help sympathizing with Mrs. Steele, the wronged woman; and again one could not help sympathizing with Mrs. Davis, the beautiful, passionate, desirous, helpless beauty—helpless because she was desirous.

In the meantime, the District Attorney’s office having taken the case in hand, there were various developments in that quarter. It was necessary to find out, of course, where the candy had been

purchased, how it had been drugged, with what it had been drugged, where the drug had been purchased. Chemists, detectives and handwriting experts were all set to work. It was no trouble to determine that the drug was arsenic, yet where this arsenic was purchased was not so easy to discover. It was some time before it was found where it had been procured. Dissimilarly, it was comparatively easy to prove where the candy had come from. It had been sent in the original box of a well-known candy firm. Yet just who had purchased it was not quite so easy to establish. The candy company could not remember, and Mrs. Davis, although admitting that the handwriting did resemble hers, denied ever having addressed the box or purchased any candy from the firm in question. She was quite willing to go there and be identified, but no clerk in the candy-store was able to identify her as one woman who had purchased candy. There were one or two clerks who felt sure that there had been a woman there at some time or other who had looked like her, but they were not positive. However, there was one girl who had worked in the store during the week in which the candy had been purchased, and who was not there any longer. This was a new girl who had been tried out for that week only and had since disappeared. Her name was known, of course, and the newspapers as well as the District Attorney’s office at once began looking for her.

There were some whispers to the effect that not only Mrs. Davis but Steele himself might have been concerned in the plot, or Steele alone, since apparently he had been anxious to get rid of his wife. Why not? He might have imitated the handwriting of Mrs. Davis or created an accidental likeness to it. Also, there were dissenting souls, even in the office of the paper on which I worked, who thought that maybe Mrs. Steele had sent the candy to herself in order to injure the other woman. Why not? It was possible. Women were like that. There had been similar cases, had there not? Argument! Contention! “She might have wanted to die and be revenged on the other woman at the same time, might she not?” observed the railroad editor. “Oh, hell! What bunk!” called another. “No woman would kill herself to make a place for a rival. That’s crazy.” “Well,” said a third, “she might have miscalculated the power of her own dope. Who knows? She may not have intended to take as much as

she did.” “Oh, Christ,” called a fourth from somewhere, “just listen to the Sherlock Holmes Association in session over there! Lay off, will you?”

A week or more went by, and then the missing girl who had worked in the candy-store was found. She had left the city the following week and gone to Denver. Being shown the pictures of Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Steele and some others and asked whether on any given day she had sold any of them a two-pound box of candy, she seemed to recall no one of them save possibly Mrs. Steele. But she could not be sure from the photograph. She would have to see the woman. In consequence, and without any word to the newspapers who had been leading the case up to then, this girl was returned to the city. Here, in the District Attorney’s office, she was confronted by a number of women gathered for the occasion, among whom was placed Mrs. Davis. But on looking them all over she failed to identify any one of them. Then Mrs. Steele, who was by then up and around, was sent for. She came, along with a representative of the office. On sight, as she entered the door, and although there were other women in the room at the time, this girl exclaimed: “There she is! That’s the woman! Yes, that’s the very woman!” She was positive.

VI

As is customary in such cases, and despite the sympathy that had been extended to her, Mrs. Steele was turned over to criminologists, who soon extracted the truth from her. She broke down and wept hysterically

It was she who had purchased the candy and poisoned it. Her life was going to pieces. She had wanted to die, so she said now. She had addressed the wrapper about the candy, as some of the wiseacres of our paper had contended, only she had first made a tracing on the paper from Mrs. Davis’ handwriting, on an envelope addressed to her husband, and had then copied that. She had put not arsenic, but rat poison, bought some time before, into the candy, and in order to indict Mrs. Davis, she had put a little in each piece, about as much as would kill a rat, so that it would seem as though

the entire box had been poisoned by her She had got the idea from a case she had read about years before in a newspaper. She hated Mrs. Davis for stealing her husband. She had followed them.

When she had eaten one of the pieces of candy she had thought, as she now insisted, that she was taking enough to make an end of it all. But before taking it she had made sure that Mrs. Dalrymple, the wife of the newspaperman whom she first called to her aid, was at home in order that she might call or send her little boy. Her purpose in doing this was to instil in the mind of Mrs. Dalrymple the belief that it was Mrs. Davis who had sent the poison. When she was gone, Mrs. Davis would be punished, her husband would not be able to have her, and she herself would be out of her misery.

Result: the prompt discharge of Mrs. Davis, but no charge against Mrs. Steele. According to the District Attorney and the newspapers who most truly reflected local sentiment, she had suffered enough. And, as the state of public feeling then was, the District Attorney would not have dared to punish her. Her broken confession so reacted on the public mind that now, and for all time, it was for Mrs. Steele, just as a little while before it was rather for Mrs. Davis. For, you see, it was now proved that it was Mrs. Steele and not Mrs. Davis who had been wrought up to that point emotionally where she had been ready and willing—had actually tried—to make a blood sacrifice of herself and another woman on the altar of love. In either case it was the blood sacrifice—the bare possibility of it, if you choose—that lay at the bottom of the public’s mood, and caused it to turn sympathetically to that one who had been most willing to murder in the cause of love.

But don’t think this story is quite ended. Far from it. There is something else here, and a very interesting something to which I wish to call your attention. I have said that the newspapers turned favorably to Mrs. Steele. They did. So did the sob-sisters, those true barometers of public moods. Eulogies were now heaped upon Mrs. Steele, her devotion, her voiceless, unbearable woe, the tragedy of her mood, her intended sacrifice of herself. She was now the darling of these journalistic pseudo-analysts.

As for Mrs. Davis—not a word of sympathy, let alone praise or understanding for her thereafter. Almost unmentioned, if you will believe it, she was, and at once allowed to slip back into the limbo of the unheralded, the subsequently-to-be-unknown. From then on it was almost as though she had never been. For a few weeks, I believe, she retired to the home in which she had lived; then she disappeared entirely.

But now as to Steele. Here was the third peculiar phase of the case. Subsequent to the exculpation of Mrs. Davis and her noiseless retirement from the scene, what would you say his attitude would have been, or should have been? Where would he go? What do? What attitude would he assume? One of renewed devotion to his wife? One of renewed devotion to Mrs. Davis? One of disillusion or indifference in regard to all things? It puzzled me, and I was a rank outsider with no least concern, except of course our general concern in all such things, so vital to all of us in our sex and social lives. But not only was it a puzzle to me; it was also a puzzle to others, especially those who were identified with the newspaper business in the city, the editors and the city editors and managing editors who had been following the wavering course of things with uncertain thoughts and I may say uncertain policy. They had been, as you may guess, as prepared to hang Steele as not, assuming that he had been identified with Mrs. Davis in a plot to do away with his wife. On the other hand, now that that shadow was removed and it was seen to be a more or less simple case of varietism on his part, resulting in marital unhappiness for his wife and a desire on her part to die, they were prepared to look upon him and this result with a more kindly eye. After all, she was not dead. Mrs. Davis had been punished. And say what you will, looking at Mrs. Steele as she was, and at Mrs. Davis as she was—well—with a certain amount of material if not spiritual provocation—what would you?

Indeed, the gabble about the newspaper offices was all to the above effect. What, if anything, finally asked some of the city editors and managing editors, was to be done about Steele? Now that everything had blown over, what of him? Go on hounding him forever? Nonsense! It was scarcely fair, and, anyhow, no longer

profitable or worth while. Now that the storm was passing, might not something be done for him? After all, he had been a fairly respectable newspaperman and in good standing. Why not take him back? And if not that, how was he to be viewed in future by his friends? Was he to be let alone, dropped, forgotten, or what? Was he going to stay here in G——, and fight it out, or leave? And if he was going to leave or stay, with whom was he going to leave or stay? Semikindly, semiselfish curiosity, as you see.

VII

The thing to do, it was finally decided among several of those on our paper and several on other papers who had known him more or less intimately, was to go to Steele himself, and ask him, not for publicity but just between ourselves, what was to be done, what he proposed to do, whether there was anything now that the local newspapers could say or do which would help him in any way? Did he want to be restored to a staff position? Was he going to stick to his wife? What, if anything, and with no malicious intent, should they say about Mrs. Davis? In a more or less secret and brotherly or professional spirit they were going to put it up to him and then leave it there, doing whatever they could in accordance with what he might wish.

Accordingly, two of the local newsmen whom he quite honestly respected visited him and placed the above several propositions before him. They found him, as I was told afterwards, seated upon the front porch of the very small and commonplace house in which after the dismissal of the charge against Mrs. Davis, he and his wife had been dwelling, reading a paper. Seated with him was Mrs. Steele, thinner and more querulous and anemic and unattractive than before. And upon the lot outside was their little son. Upon their arrival, they hailed Steele for a private word, and Mrs. Steele arose and went into the house. She looked, said one of these men, as though she expected more trouble. Steele, on his part, was all smiles and genial tenderings of hospitality. He was hoping for the best, of course, and he was anxious to do away with any new source of trouble. He even rubbed his hands, and licked his lips. “Come right

in, boys. Come on up on the porch. Wait a minute and I’ll bring out a couple of chairs.” He hastened away but quickly returned, determined, as they thought, to make as good an impression as possible.

After he had heard what they had come for—most tactfully and artfully put, of course—he was all smiles, eager, apparently, to be well thought of once more. To their inquiry as to whether he proposed to remain or not, he replied: “Yes, for the present.” He had not much choice. He had not saved enough money in recent days to permit him to do much of anything else, and his wife’s illness and other things had used up about all he had. “And now, just between ourselves, Steele,” asked one of the two men who knew him better than the other, “what about Mrs. Davis and your wife? Just where do you stand in regard to them? Are you going to stick to your wife or are you going with the other woman eventually? No trouble for you, you understand—no more publicity. But the fellows on the papers are in a little bit of a quandary in regard to this. They don’t intend to publish anything more—nothing disparaging. They only want to get your slant on the thing so that if anything more does come up in connection with this they can fix it so that it won’t be offensive to you, you see.”

“Yes, I see,” replied Steele cheerfully and without much reflection. “But so far as that Davis woman is concerned, though, you can forget her. I’m through with her. She was never much to me, anyhow, just a common——.” Here he used the good old English word for prostitute. As for his wife, he was going to stick by her, of course. She was a good woman. She loved him. There was his little boy. He was through with all that varietistic stuff. There was nothing to it. A man couldn’t get away with it—and so on.

The two men, according to their account of it afterward, winced not a little, for, as they said, they had thought from all that had gone before that there had surely been much more than common prostitution between Steele and the woman. How could all this have been in the face of Mrs. Steele’s great jealousy, Mrs. Davis’ passionate declaration about pure, spiritual and undying love? Imagine it! After a few more words the men left, convinced that

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ELECTRIC NIGHT