“I am Senior Special Agent Ayatas FireWind of PsyLED, in charge of the states east of the Mississippi. My up-line boss is the newly appointed assistant director in charge of all paranormal investigations. Soul. No last name. You know her.”

I nodded, a single drop of my chin in the tribal way. “How are you classified species-wise with PsyLED?”

PsyLED had once been a human-only law enforcement organization created to deal with paranormal creatures who attacked humans or broke human laws. In the last few years, when it became apparent that humans without heavy artillery were no match for paras, the agency had begun to draw on the paranormal community for agents, whom it classified according to species and gift. They might not know he was skinwalker, but they could read his magical energies with a device called a psy-meter. I knew because I’d been read by the device. There was no hiding paranormal abilities, not anymore.

“You’re well versed in PsyLED internal policies,” he said. When I didn’t reply, he added, “I am an unclassified, noncontagious, non-moon-called shape-shifter. No mention of a Cherokee skinwalker in my dossier.”

Skinwalkers weren’t unknown in the mythos. That had to be willful blindness or the influence of someone in high places. “Go on.”

“I had heard of the woman who killed a sabertooth lion. Had heard rumors of the woman who changed shape into a mountain lion in the car of the Master of the City of New Orleans. I had heard she claimed to be Chelokay. Yet had yellow eyes.”

I nodded, breathing slowly through nose and mouth, letting his scent trace over my tongue. As well as I could tell on such short acquaintance, he was speaking the truth. And Soul had been present when I shifted. So Soul was a likely source of his intel. Had she sent him to me? And if so, why not an official meet-and-greet? Why the personal ambush, followed by a weapon-based one? Had Soul expected this? Allowed it to happen?

“The woman’s name was Jane Yellowrock. My research took time to compile, but once it was together, it all suggested she was like me. Skinwalker.”

He seemed to be waiting for me to respond, but I said nothing.

“I have lived in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming for decades, in law enforcement, as a teacher, a lawyer.” He frowned slightly. “I joined PsyLED ten years ago, and . . .” He shrugged, a very Cherokee gesture, lifting the shoulder blades in back, tilting the head, eyebrows quirking just a bit. “They discovered I was a para. They kept me on. And then there was the evidence of you on YouTube. A video of you walking from a cave, injured, your eyes glowing.”

I knew the video he was talking about and gave him the same shrug back. I wasn’t ready to show interest or ask questions. Not yet. Because I knew way more than this guy seemed to think I knew.

“I made changes and requested this PsyLED territory. Was assigned to New Orleans when the European Mithran emperor showed up offshore. I came here today to make peace with Jane Yellowrock, should she turn out to be who I thought she might be. Soul told me—several times—that she knew you and offered to introduce us, but I thought . . . I hoped . . . it might be a highly personal meeting and wanted it to be private.”

Soul had wanted us to meet. Soul, who knew what I was. Soul, who, despite our sorta friendship, might have had a stronger tie to this man than to me, and let him decide how and when to proceed with an intro.

The frisson of energies that had begun when I first saw the man swept through me again and unexpected tears gathered in my eyes. I blinked them away. He was skinwalker. He was of The People. He had come to make peace with me. This was the first time this had ever happened to me. The first time any one of The People had ever come to me. Had ever wanted to come to me.

Yet, the same words that seemed to offer kinship and tribal welcome made my heart tumble with disappointment, and I struggled to understand why.

“You had an unusual history,” he continued before I could speak. “I wanted to meet you. And if things went well, ask you to take me when I presented papers and letters to Leonard Pellissier, letters of introduction.”

That, I thought. That was what was wrong with this entire scenario. Ayatas wanted info and maybe the opportunity to be present at the fight to the death between the Master of the City, Leo Pellissier, and the European vampire emperor, Titus Flavius Vespasianus. And he wanted me to give it to him.

“So you show up here, planning to give PsyLED a finger on the pulse of the upcoming Sangre Duello,” Eli said. It was his battle voice, soft, unforgiving, ready to kill. He was angry that the man had intended to forge and then use a personal relationship with me to get to Leo. Using me. Why not ask Rick to do this? My ex had his fingers in every pie there was.

“Yes. I . . . I reacted badly to your scent. I shot you. At you. I don’t know why I shot at you or why I missed.” He closed his eyes, his scent smelling of shock and fear, strong and harsh on the air. He had shot at someone while technically on the job, revealing an unexpected lack of control. Professional suicide. That seemed to be sinking in. Ayatas went on. “I put too many of my hopes in this one small basket, in this one meeting. I ruined it and I can’t even explain to you why, except that your scent triggered something in me. I thought you were black magic. The thing our kind fears most. I am sorry, e-igido.”

“What’s eigido?” Eli asked, mangling the word.

The tears I was trying to blink away spilled over and dashed down my cheeks.

I remembered the word as he spoke. The word in his first line when he still stood uninjured at the door.

“E-igido,” I whispered, finally placing the term. “E-igido means ‘my sister.’” I was an only child. My father died when I was five years old, killed by white men in front of me. He might smell of truth, but this man lied. For reasons I couldn’t explain, that final lie cut deep.

CHAPTER 2

Lots of Bloody Bubbles

The man claiming to be my brother was no longer in the room with us, though to be fair, with skinwalker hearing he probably could hear us chatting.

Littermate, Beast thought at me. I ignored her. It was impossible.

“He knows just enough to have done his research,” Alex said. “Most everything he said is either on video on YouTube or in Reach’s data files. Just because Reach is hiding from us doesn’t mean he’s dead. He might have sold the info to PsyLED.”

Reach had been the best researcher in the paranormal world. He maintained he had been tortured for his data and then had disappeared, not that we had undisputed evidence of his claim. We had acquired most of his files, and Alex, the electronic genius of Yellowrock Securities, had married the files into our own, making Alex the researcher at the top of the heap.

“His scent,” I said, laying back my head on the sofa and closing my eyes against the headache. I was exhausted and even the hazy daylight through the windows still hurt. “He has a natural floral scent. Just like the vamps said.” There had been a yellow-eyed Cherokee in the city over a hundred years ago, and she had smelled like flowers. “I don’t think my Tsalagi birth name or my clan name is on record anywhere. Aggie One Feather hasn’t shared it. I insulted her when I called to ask. And Beast called him littermate. He’s my kinsman. If not my brother, then half brother. Cousin at the very least. But I was an only child. I didn’t have a brother or sister; only hints and blurred images of my mother and not much more of my father. I don’t know how . . . I don’t know anything.” I raised my voice though it sent a spike of pain through my head. “Edmund, you making nice-nice?”

The shelving unit blocking the vamp’s stone-lined sleeping quarters opened just enough to allow his voice to emerge. “No, my mistress.”

Ayatas shouted from the same place, “I’m not letting a fanghead suck on me!”

The door shut. I was Edmund Hartley’s mistress—not his lover, but his master—and I could have ordered the vampire to drink Ayatas down and read him like a book. But I hated the idea of abusing a PsyLED officer, even one who had tried to kill me. I also detested the idea of forcing Ed to do something that he found to be inexcusable. “I loathe the very concept of drinking down someone who might be your brother. This is family and family are sacrosanct, even when they try to kill us,” he’d said. Which was weird, but knowing Ed’s history, the statement sorta made sense. He was right. I was ashamed.