Help would come soon. But in the meantime, I had to get him out of here. Wincing as pain shot through my torso, I grabbed him under the arms, pulled him into the parlor.

Merit!

Thank God for psychic connections. I’m all right, I told Ethan, the fear in his voice keen. I’m in the parlor. Front door’s gone. I think they hit it with a grenade, and they’re still firing. Jonah’s down; he shielded me. I’ve dragged him into the front parlor. Too much smoke to see the perps, but this kind of fight doesn’t seem like Reed. Open the arsenal, Ethan. We’re going to need it.

Covering fire en route, Sentinel. Keep your head down.

On that. There wasn’t much else I could do. Not with Jonah unconscious. Bullets wouldn’t kill me, but I could dodge them. He couldn’t, and I wasn’t about to leave him alone.

A bullet zinged through the wall over my head, and I ducked again, covering Jonah as plaster filled the air.

I reached up, pulled down a blanket from the sofa, flipped it over his body. That would at least keep dust out of his eyes and mouth. I belly-crawled across the floor to the far end of the window, used the end of the couch as a shield to raise up.

There was a Humvee in the front yard, the hook and winch on the front still attached to a mangled piece of the front gate.

The human guards who’d been at the gate were on the ground beside one of the giant brick pillars. They were blood streaked, but had weapons in hand, and were shooting the enemy combatants who’d taken positions around the Humvee.

The guards wouldn’t have let someone winch off the gate without a fight. They must have been targeted first, wounded or moved aside, and then the winch was hooked up. And then the Humvee came through, probably lobbed a grenade at the front door.

“You sons of bitches!” A man with broad shoulders, dark skin, and a shaved head pointed an enormous gun at the House. “You goddamn bloodsucking assholes! You wanna fuck with us? We will destroy you.”

Angry magic buzzed through the air like an upended hornets’ nest.

It wasn’t Adrien Reed, or his sorcerer, or his vampire.

It was a shifter.

• • •

Claxons sounded as the House went on full alert. Two figures in black moved through the lobby. Guards, although they moved so quickly I couldn’t tell who. Others would go around the back, and temps would be stationed on the roof. Luc hadn’t skimped on the response plans.

Ethan darted into the room with a belted sword, another in hand, and a handgun. Vampires didn’t usually use guns. But then again, sups didn’t usually come at the House with an army’s worth of weapons.

He hit the floor beside Jonah, took his pulse. “Knocked out?”

“I think so. I haven’t been able to wake him.” I swallowed down the ball of emotions that rose suddenly to my throat. “He moved in front of me when they blasted the door.”

“Looks like he took a good blow to the head,” Ethan said, lifting the cloth I’d placed on the wound. “Concussion, I’d bet. I wish Delia was here.”

“She’s not?”

“At the hospital. She’s en route, and we have other vampires trained as medics. But she’s the best.”

I had no reason to argue with that. “They’re shifters, Ethan. Shifters who are totally pissed off about something.”

He turned to me, stared. “Shifters. Pissed about Caleb Franklin? That was nearly a week ago.”

“I don’t know. I just know the guy who looks to be calling the shots is a shifter, and he’s pissed.”

A vampire I’d seen around the House but didn’t know personally—a man with tan skin and black hair—dodged into the room, a medical kit in hand, and fell to his knees beside Jonah.

“Unconscious,” Ethan said. “Head wound.”

“On it, Sire,” the vampire said, opening his kit and arranging his tools.

“Thank you, Ramón. Take care.”

“Always. You, too, Sire.”

Ethan nodded, looked back at me, handed me a katana. I unsheathed it, took in the beautifully engraved blade, glanced back at him.

“One of yours?”

“Peter Cadogan’s,” Ethan said. “Luc brought it up from the arsenal.” Because mine was still in our apartments; I hadn’t taken it with me to the lighthouse. “Seems appropriate our Sentinel bear it to protect the House.” Ethan rose, offered me a hand, pressed a hard kiss to my lips. “Let’s get it done.”

• • •

The air was thick with blood, with smoke, with magic. Sirens were closing in, and house and car alarms were sounding up and down the street.

A shifter rushed toward me, damp footsteps on grass. I pivoted, turned, sliced with the katana. He crumpled to the ground, screaming as he held an arm against the laceration across his abdomen. The air filled with the powerful scent of shifter’s blood. My predatory instincts kicked into overdrive, wanting that blood, craving it. Once again, this wasn’t the time or the place.

Another man came charging at me in a bruised leather jacket covered in NAC and motorcycle club patches. He had a bowie knife, its blade down as though he meant to take me with a single thrust.

I had two questions: Why were NAC shifters attacking us, and where the hell was Gabriel?

“Fucking vampires! We know what you did!”

“We didn’t do anything!” I yelled back, using the spine of my katana to block his strike. The spine caught in one of the notches in the serrated blade, and I twisted the sword, yanking it out of his hand and sending it flying through the air. It hit the ground fifteen feet away. The shifter gave one quick glance at his lost weapon before deciding hand-to-hand would be just as effective.

“You’re trying to kill us! Trying to take us out!” Light flashed as magic surrounded him, ensconced him. And when it cleared, I was facing an enormous ruddy-colored wolf. His hackles were raised, and his massive yellow teeth dripped saliva.

Now I began to sweat. I was skilled at fighting two-legged creatures. I didn’t exactly have the skill set for a wolf, even if I could get over the emotional baggage of intentionally hurting an animal.

When he leaped at me again, my hesitancy disappeared. I was a predator, too, with a mighty fine survival instinct.

I spun to dodge him, brought my sword around low, catching the tip of the blade on the back of one of his paws. He yelped and stumbled. Light flashed and magic spun around him again, and then he was in human form, naked and screaming at the gaping and bloody wound in his left Achilles tendon.