Guardian by Shannon Mayer

with fear that ate at his heart.
    Rylee would give birth to something not human. A child with the blood of supernaturals he doubted had ever been combined. His hands tightened reflexively, fingers digging into his palms.
    Steeling himself, he took a deep breath, filtering out the smells of blood and death, focusing on the scent of the body itself. Alex would have been better at this, but he could pick the individual tones out. It was indeed a woman, and there was the scent of a child under all that blood. Not alive, not anymore. He backed away from the room, shutting it tightly behind him. They weren’t able to give the woman a proper burial, but Peter and his wolves could come back and do so later.
    Back in the kitchen with the others, he just nodded, unable to even vocalize Rylee was right. It was Peter’s missing wolf who’d been tortured and killed.
    Catya crawled out of Rylee’s lap and back into his. She lifted his hand and pressed her cheek into it.
    Images flashed into his mind. Of the woman holding Catya before she’d been tortured, of the fight that Catya had put up, shifting into wolf form to protect the expectant mother, of being kicked across the room, hurt badly enough that she could do nothing to stop the hunters. And then of the howling grief as her friend had died, her baby dying immediately afterwards, exposed to the darkness and cold of the torture room.
    Liam closed his eyes and fought the images, but Catya went on, her ability with images stronger than his even at her young age. She showed him something he never thought to see. The ghostly image of the woman’s spirit, her essence as it floated away from the gored and broken body. She held her child, thanked Catya and, with a smile, was gone to the other side of the veil.
    Safe now, happy now. Good for her. Sad for Catya.
    His eyes flew open to see Catya smiling at him. Wisdom far beyond her years radiated from her. “You understand she is better off now.”
    Val and Rylee startled as they watched what Liam knew was a strange conversation, but he ignored them.
    Catya nodded. Some deaths must be. Called for. Needed. Like you.
    How did he answer that? He went for simple. “Yes. Like me.”
    The little girl frowned, a tear leaking from one eye. Sad. I watch over baby when you go.
    That did it, completely undid whatever control he had; if he sat there for one second longer he would lose it and start crying himself. He handed Catya to Rylee. “Take her. I must talk with the water dragon.”

Chapter Eleven
    Catya held my hand, her fingers warm against mine as we headed out to the drawbridge. Whatever she’d shown or talked to Liam about had obviously upset him. I couldn’t stop the frown from slipping over my face as I worried about it. I hoped he would tell me, but my intuition said that whatever they’d spoken about, he would be keeping to himself.
    “Rylee, perhaps a moment with you,” Val said as we stopped at the foot of the drawbridge. Liam was in the middle of it, talking to the water dragon. She swayed in the water, her eyes thoughtful with whatever conversation they were having. At least this time she wasn’t so damn pissy. Then again, her belly was full of hunters.
    “What is it?”
    Val carried his brother on his back, Pavel’s head resting on his shoulder. “There is no safe place for my brother and me. Our coven is weakened after losing our strongest members to a rogue werewolf a few months ago.” Shit, he was talking about Liam when he’d gone on his rampage against witches.
    I managed to keep my voice neutral. “What happened to the werewolf?”
    He frowned and shook his head. “It disappeared; from one day to the next it was just gone. Some of our people thought it was a judgment on us and didn’t hold the deaths against it.”
    Now I was confused. “Judgment for what?”
    He blew out a soft breath. “For exactly what you asked me about. Why we wouldn’t help our fellow supernaturals. For years, all the supernaturals of