Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)

1


LIZ


The large house was empty. Liz peeked through each room carefully before unpacking her bag of groceries in the kitchen. Why she insisted on spending the afternoon in the old manor house was a mystery, even to her. After all, the two dead werewolves she found in the basement on the evening she arrived would have been a turnoff for anyone else.

Wisps of black hair fell across her eyes as she rinsed a pile of Yukon gold potatoes under a stream of cold water. She had never made potato salad for a coven of half-vampires before, but she was up for trying new things. Other than the statement that they didn’t drink human blood, their dietary needs weren’t discussed in detail. If her Aunt’s salad recipe didn’t tickle their taste buds, Liz couldn’t help them. It was one of the few foods she knew how to cook.

Glancing around the sizable room, it was pretty easy to guess where Lexie’s mom, Ruby, would have stored her pots and cutlery. After spending years hanging around Lexie’s childhood home, Liz had learned that Ruby was a creature of habit. Saucepans were always kept under the sink, just like knives and forks would be in the drawer closest to the stove.

The last forty-eight hours certainly created a new slant on the way she viewed her world. Liz thought things were tough enough when Lexie moved from Connecticut to live in Maine, but after two weeks of Lexie’s absence and only being able to contact her through snail mail, Liz had enough. Climbing in her old Chevy Cavalier, she headed to Erris determined to make her best friend move back to Connecticut for her final year of high school.

If that didn’t work, she had a backup plan – she would insist upon staying with Lexie in Erris until Christmas vacation.

When she arrived on Lexie’s doorstep, Liz expected a warm welcome from her best friend. But when she entered the house, she only heard a mournful wail coming from deep within the basement. Instantly, she was alarmed. Her mind went through a list of possible scenarios before assuming Maxim hogtied his family for laughing at his unibrow or something else perturbing.

When she worked her way down the creaking steps, Liz found Ruby buck naked and shaking violently next to the crumpled form of her new husband, Dragos. Ruby tried using her old flannel nightgown to stop the bleeding from her husband’s lethal wounds – but it was hopeless. The man was clearly dead.

The nude body of his eldest son was sprawled out next to him. Maxim’s chest was a gaping mess – the culprit, a sterling silver cake knife, only a foot away.

Liz rolled the potato in her hand as it danced with the paring knife. The skin shards fell in a heap in the sink. She never was a fan of Lexie’s new stepfamily, but she never would have guessed in a million years that they weren’t human.

Werewolves? Really?

All of them were a bit off. It wasn’t just because they were built like linebackers and had the same steel gray eyes. They were intense and always surrounding Lexie and her sister Ella. For reasons Liz couldn’t figure at the time, they didn’t want either girl to have a life outside of the house. Every time Liz stopped over to visit during their month-long stay in Torrington, the brothers would be peering at them from around doorways and listening in on their conversations.

They made weird look normal.

She dropped the potato into the pot. If she had arrived just a tad bit earlier, she could have lost her life as well.

Thank God Lexie got away, she’s the closest thing to family I have.

Lexie, Ruby and Ella were all alive and accounted for, but none of them would ever be the same. Of Dragos and his three sons, only the youngest, Nicolai, got away.

None of them knew if the young werewolf would return or if he was a threat. Ella insisted Nicolai was nothing like the others, but she was thirteen and wasn’t there when her homicidal stepbrother, Alik, decided to become alpha of the pack. As far as Liz was concerned, all bets were off when it came to the youngest Serov.

Better to be safe than sorry…or dead.

It was right after Liz discovered a disoriented Ruby that Braden burst through what remained of the cellar’s hatchway. She wasn’t sure who was more shocked at that moment – her for seeing a six foot tall blond with mesmerizing white eyes and fangs, or him discovering a black haired stranger rocking a bloody and hysterical Ruby next to two dead guys.

Liz always believed vampires were out there. Too many legends existed for her to accept they weren’t real. But she was expecting more of the fictional brooding Salvatore brother – the kind of vampire that was a little dark and a whole lot mysterious. Instead, a clean cut, preppy boy with arms and pecs like David Beckham was her first glimpse of the undead.

She was quick to learn Braden resented being referred to as undead. He informed her that the technical word for his kind was damphyr and he had two pounding hearts in his chest to prove it.

Despite lacking the bad boy vibe, he had beautiful blue eyes once his vamp face returned to normal. He also had a body only a girl without a pulse would pass up. Even fully dressed she could tell he had chiseled abs and a nice butt. But, Braden wasn’t Liz’s type. She preferred an artistic guy with a musician’s build, lots of tattoos and jet black hair. Although the damhyr was only friend material, she wouldn’t mind using him for eye candy, maybe his cousins, too.

She smiled thinking of Lexie’s new man. A half-vampire like his cousin, Torin saved Lexie from being turned into a werewolf when Alik chased her to his mating den. The retelling of the story went beyond anything she could wrap her human brain around. What she did know for sure was Torin saved Lexie from a fate worse than death. He was willing to give his life for her. Good thing it didn’t come to that.

Liz wasn’t entirely sure what was happening between her closest friend and the gorgeous damphyr, but ever since her arrival, the two had been together. Something more than puppy love sparked between them and Liz could feel it the moment she checked in on Lexie after Braden and Cian located her and Torin together out in the woods.

When Braden found Lexie, the petite brunette was in shock after suffering a severe beating and a broken ankle. Torin was in some kind of daze himself. Because he drank blood when he tore open the werewolf’s neck – he thought he would be forever cursed to darkness. Sitting in stunned amazement, he held Lexie in his lap, while marveling over the sunrise as it spilled light upon him without causing his death.

Thank God for small favors.

Liz looked down at her potatoes. She had efficiently washed and chopped the entire bag while lost in her reverie. All she had to do now was boil them up with some eggs as she prepped the final ingredients.

She could have used Torin’s mom’s kitchen to make the salad, but Liz needed some quiet time to process all that happened over the last two days.

It wasn’t every day that you took a road trip to Maine, just to discover your best friend hooked up with a half-vampire and that her macho hotheaded step brothers howled at the moon. Not to mention finding yourself working with a coven of “animal blood only” vampires to locate a cure for lycanthropy. Besides, Liz liked to cook in silence so she could think. How do you boot a one hundred-seventy-year-old lady out of her own kitchen?

Endellion was nice. After learning Liz wasn’t expected back home, Torin’s mother insisted Liz stay at their house with Lexie and Ella until Ruby was well enough to return home. With flowing red hair and porcelain skin, the beautiful woman looked like she could be the face of Oil of Olay or one of the other big cosmetic companies. She was simply stunning and her Irish lilt made her more charming. It was comforting to know Endellion was doing her best to keep Ruby comfortable while the coven pinpointed an antidote for the werewolf virus.

Lexie’s mom was seriously sick. When Liz found her, the woman had clawed out clumps of her hair and was burning up with a fever. A thick pus-filled rash ran in spirals from her shoulders to her hips. In Endellion’s care, the fever was under control, but Ruby was in and out of consciousness as the illness wracked her body.

Alik told Lexie the virus was sexually transmitted. Ruby must have contracted it on her wedding night with Dragos. Alik also implied Ruby’s body was rejecting the virus and she just might die.

Not the most thoughtful wedding gift a bride could receive from her groom.

So far, only Braden had a lead and he wasn’t the most forthcoming about it. She needed to convince the damphyr that he could use her help finding the cure. After all, it was Lexie’s mom that brought Liz to the store to buy her first bra and to the mall for a prom gown. Only Ruby made a birthday cake for Liz each March and placed gifts for her under the Christmas tree in December. Liz’s Aunt Bev never did.

Ruby can’t die. She’s the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had.

As the stovetop pot came to a rumbling boil, Liz resolved herself to chase down Braden with a bat if necessary. She couldn’t allow him to go find the antidote without her. He could get sidetracked once he was overseas. Maybe even forget how perilous the infection was. Ruby’s life depended on that medicine.

If there was one thing Liz learned in her eighteen years, guys couldn’t be trusted to follow through with anything. Especially when a female depended on them.