Asshat, he’d deliberately made a request he thought we couldn’t achieve. And I wanted nothing more than to shove it up his nose that he was so very wrong.

Erik let out a growl. “I’ll stay.” At the same time Liam said, “It will have to be me.”

Fucking hell, Liam was right. He couldn’t cross the veil unless it was a physical entrance like the doorway in the mine shaft, or the exit out the front doors of the castle.

“Erik. You come with me.” My heart clenched knowing that once again, Liam and I would be apart. I clamped down on the tears suddenly there. Seriously, I was far too tied to him; it was making me vulnerable. But I didn’t care. He caught me up in a quick hug, brushing his lips across mine.

“Don’t take long.”

“I won’t.”

Alex gave a whine. “I stays with Boss this time.”

Shit, I hadn’t expected that. “I need you, Alex. I need you to come with me.”

He gave a low shiver. “Stinkers outside. I don’t like them.” He shook his head several times, his whole body shaking. Shit—getting caught up by the giant zombie affected him more than I realized. This was not the time for the scaredy cat werewolf to show back up.

“Alex, they aren’t bad anymore. They aren’t going to hurt us. You have to trust me.”

He licked his lips several times, looking first at me, then at Liam.

“Boss?”

“Go with her.”

“Okee dokee.” And that was that. The little shit was waiting on Liam to give him the word.

“He needs it to be okay with both of us. He doesn’t have just one alpha, Rylee,” Liam said, brushing a finger along the frown I knew was etched over my eyes.

“Fine, let’s go.” I ran my hands over my weapons, testing each sheath that held blades. A shot of anxiety zinged through me. Yeah, Alex was smart to not want to go out there. A flick of Thomas’s hand and the zombies would be on us, and we’d be in the midst of them waiting to be torn apart.

Sweet mother of the gods, this was a bad idea.

Chapter 15

Standing outside the front door I almost swallowed my tongue. The giant had pulled itself out of its grave and stood about fifteen feet from the porch. Alex pressed into my leg. “Don’t like this, nopes.”

“Just don’t touch any of them.” I took a step forward, and then another and another, weaving my way between the smaller and yet just as threatening zombies scattered everywhere.

“Rylee, I had no idea you dealt with this much shit,” Erik said. I didn’t look back at him, just kept moving as I answered.

“Yeah, well, stick around. You’ll see a lot more than you bargained for before we’re done.”

He laughed, but it was shaky and Alex mimicked him. The zombies’ heads turned to follow us, the hollow spots where their eyes should have been, black, and yet I knew they could see us. And if they saw us … I gave them a wave. “Thomas is watching us, I think.”

“Ready to unleash the horde if we misbehave?”

“I’m guessing.”

We slid and slipped down the long slope, the morning sun not yet rising. “We’ve got to hurry. Faris won’t be able to help us if the sun is shining fully.”

Picking up speed while trying not to touch rotting bodies did not work as well as I’d hoped. The whole thing ended up reminiscent of a pinball machine gone terribly wrong. My shoulder banged into a zombie and I bounced off, slamming face first into another’s chest.

I peeled myself off, spit and wiped the goo from my eyes but kept going. There was a flat spot to the left of the hill, not far beyond where we left the motorbike. I pointed it out. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“Gots it!” Alex yipped and zipped off ahead of me, dodging and ducking around the dead bodies, turning the hike downhill into a game. He managed to avoid the worst of the zombies. Me and Erik, not so much.

By the time we reached the bottom, I was covered in filth and viscera.

“Fuck, that is nasty shit.” I broke into a jog to cover the last twenty feet or so, Erik grumbled along behind me.

“I’ll have to get new clothes, this is never coming out.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Troll shit is worse.”

“I don’t want to know then.”

Sliding to a stop, I called Alex to me. “Okay, this is important. I want you to think about Faris.”

Alex frowned up at me. “I don’t like him.”

“I know, but we need his help. Can you think about him?”

Alex squinted his eyes shut and pressed the tips of his claws against his head. “Yuppy doody, thinking about fang face.”

Erik laughed again, this time it was more solid. “I like him more and more.”

I glanced at the house on the hill. I hoped Thomas wouldn’t be able to tell the kind of supernatural we were calling for help. No, the zombies closest to us weren’t even looking our way.

“Alex, call him, call Faris to you.”

Tipping his head back, he let out a long, full-throated howl. “Faaaaaaaaarrrrrrriiiiiiis.”

The zombies closest to us shivered, and then as a unit their heads snapped to focus on me and Alex. Shit, shit, shit. Surely Thomas wouldn’t know the vampire by name, would he?

One of the zombies stepped forward, its mouth opening, Thomas’s voice erupted from its mouth with a booming roar.

“YOU WOULD CALL A VAMPIRE HERE TO KILL ME. TRAITEROUS BITCH.”

Apparently he did know the vampires. Shit, we were in trouble.

Erik and I backed as the zombies lurched toward us, and I felt something shift and shimmer to the left of us. Faris, it had to be, and even if it wasn’t him we were going. We had to. “Alex, run!” I yelled and pushed Erik toward the spot where Faris was suddenly standing. There was no time. We rushed him as the zombies rushed us. His blue eyes flashed wide and his mouth dropped open as we tackled him through the veil.

“Shut it, Faris, shut it!”

He slammed it shut, but not before several zombies made it through. Without hesitation he killed them with a ferocity I’d never seen. Their bodies pulled apart, heads first and then limbs in under a minute. All four of them.

I lay on the floor and stared. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done that before?”

“Rylee.” Faris turned his blue eyed, icy gaze on me. “What are you doing calling me out to a necromancer’s territory?”