Chapter 5

      The first emotion to hit Viv full in the heart when she made it back to the ranch and the compound with Nikoli was shock. A huge sob suddenly locked up in her chest, and she feared if she released it, she’d be changed forever. She didn’t know what to think—how to think.

      She didn’t even remember leaving the house. Somehow in the midst of the scramble to get to the compound, Nikoli appeared to take charge, ordering Lucien and Ronan to go with Evee to check on her Nosferatu, and Gavril to go with Gilly to check on her Chenilles. Gilly had started to protest, but instinct told Viv Nikoli was right and she told her sisters as much.

      Viv stood, holding a hand over her mouth. Still a sob escaped. “Who could have... How did... Oh, this can’t be. It can’t.”

      Socrates sat between Viv and Nikoli, his head lowered. Then he let out a loud mewl and said to Viv, “I told you not to leave! Oh dear, oh dear. This is so terrible, so horrific.” He sounded like an old, fretting, English butler. “What shall we do, Vivienne? What shall we do?”

      Reflexively, Viv turned her head away from the scene before her and buried her face in Nikoli’s shoulder, never giving a thought to the fact that they’d only met hours earlier. He cupped her head with a hand. “How?” she whispered. “Who?”

      “The Cartesians,” Nikoli said, his voice hard.

      Viv forced herself to turn back. The very gate that she’d opened earlier, and knew she had locked before she’d left, had been torn away from the fencing that held it up. Rips and gouges ran throughout the fencing as far as the eye could see. Far worse were the bodies of her Loups strewn everywhere. Many lay in the area where Milan and Warden had been fighting earlier that morning.