Free Promises to Keep by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page B

imagine.
    “You’re worried she belongs to someone,” Jay said as he finally picked the thought—it
     should have been obvious, he realized—out of Xeke’s mind. “You’re worried the shapeshifter
     I found belongs to someone, and if you—” He broke off, because Xeke shook his head,
     still pinning Jay against the wall, and thinking,
He’s so determined to hang himself, he doesn’t even need rope
.
    If the shapeshifter was an escaped slave, then anyone harboring or helping her had
     violated vampiric law and forfeited any freeblood privilege. If Xeke learned who she
     was, he and anyone allied with him could be claimed as payment unless Xeke turned
     the slave in. More important—to Jay, anyway—was the fact that since Jay was the one
     who had found her and taken her to SingleEarth, Midnight might decide he had stolen
     her.
    But even that wasn’t his biggest concern.
    So far, Midnight was hiding, waiting in the wings … and gaining power. It hadn’t had
     cause to challenge SingleEarth directly. No matter how badly Jay and other hunters
     would love to plant a knife in any of Midnight’s trainers, no one wanted to start
     a fight that pitted the peaceful SingleEarth against that ancient evil.
    Xeke thought at him,
You need to leave. Now
.

CHAPTER 10
    J AY DIDN’T WANT to get himself sold into slavery over this. On the other hand, since the proponents
     of the slave trade were in Kendra’s house for the party, they wouldn’t be in the woods,
     would they?
    And what did the vampires have to hide that was important enough and powerful enough
     that it was concealed with a spell that Jay couldn’t even begin to discern?
    Just one thing: Midnight.
    The first version of Midnight’s empire had been founded in the sixteen hundreds, around
     the time when Jay’s line had come into existence. The vampires had effectively ruled
     the supernatural world through a combination of trade sanctions, economic incentives,
     and an iron threat to back up their laws.Despite protections given to nonhumans, many of the witches were killed. The Light
     line was eradicated entirely, and the Arun and Vida lines, both of which were exclusively
     hunters, were cut down to a bare handful of survivors.
    When the original Midnight had burned to the ground in 1804, there had been celebrations
     throughout the world. Unfortunately, though destroying its base of operations had
     weakened the empire sufficiently for other groups to regain control, the hunters at
     the time had not been able to eliminate the vampires themselves. Whispers of Midnight’s
     return had become increasingly common lately.
    The original Midnight had been out west, beyond the area claimed at that time by the
     newborn United States, in the no-man’s-land where white men had not yet established
     dominion. Could the new one really have its heart
here
, arrogantly close not only to human civilization but to the headquarters of so many
     of Midnight’s most serious enemies? Most of Jay’s extended family, including almost
     all the vampire-hunting witches he knew, lived in New England. The Bruja guilds—a
     trio of mercenary groups that reputedly had originally been founded specifically to
     oppose Midnight—had their guild halls in Massachusetts and New York. Jay couldn’t
     help but feel that such placement was meant to be a deliberate slap in the face.
    If Midnight
was
here, Jay needed to know. If he was right, this would give hunters a chance to bring
     the empire to its knees before it could get back on its feet. He just needed information,
     and then he could contact his allies and begin to plan the hunt of a lifetime.
    He changed clothes quickly in the backseat of his car and then went hiking behind
     Kendra’s home, which bordered the same unnaturally quiet forest he had explored behind
     Xeke’s apartment. Jay might not have been able to sense the magic directly, but the
     animals could.
    Could the shapeshifter at SingleEarth have been