I got this too. His woman suffered a loss, but he was a vampire who’d had a great number of concubines in his life. They were important to him. They remained important to him. And knowing their kind was targeted did not sit real great with him.

Currently, Leah’s entire family was in a safe house somewhere, guarded by Leah’s sister’s vampire, Rafe, Lucien’s daughter, Isobel, and Orlando, another vampire friend of Lucien’s.

In other words, according to Abel, Lucien had pulled out all the stops, seeing as these vampires weren’t ones you would trifle with.

We entered the house just as a human woman was walking through the foyer.

“Find the other witches and bring them to us,” Callum ordered her.

She nodded and scurried off.

“What’s that about?” I asked Abel as Moose led the way to wherever Poncho and his aunt were and the rest of us followed.

“Those women are eatin’ macadamia nuts and drinkin’ wine and doin’ whatever shit they’re doin’ to find my brother…unsuccessfully,” Abel answered. “But finding my brother is not a priority. Stopping this shit is. They got magic. We gotta know what that means and they gotta use it to help us. Including Poncho’s aunt.”

Moose turned into living room eleven and we all followed. I saw Dad was there, as was Lucien and, of course, Poncho. There was also an elderly Hispanic woman with lots of wiry gray hair she’d pulled back into a bun at the base of her neck.

And, I wanted to laugh, but she was wearing a female-type poncho.

I guess that ran in the family.

I didn’t laugh.

Instead, I smiled big at Poncho and called, “Hey! Welcome back!”

My body jerked when the woman shouted, “Basta!”

I looked to her but only got a quick look in because Abel yanked my hand so he could haul me behind his back.

This was likely because the old woman had her hand up, palm out toward me, eyes narrowed, fear etched into the wrinkles of her face, and she was now chanting in Spanish.

Poncho had his brows drawn and was moving to her, but as the others fanned around us, her head jerked from side to side as she took them in.

She stopped chanting and started shouting, “No! Basta! Basta! Déjame!”

Then she grasped the edge of her poncho, twisted it around her, whirled where she stood, and as she would have come back to facing us, she disappeared.

My mouth dropped open.

“What the fuck?” Abel clipped.

“Shee-it,” Poncho hissed, staring at the empty space where his aunt had just been.

“Uh, brother, you wanna clue us in to what just happened?” Dad asked, and Poncho looked to him.

“Sounded like she was chanting for protection,” Poncho told him.

“Against what?” Dad asked.

Poncho’s gaze came to me. “Against Lilah.”