Promises to Keep by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

obvious
     that her change hadn’t eliminated her natural distrust of most other vampires.
    Jay called and left a message with a bloodbond, who informed him that it was just
     past noon and that Sarah—like any vampire changed barely two months before—was asleep.
    Tag, Sarah. You’re it
.
    With that responsibility attended to, the mystery of the woods needled him like a
     porcupine quill. His failure to rememberwhere he had found the shapeshifter wasn’t just a matter of his being absentminded.
     It suggested magic, which would best be investigated by a witch.
    Of course, Jay
was
a witch, but for this he needed someone with a specific skill set.
    As Jay crept back into the patient’s room, wishing he didn’t need to ask for his brother’s
     help, Vireo swore. His attempts weren’t working. Her mind was just too far away, or
     maybe too well shielded.
    Aware that Vireo had a temper, Jay approached with some caution before saying, “Are
     you sure I can’t help?”
    Vireo wanted to say no. He was sure his brother could reach the woman, but Jay had
     no training as a mental healer. It was kind of like sending a random person with a
     bullhorn to keep someone from jumping off a roof. Sure, they would be loud enough,
     but they were just as likely to push the person off the roof as counsel them to safety.
    “Can you just tell me if she’s in there at all?” Vireo asked.
    “She’s in there, somewhere,” Jay answered. “There’s just something very,
very
wrong with her.” Realizing that he could approach his problem as an offer
to
help instead of a request
for
help, he said, “I think it might be related to the woods where I found her. They
     were strange, too. But I can’t remember where they were, or where I was, or how I
     got back here.”
    Vireo wasn’t so deaf that he didn’t pick up that when Jay said
I can’t remember
, he meant a vast-enough failure to indicate a problem.
    “Come here,” Vireo said. “Sit in front of me.”
    Jay sat cross-legged in front of his brother, who mirrored his position and then reached
     out to touch fingertips to Jay’s third eye, the spot between the brows where mystics
     said there was a power center. Jay had never been big on that philosophy; he didn’t
     bother with power points and—
    He yelped as Vireo shocked him with a spike of power, a teasing chastisement in reaction
     to Jay’s thoughts. Vireo liked power centers, philosophy, and mojo.
    “How did you get to the woods?” Vireo asked.
    Jay wasn’t being asked to respond out loud. He thought about the party, and the conversation
     with Xeke. He felt Vireo try to squash a critical thought about his hunter brother
     offering his throat to a vamp, probably out of an impulse toward professional courtesy.
    Jay recalled waking up at Xeke’s and walking into the woods from there.
    Why did you go into the woods?
    Something called me
.
    Vireo poked around at that memory a little longer, drawing out anything Jay could
     remember about the trees and the snowdrifts and even the angle of the moon, before
     asking how he got to Haven #2.
    Jay remembered the car. Putting the shapeshifter in. Wrapping her in the blanket.
     Wondering what time it was. Leaving the parking lot. Driving down a little road … and
     being at SingleEarth.
    No matter how much pressure Vireo applied, there simply wasn’t anything between the
     dark, winding road and SingleEarth Haven #2.
    “Whatever muddled your mind did a fine job of it,” Vireo said as he withdrew from
     Jay’s thoughts.
And the last thing you need is for your brain to get more scrambled
. He asked, “Are you willing to try to reach her again?”
    He was still skeptical of letting Jay involve himself with this patient, but anything
     that had tossed Jay out of the shapeshifter’s mind the first time would be far too
     powerful for Vireo to fight his way past.
    “I can try,” Jay answered. He was a hunter. He frequently risked his neck, when it
     was called for.
    Jay