Blood Sacrifice
of
dair
and
muin
—oak and vine—or oak and neck to be more precise. Old-fashioned way to describe property, land. Here,
ymarddelw
.”
    “That word I know,” I said. “That’s Welsh. ‘Setting up a challenge.’” I peered between the two men. “Here,
ymhòni
, that’s more a claim, a challenge for one’s self.”
    “He seems to be claiming the land if we cannot show our own claim is valid.”
    “So, I’m guessing this doesn’t simply mean showing them your deed to the ranch?” Not that I actually thought it would be that easy. It couldn’t be, otherwise Gideon would have never tried this on. He may be another Kelly heir, but if my heirship was anything to go by, I didn’t lose my own natural instincts. Gideon had
never
done anything that required real work. He tended to look for the easy way—thus his walks on the dark side. Short cuts came naturally to him. Short cuts and lack of forward thinking—
“consequences”
wasn’t a word Gideon thought much about.
    A grin flashed across Tucker’s face at my sarcastic statement, an expression endemic to him but that I’d seen little of tonight. “Remember what I told you about this land being on ley lines?”
    “Yes, you said something about that when we met the werewolves’ Fenrir last week. That I’m tied to the land because I’d bled here. I bonded here and I Changed here.”
    He tapped the scroll again. “This basically challenges us—as a group—to prove our ties and to prove the land responds to us and accepts us as its caretakers. If we can’t, then Gideon can claim the right of
perchenodelb
, of ownership.”
    “Okay, then maybe I do need the long parts version,” I said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
    “Keira, Gideon states that the land is failing here under our care. That the long drought is a direct result of it rejecting us.”
    “Is that possible?” This was so far out of my knowledge base, I couldn’t begin to understand the entirety of it. I’d been trained to fight, trained in some court protocols, a little healing magick. Nothing about land andties and whatever. I didn’t suppose that Gigi thought I’d need it—or at least need it quite just yet.
    Adam shrugged. “Perhaps. There has been much chaos since I came.”
    I snorted. “You think?”
    Tucker rolled up the scroll and tied the ribbon around it again. “I think it has less to do with the fact that we’ve experienced upheavals,” he said. “I don’t think that really matters so much.”
    “But then what does?”
    My brother’s voice turned solemn, almost sorrowful. “Land usually responds to life, fertility, growth.”
    “Well, yes.” Where was he going with this? Basic agricultural information notwithstanding, what he was saying seemed obvious enough. Land prospered with rain, nurturing, and care. The last few weeks here had been hellacious and still were—a record heat wave and subsequent drought. But this kind of weather wasn’t uncommon to the Hill Country. So the weather records were being smashed. It’s not the first time and hey, climate change, right? Other parts of the nation had record snowfalls, flooding. It was just our turn here. It wasn’t the first drought season, nor would it be the last. We were doing everything we could to help—limiting our water use, making sure all the livestock watering holes were okay. Adam kept a herd of rescued exotics on the ranch, alongside the usual whitetails, a few head of cattle—nothing out of the ordinary. This was part of living in South Central Texas, in the Hill Country.
    “Keira, I think what Tucker is trying to say to us is that we brought death, not life,” Adam said in a gentle tone.
    My brow furrowed. “Death. Well, yes, but people die—”
    “Not people,
us
,” Niko spat. “I get it.”
    The clue shoe finally dropped on my head as Adam’s meaning sank in. “Well, fuck. Death. As in the living dead.”
    I sank onto the edge of the desk, my skirts knocking the
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