by Lyla Oweds
David shot a worried look after Caleb then glanced back to us, somewhat abashed. “I can’t bring you without him,” he said apologetically, tilting his head in the other man’s direction. “But he’ll come around. He knows where you work,” he told Gregory. “I’ll talk to him. After that”—he looked at me—“you can meet with Jordan. He’ll be interested in—”
“I’m not joining your quintet,” I said.
David shrugged. “Not saying you need to. But if you wanted to talk to him, here’s your chance.” He glanced at Caleb, who had already crossed the street and stood waiting. “Just give it a few days. He’ll come to you. He’s stubborn, but he knows he needs this.”
“Doubtful,” Gregory replied. David didn’t respond, he only nodded his head and stepped away. Gregory waited until the two were out of sight before he turned to Michael. “What are we supposed to do now”
“We wait,” Michael said, stroking his chin. “Gloria found information about her quintet—”
“I don’t have a quintet,” I interrupted, frowning at the two of them.
Michael ignored me. “And we have an in with Jordan Bigelow because of it. Jordan is next to impossible to get ahold of, and he normally won’t talk to anyone. But this will capture his attention.”
“She already refused. Even so, do you think it’ll make him interested enough to give us an interview?” Gregory didn’t seem convinced.
“I don’t know.” Michael shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I’ve heard that he’s an extremely patient man. How he’ll react to the fact that anyone was compatible with your brother will be telling. I feel as though this is a step in the right direction. Although…”
This time when Michael raised his hand in my direction, I didn’t flinch away. My adrenaline was still high, my heart racing over the confrontation we’d had.
I must have been getting used to him.
He didn’t scare me now, in any case.
“Gloria,” he said as he placed his warm hands on my shoulders. “What did Petra do to you?”
I wasn’t going to respond at first, my pride bruised. But his eyes were burning into mine, and the concern on his face made my breath catch.
“He showed me his bird,” I said finally, frowning as I recalled the vile beast. “It was smaller than I expected, but terrifying. I’d never seen one up close before.”
“What?” Michael’s voice came out as a strangled sound. Behind me, Gregory tensed. Between them, I could taste the bitterness of anger in the air.
“Yeah.” I shivered, recalling the creature’s beady black eyes. The recollection was still scary, but it was now easier to separate myself from the situation. To be objective. At least, easier now that the physical remnants of our encounter had faded.
In fact, pride began to take the place of my fear. I’d gone against a shikigami and survived. Not many shifters could claim the same.
“It was…” I was going to say ‘life-changing.’ Because it was true. Thanks to my near-death experience, I held a new-found appreciation for life’s glorious wonders. The sun was so bright and the wind refreshing. And the cheerful chirping of normal, non-demon, birds lifted my dreary spirits.
I was recovering quite nicely, thank you very much.
But then the heavy atmosphere in my immediate area registered. And my words trailed off.
The way Michael’s gaze had returned to the rips in my clothing. The darkening anger of his expression…
“No!” I backed away from Michael, crossing my arms over my stomach. “It’s nothing like that! I’m talking about his shikigami!”
“Oh…” The fury fled from his stance, and he and Gregory exchanged a glance. “I didn’t realize his shikigami was a bird…”
Well, that was strange. I could tell another shifter, and their animal form, by scent alone. “I thought you people had a sixth sense about each other.”
Gregory shot me a confused glance, while Michael raised his eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
“The forms that your shikigami take on,” I clarified, wagging my finger in his face. “Don’t you all have a super-secret society where you’re all in cahoots together?”
An amused glint flickered across his eyes, and he opened his mouth to respond, but I’d already continued. “But then again, you’re defective as far as onmyoji go. So I guess they’ve kicked you out of the club.”
It was Gregory’s turn to look amused, his mouth tilting up slightly. Meanwhile, Michael watched me, confused. “Why in the world do you assume that I’m defective?”
“Because even though you’re formidable, you don’t have a shikigami. Only the best have shikigami, and raw strength cannot make up for that kind of lapse,” I answered, returning my attention to my torn clothing. Michael’s handicap among his kind was a similarity we shared. “We should leave.” I touched one of the thin rips in my shirt. “It’s impossible to hide this. Do we have anything else to do here today?”
Neither answered, and finally, the silence grew unnerving. I glanced up, noticing them watching each other. Gregory tilted his head in my direction, and Michael shrugged in response.
“Excuse me?” I interrupted, not liking that shrug.
“Never mind, my firecracker.” Michael stepped forward and touched my elbow. “We can leave,” he replied to my earlier statement, guiding me toward his car. “I’ll drive us back to the station.”
I studied him as we walked, completely trusting him to steer us in the correct direction. This time, I tried to look at him in a new light.
He was deflecting. But try as I might, I still couldn’t feel the telltale heaviness that a shikigami was contracted here. There was a power to Michael, an aura that continued to put me on alert, yet was growing impossible to ignore any longer.
But evil? I didn’t feel that from him at all.
I wanted to ask, but at the same time, I didn’t want to know his answer. Still, I was braver than this.
My mouth felt dry, and I glanced at him as he pulled to a halt beside me. “Are you—”
“After you,” Michael interrupted my question, with a wry grin. He reached around me and opened the door of his vehicle.
His grin matched the look in his gray eyes, and my face heated.
He knew. He knew what I was going to ask. This was a definite deflection.
But how could I not sense it? Had my wolf been buried that far underneath?
“Gloria.” He touched the small of my back, and I shivered. “Would you like us to drop you off at home first?”
“No. I don’t want you near my house.” I was disappointed in myself. My courage vanished, and the last thing I wanted to deal with was the thought of Michael being stronger than I’d previously imagined.
I would never be able to face him again.
“Everything about today was a waste,” I grumbled, slinking into the passenger seat.
Gregory slid into his spot at the back of the vehicle. Meanwhile, Michael circled the car and then slid in the driver’s side. He crossed his arms on the steering wheel as he rested his head on his arms.
He turned his head until he was looking at me, and his lips quirked. “It wasn’t a waste at all.”
“We didn’t get to meet with our target,” I pointed out, not liking how serene he seemed. “That is what Mr. Kohler sent us here to do, to interview Jordan Bigelow. So we’ve failed.”
“Not so.” Gregory picked up a newspaper off the seat beside him and flipped it open over his knee. “Mr. Kohler expected us to find a way to get to Jordan Bigelow, and that is exactly what we’ve done. Good results cannot be expected from rushed work. The groundwork has been laid. If we seek out someone like Mr. Bigelow before he is ready, he will not talk to us. Legally, he has no obligation to answer our questions. He’s not been charged with anything, nor is he a suspect.”
“So, what…” I frowned at Gregory as Michael began to drive the car out of the lot. “Are you saying we need to gain his trust before we can interview him?” This wa
s not how I’d expected my first interrogation to go.
“Jordan Bigelow is not a man who trusts easily,” Michael said. “It’s fate that brought you to us at this time. Because if you are one of his quintet, we might just have a chance.”
A headache began to pound under my temples. “I’m not—”
“Even if you don’t accept the position,” Gregory interrupted. “It’s still enough for you to capture Jordan Bigelow’s attention. He doesn’t see outsiders. He commands his people entirely behind the scenes. We only need to talk to him.”
Blinking, my curiosity was roused despite myself. I had no intention of joining their group, that was true. But I couldn’t help but wonder, what kind of people had been almost fated to be my equals?
“Is he…” My words trailed off a moment, considering how to phrase my intentions. “Are they criminals? How do you know so much about them? Have they been in trouble with the law?”
Michael’s mouth thinned, his focus on the road, and so it was Gregory who answered.
“Not exactly.” He crossed his arms, glancing out of the window. “Caleb wouldn’t get involved in any illegal workings. He’s not that idiotic. But what they do isn’t entirely legal either.”
Suspicion pricked my senses, and I turned in my seat and narrowed my gaze at him. “What they do? What is that?”
“Our forces sometimes receive unwarranted information from witnesses. Or sometimes wanted criminals will be delivered to our headquarters in secret. It is rumored that how these things are done is a bit against an officer’s code of conduct. But leadership has always turned a blind eye,” Gregory said as he watched the passing traffic. “Caleb is a historian, he has a doctorate in the field. In his team, he’s the lead researcher. If there’s information to be found, he will find it. I don’t know much about Mr. David and have only heard rumors about Mr. Jordan. Turn around in your seat.”
I touched my lip, mulling over Gregory’s words as I ignored his command.
David was a witch and Caleb fae. However, I wasn’t sure what Caleb’s powers were, exactly. Within the fae, abilities ranged from a mediumship to astral projection. I was the shifter representative of our group, since only one power of a type existed within a quintet. That only left two groupings to be represented, those within the Fire and Water elements.
“Do you know what he does at least?” I asked. “Is he—”
“He is a necromancer, so he’s a Water elemental,” Gregory said. “I’m not certain of the nature of his abilities within that. Necromancers usually deal with memories or manipulation of the human form.”
I bit the inside of my mouth, wondering if I should ask… It might sound too eager, especially since I’d said I wasn’t interested. But now I was curious. “The witch—David—said that I completed their quintet. Who is the onmyoji?”
Gregory’s mouth dipped. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. “I never even knew Caleb had found a quintet. We’ve not spoken for some time.”
“But you’re brothers, right?” I watched him. “Shouldn’t you know these things about each other?”
Gregory didn’t respond, and the mood in the vehicle shifted from impartial to tense.
“Not all siblings are like William, Gloria.” It was Michael who replied, not moving his gaze from his task. Then he turned silent as well.
After a moment, it became obvious that neither planned to continue the conversation. So I let it drop. My focus drifted out of the window, and I watched as we continued to move into more familiar scenery.
I was sure I’d said something awful.
Gregory didn’t look happy, not that he had since I’d met him. My words even seemed to have struck a chord which Michael. But I didn’t understand, and I was trying to.
A sibling bond was everything. What would make people who shared that kind of relationship not talk to each other?
This conversation also made something else clear. It was natural for me not to know anything about Gregory, we’d only met this week.
But Michael?
We’d known each other since freshman orientation. Granted, we hadn’t been the best of friends, and I tried to avoid him. But in the small social circle I did have, he’d been there. I’d seen him with his friends at outings. At study sessions.
He’d paid attention to me all this time.
I’d known he’d watched me already, was interested. But I never realized the extent of his observation. I’d only spoken about my family a handful of times, and he remembered.
A stone settled in my stomach—guilt ate at me. I’d been trying to ignore the pull of his presence for years. So much that I ignored him. I didn’t know anything about him, let alone if he had any siblings of his own.
I only knew Michael’s family was wealthy. They’d founded the college we’d attended, the first supernatural school of its type. And before Michael’s father, it had been a facility that only accepted onmyoji.
However, it was said that Joseph Abernathy’s inspiration to upgrade our school was from the integration movements taking place in the outside world. And not only were all elemental groups welcome to attend, he’d taken enrollment a step further and changed the college from a male-only facility to a coed school.
But even after the policies were changed, fae and shifters remained underrepresented in demographics. And they were always trying to recruit more of us. I suspected that was why I’d been accepted into my program.
I didn’t know much more of him than that. Perhaps he did have more than one child. But I simply couldn’t recall.
If we were going to be working together, it seemed fitting to know.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked Michael, glancing at him. A direct approach was best, I just hoped he didn’t read too much into it. This did not mean I was welcoming a relationship between us.
Michael’s gaze flickered to me, and the car swerved to the right before he corrected it. Even so, we were lucky the road was straight because he continued to watch me. A question formed on his lips as confusion settled into his expression. “You—”
“I’m only curious,” I stated, not wanting to know what he was going to say. Either he’d wonder why I hadn’t picked up on it before, or he’d wanted to know why I wanted to know. Neither had an explanation that I was prepared to give. “Tell me or don’t tell me, I don’t care.”
His gaze turned contemplative for a second, then his attention returned fully to the road. I thought he might not answer, but then he responded. “I have an older brother, Matthew. And a younger sister, Amber.”
I nodded. Everything made so much more sense now. His persistence. The way he yearned for attention.
“You’re the middle child.” I understood. Sympathy washed over me as, without thinking, I reached across the seat and pet his arm. “I heard that can be rough.”
This time when his gaze moved to me, he looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s referring to middle child syndrome,” Gregory said, leaning forward in his seat. “Did you know, I’m also a middle child. Do you feel sorry for me too?”
“Who said anything about feeling sorry for you? I don’t feel sorry for anyone.” I snatched my hand away, trying to ignore the tingles that still lingered on my fingers. “This isn’t a contest.” I waved my hand in the air, brushing away the feeling. “I’m the youngest of three, and William has always been an attention seeking sort. So I was just saying I understand.”
“You understand what?” Michael’s blond brows furrowed, and his mouth thinned as he turned the car in to the police lot. “I’m not sure if this is a compliment or an insult…” he muttered under his breath.
“It’s an insult,” Gregory said. “I could see how it applies to you. However, I, myself, do not fit the stereotype.”
I rolled my eyes, thankful that this had only come up as Michael was parking the car. It had been a long day, and it was time to unwind for the weekend.
“You are exactly that s
tereotype,” I informed Gregory. “You were comparing yourself to Michael, just to get my attention.”
Gregory stiffened in his seat, looking stunned. He dropped the paper into his lap as his jaw slacked. “I did no such thing.”
“I don’t have time for this.” Now I regretted saying anything at all. This was my punishment for being kind. The lot was half full, and from the dwindling crowd, it seemed as though a shift change had just taken place. “What now?” I glanced at Michael.
“You can go home,” Michael said, his lips lifting in the corners. “You’ve had a busy day. I’ll give Joe an update. He’ll want information from you on Monday about the attack, though. Are you certain you don’t want to wait for me to drive you home? Are you planning on taking the bus?”
Wait? And be alone with Michael?
His gray eyes held mine, and my breath caught. His mood had lifted after I’d bested Gregory, and the humor that was generally present in his gaze returned.
Now that I was trying not to hate him, I couldn’t deny that he was impossibly handsome. An untouchable sort of handsome, though, like a flame you’d admire from afar. You always had to be vigilant to keep its properties in check. Without monitoring, it would easily consume everything.
No, it would probably be a very bad idea to be alone with Michael. The fact that he was beginning to frighten me less was slightly problematic. Without fear to rely on, it was becoming more difficult to ignore his appeal.
And what if he had a shikigami?
“No.” My thoughts rushed through any excuse to grasp, to keep my distance. One came to mind, it was weak, but I was desperate. “The only person allowed to drive me anywhere would be someone who can beat me in a fight.”
My heart pounded at the idiotic statement. It didn’t even make sense. It was just a drive. And yet here I was, acting like it meant something more.
Michael’s initial surprise morphed into amusement. His lips quirked. “Have you forgotten that I’m the muscle?”
“Don’t be stupid.” I opened the door, exiting the vehicle. “And stop calling yourself ‘the muscle,’ you sound ridiculous.” Turning from them, I stepped away, ignoring the sudden sound of Michael’s laughter.
