The Viper's Nest

by Tate James

  “I need some air,” I mumbled, pushing myself up from the couch and stumbling toward the door.

  “Kitty Kat,” Caleb yelled from behind me, “stay and let me explain! This is what I wanted to tell you myself; this is why I needed to break the clause!”

  “Christina,” Austin barked. “Where are you going?”

  “Out,” I replied to Aus and totally ignored his brother. “I need air. Space. Just... don’t follow me.”

  Grabbing my leather jacket from near the door, I rushed out of the suite and slammed the door behind me. I was no idiot; of course one of them would follow me, but I just hoped they’d be smart enough to stay out of sight until I calmed down. If I ever calmed down.

  Bile rose in my throat as I paced the small box of the elevator, waiting for it to descend and deposit me onto the ground floor. Where I was going, I had no idea. I just needed... space.

  Jesus Kit, you sound like the most stupid blonde in every horror movie ever. Throwing a tantrum and leaving all safety behind...

  My conscious rattled away at me, but I was turning numb. Fuck it. Who cared if this was a stupid fucking move? I was quickly becoming the most badass bitch on this planet; surely I could handle myself. I was sick to damn death of needing to be rescued by my guardians. My powers far outweighed theirs; I just needed to learn how to control them on my own. But how was I ever going to do that if they kept saving me? If I kept letting them save me?

  “Where to, miss?” the taxi driver asked as I opened the door and climbed into the back seat. It hadn’t taken me long to flag him down outside the hotel, but it was more than long enough to have me anxious to be gone from there. I was still being hunted, so standing on the side of the road hailing a taxi wasn’t my smartest decision.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted, meeting his weathered eyes in the mirror. “Can you take me to a bar? Any bar, I don’t care.”

  The driver gave me a look like he was questioning if I was likely to stiff him. But he must have decided I was good for it, as he pulled out from the curb and into the traffic.

  “You got it, miss,” he agreed, then thankfully seemed happy not to make small talk for the rest of the short ride. He pulled over in front of an unassuming-looking bar with saloon style doors, then turned in his seat to look at me sternly.

  “It ain’t the fanciest club in town, but the music is good and the bartenders will keep an eye out to make sure your drink ain’t spiked. That’ll be eight dollars.” His serious expression didn’t shift as I handed over the money and thanked him.

  Luckily my wallet had been in the pocket of my jacket, or I really would have been screwed. It was nice of him to bring me somewhere that I was less likely to get drugged, though.

  After showing my very fake ID to the security guard at the door, I pushed through the saloon doors and into the bar. My ID was fake not for my age, as I was twenty-one now, but for my name. After all, we were on the run from fuck knew how many different organizations.

  Uh, right. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.

  The idea of going back to the hotel, facing Caleb and Vic and the secrets... Nope. I’d rather take my chances in the bottom of a margarita glass. Mature decision, I was aware. But sometimes I just needed to do stupid shit to let off steam.

  “What’ll it be?” the enthusiastic bartender chick asked me as I approached the busy bar, and I frowned at her curiously. She could have been Lucy, at a glance, except a much darker, tanned version of Lucy with turquoise-green dreadlocks.

  “Ah... I don’t know. Whatever you recommend, I guess?” I shrugged helpfully, and the girl raised her pierced eyebrows at me.

  “You here alone?” She squinted at me, with a slight frown.

  “Sure am,” I sighed, not even attempting a fake smile. “So something strong, if possible, please?”

  The bartender looked a bit worried but nodded to me and started making me a drink. While I waited, I slumped against the bar with my elbows the only things really holding me up. It felt like I’d been put through a clothes washer, I was so strung out on emotions.

  First the bonding with Caleb, then the pain, Vic showing up, the news that Caleb—my Caleb—had been meeting my mom in secret... What I wouldn’t do for a memory erase spell of this whole evening. Alcohol would need to do instead.

  “Here.” The green-haired bartender dropped a tall glass down in front of me. “Long island iced tea. Guaranteed to fuck you up but not taste like shit in the process.”

  This, I cracked a smile at. “Doubtful. Iced tea?” Call me crazy, but I despised iced tea.

  The girl laughed. “It’s not actually tea, dummy. It’s a mix of tequila, gin, rum, vodka, and Cointreau, then lime juice, sugar, and a splash of Coke. Trust me, you’ll love it by the time you finish that one.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I sighed, fishing out my wallet. “How much?”

  The girl threw me a wink. “It’s on me. You look like you’re having a rough night.”

  I snickered a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.” I picked up my enormous drink and gave her a nod. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it; just try and have a better night from here on out, yeah?” The girl gave me a grin, then turned away to serve another customer.

  Her random act of kindness had cut through the negativity and sting of betrayal that I’d been wallowing in, and my shoulders were just a fraction less heavy as I made my way through the crowd to find a place to sit.

  It was late on a Saturday night, so the bar was packed with people. But it didn’t take long for me to locate a small table available, tucked away in the back and away from both the dance floor and the mechanical bull that a drunken girl wearing no bra was thrashing around on.

  As I sat, I felt my pocket vibrate. Dammit, my phone must have been in this jacket too.

  Placing my drink down on the table, I fished the little device out and ignored the call. As with the next one, and the next one. Right as I was about to lose my shit and turn the damn thing off, a text message came through from River.

  Sent Vali after you but told him to keep his distance when he gets there. Understand your need for space, and we are here for you when you’re ready to come home.

  Running my thumb over the screen, I reread the message a couple of times before powering off my phone to end another call from Caleb that had started ringing through.

  Home. When I’m ready to come home. Seemed like such a strange concept to consider the hotel suite home, but I knew that wasn’t what River meant. Home was wherever my guys were, regardless of if that was a hotel suite in Los Angeles or a mountain cabin in Washington.

  Tucking the phone back into my pocket, I yawned and took a sip of my long island iced tea. The first mouthful was a shock, sour and acidic and very strong. But a few more sips had me loving it. That bartender really knew her shit.

  “Hey, sweet thing.” A greasy-looking guy sauntered up to my table with a smarmy look on his face. “You here all alone? Maybe I should keep you company?” He punctuated this suggestion with a lewd cupping of his genitals through his pants. Just in case I missed the implication.

  My eyes narrowed at him. “Maybe you should back the hell off, buddy. I’m not looking to score, so trot on back to your friends. This one is a strikeout.”

  The man’s expression twisted into something nasty, and he sneered at me. “You look like a frigid bitch anyway; I was just trying to do you a favor. Loosen up that stick in your ass.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I’ll tell you one more time. Fuck. Right. Off. Clear?”

  The guy curled his lip at me in disgust but, thankfully, retreated back to his table of friends who were howling with laughter across the room. Getting hit on by creepy dudes who reeked of bourbon from ten feet away was not my idea of a good night out, even if I had been here for a “good time.”

  “Excuse me, miss?” Another male voice intruded on my thoughts, and a finger tapped on my shoulder. Groaning, I turned in my seat to tell this guy where
to shove his propositions, but the words froze in my throat.

  “Mr. Gregoric?” I squeaked in surprise. “What—”

  “Nicholai,” he corrected me with a smile. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  “Ah, sure.” I blinked at him in confusion but waited while he dragged a chair from another table and sat opposite me.

  “‘Mr. Gregoric’ never really sat right with me, you know? I doubt I’ll ever try my hand at teaching again. High school students are psychotic; don’t you agree?” He smiled at me like we had actually arranged to meet for a drink and small talk. “Then again, it’s been a great many years since I myself was a teenager, so perhaps I have just forgotten.”

  “What,” I tried again, “the fuck are you doing here, Nicholai? The last time we saw you was in Harrow after Gray and his men tried to kidnap all the shifter babies.”

  He grimaced and took a sip of his own drink that he’d brought to the table with him. “Nasty business, that. I understand Richard has since been dealt with, though?”

  Richard. I bit my tongue to suppress a shiver of revulsion and fear. Richard Liath was Gray’s real name, and just the mention of him made me want to empty my stomach onto the table. His face still haunted my dreams, so Wesley had been helping me by giving me other dreams instead. Safe, boring dreams with butterflies and puppies—the kind of sugar-coated, candy normality my real life had never possessed. I loved them.

  Until recently, that was. His issues with the other dream-walker had really thrown a wrench into the works with that plan. Now I was finding myself waking in a cold sweat, feeling the phantom pain of my toenails being torn from my flesh or the crack of my ribs under Gray’s heavy fists.

  “He’s been dealt with, yes,” I choked out, taking a long sip of my drink to try and clear the sour taste from my mouth. Denial and avoidance were my friends, and so long as I could avoid the subject of my abuser, I was good.

  “Well, that’s good to hear. Granny Winter will be pleased.” Nicholai smiled at me again, and I frowned in return. What the hell was going on?

  “Are you going to answer my question?” I prompted him. “What the fuck are you doing here? How did you even find me in this random bar in the middle of LA?”

  He pursed his lips and stared back at me for a long moment. He was a good-looking guy, no doubt about that, but there was something... shady about him. Like he was constantly playing both sides to the point where he himself had no idea where his allegiance lay.

  “I have someone who wants to meet you,” he announced finally, and my eyebrows shot up. That wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I didn’t know what I’d expected.

  “Oh? And you decided to track me down... here... to tell me this? I’m sure you can appreciate, Nicholai, something smells like shit.” I gave him a shrewd glare. “So out with it. I have had e-fucking-nough of riddles and half-truths to last me a lifetime.”

  Snatching my drink from the table, I leaned back in my seat and took a long sip on my straw. Disappointingly, my glass was almost empty already, and I frowned at the naked ice cubes.

  “I already ordered you another.” The sketchy fox-shifter grinned, just as a waitress appeared, placing a full long island iced tea on the table in front of me.

  I pursed my lips and eyed the drink skeptically, but when I glanced over to the bar, my friendly, green dreadlocked bartender gave me a nod of assurance.

  “Thanks,” I said slowly, still suspicious as all hell. “So who is this person who wants to meet me? And why are you here instead?”

  “I thought perhaps a familiar face might be more comforting for an introduction.” The reply came not from shady Nicholai Gregoric, but from a woman with a soft Irish accent who was, not even kidding, wearing my face. “Hello, daughter.”

  There she stood beside Nicholai’s chair, looking for all purposes like a carbon copy of me and having the goddamn nerve to call me her daughter. My chair legs scraped loudly on the wooden bar floor as I rose to my feet, my eyes glued to the mother who had left me to be tortured and abused in a foster home for years of my childhood.

  “Darling,” she smiled at me like some sort of fucking red-haired angel. She didn’t manage to get any more words out before my fist launched itself, almost totally of its own accord, straight into her perfect fucking nose.

  Cartilage crunched under my knuckles and blood burst from Bridget’s face as my fist connected, and she screamed. Good, I hoped it hurt like a bitch.

  Around us, a few people gasped and stared in shock, but I paid them no attention, jabbing an accusatory finger in Bridget’s face as she clutched her nose and moaned.

  “How fucking dare you?” I hissed at her, my fury so palpable that I could taste it. “How dare you show up here and call me daughter like all would be forgiven. For what? Because you forced my guardian into a binding spell which ensured he would betray me and meet with you in secret. You have a lot of fucking nerve, Bridget. A lot of fucking nerve.”

  Movement alerted me to the security guards making their way over to us from their stations near the door, but I decided to save them the bother of throwing us out.

  Throwing Nicholai a disgusted look, I shoved past him and through the gaping bystanders to exit the bar. A strong hand gripped onto the back of my arm as I cleared the swinging saloon doors, and that goddamn fox shifter yanked me around the side of the building to where the valet parking lot was located.

  “Christina,” he snapped, giving me a stern look like I was a two-year-old throwing a tantrum in the supermarket or something. “Use your damn brain. Bridget is your only form of contact with your kind right now. Are you honestly going to let your hurt feelings get in the way of learning who you are? Who you could be?”

  What he was saying made sense in the perfectly logical, unemotional world. But who was he fucking kidding? That was my biological mother! The woman who’d abandoned me on the streets with my memories wiped, and never looked back once.

  “Take your damn hand off me, Nicholai,” I warned him in a low voice. “Or I swear I will do more than just break your nose as well.”

  He sighed but did as instructed, removing his hand from my arm and placing his hands on his hips. “Look, I understand we don’t know each other well—” My snort cut him off and he glared at me to shut me up. “But you’re acting like a child right now. You are supposed to be the salvation of supernatural kind? Right now, all I see is a little girl who is angry at the world and lashing out. You don’t know the reasons why Bridget left you, do you?”

  Lips tight, I jerked my head to acknowledge that I did not.

  “Right. Well, then there is every possibility she had good reasons, isn’t there?” He raised his brows at me in a way that said he knew full well he was making sense. It was just up to my stubborn ass to accept the logic in his words.

  Grinding my teeth, I held his steady gaze for a long moment. Sure, I still wanted to beat the ever-loving crap out of my egg-donor who looked so much like me it was scary... but I also badly wanted to understand what I was. The opportunity to speak with another Ban Dia, to ask questions and to learn... Nicholai was right that I’d be an idiot to pass that up in favor of my temper.

  All of a sudden, my fury deflated like a popped balloon, and I sagged against the wall. “What do you even want? From what I’ve heard, Bridget has been meeting with one of my dianoch in secret for a month. Surely she could have asked him anything she needed to know?”

  “I’ll let her explain. If you’ll just give her a few minutes?” he coaxed, holding his hands up defensively. “Just a few minutes and then I swear we will leave. Sound fair?”

  I chewed my lip while I thought about it. What harm would a few minutes of my time do? As far as I could tell, they weren’t planning on kidnapping or killing me, and even if they were I had no doubts in my mind that I could take them. Just in case though, I reached into my pocket and held down the button that would ping my location to Wesley.

  “Sure. A few minutes. But when I’m done, I’m done. I walk
away, and you leave me the fuck alone. Understood?” I narrowed my eyes at him threateningly, and he nodded.

  “Understood. I’ll tell her to come out.” He didn’t move from the spot where he stood in front of me. Instead, he just cocked his head to the side, and his eyes unfocused from mine for the briefest second before refocusing. “She’s on her way.”

  “Uh.” Curiosity made me pause. “Did you just like... mind-speak or something?”

  Nicholai frowned at me. “You can’t do that? With your bonded guardians, I mean.”

  “No...” I shook my head and considered it. “I mean, I didn’t even know it was possible, so we have never tried.”

  The sly shifter just smiled at me and shrugged. “Seems to me you have already benefited from giving us a few minutes. Don’t you think?”

  Pursing my lips, I said nothing in response. Smug bastard. He had a point though. What else could I or my guardians do that we just had no idea was even a possibility?

  The sound of high heels scraping on concrete alerted me to Bridget’s arrival moments before she rounded the corner to where Nicholai and I waited. Neither of us spoke, but instead just stared at one another.

  She clearly possessed the ability to heal herself, as her nose looked totally back to normal. Hell, even her makeup was perfect once more, which suggested she’d been doing a touch up while Nicholai had been detaining me and begging me to give her a chance.

  “Christina,” she greeted me eventually and took two steps closer to me. Under a slightly less emotional light, I could see the subtle differences that made us not so identical, after all.

  She was shorter than me by a good few inches and much slimmer through the breasts and hips. Had it not been for the ugly-as-sin, tweed skirt suit she wore, along with pantyhose and boring pumps, I’d have said she looked like a teenager. But no self-respecting girl would be caught dead in that granny getup.

  Then again, she was over three hundred years old... I dreaded to think how fashions might change for me in three hundred years’ time.