“Don’t let him intimidate you,” Waylon said. “That would be the kiss of death, I imagine. I’m sure he probably stays close to Mina. In that situation, he’s almost certainly taking advantage of her. I imagine that his mother won’t be at this party, but just in case, she’s the company president, Esther Merryweather. She seems ‘nice’, which means, stay away from her.”
Ansel and I both nodded grimly, and for a minute I felt like we were all on the same side. We were all shifters, and we were heading into the danger zone. Then I caught myself, remembering that Waylon wanted so much more from me than I could ever give.
“I think that’s all you need,” Waylon said. “You have permission to play dumb. You’re not from here. Pretend you’ve already been drinking. That’ll help you fudge things if you meet anyone from L.A. who asks you any questions.”
“And when this is done, I never see you again?” I confirmed.
“Well, my hope is that the White Queen will be more amenable to saving her people. “Her role is not destructive, but to get all the children of the world to hold hands and sing, or something like that,” he said, with a twisted smile meant to make me feel bad.
It worked, a little.
“I can’t just…become…” I trailed off and shook my head.
Ansel patted Waylon’s shoulder and then put an arm around me, lightly. He stopped at the closet and gave me a small gold purse and then opened the closet and gave me a faux fur shrug. I opened the purse and found my fake ID, credit cards issued in Kaylee D’Angelo’s name that had to be fake also, and lipstick.
Just get it over with, Frankie…
Chapter Eight
Ansel
“How did, uh, you and Waylon meet anyway?” Frankie asked, after some awkward silence that I really wanted to interrupt, as the natural extrovert I am. But I was used to Waylon, who needed time to decompress between intense operations, and I got the feeling she was similar. “I don’t remember you in the ‘hood back in the day.”
“No, I came to work for him in Seattle,” I said.
“I wasn’t sure if you were his employee or a friend,” she said. “Or maybe even a boyfriend.” With a little mischievous smirk.
I wagged a finger at her. “Now, I think you can tell Waylon does not swing that way, you cheeky bitch. I’d say I started as an employee and became a friend…and now we’re business partners too. Just a natural evolution of working together for a long time. Not much of a story.”
“Ah. So what were you before?”
“Before?”
I wasn’t usually quick to tell the real story. Like so many shifters born in the United States or any other hostile human country, which was most of them, I didn’t know my parents and was raised to work and be a genteel companion to a human child. I didn’t even know where I came from, except that my face hinted at both white and Asian heritage. My ability to do hair and makeup wasn’t a hobby, but a survival skill. If I was good at making humans pretty, I was treated better. I learned how to please, how to make things beautiful, how to make humans feel comfortable around me, from a very young age.
“I grew up in human territory with my little brother Florian,” I said.
My brother was all I had to cling to. He was a year younger, close enough that we felt like twins but I still took charge, and we learned together. Our matched beauty had given us value and we were smart enough to make use of it.
“Human territory,” she repeated. “Is Florian okay?”
“We tried to escape with several other birds in the house,” I said. Tried being the operative word. “I made it out, but Florian got caught up somewhere. When we regrouped, he wasn’t there.”
“Oh.” Frankie’s eyes were suddenly gentle with understanding. I didn’t expect that expression from a girl like her. “Sorry.”
“Well, I’ll find him someday.”
I never even got to say goodbye. I was running, and then I was flying, and I looked back, and he wasn’t there.
I would always wonder if I should have gone back for him. But when I tasted freedom, I didn’t let it go, and that had eaten at me my entire life.
Of course, our escape plan quickly went awry. We were heading for the west coast, but were held up in eastern Oregon outside of Istaran territory, hauled in for questioning and “gently” directed to the work house. I could still smell the cheap soap and nasty food there. It was half prison, half shelter. Potential employers came every day to offer us jobs.
It was not technically legal to buy and sell shifters, only to ‘adopt’ or ‘employ’ them. But if you weren’t firmly under the thumb of an employer, you would find yourself arrested in no time. You didn’t have to be doing anything wrong, just wandering a strange town by yourself was enough.
It wasn’t like you had much choice but to go to the work houses and then take whatever work you were given. You could refuse or you could stay there in that nasty place. Few people hired shifters outside of the work house system.
It was a deep shock to me after the life of relative luxury I’d had taking care of a wealthy human family, keeping the little kids clean, groomed and out of trouble. The jobs we were offered were hard work, logging or fishing or construction.
Sometimes—rarely—other shifters came just across the border from Istara. They were saving our lives, but even that was controversial. The freedom came at the price that you owed them something. It didn’t take me long to learn that everything in nature, man or animal, will step on others to get ahead when given the chance. My fellow shifters weren’t angels either, and Waylon Silver certainly didn’t look like an angel when he walked into the work house lounge where we were waiting for our next captor and said, without preamble, “All right, I need someone with quick hands, a quicker brain, an eye for flair, and dubious morals.”
No one came to the work house asking for something that interesting or downright poetic. Usually it was just a request for strong backs, or maybe someone who could answer phones. I just knew—he was looking for me.
And he did save my life. But I made sure to save his too, every chance I got, until we were even.
Frankie had no idea how much I hated doing this sort of thing. It brought back memories I’d rather not face, but I figured that enjoying myself right in the human’s faces, drinking their drinks, eating their food, and dancing to their music, was a better revenge than letting them get to me.
A hired luxury cab brought us across the river, after a quick bribe was offered to keep quiet that a couple of shifters just wanted to party. The cabbie took us to the Upper West Side, where the Merryweathers owned an entire Victorian home—a mansion by New York standards, although in the west this would just be a normal house. As soon as I opened the door I could hear music pounding all the way to the street. Some people were on a roof garden hooting and laughing.
Frankie looked nervous despite the courage spell Waylon gave her. She was way out of her comfort zone.
I put on some sunglasses with white frames and pink lenses. Frankie did a double take when she saw them. “Oh, what are those now?”
“Camouflage.”
“Uh-huh. What sort of bird are you? Something tropical?”
“Falcon.”
“Really?”
“It’s true.” I offered her a hand. “Do you want to stick it to them?” I asked.
“I wish.”
“Steal something while you’re in there,” I said. “I’ll steal something too. And then we’ll see whose is better at the end of the night.”
She smiled a tiny bit. “Okay. Gladly. Kaylee would definitely steal something just for the rush.”
“Absolutely.”
I offered her an arm and she shook her head. “I’ve seen enough of this circumstance,” she said. “If you’re my bird, I’ll grab your hand and lead the way.” She snatched my hand and marched toward the steps.
She was definitely correct in that, enough that it annoyed me, but I was glad she was that perceptive. This might work out.
>
We walked right in the door. Just as suspected, no one was playing bouncer. People were leaving as we were coming in. The house was fancy and seemed almost untouched since the Victorian era, with dainty furniture, needlepoint pillows and paintings of fuzzy owls and a shepherd girl tending her flock. The cutesy decor was completely at odds with the slutty teens making out all over the furniture and drunken idiots spilling their over-filled red plastic cups. The party naturally flowed to a huge kitchen and extensive bar area. The house was packed with people, lots of them waving at us even though they obviously didn’t know us.
Well, I had that effect on people. I knew how to act like I belonged.
“Love that dress.” I patted the feathery collar of a girl wearing pink spangles. “Love that dragon even more,” I told a girl with a bearded dragon on a leash. Now, that was a better pet than the bird shifters with bands on their arms or wolves in collars. As usual, you didn’t see very many cat shifters, just a few mistresses or prostitutes—both genders.
“Thank you! His name is Captain America!”
“Hot.”
“I made him a tiny shield but it’s at home,” she screamed at me.
“That’s great. Love it.” I nudged Frankie onward before I got caught in Drunk Girl Conversation.
Frankie observed me a moment and I saw her calculating how to play along as Kaylee. “Hey, Laaance? Like, stop messing around. Get me a drink?” She carefully flicked her waves of hair back from her face.
Huh. She was perfect.
She looked at me with a little sparkle in her eyes like, That was good, right?
I grinned. “Of course, darling.” I sidled up to the bar and she was right on my tail. “Can I get my princess a cocktail? What do you want?”
“Oh, like…sex on the beach?” She turned her head a little and glanced at me through her hair.
“Sex on the beach for her. Can I have a glass of chardonnay?”
“Sure,” the bartender said, checking out ‘Kaylee’. He was a young, clean cut dude but I could tell he was probably the kind of guy who already had an STD. I watched his every move as he mixed the drink. “So where are you from?”
“I’m from, like, around Venice Beach,” Frankie said.
“Do you have a lot of sex there?”
“Haha.”
A hip grinding beat was pounding in our ears as we moved through the party slowly, both of us keeping our eyes out for Mina. She would be easy to spot. I would bet she was a water bird; she had that willowy elegance, the slightly inhuman look of someone who could carry off blonde hair and golden-brown skin, like sunshine turned into a person. And I expected Alistair would coddle her and give her everything she wanted. Except freedom, of course.
Frankie sniffed the air. “Ugh. It smells like crotch sweat in here,” she muttered.
“Don’t sniff it if you don’t want it in your nose.”
“I can’t help it!”
We turned a corner to a wide back porch, the double French doors open to the fresh air, and that was when Alistair spotted us. He locked on us so fast I was afraid we looked startled, heading straight down the length of the porch past the potted plants and wicker chairs. I had a bad feeling that he was an unusually perceptive type, which was not what you wanted in a time like this.
“Hey,” he said, offering me a hand. “Welcome. I don’t know your faces.”
“Oh, I’m Kaylee. This is my falcon, Lance, and we were just kinda cruising around looking for a good time and these girls told me you were partying up in here. She said you were cute too, and she wasn’t wrong.”
Alistair was cuter in person, actually. He had a little more of a gentler face than pictures would suggest, but there was something genuinely mysterious about his general vibe. He had dark bangs almost in his eyes, a well-cut dark jacket and knee-high boots, which gave the whole outfit a military vibe, and pale gray eyes that were almost creepy. “Party crashers?” He shrugged. “Help yourself, Kaylee.”
“I have been.” Frankie giggled sheepishly and sipped her drink. “I love your house. It’s sooo grand.”
He shrugged, clearly not into his mom’s decor. “Make yourself at home.”
He wasn’t really checking out Frankie. Even though her legs were amazing in her short dress. Good.
Then again, it might be good if he did. We might be able to get intel out of him. I realized that I just didn’t want anyone checking out Frankie’s legs.
Well, Waylon and I have been holed up in the library way too much…
As he moved past us, other girls tried to flirt with him, and he didn’t really give any of them the time of day.
“Bet you he’s in love with Mina,” I said to Frankie’s ear.
“It happens,” she said. “But I don’t think that can really be love.”
“I agree.”
“Yeah? Usually everyone argues with me. Love can bloom anywhere, blah blah.”
“Maybe. But…the power imbalance,” I said.
Her respect for me went up a notch. “I could never fall for a man who keeps me,” Frankie said, her ditzy Kaylee face vanishing for a moment, replaced by brown eyes that held a deep streak of anger that pushed out any sense of romance. “That goes for Waylon too, if he keeps trying to control me,” she added.
“You think Waylon wants you to fall for him?”
“I think he’d like to fuck the girl who fucked with him.”
I whistled. “Boy, you have a dark view.”
“I guess this place just brings it out in me.” She smiled at a passing girl, her face immediately glowing again. “Where did you get those shoes?”
While the girl was giving her some recommendations on where to shop and Frankie nodded eagerly like she cared, a girl shouted over the crowd, “Hey! Heyyy, you guys! Clear the stairs! I’m coming down!”
Everyone ran to the stairs where we could see a girl standing at the top wearing a bikini top, short shorts, and rainbow roller skates.
“Look what I can do,” she said, holding onto the banister unsteadily while extending a foot toward the stairs. About half the crowd cheered while the other half went, “Nooo!”
“Is that…? My fellow savior of the realm?” Frankie’s voice was drier than my wine.
There was no mistaking it. The pale blonde mane of hair, the olive skin, the cute heart-shaped face was also…looking pretty trashed and about to kill herself.
“Yep. That’s our White Queen.” I grinned. Birds were often dainty and proper, but not this one.
“Should I do it? Should I?” Mina waved her roller skate over the stairs, her drunken brain clearly processing that it might not have been the best idea.
“Do it!” a guy yelled.
Mina put her skate on the next stairs and immediately skidded off and came tumbling halfway down the stairs, then her shorts bumped down the last few.
“This prophecy is bullshit,” Frankie said.
“I kinda like her style.”
Chapter Nine
Frankie
Alistair shoved everyone out of the way and picked up Mina. “What were you thinking?” he cried. “You could have hurt yourself!” He shook her and she started sobbing.
“Hey, maybe she did hurt herself!” I said, unable to keep up the ditz act after watching this. “Like…go easy on her.”
“I won’t let her endanger her health,” he said. “She’s my girl.”
Ansel put a hand on my arm, a signal that I needed to keep my cool and not get upset, as I was dreaming of slashing Alistair’s face.
Some of the other people in the crowd murmured nervously. Alistair pulled Mina up into his arms and carried her upstairs. “Someone’s been drinking too much,” he growled. “I’m putting her to bed. Carry on. The night is young.”
He rushed up the stairs with Mina’s limbs spilling over his, her roller skates almost taking out a decorative statue on the landing. The party immediately resumed raging.
“Well, I’m here to find out Mina’s deal,” I said. “S
o I’d better find out.” I started up the stairs.
“Kaylee.” Ansel couldn’t do much to stop me without potentially drawing attention to ourselves. It would be very unlike a bird to start arguing with his wealthy captor. Well, he should have tried to pass for a human himself if he wanted to stop me from doing what I wanted to do, although admittedly…he had a very bird-like personality so maybe no one would buy it.
I went up the stairs, wobbling on my heels a little. I didn’t wear them much, but maybe I’d also had a little too much to drink.
Alistair had taken Mina into a bedroom.
“I told you—one drink,” he said.
“I’m sorry…”
“You always get stupid when you drink, and that could get you into trouble.”
“I don’t mean to…” She sniffed. “I just start…having fun…and one thing leads…”
“What is the appeal of stumbling around, breaking your ankle, making yourself vulnerable to some random men, and then hovering over a toilet? You’re better than this. You need to listen to me. I never make myself a potential target for anything, do I?”
“No. You’re perfect all the time,” she said, with a touch of sass.
I would never get drunk and stupid myself, but I was definitely on her side. And I knew how many shifters did turn to drink and drugs just to forget the indignities of their life. If I did work at a cat cafe, you better believe I’d end the day with a glass of wine or two, after the shower. Wash off your body, rinse off your memories, and try to forget.
It was my worst nightmare to be in Mina’s position and have some man control every aspect of my life. Just another reason I was afraid to be a prophesied queen and provoke the interest of any powerful person.
“I never said I was perfect. But I can’t have a party without worrying about what you’re going to do. Do I need to lock you up somewhere?”
“No…”
“Buy you a cage?”
“No…”
“Then what else am I supposed to do with you?”
Black Queen: Stray: Fated Mates Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifters Among Us Book 1) Page 6
