“Tell me what?” I asked, my interest thoroughly piqued.
Marcus sat back on his knees. “The final straw that made Rod leave the brotherhood, or think about leaving to take a break.”
“Well, I’m out now, brother, they saw me,” Rod chimed in.
Marcus ignored him. “You remember they’d recently had him promoted in his precinct.”
I nodded.
“Well,” he continued. “They did that for a reason, in exchange for a favor. Only he didn’t learn the favor until after the promotion. They wanted him to talk his golfing buddy, an investigator with Seattle PD, into burying a complaint made against Samuel Woodry, the same guy you brought in the day we had our first date, the guy who’d recently become a runner for the trafficking ring before you caught him.”
“Holy shit.” I stared off at nothing, compiling my thoughts.
Marcus went on. “The complaint made against him was from the parents of a barista in Seattle. Apparently, the day you brought him in, he’d creeped out their daughter, an eighteen year-old senior about to graduate from high school.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “I think that may be the one I witnessed. Did he just creep her out at the coffee shop, or did he approach her somewhere else before that?”
Somewhere that would give me a hint as to where the Hunters were setting their sights as of late. Maybe they’d had Samuel feeling out a new market for them, a new crop of women, spoiled by the world’s evils, to pick off.
“He’d joined their private online group, Witches not Bitches, under an alias, and started sending inappropriate messages to the ladies,” Rod answered. “When he ordered his coffee at her shop, he quoted something he’d said to her in one of his messages, about her teacher.”
“That’s it!” I dropped the trash bag and slapped my thigh. “That’s it. They’re targeting young pagan women. I remember seeing her wearing a pentagram necklace and she had a tiny crescent moon tattoo on the inside of one of her wrists. But it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d been stalking her. I thought he was just jonesing for a fix.”
When Clarisse had told me, after she’d killed Azalea, that their plans had already been set into motion because of Samuel, she’d meant that he’d found where they’d locate their newest victims, or commodities as they saw it. Online groups brought in people from all over the country. Of course, they had to move their operation out of Seattle, out of the limelight, and to a broader location. They were gearing up, if they hadn’t started already, to target young women from pagan and wiccan online groups, kidnap them or lure them into a trap, funnel them through the North Carolina complex, and sell them to the highest bidder.
My stomach turned in on itself and my huldra stirred from her nap. Marcus caught my gaze with a look that assured me we’d put a stop to this.
My coterie and I, the three harpies, Marcus, Mason, Aleksander, and the snake foreign Wilds crammed ourselves into the now packed Airbnb living room. I watched Eonza for signs of making advances on Aleksander, but so far she’d only peered in his direction a time or two, quickly looking away when he noticed her watching him.
Celeste sat beside Marie on the flower-print couch, clutching her hand as though she planned to never let it go. Marie stood and Celeste proved my assumption by standing with her.
“Now that we are all here, I have an announcement to make for my galere,” Marie started. “We have decided the underground life is not for us.”
I gazed around the room to see succubi smiling and Heather crying quietly, tucked under Mason’s arm. Even if they interpreted Marie’s declaration as the end to their relationship, I had no doubt those two would find a way to be together. But seeing as the two Hunter leaders got away, and probably noticed Aleksander in the process, I assumed the incubi leader’s earlier declaration to stay out of the war had gone out the window much like the two Hunters. The fact that he helped to blow up the Oregon Hunter complex only strengthened my assumption.
“Our snake sisters from across the sea have pledged themselves to our cause, and we have pledged ourselves to the huldra’s and harpies’ cause.” Marie paused long enough to find my face among the crowd. A smile lit her eyes and for a second, I thought I saw what Celeste had found and cherished in the succubi leader. “You have our vow; we will assist you in returning your mother, and the mothers and sister of other Wild Women. Together, we will bring freedom to the Wild Women of this land.”
The living room filled with cheering and clicking tongues and yipping, as though most of these women weren’t covered in bandages and others with their arms in slings. The scene spoke to our resilience and reminded me of what Marcus had said about our fire being bigger than the Hunters’.
When the excitement died down I took the stage, so to speak. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that, Marie.”
“We aren’t safe here,” I reminded. “So I say we leave tonight. I know we’re battered and bruised, but if we load into rental vans we can take turns driving and sleeping and recoup when we get to the harpies’ home. They don’t have much space in their house, but they own and rent out vacation homes in the area that they’ve offered to us for the time being. John knows that the harpies were here with us, and he’ll no doubt alert the North Carolina complex, but they assure us that they’ve already taken steps to keep the Hunters from learning of their properties. Each rental home was purchased under an alias name, and aren’t even managed by the same property managers, so there’s no connecting them to one owner.” I knew the harpies’ distrust of all things human would come in handy.
“What do you say, sisters?” Marie canvassed the room with her eyes to ask her fellow succubi. Their answer was a resounding yes.
“The Hunter leaders saw me,” Aleksander spoke up. “There’s no longer a reason for me to stay out of this. I’ll go, and bring Mason with me, as my hoard holds down the fort here in Portland.”
Eonza gave a short nod, as though readying herself for her next phase of incubus seduction.
Marcus snuck his hand to mine and squeezed my fingers before releasing it and letting it fall to my side. My heart ached for him. What inner turmoil must he be feeling? I wondered. I could only imagine and hoped that when we were finally alone, he’d be willing to open up and share his thoughts.
Mason thanked his leader. Aleksander addressed the young male, who stood beside the fireplace in the center of the room. “It is the least I can do, and I am sure it will keep you and me both sane in a way that holding you back from your mate will not.”
Heather clung tighter to her incubus and smiled.
“I have something else to say. An announcement,” I said boldly. I grabbed Marcus’s hand and held our joined hands above my head. “I’m done watching love blossom between others while I feel forced to hide my own. Marcus has more than proved himself, many times over, so I’m done pretending for the comfort of others.” I peered around the room. “I love this male, and he loves me back. And that right there, is enough.”
Marcus pulled me into his chest and leaned me backwards, pushing his lips passionately into my own. My huldra stirred again, this time more than content with my choice to declare my lover to the other Wild Women.
Celeste clapped and my coterie joined in, hesitantly at first. But hey, it was a step. And honestly, their acceptance was all I really cared about, even if I’d said I didn’t care. Even Shawna gave a smile, although worry settled behind her eyes. Her savior had a chance at killing her captor and didn’t take it. My sister had new emotions to work through, and I caught her gaze with mine, sending silent promises to stand beside her every step of the way. A root promise isn’t one taken lightly.
“It’s settled then,” Marie said, above the hesitant laughing and exhaustion-filled conversations. “Everyone gather your things. We’ll stop by the incubi’s underground to get our stuff and then it’s off to North Carolina. We leave in an hour.”
With that, Marie and Celeste left into Celeste’s room and clo
sed the door behind them.
I grabbed Marcus by the hand and we made our way down the hall. He closed the bedroom door behind me, and before I could ask him how he was doing, he pressed his lips onto mine, shutting us away from the world and our inner battles, if only for an hour.
THE END
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Sneak Peek of Ishtar’s Legacy
The moment I set foot on the cement waiting area outside the North Carolina airport, the soles of my feet tingled with the need to push roots into the earth of the east coast. Above us, in large lettering, a sign clung to the cement outer walls of the airport.
Arrivals.
I’d walked through this airport, along the grounds of this part of the country, and this time my heart quickened with a knowing. Only this time, my body insisted on the culmination of the past months, of the fighting and hiding and absolute hell, that I rise like an ocean wave and crash onto the Hunter’s shore, wiping them out for good.
Marcus grabbed my hand, pulling me out of my battle fantasy and back into the moment.
“Where were you just now?” he asked with a twinkle of curiosity in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. We had unintentionally matched, both wearing bomber style jackets and jeans with boots. Though, if you asked me, he wore it better.
“I think you already know the answer to that,” I teased.
“I know I know the answer,” he said, squeezing my hand. “But how does it look in your mind?”
I exhaled. My breath, visible in the winter night’s frigid air, dissipated before I put words to the images in my mind. “I think you and Aleksander were on to something. I like the idea of blowing the two last complexes up. But this time, with bigger explosions. I want the whole country to feel the fall of our oppressors.”
I looked to my partner sister Shawna, who hooked her left arm into mine. She gave an approving nod. We’d planned to drive rental vans to North Carolina, but decided it’d be smarter to fly instead.
“Where are they?” my aunt grumbled. Her feet balanced on the edge of the sidewalk as she leaned into the road to peer left, in the direction our ride should have been visible from by now.
“Be patient,” the nagin, Anwen said. She stood tall, her long black and silver hair framing her dark skin and eyes. “They flew here on their own wings, not a machine’s.”
Renee ignored the British Wild Woman and continued toeing the edge of the sidewalk silently.
We hadn’t wasted much time in Oregon after blowing up their Hunter’s complex and then coming back to a Hunter ambush at our Airbnb. After collecting our things and trying to clean the place up as much as possible—though our new ally the incubus Aleksander was still going to owe repair charges, which we’d fully reimburse him for—we piled into our vehicles and made for the airport. We couldn’t all get on the same flight headed to North Carolina—the flights were too full—so we had opted to use cash and buy tickets to leave the following afternoon. We’d rented hotel rooms under an incubus’s name and Aleksander had his incubi bring the succubis’ things to pick through at the hotel, deciding which items to leave behind and which to take with them on our little east coast excursion.
The harpies left right away, as soon as we made the decision to fly. Last we talked to them, from our hotel room right before we checked out and left for our flight, they were almost home and stopping at a rental car business to borrow a few passenger vans. Eonza assured us they’d be able to pick us up when our flight landed.
Yet, there we stood, a group of Wild Women, two incubi, and a Hunter. We probably looked like we were visiting for a Bad Ass convention.
“I wish we could call them and see how far out they are,” Celeste complained.
Marie kissed her partner’s hand and smiled. “Leaving our phones behind was for the best. Now we’re untraceable.”
“Hey Aleksander,” I said, turning to eye him as he sat on a metal bench beneath the overhang as though it were his throne. He looked up from his hands with a questioning gaze. “Can you feel them approaching? What’s your energy radius when it comes to that?”
He stood. The incubi leader reached over six-foot-two. A smile crept along his lips as he made his way toward us. His black wool overcoat barely shifted against his dark slacks. He looked like New York in North Carolina. He gave me a nod as he passed and said, “You should know better, Faline, than to ask a man his size, energy, or otherwise.”
Marcus stifled a laugh.
I rolled my eyes.
Aleksander stood to the left of my aunt and relaxed his body, his arms falling to his sides. Renee took a few steps back from the curb and joined us in watching the incubus work. My skin tingled in pulses, as though I could feel his energy growing to encompass the surrounding area enough to sense if harpies were nearby. I peered at my sisters and aunts to see if they felt it too. If they did, they didn’t show it.
The incubi leader spun on his heel and addressed his audience. “They will be here shortly.” He casually returned to his throne of a bench, retrieved his carry on, and made his way to stand patiently at the curb.
He couldn’t have seen them when he’d made the announcement, because it was several minutes before the three blue passenger vans stopped at the curb and slid their side doors open.
“Thanks for picking us up,” I said to Salis as I filed into the van along with my coterie, Marcus, Aleksander, another incubus. The succubi climbed into the van behind ours, and the shé, echidna, and nagin boarded the last van in the line.
Salis gave a nod, her tawny ponytail only moving enough across her shoulders to readjust the brown feather woven into a small strand of braid among her tresses. With one sharp movement of her lean neck, she turned back toward the road, hitting the gas the moment Aleksander shut the sliding van door. After exiting the airport traffic and making her way over to the carpool lane on the freeway, Salis spoke. “Once we near town, we will break off from the other vans. Each is going to a separate location.”
“That won’t work,” Renee started in before I could ask Salis to explain her plan.
“We don’t have cell phones to communicate with one another,” Celeste clarified. She probably hadn’t yet realized she wouldn’t be sharing a bed with Marie during this trip, let alone be unable to talk to the succubus leader, who also happened to be her lover.
Salis only stared forward through the windshield. Both my sister and my aunt made statements, so our Wild cousin didn’t respond. She probably assumed the huldras were talking amongst themselves.
I reworded my coterie’s concerns and made sure to address the harpy. “Salis, they’re worried they won’t be able to stay connected to the other Wild Women groups, which is imperative to our mission here. Have you made provisions for this?”
I watched the harpy’s expressionless face through the rearview mirror as she spoke.
“Each house has a landline,” she said.
I figured the harpies would have already thought of everything we needed in the coming days. Unlike the Wild Women on this trip, other than my huldra coterie, they still had a group member missing. Only, we could all accurately guess where their mother was being held. In the North Carolina Hunter complex. Knowing where my mother was being held was a bit more difficult to pin down.
My mother had gone missing when I was a little girl. Up until recently, I’d always thought she’d been killed by jealous succubi, angry at her for mating with a human male their leader had claimed. Multiple times, Marie had assured me her predecessor, who’d trained her to be a succubi leader, never would have commanded such a thing be done. Succubi healed and helped, they did not hurt and murder.
Through my own bounty hunter research skills and Marcus’s gathering of old police documents and Hunter intel, I now knew my mother had been taken by Hunters, along with a handful of other Wild Women, twenty years ago. When the Hunters r
ecently abducted another collection of Wild Women—my partner sister Shawna being one of them—my hunt for the truth began. What I found were answers knotted in oppression masquerading as protection, lies about our kind costumed as history, and the trafficking of women whose humanity had been stripped away and replaced by objectification.
At first I only sought to get my sister back. It was the mermaids who had burned down the Washington Hunter complex. But their pyro tendencies lit a fire within me, an insatiable blaze to destroy each and every Hunter complex in the United States. Not only would I retrieve every Wild held in Hunter captivity, but I’d burn their prisons to the ground in the process.
“Where will we be staying, then, in relation to the succubi galere?” Celeste asked our harpy driver. If, earlier, she hadn’t realized she wouldn’t be sharing a bed with Marie, according to the need in her voice, she did now.
“Your coterie and the shé will stay in town, in the historical district,” Salis answered in her regular emotionless tone. “The succubi galere, will stay at a larger vacation home nearer the mountains. This will keep them away from the human emotions of the town’s population, help them to gain their strength for the battles ahead.”
Damn, the harpies’ preparedness impressed me.
“The phone numbers to the other houses, where your comrades are staying, will be written beside the phone,” Salis finished.
Salis exited the freeway and drove down what I remembered as one of the main roads in town, where I had once booked Gabrielle and I a room at the little motel she deemed beneath her. I smiled at the memory of bantering with the mermaid and wished once again that she’d trusted me enough to tell me why she’d felt the need to double cross the Wild Women by working with the Hunters. I refused to believe she was mean-spirited and wanted us to fail. But she would never be able to tell me. She was dead.
“Isn’t that the motel?” Marcus whispered into my ear in his low voice as we passed the little red building with white trim.
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