by Rain Oxford
“Thanks.” I hung up and put my phone away. “They’ll fix the elevators soon.”
“Oh,” Karen said sadly.
“What’s that ‘oh’ for?”
She shrugged. “Well, the first time I met you, you were shooting out someone’s tires. Then, when I was kidnapped, you came in with high-tech weapons and a laser cutter thing. I was kind of hoping for some more James Bond moves.”
I laughed. “You like danger too much. It’s not fun running into a drug lord or stumbling into the middle of a gang war on my way to get coffee.” That was why I had a coffee machine in my office and apartment.
A moment later, the light flickered back on and the elevator started moving again. When the door opened, I recognized the wolf shifter as one of the two who arrested me when Regina went missing. Fortunately, it wasn’t a real arrest and I wasn’t a suspect.
“How did you get here so fast?” he asked. He was a tall, thin man with immaculate blond hair and a too-thin face.
“I was here already. What’s her condition?”
“Ms. Paris is stable.” He glanced worriedly at Karen before leading us to the room. He obviously wanted to tell me what happened, but Karen didn’t know anything about the paranormal world.
The room was private and there wasn’t a mark on Regina, who was asleep on the bed. Karen picked up the chart. “They said she was attacked, but this says she had a heart attack.”
“Karen, can you give us a minute?” I asked. She frowned doubtfully, but turned and left. “What happened?”
“A wizard appeared out of nowhere and shot a burst of energy at her. I attacked him, but before I could get a good bite, he vanished.”
“Let me guess; he vanished into a shadow-like form.”
He nodded. “I had to do CPR, but I got her heart started again before the ambulance arrived. As strong as that wizard was, I think she got off easy. I don’t believe it was meant to kill her.”
“Why were you with her?”
He grimaced. “Well, it was my night off. We were…” he looked away, “having dinner at my place.”
“You’re dating?”
“You’ve been divorced for---”
“I’m not angry,” I interrupted. It was entirely possible that Regina had changed her ways and was ready to commit herself to one man. Or it would be if it was anyone but her. “Just be careful.”
I felt an odd sensation and ignored Jefferson’s response. Darwin was able to force open a mental link between us and even use my magic through me due to his intelligence and uncanny understanding of magic. Henry was rarely able to create a connection, but I could sense him trying. I opened my mind to him and my vision instantly changed.
His sight was much like my gargoyle’s in that his vision was based on movement and could see light differently than humans. I could feel in his mind that he was unable to move and very worried about Scott, who was sitting on the couch. Henry was in the living room, frozen, as someone searched my apartment.
The attack on Regina was a trap.
I wasn’t the only one who saw this, however. My familiar was constantly aware of me, and I saw him appear in front of Henry. My vision changed to see through the gargoyle’s eyes and, unlike Henry, he could see the essence of the Dothra wizard. It looked like a person covered in wisps of black smoke.
Instinctively, I summoned up the deepest anger I could draw upon, formed it like I would fire, and struck. Red lightning hit the wizard and he vanished. He had escaped, but only barely. He was gravely injured.
That was when my mind returned to my body and I found myself sitting in the chair beside Regina’s bed. The shifter looked both sick and terrified. “It was a trap to get me away from my apartment,” I said, standing.
“Your eyes turned white and you started emitting some kind of red electricity. Is that normal for wizards?”
“Don’t worry. I need to go. Stay with her, take care of her, let me know if you need help.”
“So you’re okay with me and her?”
“Absolutely. Good luck.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, I unlocked my door and entered my apartment. Henry and Scott were both sitting on the couch, Henry with a mug of coffee and Scott with hot cocoa, and neither of them were talking. “Are you both okay?” I asked.
“We’re good, Uncle Devon,” Scott said. “Rocky showed up and unstuck us.”
All wizards had a familiar, but few had one as strong as mine. Hunt’s familiar was Rosin Flagstone, a powerful wolf shifter from the same world Henry’s mother was from, and Krechea had some other kind of person or shifter as a familiar, but those were the only cases I had seen where the familiar was more than an animal until I called mine.
My gargoyle saved my heart from a vicious curse within minutes of our bonding. Supposedly, I had a lot more powers left to be discovered, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to discover them.
Henry patted Scott’s head. “Let Devon name his familiar.”
“Can I name my familiar Rocky?” Scott asked.
“Shifters don’t get familiars, Kitten.”
He frowned from his father to me. “Can I be a wizard, too?”
Henry’s eyes widened and he looked at me for an answer. I opened a link between us. “I’ll talk to Hunt.”
“The wizard went into your room, but I couldn’t follow him, so I don’t know if he took anything. At the time, I was preoccupied with worry over Scott. He was probably after you.”
“No, it was his intention to get me out of the way; he attacked Regina. He didn’t kill her, though. He could have killed you two and her. It’s odd.”
“Why did he go after Regina instead of someone who actually means something to you?”
“Maybe because she was my wife. Maybe he thought I still love her. I don’t think this wizard knows anything about me.” I went to my room to see that everything was exactly as I had left it.
Henry followed. “The wizard appeared out of the shadows, so he was surely one of Krechea’s shadow walkers. Why would he get you out of the way and search your room?”
“Either he wanted to find out something about me or he wanted something I have.” Fortunately, I kept nothing important here; I kept my magic books and items in a secret compartment in the morgue of Quintessence.
Well, all but my most powerful magical tool.
“I might know what he was after, and he didn’t get it.” I never toyed around with my wizard’s staff, and I damn sure wouldn’t leave it where it could be stolen.
* * *
Astrid wore a red leather top that showed more skin than it covered, including her midriff, and emphasized her very well-formed breasts. Her pants were black leather, as were her spike-heeled boots. Her hair was in one long braid over her left shoulder and her eyes were almost glowing green.
We were back in the main room of the Dothra castle, where Vincent had stopped me from trying to save her. This felt more like a dream than a vision.
I pushed her against the cage gently. “You’re coming home with me.”
“What about the tower?” she asked.
“Let me worry about the tower.” I kissed her. It was great, comfortable, and lacking all at once. Astrid was everything I ever wanted, and everything I ever hated. I would save her because she needed to be saved, not because I wanted her for myself.
“What is it you want?” she asked, pulling away.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want more than anything? What’s most important to you?”
When I took the key to one of the four doors in the tower, I had to sacrifice what was most important to me. I still hadn’t found out what it was, but I thought it was being able to save Astrid. “You,” I said instead of what went through my mind. Why I said that, I couldn’t be sure, but my instincts warned me not to say anything else.
She smiled darkly. “I can work with that.”
Chapter 2
I woke to a gentle pressure on my chest and a
semi-familiar presence. Undines were the first elementals I had ever met and easily the most helpful, since they represented water. Although they could appear however they wanted to, I had only seen them six inches tall with fairy wings.
There were only two undines I knew; Adesra and the one who had tried to seduce me by disguising herself to look like Remington. Unfortunately, she ended up poisoning me. When I opened my eyes, I was unsurprised to see her sitting comfortably on my chest. She looked very similar to Adesra, except her hair, eyes, dress, and wings were purple, whereas Adesra’s were blue.
This time, however, she was frowning at me with disapproval. “When did you start wearing clothes in your sleep, Devon Sanders?” she asked.
I moved my hand slowly to pat my jeans, relieved that she hadn’t magically removed them. I hadn’t bothered to take them off before I fell asleep. “What do you need?” I asked. She flapped her wings and floated up into the air, so I sat up. “What are you doing so far from the lake?”
“I came because you are the only one who would be willing to help us. Adesra was destroyed.”
I felt a little stab of shock and horror in my gut, followed by the attention of my familiar as he wondered what was so bothersome. “What happened? I didn’t know elementals could die.”
“We cannot die, Devon Sanders. That would require us to be alive. Adesra was destroyed by a man of hate and greed. You know the being I speak of,” she said. I nodded, knowing the elementals were afraid to say Krechea’s name. “You must defeat him before he destroys everything that this world is made of.”
“I will. How many elementals has he killed?”
“Only Adesra.”
“Why would he kill her?”
“To get to you,” she answered. I didn’t speak, so she went on. “Dothra wizards are creatures of trickery, Devon Sanders. You must question everything you see and everything you hear.” With that, she vanished.
I got up, dressed, and found my cell phone missing. When I stepped out of my room, I wasn’t surprised to see Scott eating breakfast at the coffee table and watching cartoons. Henry set two plates of food on the table and returned to the stove to put the dishes in the sink. I got us both coffee and paused when I saw the time.
“You looked like you needed the sleep,” Henry explained, still facing the sink.
I set the coffee on the table. “I don’t buy that.”
He sighed, grabbed a notebook off the counter, and sat down. “You left your phone on the table last night and Regina called, demanding you pay for her hospital bills. I told her I would call her back when you woke up.”
“If she calls back, tell her that the only time I would pay for her hospital bills is if I get to put her there myself.”
He checked the notepad. “Mrs. Thomas called and said that her husband is going to a business meeting in D.C. this week, but the hotel he’s supposed to be staying at said they never heard of him. She wants us to spy on him because she thinks he’s going to spend all week with a secret girlfriend.”
“Mr. Thomas is a wolf shifter, but he’s faithful to his wife.”
“Wolf shifters are known to dislike hotels. He’s probably sleeping in the woods,” Henry said.
“He’d need a shower. I bet that’s why he has a gym membership; even if he doesn’t need the gym, they all have showers.”
“A man who didn’t want to reveal his name over the phone called and said that his company has been hacked and he thinks one of his formulas was stolen. Lastly, Stephen called and said he needed our help. Discreet help.”
Stephen was the only vampire coven master I knew and fortunately, he didn’t hold it against me that I hated vampires when we first met. I knew from the students at Quintessence that he was a patient and kind ruler, yet absolutely ruthless towards his enemies. Like Hunt and Maseré, he was a deceptively wise man, although he and Hunt both had a tendency to cause chaos just for fun. Since he took in Marcus after my friend’s conversion into vampire-hood, I felt I should at least listen to his problem.
“Okay. Call Darwin and ask him to pick up the nameless man’s case. I’ll send Rocky to spy on Mr. Thomas just in case.”
“You named your familiar Rocky?!” Scott asked excitedly, jumping up and down with childlike energy.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I go? Nobody would recognize me and I can turn invisible.”
“No, you and I are going to go help Stephen.” I updated him on Julia’s situation and told him to call the motel, book another few days, and get a message to her that I’ve been delayed. After eating, I took a shower and got ready to go.
“Are you sure it is safe to leave Scott with Maria, after what happened to Regina?” Henry asked when I entered the living room. Scott was practicing in a penmanship book that my mother had given him.
“Well, we can’t take him with us. Isn’t the sapling still running? Maybe Hunt can watch him there.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my instincts warned me against it. “On second thought, I think leaving him with my mother is the safest place.” Especially since the little cottage she was in was set up by Marcus and her live-in nurse was one of Maseré’s wolf shifters. Nobody would know by the shifter’s unassuming appearance that he was an experienced warrior.
“Why can’t I go with you?” Scott asked, approaching the table and crawling into his father’s lap.
“It’s too dangerous, Kitten,” Henry said. “Why don’t I take him to Maria’s and you take the expressway to Stephen?”
By “expressway” he meant the shadow pass, which was a very dangerous, very quick means of transportation that I was supposed to be able to do since I got one of the four keys of a magic tower. Unfortunately, the key didn’t come with instructions. “Why not just call him and ask him what he needs?”
Henry sighed. “Because Clara believes you and Astrid had a falling out and she wants a chance to seduce you.”
I gave him my best deadpan stare. “That’s why you don’t want to be there when I go.”
He shrugged. “You seemed to have gotten over your prejudice against vampires. Clara is a female who isn’t Astrid.”
Clara and I had gotten off to an even worse foot than Stephen and I. Hunt’s second in command when I first started at Quintessence had been trying to get vampires on her side to overthrow Hunt. Not realizing that Stephen was good friends with Hunt, she tried to recruit the coven master’s daughter. Clara went along with it in order to protect the alliance between Hunt and her father, but she did so without explaining the situation to the headmaster. Thus, when I was hired to investigate murders that appeared to be the fault of vampires, I had no idea she was on Hunt’s side.
“Glad you feel that way, because you’re going to be there to make sure she doesn’t try anything.”
* * *
After fighting Regina every day of our marriage, I just wanted to be done with her by the time we got divorced. For that reason, I didn’t fight for anything and she got my house, which had been passed to me from my mother. When I discovered how bad my mother’s assisted-living home was treating her, I regretted letting Regina get the house.
Her health began deteriorating when I started attending Quintessence, but she was doing better without Regina and her previous live-in nurse around. The problem was that she still couldn’t do things like go to the store or take care of utilities. Fortunately, Maseré’s pack was able to help.
While I was at Quintessence, Maseré found my mother a three bedroom, two bath house in a quiet, safe neighborhood near my apartment. The décor was modern, yet not her own. I was pretty sure it was what they put in homes to give them more sell-appeal. All the yard and housework was also taken care of.
What really helped was her new live-in nurse, Kyle. Darwin did an extensive background check on the young shifter and told me to never let him go. I thought the man was too docile to be a wolf when I first met him, but Maseré and Darwin both promised that wasn’t the case. Henry was with the guy for five minutes before assuring
me Kyle was more than strong enough to protect my mother.
As Henry got Scott situated in the spare room and Kyle cooked dinner, my mother and I visited in the kitchen. Both my mother and Kyle adored Scott and loved when he stayed with them. Of course, everyone loved the kid.
“I really hope you will visit more after the wedding,” she said.
I winced. “What wedding?” I hoped she didn’t think I was getting married.
“Regina’s wedding. Kyle told me she was marrying one of his brothers.”
I looked at him. “I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry; I’m not even considering letting her near Maria,” the shifter promised. “I’d like to talk to you about your mother’s medicine.”
I nodded and followed him to the bathroom. Talking about medicine always depressed her and she preferred not to hear it. “Are they giving her nightmares again?”
“No. Sorry, but I lied. It’s not her medicine I need to talk to you about.” He shut the door. “The other day, she told me that she really wanted you to make up with your girlfriend, that you haven’t been the same since your fight.”
I groaned. “She never saw the bad side of Regina and me.”
“I thought she was talking about Regina at first, too, but then she told me your girlfriend was your childhood friend you grew up with. She said your girlfriend lived next door to us but only came over one time. She was… very unclear after that. I don’t know what she was talking about, but I got a feeling I should tell you.”
I nodded. “Yes, thank you for letting me know. Give us a minute alone.” I returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Her easy-going expression was gone, as if she could feel the tension. “You knew about Astrid?”
She reached over and patted my hand. “Of course I knew about her; I’m your mother. You and her used to sneak off at night.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I liked what she did for you. You never had friends in school and your father was no role model for you. When you met her, you started smiling and you gained self-confidence. Your father was a cruel bastard, so I couldn’t keep you from seeing her.”
