“Then why have you been avoiding me?” He had a secret or something he was hiding. His eyes were cast down and shielded by a long veil of lashes.
Since I’d been badly injured a couple of days ago in the battle against Ethos, it had been weird between us. It had to be odd seeing me with that much power, capable of doing magic dark and unavailable to witches, mages, or faes. And the fact that I was the host to a dark power, a Faerie, was probably giving him pause. But I hadn’t changed. I was the same person . . . or was I? Maybe the person I’d turned into wasn’t someone he wanted to be around.
“I have to go.” He pulled at the door.
“Steven?”
“I really need to go,” he repeated in a hollow voice.
I continued to stand in the driveway long after he’d driven away, feeling the weight of my ever-changing life. Just when I had gotten used to my bond with Steven, my magical mentorship with Josh, a unique friendship with Winter, and the odd dysfunctional, adversarial dealings that I had with Ethan, things changed.
CHAPTER 3
After several hours of looking at spells, I’d been spent and needed to take a break. I’d stayed at Ethan’s that night, although he hadn’t come home. I’d tried to think about anything other than the fact that he was probably out looking for Chris. The next morning I was up, dressed, and speeding down the street in one of Ethan’s ridiculously priced indulgences. I’d put a lot of effort in trying to shame him for them, and all I’d received was a look of derision for thinking they were unnecessary purchases. When I’d walked past all of them, the delinquent in me had wanted to put a palm print on the newly washed Bugatti, especially after I’d looked up the cost. I’d settled on the Vanquish. Each time I found myself behind the wheel of one of the ostentatious vehicles, I felt like a total and complete hypocrite. I fought the urge to take back all the merciless taunting I’d directed at Ethan. I understood his fascination with and appreciation for them. The soft, plush leather, and driving them was like floating through the streets, which wouldn’t be an acceptable excuse to give the police, so I had to keep reminding myself to slow down.
I was driving distracted, my thoughts split between everything that was going on and Steven. The witches engrossed most of my attention. They were quiet. I fixated on that because it had been my experience that within their placidity was a waiting storm.
After hours of driving, I realized I needed to talk it through and went to Winter’s home.
“What’s wrong?” Winter asked as soon as she opened the door.
I shook my head. “Nothing, just needed to talk.”
“Do we need to talk about how the phone works? It’s quite simple, you know.” Winter didn’t like unexpected visits. I suspected no one really did, but Winter, unlike most, wouldn’t let you in and would give you a lecture about the beauty of using the phone. I surmised I wasn’t going to gain entry today as she kept the door open just enough for part of her face and body to be seen.
“Do you think Steven’s having problems?” I tried to keep my voice level, but distress caused it to waver more than I would have liked.
She sighed and opened the door. I stepped in and saw the redhead that she had recently started dating. Most beautiful women paled in comparison to Winter, but her new interest was one of the few who didn’t. Her thick, voluminous hair was pulled back by a headband and fell far past her shoulders. Her features were similar to Winter’s—narrow nose, sharply defined cheekbones and jawline—but more delicate in appearance. While Winter was tall and sleek, her new girlfriend was shorter by at least five inches and curvier. I didn’t know her name; I just called her Giggles, because the night I’d met her, that’s all she’d seemed to do. Well, I could have called her Bump and Grind, that was something she’d done a lot with Winter on the dance floor. But that had seemed rude. I’d figured she’d be a short-term relationship, possibly just a one-night stand, because Winter hadn’t offered a name. So I was definitely surprised to see her sitting on Winter’s sofa.
After spending the evening with her and Winter, I was still trying to figure out how they fit. I only knew of one of Winter’s past girlfriends, Abigail, an elf. The first time I’d met her, I could see why Winter liked her. She’d turned out to be a deceitful opportunist who manipulated and colluded herself into power by way of using her brother, but through all that I could see how Winter could be drawn to the intellect, challenge, and intrigue. I didn’t get any of that from her new acquaintance.
“Yasmeen, do you mind if we talk later?” Winter asked.
“Of course not.” She kissed Winter lightly on the lips. But she stood at the door for a moment in contemplation before leaving. Maybe she was considering something, but I suspected she was trying to figure out how the door worked.
“She didn’t know how to operate the door,” I pointed out once I heard her drive away.
Winter rolled her eyes and stretched out on the couch. I sat in the chair across from her. “She was just making sure she had everything,” she said, dismissing my accusation without hesitation.
“You mean like the purse on her shoulder? She’s very interesting.”
“She is,” Winter added with a smile.
“Really? Prove it,” I challenged.
“What do you mean, ‘prove it’?”
“What’s so interesting about her? Hobbies? Job? Conversation? What’s interesting about your new girlfriend?”
She made a face as she considered the question for longer than I expected and came back with a shrug. “Okay, you win. She’s hot. Are you happy? I’m interested in her for a very shallow reason. So what? You and Ethan . . . why? So many whys.”
I took a moment to think, about as long as it had taken her to answer my question. “I make very bad decisions. Have you been watching my life?” I grinned.
Laughing, she sat up and studied me, I assumed waiting for me to give the reason for the visit. “Steven is being cold and distant and I don’t know why.” I kept my voice level and devoid of any emotion.
Winter didn’t respond to maudlin displays of emotion, and if I’d given her one, the conversation would have ended with her telling me to come back once I had could find “my big girl undies.” I needed to talk, and despite all her prickly abrasiveness, she was often very easy to talk to.
With a wry smile, she sighed into her words. “Your relationship with Steven is so sweet that it gives me and everyone else around you a sugar headache. It’s annoying, and that is me being very kind with my words.”
I widened my eyes. “Really? That’s you being kind? Do you know what that word means? I’m sure you can look up the definition quickly. I can wait.”
She glared and gave me a half-cocked smile. When she spoke, her voice was a high-pitched dramatization of my voice. “You’re my bestie.” Then she moved to the side, having a back-and-forth conversation with herself. “No, you’re my bestie. I love you. I love you more, Sky. Let’s cuddle and share this piece of spaghetti in celebration of our love. Here’s your end. Blah.” When she stopped she was the only one laughing at her performance.
“He’s the brother I never had.”
“I understand that. Still doesn’t make it any less annoying.” The smile still on her lips made its way to her hazel eyes, which sparkled with delight.
She slouched into the sofa and crossed her legs. “You’re friends, and there isn’t anything wrong with it. Except for being saccharine and cavity-inducing and crossing a lot of boundaries. It was fine when you were considered a much weaker pack member. Your position as submissive and unranked made your weird and boundaryless relationship work. But it’s not like that anymore. He wasn’t able to change you into your animal when you were injured, which means you are more dominant than him. He’s probably expecting you to challenge him.”
“I would never do that!”
Winter was quiet for a long time. I really didn’t want to wait around for what she had to say because I was sure I knew what it was, and hearing it out loud woul
d be worse than expecting it. “You are expected to—”
“If I feel he can’t perform his position and I can do it better, I’m supposed to challenge him.” I was well acquainted with that rule. The one that would have led to Ethan challenging Sebastian.
I stood, ignoring Winter’s gaze as I walked around her sparsely decorated room. She had a minimalist approach to decorating that seemed to focus on her ability to survive in the event of an attack. Most of the pack decorated this way. Their homes were nothing more than bastions to protect them. A dark blue sofa and a smaller one to her right were easy to negotiate but could be moved to obstruct someone’s path. The leather storage ottoman was placed with the opening facing her—it held enough weapons for her to stage a siege. A casual observer would have never observed that the various knickknacks and decorative things that were in the home were there because they could be used as weapons as needed. I’d often considered this behavior and planning excessive, until Marcia had sent someone to kill me.
The pack’s questionable behaviors and alliances afforded them great power and strength but weren’t without consequences—they had enemies. A lot of them. The lengths they went to in order to protect themselves weren’t as excessive as I’d once thought.
I had moved away from Winter with my back to her, running my finger along a ceramic figurine on a stand when she spoke. “If you ever think you would be better at being fifth, you have an obl—”
“I won’t,” I snapped. I looked back at her; she’d heard the snarl, too. I didn’t mean it. It had just happened.
“Skylar, I understand, no one wants to challenge people—especially those you know, who would rather die than give up their positions—but in the end it’s not about you, it’s about the safety of the pack—”
“Got it.” I was being totally unreasonable and mean to Winter and it wasn’t her fault. She was doing her job as the pack’s third, reinforcing the rules and trying to explain Steven’s behavior, but this was just an addition to the many changes that were happening too fast. “I’m sorry.” I plopped down in the chair, let my head flop back and stared at the ceiling. “There is so much going on and things are changing too fast.”
“And you are changing. You’ve used and have access to magic that no one else has. And you are more in touch with your animal half, you’ve removed dark elven magic from Ethan, and you’ve used magic from the Clostra to kill Ethos. Yeah, things have changed.”
“It’s because I have access to magic that I seem more dominant than Steven. I won’t ever challenge him,” I said.
She nodded and with a faint smile said, “There has to be a magic exemption rule.” It was her placating me and downplaying the situation, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to challenge Steven. He was better than I would be in the position. The rules didn’t bother him—he was the pack’s most devout advocate.
“Things are different even with Sebastian; he’s worried. Sebastian rarely worries because he always has another plan. But now he’s off,” Winter said.
I thought I’d been the only one to notice it. Once again that guilt emerged. Was it the situation with Logan? But it could be innumerable things. There was definitely an adversarial relationship with the Creed. We, along with the Seethe and elves, were now tasked with regulating the dark elves, and Samuel was still trying to get access to the Clostra to do a spell that would remove magic from the world and in essence kill off the were-animals. And there was Kelly. She’d been missing now for a month, and the only lead we had was a dead person who knew her and had been injected with a chemical that mimicked those present when one shifted to a were-animal.
I didn’t know where to start with helping the situation, and based on the scowl on Winter’s face, she didn’t, either. “The longer she’s gone, the less likely we are going to be able to find her,” she said. “We need to find her as soon as possible.”
“I know.”
Winter and I were on the same page, and minutes later we were in her SUV, traveling along the road where we’d seen the man-animal hybrid that had run in front of our car a couple of days ago and then been pulled into a car and driven away. Too many days had passed for us to track him by scent, but we were hoping there would be something that would give us some clues. The other hybrid we’d encountered had died before we could question him.
She inched down the street, surveying the area, looking for anything suspicious. She eventually pulled to the side, and we walked farther away from the road.
“Do you smell that?” she asked. I did. I inhaled the air again. It smelled like medicine—a sedative, a recent one. Who would be using a sedative outside? I saw the footprints and the torn clothes before she did. I leaned over and breathed in deeply. Medicine, footprints, and torn clothing, a bad combination. Someone had escaped, but from where? There were trees and acres of fallow land but nothing else. Ethos had abducted me and taken me underground. Could they be held underground?
“Let’s go farther into the forest,” I suggested. We went to Winter’s car, and she holstered a gun at her side, a knife at her ankle, and another blade at her waist. She dismissed the sharp look I gave her when I saw that there were enough weapons for me to take three knives and a nightstick and still leave a substantial number. I teased her constantly about being over-armored, but at times like this, I was happy that she had a small stash of weapons in the trunk of her SUV. No matter how many times I’d practiced, I was still safer without a gun. I wished I’d brought my sword with me—after numerous practice sessions with it, I preferred it over a knife.
We walked farther into the wooded area, scanning for anything suspicious or peculiar. For nearly half an hour, we moved deeper into the thicket. Adding to the smells, magic brushed across my skin. Unfamiliar magic. Magic had a fingerprint, and people who performed magic could identify the source.
A shot rang out and then a bullet went in the ground just a few feet in front of us. Our eyes jerked up and traveled in the direction it had come from. The shooter smiled. Her familiar dark chocolate eyes, which were once a much lighter brown when she was human, held a sparkle of amusement and menace as she moved them from the scope. She was a vampire now, and I wondered if she still needed a scope or if was it something she did because it was familiar.
Cautiously Winter stepped in her direction. Responding to my curious look, she whispered, “Believe me, if she wanted us dead, we would be.”
“Are we looking for the same person?” the woman asked, jumping down from the tree, her weapon still trained on us.
“I don’t know. Male, early twenties, brown hair,” Winter offered.
We are?
Chris smiled. “Why does my gut tell me you’re lying?”
Because she is. Straight through her teeth.
Chris never dropped her gun, keeping it on us. “You can put that away,” I suggested.
But she didn’t. She looked at me for a long time, then her attention slipped over to Winter. “I’m on a job.”
“Okay.”
There was a long, tense pause as she slowly lowered her gun. When Winter took another step, she jerked it back up and focused it on us again.
“I’m looking for a missing young man, and you?”
Winter remained silent.
“Kelly,” I blurted out, and Chris dropped the gun. I knew she would. She was alive because of Kelly. Ethan had made the decision to let Chris die instead of changing her to a vampire. That was something Kelly couldn’t stomach, so she’d gone against Ethan’s and Sebastian’s wishes and helped Demetrius change her.
“How long?”
“Almost a month.”
“Fuck.” She cursed several more times under her breath. “How could you let her stay missing for a month?”
“We didn’t let anything happen,” Winter snapped, taking a step toward Chris. I moved between them, surprised it had remained civil this long. The standoff between Winter and Chris extended past what was going on. I wasn’t sure what it was rooted in; maybe each w
as vying for the crown of Queen Bitch and felt the other one was the only real competition. They were so much alike, it was inevitable that they would either really love or hate each other—they chose the latter.
“When was the last time she was seen?” Chris directed her question to me. I wasn’t sure why I gave her the abbreviated CliffsNotes version of everything, reducing what happened with Kelly—being paralyzed by the Tod Schlaf, an elven creature used for assassinations—to just a “personal problem.” A personal problem that had caused her to request a leave of absence, which the pack had granted, to give her adequate time to deal with it. I didn’t tell Chris that we’d assumed she’d fled from us and that it was warranted. Nor did I tell her about Gavin being constantly on edge since Kelly had gone missing. I’d reduced Kelly’s disappearance to a “leave of absence.” I waited for guilt to do its thing and ping me. Nothing. Did I feel like I was protecting the pack? But from what, a few scathing remarks? Or was it the fact that Kelly had been under our care? The pack had assumed responsibility for her, and now she was missing. It was a slight to the pack.
“Was the ‘personal problem’ being bitten by the Tod Schlaf?” Chris’s tone was sharp.
From behind me, I heard Winter take a ragged breath. “Yes.”
Now there was no longer a need to give her the abridged version. I told her about the man running out in front of us, the car that had picked him up and gotten away, and the half-wolf half-man that had ended up at my neighbor’s home, looking for Sebastian and carrying Kelly’s ID with him. I described the man, and Chris sucked in a breath, which as a vampire she didn’t need. She exhaled it along with a string of curses.
“Was that the guy you were looking for?” I asked.
She shrugged, and then she was gone. Dropping the gun at my feet, she’d run. Unlike her creator, Demetrius, she didn’t have the ability to travel. All I saw was the back of her shirt and jeans as she ran with vampire speed, nearly undetectable to the eye, just a blur.
Moon Cursed (Sky Brooks Series Book 5) Page 4
