by SM Reine
“I understand you hexed his woman,” Gideon said.
“Not exactly.” She didn’t think werewolves were interested in the finer points of magickal technique, but she also didn’t want to be accused of something she hadn’t done. “I did not hex an entire person.”
“What…exactly…did you do then?”
Lilith bent and scooped the torn shirt remnants from the carpeting, hugging them to her chest when she was done. They smelled of day-old grease and soapsuds and reminded her of Benny. “You could say I merely added a little something to the mark Owen had already placed on the female. Like an overlay. It wasn’t designed to have any effect on the mark itself.”
“Why did you do it? Did you want her for yourself or are you into threesomes?” That dirty smirk came back on Gideon’s face, and she wanted to slug him.
“You sniffed the woman. What did you sense?” Lilith snapped.
Gideon glanced at Owen then back at Lilith. “The blonde?”
Owen nodded.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Gideon’s tone was low and deadly.
Owen shrugged.
With a casual swipe, Gideon backhanded Owen, sending him sprawling. The were bounded to his feet, eyes blazing and fists clenched.
“You should have told me about her,” Gideon said. “Fortunately, I am not so old that I can’t recognize the scent of a marked-but-unbonded female. So you marked her, but that was all.” His lips curled into a sensuous sneer. “You couldn’t rise to the occasion?”
Fury rippled off Owen in waves so powerful Lilith could almost see them.
“The witch tampered with the mark,” Owen ground out. “As soon as I discovered it, I…halted…the mating.”
Gideon shrugged. “So? Why didn’t you kill the witch and keep the female?”
“I could not do so without bringing the wrath of the seraphim down upon us all.” Owen’s gaze lasered on Lilith. “She is said to belong to Gaebryl of the peaks.”
“Said to?” Gideon asked sharply. “Don’t you know?”
“No, my lord.”
Lilith’s silver rune heated while the alpha growled, his fingers clenched into a fist.
“You’ve scared my were, witch,” Gideon said, “and made his balls shrivel. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re playing with me,” Lilith said, smiling even though fear made her throat tight. Gideon was nearly a foot taller and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. Even if she could spit out a spell or reach her trusty baseball bat in time, he would kill her before she could mount a defense.
At some point in the conversation, Remy had moved into place behind her. His presence was oddly comforting.
Gideon’s eyes were dark and deep as he studied Lilith. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble. More than you’re worth. My old friend, Landelarc Sable, may well fight me over this mess. I would be very sad if I had to kill him. We’ve been friends since childhood. Worse, he will see his brother’s actions this day as a betrayal.”
“You could have turned him down, not accepted him,” Lilith shot back.
“No, I couldn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter. The wolf made his choice,” Lilith said. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Owen barked a bitter laugh. “If not for you and your damned hex, none of us would be here now.”
“My hex has nothing to do with any of this,” Lilith insisted. “If the packs want a war, you’ll find an excuse, but don’t blame me.”
Gideon loomed over Lilith. He didn’t touch her, but the threat in his stance, in the tension that radiated from his massive body felt as real as a gut punch. “I want the whole story, witch.”
There was no such thing as lying to an alpha as powerful as Gideon Black. Lilith took a breath and spoke, feeling like she was diving off a cliff. “Once the woman bonded with the were, the magick of the hex would make me part of the bond. In effect, a member of the pack. As such, I could request a seat on the Council of the Kinraven.”
Gideon blinked and his shoulders relaxed. Lilith discovered she could breathe again.
“Witches are represented on the council by the seraphim,” Gideon said mildly. “It has always been that way.”
“As I’m sure Landelarc Sable will understand that you’re merely representing Owen since his submission to you.”
For a moment, she thought she saw something hard flash in the alpha’s eyes, but his voice was calm. “Do you or do you not belong to Gaebryl of the peaks?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Since I was eight years old.”
He took her chin in his hand, and lowered his face to hers until she flinched and tried to draw in on herself. Only his fierce grip held her. “Do you think my lord Gaebryl will fail to notice the fact that you have polluted his link to you by the addition of the human female with your damned magick? Did you think of the consequences before you involved an innocent in your schemes? I am only an ignorant were, but even I know that seraphim are not famed for their kindness.”
“I have lived with the kindness of seraphim all my life,” Lilith spat. “I would never have allowed Tasha to be harmed.”
He released her with a gesture of disgust. “Why are you so certain you could ensure her safety?”
She lifted her chin. “Because once I have taken my seat on the council, I will bring Gaebryl up on charges. He and all seraphim will face justice for their crimes.”
Gideon stared for a moment, and then laughed. It was a loud sound that boomed across the empty room.
“You find the cruelty of the seraphim humorous?” Lilith asked.
“No, I don’t, but you have balls witch.” He threw Owen a disgusted glance. “More than this pup.”
He turned to his second-in-command, Bear. “Bring me the damned female.”
Owen stepped forward. One side of his face was still red from Gideon’s blow. “Tasha doesn’t know anything. Dragging her into this will only confuse her more.”
“Is she dim-witted?”
“No.”
“She doesn’t know…what…I am,” Owen said.
Gideon sighed. “You marked her without her consent?”
“Yes, I mean…no. What I mean is…” Owen stammered.
Gideon lifted his hand as if to hit Owen again, but seemed to think better of it.
Lilith jumped into the gap of silence. “She consented, but she doesn’t remember. If I talk to her, perhaps I can find out what happened.”
Gideon, Owen and Remy all stared at her.
“It’s the least I could do to make…amends,” she added.
Wow, making promises she might not be able to keep and to an alpha. Her life had just hit a new low.
“What a fine mess. I should kill all of you simply for causing so much trouble.” Gideon raked a hand through his hair. “This is what we will do: bring the woman before me. If she is satisfactory, I will take her.” He cut a glance to Lilith. “And you will have your seat for all the good it will do you. I suspect my lord Gaebryl might kill you himself over this, but it will save me the trouble.”
He turned to Owen. “You will bring your brother before me at the next full moon where I will take his submission.”
Owen paled.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Gideon snarled.
Owen’s shoulders slumped. “No, my lord.”
Gideon waved a massive hand at Lilith. “Go get the woman, but remember this: once I take her, you are mine, as well.”
Lilith swallowed. “That’s not how the hex works.”
Red suffused Gideon’s face and his voice boomed. “If I want your opinion, I will ask for it. Now go before I change my mind.”
Lilith fled the room.
CHAPTER TEN
Lilith saw Benny first.
As she pushed her way through the crowd, she sensed that the energies in the bar had shifted in some indefinable way while she’d been in the back. They were darker, edgier. More…scattered.
If the flows were music,
they would be modern and atonal, a discordant piece that grated and irritated. If the night were a movie, this would the moment when something bad happened, yet all she saw was Benny bent over a table, wiping furiously while four women pointed at the mess on the floor of spilled liquid and broken glass.
“You all right?” she asked Benny.
He bobbed up, a startled look in his pale blue eyes. “This is bad,” he breathed. “Really, really bad.”
Lilith flashed a professional smile at the disgruntled customers. “I’ll get a busboy out here right away to clean that up.” She turned and waved Misty over. “To make it up to you, how about a round on the house?”
Misty arrived, tray in hand, and Lilith didn’t hang around.
Tasha McNeil had vanished.
There was no way in hell Lilith was walking back into the banquet room to face Gideon Black again without her.
She made one complete circuit of the bar, including the terrace that fronted the beach, but found no sign of Tasha.
Chanting an internal shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, Lilith charged out the front door and looked up and down the street. Parking space was precious, and Chill’s official lot had room for about twenty cars. Lilith saw no sign of movement there.
She walked north a few blocks and turned left down a side street, heading for the area the city had converted to public parking. A bald guy in a red plaid shirt and stained khakis slumped on a bench, muttering to himself while he had both hands lifted, palms up, waving them back and forth as if polishing an invisible screen.
“Hey,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she spoke louder. “Hey buddy, you see a woman come by in the last little bit? Blond, about five-six?”
His hands froze, and his head tilted to one side then the other as he regarded her. “They’re over there, and they want in.”
Lilith sighed. She had seen the likes of this guy too many times over the years. Too smart for his own good, probably underemployed and endlessly ignored by women. They came to the beach hoping to get lucky, but failed to see the hard truth that they weren’t any more likely to attract a woman while on vacation than they were in their normal habitat. The only difference between this guy and the others was that he had fallen too far into his own delusions for anything resembling mental health.
She smoothed a hand over her hair, tucked a stray lock behind her ear. “The woman,” she said again, “you see anybody?”
“They probably got her,” he said mournfully and turned his attention back to the sky.
“Who do you think got her?” she asked.
He pointed. “Them.”
She followed the invisible line from his hand upward to the power lines arcing across the street. Huge black crows perched side-by-side, filling every available inch, solid black shapes against the deep blue of the night sky.
Watch out for them crows. I seen big ‘uns today. Whoo-ee!
Lilith frowned. Benny was always yammering about crows, but they congregated all along the coast. Nothing special about that. There was probably a logical explanation for this particular nocturnal behavior, and if Lilith had a scientist handy or her smart phone, she’d dig up an answer, if only to shut up the annoying voice in the back of her head that screamed this is weird!
She didn’t have time for anomalies or sad drunks. There was enough high strangeness in her life that she had conjured all on her own, thank you very much.
Now, where the hell was Tasha McNeil?
In the distance, a car door slammed, followed by a string of curses and high-pitched laughter. It floated over the trees from the general direction of the parking lot. Twin beams of headlights cut the moist night air, and an engine revved.
Lilith broke into a jog.
A silver four-door Kia edged out of a parallel parking space and into the street. A finger of light from the street lamp illuminated Tasha’s determined face above the steering wheel.
“Tasha,” Lilith yelled, still running and waving her hands. “Wait!”
She trotted into the street, intersecting the Kia’s path. It screeched to a halt and avoided hitting Lilith by less than a foot. The driver’s side window buzzed down. Tasha stuck her head out and yelled, “What is it with you? Do you have a death wish or something?”
Lilith ran around to the side and rested her hands on the car door. “What’s the hurry?”
Tasha gestured toward the passenger seat. The redheaded woman sat with her head lolled against the headrest, her hands loose in her lap, her lips parted with a drizzle of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth.
“Had a bit too much?”
“No,” Tasha said firmly. “She’s sick.”
“Probably nothing a good night’s sleep and the hair of the dog won’t fix. Come back inside, and I’ll give you one of my hangover remedies.”
“She only had two drinks,” Tasha insisted, “and they were more frou-frou than booze.”
“Tolerances vary a lot from one person to the next,” Lilith said.
“There’s something wrong with her. I’m going to take her back to the hotel and see if they can find a doctor.”
Lilith shook her head. “Not at this hour. Not on a weekend.”
“I guess I could take her to the Emergency Room,” Tasha said, “but I just met her last week at the spa. I don’t even know if she has insurance.”
“She looks comfortable,” Lilith said, trying to keep the doubt from her voice. The redhead looked wrecked, but it wasn’t her issue. Gideon Black was probably wearing a hole in the banquet room carpeting about now. If she didn’t get Tasha back there soon, he’d send his weres after her.
“She can sleep in the car. If you come back inside, I’ll help you get her to the hotel afterward.” As if on cue, a car pulled out of the city lot. “See? It’s meant to be.”
Tasha frowned. “Did you get the answers you promised?”
“Yes,” Lilith said.
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“It’s a lot to take in all at once. This isn’t the place. Besides, they only want to talk to you.”
Tasha pursed her lips. “That’s it? They just want to talk?”
No need to break the news to Tasha just yet that Gideon had generously offered to take her off of Owen’s plate like she was an extra slice of prime rib.
Modern woman that she was, Tasha might believe she had the right to determine her own fate. So that was going to be a problem, what with weres thinking their primal habits trumped anything from the so-called civilized world. Lilith wasn’t fond of weres, but she had to hand it to them—you always knew where you stood with them.
Unlike the lyr.
Unbidden, the memory of Remy’s lips on hers surfaced, and a wave of heat suffused her body.
She shoved it away ruthlessly. She didn’t have time for stupid indulgences. Besides, who was she to say what Tasha did or did not want? Let the woman make up her own mind. If possible, Lilith would help her on that score. At least go with her to talk with Owen and Gideon. No matter the habits and customs of the packs, women had a right to make their own choices. Because, who knew? Tasha had allowed a werewolf to mark her in the first place, which meant she’d given her permission whether or not she remembered doing so.
That meant she was way more adventurous than she looked. Maybe Tasha would be into Gideon. A lot of women wouldn’t think twice about jumping into bed with the big were.
Lilith said, “The only way you’re going to get complete answers to your questions is to go back inside and talk to Gideon and Owen.”
“Gideon? Was he the one…?”
“Yeah,” Lilith said. “The big guy who kissed your hand.”
“Oh,” Tasha said softly. “Is he one of…the gang?”
Gang?
Lilith sighed. “With werewolves, it’s called a pack, and yeah, Gideon is a werewolf. Head werewolf, in fact.”
“Werewolves.” Tasha laughed nervously. “That’s so bizarre, but I guess it’s no big deal what they call their li
ttle…club. I guess you’re right. It’s always good to talk things out, and I’ll feel better going home with answers. I hate leaving things hanging. I’m kind of OCD that way.”
Lilith waited while Tasha guided the car across the street and into the recently vacated slot, got out and hit the fob to lock the doors.
When the other woman hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the sleeping redhead in the car, Lilith said, “She’ll be fine.”
“This won’t take that long, right?”
“I hope not,” Lilith said.
“Okay.” Tasha took a deep breath and released it. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
McSweeney’s Roadhouse across the street was playing blues. Following Tasha as they walked back to the bar, Lilith’s stride fell into sync with the music. She liked the sound better than the ancient rock blasting out of Chill, but maybe that was because she listened to it every night she worked. The huge colored bulbs on the retro movie theatre marquee flashed in rolling sequence and couples strolled hand-in-hand along the sidewalk.
Perfectly normal night.
So why didn’t it feel normal?
She had a feeling of exhaustion combined with tension, but she blamed it all on the damned weres. Her abilities were always off a little when she was tired, and dealing with werewolves took more energy then they were worth.
She followed Tasha past the bench where the guy in the red plaid shirt had been waving at the sky a little while ago. He must have moved on, but in the place where he’d been seated lay a huge white feather.
Tasha noticed it as well, because she looked back and said, “What is it with the seagulls around here? They’re huge.”
“Yeah,” Lilith said absently.
She paused, studied the feather without touching it then scanned the sky. It was a clear night, the stars twinkling in all the right places. The moon hung low over the ocean. In the distance, a helicopter thrummed, but it was only a red light far away. Nothing else moved across the horizon.
