Under the Bayou Moon

by Gynger Fyer

  “We will get her back.”

  “I promised her,” Draike crumbled, burying his face in his hands as his shoulders shook. Too much had happened over the last few weeks. His emotions were all over the place and eating him up inside—worry over Marko’s missing boys, the agony of watching Stevie die in his arms, his fear for Franklin. Now, Olivia was gone. He had reached his breaking point. Losing his mate, having her torn from his protection, ate at his soul. His heart ached with his guilt. “I promised to keep her safe, and I failed! He has her back, and he’ll make her pay for everything.”

  “He knows we’re coming. He’s betting on it. He won’t have time to hurt your mate.”

  “I swore she’d be safe, Max. That’d she’d never fall under his control again.”

  “I know, son. I know.” The door clicked shut, leaving Draike and Maximus alone in the kitchen. He resisted, but the ancient vampire was stronger.

  Maximus pulled his hands away and cupped his cheeks. “Listen to me well, Draike William Weatherby. We will find your mate. I’ll take this city apart stone by stone if I must, but Olivia will come home to you. Do you hear me? I refuse to allow you to know the pain I have known. The loss that eats at your very soul every day you wake and your mate is not beside you. I refuse!”

  The silence grew in the small kitchen as he stared into Maximus’ crimson eyes. The vampire hid it well, but his eyes revealed the depths of his pain. Maximus deeply mourned the loss of his mate, Francesca. Draike’s fingers dug into his friend’s shoulders, seeking and granting comfort. His mate was out there, alone, with the very madman that reduced her to the broken, beaten female he first met.

  He loved the quiet joy in her eyes, her laughter, and her acceptance of his touch. He couldn’t bear the thought of Loomis stealing that away. With a sigh, the fight drained from Draike’s shoulders and he leaned back in the chair. He scrubbed a hand over his face and through his messy hair. Though he stared at the ceiling, he pictured Olivia in those first days.

  “Dr. Matthews put over twenty-five stitches in eight different cuts on her back. She told me the bastard prefers whips and floggers, though he’s willing to mix things up if he feels she’s growing too accustomed to the pain. Then he’ll use a cane, crop, or even a poker. When he’s particularly irritated with her, the world, or life in general, he’d use a barbed flogger. A bloody scourge.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Maximus rocked back onto his heels as his talons tapped against the arms of Draike’s chair.

  “It took four days before the swelling around her eye receded enough for an ophthalmologist to check for damage without causing her pain. It took over a week before she stopped flinching away from a loud noise or the softest touch.” Draike’s voice was soft, tired, and incredibly sad.

  “We will get her back, Draike. I swear it.”

  “I want him to pay.” Tears crept from his eyes to dampen the hair at his temples. He mourned for his missing boys, abused by Loomis and left for the rats to dispose of. He wept for little Stevie Belkin, who breathed his last in his arms. He wept for Franklin, forced to choose between becoming a vampire and dying. He wept for his mate, and the scars on her body and soul time might never heal. Rage welled inside him to murderous levels. “I want him to hurt. I want him to crawl and beg like a puling, simpering worm.”

  “I’ll help you make that happen, just don’t become the monster you hope to destroy. Olivia cares for you, son. Don’t make her scared of you.”

  “If she’s scared, that means she’s alive. I could learn to live with that. What I can’t live with is the thought of…If he…I can’t lose anyone else, Max!”

  Maximus laid a hand on the back of Draike’s neck, pulled him forward, and rested his forehead against his. “She will come home to you, Draike. I swear it upon our friendship. I swear it on my love for Francesca. You deserve some happiness.”

  Draike closed his eyes against his friend’s pain. A pain that was a mere shadow of what it had once been. As his tears dried up and determination pushed aside guilt, he offered the vampire a wan smile. “So do you, my friend.”

  “Perhaps…some day.” Maximus frowned but shook his head. “In the meantime, you owe me a litter of grandkits.”

  “Shifters do not deliver furry babies, you crazy vampire.” Draike chuckled and wiped his eyes. “Thanks, Max.”

  “Anytime, son.” Maximus pulled the shifter from the chair and wrapped him in a tight bear hug. Thumping his back, the vampire pushed him toward the door. “Let’s get ready before the twins return. Svetlana may not be dressed, and a towel can hide only so much in the face of such beauty.”

  Draike headed for the room Maximus reserved for him. He chose dark clothing to blend into the shadows and avoid curious human eyes. Though the trousers were loose enough for his hybrid form, the shirt wouldn’t survive even a partial shift. He shrugged and tossed it on the bed. He’d sacrifice more than just a shirt to have Olivia home, safe and well.

  Olivia. He stepped into his pants and jerked them over his hips. Svetlana was an uncanny judge of character whose skills were in great demand. Agencies used her to root out moles; governments used her to sniff out traitors. Zoya and her sister believed in his mate’s strength. He had to as well. Grabbing his shirt, Draike pulled it over his head. William taught him to embrace his fear and use it to push him to do better. There had never been a better time to utilize his teachings than now.

  He emerged ten minutes later dressed and under control. The delay taunted him with images of Olivia in her first days with him but he swallowed his impatience. Blind searching would accomplish nothing and take even more time. He passed the foyer on the way to the kitchen when the front door opened to admit Zoya and a very naked Svetlana. Though his heart already belonged to the lovely girl his fox had claimed, the rest of his body responded with a visceral appreciation of the delights on display.

  “We get your mate from that bastryook tonight.”

  “That what?”

  “Loomis,” Svetlana hissed. “That fatherless son of a filthy whore. I hope he feel my fangs, the way he talk to your mate. I dress. You eat. Then we go.”

  Draike bristled at the order but continued to the kitchen. He built a protein-heavy sandwich and wolfed it down with a tall glass of milk. Then he made another. Nothing had any taste, but shifting took a lot of energy. He cleaned the few dishes to kill time. He even checked the clock to make sure it worked. Growling, he grabbed a liter of water from the refrigerator and waited for Maximus and the twins in the living room.

  “To answer your earlier question.” Maximus entered the room wearing a pair of black cargo pants, a deep burgundy shirt, and tactical boots. He stalked toward the wet bar and poured a glass of blood from a warmed carafe. “I keep a fully stocked kitchen because of you, dear boy. When you came to my home all those years ago, the first thing you asked for was a meal. Until then, I never kept food in my house because of the waste of throwing it out. After you moved in with William, I continued to do so in case you stopped by.”

  “That’s a lot of food to buy just in case.”

  “True, but I’ve also borrowed your housekeeper on occasion.” He drained his glass and refilled it, swirling the thick liquid in the crystal bowl. “When the food is in danger of spoiling, she—and now, the effervescent Betsy—come over and cook up a sturdy stew or soup. We package it in throw-away containers, with a spoon and whatever bread is threatening to turn into a science project, and my coven distributes it to the homeless along the river.”

  “Careful, Max, or your reputation as a ruthless businessman and killer will slip.” Draike raised his bottle of water in salute, surprised at the generosity of his vampire friend.

  “Somehow I doubt that.” Maximus grinned, showing off his fangs.

  The Mirror of Her Power by R. F. Long

  The line went dead, and with a shrug of her shoulders, Mia tucked the phone back into her pocket, wondering what was taking Balthazar so long. He couldn’t want her to leave it here. Besides
, she needed a signature.

  “Hello? Mr. Balthazar?”

  He’d never left her hanging around like this before. Normally he was here, eager to snatch whatever it was from her hands. She was never quite sure what to make of him. The way he acted, he should be a miser of a hundred and ten, but he couldn’t be much older than her own twenty-five years. Just obsessed with weird shit—antiques, occult objects and paraphernalia, trinkets, and strange toys.

  Looking around for another bell or something, she approached the pane of glass. No sign of anything or anyone. She turned away.

  But out of the corner of her eye, something moved. A white shape reflected in the glass—no, in the glass itself. Mia stared at the shapes, daring them to do it again. The slow, dull ache of a future migraine pulsed in her head as she tried to focus, and she was forced to look away.

  Mia blinked and reached out, pressing her fingers to the glass, partly to assure herself of its reality and partly to check if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

  A shadow moved overhead, cutting out the meager sunlight that found its way into the courtyard, and a chill ran icy fingers over her skin.

  The glass split, peeling apart like strips of silver birch bark. She watched, bewildered. Some kind of new, high-tech system she’d never seen before. But it didn’t move like technology. There was something so organic about it, almost musical.

  “Mr. Balthazar?” she called, aware that her voice didn’t sound so confident anymore.

  “Yes,” he called, distracted and distant, from inside in the darkness beyond the opening. “Come in, bring it with you. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  An old man, that’s what he sounded like for sure. She shook her head. Did he even listen to himself?

  She couldn’t see anything at all besides a dark lobby and the corridor beyond it but fought the urge to tell him so. She stepped inside, and the strange doors slid back into place behind her.

  “I’ve a parcel for you, Mr. Balthazar, from the museum? I need a docket signed.”

  She slid her hand back to the phone, hoping to hit the autodial if she needed to, hoping she wouldn’t need to. Of course, she wouldn’t need to. But still…

  Another shadow lurched out of the darkness, clapped his hands together, and the lights flared bright like flashbulbs as they came on all around her.

  He was gorgeous. She had thought that the very first time she saw him. But there was more to it than that. He was somehow unobtainable. Distant. He kept everything and everyone at arm’s length. Dark hair fell over his emerald-green eyes, casting them into shadow so they appeared to burn. His features were finely sculpted, as if by a master, but he bore the shadows of old cares and worries in the lines between his eyebrows. He looked like he ought to be in his late twenties, or perhaps early thirties. But he seemed so very much older than that.

  It was his eyes, she decided, looking at him now. His eyes were ancient.

  “Well, let’s see it, then.” Always such a charmer as well. That must be part of the attraction.

  She thrust the parcel at him, unable to delay any longer, and he all but snatched it from her hands, pulling open the seal and taking out a small, slim box. It was plain, completely unadorned, but Balthazar looked at it like it was more precious than gold.

  With his attention off her, Mia began to recover herself, and the slow creep of embarrassment slid through her veins. She watched him run elegant fingers over the side of the box, and it opened. Light came from inside, spilling out to define his face in the shadows.

  His sensual mouth drew up into a smile, and the faint lines around his eyes crinkled with delight. He looked almost boyish, just for a second.

  “Wonderful.” His voice was no more than a breath, but it rippled over her skin, making her shiver. Her stomach tightened, and a lick of flame followed the line of her spine. Cold, green flame, like his eyes.

  Mia swallowed hard and found her voice. “Mr. Balthazar?” She pushed the pad at him a little too late, spoiling her professional tone.

  Balthazar looked up from his prize, frowned as if trying to place her and then blinked, surprised to find her still there. He snapped the box closed in one hand and put it behind his back. Something flickered in his eyes, guilt or shame perhaps. An instant later, he shielded his emotions, all expression gone. “Let me put this somewhere safe. Won’t be a minute.”

  “I just need you to sign, and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Just wait there. It’ll only take a moment.”

  Before she could argue or agree, he was gone, back into the shadowy hall, leaving Mia alone in silence.

  Great.

  She shifted from foot to foot, waiting, irritation mounting by the second. Good-looking or not, it didn’t forgive rudeness. But clearly he didn’t care. Where had he gone now? He wasn’t about to vanish off without signing, was he?

  “Mr. Balthazar?” she called.

  No answer. She took a couple of steps forward and then paused, thinking better of it. She couldn’t exactly go wandering through his house—or whatever this mausoleum was—in the dark.

  Damn it, where was he?

  Her eyes strained to see through the half-light beyond the entrance, which was still far too bright, and tried to make out shapes from the shadows. That looked like a coat stand and that like a suit of armor. There were huge paintings on the wall, bigger than Riley’s plasma TV. And a cabinet like something you’d see in a museum.

  A small movement snagged her gaze on the middle shelf of the cabinet—a little jerk of motion, like someone trying to attract attention covertly, or give directions with no more than a flick of their eyes. Reluctantly, but intrigued, Mia took a step toward it. She shouldn’t, she knew that. Not because of regulations or common sense. Not because it was someone else’s home and she didn’t know him. Not really. Not enough to wander through his house on her own. Not so he would be comfortable with the idea. Not because of anything rational. She just knew, as if every instinct was screaming at her to stay put and wait.

  But she couldn’t.

  Reaching the cabinet, Mia peered through the dusty glass. She rubbed some of the outer layer away with her finger, but it didn’t help much. The glass squeaked as she rubbed harder. There were so many objects in there jumbled together, but each one was marked with a slip of paper. Mia squinted at the nearest, but she knew neither the script nor the language. A strange code of squiggles and dots like nothing she had ever seen before.

  Her breath misted the glass as she breathed, and behind the fog something moved again. Quickly wiping the glass until it squeaked at her, she peered closer, leaning in until her head banged off the glass, and she jerked back with a stifled cry.

  Mia knew she shouldn’t, but her hands acted before her conscious mind could catch up with their intentions. She opened the cabinet door to try to get a better look at whatever it was that was trapped in there. Because, logically, it had to be something alive to move like that.

  A spiral twist of silver rocked toward her. It had a snake’s head carved at one end, with two little garnets for eyes. She stared at it, bewitched by its impossible movement. It must be off balance, rocking with some indiscernible vibration she caused just by standing there.

  She breathed out a sigh and put out her hand to stop it. The tail lashed out, and the tip sliced into her fingertip like a blade, drawing a bright bead of red blood after it. Mia gave a yelp of surprise and alarm.

  The snake looked up at her, blinked its garnet eyes, and a miniscule silver tongue flickered out, tasting her blood.

  Transfixed, Mia watched the silver snake uncoil itself, hissing as it shook its slender body and unfolded gossamer wings. It reared up, hissed again, and shot straight at her like an arrow from a bow.

  Mia screamed and threw her arms over her face, an instinctive shielding reaction. Cold metal struck her, lashing itself around her arm, tight and cold, burning against her skin.

  A hushed and expectant stillness descended over the room. Mia lowered her gua
rd, movement by movement, waiting for—well, after all that, anything could happen. The silver dragon, with its knife-sharp tail, garnet eyes, and tiny wings folded against the body was just a bracelet, coiled around her arm. It didn’t move. But it shouldn’t be there. It shouldn’t have moved at all.

  Her finger ached, blood dripping from the cut. She brought it to her mouth, sucked it to dispel the pain, and the taste of her blood filled her mouth. Her mind lurched inside her skull as if it didn’t belong there anymore.

  She forced herself to breathe. It hurt.

  “What have you done?” Balthazar’s voice came out of nowhere, and her heart made the escape attempt the rest of her longed to, slamming against her ribs as she turned to face him.

  He was right behind her, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes blazing with annoyance.

  “Nothing. I didn’t mean to. I just—” She tugged desperately at the bracelet, but it wouldn’t budge. Rather, it seemed welded to her arm, caught there. With rising panic, she tried to pry it off with her fingernails, but all she succeeded in doing was scratching the skin beneath. “Here.” She thrust her arm toward him. “Get it off me.”

  But Balthazar didn’t move to help her. He just continued to stare, his breath deep and even, his hands hanging by his sides.

  “Even I am not powerful enough to remove that.” His gaze rose to her face, curiosity blending with the austerity in his eyes. “Who are you?”

  “I’m just the courier. I’ve been here no end of times.” She wanted to back away, but the cabinet—and dear God knew what else was in there—was right behind her. She had nowhere to go. And besides, she didn’t back away from anyone. Ever.