by Simone Sinna
Were-Devils of Tasmania 2
Were-Devils’ Revenge
A curse from a doomed love torn apart by war and bigotry looks set to rebound, as Mac and Mitch Mortimer, two were-devils, are intent on exacting revenge for their dying sister against an ancient order of ghost vampires who infected her.
On ghost territory in tropical Queensland, they come up against more than they bargain for—close encounters with the ghosts, a gathering of the ghost clan, and a matriarch with attitude, to say nothing of the feisty Gabriella Vitali, who they have both fallen for before they realize she’s one of the enemy.
Gabriella in turn finds herself torn between loyalty to her family and her love for two men from the enemy clan who are threatening to kill those she loves. As prophesized, they are each faced with a choice that will either help end the curse or ensure it reverberates through generations to come. Will revenge or love triumph?
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 30,736 words
WERE-DEVILS’ REVENGE
Were-Devils of Tasmania 2
Simone Sinna
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
WERE-DEVILS’ REVENGE
Copyright © 2013 by Simone Sinna
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-133-6
First E-book Publication: January 2013
Cover design by Christine Kirchoff
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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DEDICATION
To the scientists who are dedicated to helping the endangered species around the world.
WERE-DEVILS’ REVENGE
Were-Devils of Tasmania 2
SIMONE SINNA
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Queensland, Australia, Present Day
Gabriella Vitali had a problem. The supermarket had delivered the entire order at once, rather than keeping the refrigerator items separate for the late delivery when she had the helicopter booked. Now, dinner for the entire resort was in danger of melting on the dock. The oyster shells were glistening in the sun, and it was only 8:00 a.m. The weather forecast was for brilliant blue skies and eighty degrees, so no help there.
Pete, standing on the boat, pushed his cap back and looked up at her.
“Bit of a fuckup really.”
That was an understatement. Not only had the suppliers delivered everything early, her two able-bodied helpers had gone AWOL. The call of the surf, they had told Pete. Gabriella made a note to blacklist them. It would take her and Pete at least two hours to get it all on board.
“Let’s at least see if we can get the oysters in the fridge,” said Gabriella, bending over to pick up a crate. Behind her she heard a long, low whistle. She probably should not have bent over. Her shorts were at best skimpy. She stood up and turned around, glaring. Ten yards away, leaning on another boat were two men enjoying the view.
The taller of the two, the one with a cocky expression and long, black hair swept back and curling at the back of his neck, smiled at her. The other, with the short cropped hair, was maybe an inch or two shorter and just as hot, T-shirt straining over biceps and pecs that suggested significant dedication at the gym. He had the grace to look embarrassed.
“You boys just training to be assholes or are you able to put those muscles to work?” Gabriella tossed her unruly, dark-red curls over her shoulder and looked directly at them.
The bodybuilder grinned. “Think that’s my cue,” he said. “Feel free to join me, bro.”
So they were brothers? Gabriella didn’t think white men called themselves bro unless they really were brothers, but then there was something unusual about these two that she couldn’t quite pick.
“Pay is twenty dollars an hour,” she said, aware that the long-haired Lothario deliberately brushed his arm past hers as he bent down to get a box.
“Do we get to do more than move boxes?” Lothario asked, eyes on her and mouth flickering in amusement. Damn. She should be thinking about slapping him, so how come she suddenly wondered what it would like to kiss those lips? He seemed to read her mind, and the smile broadened. In the same instant, she realized what was unusual. She was so used to men’s baser thoughts that she automatically blocked them. But now that she was trying to look into his head, she couldn’t. She turned away quickly, not sure what to make of it.
“Are you looking for jobs?”
“Maybe,” said the bodybuilder.
Gabriella turned back to them. “I’m the assistant resort manager at Dream-maker. Feel free to send me your resumes.”
With that she left them to the packing while she made a phone call to tell her suppliers she wasn’t going to pay.
* * * *
Tasmania, Australia, a Week Earlier
Mac was bored. Really bored. For the first time, even his job wasn’t inspiring him. In fact the brats from one of his classes needed a good spanking. Trouble was that half o
f them would think that was a great idea and line up for it, so long as he was doing the honors. He was getting sick of love-struck teenagers thinking that he really cared if they hitched their gym tunics up so high you could see their underwear. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women—on the contrary. But he liked women, not schoolgirls. Maybe it was time to take a job at a boys’ school so he could concentrate on teaching.
Mitch read his mind. Throwing a weight at his brother, he moved to the bench press.
Mac caught the weight effortlessly. “Shut up.”
Mitch grinned. “But you need a woman, little brother,” he said. “It’s been too long between samples.”
“Which is more than I can say for you,” replied Mac dryly. “Little” brother he wasn’t. People at the gym called him Big Mac. A couple of inches shorter at just under six foot, true, but he would be at the gym long after Mitch left, working on the muscle breadth which was in abundance compared to Mitch’s wiry frame. “Are you still with Finola or was that last week’s?”
“Finola was ages ago,” said Mitch. “Right now there’s this hot chick down at the…”
But Mac wasn’t listening. Mac sent his brother the message wordlessly. Danger. Mac sat up, grabbed his towel, and wiped his face, eyes never leaving Mitch’s. Mac was better attuned than his brother and more focused.
“Melody.” Mac didn’t have to say any more. Melody, their sister, was calling them. Rare enough at any time, and not ever something to be ignored.
“Where is she?” Mitch asked as they threw on their jackets.
The answer that had come to Mac was almost as mystifying as the call. “Auntie Kate’s.”
Auntie Kate wasn’t their aunt at all, rather the name of a shop, and its owner who was a type of honorary aunt to all the Tarrabah clan. Though she was now in Hobart, not far from the gym, rather than the northeast wilds of Tarrabah, she still kept in touch with them all. Melody, too, it seemed.
Outside the wind was howling. They didn’t bother with the car, taking off at a sprint. Even if they hadn’t already been warmed up, the weather wouldn’t have bothered them. Mitch was faster, the marathon runner, the climber and sailor. Mac was the diver, boxer, and martial arts expert. Both were in good enough condition that they were barely breathing any harder as they came close to the docks where Auntie Kate’s shop was tucked in between sandstone buildings.
Mac pulled up short of their destination. A few paces farther on, Mitch, seeming to sense his brother’s reticence, stopped, too.
It was dusk, and the streetlights were already on, shining through the fine rain which the wind tossed about them. No one was on the street. Mac looked sharply over to his right where parklands held avenues of thick-branched trees with knotted trunks. Brown leaves were deep on the ground. He tilted his head slightly, and they both moved stealthily across the road behind cars.
Then Mac was aware his senses were tingling. Destroyers. The name came to his mind even though he had never seen one. He knew more than he cared to about them. Mitch took one tree and he the other. Both had transformed by the time they hit the first branch, their dark fur and white streaks blending in with the trunk so that they were all but invisible. Mitch almost got him, the translucent, white figure that took off out of the tree just in time. The ghost rose, wingspan vast, as green eyes stared back down at them both, laughing as he disappeared into the mist.
Melody. Neither were-devil said a word, but minutes later Mac and Mitch threw open the door of Auntie Kate’s.
* * * *
Melody Mortimer was feeling on top of the world. She was in love. With the decimation of her kind in Tarrabah she had given up the idea that she would ever fall in love and marry, but from the moment she saw Curt she had had eyes for no one else. True, he was human, but the contagious cancer was killing the were-devils, and it was only a matter of time before they were extinct. She was beyond worrying about it. In her twenty-eight years she had been to more funerals than she cared to count. Maybe they should just die out and then the whole curse could be forgotten. She didn’t care if the ghosts won. She just wanted a life while she could.
Curt had proposed, and she hadn’t told anyone. Trouble was, she hadn’t told Curt about her rather unusual family. How did one go about saying “Oh and on some nights for fun I turn into a devil and race around the wilds of Tasmania?” So she was coming to ask Auntie Kate’s advice. If she had asked anyone in Tarrabah, the gossip would have been out before she had left the room. It took all her strength to block her thoughts, and even her best friend wouldn’t put that much effort in to keep her secret.
Kate was a wise seer whose mother had advised their grandmothers. She knew all about the curse and the ghost Destroyers and were-devils. Melody was pretty certain she knew about cases of intermarriages. Her family was not going to be happy, but it wasn’t like Curt was a ghost.
Kate’s shop was one of her favorite places. It was so full of knickknacks that there was hardly any room for customers. The tables were laden with treasures, stones and shells, rocks, and even a tree branch from which hung tinkling bells and glittering jewels. In the magic section, a stern-looking wizard stared out of a frame, overseeing the collection of witch and wizard hats, spell books, and stories of magic. Melody took a deep breath in, and the musky scent immediately made her feel at home.
“Auntie Kate, are you there?”
Melody heard a door click as it closed out the back. When Auntie Kate came in through the multicolored streamers, Melody expected a warm reception. Instead, Kate looked stricken.
“Child, whatever is it that you are doing here?” Kate was shaking her head, the stones hanging off her earrings chattering softly.
“I need some advice,” said Melody, faltering.
“You must go, and quickly in case there are more.”
“More?” Melody frowned. Whatever was Kate talking about?
Kate looked around her, as if whatever there might be more of could be in the room with them. Melody felt her pulse quicken. She couldn’t sense anything, but then she’d never been into the games her brothers had. Right now she was wishing she had been.
“Jarrod Tremain was just here,” said Kate, as if this explained everything.
Melody certainly knew who Kate was talking about. The were-devil group, some distant cousins, who had left Tarrabah against the town’s will and set up in the South of the island. Jarrod’s father had been searching for a scientific answer to the virus contagion for the better part of thirty years. He was something of a joke. Everyone knew that the ghosts had gone and left them to die and the only way to rid themselves of the curse was to go north and annihilate them. Trouble was there were not enough of them left to do that.
“I want to get married,” Melody said.
Kate frowned. Her body moved slowly, bells jingling as her ample hips edged around the counter to come closer to Melody. She took the girl’s hand and muttered, shaking her head. “Not today, not now,” she said. “There is too much disturbance for me to see clearly.”
Melody sighed. It looked like she wasn’t going to get her answer after all. As she left, Kate added, “There are hard times ahead. Have courage.” It looked like the answer might be a long time coming.
Melody went back to her car, deep in thought. She was thinking of Curt and wondering if she could marry him without revealing her secret. Darren hadn’t known Samantha was a witch after all, in Bewitched, when he had married her, and he’d learnt to deal with it. She was too preoccupied to notice the ghost bat gliding silently above her until he was on her. As she passed out, all she could see was his green eyes as she sent an SOS message to her brothers.
* * * *
“Where is she?”
Kate looked with alarm at the Mortimer brothers.
“She just left. Watch out, there’s a—”
But the brothers had turned and were no longer listening. Kate hurried after them, grabbing a large were-devil stone as she left, muttering a spell that she hoped would offer
Melody some protection.
Mac got to her first, scooping Melody in his arms as if she was weightless, and letting out a howl as he saw that she had been bitten. The other two stood next to him around Melody, oblivious to the pouring rain that washed away the first of their tears.
* * * *
The mood at the Mortimers’ was tense. They were all still grieving, all the while trying to help Melody feel there was hope when none of them felt there was any at all. This family was the last that had been unaffected. Now all the were-devil families would have a first-degree relative to die at the hand of the Destroyers’ disease.
Mitch decided he couldn’t stand being in the house a minute longer. Mac had escaped some time earlier, so he went in search of him.
Mac was by the river behind the ranch house, a wide, deep river with a strong current that in milder weather and happier times they had all, Mac, Mitch, Melody, and their sister, Misty, swum and played in.
Mitch was expecting anger, but instead he sensed an almost chilling calm. He knew his brother well enough to know that this meant something. The last time he’d made a decision like this, Mitch had found himself dragged around the world diving. He didn’t think this time was going to be so much fun.
“I can’t stay here,” said Mac, still looking into the deep recesses of the dark water in front of him.
“You’re going to piss off and leave Melody?”
Mac turned, his eyes blazing. “Melody is the sweetest person I know. She didn’t deserve this. I can’t help her, but maybe I can bring an end to this. Or at the very least to the one who destroyed her.”
