by Renee George
His eyes danced to the bed and back to me. "It certainly is." His gaze took on a darker note that made my stomach flutter.
I shook my head. "None of that nonsense," I told him. "Why are you here, Grady? You said you were picking me up for lunch not breakfast."
"Good morning, Eliza" he said.
He was close, too close. I felt that wash of power and warmth cover me like my favorite blanket on a cold night. Werewolves were supernatural. What I was feeling had to be a side effect of some kind of magical juju or something.
I rubbed my upper arms to ward off the intensity of my desire to kiss Grady. "Whatever you're doing, stop it."
He gave me an odd look. "What is it that you think I'm doing?"
"I'm not playing this game with you." He knew what he was doing. The man was extra sexy, and he was using werewolf mojo to mess with me. I put several feet of space between us, hoping the warm feelings of affection and lustful feelings of erotic need would dissipate with distance. They did not.
Grady closed the door, effectively cutting off my best chance of escape. I went to my bag and pulled out the Luger.
"Are you going to shoot me?"
"Maybe," I told him. "If you don't hurry up and tell me why you're here."
"I had a dream about you last night."
"I had a dream about horny, hungry hamburgers."
His eyes bugged a little then he laughed. "You what?"
"Never mind," I said. "So, you came here because you had a sex dream about me. If you think that is going to make me drop my drawers for you, you have another thing coming." It didn't matter if I really wanted to fling my panties at him. And I did. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Damn it.
Olivia and Charlotte were big fans of sex if all the noises coming through the old vents in David's farmhouse were an indication. I was never so glad for Charlotte and Jared to get their own little place built. It sure cut down on the amount of "Oh, God, oh, yes," Elise and I had to listen to. Even still, I wasn't foolish enough to throw my virginity, as much good as it was doing me, at a man who only wanted to use me.
"It wasn't a sex dream," he said. He shifted uncomfortably. "I sometimes see things when I'm asleep."
"What kinds of things?"
"Things that sometimes happen within a day or two of the dream."
"Are lycanthropes psychic?" I'd never come across any information that indicated that to be the case, but I’d also believed a werewolf could tell if I was turned on just by scent.
"No. I'm not a psychic." He shook his head, looking lost. "They say my mother had visions. I don't remember her that well. The picture in the office is the only one that I know of, and she died a couple of weeks after it was taken."
"How awful." I hugged my arms to my body. His only reminder of his mom was also a reminder of her death. In a way, Elise and I had served as that same kind of reminder to our Poppa and sisters. "My mom died giving birth to me and my twin." I don't know why I said it, it but it seemed to ease him a bit. Sometimes people just needed to know that it was okay to feel grief, even old grief. "Your mom was beautiful," I said, remembering the raven-haired woman. "What was her name?"
"Lara," he said.
I smiled. "It's a nice name. I think you look more like her than your dad."
A sly smile tugged at his lips. "You think I'm beautiful, huh?"
Yes. "No," I said. "Quit putting words in my mouth. Now, tell me what this dream was about, and why it made you knock on my door at eight in the morning."
"We were running."
"Running? That's my least favorite activity in all the world."
Grady shook his head. "We were heading up the hill to Lover's Leap--"
"Are you sure this isn't a sex dream?" He gave me a flat stare. I threw up my hands. "Fine, continue."
"We were being chased."
"By what?"
"Lycans in full transformation, but something else. I think they were canid, but otherworldly somehow."
"Well, that sounds just terrible. Then what happened?" I sat on the bed, my feet dangling over the side.
Grady sat down next to me. "We climbed the fence at the top of Lover’s Leap."
"Climbing, my second least favorite activity." I said, wishing I could keep my mouth shut. I took Grady's dream seriously. I'd seen too much supernatural in my time not to, but the man made me nervous, and a nervous me was a rambling me.
"It was a small fence," Grady assured me. "We walked to the edge of the cliff. The threat was so real I felt it everywhere.” He looked down at my lap then reached down and took my hand. "You looped your fingers in mine. You said something. I can remember your mouth moving and making words, but I can't remember what you said. But I do remember how it made me feel."
"How did it make you feel?"
"Calm," he said, his gaze now on mine. My pulse jumped in my throat and my heartbeat picked up speed. "And," he said after a brief hesitation. "Loved."
I choked back the small noise of emotion struggling to escape. "That's so weird," I said hoarsely. "Then what?" My voice pitched up an octave.
Grady flexed his fingers around mine. "Then we jumped."
"Jumping is my third least favorite activity," I said as I tried to calm the squeezing feeling of anxiety building inside me. "Then what happened?"
Grady let my hand go then. "I woke up, so I'm not sure."
Another knock at the door had Grady jumping to his feet. "Are you expecting someone?"
"My sister Olivia. I called her last night about the imposter."
The knock came again, this time coupled with, "Eliza, wake up!"
I winced. "I'm not much for mornings." At home, I rarely rolled out of bed before ten a.m. "I'm coming!" I shouted.
Grady's body was tensed, still ready for action.
"Settle down, big fella. She's not the woman who ran off with your pack's money," I told him.
"We'll see."
I strode to the door and flung it open. Olivia stood there wearing a red blouse, black jeans, and her signature four-inch heels. She also had a duffle bag, big enough to carry a body in, slung over her shoulder. "It's about time. Wait. You're dressed. What the hell took you so long?" She craned her head to look past me in the room, and she gasped when she saw Grady standing near the bed. "Eliza Marie Madder," she hissed. "You have a man in your room."
"Where?" I heard, right before my sister Elise stepped out from behind Olivia. She gave me an apologetic smile, then said, "Surprise."
Olivia shoved past me, dropped the duffel inside the room and stalked toward Grady. She thrust her hand out to him. "I'm Olivia, Eliza's eldest sister. And you are?"
"Grady Conrad," he said, shaking her offered hand. He looked over Olivia's head at me. "You're right, not the Olivia who stole our money."
"You're Grady Conrad?" Olivia asked. She turned on me with an extremely annoyed glare. "What are you doing sleeping with the guy you are supposed to be marrying off to someone else?"
"Why, Olivia!" I exclaimed. "I am not sleeping with anyone."
Elise nudged me and winked. "Hubba hubba. I wouldn't be sleeping either."
Olivia balled her fists on her hips. "Fine, having sex then."
"We are not having sex," I said with great irritation. I didn't want to be having this conversation. Not with my sisters, and definitely not with Grady in the room. He, on the other hand, looked highly amused. "I'm glad you find this all so funny," I told him.
He chuckled. "It was definitely worth the price of admission."
"He's so handsome, Eliza," my twin whispered.
"He's also got excellent hearing," I whispered back. Grady was grinning at this point.
Elise shrugged. "It's not like he doesn't know."
"Truer words have never been spoken, sister dear."
Grady rolled his eyes. "It's nice to meet you, Olivia. The real one. Not the one that bilked my father out of pack money."
"That would be Sandra Barstow," Olivia said. "She was a minion for the s
ame demon lord I had made my bargain with a hundred and fifty-one years ago, and she is a thorn in my side."
"Plus," Elise added, "she stole Olivia's favorite purse."
"That too," Olivia agreed. "It's probably why her credentials looked legit. My forger is the best. I checked my credit score after I got off the phone with Eliza last night." Olivia threw up her hands. "That bitch has racked up almost twenty-thousand dollars of debt using my name."
"Wait a minute," Grady said. "One hundred and fifty-one years ago?" He turned a baleful gaze on me. "Just how old are you?"
Chapter 8
"There are two things you shouldn't ask a lady," I said. "Her weight or her age, but if you must know, I'm one hundred and sixty years old."
"On our next birthday," Elise corrected.
"Which is only a month away," I added. "So, close enough."
"You really aren't human, are you? None of you are."
“Neither are you,” I told Grady.
Elise frowned. "I am. I'm what my brother-in-law Jared calls 'resurrected'."
"Jared is a necromancer," I said as way of explanation.
"And he brought you all back from the dead?" Grady asked.
"No." There was a lot to explain, but I wasn't sure how much I wanted Grady to know about me. He was betrothed to Carol Ann, and every time I was around him, I lost sight of the job I'd been sent to do. "Leonard brought me back from the dead. It's why I'm his minion now."
"You made a deal with a demon to come back from the dead,” said Grady. I couldn’t discern his expression. Was he disgusted by the idea I’d been a ghost or that I was older than sin?
"It's not as simple as that," I finally said.
“Damn, right.” Olivia shook her head. "Demon lords target not just what you want, but what you need. Eliza thought she needed to save me, and she made the deal to separate me from my bargain with Moloch, and as an aside, she got safe passage back to the living for Elise."
I understood her impulse to talk for me. She'd taken on a lot of responsibility as the eldest sister in a family with no sons. And when Poppa died...what she went through to keep us together was a testament to her sheer force of will. Still, if anyone was going to tell Grady about me, I felt it should be me. "It's my story, Liv."
Olivia raised her hand. "I apologize for overstepping, Eliza," she said before handily changing the conversation. "Now, Mister Conrad, what can you tell me about the treacherous woman who conned your father?"
Grady went into great animated detail about Sandra Barstow's greatest hits. It seemed she'd read a message from Harold Conrad on a forum called, landoflostsouls.com, where he'd asked if anyone knew about breaking deals with devils. Sandra had contacted him via private message and showed him enough anecdotal evidence to prove she was the Olivia Madder who'd managed to free herself from her own bargain.
"She had my wallet and my fake I.D." My sister furiously paced the floor. "I can't believe I was so stupid. It never dawned on me that she would steal my identity."
"You should have canceled your credit cards and set up a fraud alert for your social security number," said Grady.
Olivia stopped and gave him a chagrinned look. "In my defense, a lot happened shortly after Sandra stole my stuff. I died, then I trapped a demon lord, I was brought back--"
"By the necromancer?" Grady asked.
Olivia pursed her lips at me. I shrugged.
"No," she said, "This was before Jared joined the family. It was good old-fashioned CPR. Then after that, my dead sisters, who'd been ghosts for almost a century and a half walked in wearing flesh and blood bodies. And on top of that, the social security number had been a fake. When I was ready to get new IDs and such, I just got another fake one."
"Got it," Grady said. "Sandra became a distant memory, and you went on with your life while she went out and started pretending to be you."
"How many other people has she bilked out of their savings using your name, Olivia?" asked Elise. "This can't be an isolated situation."
Olivia groaned. "I'm ruined!"
"It's not like folks know where you live," I said. "Besides, they only need to take one look at you to know you aren't this other woman."
"But they could take it out on my family before they find out it's not me. I have a child now, Eliza." She stomped her heel on the carpet and the bottom tipped flared out with silver spikes. "Oops." She picked her foot up and depressed the button that retracted them.
Grady raised a brow in question.
I smiled. "That heel is made of silver, and when used as a weapon, it goes in easy, then fans out to make sure it stays in." A shiver of revulsion ran through me as I recalled the time she'd lanced a demon through the eyeball. Taking the eye out of the socket had created a disgusting mess. "And when she does take them out, it is beyond unpleasant."
He looked from me to my sisters then nodded. "I pity the creature who underestimates your family."
"Don't pity them," Olivia said. "They are all back in Hell where they belong." She took a pad of paper from her purse and plucked a pen from the nightstand. "What did you say the address of that website was again?"
Grady left. Olivia set up her laptop at the desk in the corner of the room, while Elise and I huddled on the bed.
"Tell me what's going on, Liza." She pushed her shoulder against mine. "I feel so..."
"Isolated," I filled in. "Yes. Me too."
"Then why are you shutting me out?"
"You have a chance, Lise. A chance at a real, normal life. No matter how much I miss you, or you miss me, keeping you out of my business is the only way to give you that gift."
Unexpectedly, she laughed. "You're daft, sister, if you think that I can have a normal life. I'm a woman out of her time. Over the years, we saw glimpses of this world through Olivia’s adventures, but nothing prepared me for all the modern technology and even scarier, modern ideas. And navigating all this without you by my side has been even harder."
"My world is too dangerous. I don't want you to get caught up in one of my messes and get yourself killed."
"First off, I'm pretty tough, if you haven't noticed. David and Olivia have been teaching me hand-to-hand combat, along with weapons training. I've helped Ray with a lot of research as well. Just because you aren't involving me in the 'family' business, doesn't mean I'm not involved."
I hadn't realized she'd been training to fight. It surprised me. Elise had never been squeamish, not like me. All the yucky stuff that made bodies work and not work fascinated her in a way that I would never understand, but I'd never thought of her as, what Olivia would call it, kick ass. "You should move away from us, Elise." Saying the words cut me deep, and I saw the pain mirrored in my twin's expression. "Just to get some distance. You're right. You can't have a normal life surrounded by the damned."
"Olivia's no longer damned," she said.
"As long as Moloch is in the stone, she’s safe from him and Hell," I said. "But I have a feeling that a demon lord that strong might someday find his way out."
"Don't say that," Elise said. "He'll never get out."
I ignored her protests. "And Charlotte is still damned. She has to stay locked away on that farm, her soul magically tied to her husband, so that Lord Kobal can't reach her. Her only reprieve from Hell is that her husband is immortal as long as he doesn't give his life away. But demons have been around since before time. They are clever, manipulative, and evil. And they have long memories. Kobal will never forget about Charlotte." Tears crested her eyes, and I put my arm around her shoulder. "And Leonard will never let me go. And in ninety-nine years, I will join him in Hell." I hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but I wanted her to understand that she deserved a better life than the one I'd made for myself. "Make my demon bargain worth it," I said more gently. "Go and live."
Elise's ears turned cherry pink, her mouth set in a grim line, as her eyes narrowed on me. She shrugged my arm off her shoulder and stood up. "I never asked you to make a bargain on my behalf. It makes me sick
to think that you feel like I somehow owe you this fantasy life you've built in your head for me. I have my own mind, Eliza Marie, and I will not have it dictated by you. I will do what I want, and if that means I join the family business of fighting supernatural evil, then I will do just that. Do you honestly believe I could just move off and live a life without you?"
I was too stunned by her rage to answer.
She drew in a long breath then in a calmer voice, she said, "I am sorely disappointed in you, Eliza." And with that, she turned on her heel and marched out of the hotel room.
Ouch. Her disappointment was a bigger punch in my gut than her fury.
Olivia, who'd sat in her corner, like a fly on the wall said, "Well, that went well."
"Shut up." My shoulders sagged forward. "I should probably go after her."
"Nah," Olivia said. "Just give her a little bit to settle down. She'll be back. She's been holding a lot in. You might not like it right now, but she needed to get all of that off her chest."
"I didn't realize she was so mad at me." Because I'd been too wrapped up in my savior complex. "How come I can read most people really well, but I can't ever seem to get it right with Elise?"
"Because she's too close to you," Olivia said. "And I hope you know, what she said to you, she's right. You don't get to decide the way her life should go. Just put the shoe on the other foot. If Elise had made the deal, how would you like being shoved out?"
Olivia was right. If Elise had made the bargain instead of me, I would have stapled, glued, and zippered myself to her. She would have had to hire an old sawbones to surgically separate us. "Oh, my," I said. "How did I get it so wrong?"
"You have an uncanny talent for empathy, sister dear," Olivia told me. "But as I've said before, sometimes you feel too much. It can make you feel like the only expendable person in the room." She strode over to me and kissed my forehead. "But you are not expendable, and you have an entire family that has your back. Including Elise."
"I've got a lot of apologizing to do."
Olivia smiled. "You certainly do."
Chapter 9
