Slade’s shoulders tensed. News traveled fast when everyone could communicate by thought.
“Don’t you people ever just walk somewhere?” Raina said, irritation lacing her tone as she pulled away from him.
James laughed, looking at Mikhail and Titus on either side of him. “If you’ve got skills, why not use them? Am I right or am I right?” He put his hands out palms up and got high fives from the vampires on either side of him. The security team members spread out in a semicircle around Slade and Raina.
James took an exaggerated inhalation. “Ooh. You smell that, Mikhail? Honey and roses. I’d say Donovan’s been busy working on an imprint.”
“Donovan’s always had a way with the donors,” Mikhail answered, his pale green gaze eyeing Raina, then darting to Slade as if he were looking for a physical manifestation of the imprint forming between them.
Raina drew closer to him and slipped her hand into his. Slade gave it a reassuring squeeze. He knew that since he’d marked her no other would touch her. It was an inviolable clan law. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t beat down all three of his fellow vampires if they so much as flashed a fang in her direction.
“She’s not a donor. She’s a fellow mortal officer, so show a little respect.”
Mikhail locked gazes with him in challenge, crossing his arms over his massive barrel chest. “You want to make me, half-breed?”
“Interesting you should bring up respect. We heard through the grapevine that you’ve got a flea problem.” James snickered.
Slade glared at his fellow security team member and turned his back on him, drawing Raina along with him. “Screw you, Crawford.”
“I’m actually surprised you survived the transformation when they turned you from a Shyeld into a full vampire,” Titus added. “I didn’t think there’d be enough human DNA left if you were a shifter.”
While intellectually Slade had expected their taunts when the other vampires of the clan found out, it still stung. The clan had been the only thing close to a family he’d had in all the time he could remember and the thought of losing his place here, his connection to the vampire world and becoming an outcast, was more than he could bear. Deep down in his gut Slade knew that Achilles and Dmitri were simply humoring him out of friendship.
He rounded on James, shoving him back hard in the chest and pointing a finger at them. “Look, I didn’t ask for this. Up until last week I thought I was full-blood vampire, same as the rest of you.”
James put up his fists, daring Slade to take a swing with a tip of his chiseled chin. “You wanna go, Dogbert, let’s go.”
He should have just walked away. He should have been able to ignore their gibes, but he was too tangled up inside, not knowing what would happen and if the council was already creating a contingency plan for his removal from the clan. He released Raina’s hand. Set on edge he bunched up his shoulders and raised his fist, throwing a quick jab at James, followed by a hard left hook. James grunted, then glared at Slade, and spit out a dark stream of ichor.
Raina skittered back, her hips bumping into the hard edge of the conference table as the vampires traded blows, filling the room with the sound of flesh hitting flesh. She glared at the other two vampires.
“Stop this!” she pleaded. Mikhail and Titus blatantly ignored her, both of them cheering the fight on.
James plowed a fist into Slade’s nose with a sickening crunch that caused a spray of warm ichor across the table. Raina squeaked and scrambled out of the way. Slade grunted and took one unstable step backward, then rolled his shoulders and tucked down, darting forward and pounding James with a rapid series of hits to the midsection that were so fast his fists seemed a blur. James doubled over at the assault. Raina turned away, unable to bear it. She saw the blur of dark particles gathering by the door, ignored by the men in the room.
“Attention!” Achilles roared. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“Just blowing off a little steam playing with the dog,” James replied sarcastically, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing a dark stream of ichor that dribbled at the corner. Despite the fighting, neither of them were breathing hard, then Raina remembered they didn’t need to breathe.
“That’s enough. Get back to your posts. Donovan, you come with me.” Achilles glanced over at Raina. “You, too, Officer Ravenwing.”
Slade stepped into line behind his commander. Raina laid a hand on his back and he shrugged it off. Deep down a little bit of her shriveled in response. The door to the security center closed with a heavy thunk behind them.
“Crawford giving you shit?”
“Nothing I couldn’t have beat out of him.”
Achilles grunted. “Maybe another time. Right now we’ve got bigger issues. The Were finally came around.”
Slade instantly sobered. His long stride matched Achilles and Raina had to jog along to keep up with the vampires as they turned down another brick-and-concrete hallway. Her memory was fuzzy, but she recalled seeing the rusted-out bathtub and realized they were headed in the direction of the atrium. “Did he say anything?” Her voice wobbled with her motion.
“Only that we’ve got less than two nights until all hell breaks loose around here. Eris is planning on calling down the blue moon,” Achilles said, his voice betraying his tension.
Raina knew a blue moon was the second full moon in a month. They weren’t that uncommon. But what she didn’t understand was what difference it could possibly make and what the goddess planned to do. “What’s calling down the moon?”
Slade glanced back over his shoulder at her and grabbed her hand as they took a sudden turn she nearly missed. “Know how the moon pulls the tides?”
“Yeah?” She glanced down at his hand, seeing the dark color of ichor drying on his knuckles.
“It’s water responding to the pull of the moon. She controls the moon, she can control the water.”
“You mean like she might cause a tsunami or flood or something?”
He shook his head. “Worse. Way worse.”
“Like what?”
“The human body is about seventy percent water. What do you think?”
Cold fear fisted through Raina, squeezing the air out of her lungs. “What can we do to stop her?”
Achilles pushed open the doors to the atrium and crossed it in ground-eating strides as he headed for a small receptionist stand at the far side near the rock wall waterfall. Raina and Slade followed on his heels. “We’ve got to get the Weres to cooperate,” Achilles said. “Ty and his pack believe that she’s the moon goddess—they don’t know she’s the goddess of chaos.”
“She’s been masquerading as some other goddess?” Raina asked.
“Diana, goddess of the hunt,” Slade said.
Achilles caught Slade’s gaze. “Bingo.” He turned to the receptionist. “Get me Dmitri. Tell him we are with the shifter.”
Her dark bobbed hair swung around her cheeks as she nodded. “Yes, Commander.”
Achilles swung around the receptionist stand, Slade right by his side, pulling Raina along the hallway with frosted panes of glass on one side and a wall painted a soothing sage-green punctuated with black-and-white pictures on the other.
“Where are we?” Raina asked.
“Clan medical complex,” Achilles said without emotion as he beelined to the end of the hall toward a set of white double doors. “Dr. Chamberlin has revived the Were and treated his injuries. Seems last time you two were up there, you did some damage. The Weres don’t heal as fast as we do.”
“So how is Were cooperation going to stop Eris?” Slade asked as they passed through the double doors into a sterile white laboratory with stainless-steel countertops. The smell of antiseptic and industrial cleaner tweaked Raina’s nose.
Achilles kept moving. “This way. He’s in Beck’s office.” They approached the closed door that bore the nameplate Dr. Rebecca Chamberlin-Stefanos, and Achilles put his hand on the
doorknob, then stopped for a second. “If we can get their help, we can try to trap her. It’s been done before, millennia ago.”
“It has?” Slade seemed surprised.
“Long before your time.”
“How do you even know this stuff?”
Achilles speared Slade with a hard, level gaze that spoke volumes. “I’m one of the vampires that trapped her.”
He opened the door to his wife’s office. Raina couldn’t see past the broad set of their shoulders to see what was inside. “How are you feeling?” Achilles asked.
Impatient, Raina squeezed between Achilles and Slade. Ty, barefoot and dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt, was relaxing on a black leather couch, drinking from a steaming mug. The rich smell of coffee made Raina’s stomach grumble. Behind the desk at a countertop was Dr. Chamberlin, her mass of curly auburn hair caught up into a messy bun as she peered through a microscope.
“For a prisoner? I feel tolerable,” Ty responded. His dark brown eyes flicked to Slade.
“You’re not a prisoner,” Achilles said, his tone slightly irritated.
“Oh, then a pawn. Is that more accurate?”
Slade stepped toward the shifter. “Look. This is bigger than Weres versus vampires. Eris could potentially control us all and plunge this world into total chaos.”
Ty put down the mug on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him, then rested his elbows on his knees. His dark, shaggy hair was almost shoulder length and swung forward slightly. “You both keep mentioning Eris, but the only goddess who has come to us is the goddess of the moon and the hunt.”
“She’s tricking you,” Raina said quickly. “Like Coyote, making you believe what she wants you to.” The shifter’s gaze rested heavy and expectant on her.
“And why should I believe you? You were to be our link to the people and you have forsaken your sacred duty.”
That tore it. Raina marched up to Ty, forcing him to sit up straight to look up at her. “Look, you miserable fur ball.” Raina saw his jaw twitch. “I’m not going to be used by anybody. Not you.” She thumped him in the chest with her index finger. “Not the vampires.” She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “And not some whacked-out ancient goddess who gets her jollies out of making everyone else miserable. The question you have to ask yourself is, if there were some way to protect your pack and the people, would you take it?”
His eyes blazed like a forest fire. “Of course I would,” he ground out between his clenched teeth. “Loyalty is everything in the pack.”
“Then quit being so proud and thinking you know it all and listen to these vampires. They may have a way to capture this deceitful goddess who threatens all of us.”
Ty glanced from her to Achilles and then Slade. “You truly believe you are capable of capturing a goddess? You are immortals, not gods,” he said with disdain.
Raina noticed that neither of them rose to the bait. Instead, Achilles shrugged. “I say tomato, you say tamahto. Either way, she’s going to end up with egg on her face. I’ve captured her before, shifter. It’s just a matter of knowing her weakness.”
A feral light glowed behind the shifter’s eyes. “Assuming the Whisperer speaks true, then we have little time for you to make your plans. We should leave now.” The shifter stood.
Beside Slade a dark cloud gathered, forming into the broad shoulders of Dmitri. Dr. Chamberlin’s office was now crowded shoulder to shoulder with vampires. For a moment Raina thought about how it was almost like having a family meeting at Jake’s, everyone close together.
“No one is going anywhere until we have a plan,” Dmitri said firmly.
“We’ve got a plan,” Achilles said.
“We just aren’t one hundred percent sure it’ll work,” Slade finished.
Dmitri turned his gaze on Slade. “While Achilles fills me in I want you to take Officer Ravenwing to get something to eat before she falls over. We’ll meet back here in two hours.”
Chapter 16
Slade sat Raina down on a bar stool at his kitchen island countertop, the black granite glittering under the overhead lights. “I’m not even hungry,” Raina protested. Her stomach chose that moment to let out a loud, gurgling growl.
Slade gave her an I-know-you’re-lying look as he phased an inch-thick New York steak, some garlic, olive oil, a large potato in foil and a bag of salad.
She glanced at the food and her stomach pinched uncomfortably. “Okay, maybe I’m hungry, but I can’t eat. My stomach gets upset when I’m upset.”
“The thought of going up against the goddess bothers you that much? Not surprising,” he said as he pulled out a frying pan from the cupboard, lit up the gas stove, prepped the steak with a smear of olive oil and garlic and set about cooking it.
As a pragmatist, she didn’t want to think about goddesses—real or mythical. If mythical they couldn’t be a problem, if real… Raina took an appreciative sniff. The smell of the searing steak and garlic made the back of her mouth start to ache as it watered, and set off another loud grumble from her midsection. She shook her head and pushed a fist to her stomach, trying to get it to quiet down.
For a man who didn’t need to eat, he seemed to know his way around a kitchen pretty darned well.
Raina’s stomach pinched a little harder at the thought that Slade had done this for other women before her. The black silk sheets on the big bed, a motorcycle in the living room and cooking skills…he had all the bells and whistles of seduction at his fingertips.
“The thing with Eris is going to play out one way or another. I don’t have much control over that.”
“Then what upset you?” Slade pulled apart the salad bag and tossed the contents into a bowl, mixing in the other little packets of cheese, nuts and dressing that came with the salad kit. He did it so effortlessly, as if cooking her a meal was the most natural thing in the world. She wished she could do something just as simple, just as meaningful, to nurture him.
“Watching your team members lash out at you like they did.” She met his gaze, and her mouth dried at the heated look he was giving her. “They were just words, Slade. You know that. Those morons were just having a laugh at your expense because they thought they were being funny. I could tell that they like and respect you. They didn’t say those things to be mean.”
The steak sizzled as he flipped it over. She could see there was mix of seething anger and fear in the depths of his eyes. “I wish that’s all it was.” He rubbed the edge of his jaw where he’d taken a few punches. She was still surprised he hadn’t bruised at all from the fight.
“Damn,” he muttered savagely. “I knew this was going to happen.”
“They aren’t going to turn their backs on you. They’ll be there when the time comes for the showdown.” She reached for his hand, but he withdrew it. Raina pushed away the hurt feeling it caused. He wasn’t pulling away from just her. He was pulling away from everybody. She could tell.
Slade snorted. “Only because they’ll follow orders, not because they give a shit what happens to me.”
“I don’t think—”
“You heard them,” he cut her off impatiently. He phased a black plate and took the steak from the pan. “And those are men I considered friends. Guys whose asses I saved a time or two. Who saved mine.” His gaze connected with hers. “If they’re taking the fact that I’m a half-breed this way, what chance do you think I stand against the clan council? If I shift even once, they’re going to toss me out of the clan the minute I step a toe back in the complex.”
She folded her arms on the counter. “You should have a little more faith in them. Achilles still trusts you. And from the looks of it so does that Dmitri guy, as well as Kristin and Dr. Chamberlin. I think that says how much they value you a lot more than you realize. I understand how you feel, I really do. But give them a chance to sort through how they’re feeling. I think your team members’ reaction to the news was knee-jerk—and to be honest, I think fear plays a big part in how all of you are reacting,
which is only natural.”
Slade sighed, the sound heavy and full of pain. “You don’t understand.” He split open the foil and the potato with a knife, then gave it a slight squeeze so that the steaming white insides were exposed. A dollop of white sour cream and a pale yellow chunk of butter appeared on top along with a sprinkle of chives that seemed to rain out of thin air. It amazed her that he could materialize the ingredients without even thinking about it. Sure they were different, he a supernatural being and her just a mortal, but they were also the same.
Everyone needed someone to love, and someone who loved them. They needed validation and approval and trust. Vampires and mortals weren’t different in that, and she suspected neither were the Weres.
He’d been hurt, and yes, scared, because the clan was his family, and he was terrified, Raina knew, because he’d been abandoned once by people who should have loved him. Now it might happen again. Didn’t matter if he was a child or an adult—fear of being alone was a scary thought.
“Oh, but I think I do understand. More than you realize. I may not be part of your clan, but I can see how much being part of them means to you. It’s your whole identity—Slade, badass vampire.”
He gave her a halfhearted grin. “I should put that on a business card.” He frowned. “Except I’d have to put half vampire.”
Raina groaned in frustration. “Look, what you need to do is stop worrying about the what-ifs or feeling sorry for yourself, and realize that you’ve got a connection here, just like I do with my family and my people. That isn’t going to just go up in smoke if you happen to change your form temporarily.”
He pushed the plate with the steak and potato and the bowl of salad toward her, materializing a fork and steak knife for her in one hand and a napkin in the other, and handing it to her.
“That’s not what the council said. One shift. Just one, and I’m outta here.... You better eat up.”
Raina looked down at the meal he’d made her, then met his gaze. Saw the banked pain there, and felt an answering pain deep inside. “There’s so much more to you than any of them can ever know. And if those stupid vampires are going to be prejudiced against you for something that isn’t your fault, then they didn’t deserve to have you fighting beside them.” She lifted her gaze, connecting with his tawny one. “Thank you.”
The Half-Breed Vampire Page 16
