Beast Coast (A Carus Novel Book 2)

by J. C. McKenzie

  “Think of me as another fera in your head, dear Carus. A blood sucking one.”

  I had nothing to say. He said exactly what I thought. Gah, Carus! Why did random supes know more about me than I did? Lucien sure as fuck wouldn’t call me beloved in Latin.

  “To answer your unrequested why me?” Lucien interrupted my thoughts using a high-pitched girly voice to mock me. “Allan is already pursuing another interest of mine. Besides, what is the saying? Don’t put all your eggs in one basket?”

  Well, at least he didn’t plan to suck me dry, yet. Escorting Clint to some Vampire powwow was better than hooked up to Lucien’s face as his eternal blood donor. Thank Feradea, the beast goddess, he had no interest in me as a woman. “Am I arm candy or is there something you’d like me to accomplish?”

  “With Allan absent, Clint will need someone capable of mind speech who can distinguish lies from truths.” All Weres and Shifters could use their noses to detect the truth of a statement, but Weres could only mind speak to other members in their pack or pride, and Shifters could only mind speak to their fera. Then there was me.

  “How did you…” I let my voice trail off, figuring it out. Wick would have told him I was capable of mind speech. “I don’t think it extends to anyone other than Shifters and Weres.” I didn’t mention I tried to mind speak to Allan during our takedown of Ethan and was pretty sure he heard me.

  “Try.” Lucien sat back and relaxed.

  I think you’re a disgusting pig, I thought at Clint.

  Clint laughed and then shook his head. “I think I will have plenty of time, kitten, to convince you otherwise.”

  I batted his hand away before he got the chance to caress me. “You don’t get to call me that.” Despite the pissy tone, my mind reeled. Clint could hear me too? And Lucien knew he could. What else did he know about my abilities? That made me valuable. More than a mere collector’s item. “How did you know I could do that?” I asked.

  “See? You’re learning already.” Lucien’s gaze flicked to the window and the light blue sky of predawn. He yawned, and his eyes vamped-out, like all bloodsuckers before bedtime. “Clint will fill in the rest of the details. You are dismissed.”

  Needing no encouragement before Lucien gorged himself on whatever willing blood donor waited in the next room, the one who smelled of olives, wine, and excitement. I swiveled on my heel and stalked out with Clint close behind. And naked as naked could be, he’d see every bounce and jiggle of my ass. Awesome. When I made it to the hallway, I turned to find Clint’s heated gaze on my body.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Your skin.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What about my skin?”

  “It looks so soft and smooth, like tanned porcelain.”

  I crossed my arms, knowing Clint was never straightforward enough for this to be a compliment. “Oh yeah?”

  “I want to see it turn red and bruised under my hands.”

  “Typical.”

  “We’ll leave tomorrow night. I can brief you on the way to Portland. I’d like you to meet me at the Renaissance.” He paused before asking, “Know it?”

  I groaned. Of course I did. “That’s the hotel where I tried to kill you.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Didn’t peg you for the sentimental type.”

  A small smile flittered across his face. “Be there by seven. Pack for two nights. We’ll come home Sunday.” He turned to leave.

  A thought sprung up. “What were you doing there the first time anyway?”

  “At the hotel?” Clint stopped and peered over his massive shoulders. “Slumming.”

  “I knew it!” Not that Clint’s confession made a difference to the outcome of that particular assignment, but I wanted to figure out what he was. He defied the normal parameters of a human servant. He should’ve died that night. “Go there often?”

  Clint turned to face me with a pleased smile. “Every couple months, I get to have a few days off to enjoy myself.”

  “Don’t you mean to enjoy the blondes?” Something about the night we first met never sat right; I needed to learn more about Lucien’s right-hand man.

  “Same thing,” he said.

  I snorted.

  “Jealous?”

  “You bang more than an outhouse door in a storm. No, I’m not jealous. I’m disgusted.”

  “By what? Me banging?”

  “By the collective intelligence of women being too low to see through whatever act you use.”

  “There’s no act. They see me for what I am, and I don’t pretend to be anything else.”

  “Then I’m not disgusted. I’m appalled by their sheer lack of gray matter.”

  Clint shrugged and checked his phone. “Do you have a formal gown to wear?”

  I made a face. “Of course not.”

  “What size are you?”

  “Size awesome.”

  He gave me a blank stare. He didn’t get it.

  “Eight.” You couldn’t be my height with boobs and a butt and fit something smaller without having a serious eating disorder, or model-worthy genetics.

  Clint shrugged and started punching numbers into his phone as he walked away. More evidence that men didn’t care about the number on the tag of a woman’s pants, they just wanted to get in them.

  Chapter Three

  “I think everybody’s nuts.”

  ~Johnny Depp

  Every time I held grocery bags in one hand and tried to unlock my building door with the other, the key stuck. No amount of supernatural ability helped me, either. Last time I used force, the key snapped in the lock, and I received a two-page letter from the Glenwood Agency, my building’s management company, detailing the proper use of keys and how to correctly unlock the door. They threatened I would be charged if I failed to follow their simple instructions, and broke my key again. All three of my feras had lost it at the condescending tone and demanded I rip someone’s face off. I don’t think they cared who I picked.

  I hated Glenwood.

  With a lengthy exhalation, bordering on a groan, I admitted defeat and placed the bags at my feet before unlocking the door. The key turned smoothly, as if it hadn’t been stuck two seconds ago. I threw a foot into the building and my hip into the door before leaning down to pick up my groceries. Trained dancers cringed across the globe.

  When I finally lumbered into the warmth of my building, I stopped like a man realizing his lady date had an Adam’s apple.

  The telltale scent of vanilla and honey flooded my nostrils, sending a shiver of foreboding down my spine at the same time it made my mouth water. Witches.

  Nothing but trouble.

  How did I miss the scent before? I shifted the weight of my grocery bags to bring feeling back into one of my pinkies. Oh right. I haven’t used the front door all week. Been flying out the window, instead.

  Sniffing down the hall like a bloodhound tracking a fugitive, I followed the smell to my new neighbours’ front door.

  Goddammit!

  Not only did I live beside a den of Witches, but I’d written them a letter saying I despised them. I trudged back to my apartment with my groceries.

  With another, smaller, fight with my key, I unlocked my apartment’s door and swung it open. What the heck? I stared at the third biggest surprise of the day. Maybe second. Lucien’s power trip and Vampire summit order fell into a different category.

  Covering my floor were thousands upon thousands of mini-paper cups. I knelt down and scented the air, taking in short successive breaths. Tap water. I pinched the rim of one cup and lifted. It pulled at the surrounding cups. They were all stapled together.

  Huh.

  This would have taken someone days to complete.

  Or magic.

  There, beneath the smell of new paper and corroded pipe water, lay vanilla and honey. They figured out who sent the letter. And they had exacted revenge. I smacked my forehead with my palm and then raked my fingers down my face.

  “Fu
ck.” How the heck was I going to get the cups out? Even if I could move them all at once, I’d have to tip them to the side to get them through the door and the water would spill all over the wood flooring and rugs.

  I was going to have to detach each cup, one by one.

  With rolled-up sleeves and my long black hair twisted into a ponytail, I cracked my knuckles and stepped into the fray. My groceries sat in the hallway to supervise.

  Personally, I’d prefer a proper fight—hair pulling, name calling, bitch slapping and all.

  ****

  By the time I made it to my living room, drenched in stagnant paper cup water and on my last straw of patience, I saw two messages on my antiquated answering machine. I’d refused to replace the archaic thing despite the incessant waves of new technology. It reminded me of the one my mom had before she died.

  I pressed the button and sat back in my chair. Wiping sweat from my brow, I cringed as a husky voice I knew too well, and still dreamed of, floated in the air and licked my skin.

  “Andy, it is me,” Wick said, showing his age with his lack of contractions. “Do not delete this before listening… Please,” he said in a rushed exhale of breath. “It is important.”

  The big bad wolf said please? If exhaustion hadn’t prevented me from getting out of the chair and reaching for the machine, I still would’ve deleted the message.

  “I cannot go to Portland.”

  I froze, listening intently. Of course Wick’s pack was involved with the Portland Vampire Summit. I should’ve known better. Stupid of me. Lucien would want to demonstrate his power at a Vampire gathering by showing off his wolves.

  “Steve is going in my place.”

  At least he didn’t send John or Ryan, the Werewolves who openly despised me—John, because I’d hurt his mate in an attempt to escape, and Ryan, because I’d hurt his feelings in another attempt to escape.

  Steve, indifferent at best, at least knew how to be inconspicuous, having been ordered to follow me in the past. I’d still busted him.

  After a pause, Wick continued. “I am sorry, Andy. I cannot say it enough, and you are probably going to ignore this apology along with the rest, but I am. Truly sorry. Forgive me. Please call.”

  A second please? Ahh, he’s being so sweet. Still not happening.

  True, Wick had no choice when he’d held me down for Lucien to blood bond me. My brain knew it, as did my heart, but logic and reasoning did little to assuage the hurt and sense of betrayal. He should’ve fought more, said more, done more, and his ineffectiveness at keeping me safe provided a rude lesson in loyalties. With a simple order, Lucien could force Wick to do very bad things to me.

  Despite all that, I wanted to forgive Wick. I really did. But in my nightmares, I saw his face on Dylan’s body. Though Wick had little in common with the cruel Alpha from my past, I couldn’t shake the images from the other night. If anyone looked up “damaged” in the dictionary, my picture would be there with a reference to “baggage.”

  The machine beeped and started the second message.

  “Andrea.” The deep purr of Tristan’s voice surrounded me. My heart rate increased. “Call me.”

  I laughed. My life was so fucked up. The last time I’d seen Tristan, the leader of the local Wereleopard pride, he’d been bent over me, naked, trying desperately to heal me after he’d thrown me into a wall. I’d passed out and Wick ended up taking me to his place.

  My mountain lion urged me to pick up the phone, or to shift and run to Tristan like some sex-kitten in heat. Maybe I was. First time for everything.

  Tristan tempted something primal within me. The way he smelled... It would be so easy to be a mountain lion, to slip into the form like a worn housecoat and lose myself to the freedom of feline mentality. Forget the past. Forget Wick and Lucien and the SRD. Just be. My cougar represented everything safe.

  At least to me. Hikers and forest prey probably disagreed.

  Sighing, I stared at the cordless phone on the table in front of me. Who should I call?

  With feet feeling more like cement blocks, I stumbled to my room to pack.

  Chapter Four

  “Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”

  ~Aldous Huxley

  As soon as I stepped onto the train, I knew why Shifters and Weres shunned the contraptions like E. coli avoided antibacterial agents on a petri dish. It smelled. Badly. A putrid mix of old man, sweaty socks, and cigarettes. My nose hairs didn’t shrivel; they curled into the fetal position before they withered and died, leaving my nasal passage a dry, barren wasteland no longer capable of being harmed by the olfactory assault.

  They could post as many “New and Improved” posters as they wanted, it couldn’t hide that these pre-Purge death traps were better off in a museum than functioning as transportation. In the first years of the Purge, thousands died in train-related “accidents.” A militant extremist group, opposed to the existence of supernaturals, started bombing and derailing all forms of public transportation, the protestors so angry they didn’t care who they killed, or what they destroyed. With few security measures, trains posed no hindrance to their attacks and the activists hit them hard.

  “Why aren’t we flying?” I asked the guys, trying to unfurl my nose. This train had more than twenty passenger cars, and we got one of the fancy ones with private cabins. What did the public cars smell like?

  I turned in time to see Steve step in behind me and blanch. One of the enforcer wolves in Wick’s pack, Steve stood at medium height and build, with brown hair and café au lait skin. Gem-cutting emerald eyes squinted, and his nose flared. The rancid train smell would be ten times worse to a Were, and he looked as if he’d discovered the meat in his dinner last night wasn’t chicken.

  “Because I hate flying.” Clint answered my question and threw his bags into the overhead compartment of our private room before sitting down by the window.

  Truth. I narrowed my eyes at Lucien’s human servant. “There’s more to it.”

  Maybe he couldn’t survive a plane crash? I’d seen him die more than once—I’d ripped out his throat, and a Master Vampire skewered him with a sword, yet he managed to bounce back hale and hearty from both events. Even a human servant bonded to a Master Vampire had limits, and Clint surpassed those—like an Olympic runner competing against toddlers. Not for the first time, I wondered what box Clint ticked off on his government tax forms under “Entity Type.” Human, maybe. Normal, no.

  Since the Purge, every supernatural in existence came out of the proverbial closet—Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Demons, Angels, Skinwalkers. With an endless supply of possibilities, it might take forever to figure out Clint. I doubted he was a god. Or an angel.

  Clint shrugged his giant shoulders and stretched his legs, effectively taking the seat across from him off my option list.

  When I’d met him at the hotel earlier today, I’d brought coffee from Suzy’s Gourmet Café. I knew it sucked. He took one sip of the drink they’d loosely referred to as a cappuccino and spat it out in a spray of milky brown liquid. His murderous look had hit me hard and said “Game On.”

  “Excuse me.” Steve slipped by and sat next to Clint’s feet.

  That left only one choice—sitting beside Clint. Dropping my head back, I stared at the ceiling. This was going to be a long trip; Clint, a human servant who appeared to be un-killable, Steve, the Werewolf with jewelled eyes and unknown motives, and me, badass SRD assassin. And none of us excelled in small talk.

  “Come here, Shifter.” Clint patted the seat beside him. “Get comfortable.”

  “You know that’s not going to happen.” The train lurched into gear, and I staggered. Either I remained standing, giving the two men a show most likely resembling a belly dance from a tornado on crack, or I sat down.

  Difficult decision.

  As soon as my ass hit the dilapidated cushion, Clint’s hand drifted to my knee. I swatted it away, and hissed at him. The train rumbled to a start, and my body bucked forward be
fore slamming back into my seat. It reminded me of the first time I rode a horse. Or at least tried to. Not my most successful moment—straddling a large passive herbivore when I could shift into a hundred and twenty-pound predator. The horse wasn’t deceived by sight, nor my forest scent, and turned into a bucking bronco. The farmhands looked stupefied at Daisy’s behaviour and gave me suspicious looks as I hobbled off the farm rubbing my aching backside.

  I’d wanted to be normal. It had been during my supernatural denial stage of life—right before Dylan, and the worst years of my life that followed.

  Sighing, I gazed out the window.

  After breaking Dylan’s control over me and destroying his pack in the process, I morphed into a rabid, hollow version of my mountain lion and ran off into the forest. It took thirty-three years to find my humanity—to walk in human form again and function, barely. I pursued the one job where my poor people skills were considered an asset, and that could possibly give me the answers I sought. What was I? What happened to my biological parents?

  And then I met Wick. After botching an assassination attempt on Clint, I was captured by Lucien’s Werewolf Alpha. My heart clenched at the thought of Wick’s chocolate eyes focused on me, wanting me.

  I shut my eyes.

  “Move,” I ordered and sprang out of my seat, I gave Clint little chance to pull his feet off the chair before I sat across from him. “If we have to ride this death trap, I want a better view.”

  Clint’s smile widened. “Of me?”

  I groaned and then abruptly stopped. Was that growling? My head whipped around to look at Steve. The hairs on his arms stood up and his yellow-shifted eyes locked on Clint. The human servant chuckled, ignored the Were, and looked out the window.

  What are you doing? I asked, using my ability to mind speak to the Werewolf.

  You’re Wick’s mate. He shouldn’t talk to you like that.

  I sputtered. Not knowing what part of his statement to address first, I stumbled over a couple words before I started over. First, I’m not Wick’s mate. Second, Clint’s a flirt, and I’m not interested. Third, what is your purpose here? To aid Lucien’s mission or to protect me on Wick’s behalf?