by Keri Arthur
Mirri made a face then disappeared, her voice floating back to me from the depths of the kitchen. “I doubt there’s a potion alive that would turn him away from the ladies.”
I laughed and leaned a shoulder against the door frame; the rich scents were just too strong to go any farther.
“So,” Ilianna said, her green gaze meeting mine as she glanced over her shoulder. Like Mirri, she was a horse shifter, but she was a rich palomino where Mirri was a mahogany bay. “How’d it go today?”
“Good and bad.” I updated them briefly on my father’s visit and Hunter’s mission. Mirri frowned. “If your father wishes your cooperation, why would he do that to you?”
Ilianna studied me for a moment, then said, “Because you refused, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah. Kinda.”
She snorted softly. “So he resorted to violence. And then, undoubtedly, threats.”
She was good, there was no doubt about that. “Against you and Tao, yes.”
“The man is a bastard,” Mirri muttered.
“Yes, except he’s not a man. He’s something far worse.”
“So we can’t do anything about him, right?” I nodded when she looked at me. “But why would you even consider undertaking a mission like that for the vampire council?”
“Because Hunter was a bitch and caught her in a moment of weakness, and now she can’t get out of the deal,” Ilianna commented tartly, then grimaced as she glanced at me. “And I suppose you’re going to this locker even though the last time you followed one of your father’s orders the Raziq used it as an opportunity to capture you?”
“I don’t have a choice, Ilianna.” Not about this, and not about helping Hunter. “And Azriel will be there.”
“He’d better be.” She glanced past me. “Hear that, reaper? Be there. Protect her.”
“Trust me, it’s in his best interests to keep me alive and functioning.”
“His version of functioning might well be different from ours, remember.”
Maybe, but in this case, at least, he needed me not only alive, but able to walk and talk. At least until I’d found the keys. “I’m heading there now. If I don’t call by one thirty, marshal the troops.”
She snorted. “Like that’s going to help.”
She was right—it probably wouldn’t. But if I didn’t at least have a backup plan, Aunt Riley would kick my ass. Although she was going to kick it anyway for going to the locker again after what had happened previously.
“Listen, have you heard of an Adeline Greenfield?”
Ilianna raised a pale eyebrow. “Sure. She’s a practitioner and is renowned for her protection spells. Why?”
“Because the vamp I just talked to had some of Adeline’s spells protecting her apartment, but something is getting past them.” I hesitated, then added, “And of course, this is all a secret. Hunter would be incandescent if this got out.”
“And Hunter is not someone I want to piss off,” she said. “Protection spells aren’t infallible. How well they work very much depends on how comprehensive the spell is.”
“Which is why I want to talk to Adeline. Do you know her well enough to get me in to see her?”
“I don’t, but I’m sure Mom does.”
I smiled. “Wouldn’t asking your mom involve finally being forced to meet your potential stallion mate?”
“You know, as far as stallions go, he’s not actually that bad,” Mirri commented. Both of us glanced at her in surprise, and heat crept into her cheeks. “What can I say? I was bored one weekend and he happened to be around. And it was before you and I were an item, just in case you were wondering.”
Ilianna smiled and squeezed Mirri’s arm gently. “I wasn’t. Although if Mom does insist on that dinner, then maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. Introduce you, and get the rotten dinner date with Car-wyn over with.”
Mirri’s response was quick and joyous. She’d been angling to meet Ilianna’s parents for almost as long as they’d been an item, and while we both knew Ilianna wasn’t ready to come out of the closet, this would at least be a step in the right direction.
“That would me fabulous,” Mirri said, stepping forward and dropping a quick kiss on Ilianna’s cheek. “And as I said, Carwyn isn’t really that bad.”
“Maybe,” Ilianna said, her smile almost a grimace. “But if he starts coming on too strong, I expect you to run interference.”
“Your parents might not be too pleased …”
“He’s a stallion,” Ilianna said. “They wouldn’t give two hoots about you capturing his attention as long as I did as well.”
“True,” Mirri said with a laugh, then glanced at me. “Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? We’re making vegetarian lasagna, because Tao will be out with his new lady love.”
“Whom I really hope isn’t Candy,” I said, and pushed away from the door. “And no, I won’t be. If Lucian doesn’t call, then I’m heading over to Franklin’s.” Which was an upmarket wolf club specializing in clients who preferred—and could afford to pay for—discretion.
Ilianna gaped. “Why are you waiting for him to call? Call him, for heaven’s sake!”
I grinned. “I would, except he had to go interstate for business reasons, and wasn’t sure whether he’d be back tonight or tomorrow.”
I turned away, then paused. “While I remember, my father set up wards at Mom’s place that were capable of preventing both the Aedh and reapers from either detecting his presence or being able to enter. Is there any chance you could retrieve them and figure out how he did it? The magic in them dissipated after a set time, but something like that would be handy here.”
“They would have to contain some pretty heavy-duty magic to achieve something like that.”
“But do you think you could work out the spell?”
“If there aren’t any remnants of it left, probably not. But I can’t say for sure until I’ve looked at the wards themselves.”
I tossed her Mom’s house keys. “Your prints are still registered in the system. It might be worth checking out.”
“If it means making our apartment an Aedh-free zone, then I’ll make it a priority.”
“Thanks, Ilianna.”
I headed for my bedroom. Then, after picking up the locker key, I walked back down the stairs and drove into the city.
Of course, Melbourne was a bitch of a place to find any decent parking in—and had been since they’d introduced the car-free zone. Most of the underground parking lots were filled with rush-hour travelers, forcing the rest of us to park outside the city limits and either walk back or catch public transport. And that was as unreliable as ever. One of these days a politician was actually going to keep an election promise and fix the system, and the whole damn city would keel over in shock.
I jogged back into the city. Southern Cross Station, with its undulating roofline that always reminded me of mounds of snow, came into view. Lots of people were exiting, meaning several trains must have just pulled in. I picked my way through the crowd, heading for the locker area situated in the middle of the station.
Like before, there were a handful of people hanging about, either collecting or depositing goods, but no one seemed overly interested in what I was doing. But then, if someone was watching, it was in their best interests to be discreet.
I shoved the key into locker 97 and opened the door. Inside sat a solitary envelope.
I plucked it free, closed the locker, and shoved the key in my pocket. And at that precise instant I became aware that the atmosphere in the room had suddenly sharpened.
I glanced up quickly and saw a familiar face.
It was the cat shifter who’d been part of the attack on me in the parking garage when this madness had first started. And once again, he hadn’t come alone.
Chapter Four
“WELL, WELL, WELL,” HE ALL BUT PURRED. “Imagine meeting you again.”
“Yeah, just imagine.” I shoved the note into the back pocket of my jeans, then flexed
my fingers. He wasn’t alone. I could smell a second man trying to creep around the lockers, obviously hoping to come up behind me. “Where are the rest of your friends? Oh, that’s right. Two are dead, and the other is in the hands of the Directorate. Are you sure you want to do this a second time?”
Several people scurried out of the locker room. Obviously, the guy attempting to creep around the back had spooked them. Such brave souls, leaving a woman to tackle two men alone. Of course, I wasn’t exactly defenseless, but they wouldn’t know that.
His quick smile was all teeth—not vampire teeth, but razor-sharp feline teeth. He might not be a full shifter, and he might not be able to take on full feline form, but he had extraordinary control over the bits he could change. Like his teeth, and the nails that were even now elongating into claws.
But as I watched him closely, waiting for his first move, anger surged—an anger so thick and deep that it stole my breath. It was all I could do not to flow into Aedh form and rip him apart.
I took a deep, quivering breath that did little to tame the fury.
It was scary, that rage. Really, really scary.
He made a motion with his claws. “Hand that letter over right now, and we’ll leave you in peace.”
I clenched my fingers against the urge to leap for his throat, aware that the second man was getting closer.
“Sorry,” I said, barely keeping my voice even, “but I had a nice little chat with the man who ended up in the Directorate’s clutches, and I know for a fact that’s not true.”
He smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. “Orders can change, you know.”
“Whether they’ve changed is not the point.” Heat swirled across my skin. Azriel had taken form on the other side of the lockers. Was he taking care of the second man or at least running interference? I hoped so. I said to the first man, “And I’m hardly going to hand you a note I haven’t even read yet.”
“That,” he said softly, “is unfortunate.”
And with that, he sprang. His leap was high, graceful, and fast. I threw myself out of the way, twisted around, then lashed out with a booted foot. The blow missed by inches, catching the end of his foot and little else.
I brushed my fingertips against the concrete, steadying myself as he leapt a second time. But the rage surged again, becoming a haze of heat that would not be denied.
This time I held my ground until the last possible moment. And when he lashed out, I let the blow hit me, his claws cutting through my jacket and into flesh. But the anger inside was burning so bright that I didn’t feel it, even though blood pulsed, rich and warm, down my side. I grabbed his arm, wrenched his claws free, then twisted him around, flinging him as hard as I could into the lockers on the far side of the room.
There was no response for the second man. Azriel had to have stopped him.
The first man hit with a resounding crash, denting metal as he fell. As he scrambled to his feet, I launched at him, twisting around in the air so that I hit him feetfirst, knocking him back into the lockers again. When I hit the ground, I lunged forward, shoving one hand against his throat to hold him in place as I kneed him hard in the balls. He wheezed in pain and tried to double over; it was only my grip on his neck that kept him upright. And my fingers were shaking with the urge to squeeze harder, deeper …
Fuck, where is this coming from?
“Tell me who you’re working for.” My voice was edged with the madness within, my face mere inches from his. His scent clawed at my throat, stale and unpleasant.
He took several gasping breaths then wheezed, “Handberry. It was Handberry.”
“Handberry’s dead.” My grip tightened on his neck, and it was all I could do not to keep on squeezing. God, I so wanted to wring the life from him, and I think it was only the fear of that need that kept it in check. “So tell me the truth.”
“Fuck! I don’t know,” he spat out. “We got a call from a guy saying he was our new handler, and he told us to come here and wait for you to collect the letter. We’ve been waiting for fucking weeks.”
I hadn’t expected that. “When did you get that call?”
“A month ago.”
“And he hasn’t contacted you since?”
“No. He just said to keep watch and to call when we retrieved whatever was in the locker.”
“If all you wanted was the note, why didn’t you just break in and get it?”
“Because it wasn’t in there, was it? We checked yesterday.”
“So how did the new handler know something would be there?”
“He’s getting orders from someone, isn’t he? Why can’t it be the same someone as Handberry?”
Why not indeed? I guess it was lucky they’d checked last night rather than this morning, because my father must have had it placed there after he’d talked to me. “If you’ve been stationed here for weeks, why didn’t you sense the Razan who delivered the note?”
“Because we haven’t seen another Razan for weeks. I told you, we’ve been stationed here.”
So how did the note get into the locker? “What about an Aedh?”
He snorted softly. “An Aedh doing his own dirty work? That’s likely.”
For a man who was all but a slave to an Aedh, he was pretty damn critical of them. “Do you have a contact number for this new handler of yours?”
He nodded as well as he could with my hand pressed against his throat. “On my phone, in my top pocket.”
I reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and shoved it into mine. “What name is your handler under?”
“Handberry. I figured it was as good as any.”
Fair enough, I thought, and then hit him, as hard as I could, with my free hand, knocking him out. Then I let him drop to the floor.
For several seconds I did nothing more than stand there staring at him, my fists clenched and body shaking. Then, gradually, the rage eased and I dropped down beside him, hugging my knees to my chest as I squeezed my eyes shut and fought the urge to cry.
Goddamn it, what had just happened?
Warmth surrounded me, then strong hands caught mine and squeezed them gently. “Risa,” Azriel said softly. “Look at me.”
I didn’t want to. I really didn’t, but there was a note of command in his voice that I couldn’t ignore. I opened my eyes and stared into the blue of his. Saw the understanding there, the compassion.
It shook me almost as much as the rage.
“The events of the last few months have not only threatened your physical well-being,” he said softly, “but also damaged your emotional safety and security. It is natural that, sooner or later, you will experience trauma-induced incidents such as this.”
“But I was moving on, I was coping. Why would the rage hit now and not before, when it all first happened?”
“Because you did not seek help for—or even talk about—the events. You bottled it up inside and forced yourself to go on as normal—”
“But I didn’t. I was useless to everyone for weeks—”
He squeezed my hands again, his gaze searching mine—and, I suspected, seeing far more than anyone else ever had. “That was grief, and natural given what had happened. But we are connected through our chi, and I know the fury, self-loathing, and uselessness that burn inside you, even now.”
Tears tracked their way down my cheeks, cold against my skin. I didn’t dispute his words, though. How could I, when they were true?
I hadn’t dealt with the anger at all. I’d merely pushed it down, pushed it away, and tried to function as normally as I could.
“The rage had no outlet until these men—who may or may not be involved with your mother’s killer—reentered your life.” He released one hand and touched my cheek lightly, and I closed my eyes against the compassion in his eyes and the sense of caring in his touch.
He was a reaper. He couldn’t care.
It was dangerous to even think that, because he was only here for the same reason as everyone else—to f
ind my father.
“Yes,” he agreed softly, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand what you are going through, or sympathize with the rage. I have felt such rage myself.”
I opened my eyes again. “But you’re a reaper—”
“I’m a Mijai,” he corrected. “And as a warrior, I have experienced more than my fair share of loss.”
My gaze searched his. “Someone close to you?”
“A friend,” he said, then released my hand and rose.
The compassion and understanding disappeared in an instant, and I knew I’d get little more out of him. But that didn’t stop me from asking, “So what did you do?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I did exactly what you are attempting. I tracked down and killed those responsible.”
“And did it make anything any better? Did it make you feel any better?”
His mouth twisted bitterly. “No. But at least I could rest easier with the knowledge that they would not be able to destroy anyone else.”
And that’s what I wanted. While it was undoubtedly true that I wanted vengeance so badly I could almost taste it, I also wanted to stop these people from doing to someone else what they’d done to my mom.
He studied me for a heartbeat, then said, “You’re bleeding.”
As if his words were a trigger, the pain hit, rolling through me in heated waves. I unzipped my coat and peeled it away from my side. The shirt underneath was torn and covered in blood, but the wound itself wasn’t really that deep. It hurt like a bitch, but then shallow wounds were often more painful than the deep ones.
“That is a debatable point,” Azriel commented.
“You’ve obviously never experienced a paper cut.” I pulled off the remnants of my shirt and used the unbloodied bits to stanch the wounds. There were benefits to being half wolf, but quick healing was one of those things I didn’t quite get enough of. I healed much faster than a human, but my inability to shift into wolf shape meant I couldn’t get the almost instantaneous restoration that most wolves enjoyed.
“Why do you not heal yourself in Aedh form?” Azriel said.
I wrinkled my nose and zipped my jacket back up. “Shifting into Aedh saps my strength badly, so I can imagine what trying to heal myself while changing form would do.”
