by Sierra Dean
“You two have fun. Play nice, now, y’hear?” She lifted the rope blocking the stairs from access, and when I glanced back halfway up the narrow passage, she had all but vanished, melting into the shadows to keep undo attention off the private area.
Making money off curious humans was all well and fine, but there were some parts of our lives they were better off not knowing too much about.
There were a lot of good reasons we’d kept ourselves hidden from them for so long.
The bass thump of the music faded away the higher up we got, until it was replaced with a soft, melodic singing, accompanied by deep, rich string music. The melody was eerie and haunting, something that defied definition.
Siren song.
I bristled, not liking such an underhanded ploy. Sure, the music was recorded and not live, dulling some of its power, but all the same it was a manipulation. Supes weren’t immune to it. They would spend more money, stay at the bar longer, let their guards down around prospective mates. Siren song was more dangerous than drugs and alcohol. If Cain had had one singing live, the place would have devolved into an all-out orgy.
The literal kind.
As it was, the lights were dimmed, and most of the room was lit by candles. Couples were draped across each other, many of them touching each other in a way that was borderline inappropriate for a public space, while others kissed in a slow, passionate manner that suggested a total disregard for their surroundings.
Since the space was open concept, it was easy to spot Cain right away. He was seated on a large black leather couch along the back wall. His lady love, Delphine, rested against his side, her fingers grasping his thigh. She spotted me before he did.
I’d known Delphine when she was still legally called David, a name she didn’t so much hide from now, more like she dismissed it as a forgotten acquaintance. And in all honesty, that’s what David had been to her. An uncomfortable roommate she’d had to live with until she’d been able to blossom into who she really was.
Now, two years since her transition, she was Delphine, and David was gone, it was as simple as that.
To me she’d always been Delphine because I couldn’t imagine her as anything other than the striking, intoxicating, wonderful woman she was. Del had introduced me to Cain and shown me where the real voodoo shops in town were.
She squeezed Cain’s leg and got to her feet with the liquid grace of a predatory animal. In her heels she towered over Wilder and me, almost six-six. Stooping elegantly, she kissed both my cheeks, then did the same to Wilder without the slightest introduction. When she stepped back, he wore a naked, awestruck expression on his face for a moment before he realized he was gawking at her.
I couldn’t blame him. If I had to put a photo in the dictionary next to Amazon, I’d have submitted Delphine as the perfect candidate. She was lean and muscular, like a swimmer, her dark hair a furious cloud of curls around her head that rivaled Diana Ross’s in her prime. Her dark, flawless skin made her teeth look so white they were practically jewels in her mouth.
I was helpless in her orbit, caught up like a lowly comet on a direct path into the sun. That was the awesome power Delphine had on those around her. And that magic was all her, nothing supernatural about her except how much everyone loved her after just one meeting.
“Eugenia McQueen, as I live and breathe.”
She was also one of the only people in my life I let call me by my full name. Coming from her, Eugenia sounded like a compliment not a tease.
“Del, it’s really not fair, you coming here looking this good. The other girls don’t stand a chance.”
She winked at me and slipped Wilder a cheeky smirk. “I don’t want the other girls to stand a chance. Now, who’s this thick slice of handsome you’ve brought me?”
Wilder flushed but couldn’t hide his smile. I knew what he was feeling. Between the siren song and the attention of a beautiful woman, his ego was roughly the size of Antarctica right now. He’d come down as soon as we left, but I’d let him enjoy himself for a few minutes. At least he wasn’t brooding and thinking about Hank. Maybe his happiness was artificial, but there was rarely any other kind to be found in a bar.
“This is my friend, Wilder Shaw. We’re here to speak with Cain, if he’s amenable.” Demanding an audience wouldn’t get us anywhere, and trying to bend Delphine’s will by telling her how important the mission at hand was wouldn’t help either. She was used to dozens of needy bastards like us coming in every day to beg for Cain’s time. No one got close unless Delphine gave the go-ahead, and just because she liked me didn’t mean anything was guaranteed. Del liked a lot of people, but she wasn’t about to do favors for all of them.
“You in a spot of trouble, baby girl? You don’t come to see him all that often.”
I wondered what kind of desperation would make someone come to Cain more than I had. I’d only asked for his help twice, and it felt like two times too many. Even after paying his price I still considered myself permanently in his pocket.
“Someone tried to kill me earlier today.” Might as well lead with the truth, right? I tried to make it seem like no big deal, but the way her brows lifted suggested she understood the urgency.
“Was it those Church of Morning pricks?” she snarled, her voice raw with unmasked hatred. I’d never heard Delphine sound so enraged about anything in our entire acquaintance, including some of the disgusting, pigheaded bigots I’d witnessed her deal with while we’d been on campus together. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Those fuckers.” She turned on her heel and prowled back to Cain, and since she hadn’t told us to leave, I took this as invitation to follow.
Cain was a big guy. With his shock of bright white hair and his football-player physique, he reminded me of what I imagined Cable from the X-Men would look like in real life. A huge, imposing wall of muscle. He rose to greet us as we approached, kissing my cheeks as Delphine had, but only offering Wilder a firm handshake.
“Welcome back, Miss McQueen. It’s been a long while since you graced us with your presence. We were starting to worry you didn’t like us anymore.”
“Don’t be silly, Beau. You know how life gets.”
He forced a smile, though I could tell he wasn’t altogether pleased with my response.
“Bebe,” Del said, leaning close to Cain’s ear. “Those hateful church bastards are stirring up trouble for our little wolf cub.”
Del spoke about me in a motherly way, in spite of the fact she was only two years older than me. Didn’t matter to her, she took it upon herself to mother everyone around her.
“Church of Morning?” Cain asked me.
“The one and thankfully only.”
“What kind of nonsense are they bringing your way, lovely?” Cain said, indicating Wilder and I should take the nearby seats facing him.
I gave him the condensed, CliffsNotes version of everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours. God, had it only been a day? Felt more like a million years. Cain bobbed his head along in silent agreement with whatever I said, as though he’d been there and was verifying the truth of each statement.
When I finished, he was quiet for a long while, then said, “What is it I can help you with?”
“We need to find the Church. Hank doesn’t have a lot of time left, and we can’t just hope we luck into it. If they’re still in Louisiana, it’s a big state. Lots of rocks for maggots to crawl underneath.”
The music changed to something more up tempo, and the couples sprawled around the bar started to dance. The new activity was no less sexual than their kissing had been. It was more grinding than dancing, really. I stopped staring and looked back at Cain, hoping he would agree to help us.
“What makes you think I know where they are?”
Oh, good, we were going to play this game? Didn’t he understand me when I’d told him time was of the essence? I managed to keep from sighing audibly and in
stead gave him my best smile.
“You know why I came to you. You’re the best at what you do, the smartest man south of the Mason-Dixon, and quite frankly, there’s no one else I would trust to help me with this.”
Cain gave me an aw-shucks hand wave. Flattery was only the first half of the transaction.
“I’m willing to pay any price,” I announced. “We both know you know, because you know everything. And it’s worth it to me. So whatever it’ll take for me to get my missing pack mate back, I’ll pay it.”
Wilder blanched but wisely didn’t interrupt. It might have been his brother we were after, but this wasn’t the kiddie pool, and even with the aid of my warnings, he didn’t know how this game was played.
“It won’t be a matter of finance.”
So much for writing a check.
“I assumed it wouldn’t have a dollar sign attached.”
He grinned broadly. “You’re a smart girl, Genie. You’ll do that pack of yours proper justice one day if you decide to be queen. If they want what’s good for them.”
I bit my tongue. If I agreed with him, he’d know I’d been thinking about becoming queen. If I spoke on behalf of Ben’s claim, I would yield my own. It didn’t matter that Cain wasn’t a wolf. I didn’t need a mistake coming back to bite me later on down the road. I had no idea how things were going to play out, and I wanted my cards close to the chest where the pack was concerned.
“What’ll it be?” I asked.
Cain glanced towards Delphine, toying with the curls nearest her temple. His adoration for her was written all over his face. He loved her and didn’t care who knew it. For a minute it made me sad because not once in our year together had Cash ever looked at me that way, like I was something precious he couldn’t live without.
I knew what real love looked like. It was the way Cain stared at Delphine, or the blinding joy I saw whenever Secret’s husband watched her walk into a room. Some things like that couldn’t be faked.
“You be nice to her,” Delphine scolded, kissing him on the nose.
“I’m always nice,” Cain countered. “But nice and free ain’t exactly the same thing, are they?”
“That’s fine.” Once again I bit back the urge to ask him to hurry things up and get to the point. If Hank died while we sat here pre-negotiating, I was not going to be a happy werewolf princess.
“Life for a life,” he said finally. “If I give you the information to find your pack mate, and if you’re able to save him, I want the life of Timothy Deerling in return.”
“Wha—?”
“Done,” Wilder interrupted.
I shot him what I hoped was a menacing glare. This wasn’t his arrangement; he couldn’t agree to something like that on my behalf. Wilder didn’t look even remotely ashamed of himself.
“You want that son of a bitch dead, and so do I,” Wilder said.
Cain clucked his tongue. “You misunderstand me, son. I do want him dead. But I want to be there when it happens. You will bring him to me. Roughed up is fine. Bleeding is fine. But he needs to have a pulse so I can watch the flicker go out and see his last minutes of suffering for myself. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Kidnap. Torture. But no murder.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, suddenly feeling exhausted beyond measure.
Now I had to find a way to keep this stupid bastard alive, when everyone around me wanted to see him dead.
Sure, okay.
I did say whatever the price, didn’t I?
Chapter Fifteen
Wilder was relentless.
He refused my suggestion that we get a couple hours of sleep before hitting the road. I tried to reason we would be sharper with some rest and be more responsive, but he was having none of it. Either we left now, together, or he’d go without me.
Cain had provided us with the information we needed, in spite of my misgivings about agreeing to his price. It wasn’t so much the life of Timothy Deerling I cared about. Given what he thought about my people and what he was planning to do to Hank…if there was a hell, he deserved to go there.
I just hadn’t planned on handing him the one-way ticket myself.
Wilder and I pulled into a gas station about forty minutes outside of New Orleans. I was wiped out, soul-crushingly exhausted, and getting more than a little cranky.
I’d have traded my left boob for a hot shower, a beer and about a hundred hours in a soft bed. What I got instead was a bumpy cross-state road trip on a motorcycle. Since we couldn’t exchange chitchat, we were both getting worn thin by the journey.
Lifting my cell over my head, I hoped I might pick up a scant amount of signal, but with no towers nearby it looked like I was shit out of luck. Too bad I didn’t know any spells that would give me four bars and free WiFi.
Maybe I was better off without signal. Early risers in the pack, Callum included, would be up by now. Someone must have figured out I was gone. I chewed my lower lip, nursing misgivings about this whole stupid plan. A few hours ago it had seemed vital, like it was the only smart move. Now I wasn’t so sure Wilder and I weren’t on a wild-goose chase.
I switched my phone back to GPS mode, which thankfully kept chugging away regardless of cell towers. The directions suggested we still had another hour to go to our destination.
For the life of me I couldn’t imagine what the Church was thinking, building their mecca out in Franklinton of all places. We were less than an hour outside New Orleans, and already it was like being on a foreign planet. The gas station alone gave me the creeps. It looked like the set of a bad slasher movie.
Franklinton, a town I’d never been to and had barely heard of, was briefly well-populated following Katrina. But in recent years smaller towns like that had started to dry up, and even the appeal of their huge annual fair—the only reason I knew about the place at all—wasn’t enough to keep people around. I wasn’t expecting a bustling metropolis at the end of the road.
Wilder jogged out of the small convenience store and threw a strip of beef jerky at me. I didn’t bother to ask questions, I just ripped it open and devoured the salty meat without much consideration for decorum. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until right then, and I could have kissed him for thinking of it.
“You ready, Princess?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
I took my last bite of the beef jerky and reminded myself it was my choice to come along on this ride, and without me things would probably end poorly for Wilder.
After checking my GPS one last time to make sure we were headed the right way, I hopped on the back of his bike and wrapped my arms around his middle. The gesture was becoming second nature by now, and it was strange to me how fast I could get used to holding someone I didn’t know all that well. It wasn’t unpleasant or off-putting, just unusual.
The engine rumbled to life, and we were off. In spite of the fact we were in a hurry, I appreciated that Wilder didn’t put us at further risk by going too much over the speed limit. He kept the pace a bit too fast, but not so much I thought we were in real danger.
Even at night it was obvious that the farther we retreated from the big city the farther we got from civilization. We barely saw any cars and drove for miles at a time without seeing the light of a house.
Having grown up in a relatively secluded area, I was no stranger to the stillness of a rural night, but given what I knew lay ahead of us, it made me all the more uneasy. The quiet should have been broken by sinister horror-movie music or something. Anything that might suggest we were driving headfirst into a bad decision.
I was glad I’d brought my gun.
Bullets might not do a hell of a lot against werewolves and vampires, but they could stop a human in his tracks any day.
Maybe it was the comfortable scent of a wolf from my own pack, or perhaps it was the lull of the road in harmony with my exhaustion, but I soon closed my eyes and pressed the side of my helmet to Wilder’s back. I wasn’t asleep,
but in a comfortable haze between sleep and wakefulness that would allow me to hold on to him but also enjoy the static of a conscious doze.
At first I thought the light was my imagination, maybe a reflection of a passing home or a rare streetlight to mark a turn. I blinked quickly, mostly to pretend I’d been awake the whole time, and tried to chase away the brightness without being able to rub my eyes.
I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped into my throat.
A car was following us, and directly behind it was a pickup truck with roof-mounted lights turned up as high as they go. Those were the kinds of lights I was used to seeing aimed towards a high school football game or lighting up a pasture after folks had gone hunting. They weren’t something you used on the highway before dawn when there were cars in front of you.
“Fuck,” I said.
Wilder muttered something, but I could only tell because I felt the rumble of his voice against my palms.
The message was clear enough, though. He knew we were being followed.
Instinctively I held on tighter. We’d been pacing ourselves thus far, but I was sure that was about to change. Before Wilder had a chance to speed up, the smaller car changed lanes and passed us. I gritted my teeth, expecting the car to sideswipe us or force us off the road, but it kept driving until it was around us and continued down the road as if we were of no particular interest.
I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Were we being paranoid? I didn’t think it was unfair for me to be worried when it came to vehicular-homicide attempts, especially not this close to the Church, but maybe a car was just a car in this case.
That didn’t explain away the truck.
The engine revved loudly, the way only something without a muffler can.
“Wilder…” I whispered, even though my words were lost in the night air. The truck edged closer, motor roaring, and I knew to my bones this guy wasn’t planning to drive past us.
From inside the truck I could hear the obnoxious bass thump of loud music. The beat sounded like rap, but I couldn’t make out the words.
