by Susan Illene
“We haven’t seen him in years.” She didn’t show any sign of being sad about her son’s prolonged absence. “Not since he skipped on his bail and cost his father a lot of money. He’s…he’s not welcome here.”
“Who you talkin’ to?” A man yelled from somewhere farther into the house.
The woman stiffened. She drew a deep breath and answered over her shoulder, “Two men are here asking about Griff.”
“Tell them to get the hell off my property. We ain’t got nothin’ to say to them.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave.” She started to close the door.
Bartol slapped his hand against it before she could. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on coming inside.”
“Woman! What did I tell you?” A man with long, gray hair and a matching beard appeared in the doorway. He had to be Griff’s father. Martin was tall and sturdy despite his age, and his voice was sharp enough to make the woman next to him shake in fear.
Bartol took a step forward, barely keeping himself from exploding in rage, and Tormod growled his own aggressive feelings. They had to get this situation under control fast. In a way, Martin had a lot in common with Kerbasi. The older man was one of those people who took pleasure in exerting his power over others and didn’t know the meaning of kindness. People like him didn’t deserve to live. In fact, they needed to be executed, but in this man’s case, he was human. Bartol’s hands were tied when it came to how much he could do to Griff’s father without bringing down the wrath of the angels.
Of course, that didn’t mean he didn’t have a few options at his disposal. Bartol stared into the wife’s eyes, pulling on his considerable power to influence her mind. “Please go. We will deal with your husband.”
She started to turn away, unable to do anything else except obey the command, but Martin snatched her wrist. “You don’t listen to anyone except me, Ruth.”
Bartol broke the man’s hold on his wife, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him a foot off the floor. “Do not touch her!”
Martin’s eyes widened. Bartol pulled the older man onto the porch and shoved him into the wall next to the door, pleased when the human grunted in pain. He glanced at Tormod. “See if you can do anything for the wife while I deal with this fool. I believe she’s got injuries that need tending.”
“I’m on it,” the nerou replied, heading inside to follow Ruth. Tormod had some healing powers at his disposal that he could use to help her.
“Let go of me.” Martin struggled, weakly attempting to swing his fists.
Bartol narrowed his gaze and spoke in a compelling voice, “Do not fight me.”
Martin stilled, but his eyes remained rebellious since his mind was still clear.
“What do you want?” he asked, choking the words out.
Bartol loosened his grip slightly. “Have you seen or heard from your son, Griff?”
The older man swallowed. “I ain’t seen him in nearly four years, and even if he did come home, I’d be more likely to shoot him than talk to him.”
It was no wonder Griff had turned out so badly. “Have you heard from him?”
“What’s it to you?” Martin’s gaze narrowed. “And what the hell are you? One of those freak supernaturals?”
Bartol was tempted to snap the man’s neck and be done with him. It would have been a service to humankind. “I’m your worst nightmare at the moment. Now, you will tell me the truth—all of it.”
“My wife’s gotten a few letters from Griff over the years that she thinks she’s kept hidden from me, but that’s it,” Martin replied reluctantly. He knew he was being forced to give away private information against his will. Bartol liked that he was aware of it.
“When was the last time Griff wrote her?”
“A month ago.” Martin paused, his gaze darting around as if he was searching for a way to escape. “Said he might be coming into town soon and that he’d stop by if he could, but I wasn’t holding my breath. He knows better than to come here.”
“Nothing else? No phone calls or visits?” Bartol pressed, needing to be sure the man hadn’t found a way around the compulsion. Some humans were clever enough to only obey the precise wording of the commands given to them.
“Nope. That’s it.”
Bartol dropped his hand away, the effects of touching another person beginning to bother him despite his anger. It wasn’t as if the man could flee at the moment anyway. “If Griff was in town, do you have any idea where he might be staying?”
“He only had two friends before he left that I knew about,” Martin spat. “One died last year, and the other one will be in prison for the rest of his life. Griff never knew how to make real friends like my other son.”
“Where is your other son now?”
“Jacob lives in Washington State. Ain’t seen him since Christmas, but he’d never have anything to do with his brother anyhow.” Martin grunted. “He ain’t nothin’ like Griff.”
Bartol mulled that information over for a moment, then gazed deeply into the older man’s eyes. “You are going to go into your house and get a pen and paper. Write down the names and addresses of anyone your son has ever associated with and bring it back to me. Do it quickly.”
He stepped away, and Martin hurried into the house without a backward glance, disappearing into the kitchen. Bartol headed toward the living room to check on the wife. Ruth was sitting on a worn couch while Tormod kneeled in front of her, healing her bruises. His brows were knitted in concentration. It took a few minutes for him to finish and rise to his feet.
“Aside from the bruising, I had to heal a sprained wrist and a knot at the back of her head where she’d been knocked into a wall—according to her. From what I’ve gathered, this is a regular occurrence.” Tormod clenched his fists. “Why would a man do that to a woman?”
Bartol shook his head. “Because some of them are insecure and think harming a woman makes them more powerful. It gives them control they otherwise wouldn’t have in their lives.”
Thinking on it further, he wondered if that was why Kerbasi had been such a terrible guardian in Purgatory. He’d hated being stuck in a lower caste of angels with little hope of rising in the ranks, and he’d taken it out on his prisoners.
“There are other ways to make yourself powerful without hurting people,” Tormod argued.
Bartol lifted a brow. “Such as pulling annoying pranks on them?”
“I…I suppose,” he said, frowning. A moment later, realization dawned in the nerou’s gaze, and it appeared he finally understood how his pranks might affect others. Perhaps today’s exercise had done him even greater good than Bartol and Lucas had hoped.
Tormod took Ruth’s hand and helped her to her feet. He might have been a troublemaker at the training compound while around others of his kind, but he took infinite care with the older woman. She gazed at him with warmth in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“It was nothing. I will come back to check on you soon and make sure you’re doing alright,” he promised, squeezing her hands gently before letting her go. “If you’d like to get some rest now, it’s okay.”
“I think I will,” she said, and started out of the room.
As Bartol watched her go, he remembered he had another purpose for coming here.
“Just a moment,” he called out, stopping her. He waited until she turned to face him. “Could you please find the most recent photo you have of your son, Griff?”
“Of course,” she agreed.
After she disappeared down the hallway, Tormod moved over to Bartol, his jaw hard and expression resolute. “We need to kill her husband.”
“If I let you do that, we’d both be in trouble with the archangels,” Bartol explained, though he hated to leave things as they were with the couple. “It isn’t our place to murder any human no matter how much they deserve it. Ruth chooses to stay with her husband whether we like it or not, and it is up to her to leave him.”
“I don’t ca
re what the archangels say.” Tormod threw up his arms. “If they cared about humans so much, they wouldn’t have let the other supernatural races do whatever they wanted for thousands of years.”
That would be resolved soon enough after the nerou took over as enforcers.
“Because we are more powerful and hold angelic blood in us, we are held to higher standards,” he said, hating that he had to defend the angels’ ridiculous reasoning, but knowing he had no choice if he wished to be a good mentor. “The others were born mortal.”
With the exception of the fae, but they had certain limitations placed on them as well. Tormod knew that very well from growing up in Purgatory since some of the fae were imprisoned there after committing particularly grievous crimes.
“It still isn’t right that we have to leave Ruth like this.” The nerou began pacing the living room, muttering curses under his breath.
Bartol understood his feelings and felt the same way. If he hadn’t just spent a century in Purgatory, he might have been willing to risk breaking the rules and killing Martin no matter the consequences. But he couldn’t go back there, and he couldn’t let Tormod get in trouble, either. There was always another way if one thought about it hard enough. They couldn’t take a human’s free will from them when it came to life-altering decisions—such as compelling Ruth to leave her husband—but the angels wouldn’t get upset over something less significant. Compulsion wasn’t forbidden. There were simply limits on how far one could go with it before crossing a line.
“We still can’t kill him.” Bartol paused and lowered his tone. “But there is something else we can do.”
Tormod stopped and looked at him. “What?”
“You’ll see.” Bartol turned his attention toward Martin, who entered the living room carrying a piece of paper.
“Here,” the man said in a gruff voice, not meeting his gaze. “Will you leave now?”
After taking the piece of paper and checking it over, Bartol grabbed Martin’s chin and forced the human to look at him. “I will leave, but there is one thing you must hear first. From this day forward, you will not hurt your wife ever again. This includes saying harsh words to her, striking her, or pushing her around. It is your duty as her husband to treat her with respect and put her needs above your own.” Bartol pushed as much power as he could into every word. “Do you understand?”
With eyes glazed over, Martin bobbed his head up and down. “Yes.”
Bartol went a little further. “If Ruth decides to leave you at any point in the future, you will let her go in peace without trying to stop her. You will also tell no one about our visit today.”
“Yes,” the human said numbly. His mind was so muddled from the pressure of the compulsion that he’d be dazed for the next hour or so. He deserved that.
“Go sit on the couch,” Bartol commanded and waited until Martin complied. “Spend the rest of the day and evening thinking about what a horrible person you are, and how lucky you are to have a sweet wife. Do not disturb her until she comes to you.”
“Okay.” Martin’s voice came out wooden without a hint of inflection.
Tormod frowned at him, then turned to Bartol. “Will that really work? I thought compulsion wears off eventually.”
“The stronger you are, the longer it lasts. With the amount of power I used, he won’t be able to break through it for a couple of years. As long as one of us checks on Ruth periodically and reinforces the compulsion, Martin shouldn’t hurt his wife anymore,” Bartol informed him.
What he didn’t tell the nerou was that he’d done this very thing a few times in the past, which was how he knew it was the best solution. Interfering any further could get them into serious trouble, but the angels would look the other way for this.
Tormod stared at the human, who sat like a robot with his hands in his lap. The nerou still had a glint in his eyes that said he wanted nothing more than to kill the man, but that was what made this lesson even more important. He would encounter situations such as this over and over again in the future, and there wouldn’t always be someone around to stop him from doing something foolish.
When you had great powers that could turn humans into puppets, it was easy to want to interfere. But people had to be allowed to make mistakes and live with their bad choices. The most Bartol and Tormod could do was make the victim’s life a little easier. Only Ruth could decide to stay with her husband or leave him no matter how much they wanted to take the decision from her.
After a few minutes, the nerou’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. I get it.”
Ruth came in with a photo. “This is the best one I have.”
“Thank you,” Bartol said, taking it from her. Griff looked a lot like Cori’s description—stocky shoulders, closely shaven brown hair, and light skin. The only difference he noted was that the man in the photograph had brown eyes. She’d said his were black now as was the case with all vampires. More than likely, his skin was a few shades paler after not seeing the sun for almost four years as well.
Tormod told the woman she could go rest now. She’d be exhausted after having healing magic used to treat her injuries, and it was a good time to sleep while her husband was busy contemplating his poor behavior.
“You’ve done well today.” Bartol gave him an approving look. “Are you ready to go?”
“Where to next?”
He studied the piece of paper Martin had given him. There were three names on it and only one had an address to go with it. “We’ll check on these next. Perhaps we’ll get lucky, and Griff is hiding with one of his former compatriots.”
Chapter 13
Cori
Cori fought through the dredges of deep slumber. Something niggled at her senses, telling her she needed to wake up. She had tossed and turned for the most of the night and didn’t fall asleep until sometime after three in the morning. It didn’t feel like it had been more than a few hours since then. What was bothering her now?
She cracked open an eye, wincing at the bright light coming through her bedroom window. Didn’t she close those curtains the night before? Slowly, she scanned her gaze across the room, starting at the far corner and moving toward the doorway where a man hovered there. He leaned his shoulder against the frame with his arms crossed and amusement glinting in his amber eyes. Several strands of his light brown hair covered his face, obscuring the burn scars on one side. Cori jerked upright in bed.
“Bartol!” she yelled. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to wake up,” he said in a dry tone.
Cori glared at him. For the past few days, he’d avoided coming anywhere near her until the moment she needed “transportation.” How he knew exactly when she was ready, she had no idea, but she had her suspicions. Bartol could turn invisible if he wanted. All he had to do was wait until the right moment and then grab her before she knew what was happening. One moment she’d be in her cabin and the next at the shop. No chance to negotiate kissing or even get more than a few words of conversation before he disappeared again. To say she was getting frustrated would have been an understatement. Had her kiss been that bad? He’d been treating her like she had a contagious disease ever since.
“Knocking on my front door would have worked, too,” she said, scowling. He might have finally decided to show his face for more than a few seconds, but she was still angry with him.
Bartol straightened and took one step into the room before catching himself. He’d almost forgotten to keep his distance. Good. She was glad to see she was cracking the walls he’d put up around himself, but she still had a lot of work to do.
“I did knock—several times.” Bartol’s lips thinned. “When you didn’t answer, I got worried.”
“For me?” Perhaps he cared after all.
“No, for the cat.”
She pretended confusion since she didn’t have any pets. “What cat?”
“Exactly. Who else would I mean?”
Cori smiled, no longer disturbed to find h
im in her bedroom. “Admit it. You really are getting attached to me.”
His jaw hardened. “I owe it to Melena to keep you safe. That is all.”
“If that excuse helps you sleep at night.” She stretched, making a big show of it. With the thin camisole she wore, her nipples peaked right through the material. “But I know different, and you’re here for more reasons than you want to admit.”
Bartol’s gaze dipped for the briefest moment before lifting to meet her eyes, and his expression hardened. “Has anyone told you that you’re infuriating?”
She relaxed from stretching and ran a hand through her hair, horrified to find it a tangled mess. No wonder he’d appeared amused when she’d woken. She had to look horrible. Then again, he hadn’t fled, so that was a good sign.
“Yes, I’ve heard that before,” she replied, finger-combing her hair and wincing when she caught a knot. “You’re gonna have to try harder if your goal is to insult me.”
“It’s not.”
Cori lifted a brow. “Then why are you here?”
“I met your former husband’s parents yesterday. They haven’t seen him and neither has anyone else we’ve talked to.” Bartol went on to describe how his and Tormod’s previous day went.
Their first stop after visiting Martin and Ruth had been to take the picture they got of Griff over to Derrick. The alpha werewolf confirmed he had not seen that particular vampire, but he would copy the photo and send it out to the sups in the area so they could be on the lookout. After that, Bartol and Tormod had gone to visit a few of Griff’s former friends and co-workers. Every one of them, even under compulsion, swore they hadn’t seen him in years. If Cori’s ex was somewhere in the Fairbanks area, he was doing a damn good job of hiding his presence—except when he came around to harass her.
She sighed. Her life had a way of twisting and turning on her, especially whenever things became too good. She should have known something would put a wrench in the new life she’d built for herself after losing her daughter.
Griff had always been cunning and a master at manipulating circumstances to go his way. It didn’t help that he knew the area well from when he used to hunt and fish during his spare time. The man could be anywhere within a hundred-mile radius for all they knew, which was a lot of ground to cover. Alaska was a large place with difficult to reach areas where he could hide for months without them finding him.
