by Jana Leigh
She heard rustling and assumed her mates were beginning to rise and had noticed she was not there. A small smile tugged at her lips until she heard Brin’s urgent tone say, “Dante, wake up!”
While she had been out on the patio thinking about all things happy, her mate had been in bed struggling to get through a vision. She could feel it now that she opened herself up. Jax had blocked herself for fear they would wake so early after their exhausting night.
She ran back into the room to see Brin struggling to hold onto Dante, as he thrashed and moved on the bed. He said no words but fought Brin’s hold, and had them nearly falling off the bed. In one leap, she was with them; holding onto Dante’s other side trying to calm him.
When Dante felt her touch, he calmed, and Brin thought that was an indication he could let go, so he released Dante to run his fingers through his hair. But the instant that their skin broke contact, Dante began to fight again. What the fuck? Brin thought, and grabbed Dante’s arm again, and he calmed.
“It is the mating; we are his anchors,” Jax murmured and watched Dante closely for signs he would be coming out of it soon. But there was nothing. Their strong Alpha Vampire lay as still as the dead, the only thing that let them know he was alive was the rapid movement of his eyelids. He was having a vision, and a not so nice one, if the thrashing was any indication.
***
Dante felt his vision come on through the fog of his sleep. He could see them in the cars driving in the country. Jax and Brin were laughing, singing to a song on the radio while he grumbled and worked. They were trying to tease him. Dante looked up and saw the car ahead of them moving toward the gas station that was up ahead.
Jax cheered in the back because she had to go to the bathroom. When they finally left the station, Dante was more relaxed, things were moving ahead of schedule, and they should be at the compound within the next six hours or so. He looked down, and the GPS signal he used on his computer to recalculate the distance. If they had to take a detour once they reached the city by their new home, they could do so without any problem. Dante was typing up a check-in for Orfeo—Jax and Brin had become engaged in a game of ‘I Spy', which made him chuckle.
He had just finished his email and lifted his head when Jax said, “I spy a…” And their world turned into a fiery ball of flames as the car ahead of them exploded and the car behind did the same thing. Dante could feel his Clan members in the cars, crying out in pain. Fire would not kill them so easily, but it would hurt tremendously.
Jax screamed in the back, and Brin tried to maneuver them so the car in back of them didn’t hit, and avoid the car in front. Dante turned to Jax and ordered her to sooth the members of their Clan who were in pain. Jax was looking on in horror but closed her eyes and concentrated.
Once they came to a stop, Brin ordered Jax to remain in the car, while they jumped from both sides and ran to the burning vehicles. The pain they were feeling, Dante thought, while trying to throw debris aside and get to his men. They were calling to him, asking for help for them and their brothers-in-arms.
Trey was ordering Dante and Brin to get his men out, leave him for the last. But the pain was overwhelming. Finally, Jax must have gotten threw to them because they quieted. Dante could work without hearing his friends, his men, yelling for him.
The fire burned hot from the brand-new fuel they had just gotten, Brin not being able to get to close was talking to the men, finding out where they were in the car, while Dante threw charred out pieces of the SUV across the road into the ditch.
Brin called to him, instructing him to move to the left; he could smell his friend's burning skin, and grimaced. Pulling the roof off a large part of the vehicle, he found his men still strapped into their seat. Brin swore and ran to the driver’s side and pulled the man out and over to the side of the road, ignoring the smell and the groans of pain from moving him. Dante moved the other two, and then they ran for the other car.
Trey was in the front seat. They could hear him yelling from the middle of the crumbled pile, and Dante set to work, throwing things more frantically. Now that they had gotten three of them out, he wanted them all free. Jax sent them a calming feeling and Dante settled down. The fire was still intense, and the small explosions that kept going off were loud. Brin helped him as much as he could. Dante would forever remember his human mate disregarding his safety for that of their Clan members. It made him the Alpha that Dante had hoped for.
By the time they had pulled the six men from the car to the side of the rode, Dante was sick, they had lost one of them, the driver of the car in front of him, as a piece of steel had pierced his heart. Dante did not have time to grieve; they were in the middle of fucking nowhere, had not seen a car in miles, hell. The gas-station attendant had been excited to see so many of them. She had chattered on about being in the countryside where no one came.
Brin turned to the SUV where Jax was sitting in the back watching them, trying to help, when he saw the men coming from the other side of the car. Five of them, and they were all huge, mean, and ready to take their mate.
Brin yelled for Dante and began to run when one of the men pulled their mate out of the back of the car struggling. He laughed when she bit him and scratched. Dante saw red, but he heard the crack, and he almost fell to the ground when the bond they had only begun to discover was snapped back.
He heard Jax scream in agony as Brin fell to the ground.
***
“What the fuck?” Brin called when he shook himself and stopped seeing the horror played out in his mind.
“Dante?” Jax said softly as she stared at her mate whose eyes had snapped open.
“Shit,” Dante muttered. “That was so fucking real, like no other vision I have had before.”
“Yeah, me too,” Brin said dryly. “Especially the part where that fucker had snapped my neck.”
Jax and Dante looked at Brin as he rolled his head around on his shoulders and grimaced. It had been too fucking real; Dante thought. Not a dream, no longer a vision, a warning.
“Call the men,” Dante asked looking at Brin, who had already grabbed Dante’s phone and was dialing Trey.
Chapter 12
The men met in the large living area of their suite. Jax had gotten up and ordered food for them all, so they could talk about what Dante had seen what the three of them had seen. The trio was very subdued; the happiness that had surrounded them earlier now was a worried and stressed aura.
Dante was on the phone with Orfeo and Blaine conferenced in, asking questions and explaining how his visions had changed from something kind of foggy and mysterious to clear and specific. Jax knew that they would tell him his gifts were growing. Hers were too. She could hear the men’s thoughts clear as day, and could also shut them out at will. Something she had never been able to do before. Thank the Gods she could now, because replaying the night one of the Guards had had with a housekeeper at the hotel was a little disturbing.
The phone snapped behind her, and she jumped. Damn her nerves. Turning, she saw Dante grimace and then say, “Okay, Orfeo, and Blaine from the Denver Pack and New Council, think my visions have become stronger since the mating. Blaine said he sees more into the future like years, whereas I am seeing the immediate days. We know the vision I had should be happening in two days. We have to figure out how to stop it from happening.”
Trey frowned and said, “We can change the route.”
Dante shook his head and said, “No, I had the distinct impression that somehow they knew exactly where we were going to be. If that is the case, then we can change a million times, and they would still find us. Besides, Orfeo suggested it would be a good opportunity to capture the Rogues and bring them in for questioning.
Brin nodded. “We need to find out how they are getting information. I mean, they had Jax, but according to her, they didn’t know who or what she was other than a shifter, and the Old Alpha’s daughter. Now they suddenly risk everything to come and get her. Killing one of her mates, w
hich they know what that would do. I trust all of you with my life, which is why I will share with you this information. Mates, I was going to do this in private. However, it is best they all know too, so forgive me in advance.”
Dante and Jax frowned but nodded.
“I have been emailing past clients whom are Witches. They have the gift of sight in spells. One of them took some of my hair to do the wards on the office I occupied, anyway, when she was doing the wards, we became friends,” Brin said.
Jax growled and snarled at Brin, who looked at her in surprise. Why the hell did she keep doing that when he mentioned his neighbor and friends who were females? Brin thought and then was blasted with her feeling, and he looked at her shocked. “Babe, really? I never slept with any of them, friends are friends.”
The other men in the room laughed and then waited. “We will deal with you later,” Brin promised and then laughed when Jax frowned and flipped him off. They needed to go on the offensive not the defensive.
“Anyway, we know that I am the anchor of my two mates,” he continued, “but I am a little more than that unfortunately. Dante and Jax both have certain powers that make them very unusual in the magical community. Just like the New Council Pack, the Senate will be made of certain people who are special. The witch is calling Orfeo now to let him know the specifics that she has. Witches spells are not as powerful as Dante’s visions; in fact, she doesn’t know how correct they are. Sometimes events change things, but in this instance, they will not.”
Dante frowned and looked at him. “The Witches spells are only just specifically for the person whose personal item they have. I have sought counsel with some about my visions. They said that though they will see things in the future, the future and present are ever changing, so their accuracy is hit and miss. They can see a woman who falls in love with someone, but if that person finds someone before the woman meets them; the future is changed. Whereas, my visions always come to pass in one form or another, even with the change in the present, the details can be changed, but the outcome will be the same. So this will happen no matter where we decided to go.”
“Right and wrong, the Witch says although your visions are accurate and powerful, certain things can be changed, but you can’t change them all. Some things have to come to pass in order for the rest of the future to also happen,” Brin said. “So as I was saying, I am your anchor. The catch is that if I die, you die, both of you sinking into the madness of your powers. That is my so-called special gift. That and allowing the Clan to walk in the day.”
Jax moved from the table and began to pace, talking to herself and going over things in her head. “So we have to cheat fate,” she announced.
“Some of us,” Brin said with a sad tone.
“Fuck,” Trey said and swept a hand down his face. “We get to get crispy crittered in a few days, that is what you are saying, isn’t it? And one of us will die.”
“The dying part I think we can change, as well as my emanate demise,” Brin said and looked at Dante, who was staring at his men. Brin knew he was thinking about them and the pain they were going to have to endure, all for the sake of keeping the three of them protected and safe. It seemed like it was above and beyond the call of their duties.
“I would really like to vote for changing the part where I bite the big one,” Brendan said and laughed and hit the man on the back of the head. “What? You would all vote the same if it were you.”
“True, but we wouldn’t say it, be a man!” Trey said and laughed when the other Guard growled at him.
“Stop, I agree with him,” Brin laughed. “I would really like to vote on saving us when the time comes.”
“That is not an option even on the table. We will save the both of you; it is the other stuff that has me worried. Jax being taken, and the others being too injured to help,” Dante said. “And how do they know where we are?”
“We have a traitor in the midst, and we don’t have the time to find them. So we lay the cards out like we want them to be. Control the hand,” Jax said firmly.
“That sounds a bit like cheating,” Dante mused.
“No, it is making sure we win the game. Cheating is hoping you win if you try to manipulate. My way is a certainty. We will win the game,” Jax said passionately and Dante grinned.
His mates were proving to him how the Gods had chosen so well. The three of them together could face anything. “Okay, lay it out for us,” Dante said and pulled out his computer to take notes. He would forward them to Orfeo and make sure they were all on the same page.
It took a few hours to go over their plan. By the time they were done, the group was feeling much more optimistic about what was going to happen. Although the Guards knew they were sacrificing themselves to the pain they would have to endure for the sake of the game they were playing, they all agreed to do it.
Jax had a mind like a machine. All of the men sat in wonder as they hoped they would never be on her bad side; she had some wicked ideas. The men all felt like covering their crotch when she talked about cutting someone’s cock off. The look in her eye was scary.
“What?” she asked and everyone put down their heads, afraid to answer her. “Hey, if you don’t act like an asshole like these guys, you will be fine. But turn on my family, Pack or Clan, expect retribution.”
Dante and Brin both grinned at the fierceness of their mate. She was amazing, and strong, yet also loving and caring. The perfect combination to be the leader of the new family.
Dante firmed up the details with Orfeo and Tripp, the latter was now in charge on their end to organize and make certain things happen. He looked forward to seeing the looks on the Rogues face when they figured out they have been duped. And although the plan was solid, they did move where they were going to make their stand to be at a different location. Dante expressed concern over the woman who was in the store all alone. He worried if she saw something she wasn’t supposed to when the Rogues came by. Or when the explosion happened. They only were a few miles from the place. Now that they changed their route one more time. The group was satisfied with what was going to happen.
“Can we go shopping now?” Jax asked hopefully. These men were about to risk their lives and cause themselves a lot of pain for her. They deserved to have some special time to buy something for their loved ones. It was stupid to think that a gift from them would ease their pain in the next few weeks, but Jax really thought the families would cherish a gift they received from their mates, children or parents. Letting them know that they were thinking of them.
“I agree; we are in the shopping capital of the world. I have the black no-limit card for the Clan, and we are going to use it people,” Dante said slamming his hand down on the table. “We are certain we are safe here, so let's make a day of it and then travel by night. I would like to spend the night before our little show close to where we have to be in order to be rested and prepared. Lunch at the Eiffel Tower and then shopping along the Champs Elysees sounds good.”
Jax laughed and stood up. She needed to look her best in order to be in the stores she was planning on going in. Brin had bought her a nice sundress from England, and she had her hair dye. Making plans to be ready in an hour, she ran to the bathroom, grabbing her bag along the way.
Putting the dye in her hair, she proceeded to bathe slowly, enjoying the scents of the roses that were still left in the tub. Nope, not having that dream again, especially when her men were trying hard to still plan the last details.
***
Dante stood in the bedroom waiting for his mate to merge from the bathroom. Brin was in the other room, making sure everything was packed like it should be, and arranging for a different car to take them all to the places they wanted to go, instead of walking. If Brin had been a Vampire, things would be much different. As it was, his brother-like mate was human, but part of Dante thought of him as a Guard or Enforcer, he was strong.
Soon, they would face the unthinkable, and Dante refused to let one of his mat
e’s die. He really didn’t care if he sunk into madness because of it. It was the point he would not have been able to save them, and that was not acceptable to Dante. His visions were a gift, not a burden. He was given a chance to change the outcome, and it was the only thing he cared about. Stopping what he was doing as he thought about his motives.
They were not selfish, so what were they? Shit, the Vampire had fallen for the wolf, and his love extended to a human as a brother. Looking around he thought about what he was doing. Standing waiting for his mate to come out of the bathroom to go shopping. He was excited about shopping. FUCKIN A’, Dante fell in the trap. His man card was going to be taken. How would he ever look the guys in the face again?
Today he would carry bags and wait by the dressing room. He wondered if there was a gun store on the Champs Eylsess, which would be a manly thing to do. He wondered if Brin thought about this when he indulged their mate after she announced why she wanted to shop.
First off, it had been because she had never actually been allowed to shop in stores like this, not that she dressed up a lot, but she wanted to make sure, given her new position, she looked good. Besides, she was feeling a lot womanlier now that she had her mates. Something sexy to wear with them was in order. How could they fight that reasoning? But most men grumble and hand over the card. No, Brin and Dante, along with the rest of the Guards, were going with her. It was like a chick's day out with only one freaking chick.
“Brin,” Dante said and then walked into the other room.
“Yeah?” Brin said looking up from the bag he just finished packing and throwing on the floor. “Done, we are ready; all we have to do is load these up. I think maybe we should buy another bag for the shit we will be purchasing today. I mean, if Jax is anything like Cami or the other girls, Quin has told me about their trips.”
