by Lila Dubois
With that, she turned to Henry, who was standing over the whimpering man. “Go,” she whispered, and together they headed out the door.
Five hours later, she repeated her thanks and closed the door behind the detectives from LAPD-Hollywood Division. The cops had arrived at the café moments after she and Henry booked it out of there. By the time two detectives showed up at her door—having called her agent, who called Akta, who called the PR team, who then called the detectives and okayed the visit—the footage of the attack was up on the Internet and the gossip shows were starting to pick up on it.
Luckily, no one had been filming when the man first confronted her, so the only audio on the video was random ranting, with no mention of monsters. So far, no one had directly connected the attack to their hints about monsters being real—it was being framed, with help from the PR people, as an attack by a crazed fan, and a heroic rescue by the hunky Henry. Akta didn’t know whether to be disgusted or proud that people were more focused on Henry’s sexiness than the fact that she’d been attacked.
The people left in her living room knew the truth, knew that things like this would only be more common as people started to take the claims seriously.
“What if he’d been armed?” Henry’s words were low. Akta could tell that he was barely holding on to his anger. Luckily, the cell phone video hadn’t captured the rage that had emanated from him.
“We’ll hire drivers,” Margo said. “From now on, all principals and anyone else who has been interviewed or spoken publicly will have a driver.”
“She had a driver today. Me. If I hadn’t felt that she was scared, I wouldn’t have known to go in and help her.”
Luke’s brows rose. “You felt that she was scared?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew right where she was?” Michael added.
“Of course.”
Michael and Luke exchanged a look. Margo’s eyes widened and then she smiled.
“Why are you all making that face?” Akta asked, looking around the room.
“No reason,” Jane said. Akta could tell she was lying.
“I know you’re lying. Spill it.”
“We’re getting off the point,” Henry snapped. “She was hurt, and it could have been worse.”
“Henry, I’m fine.” Akta tugged down the sleeves of her sweater to hide the bruises on her arms.
“No. I won’t see you put in danger.” He cupped her elbows.
“They’re just so perfect together,” Jane said. “I’m so happy they finally stopped being stupid.”
Akta ignored her friend and touched Henry’s face. “I chose this. We knew—I knew—it would be dangerous, and I still chose it.”
Henry swallowed. “I don’t think I’d survive if something happened to you.”
Static electricity crackled in the air and a moment later an oval door of shimmering light appeared in the middle of Akta’s living room. Maeve stepped through it.
The Seer wore leggings and a Navajo-print tunic, looking for all the world like a young, hip starlet. The portal closed behind her. She looked at each person in the room, ending with Henry.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “If she’s dead, then you are too.”
Henry stiffened. “You saw that in our future? Death.”
“There is death in everyone’s future.” As a banshee, Maeve could see a person’s past and future when she touched them.
“I thought you couldn’t see our futures because you’re too close to us,” Luke said.
“You, yes, but them…” she pointed to the women, “…when I first met them, I could see.”
A cold ball settled in Akta’s belly. “I die? Henry dies?”
“In some futures, yes. But don’t be sad. Either you both die or you both live.”
Maeve wandered to the kitchen, leaving Akta and Henry to deal with that bombshell.
When she came back, she had a glass of wine. She settled herself on the floor. Normally, Maeve was not included in meetings like this, because even the monsters found her intimidating. For the humans, it was easy to forget how powerful she was because she came across as a bit mad, but not really threatening—until she said something truly scary, like announcing when people would die.
“Akta was attacked,” Maeve prompted.
“Uh, yes.” Luke cleared his throat. “We were wondering what to do.”
“You need protection.” She looked around the room.
Lena cleared her throat. “We were talking about hiring drivers for everyone—”
“How would a driver have helped today?” Henry pulled Akta against his side.
“I agree it’s not a perfect plan, but—”
“No, Henry is right,” Maeve said.
“I’m never going to finish a sentence again,” Lena muttered.
“Bodyguards,” Michael interjected. “We should get bodyguards for the principals.”
“A good idea,” Maeve agreed, grinning.
“I do not need a bodyguard,” Henry said.
“If I get one, then you’re getting one,” Akta said. Henry may be better equipped than she was to deal with a man like the one today, but he wasn’t bulletproof.
“Akta, you’re the one—”
“I have bodyguards.” Maeve’s announcement had heads swiveling towards her.
“You…have bodyguards?” Henry asked. “What do you mean?”
“I saved them for this moment. I thought we might need them, and I was right.” Maeve looked incredibly pleased with herself. “I’ll go get them.”
Maeve drained her wine, stood and walked out into the backyard.
Cali mouthed, “What the hell?”, but they followed the Seer.
Maeve was standing on the lip of the pool. Reaching forward, she opened another of those shiny silver doorways. With a little jump, she leapt into it.
“Does anyone know what she’s doing?” Henry asked.
Runako grunted. “I do. They’re good men. They’ll be the perfect bodyguards, assuming their time in ice didn’t make them mad.”
All heads swiveled to Runako.
“Am I the only one who feels like they’re missing something?” Cali asked.
Something appeared in the doorway. It was huge—taller than a man and as wide as the portal itself. It toppled into the pool.
“It’s a block of ice,” Akta said as she watched the boulder-size piece of ice floating.
“A block of ice…with a person in it.” Jane’s voice was faint and she sat down. Luckily Michael was there to stick a chair under her.
Akta peered at the ice. Though it was hazy, there was definitely a human figure in there.
“Where did Maeve get frozen humans?” Michael asked calmly.
“She froze them,” Runako said. “They’re Blackwolf, the men who surrendered.”
“I always wondered what happened to the survivors,” Cali said, arms crossed.
Akta looked at the group surrounding her pool. Another ice boulder plopped into the pool.
“Should I defrost them?” Seling asked.
“Can you do it without roasting them?” Cali rubbed her boyfriend’s arm.
“Hmm, well, I can heat up the water.”
Seling shed his clothes and shifted to his monster form. He could breathe fire hot enough to melt metal. Positioning himself at the shallow end, he laid a stream of fire over the water. The pool started to steam as more figures toppled into the water.
“Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?” Akta asked.
“Nope,” Henry sighed. “Even for Maeve, this is mad.”
As the water temperature rose, the ice around the men started to melt. Runako stripped and shifted, jumping into the pool. Henry and the others followed suit. Taking the first figure, which was the most melted, Runako dragged it to the shallow end, propping the figure up on its feet. Seling directed a small stream of fire over the head and shoulders of the figure, melting it completely.
The man’s eyes popped open.
He was in his midtwenties, with a military-short hair cut, caramel-colored skin and dark eyes.
Runako grinned. “Alex.”
The man’s eyes shifted to Runako and he nodded. “Runako.” He looked down at himself, then flexed the muscles of his arms, breaking them out of the ice.
One by one, Runako and Seling freed each man from the ice. They were all shirtless, and all built.
“Put your eyes back in your head, woman,” Seling said to Cali.
“Where did you find them again?” Lena asked.
“Federal prison,” Margo was muttering. “We’re all going to federal prison.”
The first man they’d freed climbed out of the pool. He was wearing black military-style pants. Maeve leapt out of the portal and went over to him.
“How are you?” she asked him.
He nodded slowly. “Ask me again when I get a better grasp on reality.” The soldier looked at the people gathered around the pool. “My name’s Gomez. Sergeant Alex Gomez, formerly of the United States Marine Corps.”
Cali stared laughing. “Did Maeve just drop Seal Team Six into Akta’s pool?”
Akta felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat. While eight dripping-wet human soldiers and six monsters looked on, Akta and her friends dissolved into laughter.
Chapter Thirteen
Henry passed Alex a beer. The solider accepted it with a nod. It had been a week since Maeve had freed them from their impromptu prison and nearly three months since the night of the Blackwolf attack. Tokaki, who was the only other monster besides Runako who had known about them, had been maintaining the men’s personal accounts, making it seem as if they were working deep cover, so they wouldn’t be reported missing by family. Blackwolf would have known they were missing—or assumed they were dead—but after Runako had dumped the bodies of the men killed in the attack at the naval base, making it a military problem, they’d probably had their hands full.
After hearing the story of how these eight had surrendered and then let Maeve freeze them, Henry hadn’t wanted to trust them. They were members of Blackwolf, the single greatest threat to the Clan. Henry was sure the humans would turn on them at the first opportunity. He’d been wrong.
After questioning, it became clear that none of these men had any idea about the monsters until they’d seen them the night of the Blackwolf attack—they were good men who believed they were protecting civilians, and the fact that Seling had started breathing fire at them hadn’t left them room to assume anything other than monsters are dangerous.
Luke and Henry had given the men the opportunity to leave but threatened them with death if they didn’t maintain their silence. To the monsters’ surprise, each of the eight men had decided to stay, most taking only a few days to return to their hometowns and meet up with family before beginning their duties as security detail and bodyguards.
It probably had something to do with the time they’d been in ice. Maeve had kept them in the Everafter, which was a place of magic Henry barely understood. What the men had seen or heard there, they wouldn’t say, but each had an almost Zen-like acceptance of what had happened and what needed to happen.
Sergeant Gomez was their leader, and as Henry was the most visible, he’d been given Gomez as a bodyguard. Henry had rolled his eyes at yet another person bunking in the condo with him, but he’d found Alex to be not only easy to talk to, but also easy to not talk to.
Henry rolled the bottle between his palms and wondered what Akta was up to. They’d spent last night together at Akta’s house, but Henry kept waking up, sure they were being attacked, and by morning Akta had moved to the guest room, saying she couldn’t sleep with him thrashing around.
The premiere was in four days and the movie opened in five. The work was done, the preparations made. All there was left to do was wait.
And worry.
Henry tried to focus on the TV, which he and Alex had been watching in companionable silence. A shot of the US President popped up during the commercial break in the game. Alex leaned forward, peering at the image. “That guy. Who is that?”
Henry looked where Gomez was pointing. A tall Secret Service agent was visible in the corner of the shot. “That’s Cuvice, one of my Clansmen. After we met with the president, a few of my people joined the military and the Secret Service. I’m surprised they let him that close to the president.” Henry shook his head. Everything was going much better than he’d expected—they now had the government on their side.
Alex nodded. “I could tell he was different.”
“That’s quite a skill for a human.”
“I don’t think I would have been able to do that, before.”
Henry didn’t know what to say to that, so he took a sip of beer. There was a terrible restlessness in his belly. He wanted the premiere over with. He was tired of waiting—he felt trapped.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asked.
“Talk about what?”
Alex looked at Henry’s leg. He was jiggling it nervously. Henry forced himself to go still.
“I just want it over.”
“What? The movie?”
“The whole thing. If it’s going to go bad, let’s get to it. I hate pretending like everything is going to be fine when it probably won’t be.”
“I’m here to make sure it’s fine.”
“You’re here to make sure I don’t get shot at the premiere. What about in a year, in five years?”
Henry stood and started pacing.
Alex sat back and watched him. The door to the condo opened. Alex was on his feet, gun in hand, before Henry could react. He was fast for a human.
“Don’t shoot,” Michael said as he came around the corner. He held his arms up, a six-pack dangling from one hand.
“Michael.” Alex holstered his weapon.
“The girls are all at my house, planning a baby shower.” Michael threw his beers into the fridge and pulled out a cold one. “There’s three guards there— I figure they don’t need me. Plus, they’re talking. A lot.”
Alex pulled out his phone and went to check with the men who guarded Akta, Lena and Cali, who’d each been given twenty-four-hour protection.
“What are we watching?” Michael settled onto the couch.
Henry looked at the TV. “I don’t even know. How are you so calm?”
“What do you mean?” Michael picked up the remote, changed to a baseball game and turned up the volume.
“Do you realize that in a week we could be…”
“Dead? In hiding? Running for our lives?”
“Yeah. That.”
“Henry, we have two choices. We can either be crippled by this or we can just try and be happy. That fear is never going to go away. Even if the movie premiere goes off without a hitch, it will take years for humans to come to terms with it. It probably won’t happen in our lifetime.”
“So just think happy thoughts? Damn it, Michael, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, yeah, it is, but that’s not what I’m saying.”
“What are you saying?”
“Listen, no one is more concerned about the future than Jane and me, but we can’t live our lives waiting for something bad to happen. The only thing that’s guaranteed is the present. I’ll do everything I can to make her happy now and when tomorrow comes, I’ll do the same.”
Henry sat down with a thump. “I think I’m in love with Akta.”
Alex walked back into the room, heard what Henry said and shook his head. “I’m out, I don’t do women.” He turned on his heel and headed for a bedroom.
“Alex, get back here,” Henry shouted. He needed backup.
Michael rolled his eyes. “Pretty much everyone but you knew you were in love with her.”
Henry glared at his friend. “No, they didn’t. Michael, turn it down, this is important.” He looked at Alex. “You didn’t know, did you?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s kind of obvious.”
“Well, you’re a s
oldier, trained to observe.” Henry refused to believe he’d been that transparent.
“I’m also gay, so, yeah, it was really obvious.”
“You’re gay?” Henry yelped.
“You didn’t know?” Michael asked.
“You knew?”
“Of course.” Michael looked smug.
Henry narrowed his eyes. “Jane told you, didn’t she?”
“Maybe.”
“Women can usually tell,” Alex added. “Don’t feel bad. I’m not the only one.”
“The only gay human? That I knew. We went out for drinks in West Hollywood when we got to LA.” Henry looked at Michael, who snorted. That had been an education.
“No, I mean I’m not the only gay guard.”
Henry and Michael both raised their brows. Alex smiled. “Bet you don’t know who the other one is.”
“You’re bluffing,” Michael said.
“Nope.”
Henry slouched lower. “I’ll never figure it out, since apparently I’m stupid about these things.”
“You’re not born knowing,” Alex said. “You learn. I was terrible at relationships when I was trying to date women. I was much better once I admitted I was gay.”
Silence settled over the living room. Henry looked back and forth between them. “I’m not gay!”
Alex held up his hands. “That’s cool. But if you were, I’d be happy to talk to you.”
“I’m not gay.”
“Christian and I could take you out, help you meet people.”
“Christian!” Michael shouted. “That’s who I was thinking!”
“I’m not gay. Both of you just go away, you’re not helping.”
“I’m gone. Good luck.” Alex wandered toward the bedrooms.
“I’m not leaving,” Michael said. “You made me mute the TV so now you have to talk to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Come on, you were telling me about how you’re in love with Akta.”
“I am, and I don’t know how to make her happy.”
“Sure you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“If you’re in love with her, then you have to know. Just think about it.” Michael raised the volume on the game.
