Werewolves Be Damned

by Stacey Kennedy

  Earth had the space, then some.

  Taking in his surroundings, Kyden noticed no noise came from the cabin in front of him, but the light from the living room indicated Briggs was home. He strode forward and, once at the front door, he knocked.

  A moment later, it opened to a frowning Briggs. “’Bout time you showed up.”

  Kyden cupped his friend’s shoulder. “Where is she?”

  Briggs opened the door wider and Kyden stepped into the cabin, discovering Nexi sitting on the couch near the woodstove. Her arms were folded, leg crossed over her knee, which she bounced with clear irritation, and a familiar scowl he’d seen for weeks now marred her face. “How’d that go for you?”

  Her hazel eyes narrowed.

  Briggs shut the door behind Kyden, then he pulled a small silver dagger with a bejeweled handle from his back pocket. “She had this with her.”

  Kyden took the dagger. “Where’d you get the knife?”

  “It’s Haven’s,” she retorted. “I borrowed it.”

  He slid the dagger into his scabbard in front of his sword. “You shouldn’t have a weapon until you know how to use it.”

  She flicked her long, dirty-blonde hair over her shoulder. “Well, if someone would teach me, then this wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”

  Briggs smirked.

  While Kyden shared in his friend’s amusement over the smart-mouthed woman—and he rather enjoyed that smart mouth—she had become a real problem. Her present behavior was classic Nexi Jones. She might be new to the Otherworld, but her brisk confidence would make most believe she’d never left the magical realm.

  Dropping onto the couch across from her, Kyden shifted the sword strapped to his back to rest upon the cushion, when Briggs asked, “Hungry?”

  The warm, comforting scent of home cooking drifting through the air reminded Kyden he hadn’t eaten for hours. “Always.”

  In the kitchenette behind Nexi’s couch, Briggs grabbed two wooden bowls out of the cupboard. He removed the lid from an old steel pot on the stove, and scooped out what smelled like beef stew.

  With bowls in hand, Briggs returned and placed a bowl on the coffee table in front of Nexi and she glared at the dinner. Then Briggs handed Kyden a bowl before he sat next to her, looking at Kyden. “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” He gestured toward the fuming woman. “And why this little darling wanted to remove my furry balls.”

  Kyden chuckled. A threat. Indeed.

  He scooped up some beef and potatoes with his spoon. “Nexi and her parents were attacked by a group of werewolves. One managed to get away from us at the scene, and we’ve been hunting him, but the trail is cold.” To Nexi, he firmed his voice. “The Council wanted me to have a civilized conversation with Briggs about it. Not deal with your sorry excuse for an assassination attempt.”

  She snorted. “His balls would’ve been an added ingredient to that stew you’re drooling over.” She hesitated, her cheeks flushing. “That is, if I’d known werewolves had increased scenting abilities.”

  “Exactly why you shouldn’t have come. You haven’t been taught the ins-and-outs of supernaturals and their talents,” he countered out of sheer frustration. “A werewolf could’ve scented you the minute you arrived. And if that was an enemy waiting to kill you, I’d be picking up the pieces of your body right now.”

  Her eyes blazed. “He’s not an enemy, though, is he?”

  His lips parted to tell her—again—how much danger she continued to put herself in, but Briggs interjected, “The only troubles recently have been within the Texas pack. Some of the members in Austin have left the pack’s protection.”

  Kyden ate his spoonful of the stew before he asked Briggs, “Think these wolves could be connected?”

  Briggs shrugged. “It’s possible. The wolves haven’t joined another pack.”

  As Kyden swirled the contents of his bowl and added more beef to his spoon, Briggs said, “Darlin’, will you please eat. Not only can I smell how hungry you are, but you look like you need it.”

  Nexi stared at the bowl on the table and her internal struggle showed in her pinched expression. However, Kyden disagreed with Briggs. Nexi might be tiny, only coming up to his chest, but her small frame held curves he did his best not to notice. Besides, she’d gained back most of the weight she’d lost during the first week after her parents’ death.

  She had a long stare-down with the bowl until she finally grabbed it, settling it onto her lap. “There, happy?”

  “I’ll be happier once you eat it.” Briggs smiled.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re a persistent fluff ball.”

  Kyden examined her, noticing the dark circles under her eyes had faded, and the emptiness he’d spotted in her gaze had lifted. He had sympathized with her. That was, until she’d gotten into the habit of running away from the Otherworld and he ended up having to search for her.

  The more he chased her, however, the more his curiosity about her formed. The only problem was, by all appearances, she’d rather stuff a dagger into his gut than hold a causal conversation with him.

  Perhaps he’d been a little short with her in the beginning, since chasing her hadn’t been what he’d called enjoyable. But he had softened his edge lately, not that she had noticed. Or perhaps it was that she didn’t care.

  Maybe he liked that about her, too.

  She finally took a bite of her stew. “All right, I admit it’s obvious you didn’t kill my parents, but then why did the Council and Haven think you could help with this?”

  Briggs mouth curved. “You are new, aren’t you?”

  “Brand spanking new.” She rested her spoon on the bowl and firmed her expression. “Unless you want me to break out the whips and chains, dish.”

  “Well now, we wouldn’t want that.” Briggs winked before the playfulness in his features vanished. “I’ll answer you as simply as I can.” He placed both arms against the back of the couch, and rested an ankle over his knee. “From what I’ve seen, you don’t know much about werewolves?”

  She looked at him with startling hatred. “Other than knowing your kind killed my parents, no.”

  “My kind?” Briggs’s eyes crinkled. “Let’s hope I can change your fine opinion of us.”

  Kyden clenched his jaw and instead of chastising her for being disrespectful to a close friend who deserved nothing less than the highest regard, he shut up and ate his meal.

  “Keeping it simple,” Briggs continued. “Each state in the U.S. has a werewolf pack. Each of those packs has their own alpha who leads them, but those alphas are ruled by the Patriarch.”

  After she swallowed, she asked, “Like the alpha of all alphas?”

  Briggs nodded. “That’s a good way to see it.” He gestured to her bowl, and waited until she took another bite before he added, “Valor is our Patriarch. I’m his beta. His second in command, so to speak.”

  She regarded him with a slight tilt to her head. “What does a beta do, exactly?”

  “He’s a secretary,” Kyden stated.

  Briggs tossed a pillow at Kyden’s head, which he caught and tucked under his arm, as Briggs smiled and went on. “It’s more than taking phone calls and scheduling meetings, wanker.”

  Turning to Nexi, Briggs softened his voice. “My main duty is to help solve disputes within the packs. If the matter cannot be resolved, the Patriarch gets involved. Valor is always aware when trouble arises within the packs, which means I know, too. Does that answer your question sufficiently?”

  She gave him a quick nod. “As the second-in-command, of course, you’d know the happenings in the wolf world. Makes sense.” She swirled her spoon in the stew, and whispered, “If anything about werewolves makes sense.”

  Kyden winced at the raw pain in her voice. Every so often, she showed her despair even if she didn’t realize it. Judging by Briggs’s intense stare, he noticed it, too. Kyden wanted to help her understand. “Werewolves are tightly bound to their pack, so when one leaves, it a
lways draws suspicion.”

  When she lifted her head, she hid the agony inside of her—something else she’d been good at—and her expression held only curiosity. “A wolf wouldn’t leave his pack just to leave?”

  Briggs shook his head. “Not without permission. The Texas alpha contacted Valor two nights ago after their search for the missing wolves turned up nothing.”

  Good news, Kyden thought. They needed this lead. He finished the last bite of the stew and placed the bowl on the coffee table in front of him, then he said to Briggs, “Keep us updated if anything develops in Texas.”

  Briggs inclined his head. ”Of course.”

  Nexi settled her half-eaten dinner next to Kyden’s on the table. To Briggs, she said, “Since you’ve got fur, you’d know better than anyone. Why do you think these wolves killed my family?”

  “Don’t know, darlin’,” Briggs responded, his voice gentle. “But trust me on this, there’s a reason for it. Wolves rarely kill maliciously. It’s just not in our nature.”

  Her eyebrows drew together and her lips pursed. Kyden had seen the troubled look many times over the past month. She wanted answers to settle the chaos in her life—find closure—and no doubt she sought revenge. But she was going about it in the wrong way, which included putting herself in danger, more than once.

  Kyden empathized with Nexi’s need for vengeance and wanted to bring those responsible to justice. However, she needed to allow the Council’s Guard to solve this instead of taking the matter into her own hands. The Guard existed for this very reason, to stop any supernatural that broke the Otherworld’s one law: thou shall not take a mortal life. She didn’t need to do this on her own. She had the Council backing her desire to find those responsible, and Kyden hungered to kill them for their crime.

  He cleared his throat, which drew her attention to him, and her look shifted to a death stare. He chuckled. “Let’s go home, Álainn.”

  In a split second, she was on her feet and striding past the coffee table. Before she reached the door, he blocked her way. He glanced down into a face that was beautiful regardless of how she was burning with hells-fire at him.

  He studied her soft, creamy skin with light freckles dusting her nose. As he’d seen every time she caught him looking at her and before she’d hide her reaction from him, her cheeks flushed and eyes dilated. He didn’t doubt she also sensed the chemistry between them, but she also appeared to be unable to take a single word of advice without wanting to castrate him.

  He had tried to ignore the attraction to her for a week, until he finally gave up realizing he’d be a fool not to explore his draw to her. Now he watched a cold distance slide across her face and he missed the heat he’d spotted. “So, there is a bit of guardian in you after all. Going all half-cocked as if you stood a chance of fighting anyone.”

  She hesitated, visibly gulped, then her eyes narrowed, shedding any of the softness. “Well, you all keep drilling it into my head that I am a guardian, so what do you expect?” She stepped back and looked at his chin. “Prepping for another lecture?”

  “Don’t need to.” Kyden nodded a goodbye to Briggs before he glanced to the troublemaker. “You have it coming, believe me.”

  Chapter Two

  Pointed stone arches detailing the hammer-beam roof and the stained-glass windows were something plucked right out of Medieval Scotland, or so Nexi thought every time she entered the Council’s Hall.

  The headquarters of all things Otherworldly more or less resembled a cathedral from the middle ages. It, and the foyer outside the main doors, was the center of the building. Surrounding the foyer were the four towers making up the structure of the castle. The Guardians’ House and Witches’ House were to the left, and the Vampires’ House and Werewolves’ House were to the right of the Council’s Hall.

  All very awe worthy, Nexi still believed.

  Even the three male Masters of the Otherworld and one female Mistress were an equally impressive sight, sitting in their throne chairs like royalty. Perhaps, however, they only appeared more powerful tonight, since the most influential supernaturals in all of existence were staring her down.

  Nexi heaved a sigh and turned to her birth father, Drake, who stood off to the side of the chairs, rambling incoherent nonsense. While the Council intimated her, the guardian with his eyeballs bulging out of his head simply infuriated her.

  At her continuing silence, Drake demanded, “Do you plan on answering me?”

  She rubbed her nose, erasing the tickle from the dust in the room he stirred from pacing. “Sorry, what did you ask? You lost me about a second after you opened your mouth.”

  His eyes bulged further. “What were you thinking?”

  “I—”

  He raised a hand. “What would have happened if it wasn’t Briggs—a friend to the Council, I might add—whom you threatened with a weapon?”

  She shifted her weight onto her other foot and folded her arms, as he once again paced in front of the Council in long, heavy strides. Only a second passed before Drake continued with a growl to his voice, “I’m starting to believe you’re suffering some mental problems that need tending to.” He stopped mid-step and regarded her. “Are you unwell?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m dandy,” she retorted, as if this even needed to be spoken aloud. “The only two people I loved deeply have been murdered. Now not only am I living in some bizarre supernatural realm, but I’m, in fact, a freaky supernatural myself.”

  Drake studied her with a long look before he grunted and turned to the Council. “Maybe her grief is blinding her judgment.”

  Before he said something she’d make him regret, Nexi interjected, “Rewind there, Daddy. You said I have magical powers, so what’s the big deal? I’ll voodoo some shit up, bring out my spidey-senses, and bam.”

  Drake openly gawked at her. “You have guardian powers and those are innate abilities. You may have increased strength, but skill is learned not gifted.” Each Council member nodded agreement, and he added, “Might I also remind you that, yes, Zia released the block on your supernatural powers to allow those gifts to return, but your witch abilities haven’t shown themselves yet. You, at the moment, have no magic at all.”

  Good point, but… “Even if the witch side of things hasn’t shown itself yet, you said it yourself: I’m physically stronger now.” As the vein in the center of his forehead nearly burst, she hurried the heck up. “And I’ve told you repeatedly, I’m done sitting around. If you’re so concerned about my safety in the world now, then train me so I can fight.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not ready.”

  “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “I am.”

  Talon, Master of Guardians, hummed low in his throat as he rubbed his jaw, studying her with his emerald eyes. The warrior, decked out in the whole sword and leather kilt getup, exuded power. “You’ve only had a month to mourn your family’s passing and to adjust to your new life. I worry about pushing you into this too quickly.”

  Beside him, Holten, Master of Weres, agreed with a nod. “It’s too soon.”

  Nexi would consider the werewolf a softy, with his gentle, chocolate brown eyes and long, dark hair. That was, if the two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle on his body didn’t put him into the category of Scary as Hell.

  Even if she might fear him, and even if he had seemed kind enough toward her, her hands tightened into fists.

  Zia, Mistress of Witches, raised her eyebrows over her blue beauties, apparently aware of the rage flowing through Nexi’s veins. Even the pale Master of Vampires, Zade, regarded her with black, twinkling eyes, his fangs poking out from his lip.

  They were right: she was about to blow her lid.

  These males were deciding her life as if she didn’t have an opinion on the matter, or as if her life wasn’t hers to control. From what she’d seen so far, males in the Otherworld clearly hadn’t gotten with the times and they treated women as if they were fragile.

  Nexi hadn’t grown up in the
Otherworld, and if they thought for a second that they could boss her around and she’d just take it, they were dead wrong. For two weeks now, she’d taken matters into her own hands then, after enduring the charade of the Council’s reprimand, tried to persuade them.

  Before she could snap, however, a low, smooth voice from far beside her said, “I think it’s time to give the girl what she wants.”

  Glancing over at the other chest-beating guardian thrust into her life, she found Kyden leaning casually against the wall. He might be a looker, if she cared about a thick body chiseled to pure perfection and silky-smooth tanned skin. Or if she liked how his light brown hair softened him a little by hanging messily across his forehead.

  Of course, those things didn’t impress her.

  Especially considering he presently gave her his classic smart-ass grin as he strode toward her. A smile she’d come to discover she hated and liked at the same time. When he settled in next to her, he continued. “If we don’t train her, she’ll get herself killed. I can’t continue to babysit her.”

  Reason enough why she hated the grin, a smart-ass comment always followed. “Yes, boy, that’s exactly what I need.”

  In all actuality, she could’ve been a little girl to him. Everyone in the room appeared thirty-years-old, even her father. Immortality had been an added perk, and she’d never complain she wouldn’t have a wrinkle once she reached immortal age in six years. But she had also learned from Haven that Kyden was only twenty-eight years old and not centuries old like the Masters of the Otherworld.

  “Kyden’s right,” Zia said to Drake, tangling her finger in her strawberry blonde locks. “Nexi is clearly going to be involved in this whether you like it or not. We must prepare her.”

  Drake grunted.

  “While you believe this is Nexi’s grief,” Talon added, “I’m more inclined to think this is her guardian roots flourishing. Withholding her drive to fight would be a waste, not only for her, but for the Otherworld.”

  Silence drifted around Nexi as she watched Drake looking at the cement floor, his feet shifting side to side. After a long pause, his shoulders slumped and he raised his head. “Is this really the life you want?”