by C. M. Owens
"You should be more worried about why you're in here."
I swallow hard, still trying to fully grasp the fact that he's here, alive, in front of my fucking face.
"Why am I here?"
He turns to me, letting his sad smile slip free before his jaded words fall out with a heavy blow. "Because someone fucked up, underestimated our little creature goddess. She fucked their plans up real damn good. They can't use me because she'd never believe it's really me. They need you there as a distraction—when they try to kill her again."
Chapter 21
Alyssa
The hangover from hell wakes me up with the most ruthless touch I've ever felt. When did I get drunk?
As I sit up, a wave of memories or dreams wash over me, stinging me, stealing my air, and burning my mind as they ravage me and place themselves at the roots. I gasp for air, and then I scramble in the bed, searching for the body that's not here.
"Kane!" I scream, praying that was a rush of memories and not dreams. "Kane!"
"Hey," he says, running into the room.
I launch myself from the bed and he catches me midair. I sob for so many reasons as I cling to him, and he holds me almost too tight.
"I'm here. I'm okay. Shhh," he soothes, smoothing my hair with his hand as he kisses my forehead. "You controlled it, baby. You used it the way it was meant to be used."
"And you went without me," Chaz's voice says, coming from behind Kane.
Kane puts me down and steps aside so I can see the frustrated duster who doesn't look very happy with me right now.
"Kind of, sort of, um—no real choice, Chaz," I mumble, making him smile against his best efforts not to.
"You fucked up an entire fucking valkyrie ring, broke into the council's prison where no one has ever escaped, and you took on a horde of banshees. Impressive for a girl who can't control her powers," he says, sounding smug. "Did I mention you didn't kill anyone because they didn't deserve to die?" he asks, smiling bigger.
Kane smiles, too, and suddenly the hexer's words rush through my head.
"Kane, oh fuck. Kane, you're like me. If you kill—"
"I know," he says, a salacious grin growing. "It was a fucking shock that floored me, but I found out in the prison." His grin falls to make room for a frown. "A little girl told me. I couldn't get out. I couldn't save her. She said something about going with a woman in white. We're trying to figure out who she is."
"The hexer. She saw her in a vision. Maybe she can help us."
He purses his lips, and I'm sure his reason for pause has something to do with the fact he's spent a long time believing the hexer cursed him for reasons other than to save his life.
"Chaz called her already. She doesn't know her identity, and the little girl never would tell me."
He seems focused on all the important stuff, but like the fool I am, I'm focused on the one thing that doesn't have anything to do with surviving. I look at him expectantly, waiting on him to say something about our supposed destiny. Kane's a rebel. He doesn't like being a part of destiny's plan. He'd better not even think about leaving me.
"You okay?" he asks softly, studying my eyes.
I ignore him, and instead, I ask, "What all did that little girl tell you?"
His smile comes back, and he leans down to just barely brush his lips against mine. Chaz groans as he starts walking away, and Kane deepens the kiss for just a minute before pulling back and saying, "She told me that fucking dark user wasn't meant for you. She told me you were mine, but let's face it, I told you that a long time ago."
My grin floats happily across my face, and I stifle a girl giggle just before the front door slams.
"Alyssa!" Mom yells, probably having a bit of a panic attack, considering the madhouse it has been here.
Kane tugs at my hand and leads me into the living room to meet my—parents? Why the hell are they covered in blood?
They're splattered in red, their hair is matted by the sprays, and their clothes are tattered and well—bloody, of course.
"What happened to you?" I gasp, covering my mouth as I gape at them. It looks like they ran through a massacre.
Drackus mutters something too low for me to hear, but mom loudly hisses, "A group of bottom-feeding night stalkers." She looks up at an almost smiling Kane, and then her gaze drifts over to Zee and Deke who are also stifling their grins. "No offense," she adds, not sounding sincere at all.
Kane chuckles, unable to bite back his laughter anymore, and he sits down in a chair. I don't need an invitation. Without any hesitation, I settle onto his lap, still waiting on my mother to elaborate as my night stalker wraps his arms around me.
"They found the black diamond of Roth," she grumbles, eyeing Drackus.
"Don't look at me. I told you not to take the bloody thing with us."
He eyes her back, and she finally sighs while looking away.
"The ones who were after Alyssa?" Kane says, shaking his head. "I should have tracked them down and killed them. What's does the black diamond of Roth do?"
"Too many things. Its power is limitless. It's too strong to control, and too damn strong to destroy. I was charged with keeping it safe. I've done great for centuries, but I kept worrying they'd find it if I left it behind. So, I grabbed it when we came back. Little did we know the bastards had been following us.
"We killed the bulk of them, but that son of a bitch leader snatched the diamond and fled, while leaving behind some of his minions for us to fight. Then your father," she says, growling the last part, and Drackus sinks to chair with a huff before she continues, "fucking lost it. He killed the ones who didn't get away, but I had to waste time bringing him down instead of going after the fiend who stole the diamond."
Fiend? Gah, she's old.
"You need a shower," Drackus says, seeming a little random.
Then again, he could be shifting the subject to keep her from exploding on him.
"Why didn't you just use your magic?" I ask, curious as to why they're still wearing all that blood.
Kane bursts out laughing when Mom shoots me a scowl.
"What?" I ask, genuinely confused.
"I never thought to use my magic, Alyssa," she snarls, angry sarcasm in her voice.
Damn. She's irritated.
"The night stalker opened the planes of the blood realm with the black diamond of Roth. He didn't mean to. It just happened. It can't be cleaned with magic. It'll take a long time to wash all this out."
Drackus winks at her and her cheeks turn pink. Oh...that’s so disgusting. Bile rises to my mouth.
"Are you two—back together?" I ask, sounding a little shocked.
Mom's grin curls up, and I groan as I smother my face against Kane's chest.
"We only split up to keep you safe, Alyssa. Then we saw each other in secret when we could. I remarried a few times, but only to keep up pretenses," Mom says softly, making my stomach turn.
A few, I scoff inwardly. She's had more husbands than a black widow—um, the human kind.
Shay walks in, and her eyes meet my mother's warily.
"Calypso," she mutters in greeting, standing taller than usual.
Mom stands taller, too. Is this a female alpha standoff?
"Shay," she murmurs coolly, keeping her expression plain.
Chaz looks back and forth between the two, probably worried punches are soon to come, but neither Mom nor Shay say anything else.
"Shower," Drackus says, wrapping his arms around my mother as he stands. "Then someone can fill us in on what all has happened, since we found absolutely nothing during our pointless time away. Our source never showed up."
Yeah—I'll let them have a second to breathe before I knock the air out of them with all we've found.
"I'm going to fucking kill him," Kane says for the hundredth time since he found out about the Aphrodite spell Gage cast on me. Should. Not. Have. Told. Him.
"Not if I kill him first," Drackus says, repeating the same line he's said every time
Kane has made that threat.
I sigh out, wishing I could find a way to save Gage from whatever wrath Kane will have. I won't let him actually kill him. Besides, I'm going to kick his ass first.
"It was his deluded way of keeping Alyssa safe," Mom says with a sigh, only defending the dark user to defuse my father.
I'm actually worried about Gage. The Aphrodite spell will only hurt him if we don't break it soon. And he'll have to be willing to break it. If he refuses, he could suffer forever. I'll only feel the effects when I'm around him without Kane. Something tells me Kane will never leave me around the dark user without him ever again.
"Where is Dray, damn it?" Drackus curses, eyeing his phone that has been disassembled to keep Gage from finding us.
He'd love for Gage to find us so he could shred him, but Mom made him take his phone apart. Thank God.
"He had to grab us some clothes, and he took the girls to see if they could catch any scents. They should be back soon," Deke groans, repeating himself—again.
Drackus is impatient, restless, and so damn annoying. Maybe that's the real reason he was banished to his pocket of the world.
Mom leans over and kisses his cheek, and he tugs her to be on his lap. When she giggles, I fight back a gag. Wrong. This is so wrong.
"You okay?" I ask, looking at Kane who could quite literally bite through steel right now.
He clamps his hands together as he leans over, rocking back and forth as his anger tries to boil out of his every surface. When my hand grazes his leg, it's met by rigid tension and hostile breaths.
"Please calm down," I murmur when he doesn't answer my stupid question.
"Calm down?" he asks, looking at me with an incredulous gawk.
I lean over and press a soft kiss to his shoulder, and some of his tenseness breaks as he pulls me to him. When our lips touch, a loud, overly-exaggerated cough rings out as Drackus tries to warn my night stalker.
I smile against the chaste kiss, and Kane withdraws, finally seeming less pissed.
A hazy fog forms in the room, and Dray appears, dropping two bags in front of Kane.
"It's about bloody time you got back," Drackus sneers, his usually subtle British accent flaring up once again.
"Easy, Drackus. I had to be careful. Damn council watchmen are everywhere looking for us. I had to tap into some deep magic to get in, but blood supplies were necessary, and it's too risky to go asking for blood around here. The girls couldn't even shift."
"Where are they?" Deke asks, standing up.
"Here," Amy growls as she and Sierra walk in. She wisely avoids any and all eye contact with me. Since the big truth bomb was dropped about Kane being intended for me, she hasn't looked my way at all.
Am I little smug? No. I'm very smug.
Kane's not bonded to her; not like she thinks. She's only tied to his night stalker, which will die when he changes to be like me, severing his bond to her forever. He's mine. I dare her to challenge me on that.
"That should hold us over until we get this sorted out," Dray says, kicking a bag closer to Kane and knocking me out of my wicked reverie.
Then a familiar face strolls in, glaring at us all. "Well, well, fucking well," Dice hisses, making Dray choke on a chuckle. "I can't believe you left me behind, damn it."
He sulks as he crosses his arms over his chest, staring expectantly at me. Where's Chaz when you need him?
"Sorry. It was sort of—well, Gage... and then... we didn't know if—"
"Hmph!" Dice sulks, earning a chuckle from the majority of the room. I swear he's three seconds away from stomping his foot.
"Dice," Zee says, sounding patronizing, "did you feel abandoned?"
The incubus stares down the night stalker who is teasing him. I bite back a growing grin, and then discreetly cover it with my hand when it becomes too much.
Dice breaks away from the group to join Zee and Deke to catch up on all the latest, since I just ran through it all already.
Kane rifles through his bag, and he smiles into it before looking up at Dray. "Thanks."
Dray smiles and offers him a wink. Obviously I'm nosy, so I try to peer into the bag, but Kane snaps it shut in front of my eyes. When I pout, he simply laughs.
"Come on. Let's get some rest. Red Moon is out tomorrow night, so we'll be sleeping in a cage. Dray and the others are going to secure it for us."
"Never thought I'd hear conversations like this in my safe house," Shay says as she materializes in the room, startling me a bit.
"Neither did I," Chaz says, materializing beside her and offering me a teasing wink. "But then again, Alyssa was always a little wild."
Everyone chuckles, but I scoff inwardly at the pathetic joke. I was anything but wild. Sheltered, naive, possibly stupid—not wild, though.
Mom clears her throat as she swallows a knot—possibly a wad of pride. "Shay—thanks—for all of this."
Shay looks at me and smiles, and then she lowers the stretch of her grin before facing my mother. "I've loved that girl for too long to let our problems get in the way of her safety. I'm still—confused by some of the madness, but we'll face it together."
They share a silent moment, possibly exchanging a wordless truce. Chaz bores and plops down on the other side of me.
"Now we just need to know who we're facing."
"The woman in white," Kane mumbles, thinking back to the small girl who has haunted his every thought.
"Sierra and I are going to go out tonight, see if we can sniff out anything that could be tracking us," Amy interjects, being unusually helpful for a change.
Kane stays lost in thought, never even hearing her, so she looks to Dray to make sure he heard her.
"I'll come with you. In case you have any problems," Chaz says, letting his devilish grin quirk up.
Oh. My. God. Did he seriously just flirt with her?
Amy rolls her eyes, though I swear she's secretly struggling not to smile.
"Last I checked, lycans are a little more badass than dusters. We'll be fine."
Chaz leans forward, eyes narrowed in challenge, and lips curved in a flirting grin.
"You have no idea how badass I can be."
Yep. He's flirting. Definitely flirting. We're not friends anymore. Nope.
Amy smirks as she leans forward, letting a feral gleam coat her eyes before they spark orange. "I'm not impressed by boys who fart glitter."
Several spurts of laughter spill free, but Chaz takes it well, shaking his head as he chuckles, too. He doesn't really fart glitter—I don't think.
Amy's smirk turns into a genuine grin, and I actually think I see a touch of blush on her cheeks. The devil bitch blushes. Unbelievable.
Dice's eyes widen as his laughter halts. "The woman in white," he says urgently, causing all of our laughter to taper off in response. "It's the imposter who is pretending to be Calypso."
He acts as though he has had a stroke of genius. Instead of being met with praise or gasps of realization, he's met with groans of exasperation.
"What?" he asks as the majority of the room gawks at him.
"Really?" Sierra says while settling down onto Deke's lap. "You don't think that's the first person we would have suspected."
Dice frowns as he glances around at all the eye rolls. Mom decides to elaborate for the clueless incubus.
"Frankie has stayed at the light council since we discovered there was an imposter. He hasn't let her out of his sight. You can vaporize to move around inside the council dwelling, but you can't vaporize yourself from inside to outside or from outside to inside. You have to walk in or out. She's a part of this, but she's not the leader."
Dice curses quietly while pacing, apparently trying to think. That's scary—Dice thinking.
"Why can't you go speak with the light council? Turn her in? Expose the bitch?" he finally says, rushing the words out.
"Because we don't need the woman in white and her minions to know Calypso is alive and well," Drackus says, pulling Mom closer. "Th
ey most likely know she escaped, but as long as she's not there, they probably think she's dead, hurt, or lost. That gives us the upper hand because they can take their time, pace themselves, be cautious. If we rush them, the whole damn thing could blow all to hell—quite literally. We have no idea what power they have, but it's a lot. A hell of a lot."
Before Dice can say anything, a body starts materializing. I tense, terrified it's about to be Gage, and Kane stands, ready to fight. I grab him, but he relaxes when we see the brilliantly blond hair attached to a familiar face.
"Frankie," Mom murmurs, jumping up to wrap her arms around him.
He jerks her to him and hugs her like he hasn't seen her in ages. I almost smirk at the scowling father of mine. I move toward them, only to be ripped up and violently pulled into the embrace.
"Damn, I've missed you," he murmurs against my hair, and I smile as I return the embrace, realizing then and there how much I've missed the mischievous ass.
He finally withdraws with tears glistening in his eyes.
"I've missed you, warlock," I mutter, making him smile.
Drackus clears his throat, and Mom cuts her eyes in warning. Drackus the Dominant just got told to "fuck off" with one glare. Ha!
He cowers, much to my delight, and Mom returns her attention to Frankie as her eyes change from excited to dreadful.
"Why are you here? You're supposed to be watching the imposter."
He sighs out heavily, shakes his head, and drops to a chair beside the window. Shay goes to sit down close to Drackus, and Mom returns to his lap. If Frankie needs to sit down, this is bad.
I return to Kane who pulls me down to his lap and he holds me tighter, preparing for the worst.
"They know you're looking for them, Calypso. The imposter fled, and she fled fast."
Mom and Drackus curse in rambled unison. I just shake my head. That was all we had. They needed to know we didn't suspect anything. Now they'll up their game and their timeframe.
"How? Why?" Mom groans, but then she shakes her head. "The night stalkers Drackus and I fought. It was them, wasn't it?"
Frankie nods slowly. "I only caught snippets of the conversation, but yes. It was them. She hit me and some of the guards hard on her way out. Bitch is strong. Then it took me forever to explain to them that it wasn't you. I've—well, I've been expelled from the council grounds, and… so have you," he says, letting out a heavy breath full of angst.
