by Lexi Blake
Chapter Twenty-One
“So he’s found a way to get the drug into Ether?” I tried to wrap my head around everything Bellamy was telling me as he drove his outrageously outfitted Audi through the snowy streets toward downtown.
Outside the snow kept falling, but we’d made it out of Winter’s compound with no struggle. No giant snowmen had been waiting this time, likely because Winter was concentrating his efforts elsewhere.
“Well, this is really the part where you should remember that you promised not to do that whole playing with my entrails thing,” Bellamy reminded me.
“I didn’t promise anything.” Jamie was kind of itching to hurt someone.
“James,” I warned before turning back to Bellamy. He was driving with Jamie in the seat beside him while Gray and I sat in the back, our hands tangled together. Maybe it was wrong, but after what we’d been through, I needed to have his flesh against mine in some way. I needed to have him close. “Your entrails are safe, Bellamy. Tell me what’s happening.”
“My labs might have tweaked the drug and now it sends shifters and werewolves into fits of rage. Some alphas might be able to control themselves, but no one else will be able to. The drug is in a shipment of beer scheduled to be on sale tonight. It’s Ether’s on tap brew of the night. Winter has a man on the inside who’s making sure everyone gets a taste.”
“It’s going to be a bloodbath. Thank god they can’t get into the residential parts of the building.” Gray’s hand squeezed mine.
“I might have found a way to override the security systems. Not the individual ones, but they can make it to the residential portion,” Bellamy admitted.
And cell phone service was out due to the storm. Winter had covered the place with a blizzard and knocked out cell service for the building. I’d been trying and trying and couldn’t get hold of anyone.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me, and I didn’t hold it back. Marcus needed to know there was a reason to panic if he didn’t already.
“The doors won’t keep out werewolves if they want to get in,” Jamie pointed out. “But how many are we talking about? The king truly is a death machine. He can handle a lot of werewolves. Not everyone drinks beer.”
Bellamy got off the freeway and made the turn to get on to Pearl. “The drug will take roughly an hour to truly set in. By my count, we should be getting there just as things get interesting. And it’s a lot of wolves. And shifters. If the king slays them all, he’s going to have to deal with the ramifications of killing so many of his allies.”
“Beyond that he’ll have to deal with rumors and conjecture from an already unstable alliance,” Gray added. “No one understands what’s going on, and they won’t believe the truth from the king’s Nex Apparatus. There will be many conspiracy theories, including the one where the vampires are trying to thin the were populations.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Donovan had no reason to do that. He needed them on his side.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jamie agreed. “The rumors will be out there.”
“We have another problem.” Bellamy made the turn that would take us to Ether. The winds were whipping up, getting stronger the closer we got. “I’ve done a lot of research on Winter, and there’s something you all should know. He can’t be killed by anyone but demonkind.”
Gray’s eyes closed. “That’s a rumor. Fucker probably started it himself.”
“What do you mean? I can’t kill him? I have no shot at this?” I didn’t like going into something all pessimistic, but it was better to know.
“There are four elemental demons,” Gray explained. “They have the powers of the seasons. Fall can touch you and cause you to age. Winter can obviously freeze. Summer can start fires with his gaze. You don’t want to know what spring can do. The rumor is they can only be killed by flesh of their flesh. Demonkind. Kelsey, you were right. My demon will be making another appearance.”
He was far too weak. “No. We have to hope that’s a rumor. If I have to I’ll find another way. Gray, you don’t know when your new powers will take over and how they’ll affect you. I think you should sit this one out. Apparently your brother will be in there somewhere. Maybe I can get him to try to kill Winter. I don’t suppose you can tell me who his lost love is?”
“I’ve never met him,” Gray admitted. “When they were together, they lived on the Hell plane. For obvious reasons, I don’t go there. He called his lover his sweet puppy. I know he’s a werewolf.”
I had a couple of people I could ask—if they weren’t currently fighting for their lives.
Up ahead, I could see the building that housed Ether. It housed all of us really. So many of us lived in that building, but I was happy for Quinn’s complete psycho paranoia about keeping business and pleasure apart. It wasn’t easy to get from Ether into the residences. Even if a few got in, it would take time to get through those reinforced doors.
I breathed a sigh of relief as Bellamy stopped inside the parking garage.
“This is where I leave you. I’m going underground for a while.”
He was going to try to wait it out and see who wanted to kill him at the end of our venture. I couldn’t blame the idiot for that.
Gray, Jamie, and I hightailed it for the elevator. I had the code memorized, and we all stood waiting as the elevator started the trek down. We were all wondering the same thing. What would we be walking into? My heart was pounding in my chest at the idea of those elevator doors opening and facing a bloodbath. How many of our people had already died?
And where would Abbas Hiberna be? How the hell was I going to take down a demon who could only be killed by another demon?
“Jamie, I think you should take Kelsey and run,” Gray said quietly.
Jamie’s head turned and one brow arched over his eye. “I don’t think she wants to run. Have you tried making her do something she doesn’t want to do?”
Gray was being Gray, and arguing wasn’t going to help anything. The doors opened and we were assaulted by the sounds of…
Industrial music? I stepped off the elevator. The entrance to Ether was packed, as it was every night. The red carpet and red velvet rope that marked the line to get into the nightclub were the only red I could see. Thumping music could be heard coming from the club, and the line was almost back to the elevators.
“Could Bellamy have been wrong?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Gray allowed as we skipped the line and started for the bouncers. “But my brother wouldn’t lie. Not about this.”
“I actually agree. I had the fucker in my head for hours. He was worried about the wolf. He’s really in love. Well, it’s a perverted, crazy-creepy-stalker kind of love, but it’s what he considers love. I got a vision of the guy. It was hard to see because mostly I was screaming because being trapped in your own body sucks, but he looked familiar. I think he’s a wolf who works with the king.”
My mind immediately went to Trent and I laughed it off because that big wolf wouldn’t ever look at another man. He liked pussy too much… A vision of Trent Wilcox naked flooded my head, assaulting my senses. He had the sweetest smile on his face as he leaned over to cover my lips with his.
Oh, god. I’d seen a potential future where he was my lover. That had to be one of those offshoot weird worlds that wouldn’t ever, ever really happen.
I couldn’t remember much, but I remembered he’d been amazingly good in bed. The man liked to use his tongue. And his cock. Oh, I needed to stop thinking about it.
“Kels? You okay?” Jamie asked because I’d stopped in the middle of the lobby.
“Kelsey?” Gray was staring at me like he could see what I was thinking.
I didn’t need anyone to ever know I’d seen that. Ever. For the rest of all time. It was embarrassing. And had me a little bit hot. Which was also embarrassing. I broke into a jog. “I’m good. Let’s find Marcus and the king and talk this out.”
Up ahead, who should I see but the object of my complete and utter denial. Trent stood at the front
of the line talking to three of the bouncers from the club. He was altogether too masculine in his T-shirt and jeans and close-cropped hair. He was all muscly and wolfy, and it absolutely, one hundred percent didn’t do anything for me. When he turned and saw me and his face lit up with a kind of crazy, sexy smile, I did not care. My heart rate stayed the exact same, and any deviations were from the run.
Totally.
“Kelsey, hey. You’re back. We didn’t expect you back for another couple of hours. Not that I was…” He stopped. “I was actually. I was kind of counting the time. I was worried about you. I’m glad to see you’re all whole and shit.”
This was the time I would give the big were a mouthy comeback. I would show him my sarcastic side. Instead, I kind of stared because flashes of what I’d seen were coming back to me, and I couldn’t help but think about how good he looked naked.
What the fuck?
“I believe what she’s trying to say is where is the king?” Gray’s tone was rough and he was looking at me with terrifically judgey eyes.
What had he seen before I took that moment away from him?
“Or maybe Marcus?” Gray continued. “She probably wants to see her boyfriend.”
Yeah, he’d seen something, too.
Trent’s eyes went from Gray back to me as though he felt the weird tension between us and wasn’t sure what was going on, but then he hadn’t been treated to the “all possibilities in the world” sex show this evening. “They’re up in the penthouse.”
“Have you seen Winter?” Thank god Jamie was focused on the mission and not his potential sex life. “We need to know exactly where he is.”
Trent shook his head. “No idea, man. I thought he was with you guys. You had a meeting tonight. Kelsey, maybe you need to fill me in.”
“Yeah, I bet you’d like that,” Gray said under his breath.
Trent ignored him. “Let’s go and grab a beer and talk.”
Beer bad. Beer was the vehicle for Winter’s coup d’état. “No. Absolutely not. We have to shut down the bar right fucking now. As a matter of fact, shut down the whole club. Everyone needs to go home. Now.”
If I could get them out of the building, we might have a chance.
I expected a fight. I expected Trent to look at me like I was fuck-all insane and start to laugh. Instead, he picked up a walkie-talkie. “Security, I need a full shutdown and evacuation procedures. Right now. I’ll inform Dev.”
“Just like that?” I hadn’t had to talk him into it. No explanations at all and he was shutting down the club.
Trent gave me a half smile. “Just like that. You’re the Nex Apparatus, Kelsey. Now that you’ve passed all the tests, you tell me to shut down the club and I shut it down. I take my orders from you and the royal family.”
No one had explained that to me. I could give orders? Maybe this gig wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. “Winter is somewhere in the building and he’s got a mega shit ton of rabid weres and shifters ready to take out anyone in their way.”
“Are they targeting the king?” Trent asked. His shoulders had straightened back, his whole body going into a military stance.
“I suspect the whole royal family.” I couldn’t forget that Winter had said he would take out Evangeline. He would kill them all if it brought him closer to his goal.
Trent got back on the phone, calling up to the penthouse and getting it locked down.
The bouncers were already hard at work, trying to get the line of people waiting to get into Ether moved back.
“Come on,” Trent said as he started for the club entrance. “We have to find Dev and get him to safety. Everyone else is in the penthouse. They should be relatively safe, but Dev is in the open.”
I jogged to keep up with him. We did have a couple of issues to deal with. “Please tell me you haven’t had a beer tonight.”
“Sure,” he replied as we came to the doors. “Dev brought in a new craft beer. Naturally it required tasting. You know that’s what we wolves are for.”
He grinned at me as he opened the door and I heard a long scream.
“Kelsey, get back here,” Gray said.
Trent stepped inside and then his hand was reaching for his gun. I ignored Gray because I couldn’t spend the evening cowering behind him. I’d let him take care of all those creepy snow creatures, but this was one hundred percent my job.
“What the hell is going on, Owens?” Trent surveyed the dance floor with a critical eye. “I gave specific instructions for the club to be shut down. Why aren’t they moving? They should have turned on the lights.”
“Who did you give the instructions to? One of your drinking buddies?” Fear flashed through me on several levels. Trent was a powerful alpha wolf. If he went crazy, he would take out a bunch of us with him.
He’d taken the drug. The last couple of people who’d taken the drug had died, their brains destroyed. Despite our issues, I really didn’t want that to happen to Trent.
Out on the dance floor, people were still moving around, though I could see a portion starting to move back. A man was on his knees in the middle of the dance floor. I watched as he changed, becoming a sleek mountain lion. The cat roared and immediately attacked a woman to his right.
“Shit.” Trent took aim and fired.
The cat’s head exploded and that got people moving.
“What the hell is going on?” Trent didn’t look my way. He kept his gun up, looking for more threats.
“Winter put the drug in the beer. You’ve all been exposed to it,” I explained.
“You need to get every wolf and shifter who drank that beer somewhere safe. When Winter begins to use his influence, none of you will be able to resist.” Gray held his hand out. “I’m going to need a weapon. This is going to get nasty and fast. I’m the only one who can take out Winter.”
“I feel fine,” Trent insisted, but handed Gray his backup. “And my men are fine. Look, they’re taking care of the problem on the dance floor.”
Sure enough, three of the bouncers were moving in, helping the woman who’d almost been bitten get to her feet. She was nodding, looking infinitely grateful to the man who’d helped her up.
That was when he shot her in the head.
“What the fuck?” Trent shouted.
Jamie put a hand on the big wolf’s arm. “It’s going to get worse.”
Trent didn’t hesitate. He lifted his gun and shot the wolf between the eyes. He was a hell of a shot.
“I don’t feel anything.” Trent had to shout because the whole club had erupted into chaos. He kept his weapon up, his eyes scanning for more trouble.
I moved in close so he could hear me. “How much did you drink?”
“Half a beer, maybe. I got called away,” he explained. “Fuck, I just killed a man who’s been my friend for ten years.”
“Unless you get them somewhere they can’t hurt anyone, you’re going to have to kill a whole lot more,” I said.
“I think we’re past that now.” Jamie watched the dance floor.
Trent looked down at me, his eyes beginning to turn. “Kelsey, you should run.”
Gray’s hand was on my arm, hauling me back when Trent howled. The sound shook the damn roof, but before he could change, something slammed into him from behind. He fell to his knees, gun clanging to the floor right before his head hit.
Dev Quinn came out of the smoke, one rifle in his hands and several more slung over his shoulder. “Tranquilizer dart. Extra extra druggy. Even Trent will sleep for at least an hour.”
We all stared at the faery.
He shrugged and started passing out the rifles. “My contingency plans have plans. Did I ever dream a day would come that our allies could be turned against us? Every damn night and twice during the day. James, how good a shot are you?”
“Excellent,” my brother replied.
“Good, then come with me. There’s a perfect sniper position up in the lighting unit. I’ve already called Daniel. He’ll be here as soon
as he can,” Dev explained. He was perfectly calm even as the club collapsed into chaos. “So I figured out that Winter must have drugged my beer shipment when two of my best bodyguards attempted to behead me. They’re sleeping it off in a cell. Do we have a way to bring them back?”
“My blood amplified by the king’s.” Gray’s voice sounded even deeper than normal and I heard Quinn gasp.
When I turned, Gray’s eyes had gone white. He stared ahead, though it seemed like he was seeing something.
“What the hell?” Jamie asked.
Gray’s eyes returned to normal. “Sorry. That happened quickly and honestly, it was more about common sense than prophecy. But I do know it’s the right way to go. I feel it deep inside. The most efficient path is the same we took healing Kelsey’s arm. The drugs are booby-trapped in a way. Any use of normal vampire blood will amplify the damage. Demon blood accelerated with the king’s own is the only way to heal the wolves.”
“I’ve only seen those eyes once before,” Quinn said, his voice unsteady. “On a prophet.”
“Yeah, Gray picked up some cool new powers at the mansion tonight,” I explained. “But we’re not going to be able to use that information if we stand here talking. I need to find Winter. He’s got to be here somewhere.”
I had to move. There was a massive crowd coming our way, likely trying to get away from the now crazed wolves and shifters.
Quinn and Jamie started shooting anything that looked vaguely psychotic. I took one of Quinn’s tranq guns and so did Gray. Luckily it wasn’t a full moon or the wolves would be at peak strength.
The crowd shifted and started running the other way, back away from the exit.
That was when the outliers showed up. Our wolves were simply crazed, but the group from Brimstone had been introduced to the drug slowly.
They strode in like they owned the place, a massive alpha at the head. I’d seen him before. I was fairly certain he was a werelion. He was also a drug addict. He stopped and took a long breath.
“Take them all boys. Winter’s promised us all the Brimstone we can handle and a million dollars to whoever brings him the king’s head.”
