by Nya Rayne
The dogs had been the loves of Blaine’s life, all four of them, and they had all died in that fire. She staggered and tried to turn, but he pushed her forward. “You were working with that monster? You sent it after me?” Blaine choked back a sob. “My mother and friend died because of you. You bastard. How could you? What gives you that right to take—”
“What can I say, my bosses’ pet needed to be fed—” she felt him shrug “—unfortunately for you, it’s on a very strict diet. You.”
“Diet?”
“Yep, they can only suck on the bone marrow of women like you, and creatures like your mongrel. It makes them a little more human every time.” He cackled again.
“Hayze killed that thing. He told me he did.”
“Oh, he sure did, but my bosses have an army of them to feed. You didn’t think you were home free, did you?”
She stumbled over a tree limb, but he caught her before she could hit the ground and pushed her forward again.
“At first when I was watching you, I thought about taking you for myself. Even after I failed to get that yazaron to feed on you, I still considered snatching you up. But you had to come to this island and fall in love with that freak.” He jammed the barrel of the gun in the back of her neck. “Now that you’ve let the Anubi-freak fuck you, you’re no good to anybody for anything but dinner.” He clicked his tongue. “And you’re so pretty, too. What a waste!”
As if you would ever have a chance. Blaine wanted to spin around and slap his face, but thought better of it. Her goal was not to antagonize him, but to keep him talking until Hayze showed up. And he would show up. He’d told her that guns couldn’t kill him, so that meant it was only a matter of time before he found her, right?
Jesus, she hoped so.
“You won’t get away with this, you know.” Blaine sent invisible fingers out into the night, touching the minds of various animals, asking them for help in any way possible, but knowing they were all too small and fragile to make a real difference. She needed a hog or bear or a tiger. She reached deeper into the forest and touched the mind of something that wasn’t quite human or animal. It was a cat, a very large cat.
“Hello, friend, I need your help,” she greeted with uncertainty.
“Blaine, is that you?”
“You know me?”
“It’s me, Rekkus. Where are you?”
That’s right Hayze had said that Rekkus could transform into a large tiger. Blaine shook off her thoughts. “Rekkus, you have to go to Hayze. He’s been shot—”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s fine. Where are you?”
“No, Rekkus, he’s not fine. You have to go to him. He’s over by the hot springs,” Blaine said quickly.
Rekkus’s tone was a primal rumble. “Listen to me, Blaine. Your mate is safe. I promise you that.”
“Are you sure? He’s okay? Safe?”
“He’s more than okay, Blaine. He’s leading the hunt to get you back. Now where are you?”
Relief washed over and through her. “Thank god.”
“Blaine, where are you?” Rekkus asked again. “Do you know the person that kidnapped you?”
“I don’t know where we are, but I do smell apples,” Blaine told Rekkus.
“And the person you’re with? Do you know him?”
“No, but he arrived on the ferry with me.”
“Good, Blaine, very good. We’re on our way.”
“Please hurry,” she said, being careful to step over the hundredth jutting root. “He says he’s going to kill me.”
Rekkus was calm. Almost too calm. “You needn’t worry about that. If anyone dies tonight it will be him; I can assure you that.”
For reasons she couldn’t explain, Blaine believed and trusted Rekkus without doubt. Maybe it was the animal in him or maybe it was because Hayze had chosen him as his best-friend. She didn’t know what the reason was.
“Oh please, you sound like a cliché. If you don’t remember, I put two bullets into your love thing’s chest. Not even he could get up from that,” her captor said, pulling her attention back to him.
Blaine swallowed. She’d seen the blood and felt its warmth as it spilled from Hayze’s body onto her. The asshole might be right, if Hayze was any other person. But he was Hayze, her mate. He was fine. Rekkus had told her as much.
“What about island security? They had to have heard those gunshots.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about them. They’ll be busy enough soon enough.”
Just then an explosion rocked the island, sending Blaine tumbling to the ground. At the same time roars and howls surrounded them and she found herself being dragged up off the ground and into arms she never wanted to touch her again. He pressed the muzzle of the gun into her side and turned them in a tight circle, scanning the tree line.
“Come on out, show yourself,” he shouted. Nothing and no one moved. “I’ll put a bullet in her head! I swear to God I will.”
“Okay, let’s not be rash,” Cemil said, stepping out of the lining of the trees.
“What are you doing here, gay-boy?” her captor sneered.
Cemil’s head dropped, and his smile faded as he stared at the man. “That’s strike two.”
“What’s strike one?” her captor asked seriously.
“You’re holding her. Now, what exactly did you blow up on my island, Mr. Bradshaw?”
“Why don’t you run along and find out, because this doesn’t concern you.”
“Oh, now, that’s where you’re wrong. Everything that happens on this island concerns me, and the fact that you think you could shoot a dear friend of mine, kidnap his mate, and then blow up anything on my island and get away with it, confounds me.” Cemil stepped closer, his hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks. “Now, I’m going to ask once nicely. Will you please let the young lady go?”
Bradshaw pulled her back as he frantically checked the lining of the trees. She could feel eyes on them, but she didn’t know where they were coming from—it seemed like everywhere. And that fog, the same one that had surrounded her and Hayze as they made love, was back. It layered the ground and blew in through the trees, covering the small clearing.
“And what will you do if I don’t?” He moved, pointing the gun at Cemil’s face instead of her side. “I’ll tell what you’ll do. Not a damn thing.”
Cemil threw his hands up, feigning fear. “Well, I suppose you’re right. I won’t be doing a damn thing.” He grinned at Bradshaw and nodded his head once at the sky. “But I’m afraid he will.”
Bradshaw looked up and all hell broke loose.
Blaine was dragged out of Bradshaw’s reach while Hayze dropped from the sky, his fist pulled back and shot forward, connecting with the man’s face, not once but three times in the span of half a second. The gun flew from Bradshaw’s hand as he fell flat on his back, his limbs akimbo.
Hayze stalked over to him, a scowl on his face. His fists clenched and unclenched repeatedly as he stepped over to Bradshaw. Murder was in his face and on his mind. A blind woman could see that. As he bent to deliver the killing blow, Blaine broke away from Cemil.
“Hayze, no, you can’t,” she screamed, hurrying toward him. “He’s not worth it!”
Hayze looked up at her as she threw her body at him, throwing his balance off enough so that he caught her and staggered back away from the fallen man. He pulled her into his arms, wrapping her up tight as if he thought at any moment she’d be taken away from him again.
“Did he hurt you?” Hayze asked.
“No.” Blaine leaned back, checked his chest and back and said, “You’re okay too, right?” She searched his face for the first hint of a lie, but found none.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m so glad.” She rested her head on his chest, before leaning back. “Your powers?”
“They’re returning slowly, but they’re returning.”
Blaine didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. “Really?”
“Yes.
”
“So, you’ll be okay?”
“No,” he corrected. “So, we’ll be okay.” His lips descended on hers in a slow, heated kiss that she happily accepted.
She broke the kiss and hugged him close, wanting nothing to ever come between them again.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Cemil said. “I’ll take this jack-ass back up to the Haus and check on Rekkus and the boys at the explosion area.”
“All right, we’ll be up shortly,” Hayze replied, pulling Blaine closer to him. As Cemil disappeared into the forest with Bradshaw, Hayze said softly, “Blaine?”
“Yes?”
“You know I love you, don’t you? And if anything had happened to you…”
She smiled into his shoulder and cut him off. “I know.”
Chapter Twelve
“WHICHEVER ONE OF YOU told Blaine what was going on, you had no right to interfere. It was not your place,” Hayze said as he stared at Rekkus out the corner of his eye.
“What are you talking about? I had no conversations with your mate. The siblings and I discussed you earlier that night, so it’s quite possible she overheard us if she was passing through the lobby at the right time,” Rekkus said. “If that’s the case, it was an accident, I assure you.”
Hayze didn’t believe him for one second. “A lot of accidents seem to happen around here,” he scoffed. “Either way, thanks.”
“For what?”
“For being the bastard I knew you would be when I decided to come to Wiccan Haus.”
“What are brothers for?” Rekkus responded as he reached into the cooler sitting between them and tossed Hayze a beer.
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before Rekkus told him how he and Blaine had spoken telepathically while he was in animal form. Rekkus then asked, “So what did you do with Mr. Bradshaw? He was in the stockade and then he wasn’t.”
Hayze leaned back in the lawn chair outside of his best friend’s cabin. “I flash-stepped and dropped him off at my pack’s compound last night. The elders have a lot of questions for him about this group he mentioned called ‘The Order.’ Cyrus also told them that Bradshaw knows more than he’s letting on.”
“I don’t know, Hayze, this guy seems like he’d be better off dead. For Christ’s sake, he’d been stalking Blaine for six months.”
“Yeah, well, we have him now, so he’s not going to be following anyone around anymore. Not to mention when the elders are done with him, he’ll be lucky if he has a toe to twitch.”
“This group he said sent him sounds like a bunch of crazies. Do you know anything about them?” Rekkus questioned.
“Until a few months ago, we didn’t even know they existed,” Hayze began. “They were supposed to be a group of fanatics, but one of the packs in Canada found proof that they’re this huge operation that has been murdering women all over the world for centuries, hoping to get their hands on a true Anubi mate.”
Rekkus scowled. “For what reason?”
“I don’t have a clue, but if there’s any truth to the things Bradshaw told Blaine, it’s to feed the very beasts we’re trying to protect these women from. I find it hard to believe there are humans working for and with the yazaron. However, to have an army of yazaron at your beck and call? That’s scary, and that’s coming from me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Rekkus took a sip from the beer he’d been nursing since before Hayze arrived. The man wasn’t a drinker and had never been, but every once in a while he seemed to enjoy holding one.
“Rekkus, I need you to do me one more favor. I’ve burned all my bridges with the Syndicate because of the way I left, but I know you haven’t. Could you check with your contacts there and see if they know anything about this group?”
“Of course. I’ll get in touch with Barry in the morning and pick his brain.”
“Thanks. You know how to reach me when you need to.” Hayze sat back in his lounge chair. “You know what’s been driving me crazy? How did that ass get on this island without anybody knowing until it was almost too late?”
“Ah, that. I made a few calls and turns out the police found the real Mr. Reginald Bradshaw’s body floating in the bay off of Cape Elizabeth earlier this week.”
“Did the real Bradshaw have family?”
Rekkus nodded. “He was going through a nasty divorce and fighting for custody of his two sons.”
“Damn,” Hayze murmured.
“I know you weren’t trying to sneak away,” Sage said, skipping up the stone sidewalk to them. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail and the sun was bouncing off the yellow, too-short muumuu she wore.
Hayze stood up, as Blaine and Dana stepped out of the house. “Of course not. You were going to be my next stop.”
“Sure, sure,” Sage said with a grin as she slipped up to him and hugged him close. She fingered the gray hairs at his temples and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. “These will never go away, huh?”
“Probably not,” Hayze responded.
Sage pulled a bottle filled with a darkly colored goop from her pockets and showed it to him. “They could.”
The woman never stepped meddling.
“I love them,” Blaine said quickly, stepping up to him and forcing Sage to take a step back. “It makes him look refined, don’t you think?”
Sage grinned, tilting her head from right to left as she inspected Hayze. “Yeah, I can see that. I heard the salt-and-pepper thing is in on the mainland, but if you change your mind…” She handed Blaine the bottle. “Make him rinse his hair with this, and you’ll never have to worry about gray hair again. Oh and if you give me your address, I’ll have a potion ready in a day or two to get rid of those wrinkles.”
“Ladies, I’m standing right here,” Hayze told them incredulously.
They ignored him.
Blaine took the bottle. “Thanks, but we’ve had enough of you and Sarka’s concoctions. However, I will hold on to this for safekeeping,” Blaine said, turning to inspect Hayze. “Besides, we’ve talked about it and I think, if nothing else, it will remind him that I’m always right.”
“If this is what mated life is going to be like…” Hayze said under his breath.
“Get used to it,” Rekkus muttered from his seat as Dana slipped into his lap. “The perks are great, but you never get say-so on anything,” he finished as he lovingly rubbed soothing circles in her belly.
Hayze rolled his eyes and stepped around his mate to hug Sage again, before stepping back and slipping his arm around Blaine. “I heard it was you who refused to give up on me when your battleax of a sister wanted to sell tickets to my demise.”
Sage blushed. “She’s not a battleax; she’s simply misunderstood. And I really think all things aside, she would have done whatever it took to help you.”
“Sure, I’ll believe that when the sun begins to rise in the west.” Hayze pulled her close again and whispered, “Thank you for believing in me and my mate, and tell Sarka she can go straight to hell and wait on me.”
“I will not.” Sage laughed. “And what are friends for?” she replied as she turned her attention to Blaine. “You take care of him. And you two are welcome back here anytime.”
“Thank you for everything,” Blaine said, hugging her back. “And I’m really sorry that jerk blew up the boathouse, but I’m glad no one got hurt.”
“Oh, that? Don’t even worry about it. We’ve seen a lot worse,” Sage replied through a smile. “I’m just glad you were okay.” She hugged Blaine again. “Seriously, you two take care of each other, okay?”
“We will,” Blaine whispered. “We will.”
Sage turned to leave, but stopped. She reached into the wide deep pocket of her muumuu and pulled out an envelope about the size of card often attached to a bouquet of roses. “Oh, I almost forgot. Nora, wanted me to give you this. She wanted to say goodbye herself, but we felt it was more important for her to get one more session in before the boat disembarks.”
“
What is it?” Blaine asked, taking the envelope.
“Don’t know,” Sage said, “but she made me promise I would give it to you. Well, gotta go. I have loads of goodbyes to get past.”
“Please tell her I said thanks and she’ll be forever in my prayers.”
Sage smiled and turned away with a wave.
“Open it,” Hayze urged, peering over her shoulder.
“Nosy much,” she teased, slipping her finger beneath the flap. She split the paper open and pulled out the small card.
Tears immediately came to Blaine’s eyes.
Hayze pulled Blaine flush against his chest as he read the note over her shoulder.
I found this for you and though I don’t believe you will need it, I wanted you to have it anyway. Remember, sweetheart, that even if the moon falls from the sky and the oceans rise up to flood the land, there is always a silver lining no matter how dim.
Luck is what you make it, so make your luck good, child.
Hugs and kisses,
Your good luck fairy.
Beneath that was a beautiful emerald green four leaf clover and under it a 912 phone number.
“Nora,” Blaine whispered, bringing the card to her chest.
“Looks like you’ve found a new friend.” Dana smiled at Blaine from her mate’s lap.
“Oh, I’ve found more than one. Thank you for everything Dana,” Blaine said softly.
Dana dismissed her with a gentle wave of her hand. “Oh and remember what I said. I use the spray bottle for Rekkus, but a newspaper should do you just fine for Hayze when he gets out of line.”
“What the…” Hayze and Rekkus said in unison as the women broke down into fits of laughter.
An hour later, with their goodbyes said and their bags packed and ready for shipping, Blaine and Hayze stood in the middle of the courtyard overlooking the dock, watching as the ferry disembarked to make its way back to the mainland for another batch of guests who were in desperate need of healing.
