by Lia Davis
Another side effect of being a leader was that everyone told me everything. The Niswi and Mom had warned me about it. We weren't just leaders. We were therapists, champions, and friends to everyone in the Collective.
"These are, uh, my mates," I said with a lift in my voice. It was cool to introduce them as such. "This is Sterling. He's heir to the Hightower Circle. This is Peter, and this is Dorian." I didn't need to tell her which was a lycan and which a vampire. She'd already have smelled that. But witches smelled like humans to us. Vamps could feel a difference and said witch blood tasted richer. They loved it. After drinking from Sterling, I totally understood why.
"Please, I'm being so rude. Come to the living room." She led the way through the small home. "My husband is at work at the railroad." Manual labor jobs weren't uncommon for wolves. They had superior strength, it didn't require special schooling, and it often paid well. "He lays the railroad and was recently promoted so now he also repairs it."
"That's wonderful," I said as I sat beside her on the sofa. I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I'm happy to hear it."
"Thank you," she said with another of the little head bows. "I'll just go get Kerry."
After she left, Dorian leaned forward from the other side of Sterling. "What's with the head bows?" he asked.
"Happens a lot. We'll talk about it later."
"And why are you so formal?" he continued.
Sterling pushed him back. "Dude, you've got a lot to learn."
"Well, I never knew I'd be in this sort of position! Mate to the High Alpha of the Collective and sort of mate to the Hightower Circle."
The appearance of Karen with Kerry in tow shut him up. With their hearing, there was no way they hadn't heard, but he hadn't said anything too bad or embarrassing.
Kerry looked like absolute shit. Her chestnut hair was dull and lacked the luster it once had, and her eyes were so vacant I didn't understand how she was upright. "Hey, Kerry. How are you?"
She smiled at me, but none of the expression went even remotely close to her eyes. "Hello. I am fine."
"Shit," I muttered, then looked at Karen. "Sorry."
"It's fine, I have the same reaction every time I look at her." Karen moved Kerry farther into the room and pushed her shoulders until she sat beside me on the couch.
"Karen, I'm going to try something drastic, something I've only ever done once. At worst, she'll be no different. At best, she'll be back to normal. But it's not something you need to see. Will you leave us?"
She looked at her daughter and smoothed her hair back, not that it worked. "Yes," she whispered. "I trust you, Alpha."
I wasn't the High Alpha yet, but she believed I could fix her daughter, just because one day I would be.
"It might not work, Karen. Don't get your hopes up yet."
She nodded, pressing her fingers to her lips. With another look at all of us, telling us with her eyes that she was terrified, she turned and fled the room.
"Shit," I repeated.
"Damn right," Sterling said. "At least this time I can help you."
"Okay, so here's how it went down with you." I explained how I had melded our magic and energy and it wouldn't return to his body. "I had to bite you to get it to go back. But, when that happened, my wolf claimed you. So, we don't want that to happen with Kerry, because I like her and all, but I'm not up for another mate. Three is plenty. Puh-lenty."
"I think that your wolf only claimed him because he's your mate," Dorian said. "If you'd bitten a person walking down the street, would your wolf claim them?"
"No. That's true."
"Wait," Peter cut in. "Have you ever bitten a random person on the street?"
"We were taught how to hunt. All vampires are, yes." I looked at him with concern. I hoped he could understand that in an emergency or extreme situation, I might have to bite the first person I came across.
The awkward thing would be the orgasm that person would have because we are also taught to enter the person’s mind during the feeding and replace the pain of the bite with pleasure.
"How young were you taught this, exactly?" He asked with an alarmed expression on his face.
"It doesn't work that way when you're young. All the sexual stuff doesn't come into play until the individual vampire is ready for it. Otherwise, we would've been giving our mothers orgasms every time we bit her for food when we were infants." I tsked at him. "Now isn't the time, though. We can talk about any of this stuff another time. I'm an open book." That seemed to satisfy him. Good to know I had no qualms being exasperated with my mates the second day I had them. Super.
Turning back to Sterling, I took his hand. "Should we try to do this together?"
It seemed much less scary knowing he would be there.
"I'm here for you, Meda."
Goosebumps erupted all over me. I really wanted to fuck him, all three of them. Steeling my spine, I pushed those distracting thoughts away and focused on Kerry. I felt Sterling gingerly enter my mind, probably scared from the last time. I let my psyche caress his so he'd know I felt him and welcomed him there.
Grabbing hold of Sterling, I knocked gently on the walls around Kerry's mind. Kerry, let me in. Let me come in and help you.
She cocked her head at me, like a puppy listening to a high-pitched noise. I tried again. Kerry. It's Meda. You know me. Trust me. Let me into your mind so I can help you.
She smiled, and I felt the tiniest crack in the shield around her mind. So the shield was there by her, not a block. Interesting.
As soon as I was in, the problem became apparent. She didn't have any magic. She had energy, she had thoughts. Her mind raced, but it was behind a fog of emptiness like a huge black blanket stretched across her aura. It was painful for me. I couldn't imagine how it felt to her.
Should I give her some magic?
Sterling's voice sounded in my head as clearly as if he'd spoken out loud sitting beside me. Give it a try. I think I can pull us out if it gets out of hand. If it doesn't work you can try biting her.
I summoned my magic, but when it came to me, it was laced and intertwined with Sterling’s. Interesting. I wondered if he could see it.
I can.
Oh, stop that. I laughed internally as I gently moved the magic toward Kerry.
The black hole pulsed as the magic neared it, then as soon as I touched it, it latched on, sucking the energy and magic from me as fast as it could.
I can't stop it!
With a gasp, Sterling yanked us from Kerry's mind. She blinked a couple of times, then fell backward into the corner of the couch, passed out.
"Son of a bitch," I hissed. "That was a disaster."
"I have an idea what's going on now, at least," Sterling said.
"Explain it to us, because all we saw was you all sitting there with your eyes closed, swaying slightly," Peter said.
Dorian sat on the floor at Sterling's and my feet. "Yeah, it was kind of boring."
"She's got a sub in her mind. When our magic touched it, it grabbed all the magic it could and sucked it away."
"Away to where?" I asked in dismay. "To who? What is a sub?"
"That's something we'll have to figure out. Subs, or subjugation spells, are nearly impossible to trace. I've read about them. It's drastically complicated magic. It’s like being hypnotized."
"Could I have done this to her unintentionally?" Surely I wasn't this powerful, not while untrained.
"Well, we aren't sure what all you can do, with your lineage, but I'd put my money on no. This magic is complicated. It takes sigils, sacrifices, and long incantations. Whoever did this has put a lot of time and effort into it."
"Great. The most likely person would be you." I winked at Sterling. No way it was him. I would've felt it immediately when I entered his mind.
"I think you're going to have to bite her. Maybe you can suck the sub into yourself. Your fire can burn it up easily."
"Could I push some fire onto it? I didn't try that."
St
erling looked at Kerry thoughtfully. "We can try. I'm not sure if she can withstand the heat, though."
He put his arm around me and we turned back to Kerry. It was easier to access her mind this time. When I got to the huge black emptiness, I drew up my fire. The flames flickered along my energy and magic toward the sub.
When it touched it, the blackness withdrew, pulling away, toward the recesses of Kerry's mind. I chased after it, but it was no good.
Pulling back, I sighed. "Okay, Plan C." Gently moving Kerry's head to the side, I bit her neck quickly, like ripping off a bandage. Crashing our minds together, I sucked, pulling on her blood, her energy, and her magic. Instead of the magic racing toward me, the sieve did. Excellent.
The moment it was in my mind, I engulfed myself in flames, both inside and out. The metaphysical and physical combined to totally consume me. And the sieve.
It didn't die quickly or easily, though. I hadn't removed the connection to Kerry's mind or my fangs from her neck. The blackness darted back toward her, down the flaming threads of my consciousness. I slammed the connection closed and pulled my head back from her neck.
"Her wound," I gasped, since I didn't have it in me to lick her neck at the moment. I felt someone move over my lap and was pretty sure Dorian was licking the bite closed.
My mind went into battle with the dark magic, hurling flames at it as I fought to keep it from taking any of my magic or energy. Sterling was in my mind as well, but I feared the sub getting to him and taking his magic, so I slammed up a mental shield I hadn't known I was capable of making.
Let me help you!
It's happening too fast. I don't know how.
It's your mind. Control the situation.
His words were calm and steady, exactly what I needed.
My mind was vast at the moment, and I was chasing the black nothingness all over it. It was my mind, however, so I changed it. We weren't in a limitless space. We were in a tiny room with no windows or doors. No way out.
The sub spread out over the farthest wall. I made the room smaller.
Knowing it didn't have much left, it went on the offensive, actively trying to reach my magic. Every time it slithered a bit of its black creepiness toward me, I blasted it with fire.
Enough. Kill it.
He was right. I shrank the room as my mind filled with fire. Fire was all I knew. Fire was all I was. I heard a distant yell and felt my body being moved, but the sub was shrinking, so I pushed harder, stoking my fire higher than I remembered it ever being.
With a final internal yell, I engulfed the last of the sub, burning it to nothingness in my mind.
As soon as I was absolutely sure it was gone, I let my flames recede.
Opening my eyes, I nearly doubled over at the hunger in my gut. I'd always suspected that my tendency to be hungry was a result of my energy constantly being burned by my flames, but here was proof.
"Oh," I said, clutching my stomach. "I'm so hungry." I stood in the middle of Karen's living room. The coffee table had been pushed to the side. Turning toward my mates and Kerry, I found that the couch had been pushed back as well and had a huge burn pattern on it where I'd sat.
"Oh, no. I can normally stop that from happening," I said in dismay. "I'm so sorry."
Karen was standing beside Kerry with her arm around her. "It doesn't matter. Look."
Kerry stepped forward and smiled. "I feel like I've just woken up from the most restful nap ever."
"It worked. Oh, thank goodness. I'm so glad it worked."
Karen ran to me and threw her arms around me. "If you ever need anything, anything at all in this world that I can give you or do for you, you come to me, do you hear me? You saved my Kerry, and I will be your loyal servant for the rest of my life."
She pulled back and squeezed my arms. "And I'm going to make sure that everyone I know hears about this."
"Actually, Karen, the biggest favor you could do me is to keep this quiet until we figure out who is doing it."
She nodded. "I can do that as well. Whatever you need." Her bow was deeper this time. Great. I'd done a wonderful thing, but now people were going to treat me even more like the human’s Queen of England.
Super.
Chapter Nine
On the way back to the dorm, Sterling hit a drive-through burger place. I had half my large fries eaten before we got home. It was a good thing I got two orders for myself. I hadn’t realized just how much energy my fire used until I damn near depleted it at Kerry’s. My stomach felt like I hadn’t eaten in days.
Once we were in my top floor dorm, I sat on the sofa and pulled out a burger. Dorian plopped down on one side of me and Peter on the other. Sterling sat in the chair across from me. He gave me a mental caress, and I sighed. We should’ve really talked about how all this would work.
"Do we have any clue how this mating thing is going to go?" I took another bite of my burger. I hadn’t asked anyone in particular.
Peter shook his head. "Nope, just going with it. It feels right."
I agreed. It did feel right. Dorian shrugged. "Sterling is...or was the one who made executive decisions. Pete and I went with it. It’s how it has always worked with us."
I met Sterling's stare and his sensual lips lifted in a brilliant smile. "Are you asking about how things will work with the four of us or how the ruling of our people will work?"
"Both, actually." I frowned. I should’ve told my parents, but I didn’t want to get them involved yet. Then there was what Lilipad told me. That my sisters and I had to figure out things on our own. Did that mean the strange things going on at school or with our powers? Maybe both.
Sterling leaned forward to put his forearms on the tops of his knees and stared at me. "We have several years to figure out how the ruling will go and to prepare our people for a merger. For now, we figure out us. Get comfortable with the relationship first. That was something your parents didn’t have much time to do. Thankfully, your parents and mine are too young to be giving up their thrones any time soon."
He was right. We had time to settle in and let our people get used to the idea that in the distant future the Circle and the Collective would unite. Maybe not as one, but as solid allies.
Just then, Tala and Ami burst through the door with the sentries in tow. Tala stopped at the end of the couch and crossed her arms. "Where have you four been?"
I laughed, then explained about Kerry and what we did to get rid of the sub, leaving out how I stole Sterling’s magic from him. My sisters didn’t need to know that right now. "I told Karen not to tell anyone until we figure out who is doing this."
I refused to believe that it was me doing it, unless someone was controlling me during the black outs. And we’d confirmed through the security feeds that I’d done nothing but walk around campus.
"We haven’t been able to figure out who’s doing this." Noah eyed the bags of food, and I motioned for him to help himself. He grabbed a bag and passed out burgers to everyone. "I don’t think it’s Professor Nelson. When he left campus earlier, I followed him. He went straight to his house and hasn’t left."
That didn’t mean anything. "He could just pick up the phone or email someone."
I wasn’t going to rule out any suspects at this point, especially when it was highly likely that I was the one that could pull people’s energy and magic out of them.
Ami sat on the floor next to the sofa with her burger and fries. "So we’re looking for someone with a great deal of power. Any ideas besides Professor Nelson? I’m with Noah. I don’t think he did it."
"I agree," Tala added. "He seems to have a strong dislike for Paw. I saw them pass each other earlier today, and they actually snarled at each other. That could explain why he doesn’t like us."
Interesting. I knew Paw had a rough childhood, but he never talked about it. I found out what I knew from asking Mom and Grampa Graham. "But having a grudge against one of our Niswi is more reason to frame me for all this."
As soon as the wor
ds left my mouth, I realized I spoke them out loud. Tala sent me a sharp look. "What do mean?"
I glanced to Sterling, then Peter and Dorian. "I stole Sterling's magic." I explained what happened, that Lilipad and Poppy showed, and the mating with Sterling.
Tala glared at me, then at Sterling before throwing up her arms. "Congrats, I guess. But I don’t envy you both when you face the parental units and they discover you mated without telling them." She began to pace. "This is getting more and more screwed up."
I felt her anxiety rise, so I reached out to her mentally. When she brushed me off, I stood and advanced on her. She stopped and we faced off. "We will deal with this. Sterling and I will handle whatever happens. Right now we need to figure out who is trancing people and stealing their energies. No one…" I turned and met every gaze in the room. "No one breathes a word about my new powers until we find out who is behind this."
One by one everyone nodded. Good. Now that it was settled, I dropped back into my seat on the sofa and turned the TV on. My full belly aggravated my exhaustion from overexerting my fire power fighting off that damned spell. "We also need to think of how we can extract the sub from those bewitched without me biting each of them."
Tala squeezed in between Peter and me and cuddled into my side. I sighed and hugged her. She was worried which stressed me further. "I’m scared too, Tala," I whispered softly. "We’re stronger than anyone we know. We can win this."
She nodded and sat up, pulling out of my embrace. Peter placed his arm across the back of the couch behind Tala’s head and twined his fingers in my hair. He said, “Together, we’re all stronger."
"Agreed. Focus on one thing at a time." Tala met my stare and smirked. "Want to set a trap?"
A trap? That could work. "How?"
Sterling snapped his fingers. "Of course. What’s the one thing that everyone who’s bewitched has in common?"
"Me." I frowned. I realized that I was the common denominator since the only people who seemed to be walking around like zombies or just plain acting weird were friends with me or had gone to high school with me. "So what's the plan?"
