by Holly Evans
The cold weight of dread dragged down my mood. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," he growled.
"And you've come to my home because…?" I snapped.
"Please. Evelyn," he said softly.
Lysander's hand slipped down over my hip, his fingers stroking the sensitive skin there.
"You're sure it's hunting you?" I asked.
"Evelyn, it's been seen testing the territory boundaries. Our cubs have seen it following them home from school." The waver increased in his voice.
I sighed and gave a small nod. "You're the only pack with this problem?"
"Yes. I don't know why,” he growled and returned to pacing.
"Settle, beast. I will solve this problem. Now, leave my home."
"Thank you, Evelyn."
I gave a sharp nod and nothing more. Once the door was shut, I texted Quin and asked him where we were with the celestial tracking potion or whatever they were working on. Lysander made me coffee and handed me a croissant while I waited for his reply.
"I'll pluck them. If that rogue harms so much as a hair on any of those cubs' heads, I'll pluck them."
Lysander gave me a crooked smile. "Is it so bad if I hope the rogue tries?"
I laughed softly. "No, no, that's not such a bad thing. The prospect of plucking them calls to me."
Quin text me back while I was in the shower, saying he needed to speak to Felix himself. I didn't exactly have the lycan's number; the only time I usually dealt with him was when one of his pack were causing trouble. Things weren't comfortable between us.
"Looks like we're heading to Café Silhouette," I said to Lysander.
He curled his lip. "Must we?"
I pulled on my leather jacket and double-checked I had switched to my silver blades.
"You can always go for a run instead."
"No."
He pulled on his own jacket and quickly joined me. "I can handle the lycans, Lysander. I did so many times before you."
He growled quietly, "I know."
Twenty-Six
Quin could handle himself, and he knew Felix's pack better than I did, but I was tired of being on the sidelines. I wasn't going to sit at home and wait for further news. Lysander remained vigilant and glued to my side as we crossed the busy intersection in front of the lycan bar. The red and black interior looked a little different since my last visit. I hadn't been back since I'd gotten into a fight with Felix and two of his followers over the rogue lycan Quin had been dealing with at the time. Things had gone south, as they're prone to doing with lycans, and I threw wolfbane in Felix's face. Guilt writhed in my stomach as I remembered his screams, how he'd curled up on the floor. I reminded myself that he was a beast and he'd had it coming.
uin approached with a slight bounce to his step, but his eyes were mildly glazed. An older woman gave him a dark look when she had to walk around him, not that he noticed. He grinned and pulled me into a hug.
"We're making good progress, Evie. Things are going wonderfully. And how're you two?"
I didn't like how he paired me with the hound. I gave a shrug.
"Felix showed up at our front door. So maybe it's time to move."
He sighed softly. “Once this celestial business is wrapped up we'll do it."
"We need to find out how he got the address," I said coolly.
Another soft sigh was all he gave in response. He pushed aside whatever was bothering him and gave Lysander a firm pat on the arm.
"You'll be among people more like you for a while, that must be a good thing."
Lysander narrowed his eyes at him and said nothing. Quin's mouth tugged downwards a little; I opened the door and strode into the bar. The red paint on the walls was almost bright enough to hurt my eyes, the art even bolder and more absurd than I remembered. It was not my kind of place.
The lycan behind the bar gave me a long hard look, his hand posed over the bar, a rag clamped within his long rough fingers.
After a silent stand-off, he turned and called out, "Felix. Hunters."
He lowered his head and focused intently on the bar, scrubbing it within an inch of its life. A pair of small children, they couldn't have been more than six, peered out from around the doorway to the next section of the bar. The little girl's pale brown hair was pulled back into a scruffy ponytail, her dark brown eyes, flecked with amber, wide and getting wider as she looked at me and my companions. The boy looked around her and gasped. They whispered frantically back and forth before they crept out from behind the archway and edged closer. I watched with a curious smile; they could have passed for normal human children. They drank in every detail of us, awe written all over their innocent little faces. A pang for children of my own hit me. I drove it aside. I couldn't bring children into our world.
Felix came into the bar; dark shadows hung under his eyes. Exhaustion filled his every movement, the way he almost dragged his feet, the usual power and grace diminished. He couldn't help but smile when he saw the children, a smile that forged its way across his face before he shooed them away.
"They're having a day off school,” he said quietly.
"We'll keep them safe,” I said without thinking.
They were innocents. They were too young to know what they were, or the potential they held. Felix nodded before the barman pushed a glass of some amber liquid across the bar to him. Quin sat on the stool next to the lycan alpha.
"I need to know everything you can tell me about the celestial."
The barman visibly paled and slipped away into the storeroom.
Felix growled, "Jackson, close the bar for a while."
The barman slunk out from the storeroom and bolted the front door shut. Two shiny new locks slid home alongside the original two. They were scared. Jackson refused to look at anyone and slipped away into the storeroom once more. Felix knocked his drink back in one, set his shoulders back, and looked at Quin.
"The little ones say a big blond man with a golden shine to him followed them home from school. They say he whispered mean things; they cried when they got home. They had nightmares the following nights." He swallowed hard. "He's been seen walking around the territory boundaries, bold as brass. He approached my home last night. He triggered the sigils the witch put in place for us, but he stood there looking me right in the eye. The little smile he gave me sent chills down my back. You have to help us."
Quin nodded and offered him a comforting smile. "We'll do everything in our power."
Lysander approached Felix; he kept his shoulders back but looked down and away when Felix looked at him. The lycan relaxed a little.
"We need a map of where he's been seen."
Felix nodded and vanished for a moment.
"We cannot allow any harm to come to the cubs,” Lysander growled.
As if on cue, the two children re-appeared. They flashed Lysander big grins. He returned the grin and crouched opening his arms to them. They ran into his arms.
He hugged them lightly and said gently, "I hear a bad man has been following you."
They nodded furiously. "We're going to help your dad and make the bad man go away."
They grinned at him.
"You're going to tear him limb from limb," the little girl said in a high-pitched voice that sang of innocence.
The words shouldn't have come from such a dear little thing.
Felix glared at Lysander, who was still crouched with the alpha's cubs in his arms.
"Children, this is not a discussion for your ears."
They pouted, but disentangled themselves from Lysander and left the room, proverbial tails tucked between their legs. Lysander stood slowly, his shoulders back and tense but eyes flicking back and forth between Felix's face and the floor. Felix growled quietly but walked back behind the bar and began drawing. Lysander returned to my side. His arm crept around my waist. I allowed it, but didn't appreciate how easy it was becoming to do so.
Felix pushed the varying maps over to Quin. "There. That's everything I can give
you."
Quin grinned. "Thank you. We'll be in touch as soon as possible."
"No harm will come to the cubs,” Lysander said with certainty.
Felix gave a small nod and unlocked the door. He looked up and down the street before ushering us out. Quin was soon absorbed in the maps, his brow furrowed while he chewed on his bottom lip.
"We'll need to set up protections around the pack. This will take longer than we'd hoped."
I tried to hold back my string of curses. There was nothing to be done. Alchemy was a delicate art, and celestials were hardly run of the mill. The feeling of uselessness was eating at me.
Quin looked at me with a smile. "Why don't you go out and let your hair down tonight, Ev? You need it. You're so tense and there's nothing to be done at the moment."
I glared at him. He pulled me into a hug.
"I'm staying with Kadrix tonight. Elise would probably enjoy dancing the night away, too. Make it a girls’ night."
I muttered curses under my breath; he meant well, but I didn't want to relax. I wanted to do something of use.
Twenty-Seven
Having being dismissed once again for not using magic, we wandered down to the river. The buildings took on a more whimsical feel to them, with pastel blue walls and elegant little courtyards. I caught myself glancing in a jewelers at the various garnet jewelry. Prague was known for its garnets, and I couldn't help but feel a pull towards the blood-red stones. They were far prettier than diamonds, in my mind. A particularly simple ring caught my eye, with delicate filigree around the small round stone, and a plain rose gold band. It would make a stunning engagement ring. I turned away and chided myself; such thoughts were foolish. Lysander smirked at me. I ignored him.
A flash of white in the window caught my eye. I frowned and looked; someone behind us was wearing pure white with gold trim. I shrugged it off. There were peculiar people in every city. We passed another window, and I noticed there were now two men in pure white and gold trim. It was becoming suspicious. By the time we'd passed the second courtyard restaurant, there were four of them. I slipped down the wide gap between a pub and a plain yellow-walled building. The tarmac gave way to large cobblestones, half-covered in sand and missing entirely in places. Lysander put himself in front of me; we waited for the men in white to go past.
They edged around the yellow building and tried to burst out from behind the cover at us. Lysander openly laughed at their clumsy attempt. My blades were in my hands; I was confused by their lack of balance and overall amateurish movements and behaviour. They tried to surround us. The lanky one with sandy hair almost stumbled over one of the cobblestones. A hard blow to the lower back soon had him sprawled out on the floor, where he groaned. His friend, a broader dark-haired man, had a silver gauntlet on his hand. I eyed it and circled around him while Lysander slammed one of the others into the wall. I was vaguely aware of the yelp of the man as he hit the stone.
The gauntleted man circled around me; his covered fingers flexed and moved. Suddenly, a wall of energy pushed me backwards. It was almost enough to knock me off my feet. I glared at the man. I didn't appreciate his little toy. I went to rush him but another wall of energy formed between me and him. I hit it with a soft thud. He was quickly frustrating me. A grin spread across his face. He even had the nerve to do a little dance. His final friend cursed Lysander before he was out cold on the floor. The happy dance ended.
I shifted my weight and telegraphed going to my right then shot left. Still his damn wall stopped me. I growled my growing irritation. Lysander slipped up behind him while he grinned at me. One clean blow removed the man's lower arm. The man wailed and flailed his arm around.
"You cut my arm off!" His eyes were wide, his face increasingly pale.
"You were becoming a nuisance,” Lysander said matter-of-factly.
I poked the gauntlet, complete with hand, with my toe and waited for it to explode or some such. The man screamed again when Lysander pinned him down. Lysander frowned and covered the man's mouth with one hand while the other hand became engulfed in fire. The man's eyes rolled back in his head when Lysander cauterised the wound with hellfire.
"At least he's quiet now,” Lysander said gruffly.
Satisfied that the gauntlet wasn't going to harm me, I tugged it off the hand and tucked it under my arm before I put a call in to the clean-up crew. The men in white weren't disintegrating. The entire thing was becoming very inconvenient.
"Who were they?" Lysander asked.
I gave a small shrug. "Fuck if I know."
I texted Elise and warned her that we'd be there in some ten to fifteen minutes. The white clothes appeared to be handmade. They didn't quite match each other, and the gold trim was wonky in places.
"They almost look like priests. Really shitty priests,” I said with a frown.
I didn't know of any priests that dressed like that, but I'd learnt a lot of new things recently. Lysander raised an eyebrow and scowled at the unconscious one-armed man at his feet.
"He should have come to by now. I didn't do that much damage to him."
I snorted. "He's human. We're a little more delicate than you."
I gave a hand-gesture encompassing him.
He smirked at me. "You don't seem all that delicate."
"You haven't removed any of my limbs,” I said with a smile.
He laughed, that sexy growling laugh that made my skin tingle. I rang for a taxi; no good came of those thoughts.
The man still hadn't come to by the time the taxi arrived, much to Lysander's chagrin. He hauled the man to his feet and pulled the one intact arm over his shoulders. The driver looked us up and down.
I gave him my most charming smile and said, "He couldn't hold his drink."
The driver gave a knowing nod and put his eyes forward. The man leaned against the door and remained out cold until we reached the road closest to Elise's church. He began groaning and uttering other groggy noises when Lysander dragged him down the path to the church. He managed to drag his own feet into the church.
Elise looked him up and down with distaste. "Drop him there."
She gestured to an area of floor well away from her altar.
"He's a follower of the celestials. They dare call themselves priests, can you believe it?" she said.
Her lip curled as he began groggily trying to ask questions and sit up. She left and returned with a large glass of water that she proceeded to throw in his face. His mouth fell open and his eyes quickly followed. He shook his head and gasped for air.
"Where am I?"
"In my church; if you have any sense, you'll be respectful," Elise said icily.
Twenty-Eight
The man had babbled incoherently for a few minutes before Lysander told him he'd remove his other arm if he didn't start making sense. Elise sat on a chair in front of him, impatiently tapping her foot.
The one-armed man swallowed hard and said, "I am a priest of Kastien."
Elise's face soured further at the use of the word priest.
"We saw you speaking to the lycan filth and knew that we had to help our lord by removing the threat you posed."
"That went very well for you, didn't it?” I said.
He glanced down at his arm and back up at Lysander. He went so pale milk looked tan in comparison.
I stood over the man and said, "Where is Kastien and what are his plans?"
He trembled. "We don't know. He told us that the lycans needed to be killed, they were a filth. Nothing more than mangy mutts."
I pursed my lips and said, "You're not giving us any reasons to keep you alive."
Tears formed in his eyes. He looked to Elise.
"Please. You're a priestess."
She sniffed. "Yes. I am."
"Please. I don't know anything else. He only graced us with his presence twice."
Elise sighed melodramatically and stood slowly. "It's such a shame when we find people like this. Talking of lycans, celestials, and other such things."
She shook her head sadly. "When people have lost touch with the reality around them. I'll call the doctors, it's for the best. They'll help him."
The man made a strangled yelp sound. Elise flashed him a wicked grin before she made a phonecall in rapid Czech.
The ambulance showed up rather quickly, complete with two tired-looking medics. Elise began to relax a little as she watched it drive off.
"Good riddance. The nerve to call themselves priests."
I finally remembered the gauntlet I'd tucked away. I handed it to her, still half-expecting it bite me somehow. Her face lit up and she ran her hands over it with reverence.
"We thought we'd lost this over a century ago. Where did you get it?"
"Lysander cut it off the man."
"The one armed-wonder had this?" she said incredulously.
Lysander and I shared a look of confusion between us. She stroked it tenderly.
"This is a very old relic, one we thought had been destroyed. It allows the user to manipulate energy and air. It can be a very powerful weapon in the right hands. I must thank my lady for such a gift."
She hugged Lysander tightly before she rushed to her altar.
I shrugged. "At least one good thing came from that little debacle."
Kadrix and Quin arrived just as Elise finished her talk with her lady. Kadrix looked between Lysander and me.
"Have you two not completed your mating rituals yet? Why is that?"
"Kadrix!" I replied.
He pursed his lips and stood a little taller. "It's a perfectly reasonable question."
Quin was trying desperately to stifle a laugh.
Elise said, "I was actually wondering the same thing myself. He shares your bed every night and yet you still manage to resist enjoying that delightful body of his. If you keep it up much longer, I'll have to borrow him for myself."
Heat flushed my cheeks. Lysander smirked. I was surrounded.
Kadrix pulled out a notebook and pen. "Evelyn, what is the reason? Lysander, is this normal for these things?"
I clenched my fist and ground my teeth.
