The 13th Guest

by Rebecca Royce

  Damek nodded. “All right. I’ll just get the ferry ready to go back.”

  “No.” Cyrus raised his eyebrows. “We need to speak to you.”

  “Look,” he said, the urge to defend himself rising within him, “I’m sorry I missed her when she boarded. I really am. I did find her. My senses tingled. I searched, discovered her. She doesn’t seem dangerous so I viewed it best to leave it to you.”

  Rekkus, the weretiger in charge of security, moved next to Cyrus. “We know she’s not here to hurt Cyrus.” he said. The shifter had calmed when he mated his wife Dana—until he’d found she was pregnant. Aggression, particularly to those he found threatening, constituted his typical stance.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Rekkus poked Damek in the chest. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “You have one job, to make sure the passengers—the approved ones—get here and home safely. Today, you let an unknown onto your ship. What if it had been a different kind of person? An assassin sent here to kill Cyrus? What would you have done?”

  Damek knew his duty and he clenched his teeth at the question. “I would have subdued him.” Remembering the way Amelia had to rub her arm after he’d grabbed her, he clenched his fist. “I’d do whatever I had to do.”

  Rekkus started to speak, but Cyrus cut him off. “I know you would have.”

  “So what’s the problem?” If they were going to fire him, why didn’t they do it? He wouldn’t stand there and be scolded like a child.

  “You’re slipping.” Cyrus fisted his hands. “And despite the fact that Rekkus wants you thrown into the ocean, we’ve decided to give you a week of rest here instead.”

  “What? I don’t want to come here for a week of rest.” He really didn’t. The Rowans were healers. The last thing Damek wanted was to have his head poked into by the best in the business. Some things were better left untouched.

  Rekkus shrugged. “Get some help, or get on the boat and never come back here again. I can’t have someone working for us who’s constantly running at fifty percent.”

  Before he could tell Rekkus to shove it up his ass, something caught his eyes in the distance. Sage was leading Amelia into the Haus. He liked the look of her rear end as she walked away. Spending a week on the island looking—even if he never touched—at her curves would not be such a bad thing.

  “Where am I going to stay?”

  Rekkus nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  Chapter Two

  Amelia hadn’t dreamed she’d be treated as a guest, but that was exactly how Sage and Cemil treated her. They’d talked calmly about the various activities she would partake of during her stay with them.

  Finally, they’d arrived at the Haus itself. It looked just as it did in the brochure she kept in her office. Beautiful, like a fairy tale, with shades of brown on the side and high windows with peaks on top. How had they built this all the way out here in the middle of nowhere? Moving the equipment alone must have cost thousands of dollars. She shook her head. They catered to paranormal clientele, so of course they had gotten things done more efficiently, even magically.

  Her head had itched the second she had come in contact with the Rowans. Her paranormal radar wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. Big time. She nodded at Sage. “Are you a witch?”

  The other woman blinked rapidly before smiling. “You are blunt, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve found that if I let others know that I know what they are right up front, everyone is more comfortable.”

  “I see.” Sage nodded, the grin never leaving her face. “And how long have you been empathic? Since birth, or did it come on later?”

  “Oh.” Amelia waved her hand away. “I’ve had to learn how to read people, but there’s nothing special about me. I’m just a plain old human.”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe I’m going to have to use different roots. We had so little time to get ready for your arrival.”

  Amelia scratched her head. It still itched, and maybe that distracted her. “I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”

  Sage turned toward the welcome desk. “Of course you’re not. Why don’t you go ahead and check in here with Myron? Then we’ll discuss things.”

  “Okay.” Amelia moved toward the guests. The twelve in front of her had all checked in and were heading in various directions, escorted by staff.

  The dark-haired woman behind the counter did not smile when Amelia approached. Sage had called her Myron, but she wore a nametag that said Susan.

  “Susan?”

  She shook her head. “Myron. I can’t find mine. It’s a long story. I took hers. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Um. All right.” What makes that woman tick?

  “Trust me, honey. A lot have tried and none have succeeded.” Myron smiled.

  “You can read my mind?” She’d not been around such intense power before, and pain surged around the outside of her head, not just itching but actual pangs. If this is what major power spurts did to her, she’d rather not encounter it again.

  “Not me, no.” She held up her deck of cards, which she had been playing with the whole time she’d been talking. “But the cards can. I’m the person who you spoke to, several times, and who told you no several times.”

  Amelia narrowed her eyes. The Rowans had been nice. Myron, not so much. “I don’t handle being told no when I’m sure I should be told yes.”

  “Obviously.” Myron shuffled her deck. “For the record, if you had called now, I would have said yes. It’s all about timing in life, about being ready to accept what fate hands you. Then, it was no. Now, it’s yes. If you had waited and called, I would have let you through. You’d be having the same experience, just a different room.”

  Sage motioned forward, moving only her arm. “And on that note, come with me. I’ll show you where you’re going to stay.”

  “Aren’t I staying here?”

  “No.” Sage seemed to stay constantly serene.

  Had she always been that way? Amelia wished she could bottle it for her patients. Or for herself, for that matter.

  “As we only had a few minutes to get ready for you and our other rooms were booked, we’ve had to think a little outside of the box, so to speak.”

  “Where will I be staying, then?” A sudden vision of them sticking her in an actual box filled her mind. No, Damek had assured her they wouldn’t be violent. Certainly Sage would never…

  “You’re going to be our guinea pig. We’re building a few new cabins. Our number of residents continues to increase. They need permanent housing here. No one has stayed in them yet. You can let us know if there are any design flaws.”

  That didn’t sound so bad. What was the worst thing that could happen? Maybe the showers wouldn’t work. She hadn’t expected to get any kind of response, had been prepared to hide out and spy the whole time. If it had a bed, she’d be ecstatic.

  Sage led her to a golf cart. “I’m not usually the person driving this around. I just wanted a chance to speak with you personally.”

  “Okay.” Amelia let out a breath she’d been holding. “Look, I don’t sneak aboard boats and break into people’s hotels. I’m a psychologist for goodness’ sake. But I’ve sent a lot of my clients here, both paranormal and human, and they’ve all come back on the road to healing beyond which I can understand. I’m thrilled for them. However, I must know what you’re doing here.”

  Sage smiled. “I’m not casting spells on them if that’s what you’re worried about. That’s not what we do here. This isn’t a movie or a television show. Everything I do is to help others.”

  “I know that. I actually didn’t understand you were paranormal yourself before I came here. Are you doing something to help them with your powers, or whatever you call it?”

  �
��I do what I can.” She pulled the golf cart to an abrupt stop.

  They both lunged forward.

  “Sorry. Not used to the brakes.”

  Sage motioned for Amelia to get out of the cart. Woods surrounded them, and in the distance sat a cabin with a little smoke coming out of a chimney. “That’s where two members of our staff live. But you’re going to be staying over here.”

  Amelia followed Sage down a small clearing until she reached three different half cabins. Two of them were not yet complete. The third cabin, however, looked finished.

  “It’s very sparse. But we were able to get it mostly put together for you. Or at least as close to put together as I could manage.” She smiled, her eyes on the cabin.

  “How did you know I had arrived at all? Do you have premonitions?” Everything about paranormal people fascinated Amelia. They had the same psychological traumas as humans, but their abilities sometimes heightened pain instead of making it easier. Sage struck her as a person at peace. None of Amelia’s sadness bells were ringing in her head.

  “Myron read your arrival in the cards.” Sage opened the doors. “And we decided you belonged here for two reasons. One of them you’ll need to decide if you want, and you’ll need to do that with little interference from us.”

  That was a strange answer. Were they all so vague? Did all their guests get treated like this? Or did Amelia’s unexpected arrival mean she was treated differently?

  “And the second reason?”

  Sage smiled, reaching out to touch her arm. “I think you should spend some time talking to the people here about the death of your parents.”

  The words jolted Amelia as if Sage had hit her with a truck. Maybe Myron had seen the whole thing in her cards. But Amelia never discussed that part of her life. Ever. As a trained psychologist, she knew she repressed it, knew eventually repercussions for doing so would harm her emotionally.

  That didn’t alter the fact that she had nothing to say on that subject and never would.

  “I appreciate you being so nice to me.” She did. Now that she’d seen the island, she wouldn’t have been able to pull off her plan the way she’d envisioned it. “However, if you let me come here to talk about my parents, you’ve made a mistake. I don’t do that. I know it’s a bad thing. That doesn’t change my mind.”

  Sage nodded. “That is your choice, of course. I think tomorrow you might be best served to spend the day with my brother Cemil. Hiking. Or something else if he has a different idea.”

  Hiking? Amelia was a New York City girl. She walked when she couldn’t take the subway or a taxicab. They wanted her to be outdoorsy?

  She took a look around the cabin. As Sage had stated, it was minimally decorated. But it seemed warm and friendly, consisting of a living room surrounded by two bedrooms.

  Sage had mentioned these were to be residential quarters. Did they have families here? Her heart pinged. The decisions Amelia had made years ago to run her life a certain way still held fast. Children couldn’t be part of it. Even if her hormones occasionally ran amok when she thought of them.

  One couch and two chairs, both light brown, graced the living room. A soft gentle smell of—what? Vanilla, cinnamon, and something Amelia couldn’t identify wafted through the room. She yawned. When had she gotten so tired?

  Sage patted her on the shoulder. “I have some things to attend to. You take a nap, and we’ll see you at dinner. You’re expected, even, shall we say, required, to attend dinner every night. It’s how we make sure the vampires have not bothered any of the guests.”

  Normally that thought would have bothered her, but Amelia was too sleepy to care very much about vampires at that moment. She yawned again. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

  Stumbling, she made her way into one of the bedrooms and threw herself on the bed. Her head went fuzzy, and she closed her eyes. For a while, she wouldn’t have to think about Sage’s words about her parents.

  “Healing?” Damek eyed Rekkus. “I don’t need any healing. I know what’s wrong with me, and it’s going to stay that way. I lost my wife. She died. I couldn’t save her, and it was my fault. That kind of thing doesn’t go away because the Rowans decide it’s time for me to feel better.”

  “You had to know they weren’t going to leave you adrift on that boat forever, so to speak.” Rekkus towered over Damek, and that was difficult to do. “If they’ve decided it’s time for you to start living more, put your head down and go for it. You were one of the top herbalists working in the field on the mainland, especially after the Rowans left, before you gave up on life. Maybe they think it’s time for you to get back to doing what you should be doing.”

  “Not just anyone can navigate that boat through the fog. I push a little magic to it every time, and the ship goes where it ought to.”

  “Yes.” Rekkus nodded. “But the wonder twins are captaining it now while you’re on sabbatical. Somehow the ferry managed to pull away from the dock to return to the mainland.”

  His pseudo-boss had a point. The boat had done just fine without him, which threw away his sense that only he could manage the transport. Whatever happened this week, he was going to have to find something else to do with himself when this was over.

  “Why are we walking south?”

  Rekkus’s phone beeped. Cellular service didn’t work on the island for the guests. Only the staff had access, and even then it was only an emergency device.

  Rekkus answered his phone. “Is it Dana?”

  Damek raised his eyebrows. Had something bad happened to Rekkus’s mate?

  As if sensing his question, Rekkus shook his head.

  His boss spoke again. “Right.”

  The other man did not look happy. Damek hoped it had nothing to do with him. How much more could get thrown at him in one day?

  Rekkus ended the call. “Myron has seen something in her cards. It’s vague and potentially not going to happen.”

  Damek had never understood prophecy. A strong tool, but not one he possessed. Sometimes fate happened. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes he killed his wife by accident. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to travel down that road for the day until he was alone to do so.

  “Come on. We need to get there faster now. I have to meet with Cyrus and figure out a game plan for vetting all of the guests here.”

  Damek hadn’t sensed any danger on the boat. But as they’d pointed out, perhaps he had missed something.

  “Let me know how I can help.”

  He ran to keep up with Rekkus.

  “You are going to assist. In addition to taking your time to get better, which Cemil insists you do, you’re going to watch our stowaway like a hawk.”

  His heart stuttered. Watch Amelia that closely? “Why? I thought you felt it was safe for her to be here. Otherwise, Myron wouldn’t have let her in.”

  “Look, Myron sees what she sees when she sees it. I don’t argue. I just keep everyone safe.”

  Damek ran after Rekkus, thinking about staying close to Amelia. He’d be lying if he denied he felt a strong physical attraction for her, something he’d not experienced since his wife died. In fact, he sometimes wondered if Zoe had taken his libido with her when she’d died. Yet something about Amelia made his cock want to jump up and stand at attention.

  Maybe it was because hidden behind her dark eyes was a wary, scared woman. His soul understood that distinct gaze. He carried it himself. The withdrawn vision stared back at him whenever he looked in the mirror.

  They arrived at the cabins, and he stopped short. The smell of chamomile filtered outward from the completed one. A faint touch, but he’d know it anywhere. He turned to Rekkus. “Sage thinking she might like to knock me out? I can’t know about the arrivals of the paranormals now? The aroma doesn’t have that effect on me. I wish it did. I might actually get some shu
t eye.”

  Rekkus smiled, but, as per usual, his eyes held nothing but seriousness in their gaze. “No. But she did want the woman inside out cold for a while.”

  He followed Rekkus’s pointed finger until he stared at the cabin.

  “Amelia? Is she in there? In a deep sleep? Out here. By herself. Where all it would take is some loony, hungry vampire to come walking out and eat her for dinner.”

  Rekkus rubbed his nose. “The vamps aren’t on the island yet.”

  “For the love of… Rekkus, you know what I meant.” The man wanted to get literal with him now?

  “She’s safe.” He sniffed the air. “I can smell her in there. Safe and sound. Even through the crap Sage doused the place with.” He shrugged. “Yuck.”

  “It’s a comforting herb. It works medicinally a lot of different ways.”

  Rekkus patted him on the shoulder. “Although I’m sure that’s fascinating, I really don’t care.” He pointed at the cabin again. “You. In there. Do whatever healing you have to do to make Cyrus satisfied, and keep both eyes on her. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Rekkus.” Damek stayed where he was. They did have one subject they needed to discuss. “What if I’m the danger?”

  The shifter rolled his eyes. “Damek, you’re going to give me a headache. Dana doesn’t like it when that happens.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.” Rekkus groaned. “You’re not dangerous. Are you secretly plotting to kill Cyrus? Burn down the island?”

  “Of course not. You know what I mean.”

  Rekkus crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not dangerous. You’re a pussycat. You always were. I’m not a touchy-feely-healy guy. If you want that, call Cemil. Accidents happen. Sometimes life sucks.”

  That it did. Although Damek didn’t agree with him. He was, in fact, dangerous. Zoe no longer lived because he hadn’t been in better control.