Lion's Claw: Spirit Sorceress: Book 2

by D. L. Harrison

  Maybe they were waiting until we fixed Legends so they… now I was going crazy.

  I supposed I was distracted by my thoughts, because I didn’t realize Jared’s soul was no longer present until I felt the pizza guy arrive out front and Jared’s spirit was missing from my range. He’d left? I decided not to jump to conclusions, for once. I got up to meet the pizza guy, and then I escaped nine ravening werewolves, and made it back to my office with a supreme pie of my own…

  There was a knock and I looked up from my phone. I’d eventually broken down and installed the kindle app, and grabbed a book to read. It was either that or I’d go crazy back in the office. I checked the time, it was about a quarter to six.

  Bob said, “We’re done for the day little vampire.”

  I frowned, “Jared isn’t coming back?” We’d supposed to have talked.

  Bob shook his head, “Ted and Carly woke up right after you got back. She called Jared and he split and left me in charge. Which was really annoying actually, how am I supposed to be a good nurse maid if he keeps running off like that? I’m not sure what’s going on, but he should be back tomorrow morning.”

  I tried really hard not to jump to conclusions. Sure… Carly called but that didn’t mean. Shit, who was I kidding, I wanted to kill him for either running off like a coward, or running to Carly when she called. Even if it had been a flipping pack emergency, he could have stuck his head in my door and told me he couldn’t stay. Instead, he hadn’t given me a second thought and had just left.

  Even in the best interpretation of events, Jared was an ass.

  I took a deep breath, “Alright, don’t forget to brush your teeth, maybe you could bring the toothbrush with you next time, dog and pizza breath is a horrible combination.”

  He snorted, “Good thing your nose is busted then.”

  I chuckled, but my heart wasn’t in the banter this time. Even Bob couldn’t cheer me up.

  “Have a good night, and slap Jared on the nose with a newspaper for me.”

  He tried to look stern, as if I’d crossed a line, but he totally failed and started to laugh and walk away at the same time.

  I finished the chapter, I’d read the rest of it tomorrow, and then I locked up the store and headed back to the coven. I warbled between angry, depressed, and confused, why hadn’t he just said something?

  Chapter 11

  Lisa frowned at me, “Who shot your dog?”

  I giggled, because my first thought had been no one, my dog ran away. Lisa was too perceptive by half. I’d been trying to hide how upset I was, but I’d obviously failed in her case. We’d been finishing up dinner and talking about our plans tonight, but she’d apparently had enough of my moping.

  Honestly, I was damned tired of it too. Still, maybe it would help to talk about it, although I was afraid of being judged. At the same time I trusted Lisa, I hadn’t known her for more than a week, but we’d instantly clicked and she was a good friend. Still, a vampire falling for the pack alpha? It was a ridiculous thought if not for the soul mate part.

  “I’ll tell you, upstairs though,” I looked around the room meaningfully, I didn’t want to be the next episode of coven gossip.

  We finished our meal, and then she followed me up to my condo, which was thoroughly sound proofed. Things like that were necessary in a building full of vampires.

  Lisa ordered, “Alright, spill. What’s going on?”

  I told her everything. First, about soul mates, and what that really means, it isn’t instant love or pre-destined, all it really means is the two people are extremely compatible, and it can work out if each person puts in the effort to make it work, but it wasn’t a guarantee.

  Then I told her I knew Jared was mine as soon as we saw him, that first day when she showed me around. I went through everything then, I even told her about the dream, and of course, about him bailing on me today.

  She stared at me for a minute, “Be right back, don’t move.”

  She disappeared in a flash, and came back less than ten seconds later. She had two pints of ice cream, two spoons, and a bunch of girl power movies from the eighties in her other hand.

  I laughed.

  Lisa shook her head, “Only you would be soul mates with an alpha werewolf. Your right, he may have had a good reason for leaving, but he should have said something.”

  We didn’t talk about it for the rest of the night, but she introduced me to ice cream therapy, something I hadn’t thought was actually real, but just a gimmick on television shows. She also didn’t judge me, which I felt happy about. I knew she didn’t care for werewolves at all, she was just less obvious about it than Eustice.

  We watched movies late into the night, and it must have been close to two when she went home. She was a good friend, and I did feel better by the end of the night, but that relief only lasted until she was gone.

  I headed for sleep myself, I had to be back at Legends at eight, I also needed to find a blood donor in the morning. I could already feel the thirst sneaking up on me after a day and a half. It felt like too soon, but the last time had been Sunday morning.

  I tossed and turned for a while, I had Jared on the mind, and was afraid I’d find myself in his dream again because of it. I tried to think of anything else, but my mind wouldn’t cooperate, and he was the last thought on my mind once again as I finally fell asleep.

  The dream was different this time. I was in a bedroom. I was also wearing a sundress, a yellow one, and I was barefoot again. I looked around, and figured out I was in his bedroom, or at least, the dream version of it. The dresser, night tables, and king sized bedframe were made of dark stained oak. The wood floors were a little lighter, but still dark stained wood.

  There was a large window looking out into a field with a number of trees, the light brown curtains were open, and despite it really being night, here in the dream sunlight streamed into the room.

  There were pictures on the wall of pack, both in human and wolf form, though never mixed so if a human saw them they wouldn’t make any assumptions. The bed looked large, and soft. I couldn’t help but remember last night, and frowned, he’d ran out on me today, so there was no way that was happening again. Not until we talked, and if things worked out, maybe then.

  I looked up at a picture of him and Bob, and several others when he made his presence known. He wasn’t at all timid this time, and I felt myself wrapped up in his arms and pulled against him from behind. I sighed as he moved my hair to the side, and kissed the side of my neck. His readiness was apparent against my lower back, and I fought the urge to melt against him. For a second I wavered, and considered just giving in.

  Then I elbowed him in the stomach, hard. Asshole.

  He stepped back and gasped in shock, and then as I spun and glared up at him, he returned it.

  He muttered under his breath, as if I weren’t real, “Great, now my dream version is a pain in the ass too.”

  I felt a stab of pain at that, and guilt as well. But screw that, the guilt I mean, I’d wanted to tell him it was really me hours ago, he’s the one that bailed.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, “The dream version is the real version, the only version. If you hadn’t run off like a jackass earlier you’d have known that already. You’d know that last night it was really…” I choked up, not able to say it, and switched tracks, “It’s what I wanted to talk about, one of the things anyway. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again.”

  And I wouldn’t bother him again, not if that’s how he really felt about me. Pain in the ass was I?

  I may not have joined his dream on purpose, at least not consciously, but it was still my power. I channeled spirit magic and willed myself back to my body, just as I would during a spirit walk. I saw the shocked look on his face as the dream burst like a bubble and my eyes snapped open. I’m fairly sure I would have started to cry then, if I hadn’t been holding so much power, and felt the peacefulness of the elemental plane of spirit bolstering me, just as I felt all the chaotic
spirits and souls in Seattle that were within my reach.

  I also regretted not staying, this time it was me that had run from the conversation. What he’d said hurt though, I couldn’t deal with it. I wondered if I’d ever get a full night’s sleep again as I saw it was barely four in the morning. It took me some time, but I managed to fall back asleep, and this time I didn’t dream at all.

  After an early breakfast with Lisa, Eustice, and Karen, I jumped in the car to go to Legends. I stopped at the gas station on the way, I loved my car but it ate through gas quickly. When I went in to prepay, the guy behind the counter was the only one in there, so I mesmerized him and quenched my blood thirst. I was careful to make sure we weren’t in view of the camera.

  It was so good, a moment of pure relief and pleasure, and I wished it could last longer.

  For just a few moments, my mind was empty of Jared, psychotic Patrick, and my broken dreams. If the bulge in his pants was any indication, the cashier enjoyed it as well. I dropped a twenty and a ten on the counter and told him to forget about what happened just then, and to put the cash on pump six. Then I left the building and filled my tank up most of the way. Good enough.

  I sighed as I got behind the wheel. I was wearing blue jean shorts, a red shirt, and boots. I hadn’t gone to any effort today really, past being clean of course, but I wasn’t worried about it either. I frowned when I pulled up just a couple of minutes to eight. Turned out I was worried about nothing, because Jared wasn’t even there.

  I got out and unlocked the place, and disappeared into the back while the wolves got to work. It was only the second day, and they were still ripping out stuff, and knocking down walls. I took out my book and read.

  An hour later, I felt like I was going to lose my mind. Why hadn’t Jared come today? I started to wonder if maybe he had a good excuse to leave yesterday, what if something had happened? What if I was a pain in the ass simply because I didn’t listen and wouldn’t let him protect me yesterday, and not because he didn’t want me? After a while, the worry and doubts gnawed on me until it was worse than the anger I’d been nursing toward him since he’d split yesterday.

  Dear Inari, I needed therapy.

  I got up and headed outside, and tracked down Bob who’d been unusually quiet this morning.

  “Bob, where is Jared, what’s going on?”

  He grunted and gave me an apologetic look, “Pack business little vampire.”

  I shook my head in annoyance, “Let’s pretend we’ve argued about this for a while, and this is the point in the conversation where you throw me a bone.”

  He gave me a look at the throw a bone comment, and I blushed. I hadn’t even been trying for an insulting pun that time.

  He shook his head, “Sorry Miku, he doesn’t want you involved. He cares about you, I don’t understand that, you being an evil mini-bloodsucker and all, but he was very clear I wasn’t to tell you anything.”

  Bob had actually used my name instead of a silly mini-vampire joke, so I knew he wasn’t talking.

  “That… overprotective ass,” I said in an annoyed tone.

  Bob snickered, “Something like that.”

  I frowned, “Am I really that short?”

  Bob nodded sagely, “Yup. Afraid so.”

  I laughed, “Fine. I’ll remember that, so you can’t tell me anything then? You know I can help, I’m a sorceress, not just a baby vamp.”

  I was tempted to read him, but I also felt that crossed a line. I didn’t like reading those close to me or my friends, and strangely Bob qualified in my mind for that. Emotional attachment made my power seem more like voyeurism.

  I also rejected the idea of calling Jared directly, he was too stubborn. Alpha werewolf and all, he could be no less. Maybe that’s why I was so damned stubborn too, we were a matched set.

  He shook his head stubbornly, that made three of us.

  I gave up, he’d not betray his alpha even if he did like me, and I headed for the back office again. I thought about being angry, after what I’d done yesterday for him and his pack by extension, and he still tried to shut me out. But I supposed I might as well expect the sun to dim before he asked me for help. Of course, I didn’t have to give him a choice either.

  I laid back in the chair, put my feet up, and then spirit walked.

  Chapter 12

  The first thing I did was make like a spotlight, and search all the usual places in and around the city. I had no luck of course, I’d have been surprised if I had. I wouldn’t read Bob maybe, and definitely not Jared, but that didn’t leave out spying.

  I was a lot less conflicted about that, although I felt a little like a stalker when I focused on Jared and appeared in his home. We were definitely connected somehow, maybe I’d done it somehow? Either way, he’d been outside of my half mile radius of spirit magic and I’d had no trouble going right to where he was.

  In a glance I saw Ted, Jared, Carly, and a bunch of other werewolves I hadn’t met. Jared looked tense and worried, and I felt a stab of guilt again at running off like I had from the dream. Yes, he’d left first, but something was obviously very wrong. Ted and Carly were on the couch together with their feet up, they were still healing but already looked much better.

  I’d arrived to hear the tail end of Carly’s sentence.

  “… is he alright?” Carly asked.

  Jared cleared his throat, “He’s alive. I can still feel Tim in the pack bond, but he’s in pain.”

  Ted asked angrily, “Are you sure it’s this Needleman guy that has him? I don’t trust the vampire bitch. All we have is her word it’s a damned human.”

  Jared growled, “Enough Ted. You aren’t seeing this clearly, and you know it. His blood was at the scene, and the lion shifter’s scent was there as well. I verified it at the man’s house. It was him.”

  Someone I didn’t recognize asked, “How long?”

  Jared sighed, “I don’t know, Reah’s powerful enough now as a mystic to trace the pack bond, but she’s still young, and not trained. She’ll tell us when she knows.”

  Ted growled in annoyance, and I put a few pieces together. Jared’s sister must have been the pack mystic, and she was married to his beta Ted. She was obviously no longer in the picture and had died long ago if her daughter Reah, the next mystic, was untrained.

  I wondered if maybe a vampire killed Reah’s mother, but I knew my assumptions had a lot of what ifs attached to them.

  I could have had the relationships wrong too, but I kind of doubted it. Jared and Ted didn’t look like brothers at all, so if Ted’s daughter Reah was Jared’s niece, the only thing that really made sense was Ted had married Jared’s sister.

  If Tim was captured by Needleman when we were back at Legends yesterday, I must have just missed him by less than a half an hour. Needleman must be torturing him for information on the supernatural races.

  I felt another stab of guilt, of course Jared hadn’t come and said goodbye to me or explained. He probably felt Tim’s alarm and pain through the pack bond and had run straight for his car. Even if he had thought of me, he probably just dismissed it knowing I’d try to come along.

  He didn’t want me involved and he was still trying to protect me by attempting to keep me out of it, when I could probably help save his pack member.

  Dear Inari, I’m such an idiot. But so is he, for not letting me help.

  Reah can’t track him, and I can’t find him, but the idea that had been bugging me yesterday but wouldn’t reveal itself had finally surfaced, as I considered Reah’s failure to track him. I can’t find him right now, but I bet a witch could. And Tina owes me a favor. Why didn’t I think of that yesterday?

  Probably because I was too busy wallowing in self-pity and angst? I really did have to talk to him, when this was all over with. All I knew is if this ever worked between us, he’d have to accept me as an equal. He could protect me all he wanted, I even liked the idea somewhat, but on the front lines so to speak, not kept in the dark and wrapped up in bubbl
e wrap.

  I snapped back to my body with a thought, and got up.

  I called Lisa, and asked for alternate coverage again, I hoped Cheryl wouldn’t kill me.

  “Bob, I’m sticking my nose in pack business, want to come?”

  He looked half annoyed and half resigned, “Why?”

  “Why what?” I asked inanely in a falsely innocent and cheerful voice, and then headed out the door towards my car without waiting for an answer.

  He growled as he followed me out. Werewolves growled a lot I’d noticed. Or maybe I was just that annoying? For some reason that thought made me smile.

  “Why do you care little vampire,” he asked curiously as he got in the passenger side.

  I took off and got on the highway, and frowned in thought.

  “Good question. I suppose I care about Jared. It’s strange that I’m telling you that before I tell him, but that’s not my fault. I even kind of like you, despite the bad breath you’re like an annoying older brother.”

  He snickered, and then asked, “Where are we going little sis?”

  I smiled, almost positive my plan would work, “Patrick Needleman’s bathroom, and then to see a witch…”

  The guy was a psychotic killer and off his rocker. Yet I still felt a tinge of guilt as I broke into his house a second time in as many days. Bob followed me up to the master bedroom and into the master bath. It didn’t have a full tub, but there was a shower. It was also disturbingly clean. I looked through the drawers which were arranged perfectly.

  I pulled out a comb and a brush, not one hair. This guy was nuts, and a clean freak besides.

  “Damnit, I need hair, or something for the witch to use to track this asshole.”

  Bob smiled, “No problem, move over.”

  Bob pulled the stopper closed on his sink, and then opened the cabinet underneath. Werewolves were strong, and he didn’t have any trouble unscrewing the s-bend pipe by hand, and then he dumped a clump of wet icky stuff out of it and into the sink. Including hair, and fingernail clippings.