by Tami Lund
Prim had a disdainful look on her face as she took in the motel’s ragged appearance.
“Not up to your standards, honey?” he drawled, feeling the need to pick a fight with the uptight Fate if only to assuage some of his tension. It was too damn easy to get her riled up to resist when he was this stressed.
“Not remotely,” she replied curtly, and then she stuck her nose in the air and wandered to the other side of the small, out-of-date lobby.
After he obtained a couple key cards and the room number, he strode past Prim, heading toward the door, and couldn’t resist saying, “Sorry we don’t live up to your standards, princess.”
She looked as though she were giving serious consideration to practicing her curse on him. He kicked up his pace, just in case.
He opened the door and held it, so that Prim, Sydney, and William could step inside first. The carpet was worn so thin in places, he could see the nearly disintegrated padding underneath. What wasn’t worn through was the same shade of what William had been puking up while they’d been on the boat. Generic prints in cheap oak frames hung on the walls. He watched Prim give the beds a disdainful look. She really hated this place. He felt a stab of guilt for making her stay here, but pushed it aside. It wasn’t like they had any other choice at the moment. If she wanted to blame anyone, she should blame that asshole Fate, Killian.
“I take it Prim and I are sleeping together, and you guys are sleeping together?” Sydney asked the room at large.
Brandon and William warily eyed each other.
“I think I’d rather sleep with Sydney,” William replied.
Brandon shook his head. “You and the Fate,” he said, stabbing his finger in Prim’s direction.
Prim lifted one perfectly manicured eyebrow and regarded him coolly. “Gavin will feed you your nether regions for dinner if he finds out you’ve slept with his lover.”
Brandon growled, deep in his throat, but he did not argue her point. Besides, there was always the remote possibility that he might feel the urge to act on the fact that she was a Chala and he was a Light One. Then Gavin really would kill him, even if they did manage to put his curse back onto him. He didn’t feel any attraction to Sydney whatsoever normally, but the mating of a Chala and a Light One was as natural as the sun rising each day. It was best not to tempt the rules of nature.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “William and Sydney together, and you and I together.” When she walked over to the bed nearest to the bathroom, Brandon pointed at the other one. “This one. Close to the door. Just in case.” She pursed her lips but she did not complain, as she switched gears and turned to plump the pillows on that bed instead. They were made of synthetic fibers and were as thin as the towels hanging from the rack next to the sink, which was located outside the bathroom door. His extra sensitive hearing did not miss her miserable little sigh.
“The sooner we find him, the sooner you can get back to living the life of luxury,” he said, only half taunting. He truly felt guilty for forcing her to endure a situation that was so far out of her comfort zone. The woman was built like a goddess and acted like a queen, and for some damn reason, he wished he could treat her as such.
Fucked up.
They took turns preparing for bed, using the single bathroom in the motel room. Sydney went first, and when she stepped out of the bathroom, she wore a T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. Prim went next, and took such a ridiculously long amount of time that Brandon finally lost patience and pounded on the bathroom door. Finally, she stepped out of a billowing cloud of steam, wearing a short red nightie underneath a matching robe, with her thick auburn hair piled on top of her head.
Brandon’s mouth went dry as another part of his body went on high alert. She swept past him, leaving a lingering scent of magnolias in her wake. Brandon had never given two shits about flowers before, but for some reason, he recognized that scent instantly. His entire body recognized it, and wanted to react appropriately. He wasn’t sure why the scent of magnolias would make him want him to boink the woman’s brains out, but it did. Maybe he’d slept with a different woman who’d smelled like magnolias before, so that was the source of the subconscious reaction. Whatever the reason, he was suddenly very, very afraid of sharing a bed with her.
Hoping to delay the inevitable, he instructed William to take his turn next. Not surprisingly, that Fate took just as long as the other one, which only reiterated Brandon’s belief that all Fates were the same–and a colossal waste of time and space. If they would have left the protection of the Chala up to the Light Ones since the beginning of time, probably there’d be a hell of a lot more Chala left in the world. Light Ones, especially male Light Ones, tended to be very protective of what was theirs.
Once upon a time, they’d been pretty good at hand-to-hand combat, too. It wasn’t until after the Fates let most of the Chala die that Light Ones began their steady decline and, so it seemed, forgot how to fight. Thanks to Gavin, they were making a comeback, but they weren’t anywhere near being ready to conquer the slew of Rakshasa out there, and especially not Gavin himself. They needed to find him and put that damn curse back on him, and they needed to do it sooner than later.
By the time it was his turn in the bathroom, Brandon’s eyes felt gritty and his muscles were so tense, he had knots all up and down his back. He hoped to hell he didn’t have a muscle spasm from all this stress. He quickly shed his clothes and climbed into the shower, letting the steaming hot water help to somewhat relieve his aching muscles.
Although he could have stayed in the shower for another hour, Brandon took just enough time to get clean. When he accidentally lifted the lid on Prim’s magnolia-scented bath soap, his cock leaped to attention so fast it actually hurt. He flipped the lid closed and replaced the container on the built-in shelf in the shower and stared down at himself. He should probably do something about this, especially considering he was about to have to climb into bed with the damned sexy Fate. But he’d been in the shower long enough, so he twisted the knobs to cut the flow of water and stepped out to towel off.
He’d made a big enough fuss about Prim and William taking such ridiculously long turns in the bathroom, he knew they’d give him a hard time if he turned around and did the same thing. Not that it would take him very long to take care of business. At the level of sexual frustration he currently felt, he figured he’d probably be able to get the deed done in five minutes or less.
Damn, he should have stayed in the shower a little longer.
When he exited the bathroom, wearing nothing but boxer shorts because he didn’t actually own a pair of pajamas, Sydney was curled up under the covers, with only her mass of blond hair visible. William sat next to her, propped against the headboard, wearing a nightgown Brandon imagined old ladies wore, with the remote in his hand. It was pointed at the television, and he flipped channels so fast, Brandon could scarcely catch what was on each station. Prim was lying on the other bed, her back facing the rest of them, presumably asleep.
Too bad she was about to be woken up. No way was he letting her sleep closest to the door. If danger burst through that door tonight, it would have to go through him before it could get to anyone else, even the Fate. He knew Fates didn’t really die when their bodies were destroyed, but it was the principal of it all. He was the protector, so he was damn well going to protect them all, no matter what.
“Is she asleep?”
Brandon looked down at Prim. Her lashes formed dark crescents on her cheeks. Her hair was thick chestnut strands, strewn across the pillow. Her breathing was steady.
“Yeah,” he answered William.
“That was an episode. What happened at dinner. We call them episodes. That isn’t good.”
“Why not? What’s it mean?”
“It means she is no longer able to handle being a Fate. Her mind isn’t strong enough anymore. What we do, it’s very di
fficult. I know you don’t have a lot of respect for us, as a species. I know you think we’ve fallen down on our jobs over the years. But before Gavin came along and began the decimation of our Chala population, we really were quite successful at the task of protecting them. Some of us more than others. Like Prim, for example. I told you she was the best at what we do, and I wasn’t exaggerating. But it comes with a price. It always comes with a price.” William shook his head sadly.
“What’s the price?” Brandon asked.
“Your mind. Your soul. Your humanity, or whatever it is that we have. Even Fates can only handle so much loss and heartache. Eventually, it catches up with us.” His gaze strayed to the still figure sleeping on the other bed. “I’m afraid it’s caught up with Prim. I had no idea, until I saw it happen at dinner.”
“Saw what happen?”
“The episode. Something triggered it, and for a few moments there, she wasn’t really with us. She was in another world, a nightmare, undoubtedly. Too many episodes, and the Fate can get locked in the nightmare indefinitely, rendering them utterly useless to society.”
Brandon frowned as he watched Prim sleep. He tried to tell himself that her long-term emotional wellbeing didn’t really matter. Just so long as she cursed Gavin again, she could go off and have all the episodes she wanted afterward.
“I think this task is what triggered the episode,” William said hesitantly. “We can only hope we find Gavin before she gets locked in the nightmare, possibly permanently.”
“Great,” Brandon muttered. “Just fucking great.” The only Fate able to help them, and she was damaged goods. “I need some breathing space.” He grabbed the jeans he’d discarded on the bathroom floor and shoved his feet into each leg. He didn’t bother with a shirt. The weather was mild anyway, and it had to get pretty damn cold to really affect him. He grabbed a key card off the bedside table and left the motel room.
He knew he shouldn’t. He should remain with the Chala at all times. What if Gavin had already tracked them, and was even now waiting for his opening? Brandon hesitated just outside the door, and jacked up his shifter sense of smell. He may not be able to sense Gavin’s presence like Sydney undoubtedly could, but he surely could pick up his scent if he was in the immediate vicinity.
Satisfied that the only scents were of the human variety, Brandon strode away from the motel room, intent upon lapping the building a few times, in an attempt to once again relax his tensed muscles.
It was not a lonely walk. Despite the lateness of the hour, humans milled everywhere. Most were inebriated, drunk on hurricanes and the bounty of beads they’d gained from whatever parade they’d attended that day. Couples staggered through the parking lot, arms draped over shoulders, each holding the other upright as they tried to figure out which motel room they belonged in.
He saw two men, tucked behind a stairwell, doing things he preferred to pretend men didn’t do with one another, and quickened his step to get away from there. He didn’t know why he was so homophobic. Everybody knew that William and Quentin, who was one of the Light Ones in his pack, were doing each other practically every single night, and no one respected Quentin any less for it.
He saw a man and a woman locked in a heated embrace in a car parked near the main entrance to the motel. The car door was open, the man had one foot on the ground, but they’d apparently been so overwhelmed with lust that they’d been unable to make it all the way out of the car before they began pawing at one another like dogs in heat. He thought about Prim, that short red nightie, the scent of magnolias, and his cock gave another twitch. He wondered how the hell he was supposed to climb into that bed tonight, without shifting his body too closely to hers and trying to tempt her into doing what he was absolutely certain this couple was about to do. Probably right there in the car, at the rate they were going.
He couldn’t believe he would even consider sleeping with a Fate. All his life, he’d been convinced his mother’s Fate had failed her. Every Chala that died thereafter, it was always the Fate’s fault in Brandon’s mind. Whether they were mated or not didn’t matter. The Fate should have come back and warned them. If the Fate sensed an attack, they should have warned the Chala, so the Chala could get to safety, even if she was no longer the Fate’s responsibility anymore.
William was the only Fate he even remotely respected, because William stuck around, even after Sydney mated with Gavin. And William was still determined to protect Sydney, despite the fact that she was mated to the strongest shifter known in the world. Brandon couldn’t help but respect him for that.
But not Prim. She’d abandoned Brandon’s mother, and the myriad other Chala she’d let die over the years. He almost felt like she deserved whatever the hell was going wrong in her head. Almost. In reality, no one deserved such a terrible fate. To be forced to give up your life’s work because that very work had fucked up your mind . . . It really wasn’t fair. But still, Prim should’ve tried harder. Something, anything. She should’ve figured out that stupid curse sooner. Then there’d be a bunch of cursed Rakshasa running around, but that was better than having only a single Chala left in the world.
He picked up the scent on his third trip around the building. Rakshasa. And magnolias.
Magnolias?
“Prim?” he called out uncertainly, as he scanned the area, searching for both the Fate and the source of the Rakshasa scent.
“Over here,” he heard her call out.
He turned, and spotted her with her back pressed against the wall behind a newspaper box near the motel lobby. She pointed, and Brandon saw the pickup truck parked under the canopy stretching over the entrance to the motel. He skirted around the entrance until he came up next to Prim. She wasn’t wearing the red nightie–thank the Fates–but she was wearing the dress she’d shed earlier. Despite the fact that she’d likely hastily thrown it on in order to come outside, she still looked damn good in it.
Brandon shook his head and spoke to her in an irritated whisper. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“I sensed Rakshasa. William’s barricaded in the room with Sydney.” She held up a cell phone. “One call from me, and they’ll run.”
“You sensed the Rakshasa?” Brandon repeated, sounding shocked. Hell, he’d just picked up the scent a few minutes ago. Prim had obviously figured it out with enough time to wake up and get dressed. She’d brushed her teeth too, he noticed, as the scent of mint trailed past his nose. What the hell?
Prim delicately shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve always been good at sensing danger well before it happened. It’s one of the things that makes me such a good Fate.”
Brandon stared at her. “If you’re so damn good at it, how the hell did you lose so many Chala?” The instant he said it, he wished he could take it back. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, not this time.
“Until Gavin came along,” she said stiffly, “the only time I lost Chala were to their mates. And my control is vastly reduced once they take a mate. I used to fight it, in the beginning, because I always believed a Chala should have both a Fate and a mate, since they are such valuable beings. But the First and I did not see eye to eye on this particular subject.” She pursed her lips, and Brandon felt an unusual flood of appreciation for all the woman had gone through in her life. She’d loved and lost, a hundred times over, and had fought the system every step of the way. No wonder she was going crazy. Doing that for thousands of years would make anyone loony.
“Sorry,” he said, surprising himself by apologizing. “I didn’t realize.”
Prim waved off his apology and nodded toward the lobby, where two men stood at the registration desk, clearly arguing with the lone clerk on duty. “Do you think this is a coincidence, or has Gavin already figured out where we are?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Brandon said. “But I also don’t think Gavin would send someo
ne else after us, unless these guys are just scouting, and are supposed to report back to him if they find us. Trust me, when Gavin comes after us, it’ll be him, and probably just him.”
“You say ‘when’ as if you fully expect him to do so.”
“I’m counting on it, actually. How else are we going to find him? Tomorrow we’re going to get on a plane and fly to Detroit, because that’s the most logical place he’ll go, at least to regroup initially. But as soon as that curse is fully gone, you can bet your hot little ass that priority number one in his mind will be to find Sydney. I’d like us to find him first, because then it won’t be a surprise, and it will be on our terms, but I’m prepared, either way. And you should be, too. Are you confident in your abilities to repeat that curse yet?”
Before Prim could answer, the two shifters stormed out of the motel lobby, clearly furious. Brandon listened as they bitched about the clerk refusing to give them a room, and then they decided to drive into New Orleans to stalk the streets, looking for human prey. In the process of climbing into the truck, the driver froze and sharply turned his head. Brandon followed his line of his vision to the car where the overzealous couple were still making out, oblivious to the rest of the world. The woman had climbed into the man’s lap, and his hands were under the hem of her shirt. Brandon couldn’t see the woman’s hands, but he had a pretty damn good idea where they currently roamed.
“Shit,” he muttered as he watched the two shifters motion to one another and then head in the direction of the heated couple. “Stay here,” he ordered Prim, and then he slipped away from the building, skirting around so he could come up behind the two shifters. He took one down before he reached the car, but the other shifted into animal form and took off like a shot. Brandon shifted as well and took off after him. He caught the guy in a nearby copse of trees, and made quick work of breaking his neck and then setting the body on fire, as was the customary way to dispose of dead shifters.
