by Cecy Robson
Celia smirked. “So have the vamps and I. Just last week, we took out the Jersey Devil. Can you believe that crap?”
I stretched behind her so my regenerated muscle wouldn’t tighten up while she continued and to demonstrate that the healing hadn’t wiped me out too bad. If Celia knew how bad I’d hurt moments before, she sure as hell didn’t show it. She continued unaffected. “The vamps think a Tribe witch may be using her magic to summon all these spirits—you know, in order to distract from whatever her demon lord leaders are plotting now.”
I kicked out my back leg. “Yeah. The weres are under the same assumption. We bashed a couple of skin-walkers into kibble not too far from Mount Rose last Wednesday. Damn, those things are butt ugly.”
“You should have seen the Jersey Devil. He was a slobbering mess of half moose, half bear, and reeked like decaying meat.” She shuddered. “I can still smell his soiled fur every time I inhale.”
My lip curled. “That sucks. The skin-walker had a serious case of leprosy but I’ve smelled worse. Hell, I even sucked in some of his flaking flesh but thankfully managed to sneeze most of it out.”
“Most of it?” Celia grimaced. “Good Lord, Bren. My sister’s right. Saving the world sucks serious donkey balls.” She motioned around us. “It looks like it was La Llorona’s turn to play tonight.”
“Who?”
“The spirit of the woman you chased down. Latin folklore states she killed her children long ago and now haunts the night in search of them.”
“Ah. That’s why she was asking where her kids were.”
Celia glanced at me before remembering I remained very naked. She quickly looked away. “You understood her? She was speaking in Spanish.”
I laughed. “Spirits have a funny way of making themselves heard, Ceel.”
“I guess.” She kicked at the toadstools that had escaped her wrath. “Although I never expected the little monsters to show up and protect her as viciously as they did. I wish you hadn’t chased after her. Aric had Tahoe’s head witch reinforce the protective wards around our house. She couldn’t have invaded our property if she tried. We could’ve figured out a way to send her back to the dark realm before her offspring made you their bitch.”
“Those little punks didn’t make me their bitch!”
She threw her hands in the air. “Bren. I found three very spooky and very dead children with missing eyes and crawling bugs for knickers humping your back and chewing on your ass like bubble gum. Trust me, you’d seen better battles.”
“I resent that. I was just waiting to make my move.”
Celia winked and nodded slowly. “Sure you were, big guy.”
I threw an arm around her and hauled her against my side, knowing the last thing she wanted was my hot naked body against hers. She shoved me off, laughing. “Knock it off, Bren.”
I tried to grab her again but she leapt out of reach. “For a sexy little thing, you’re quite the prude, babe.”
She laughed again. “Yeah, the vampires think so, too.” She glanced around. “How’d you kill her, anyway?”
“Who?”
“La Llorona. I didn’t see how you vanquished her.”
I stopped smiling, the sense of “oh-shitness” tensing my muscles. “I didn’t kill her. I thought you did.”
“No . . .” Her head jerked as she scanned the area. “Oh my God. She’s still out there. . . . We have to find her—fast.”
Chapter Four
I inhaled long and hard while Celia prowled the perimeter. My nose honed in on a faint trail of rot and torture in the far distance. The sour stench trickled into my nostrils, polluting the otherwise crisp and clean night air. I called to Celia. “She rounded back toward your place.”
Once more my beast emerged and tore down the steep mountain. Rocks and debris rolled down from the force of my digging paws. La Llorona was a predator in search of prey. She needed a victim. And it looked like she picked Celia’s old turf as her place to find one.
Celia’s steady steps were barely audible behind me. She was keeping up, even without changing into her golden tigress—her secret weapon when she needed the extra muscle. I skidded to a halt when we reached her back lawn. “Where is she—”
A deep hiss cut off Celia’s words just my senses alerted me that we’d found her. Aw hell. La Llorona scurried like a scorpion up Mrs. Mancuso’s house, naked. To her credit, she had quite a fine ass for someone who’d bit it long ago. Although her lolling head where my fangs had mauled and her graying skin did take away from the otherwise sweet view.
I bared my fangs and stalked forward with Celia by my side. A subtle slice through the air signaled my girl’s claws were out. Celia was ready. I was ready. And so was La Llorona’s dress.
I shit you not. The blood red dress pooling at the base of Mrs. Mancuso’s deck slithered toward us, ripping into long and lengthening silky ribbons. Rows of little mouths ran from one end of the ribbon to the next . . . screaming.
La Llorona continued to scale the side of the house toward Mrs. M’s bedroom unaffected. My wolf and I couldn’t blame her really, not with the devil’s prom dress there to protect her. The ribbons snaked my front paws and spiraled up my broad chest and neck from one blink to the next. They squeezed, slowly against my throat while the mouths vocalized their pain. Some shrieked in agony. Others spoke in a haunting echo, soft, sinister, and ghoulish as all hell. I hated what they had to say.
“She murdered me and ate my insides . . . can she eat yours?”
“I like blood,” a childlike voice said. “I’ll have yours when we kill you . . . if she’ll share.”
The tiny faces of La Llorana’s victims pressed against the fabric of the ever lengthening and widening ribbons. My fangs snapped on pure vicious instinct and tore through the fabric, cutting off the voices of the demented and departed. But there was still plenty of dress left.
“Feed me, wolf, I want to taste you. Won’t you let me taste you?”
“Tighter,” a male with a garbled voice urged, forcing the party dress to cut off my air. “I want to have him . . . and the woman.”
His comment to hurt Celia, combined with her terrified screams and growls, set off my wolf like a rabid beast. I roared, tensing my muscles and busting through the noose around my neck. There was no grace, no strategy, or any such bullshit; there was simply my drive to kill those who threatened us and to protect my friend.
My fangs shredded that dress like cornhusks. The cloth wailed in torment as my teeth dug in, the cries weakening and falling silent when the small pieces of fabric flung from my mouth and dropped at my feet.
Celia yanked off the few ribbons enveloping her with her claws and stomped the last little voice asking to suckle blood from her boob. She stood drenched and we were both panting, but the destruction of the dress was not enough to send La Llorona back to hell. She’d reached Mrs. Mancuso’s window and was clawing on the glass while a couple of roaches spilled from her severed neck. Okay, maybe she wasn’t that hot after all.
“I’ll get more water,” Celia whispered tightly before disappearing into the house.
I rushed forward and catapulted in the air, piercing La Llorona’s thigh with my fangs. Roaches seeped from the base of her neck like lava and scuttled down her leg and onto my nose. I held tight, using my weight to bring her down. She smacked and pounded on the side of the house and window, trying to keep from falling. I yanked harder, ignoring the storm of bugs raining down. Slowly, I towed her toward the ground, her nails digging into the siding. It sucked, and she tasted like rotting meat. My only relief came from the sound of Celia and her sloshing bucket.
I released her roughly between the first and second floor. Celia flung the holy water against La Llorona, burning through the walking dead like acid. La Llorna shrieked, melting into gray slime that smelled like man ass . . . just as Mrs. Mancuso flung open her window.
Celia was many things: smart, funny, kind, and beautiful. “Smooth” was sadly not on this gal’s list of assets. “Um . . . no?” she said.
I raced around the other side of the house and went in through the front door, laughing my ass off as Mrs. M ripped Celia a new one. As fast as I could I yanked on a pair of sweats Gemini had left in Taran’s room and hurried outside, trying my best to put my poker face forward. I grabbed the hose the girls kept out back and tugged it toward Mrs. M’s house. Damn, she was a woman possessed, yelling at the top of her lungs with one angry stiff middle finger fully extended. “You and your harlot sisters are nothing but trouble. I’m going to sue. So help me Jesus, I’m going to sue!”
I held out a hand. “It’s okay, Mrs. Mancuso. Celia’s just upset I made her memorize Corinthian 629.” I really didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, but that shit sounded good enough. I nudged Celia back toward her property and started to spray the leftover ghost slime off the house. “Go on, Celia. Go back inside and ask God for forgiveness. And while you’re at it, say a couple of Hail Marys and make me a sandwich.” I winked at Mrs. Mancuso. “Don’t worry, Mrs. M. I’m going to wash the sin off of Celia just like the paint off your house.”
“I don’t know whether to thank you or smack you,” Celia muttered when I strutted back inside.
She stood by her black and tan granite counter, adding a few more slices of cheese to her turkey sandwich. I said “her” because she growled when I tried to snatch it out her hands. “Make your own damn sandwich.”
I chuckled and reached for the plate and the fresh loaf of bread she’d left me. “Relax, Ceel, the important thing is we sent evil back to hell and Mrs. M. promised me she wouldn’t sue.” I sliced more turkey meat from the leftover Thanksgiving bird and glanced around. “Any pickles?”
She pointed to the row of condiments she’d gathered and finished swallowing. “You know, I thought I was getting better at seeing dark forces at play—considering everything I’ve been through these past few months. But that crap was just plain freaky.” She shuddered. “Did you hear what that little bastard mouth said to me before I crushed it with my boot?”
“About wanting to suckle the blood from your body through your nipple? Yeah. That was some creepy shit right there.”
She grimaced and dug into her food. Like me, food was Celia’s Zoloft, not to mention we needed to replenish the calories we lost during the brawl. “I hate feeling scared.”
I grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge and set one by Celia’s plate. “Then why are you involved, Ceel? You don’t have to be a part of this war we’re in. Go back to being a nurse. Go back to normal, and hell, find some other guy to give you the damn attention you deserve.”
Her lips curved into a sad smile. “You know I can’t do that . . . so I use my fear to drive me to kill the things that scare me.” She shrugged. “Maybe in helping rid the world of the darkness, someday I won’t be so afraid. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.”
I reached for a handful of chips. “What about the other part?”
She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Hmmm?”
“Hooking up with someone you can eventually settle down with. Don’t look at me like that,” I said when her green eyes glimmered with sadness. “Aric can’t be with you. You can’t be with him. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be with someone else. It doesn’t have to be true love, Ceel. Most humans do just fine with true like.”
Celia worked on making us more sandwiches, though it lacked her usual food prep enthusiasm. “You don’t understand. I can’t picture my life with anyone else. And what if it’s true, what if I really am his mate? I know I don’t fit into any category of preternatural or human, but doesn’t that mean he’s my mate, too?”
I stuffed the last bit of my bread in my mouth and reached for the plate she passed me. “Matehood is not all it’s cracked up to be, Ceel. My parents were mates. It wasn’t enough to save either of them when my father tried to turn my mother were.” I wrapped my knuckles against the cool counter. “Sometimes that love shit is dangerous. Makes you do things you shouldn’t.”
“So you don’t want it—to find a mate, I mean?”
No one had ever had the balls to ask me that. Maybe because I chased ass like it was my job and I needed a raise.
“Bren?”
“No. Yes. Well, sometimes.” I gripped the bottle of mustard. “I saw what my mom and dad had. Even though I was just a kid, I recognized its significance—its purity, you know?” I shook the mustard bottle hard. Goddamn thing was almost empty. I slammed it on the counter, pissed that none came out even though I wasn’t a big fan of mustard. “Emme described matehood as a rare and beautiful thing tonight. Maybe it’s too rare, and someone like me doesn’t get to have it.”
“You don’t think you deserve it.”
I stopped with the sandwich halfway in my mouth, not lovin’ the traces of pity in her voice. “A love like my parents had?” She nodded. “Hell, maybe I don’t. But then maybe that’s a good thing.”
Celia paused. I could see her wrestling with whether to ask her next question. I motioned with my hand, encouraging her to spit it out. “I’m sorry if I’m out of line here, Bren, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. But why did your dad decide to turn your mother? Especially given that you were what? Twelve? The process kills most. They had to know they were risking their lives and your future.”
I polished off my sandwich instead of responding right away. Celia must’ve thought I decided not to answer. She didn’t push and resumed her meal.
Only Dan knew the “whoa is me” story of my f’d up life. But I knew I could trust this little feline. So I chugged my beer and spilled my guts like a little bitch. “It was my mother’s idea.” Celia glanced up, surprised by my comment and to hear me answering, I guess. “My dad was a pureblood who was stripped of status and every last dime of his fortune when he abandoned his pack to marry my human mother. She never forgave herself for the loss she caused him.” I huffed. “Even though he never blamed her and thought she was the best thing to walk into his life. When I came along, her guilt worsened. She felt like she’d deprived two wolves of their pack.” I stared at the empty bag of chips. “The shame was eating her alive . . . so I helped convince my dad that it was the best thing for all of us.”
“This wasn’t your fault, Bren,” Celia said quietly.
I ignored her as the last few moments with my parents flashed in my mind. Her limp and lifeless body crushed beneath his unmoving form, me tugging on their arms, yelling at them to get up, to breathe, and begging them not to leave me. I even reminded my dad I had a baseball game. Didn’t occur to me my schooling and my life were over.
“You okay?”
I nodded, though it was a damn lie. “You know, Ceel, in my mind I pictured the three of us running through the woods in our beast forms straight into the welcoming embrace of our pack. One big, goddamn family of lupines, panting and wagging our asses off.” I laughed bitterly. “Shit. I was such a stupid kid. When they died . . .” I shook my head, a vain effort to wrench the memory of my parents’ bodies being loaded into the meat wagon, and cleared my throat for all the good it did me. “After they left me . . . I went to the pack, just like my dad told me to do. He was sure they’d take me in. I was one of them, he’d told me. But the anger my dad’s Elders held against him for abandoning them remained. They showed me the door and slammed it behind me. I really thought . . . thought they’d be there for me, you know? And my parents? I thought they’d make it—beat the odds and all that shit.” I bowed my head and stared hard at the counter. “Hell, Celia, I’ve never been more wrong in my life. Those ass-hats wouldn
’t even give my folks a burial. I never got the chance to say good-bye.”
I didn’t notice Celia move to my side until she curled her arms around mine and leaned her shoulder against my head. “The decision to turn your mother was wrong.” She stroked my arm when she felt me tense. “But it came from love, the love your mother had for you and your father. You may have swayed them in that direction—”
“There was no swaying, I damn well pushed!”
“Shhhh.” Celia’s voice grew quieter. “You only convinced your father because you loved your mother and because her torment hurt you as well. And in your mind, you weren’t risking your family, you were looking to expand it, to make it bigger and better.”
I shrugged. “I guess. But it still doesn’t change shit. Bottom line, I was still left alone. Without parents and without pack.”
“And still you survived.” She smiled and gave my arm another squeeze. “You’re one of the best people I know, Bren.”
“Aw hell, Ceel, you need to get out and get to know more people.”
She leaned against me but didn’t laugh at my comment like I would’ve liked. “I get now why you were a lone wolf for so long. I knew you must have had a good reason, but I never expected your father’s former Elders to be so cruel. I can’t believe they would abandon one of their own to fend for himself. You were just a little boy.”
“What do you expect from pack weres? They’re all a bunch of stuck-up assholes.”
She released me then and regarded me carefully. “Then why join them now after all these years, especially now that demon lords are targeting the weres for annihilation?”
I reached for my sandwich again. Confessions of a werewolf obviously worked up an appetite. I took a huge chunk out of my sandwich and spoke while I chewed. “This isn’t about me, or my grudge toward my dad’s Elders. It’s about you.”
Celia frowned. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. Celia, you’re my real pack—you, Dan, your sisters. I had to join the weres to help take down the Tribe. I’m not letting them get away with what they did to you and your family.”
