by Mia Bishop
* * * * *
He led her out of the museum and down the street. It was a neighborhood she was all too familiar with. Anything near the Gateway Arch and the park was common territory but when he stopped in front of a seemingly empty brick building, she fidgeted nervously. “Well? Is this quiet enough for you?”
He swept his hand toward the wall with no door or windows. “We should go inside. You know how to get in, don’t you?”
Rowan frowned. She didn’t remember Phillip being the mayor of crazy-town but she figured it was best to play along. “Oh yeah, but why don’t you go ahead. I’ll make sure the coast is clear.”
“Always thinking. Smart girl.”
She laughed and turned her head to look around and wait patiently for him to do whatever it was he thought would open up a solid brick wall. He finally tapped her on the shoulder. “Ready?”
To her surprise, she turned around to see a door in front of her where the wall had been. Windows decorated the side of the building and loud music was coming from inside. “What the…?”
He frowned. “I thought you said you knew this place?”
Rowan covered. “Oh totally, I’ve just never been here so early. Who’d have thought it’d be so busy?”
Where did that door come from? What the hell is going on?
He shrugged and opened the door. “Head toward the back. I always have a table saved for when I stop by.”
She stepped through the door and gasped at the scene before her. Everyone was dressed oddly—old-world attire, costumes of all sorts from barmaids to animal costumes. One of the servers passed by and shouted over the music, “Welcome to the Hideout. I’ll be with you in just a moment.”
Holy shit, this is the Hideout?
Phillip ushered her to the back and snapped his fingers at the bartender. “Two beers. I’ll be at my usual table.”
Rowan raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you just snap at that girl behind the bar?”
“Yes, why?”
“I’m pretty sure staff members don’t like to be snapped at.” She rubbed her temple to ward off the threatening headache when it became apparent he had no clue what she was talking about.
He pulled out a chair for her, waiting as she placed her small clutch purse on the table and slid into the seat. When she was finished, he sat down across the table. “Are you hungry? We can order some food.”
“I think a beer first thing in the morning counts as an Irish breakfast. Now what is going on? I don’t like games, Phillip. This place is far from quiet. What do you need to tell me that you couldn’t just say in the museum?”
“I guess quiet was the wrong word to use. Let’s just say that the museum has ears and I didn’t want anyone listening to our private conversation.” He waited until the waitress brought over their two beers and dismissed her with the wave of his hand as he leaned forward. “It’s about your grandmother.”
Rowan sighed even though she had known this was coming. “I knew it.” She played with the label on the bottle. “Did she go quickly?”
“No.” He said flatly and took a long drink from the bottle. “I mean, no, she isn’t dead, but she is sick. Very sick. My father thinks it would do her good to see you. He says she needs family around her during these dark days.”
“I don’t even know her. What am I supposed to do to help?” She could hear the bitterness in her own voice and his disapproving look told her he could hear it too.
“You are still her only grandchild, her only family left. I know you feel betrayed by her but she couldn’t come for you when you were little. She gave you the life she felt you deserved, a normal life. Far, far away from your and your parents’ pasts.”
“What does that even mean? None of any of this makes sense.”
“I know. I’m sorry I can’t be clearer but some things you will have to find out on your own.”
Her head dropped with a loud thud on the table as she sighed. “You know I don’t like games.”
“I’m sorry. You will just have to go on faith for a bit longer.”
She looked up and met his gaze. “I’m going to have to go, aren’t I?”
Phillip nodded. “Yes.” He pulled something from his pocket and slid it across the table to her. “Take this.” He lifted his hand and revealed a key. “It’s to a safe deposit box at Bremen Bank. Box 333. You’ll need what’s inside before you go visit your grandmother.”
“I don’t even know where she lives. No one has ever told me. And I’ll need to make travel arrangements, book a flight or a bus. I need some notice, you know? I can’t just leave my life.”
“You have to. The box belonged to your parents. Everything you need to know is in there and I’ll show you the way tomorrow. Meet me in the morning at the Gateway Arch.”
Rowan tilted her head to the side and rolled her eyes. “You want me to meet you at a park to take me to see my grandmother? Why can’t we just meet at the airport like normal people?”
“No more questions. Just please do this for me.” He stood up and dropped a couple of coins on the table. “I’ll see you tomorrow around ten o’clock, okay?”
She nodded and watched him leave. Shaking her head, she picked up one of the coins. It was larger and heavier than any coin she’d ever seen. “What kind of money is this?”
“The spending kind,” the waitress muttered as she stopped at the table to clean up Phillip’s beer and snatch up the money. She motioned toward Rowan’s still-full bottle, “You done with that, Red?”
“Yeah, I’m—” Rowan’s head snapped up. “Why did you just call me that?”
The waitress smiled and pointed across the bar at Luc who was raising his glass in a mock salute to her. “My boss told me that was your name.”
She ground her teeth and stood up. “Yes, I’m done and tell your boss that isn’t my name.” The waitress seemed taken aback by her outburst but Rowan was too aggravated to care. She glared at Luc but he paid little attention to her. He was back to having a conversation with a tall, lean-muscled, dusky-skinned man dressed mostly in black. Luc pointed in her direction and the other man responded with a curt nod and went back to their conversation.
Rowan pocketed the key Phillip had given her as she headed for the door. She stormed through the bar and gave the bar door a justifiable slam as she shut it behind her. Stomping down the street, she reached for her purse and cursed. She had forgotten it at the bar. She spun on her heels and headed back to the bar. “Where the hell?” She felt along the brick wall but there was no sign of a door or anything to indicate there was a bar anywhere near this place. She pounded on the bricks. “Let me in!”
People passing by her on the streets gave her a wide berth as if she were a crazy person. She was certain she looked crazy but she could still taste the beer she had sipped. She knew she had been in the bar. She didn’t imagine it. Rowan slid her hand into her pocket and felt the key Phillip had given her. “Nope, I’m not crazy.” She glanced one more time at the brick wall. “Well, at least I’m not all the way crazy.”
* * * * *
Rowan had avoided going to the bank until the end of the day. If she could have put it off completely, she would have but something told her Phillip wouldn’t be pleased if she showed up tomorrow without whatever she was supposed to get from the lockbox. After she saw what was in the box, she cursed herself for not having a car. Luckily, the bank manager had let her take a cart and a cardboard filing box with her. She batted her eyelashes so well, she should have gotten an Academy Award. In the end the manager had cleared off a rolling cart one of the tellers was using to transport files and let her take it home on the condition that she return it in the morning, which she promised to do.
Rowan ignored the looks from the people passing her on the sidewalk as she made her way toward her apartment building. She pulled out her spare key from its hiding place near her door and pushed the cart inside. Her mind was on the contents of box. She did everything she could to distract herself from it, but she
kept coming back to it. She’d pause to slowly run her hand over the lid but refused to open it. After microwaving a TV dinner and eating it in all of three bites, she washed dishes, folded laundry and flipped through the TV stations. Her eyes kept settling back on the box. Finally she sighed and stood up. “Fine, I’ll open it.”
After lifting off the lid, she pulled up a red velvet cloak with white fur trim. “Pretty, but kind of out of date.” Next she pulled out a leather-covered box. She flipped the latch and opened it cautiously. “What the…?”
Knives lined the case. Not just knives, but what she could only describe as daggers.
She was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. She ran her fingers over the daggers and called out, “Busy right now. Come back later.” The knocking turned to pounding. “I said go away.”
“I’m giving you until the count of three to open this door, Red, or else I’m going to blow it down.”
She froze. “Mr. Marrok?”
“Yes, now open this damn door.” He gave it one last punch to accentuate his words and started counting.
Rowan ran to the door and opened it just a few inches, keeping the security chain in place. “Don’t you mean you’ll bust the door down, not blow it down?”
“No, I meant blow it down. Now open this door.”
“Absolutely not.”
He growled. “Red, open the door.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Did you just growl at me?”
“I said open it.”
“You’re a psychopath. I’m not letting someone I barely know into my apartment when they are clearly insane.”
She watched him through the gap in the door while he took a deep breath as if to calm himself. Still, she kept the chain on the door. His tone was calmer when he finally spoke again. “I’m sorry, okay? I need to speak to you. It is important. Please, may I come in?” She chewed her bottom lip, debating on whether it was safe or not. “If you are scared then put Calvin on speed dial. If at any point you feel uncomfortable, just dial him up and have him come to your rescue.”
She thought it over, head bobbing as she weighed her options. The bandleader had at least fifty pounds on Luc and it was a safe bet Calvin could take him down with little effort. “Okay, but five minutes. That’s all you get.”
She slid the chain off and opened the door for him.
“I think you’ll want me to stay longer than five minutes,” he said as he passed her by and headed straight for the box.
She followed after him and couldn’t help but let her gaze linger over his body. He was so confident in himself, which only made him more attractive. She glanced over at the open door to her bedroom and shook her head, ignoring the heat coursing through her body at the mere thought of what it might be like to spend one night with a man like him. She frowned and inwardly cursed her weakness for dangerous men. “Are you always this arrogant?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he looked over at her and grinned. “Most of the time.”
Rowan threw her hands up. “It’s exhausting, you know that?”
“My arrogance?”
She glared at him. His ego was eating at her last nerve, but she didn’t want him to know how close she was to snapping. He had her wavering back and forth between wanting to slap him or pounce on him. Rowan licked her lips at the thought of what his lips would feel like. She waved her hand to dismiss his comment and cleared her throat to distract herself from her lingering daydreams. “Anyway, why are you here? Your five minutes started already.”
“I want to know why you were in the bar. There is no way you should have been able to enter the premises and also…” he paused and shoved his hands in his coat pocket, “why were you with the prince?”
“The prince?” She laughed. “Who is the prince? I was having a drink with an old family friend. And what is so special about this bar? You really are an ass to assume I’m not good enough to be in your bar.”
His eyes softened. “I’m sorry if I gave the impression that you aren’t good enough. The bar is a special place for a certain caliber of people to mingle. It’s not a place for regular humans.” His eyes settled on the box, he reached out and picked up the red cloak. His fingers trailed along the white fur trim. “Wolf’s fur?”
Luc licked his lips. It was the simplest of actions and one that shouldn’t have made her shiver but she couldn’t help it. He looked up and met her gaze. “It all makes sense now, Red.”
Chapter Two
Rowan wrinkled her nose. “You’re crazy, aren’t you?”
“I am hardly crazy. I think I might be the only one around here who actually knows what is going on.” He held up the cloak. “You, my dear, are in trouble. You have something that doesn’t belong to you.”
She snatched the cloak out of his hand and shoved it back in the box. “Don’t touch my stuff and I didn’t steal this cape-thingy if that is what you are implying.”
He leaned against the wall and shrugged his shoulders. “It belonged to your mother, didn’t it?”
She looked away and shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Your parents died when you were young? An accident perhaps? They had been away on a trip, maybe visiting family when they died?” Her face paled as he continued, “Am I getting warm, Red?”
“I don’t know how you know all of that but your five minutes are up, Mr. Marrok.”
He glanced at his watch and shook his head. “I’ve got a few more minutes actually. So let’s change the subject. How do you know the good Prince Phillip?”
“Um… Regular Phillip, he isn’t a prince. And his father was friends with my parents. He helped them move to St. Louis when I was little.”
“And after your parents’ accident, Phillip’s father kept in touch?”
“Who are you, really?”
“I’m a prince in my own right, I suppose. Though my family doesn’t use such titles.” He ran his finger over one of the daggers. “Shall we unlock some of your memories, Red?”
“Unlock—” She started to question what he meant but his constant need to annoy her had her clenching her fists at her side. “I have a damn name, use it.”
“Indeed you do. Your name is Rowan. Rowan means red.” He laughed as she raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know that, did you? Your mother’s name was Ruby, which also means red. Your grandmother, her name is Scarlet, again it means red. Shall I keep going down your family line or are you satisfied now?”
“Satisfied? You just opened up a whole other line of questions for yourself, Mr. Marrok.”
“Call me Luc. There is no need to be so formal when our families have such a long history together.”
Rowan padded into the kitchen. “I need a drink. You seriously know how to give a girl a headache.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a beer just as he rounded the corner. “Want one?” He nodded. She grabbed another bottle and kicked the refrigerator door closed. “Every time you speak I just have more questions, so why don’t we just cut to the chase. What do you want?”
He took the bottle and twisted the top off. “I want to help you, believe it or not. Your fairy godmother must have been working overtime to get us to meet the way we did.” He took a drink and winked over the rim of the bottle at her. “That was her, you know, in the museum. She was trying to look out for you.”
Rowan laughed and practically choked on her beer. “The old woman in the museum is my fairy godmother?” He flashed a grin and she laughed harder. “That’s a good one. What next? Are you gonna tell me you are Rumpelstiltskin?”
He wrinkled up his nose in disgust. “No, I am something far worse.”
She leaned in closer and whispered, “What are you then?”
“Someone who wants to help you.”
“You keep saying that but you haven’t said what it is you are going to help me with. All of this talk of princes and fairy godmothers has gotten us off track. What are you here for, Luc?”
He frowned and seemed to be mulling her question over. Takin
g another pull from the beer bottle, he finally cleared his throat. “I think Phillip is setting you up. I think you are in danger.”
“Phillip is a friend. You, however, are a stranger and a rude stranger at that. Why should I trust you?”
“Good point. I guess you have no real reason to trust me. But as much as you’ve lost in this life and after what you saw this morning at the Hideout, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to find out what’s really going on?” He gave her a wink. “One minute the bar was there and the next minute it wasn’t. You tried to come back for your purse and you couldn’t get back in. All of that really did happen.”
“Where is my purse, by the way?”
Luc pulled the small black purse from his jacket pocket. “I watched you bang on the wall, unable to get in. That means Phillip helped you get inside and you went with him, not knowing what you were getting yourself into. I followed you around for the rest of the day.” He held up his hand to silence her interruption. “Yes, call me a stalker. I suppose it is rather fitting. Anyway, when you got the box from the bank, that is when I knew for sure what was going on.”
“And what is going on?”
“You are about to be lured in to the Gate and hunted down because of one man’s insanity.”
“Who’s the man?”
Luc shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s old and insane and he believes killing you will save his family from their curse.”
She tried to convince herself that she wasn’t really believing what the handsome man was telling her but she couldn’t help but hang on every word. “What is their curse?”
“They are shifters.”
“Shifters? I don’t understand.”
He chuckled. “They are humans who take the form of animals, like wolves.”
Her eyes widened. “Werewolves?”
“If that is what you’d like to call them, yes. But they kind of take offense to that name.”
She chewed her lip, there was no way this was real. Werewolves or shifters didn’t exist and yet something gnawed at her, tugging on her subconscious, begging her to believe it. Her eyes widened. “Wait, you said I’d be lured to the Gate? What is that? Because Phillip wants me to meet him at the Gateway Arch in the morning.”
