by Anya Breton
In a sober voice he said, "I'd suggest postponing your vengeance trip until after you've heard what I have to say. Our goals may be more aligned than you realize."
Vengeance trip. Damn, I was slipping. I'd been about to run home just to be away from him. I'd nearly forgotten all about my wish to splatter the primordial ooze of a certain someone...I'd yet to actually identify. Maybe Aiden's freaky knowledge of my activities would come in handy.
I took a deep breath, turned fully and hoped I could keep my raging libido down long enough to listen to what he had to say.
CHAPTER TWO
"You should not have entered into any agreement with a vampire."
The new voice in the room forced my eyes away from the pages of the latest escapist novel I'd grabbed off the shelves of my second favorite Barnes and Noble. There was a tall, broad shouldered, dangerously handsome man standing in the hallway outside my bedroom. From where I sat I could see the slate of his eyes fixed on me beneath the fringe of his thick lashes. Carefully styled short kohl black hair glistened midnight blue as if there were a light source above him. There were none.
He lifted his arms to cross them over the impressive chest covered by a tailored black silk suit. The costly fabric was complimented by an iridescent light blue tie. The outfit made him look like a high-class Mafioso assassin. I might have been frightened if I hadn't seen this very sight nearly every week for nine years.
My eyes did a double take on the tie. Blue. Blue meant he was pissed off. Crap, I'd been hoping for a mauve or green day.
I returned my attention to the book. "I'm just going to be stopping this demon summoning thing anyway, Kastio."
"I am aware of this. As such there was no need to enter into an agreement," he insisted in his midrange of tones. He had exactly three: deep, deeper and deepest.
"It was a verbal agreement," I pointed out. "No money was exchanged and I didn't sign on any dotted line."
"Nevertheless, an agreement you have made."
I waved a dismissive hand in his general direction. "Look, I know you have some issue with Aiden but it wasn't like we sucked face or anything."
His voice lowered into his deepest range, "You were thinking it."
My head popped up to glare at him. "Damn it, Kastio! I hate, hate, haaaaate that!"
The bastard could read my mind anytime he wasn't with me. It sucked. Seriously.
He would say it was a requirement of being my guide. He'd add that I was blessed that my biological father, the Greek god Apollo, cared for me enough to assign a divine creature to help me. From where I sat, Kastio was almost as much of a curse as my supernatural power was.
He'd been a piss poor mentor. He stalked me, eavesdropped on everything -- and I mean everything -- meddled, mocked, and pestered. Once in a while he'd impart useful information but on the whole he was no better than a walking fortune cookie.
"I must once again warn you," he said grimly, "if you so much as think of taking up with the vampire. He will be killed."
"I remember," I snapped impatiently. I slapped the book into my lap grumpily. The space above my nose crinkled as I felt my expression sour. "So did you just drop by to force your usual morose self on me or do you have actual useful information?"
"Force myself on you?" He repeated with a lift of his glossy kohl eyebrows. "Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of that phrase."
My face warmed a bright red hue. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant..."
"Did I come by to pester you with my moody square-jawed face that is incapable of forming a smile?" He parroted back a few of my own thoughts to me.
"Uh, yeah," I replied in a slow, uneasy voice. I was uncomfortable with that on too many levels.
"No," Kastio said flatly. "I came to suggest you look into this matter more in depth before embarking on it. The vampire is holding something back. There is more than a demon summoning at work here."
Aiden hadn't told me much. There were brown paper packages in the same exact size and shape (square, one by one foot boxes) being delivered to the Dungeon through the regular postal mail. They'd intercepted one. It had a rock in it, the rare desert shale.
Apparently summoning rituals for powerful entities had to be completed by someone with magical ability. The more power available to the individual, the greater the entity summoned. Hence why the vampires believed it was a key figure in the Covens. That was really all they had. It was pathetic at best.
"Hints would be nice," I said. "I'm on a deadline here."
Kastio's figure didn't move but I got the feeling he'd be shaking his head if he did that sort of thing. "You know that I cannot..."
I made a dismissive gesture, "I know, 'screw with Fate'."
My guide looked mildly affronted with a slight lift of his broad chest. "I would not have worded it quite so crassly."
"No, you'd have used ten words to do what I said in three."
Kastio's moody square-jawed face got moodier. He lowered his head into a kind of bow that meant I had exactly two-seconds before he'd disappear. "Hera keep you safe," my guide spoke his standard parting greeting. All that remained after was a Kastio-shaped cloud of mist. It hovered for a half a heartbeat before the tiny particles expanded out into the air around me.
Now that he was gone I knew he could dip into my brain. So I did the only thing I could think of: I picked the book back up and delved into a steamy sex scene between the protagonist and her hot adventurer rescuer. Maybe my guide would be disgusted enough that he'd go pester someone else and ignore me for a while. Only then would I actually be able to sleep.
There was a man at the bar wearing a brown and green flannel shirt. His messy walnut hair had sun-kissed highlights that could have been natural but I suspected they were salon bought. From across the room I could only tell that his eyes were dark, probably brown, and that they were currently fixed on the gorgeous brunette sidled up to the stool next to him.
Lovely. I'd called a meeting with this guy and he was chatting up some other chick. That would serve me right for going through proper channels for once. But I could be magnanimous. I'd give him a few minutes to close the deal with her before I rained on his parade.
I was in a surprisingly mellow mood given the crappy night of sleep I'd had and the fact that I'd gone a full day without much headway on this demon summoning thing. (It was a "thing" because I didn't want to call it an "investigation". That seemed like admitting what I did in the Underground was a job.) The only information I'd gathered was that the mailman who had been delivering the packages to the Dungeon was one of us, a member of the Underground factions. He was a werewolf. And the guy at the bar was his Alpha.
Ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered with permission but I fully intended on being brutal with the state's employee. That kind of information was going to get back to the Alpha. This meeting was a bit of C.Y.A. so that the big guy didn't go savage on me during the next full moon cycle.
I rested against the front wall halfway between the entrance and the live music, a spot that would allow me to observe the Alpha. Like Aiden Bruce, this guy wasn't actually big but he projected a large image. The men in the bar steered clear of that side of the polished cherry surface while the women were curiously drawn to it. I watched him toss back a shot of whisky, set the glass down and charm the model-thin woman with a mischievous grin of his wolfish teeth.
Wolfish. I had a silent chuckle. Sometimes I thought I needed to get out more.
Waif, the Alpha's model companion, leaned in to speak into his ear. Her breast was touching his left forearm. I was certain he noticed it. Guys like him had radar for where the nipple was at all times.
"What can I get you?"
My attention snapped to the waitress in front of me. She stepped out of the way of someone heading to the bathroom and into my line of sight. She was cute but blocking my view. I supposed I was rather obvious target, standing there without a drink in my hand.
"Strongbow," I answered her and handed over a wrinkled te
n-dollar bill before she could take off.
With my line of sight clear again I noted that the Alpha was discreetly looking down Waif's shirt while she related some tidbit of information to him with wildly gesturing arms. And then before she'd finished, he spotted someone he liked behind her. For the three minutes it took the waitress to bring me my hard cider I watched the Alpha split his attention between the two women. Maybe he didn't need time to seal the deal with the brunette after all.
I handed the waitress a few ones for her trouble, deliberately set the drink down where someone would pick it up and then slowly made my way through the collection of people gathered to watch the softly crooning Indie band. A seat at the other end of the horseshoe shaped bar conveniently opened up as I approached. The Alpha's eyes swiveled across the bar to me as soon as I'd sat my jean-covered rear end down. I made eye contact and held it for a second longer than was polite. By then the man with the booze was waiting on my order.
The bartender, a man far too old for this dump, leaned close enough for me to order another, "Strongbow."
Waif was pouting when I glanced back over at my quarry. The Alpha said something in her ear that brightened her disposition. Then he stood to walk in my direction.
"Four dollars," the bartender mouthed at me while lifting as many fingers.
Before I could get my fingers into the pocket of my jeans a big hand pushed beside me to hand him a crispy five-dollar bill. "Keep the change," a rumbling voice spoke.
I didn't need to look back to know it was the Alpha. Low-level power poured off him, brushing against my skin. This was definitely no vanilla human.
The bartender nodded his head in thanks. I could almost see the internal monologue in the old guy's head saying: "ooh, big spender".
"Aren't you gonna thank me?" The rumbling voice said in amusement from far too near.
I nudged the drink aside. "I don't accept drinks from strange men."
"You haven't looked to see if I'm strange or not," he pointed out in an unreadable tone.
"You're the guy that was just over there chatting up the waif-like model." It probably wasn't a good idea to start our meeting on a snarky note but I couldn't seem to help myself. There was something about this guy that just...irked me.
His rumbling voice smoothed out a little, "Jealous?"
It was a good sound. I knew it would be a heady experience to hear it murmuring naughty things in my ear. I bet he knew just what to say too. But conceited guys irritated me. Maybe I could bring him down a peg or two.
"I like my women with a little more meat on them," I countered.
"Mmm," he purred in my ear. No doubt he was conjuring up all manner of imagery in that messy-haired head of his.
He reached forward to take my hard cider. I heard him gulp the entire thing down as quickly as his throat could work. It was just as well, he'd paid for it and I needed to be sober for what would be happening later.
The Alpha pressed his lower half against my back when he reached forward to set the empty glass atop the bar. It had been intentional. He wanted me to feel that he was well endowed. I was thanking the gods that I had been facing away so he didn't see the red creeping into my cheeks.
"So you're not into guys?"
I didn't say anything in answer partially because as a werewolf he'd be able to sense a lie and because I was desperately trying not to picture him naked.
"What about threesomes? We could prowl together. It'd be hot."
Just then I was thinking how fitting it was that he'd been infected with the werewolf virus because he was most certainly a dog. Only one other thing would have been better: the wereboar virus. My lips quirked at the thought of him turning into a giant pig during the full moon cycle.
"You always this stuffy? Or just when you're out on business?"
His odd question made me turn enough to look at him. At that proximity I could see that his eyes were mahogany with flecks of green. They dropped down to my lips.
"Business?" I asked, moving the lips he'd fixated on while trying not to notice how ruggedly handsome he was. That plaid flannel was absolutely perfect on him.
"You're Laura, right?"
My eyebrows lifted a smidgeon. He'd known whom I was when he'd walked over. I hadn't given him a description of myself or told him what I'd be wearing like he had. How the hell had he known?
"Yeah," I said with a twist of my mouth.
"You enjoy the show?"
I glanced over at the band then realized he wasn't talking about that. "I was giving you time to score a phone number if you wanted it."
His lips spread for a wolfish grin. "That bag of skin and bones wouldn't have been able to handle me." But he eyed me up and down as if he were contemplating if I could.
The discomfort of his obvious leering made me snappish. "We doing this here or what?"
"Here or we could go back to my place," he positively purred.
My response was a disgusted, "Yeah, no. Here is fine."
He fixed the couple next to me with a dark eye until they grew flustered enough to give up their seats. Their departure cleared that corner of the bar for us. I wasn't going to complain because I didn't have any interest in going someplace private with this guy.
"Thank you for meeting me on short notice." I attempted a little courtesy. Then I got straight down to business. "I need to talk to one of yours and I need truth out of him."
The Alpha immediately replied. "I can't force truth out of mine."
That was a lie but I wasn't going to call him on it. "I'm not asking you to. I'm merely asking for the right to question him."
His mahogany eyes darkened a little as his pupils dilated, "With force."
"If need be," I admitted.
"What kind of questionin'? What does this pertain to?" He didn't seem like the kind of guy that used words like "pertain" often. Or maybe he'd been playing a role for the women in the bar.
In my best matter-of-fact tone I replied, "Someone is trying to do something bad. I'm trying to stop them. One of yours may have information I need to do that."
"What exactly are you, Laura?"
I didn't like that he felt free to use my given name when I didn't have any of his. The only thing I knew about him was that he was the Alpha of the Greater Boston lupus pack and that his email address was [email protected]. It was only fair that I keep a few things from him as well.
Instead of answering I said, "Why does it matter?"
"Are you capable of stoppin' somethin' bad?"
"Yes," I replied without blinking.
He eyed me again and this time it wasn't with lust in his eyes. His skeptical up and down scan told me he was trying to reconcile my relatively benign look with the truth of my words. I definitely didn't come off as a woman who could hold her own amongst werewolves. But if he were intelligent he'd know that looks are deceiving.
"Are you a witch?" He asked, still hung up on what kind of creature I was.
He wasn't getting that out of me. Defensiveness had me reacting in my typically confrontational manner. "I need to talk to your wolf. Are you going to give me the okay?"
"You contacted me because you're plannin' on doin' somethin' that'll piss me off," he correctly deducted. "I'm not givin' my blessin' until I know what I'm agreein' to."
"I can't tell you more or I risk information falling into the wrong hands." With a palm held out toward him I added, "Hell, for all I know you could be in on it."
"In on what?"
I pressed my eyes shut with a sigh. I liked him better when he was behaving like an unscrupulous dog. When I opened them again I saw that his formerly frisky expression was long gone.
The Alpha's lips thinned grimly. "You understand that when mine pledge to me, I vow to keep them safe from people like you. You gotta give me somethin' to go on."
"No, actually, I don't."
His gaze darkened until the pupils threatened to drown out the rest of the iris. "Then no, I'm not givin' the okay for you to talk
to one of mine. And if somethin' happens to any of them, I know who to look to."
My response was a brisk nod. I swiveled on the stool, dropped to my feet and then glanced back at him. "I'd say that it was nice meeting you, but it would be a lie." Especially since I hadn't actually met him.
CHAPTER THREE
The shot ricocheted off the stone wall close enough to the state's employee's ear that he'd probably have a nice red welt in the morning.
"You're fuckin' crazy!" He shouted the six stories up to where I stood peering over the edge of the roof.
"Sweet talk like that isn't gonna save you," I called down with a sugary voice wielded like a whip of sarcasm. "Now tell me what I want to know!"
"What the fuck is this? Your own personal prison? You serial killer fuck!"
He thought he was being clever, distracting me with insults while he looked for an exit from the trap I'd maneuvered him into. But I was good enough at what I did to take the bait while still keeping an eye on him. "If I were a serial killer I'd probably use something more personal than a gun. No, this is about information."
"I don't know nothin'." My quarry insisted while furtively scanning the courtyard for signs of weakness.
There were none because someone a whole lot more devious than me had created the death trap. Nonetheless his bushy head turned ever so slightly from right to left as he passed his keen, supernaturally enhanced eyes over every bit of rock in the courtyard. I knew even with the help of the sole tree he couldn't get up to the roof. And by the way his head lifted I suspected he was mentally judging the distance anyway.
"Talk like that is going to get you hurt," I informed him in what I hoped came off as an "eerily calm" tone.
"You gonna kill me?" Yup, it had definitely come off as that because I could hear the beginnings of actual fear in his voice. "I don't know nothin'! I'm just a mailman!"
"A werewolf mailman who is holding out on someone who can kill you in the most painful way imaginable with little effort." I didn't know if tit were the most painful way but I knew it wasn't exactly false.
