by C. J. Pinard
Unfathomable, I thought. I shook my head an asked him, “Did you just do all that math for me?”
“Yes. The year twenty-thirty-five is when I’m free. I was just trying to explain it to you.”
“Is he cruel to you like his brother was?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Mostly no. He can be demanding at times, and he does have a short temper when he doesn’t get his way, but he hasn’t ever been abusive towards me or put hands on me. I have seen him be downright vicious to others, though.”
“Really…” I said. “And does he have any other… brothers?”
He looked me in the eye. “I don’t think so. He likes to turn vampires and call them his brothers. One of them was killed a couple years ago by wolves.” He smiled at me.
I wanted so badly to tell him it had been me… and my pack… who had killed that filthy bloodsucker, but I dared not to. Not yet. All I knew was that there was no doubt in my mind I had the right guy.
I tried to flog down my excitement and keep my cool as I asked, “What kind of shit does he make you do for him? Tedious stuff, errands, things like that?” I asked.
“Protection and defense, mostly. I’m like of the head of security for the city where the vampires are concerned. I’m in charge of Moon Chasers’ security, but I think you already knew that.”
“You don’t seem too bothered by this… obligation. This spell he’s put you under.”
He stared hard at me. “I used to be, but I’m not any longer. There are worse things he could have me doing. Anyway, killing Edgar had been worth it. I had to avenge them. If this is the price I pay, then so be it.”
“So what happens if this Li…uh… Malcolm guy dies before the year twenty thirty-five? Before the spell is supposedly broken?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I presume my obligation will be no more.”
I grinned. “I have a feeling you are going to be done with your obligation much sooner than that.”
His eyes widened momentarily, and I saw a spark of hope in them. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ve got friends in witchy places.” I threw him a wink and jumped down from the counter.
Hand in hand, we walked back to his room and devoured each other again once inside. His story had sparked emotions in me I didn’t know would manifest themselves so powerfully. And it seemed they had had the same effect on him, because as he commanded and controlled me, hard and fast, and then deep and slow, he seemed to push all his passion into my body—and I had no objections whatsoever.
I had to wait until the sun went down later that day to be taken home. Jeffrey must have had the day off, but I didn’t mind. It gave me time to talk some more with Kellan about his life and hear more tales of what he had been through. I avoided asking him about his love life because I supposed I was insecure and didn’t want to hear about any other women he’d been with since Amelie. But I did enjoy hearing about his adventures through the decades, and again, I felt like I was reading some epic fantasy novel. He had seen and experienced so much, that I felt like a baby, having only been alive twenty-four years.
Kellan had been summoned to his boss’s presence so Phil drove me home in the BMW SUV once the sun had set. As I watched the scenery fly by on the trip back to downtown Denver, I put my finger to my mouth as I thought about everything Kellan had told me.
It bothered me that he was only a little more than slightly annoyed by Linden’s control over him. Sure, Kellan had killed Linden’s brother, but that didn’t give him the right to pretty much enslave him for two hundred years. He should have been angry and bitter about it. But it didn’t seem like he was.
Not like I was.
Even though I had killed Linden’s vampire progeny—the one he called a brother—did I have the right to be angry about him killing my brother in retaliation? The truth was, in the past five years since Austyn had died, not once did I ever think that Linden had known that I had been the one who had killed that vampire while in my wolf form, nor had he known that by killing Austyn, that he was getting his revenge. As the events replayed in my mind as if on a continual film loop, Linden’s actions had been erratic and sporadic. He had been alive long enough to know how wolf packs worked. That they were family—and by killing one, it would devastate the entire clan by losing one of their own. He just got mighty fucking lucky that he had managed to kill the pureblooded brother of the wolf who’d taken out his newest vampire “brother.”
A lone tear welled in my eye and drifted down my cheek as I relived that day. Watching Austyn’s massive, furry wolf head be torn from his neck. His body morphing back into a human. Aden collapsing in grief down onto our brother’s corpse, wailing in grief inside my head. My heavy wolf body howling in anguish on top of his.
I used the back of my hand to wipe the tear away and shook my head. I couldn’t forget the pain. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t let go of the hurt he’d caused Aden and me. The torture my parents were still enduring.
No, I wasn’t going to let that go. I didn’t care how Kellan felt about Linden. For all I knew, vampires could get Stockholm’s Syndrome, and he was actually feeling sorry for him since he had lost Edgar.
“Is everything all right, Ayla?”
I looked up to see Phil’s friendly but concerned eyes looking at me in the rearview mirror.
Nodding, I replied, “Yeah, Spike.”
He chuckled. “I’m not changing my name.”
“That’s fine, you can keep that name. But I’m still calling you Spike because you are a total badass and it fits you.”
He flicked on the blinker to turn into my apartment complex. “How do you know I’m a badass?”
I grinned at him. “Because Kellan would not have chosen you or Maury to be his right-hand men if you were pussies.”
“You have a point,” he said, laughing as he steered the SUV into the parking lot.
He put the car in park and used vampire speed to come around and open my door. “I’m gonna walk you up to your place.”
He closed the door and indicated for me to walk ahead of him.
“You really don’t need to,” I said.
“I don’t have a choice,” he replied, a knowing look in his eyes.
Too tired to argue, I nodded and led him inside the building. After quickly opening my lobby mailbox with my key and pulling out the overstuffed contents from inside, I used my card key to gain access to the stairwell door. We trudged up the three flights of stairs and down the hall without a word.
I put the key into the lock of my flat and opened the door. I turned to Phil as he stood at the doorway, not moving. “Thanks for the escort.”
With a nod, he rubbed his fingers over his dark brown goatee, his bald head gleaming in the overhead lights. “It’s not a problem, Ayla,” he replied as he turned to leave.
I closed and locked the door. In my small kitchen, I tossed the mail onto the counter and reached on top of the fridge. I grabbed a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips and began munching on them as I pulled my phone from my back pocket.
I checked my notifications and saw that I had a text from my mom, making sure I was coming to the house for a Memorial Day barbeque. I replied with a thanks and told her I would try to be there.
I also had two texts from Aden asking me to call him, and one from Ryder telling me he had ‘big news.’
I hit the call icon for Aden and he picked up on the first ring. “Hey, sis.”
“Hey yourself. What’s new, bro?” I flicked through the mail, separating them into two piles, junk and bills.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
It was an odd request, and I stopped my mail sorting and switched the phone to my other ear. “Of course. Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, sure, they’re great. I just need to see you. I need some… advice.”
I chuckled. “You know I’m here for you. You free tonight?”
“Yeah… let’s have dinner and drinks.”
“The taco bar?” I asked, re
suming my mail sorting.
“No!” he came back quickly. “Anywhere else.”
That was strange. He loved that place. “Okay, Chili’s on the corner at eight. Meet me in the bar.”
“You got it, sis. See you then.”
I shook my head and continued to go through my mail. Out of over a dozen envelopes, there were only two that were important. The rest went into the recycle bin.
Chapter 19
The shower was quick, and after tossing on some mascara and lipstick, I flew downstairs to meet my Uber driver. He wasted no time driving like a maniac through lower downtown until we reached the chain restaurant. I had to walk a block because of all the traffic, but it wasn’t a big deal. I was used to it.
I quickly went into the restaurant and made my way to the bar. I found Aden sitting on a barstool with his hand wrapped around a sweating Coors beer bottle.
I nudged him with my elbow. “Hey, bro.”
He smiled, his eyes lighting up. “Hey, you.” He hugged me and kissed the top of my head.
I stared at him, and he seemed distracted as he moved his gaze from me, down to the bottle in his fist.
I lightly punched his arm. “What’s going on with you?”
Aden took a deep breath, then lifted the beer to his lips. I hadn’t ever seen him act so nervous, so out of sorts. When he set the bottle down, he turned to me and flicked his gaze between my eyes for a few long, agonizing seconds. “Ayla.”
I grinned. “Aden.”
“Are you ready to be an aunt?”
My smile fell and I gasped. “Wh… wait. What? Aden…”
He nodded. “I’m gonna be a dad, Ay.”
“Who—”
“Celeste. She’s pregnant.”
My eyes widened. “But you two have only been seeing each other for…”
He chuckled. “Not quite six months, I know.”
“What can I get you?”
We both turned to see a young, heavily tattooed guy behind the bar smiling at me with a ring pierced through his lip.
“Tonic water for now,” I answered.
He disappeared to fill my order and I looked at my brother. I studied his face, and expected to see stress and turmoil there, but I didn’t.
“I love her, Ay,” he replied quietly. “She has been all I could think about since I met her at the damn taco bar. She’s the sweetest, most beautiful woman I have ever known.”
I put my hand over my chest and said, “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk like this. Did you plan this baby?”
He quickly shook his head. “No way. I selfishly wanted her all to myself for as long as I could have her. But she told me yesterday she was knocked up, and the kid was mine.”
I chewed my lip and stared into my brother’s eyes, which were so much like mine. “And you’re sure it’s yours?”
He lifted a shoulder and traced his finger along the rim of the beer bottle and stared at it. “When we’re not working, we’re together. I’m not sure she’s even had time to be with anyone else—”
“Except one weekend a month when you disappear into the mountains,” I interrupted.
He shook his head. “I know. But I’m going to start bringing her with me.”
My eyes widened. “She knows?”
“Fuck yeah, she knows. I had to tell her. I couldn’t keep that from her. She flipped out the first time, but she oddly accepted it. I don’t know. She’s just so perfect and I’m glad she’s having the baby. Besides”—he lifted his gaze to mine once more—“I know this sounds weird, but I just feel like that kid is mine. I also feel like it’s a boy. That’s fucking stupid, right?”
My heart swelled with joy and I grinned, my face hurting from how happy I was. I couldn’t recall being this happy for anyone in my family in a very long time. I put my hand on his as the bartender set my drink in front of me. “No, it’s not weird. It’s amazing. What do you plan to do next?”
He pulled my hand up to his lips and kissed the back, then set it on the bar. “I don’t know, but you have to come with me when I… when we… tell Mom and Dad.”
“Maybe wait ’til you know if it’s a boy or girl? That way you can have something to offer them. They’re gonna flip out.”
He furrowed his brow. “You think they will? It’s not like I’m a teenager.”
I nodded. “Oh, yeah they will. But it’ll be fine. They’ll be happy.”
“That’s what I had hoped to hear. You going over there Memorial Day weekend?”
I nodded, because I had planned to, but knew I wouldn’t stay the whole weekend because of Kellan. I just wasn’t ready to share him with my family yet. “Yeah I’ll be there.”
“Good. I plan on breaking the news to Mom and Dad then.”
“Will the baby be a wolf?” I wondered quietly. “Or will it be a hybrid, like me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, and we won’t until it’s a teenager.” He flicked his gaze around the bar and back to me. “I didn’t know wolves could get humans pregnant.”
“That’s ’cause we don’t know shit about shit, apparently.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, you got that right.”
“So, when is the baby due?” I asked, my excitement growing. A sweet, innocent life coming into the St. John family gave me hope. I didn’t think I would ever have children, so I was happy my brother was.
“Like, October.”
I let that sink in, and asked, “So, you guys moving in together then? She’s gonna need to feel like you are there for her.”
He swiveled in his barstool and looked at me. “Ayla, I’m going to propose to her. I haven’t ever loved anyone more than I love her. I want her to quit that waitressing job and just rest until the baby is born. I will work three jobs if I have to so she can keep my kid safe inside of her.”
If my heart could explode or melt at that point, it would have. I had no idea my brother had such romantic bones in his body. “You never fail to surprise me, bro.”
He grinned. “Too much?”
I lifted my tonic water to my mouth and shook my head slightly. “Oh, hell no. She’s gonna eat up this shit.” I chewed on the ice and smiled. “I had no idea you were such a sappy motherfucker.”
He snorted, took a swig of his beer, and set the bottle down on the counter. He tossed a couple bills next to it and ambled off the barstool. “I guess love and tragedy changes us.”
My eyes widened. He was right. “You aren’t lying, Aid.”
He wrapped me in a hug and kissed my cheek. “See you at Mom’s in a couple weeks. But promise you’ll call if you get into any trouble.”
I waved my hand. “Of course I will. I may be cocky, but I’m not stupid. Well, not super stupid.”
He grinned and walked out of the bar area.
I realized I was hungry, so I ordered a plate of chicken wings and coleslaw from the flirty bartender and proceeded to devour that as I caught up on all the social media postings with my phone, resisting the urge to share my good news to the world.
Once I’d finished, I paid the bill and went to leave, but I was blocked by a set of big boobs and her husband.
She smiled at me and said, “Miss St. John, how have you been?”
I looked into her light eyes surrounded by black eyeliner and then to her red painted lips. “Agent Swift. You following me?”
She grinned. “Nah, just out getting burgers with the hubby.”
I looked at him. “Hi, Jason.”
“Hey there,” he replied with a friendly smile.
“Well,” I said awkwardly, just wanting to be out of there and away from the BSI agents because they made me nervous for no good reason, “have a good night.”
Before I could walk away, she lightly touched my arm. “Won’t you join us?” She pointed to an empty booth.
I shook my head. “No, I just ate, but thanks, though.”
“C’mon, Ayla,” Jason said. “We want to show you something.”
Fuck. They had been follo
wing me. This was no casual encounter. Realizing I didn’t have much planned for later, I gave in. “Okay, I’ll stay for a drink.”
“Great,” she said, ushering me ahead of her toward the booth.
When we sat, the server came over and laid down menus and took our drink orders. Once he was gone, Jason pulled out his phone and began scrolling on it.
“Have you seen this?” he asked, handing me his smartphone.
My eyes widened at the headline of the Denver Post article dated today: MISSING ARCHITECT AND FAMILY PRESUMED DEAD; SON FOUND MURDERED
“Shit,” I murmured.
My eyes quickly scanned the article.
“Partial remains of Alexander Von Brass and his wife, Elizabeth Von Brass, were found near a small campsite in the Rocky Mountain National Park on March 18. Their clothing, which contained their DNA, was found inside a large camping tent belonging to the couple. The body of their young son, Jordan, was found at the bottom of Sprague Lake. Police suspect he was attacked by an animal and then drowned, as his neck had wounds consistent with bite marks. If anyone has any information, please call…”
I chewed my lip and handed Jason back his phone.
“Ya gotta clean up better,” Jessica said in a scolding tone.
The server came over with our drinks, and I picked up my gin and tonic and took a big sip as they ordered their food.
“Yeah, so about that.” I sighed, not wanting to explain, but feeling defensive.
“We’re listening,” Jason replied, brushing a lock of his sandy hair off his forehead. He had really cool green eyes I hadn’t noticed before and he kinda reminded me of the country singer Keith Urban. They were definitely a pretty couple.
“So, I miscalculated the full moon when we tracked Alex to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I was too consumed with finding him. I felt desperate because I knew they had their kid with them. I shifted as soon as we got there, and—”
