I glared at him and arched an eyebrow, feeling more confidence than I’d had in years. “Someone had to do it, and apparently it wasn’t going to be Remo. And you can tell him that too.”
His eyes popped wide, and behind me Dahlia gasped.
Well, it had to be said. Even if my stomach was tied in knots like a belly full of snakes that had wrapped around one another. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” I amended, even though I already knew it was too late. The look on Max’s face said it all. Then again, what should I care? I steeled my shoulders and stood tall. “He left me on my own, so I dealt with a problem that came my way. It’s not my fault he has his panties in a twist over it.”
Max continued to stare. Dahlia cleared her throat. “You realize that this will put you on Remo’s enemy list?”
“You don’t know that,” Tad said. “She just took care of a major issue for him. Hell, she saved his bacon.”
“Yes,” Dahlia snapped. “But right when every high-ranking vampire on the continent has shown up to see just what the hell is going on in Remo’s territory. None of them wanted Santos around; he’s broken too many of our laws. They would have dealt with him. But by killing Santos, Alena made Remo look weak. Worse, it could put a target on her back from the council because of her strength. They don’t like not being at the top of the food chain.”
Honey puffs, Dahlia was too smart for her own good. “It doesn’t matter. We already know that is the case.”
“What?” she shrieked. “When were you going to tell me?”
Tad took her hand. “We just found out.”
She huffed several times, her green eyes flashing, but she did settle down. “So, what are you going to do?”
I raised my hand, stopping her. “Enough. I can’t change things. I can’t take it back. Max”—I turned to him—“you have my answer; give it to Remo in private if you can.”
He looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. “Damn.” With that he turned, and so did I. I pushed the door of house number thirteen open and then paused. This was one of the vampire safe houses. Which meant it belonged to Remo. Right now I needed distance from him, for both our sakes. A tiny piece of my heart broke—this had been my safe haven since I’d been turned into a Super Duper. I didn’t want to leave it.
“Dahlia, I’ll pack my stuff,” I said.
“That might be best,” she said, and it hurt to hear her echo my own thoughts. “I can’t protect you from him if he is pissed, or the council, for that matter.” She shook her head and brushed past me.
I made my way up the stairs to the bedrooms. I listened for a heartbeat that would tell me Sandy was around. There it was, a flutter like the beat of wings in the air, soft and at a speed that was faster than any human or other Super Duper I’d dealt with so far. I went to her room and paused before I knocked. Since Beth had been killed by Theseus, Sandy had not been herself. Then again, it hadn’t been that long, only a little over a week. Most nights she cried herself to sleep; I could hear her through the thin walls, sobbing softly. I’d been reluctant to say anything. Beth had died because of Theseus; he’d taken her head in a single swipe of his sword. But I’d bitten her, my venom driving into her veins. I’m not sure she would have survived that, which meant maybe her death was my fault too.
“I can hear you out there, Alena,” she said. “You can come in.”
I opened the door and stepped in. “Hey. I . . . I think I made it so we can’t stay here anymore.”
Her eyes widened, and I swiftly filled her in on the day’s events so far.
“Do we have a place to go?” she asked.
I smiled. “Yeah, it’s time to go home. To my grandparents’ home. I’d . . . I’d like it if you came with me. If you want to, that is.” The last thing I wanted was for her to feel pressured into staying with me.
She nodded. “I don’t have a lot to pack. Maybe . . . maybe we can try that new recipe when we get there? The cream cheese–filled cupcakes, the ones with the saffron icing?”
I smiled. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
She walked over to me and slid her arms around my waist. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Alena. Please. I . . . I don’t blame you for anything.”
I hugged her back, doing my best not to cry. “Stop reading my mind.”
She laughed and pushed me away gently. “If only it were that easy. Don’t avoid me, please. You’re my friend, and I know . . . I know that you were trying to save her. I know you were.”
I wiped my eyes and nodded. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.” I backed out of the room and headed to my own.
I didn’t have a lot to pack either. I realized in that moment that I’d pretty much been living off Remo’s largesse. This was his house, the clothes I wore had been bought with his money, even the food in the cupboards was bought for those victims the vampires brought in to feed on. I let out a sigh as I grabbed a few things, mostly paperwork that pertained to my actual existence as a person, even though I was a Super Duper. A few small articles of clothing, the original dress I’d worn from Merlin’s. I pulled the case off a pillow and stuffed everything inside. Like I was going trick-or-treating with Tad the way we did when we were kids. I laughed to myself, the irony not lost on me. I had a built-in costume and everything now. That is, if anyone would give candy to a two-story-high snake.
I stepped out of the bedroom the same time that Sandy did. “Ready?”
She nodded and smiled. “Yes. On to the next adventure, right?”
Her words were more than a little prophetic, unfortunately. The sound of Tad yelling from downstairs had me hurrying, rushing headlong down the steep steps, the sound of arguing voices floating up to us. Tad and Dahlia were in the kitchen. He shook his head. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m sorry, but you know that I have to; I have no choice.” Her voice was thick with tears, and a few jeweled drops sat on the perfect smooth skin of her cheeks. “I don’t want to; you have to believe me.”
She took a step back but seemed to be resisting. Like she was being pulled. I reached out, and she took my hand, her green eyes swinging to me. “Remo is calling all the vampires in the area to him. I have to go; it’s not something I can deny, because of the bond that is placed on all his underlings.”
I tightened my grip on her. “He won’t hurt you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I defied him by coming to you and Tad. He may have to make an example of someone to appease the council . . . and it will probably be me.”
Because of her ties to me and Tad. This was my fault.
I tugged her to me, a fierce protectiveness washing over me. “Then we can’t have that.” I wrapped my arms around her, wanting to believe that Remo wouldn’t hurt her. But what did I know? I would have sworn that he wouldn’t walk away from me, but he had. I would have sworn that he cared for me more than just as a friend, or a fling, or a blood donor. And yet here we were, wondering if he would hurt my best friend because she’d followed her heart back to my brother. I swallowed hard. “You need to feed off me, then. Either it will allow you to ignore him, or you can at least protect yourself.”
She shook her head, but Tad was nodding. “Alena is right. You . . . you mean too much to me. To all of us.”
In my head, I cheered for him as he took her from me and hugged her tight. Silently I egged him on. Say it, Tad. Say the words. Tell her now, or you might not get another chance.
His eyes flicked to mine and then closed. “I love you, Dahlia. Please, I don’t want to lose you.”
Her whole body crumpled against him. “I love you too.”
I sniffed, and behind me, a tiny hiccup escaped Sandy. I reached up and pulled the bandage off my neck wound. It was only partially healed. “Do it. This will heal by the morning.”
Dahlia gave me a wobbly smile and leaned in close. The sensation was not like with Remo; there was no pleasure rocking through me. She drew in a few tiny swallows, but it should have been all she needed. The blood of a
Drakaina was a heady thing for a vampire. Something we’d found out by accident and had since used to our benefit.
“You are family,” I said. “Be careful, okay?”
Dahlia nodded, her eyes clear and her body no longer being pulled in another direction by Remo’s call. At least I was guessing on that bit.
“I’ll try and see if I can talk to him,” she said.
I shook my head. “No, don’t bother. I understand what he’s facing, even if I don’t like how he’s handling it. We all are a team; that’s how we’ve made it this far.”
I backed up to give Tad and Dahlia some privacy. Sandy followed me out the front door to the Charger. “You think another hero is going to come at you? I mean, us, I guess, because if they go through you, I’m next, aren’t I?”
She said it with complete calm. I knew why. There was a measure of fatality to our lives neither of us could escape. We’d both been chosen to be turned into Greek monsters because Hera and Merlin thought we were weak. They thought we would give up and let the heroes kill us.
They were wrong. But it still sucked rotten donkey balls, and the truth was we were going to have to fight to survive no matter how it went against our natures.
“Hercules, this time.” I threw my small pillow sack into the back of the car. “And he has a nine-headed Hydra as a helper. Hera got smart this time. Monsters attacking monsters. We’ve seen how your feathers cut through me, and my venom does a number on other monsters.”
“Very Godzilla-like.” Sandy nodded. “And it makes a wicked sort of sense. You think she’s doing it because of Theseus?”
I thought about her question a moment before nodding. “Yes, he showed her that we could hurt one another. I mean, where else in mythology is it monster against monster? Mostly heroes face monsters, so Theseus showed Hera a different way to do it.” Another reason to be glad he was dead.
She sighed. “Do you have a plan?”
I frowned and shrugged. “Not really. Ernie is going to try and find out what he can, but you know him. He could get sucked into helping Hercules by accident. Or on purpose, depending on how he’s feeling that day.” I snorted and shook my head.
She laughed softly, and I slung an arm over her shoulder. She leaned into me. “I never wanted to be a monster. I just didn’t want to die, you know? And now it looks like that might happen anyway.”
Damn, they might have been my own words. “I know. But now we are what we are. We can do this, Sandy. I have to believe we didn’t come this far just to give up.”
“Beth—” She said her best friend’s name and then choked up. I hugged her a little tighter. “Beth made a choice, and didn’t want to believe that Theseus was using her. She wanted to belong too much; she wanted to be loved no matter the cost.”
I sighed. “I wish we’d been able to get through to her before . . .”
“Yeah, me too,” Sandy whispered. “I was so afraid to lose her friendship I didn’t want to tell her that I thought you were right. No, I knew you were right.”
We held on to each other, two monsters in the night afraid of all that could come and get us.
The door to house number thirteen opened, and I looked up at Tad. His face was tight with suppressed emotion. “She’s going to keep in touch as much as she can.”
I nodded and chose not to point out that he was repeating information.
We piled into the Charger, and I headed back toward the Wall. At the main gate, the SDMP slowed me down with a wave of their hands.
“You can’t leave,” the officer said as he leaned in the window of my car, his breath smelling remarkably like doggie biscuits. Seeing as the majority of the SDMP were werewolves, I wasn’t terribly surprised at the unpleasant smell.
I cringed. “I don’t have a chip implant, none of us do, and you aren’t going to stop us from actually going across.” I weighted my words with the strength of the siren in me before I ever thought better of it, almost as if I did it on instinct.
He blinked and shook his head twice, going so far as to tap it. “Wait, I’ve been warned about you.”
I grimaced. “I live on both sides of the Wall, fool.” I said it and realized it was true.
“No, you don’t understand. It’s not just us.” He leaned back in, his eyes crinkling with consternation. “The Aegrus virus has exploded. The humans are falling in greater numbers than before, and some of them . . . are important people. They’ve declared that there will be no crossover for anyone.”
Tad leaned over. “What do you mean by ‘exploded’?”
The SDMP member gripped the edge of my car, and I had to keep my mouth shut tight to avoid telling him not to scratch the paint. There were other things more important than my car at the moment.
“I mean that we have a full-on pandemic, and it’s spreading faster than anyone could have thought possible. It’s ripping through the country; the hospitals can’t keep up.”
Broken hickory sticks, that was not good news, not in any way, shape, or form. But why, oh why, would the virus suddenly ramp up? For years it had just plugged along—deadly, but the hospital facilities had been able to keep it in check.
“We are all healthy,” I said, “and we are going through. Talk to Smithy if you have a problem with it.”
“Smithy isn’t on the force anymore.”
I knew that, but I had been hoping the officer didn’t. I glanced at Tad and caught Sandy’s eye. They both gave me a subtle nod. I hit the gas and sped past the officer, the engine roaring and the sensation flying through me. My body’s sensitivity to vibrations made me feel like I was a part of the car.
“Where are we going?” Tad asked.
I thought for only a moment before answering. “Zeus’s house,” I said. If anyone would know why the Aegrus virus had suddenly exploded, it would be the god of thunder and lightning. He might be a dick from time to time, but the reality was he knew things. And I was going to make him spill the beans. One way or another.
CHAPTER 6
The major flaw with my plan was pretty obvious even to me. We got to Zeus’s mansion on Olympic Drive, and we were let in through the main gates. So far so good.
But as my luck would have it, he wasn’t there. I slammed my car door shut and stared at Narcissus, the youth’s ethereal beauty no longer capturing me. “Who is here, then? If Zeus isn’t, are there any other members of the pantheon hanging out at the pool?” Despite the cold chill of February, the pool in the back of the house was a balmy oasis that, from what I understood, was never short of attendants.
He swallowed hard, and I caught a look of my reflection in his eyes. A tall, fierce woman with eyes that glittered with suppressed anger. He was afraid of me, and I didn’t feel one single ounce of bad. Which probably was a bad thing in and of itself. Oh, what did it matter? According to my mother, I was going to hell as it was, so why not go down in a blaze of glory?
“There are a few goddesses at the pool, yes,” he said softly, just above a whisper.
I took off, my stride long, which forced Tad and Sandy to hurry in order to keep up. “What if it’s Hera?” Tad asked.
“Or Aphrodite?” pointed out Sandy.
I kept moving. “Then I will deal with them.” I almost didn’t recognize my own voice. It had to be the Drakaina in me. She was making me stronger than I’d ever hoped. Or maybe, just maybe, I was finding my own voice.
We swept through the house and out the French doors that led to the pool area. Palm trees, flowering bushes, and a fountain that spouted into the pool dominated the eyes first. The warmth of the oasis was humid and instantly made sweat bead up on Tad and Sandy. I liked the heat, but it didn’t do anything to me.
The people and creatures lounging around the pool had changed. But one thing hadn’t; most of them were completely naked. Including a particular someone I knew very well.
“Yaya?” I gasped as our grandmother swam through the pool toward us. Completely naked, as in not a single stitch of even a bikini on her. Tad grunted
and spun around so his back was to her.
“My eyes! I can’t unsee this, Alena,” he yelped.
I couldn’t help laughing, and Yaya winked at me as she swam to the edge of the pool. I looked around for a towel, grabbed one off a chair, and tossed it to her. “Yaya, what are you doing here?”
I looked around, thinking that the men were getting a show, but I saw only women at the pool. That was the difference I’d noticed but not realized. Women who all looked to be of the same age as my grandmother. I frowned and narrowed my eyes at her. “Yaya, what are you up to?”
“Things are changing, Alena. Tad”—she swatted him as she wrapped the towel under her arms—“stop being a ninny; a nude body is a beautiful thing.”
Sandy laughed softly. “Yeah, Tad. Don’t be such a prude.”
He shot her a dirty look, and she just smiled back, her eyes twinkling. It was the most life I’d seen in her since Beth had been killed. I didn’t want her to flirt with my brother . . . but for now I’d let it go.
Tad flinched and peeked over his shoulder. “You can’t blame me. There are certain things a man should never be exposed to. First on the list is his grandmother prancing around naked.”
I put a hand on him, stopping him. We weren’t here to trade funny quips. I needed information. “The Aegrus virus has exploded, Yaya. What do you know?”
Her eyes widened, too wide, too innocent, and she shook her head. “I’ve heard nothing. Ladies, have you heard anything?”
There was something different about her, and then I slowly saw what it was. She looked young. She looked like . . . like she’d gone backward at least fifteen years. The other women around the pool looked like they should be hanging out in the retirement home discussing which adult diaper was preferred, not swimming in Zeus’s pool in the nude. They watched us with sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed . . . vaguely predatory.
I suddenly had no doubt who they were. “Yaya, are these your priestesses?”
“See”—she smiled up at me and patted my cheek—“I told you all she was a clever girl.”
They cooed and waved at me.
Hisses and Honey (The Venom Trilogy Book 3) Page 7
