by Emma Dean
She looked down at the kid and then up at Niko. “Seems you’ve been having some trouble.”
Xavier would recognize that sleepy, husky voice anywhere. “What are you doing here, Morgan?”
She glanced at him and then stepped over the kid, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Her ponytail swung behind her and she went to give Niko a hug. “Saving your ass apparently, show some gratitude X.”
“My name’s Xavier to you.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Fucking witches.
Then there were five more and three wolves crawling all over everything. Xavier rolled his shoulders back in irritation and flipped the safety back on. He couldn’t wait to take Piper and get the hell out of Sacramento. Crescent City wasn’t the most hip and trendy city to live in, but at least it was his territory.
“Thanks for coming Morgan, but you didn’t really have to,” Niko told her, grabbing her arm and pulling her over to them. “I don’t think there’s much you can do.”
She smiled up at him and adjusted the oversized grey sweater she had on over her black leather pants. The girl was a weirdo and looked barely eighteen. Then that blue-eyed gaze whipped to him and Xavier flinched. Fucking witches man.
“I’m here to see Piper, not deal with…this,” she said, waving at the dead bodies. “If you guys mess this up with her…”
“We’re not going to,” Xavier snapped. “Now why come all the way down here to see her when you could have just called?”
“Do you know any witches with healing abilities?” she demanded, that husky voice sharp as nails for the first time ever.
“X, just let her help. She’s one of the good ones.”
Morgan smirked. “We’re all supposed to be neutral. I’d say we’re not good, or bad.” She picked up one of the little witch balls she’d given Niko, inspected it, and then put it back. “Where is she?”
“She’s at the hospital with Caleb,” Xavier grumbled, watching the cleaners and the witches work. One of them even carried the sleeping kid outside. He craned his neck to see that they’d put him on one of the couches, just like any tired student between classes. “Is he going to remember anything?”
“Of course not,” Morgan snorted.
She was quiet for a moment while she looked down at one of her rings and spun it on her finger over and over. Xavier didn’t like witches, but this one was so different. She didn’t lord what she could do over anyone’s head. She just helped them. He could like her without having to like witches.
“Look, I’ve been doing a lot of scrying, and I’ve been reading the bones, tarot…pretty much anything short of blood magic,” Morgan told them, keeping that strange voice quiet so she wouldn’t be overheard. “If the crocs take Piper it will be the end of the Klamath Mountain Pride. Normally I wouldn’t care. Shifter crap is none of my business unless the Council says otherwise, or a friend asks for my help.” She nodded at Niko and then paused again, twirling that fucking ring around and around.
A feeling of dread settled in the pit of Xavier’s stomach. Regardless of how he felt about the covens, he knew better than to ignore a warning from them, and this one…this one sounded like it could be very, very bad.
“If the Klamath Mountain Pride falls, then war will break out between the West Coast Pride and the Miami crocs,” she told them. “This war would decimate both shifters, and tip the balance. Demons would get involved more than they already are, and hunters would be dispatched. The chaos will cause a lot of issues, but the main one is that Piper’s blood is extremely powerful. It can be used to unlock one of the Seven Seals if the right spell is used.”
Xavier froze as he took that in. “You mean one of the Seven Seals of Hell?”
She nodded and then glanced over her shoulder. “It’s not quite what you think as Hell is just another plane of existence. But witches have used the Seven Seals to lock away some pretty awful things, including the apocalypse. Having her as your mate is unfortunate.” She shrugged a shoulder and pulled her sleeves down over her hands. “You will have to protect her and her blood, and your children’s blood for the rest of your lives.”
Niko and Xavier shared a look. It was a lot to take in, but Piper was their mate.
“I fucking dare anyone to try and take her,” Xavier said.
Morgan smiled then and crossed her arms over her chest like she was cold, but maybe she was just tired. Witches used up mad amounts of energy. “Can you take me to see her?”
Niko looked to Xavier for the answer to that question and he was pleased as shit to have been given the opportunity to say no. There was a reason Niko was his best friend, the crazy white boy.
“Yeah, you can see her, but don’t bewitch her or anything like that.”
Morgan gave him a secret smile. “I wouldn’t dare try and bewitch your mate. I only do that to the single ladies.”
He blinked and then glanced at Niko who just grinned at him. “She’s not your average witch,” he told him.
Xavier packed up their stuff and gave the cleaners and witches a nod of thanks. The bodies were nothing more than ash that was being vacuumed up and the blood was completely removed from the carpets. They did good work. “How did you even meet this one?” he asked Niko.
“She and my sister were friends before Morgan’s parents moved to Portland. We stayed in touch. She came to Anastasia’s funeral.” Niko grabbed Piper’s purse from her desk and the demon books as they passed.
Shit, he’d had no idea they were that close. “Have I met her before?”
“I think you did at the funeral, but you’ve never stuck around when a witch showed up and I get why. That one who told us our mate would curse us was a bitch.”
Xavier shook his head and held the door open for Niko. “Well, she was right in a roundabout way.”
Piper was the best thing to ever happen to him though. Morgan’s warning didn’t scare him. Xavier would fight for her for the rest of his life if he had to and die happy.
Chapter Sixteen
Piper
The ride to the hospital was a blur. Somehow Caleb got her in right away with no wait time at all. It had to be the panicked Alpha voice and all the blood. She felt a bit woozy, but she just couldn’t stop thinking about those dead crocs.
Piper knew what a blood feud was; she’d studied enough of them. Her patron goddess was the goddess of justice and execution in Ancient Egypt after all. She wasn’t unused to the idea of death as Egyptians were all about it, but seeing it in real life was a whole other thing.
She knew her father had shot people before – criminals. And were the crocs any different? They’d tried to take her, or kill her…it wasn’t really clear, but she’d guess that her blood was more important than she was.
Xavier and Niko had killed those people though…for her. Part of her was horrified and the other part was insanely grateful. There wasn’t anything these three wouldn’t do for her. They were willing to risk their lives for love, just like Marc Antony did for Cleopatra.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked when she walked in, reading the chart. Then she took one look at Caleb and didn’t waste any time with pleasantries.
A nurse was called in and suddenly someone was placing an I.V. into Piper’s arm while the doctor cleaned the blood off her other arm. The cut was deep and it went from her wrist to inside her elbow, the entire length of her forearm, Piper was covered in blood and it hadn’t stopped yet. “Was this self-harm?” the doctor asked.
Piper shook her head, knowing anything Caleb said would be disregarded. “It was an accident. I was cutting a watermelon with a new, very sharp knife and slipped.” Thankfully the large slice looked like someone had slipped or it would have been more difficult to tell a convincing lie.
Caleb refused to let go of her hand and was generally in the way while everyone worked on her. The panic in his eyes, the fear he felt – she could feel it too. Piper didn’t once look away from him while the doctor gave the nurse orders and then started stitching her
up. She ordered a blood transfusion when Piper started to feel faint from all the blood loss.
Caleb was quietly losing his mind – she could see it. He needed her to be okay. “I’m going to be all right,” she told him. “It’s just a scratch.”
“I should have been there,” he whispered.
Piper squeezed his hand. “You can’t be everywhere.”
Then the doctor was giving them care instructions and Piper felt sleepy. They must have given her drugs. She just needed to rest her eyes.
When she opened them again the room was empty except for Caleb, the lights were off, and the beeping of the monitors was quiet. He was resting his head on her bed with his arm wrapped around her stomach, playing a game on his phone. “Hey,” she whispered, reaching out to stroke his hair back. Piper tried to get a look at what he was playing, but he turned it off the second she moved.
Caleb looked up and searched her face for a long time. His hands were shaking when he reached for her, and she could have sworn there were tears in his eyes.
“I’m going to be okay,” she reassured him. “It’s just a flesh wound.” The joke fell flat though when Caleb practically curled into himself to rest his head on her hand.
“When I got that text,” he said quietly. “I was terrified you’d be dead before I could get there.”
“But I’m not.” This big, burly man was practically crying because she’d gotten hurt. “Look Caleb, I’m not dead. You didn’t fail, and I know you won’t. Now come sit with me.”
She scooted over to make room for him, and she knew just how wrecked he was because he crawled into the tiny hospital bed without question, careful of her injury, and then wrapped his arms around her. Piper rested her head on his chest and sighed contentedly.
“I’ve always been too late,” he whispered into her hair. “If something happened to you…I’d probably go feral.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“Turn into a leopard and never turn back. Run wild in the wilderness until I die.”
Piper shuddered and snuggled into Caleb’s hard body. He held her close and rubbed his chin across the top of her hair, the bristles of his beard comforting. Somehow he was always so careful with her despite how big and strong he was. “That sounds awful,” she whispered.
“It would be better than living without you.”
Those words broke her heart and made her fall for him even harder. Piper turned in his arms and looked up at him. “I want you to turn me into a cat shifter.”
Caleb looked down at her in utter shock for a long time. The only sound was the monitors beeping and the noise of the hospital outside the door.
“What did you say?” he finally asked.
“I want to be a cat shifter, like you. And I want to move to Crescent City after this is all over. Because I love you.” Piper smiled up at him and almost laughed at the disbelief on his face. If she didn’t know how hard this whole mate thing had been for him she might have been offended.
The air whooshed out of him like it had been knocked from his chest. “Well, we can make the arrangements for the claiming ceremony.” Caleb sounded like he almost didn’t believe what he was saying.
Piper kissed him and his hands immediately buried into her hair. He kissed her like a dying man – as if this would be the last time he’d be able to communicate everything he was feeling into one action.
“I love you too, Piper,” he finally said. She knew how hard it was for him to admit such a thing out loud with real words, but she adored him for it.
She was overwhelmed by his feelings, by his love. But she was also wrapped up in them like they were a blanket and it warmed her soul. It took away her pain and Piper felt settled inside. She knew this was the right path for her – Caleb was right for her despite their rough beginning. He was hers, as were Xavier and Niko.
There was a knock at the door and Caleb growled in annoyance.
Piper laughed and told them to come in. She thought it would be just another nurse, or maybe Niko and Xavier, but it was a small blonde woman who smiled at her like she’d just woken up. It was oddly erotic.
“I said no bewitching Morgan!” Xavier complained from the hall.
Piper blinked in surprise when he and Niko came barreling in after the witch. So this was the infamous Morgan. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked.
“Don’t mind him,” Morgan said gently. “He’s still coming to terms with the fact that he doesn’t hate me.”
Piper laughed. Then Xavier and Niko were by her side, looking her over, asking her a million questions. “I’m fine,” she told them. “All stitched up and they’re running tests while the blood transfusion finishes.”
“Tell them you don’t need any more tests and you’re ready to be discharged,” Morgan said in that quiet, warm voice that had a surprising amount of steel hidden in it. “I’ll heal you the second we’re out of here.”
“You can do that? I didn’t know witches could heal.” Piper watched as the girl came over and took her hand, eyes staring off into the distance at nothing. Morgan looked like she was barely out of high school. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four, now shh. I need to make sure you’re healthy.” Then Morgan closed her eyes and Piper could feel something searching inside of her. It was warm and pleasant and gentle, but it still creeped her out.
“No poison in your blood and it looks like they replaced what you lost without issue. Nothing else hiding in there. Aside from the cut and the drugs they gave you, you’re perfectly healthy. The sooner we leave the better since we can’t protect you in public places like we can in a house. Though the Pride’s estate would be better as it’s already got a mess of protections rooted into the land and the foundations,” Morgan muttered.
“I’m not leaving Sacramento without talking to my dad,” Piper said firmly.
Morgan blinked and slowly came back to them. Then she took a step back and released Piper. “Of course not. Your father will agree to move so don’t stress about that.”
This girl…was strange. Piper didn’t want to simply believe her. It went against everything she knew, everything she was taught. How could one person hold so much power – how could they know so much?
Then a nurse came into the room with papers for Piper. It wasn’t much work to convince the nurse to release her. Per the time and date on her discharge papers, they’d only been at the hospital for a few hours. But getting all three of her leopards out of there? They were so busy fighting for the room to fuss over her she was getting suffocated.
“Enough,” she snapped. “No one touch me until we get to my apartment. I’m fully capable of walking on my own.”
All three of them grumbled but did as she asked, opening doors when they could and generally herding her from all angles. Morgan just wrapped her arms around herself with a smile and stayed close.
Once they were all loaded into the truck Morgan took her injured arm and muttered under her breath in a language that was familiar yet not.
It was like being submerged in a warm bath. All the aches and pains in her body disappeared and she felt completely relaxed. There was no remaining wooziness from the painkillers or any of the burning sensation from her arm.
Morgan sat back when she was finished, looking even more tired than she normally did. “I’ll have Jess pick me up at your apartment if that’s okay. I just wanted to meet you Piper and do what I could to help.”
Piper unraveled the bandages, almost scared to look, but her skin was whole. There was only a white line to show what had happened. Morgan had even removed the stitches from her body. It took her a few seconds to really register what she was seeing. Piper had to touch her skin and even then she hardly believed it.
“Thank you.” Piper threw her arms around Morgan and gave her a bear hug. Even the witch-leery shifters murmured their thanks.
“Let’s get you home so I can feed you, and you also need to call your dad,” Xavier told her.
Piper thanked Morgan again and took her purse from Xavier as Caleb pulled out of the hospital’s parking lot. When she took out her phone Morgan snagged it from her. Piper watched as the witch took out a little stick attached to a long necklace and then drew onto the back of her phone. A few words in Latin and she handed it back.
“A parting gift, Piper Kostopoulos. You’ll never have to charge your phone again.” Morgan closed her eyes after tucking the necklace with the stick and various other charms back under her sweater. It looked like she’d actually fallen asleep after a few minutes.
“Man, I could totally use that parting gift,” Niko muttered.
“It’s mine,” Piper teased. “Sorry, I’m not giving it to you.”
These people…they’d all barreled into her life, shoving into it and demanding room and her attention…Piper had hated it at first, but now it just felt right. Morgan had come all the way down from Portland just to make sure she was all right. Jess from Los Angeles, and then there was Eisheth.
How was she supposed to want normal ever again?
Piper supposed she didn’t have to as she looked at the suddenly full battery symbol on her phone. Tech magic…for a brief moment Piper wished she was a witch, but the responsibility seemed too much for her. She wanted to enjoy her mates and her life once they figured all this other stuff out.
She tapped her father’s contact, not looking forward to this conversation.
“Piper, is everything okay sweetie?”
“Dad, do you have time to come by my apartment tonight?”
The silence on the other end made her stomach flip-flop with nerves.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
“No, Dad, but I was. There was an incident earlier today at the library. Don’t worry, a witch, um…healed me.” Piper winced, knowing how ridiculous that sounded, especially to someone like her dad. “Could you come over? There’s something I want to ask you.”
“If it’s about working anymore the answer is definitely not. You aren’t going back there until this madness is over.”
