Haven City Series Books 7-9: Alpha's Gamble (Haven City Series #7), Alpha Enchanted (Haven City Series #8), Alpha's Cage (Haven City Series #9)

by Zoe Perdita

  If Kian was here, why hadn’t he shown his presence to Felan after all these years? Unless Ari was right.

  Why should Kian want to see him?

  Felan sighed. “Thank you for taking care of him,” he whispered into the room.

  The lights flickered in their wall sconces, but no transparent figure walked through the wall and hugged him or hit him. However, the intensity of the gaze on his back lessened enough that he could leave without feeling like something was nagging at him.

  Well, not entirely at least.

  He locked the door behind him as he went.

  Felan spent the next two days ignoring his work and focusing on the Demon's Sword. It took him hours to find the books in the library that he needed. Mostly because it was a library curated by humans so the books in there were on folklore and not fact. But it was the best place to start since it kept him otherwise occupied. He had a small selection of actual shadow folk books in a special room, but those were texts from the middle ages of Europe, and he doubted they’d have the information he sought. The Mercer Library would, and Felan decided to check it out soon if he could get Ari to tag along with him.

  Nothing had happened to Ari since that night. No more burglaries or attacks. Perhaps it was a one off deal. The police didn’t act like it was going to happen again, but Ari was a bit twitchy when he mentioned his lead. And he did have someone else in his home (which was unusual for someone so anti-social).

  Felan slipped on his latex gloves and dove into the research like a scuba diver into the sea. The first few books he tried were on the historical excavation of Uruk and Nuzi, but he found no mention of the sword. Probably because the civilizations were too old. He moved on to a more modern Persian civilization and the excavation of Takht-e-Jamshid.

  His eyes stung by the time he found the first written account of it among the burial remains of a temple. Only, there were no photos of it, only a description.

  The Demon's Sword was in fact, a sword. It had a black blade with a hilt of rubies that shone like drops of blood (in the book’s words, not his own). It came from ancient Persia and belonged to Sij, the demon of destruction. It was said to be imbued with great magic, though none of the books explained how or what kind.

  However, nothing that fit that description had shown up in the crates Felan unpacked. There was no sword in the lot Ari brought home. He’d have remembered that.

  He was ready to call it a night. Go home and get a decent amount of sleep, for once, when the lights in the library cut out.

  Felan blinked in the total darkness. Since that portion of the library was in the basement, there was no secondary light to help him see. Even as a wolf, he needed a glimmer to lead the way.

  After a few minutes, the familiar buzz of power didn’t flicker back on. The room around him hung silent and still.

  It was already past closing for the library proper, but the staff was used to him staying down here to do research, and he knew they wouldn’t turn off the lights on him like that. Never had before, at least.

  Plus, none of the librarians smelled like this. It wasn’t anything particularly magic, but the hint of something sour lingered in the air. Unpleasant. And it hadn’t been there before.

  Slowly, Felan stood and moved away from the table he’d been sitting at. He never had to find his way out of here in the dark, but he’d spent enough time wandering these stacks, he was sure he could do it eventually. There were two exits: one for fire and one for the main library. The fire exit was closer than the other one.

  Plus, he’d get outside faster that way.

  He kept his ears perked, listening for anything out of the ordinary as he felt for the metal bookshelves that made up the stacks. They were cool to the touch, and he moved as quickly as he dared to avoid slamming his shin into a misplaced table or chair.

  The sour smell grew stronger, and it mingled with something sharp and acidic. Something he never wanted to smell at the place of his work. Not when it wasn’t a random piece of jewelry, at least.

  This was pure and deadly.

  Silver.

  Then, he heard a footstep and the squeak of leather.

  The alpha growled.

  Who the hell was hunting him?

  7

  To say Ari was having a bad few days was just about the biggest understatement of his life thus far.

  He half expected Cage to stay after Edward showed up with his little sister. She still had a cough, and he didn’t know where else to take her. Sure, Ari was still pissed at the alpha, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the mood to talk to him.

  Cage saying he was going to keep watch made Ari’s insides all fluttery. Ridiculous. He shouldn’t feel fluttery at all with that asshole.

  Especially after what Cage said.

  Not to mention he probably didn’t believe Kian was even there since he hadn’t seen him. Typical alpha with his head so far up his own ass he couldn’t trust anyone else to know anything. To be fair, that was probably the scholar part of him too.

  But, Ari shoved all that down and took the baby fox, Daisy, from Edward when they got into the exam room. He tried to keep it as professional looking as possible with a metal exam table and a sink for washing up. But he also lined it with shelves for storing the most commonly needed herbs and medicines in his practice.

  Edward had been there a number of times over the last few weeks, but his wide eyes still wandered over the items on the shelves. He slumped his shoulders and pulled out his phone. A moment later, the robotic voice rang across the small room.

  “Who was that alpha? Boyfriend?”

  Ari grimaced. “No. Not since. . . Never mind. Does she still have the same symptoms?”

  Edward gave him a sly grin, then nodded, his expression sobering. “Coughs more,” his phone said after he typed in his response.

  Ari hadn’t asked Edward how he’d lost his voice, but he figured it’d been violent from the way the young man acted. Not something he was born with. Poor kid. He was hardly eighteen, and he’d been given the terrible luck of losing the simplest means of communication and becoming the prime caretaker of an infant.

  But these were the kind of patients that needed his help the most. Ari might harp on some of the ones he knew could pay him for their care, but that was to balance out the fact that shadow folk like Edward couldn’t.

  Of course, he’d never tell someone like Ian Black that.

  Ari felt Daisy’s neck and looked into her throat. “I think it’s a simple infection. Not strep, which would mean you needed penicillin. I do have some, and it’s all natural, if you ever do need it. For this, I’m going to give her something else to soothe it. Otherwise, she’s just fussy. Some babies are.”

  Edward nodded, and he looked like he was fighting the urge to scowl.

  Ari handed him back the baby and got to work on the mixture. He was pleased his hands didn’t shake. It felt good to do something that required his whole attention for once to keep his mind from wandering where it shouldn’t. Like to the look in Felan’s eyes when he ran up to Ari at the door.

  Genuine worry painted across the alpha’s face same as it had been that morning.

  Ari understood that worry. He’d seen it on more shifter’s faces than he felt like counting. All worried sick for their mates. His stomach did that fluttery thing again, and he told it to stop.

  He cleared his throat and shook the little bottle he’d prepared. “If you don’t think you’re up to taking care of her right now, there’s no harm in it. I have plenty of friends who could take her in for a bit. Nothing permanent, and they’d take good care of her.”

  Edward’s scowl deepened. His fingers flew over the screen of his phone. “My sister. I take care of her!!! Don’t need rich friends!”

  Ari sighed. He got the sentiment without the need for extra punctuation, but he didn’t mention that. “Do you have someplace to stay?”

  “YES!” Edward typed, caps and all. The phone’s robotic voice didn’t add the empha
sis.

  Ari wasn’t sure he believed Edward, but arguing with him obviously wasn’t going to work. “Well, if you don’t, I have spare rooms here.”

  Edward narrowed his eyes and nodded, looking at his ratty sneakers.

  The herbal mixture must’ve worked, because Edward didn’t come back the next day. Neither did Cage.

  Ari told himself the latter was a good thing and pretended he didn’t feel comforted knowing his house was being protected from a distance by Cage’s pack and whoever else he could rope into the duty. He swore, at one point, he saw a lanky blond guy down the street who looked a lot like Quinn, but he decided to ignore it. If Cage wanted to get unicorns involved, so be it. Ari hadn’t asked for it.

  Instead, Ari went through everything he’d gotten and tried to figure out how it could be the Demon's Sword. Internet research didn’t help, and he wasn’t about to go to the university and see Cage about it, even if Cage knew something. He’d force Ari to sit down while he used that annoying scholarly voice (that wasn’t sexy at all) to explain it.

  There were shadow folk in town with better libraries, but he didn’t know them. And he suspected they wouldn’t let a healer pop in and have a look anyway.

  None of the other magic users Ari asked had any idea either, from the witch, Laura, down the street, to Seth, who Ari thought might have some insight due to him being a seer and a member of one of the old families, even if he was currently disgraced.

  Not to mention, he kept expecting Cage to barge in and tell him what he’d found, but no such luck.

  Nothing out of the ordinary happened at all, yet Ari felt like his skin was crawling. Waiting for a guillotine to drop and take his head off.

  Two days after the incident, Ari spent the day in his shop. Nothing out of the ordinary happened until around noon when he noticed a man in a black leather jacket waiting outside. The same man from the Montgomery estate sale.

  Ari watched from his counter as best he could without making it obvious.

  The man loitered across the street, glancing up and down like he was waiting for someone, before finally moving out of view.

  Ari cursed under his breath, and the door jingled to note the arrival of a customer.

  A young woman stepped in. Her hair was as pale as Seth’s, but her eyes were a cool blue instead of violet. She looked familiar as well. The woman in leather. Even with all the items in the shop crowding his senses, he got a surge of magic from her. Coolness.

  A mage, he guessed.

  Ice mage.

  Ari forced himself to smile. “Looking for something?”

  The woman didn’t seem to notice. “Maybe. I saw you at the estate sale. You got the last room. Is any of that stuff on sale now?”

  Ari’s smile hardened. She didn’t act like she was a threat, but there was no way that couldn’t change in a heartbeat. “It’s scattered around the shop if it was worth selling. Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  The woman’s lips pursed. “A sword with a ruby inlaid hilt.”

  Ari blinked. Well, she wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she was looking for this sword. Though, Ari knew for a fact he didn’t have anything like that. “That wasn’t in my haul. Sorry.”

  “Are you sure? It wasn’t in any of the other rooms either, and it’s important that I—”

  “I know what I bought. You’ll have to step out. I’m closing up for lunch,” he said and pointed at the door, eyes hard.

  The woman stared at him for a long moment, and his heart pounded. Would she chance using her magic in the middle of the day? Maybe, if this sword was that important to her.

  Finally, she shook her head and left.

  Ari let out a breath.

  Between this stupid sword business and all the time he was spending with Cage, he was going to get an ulcer if he wasn’t careful.

  That night, Ari locked up his shop late, mostly to keep an eye on the leather twins. They didn’t show up again, however.

  He usually closed at around seven, but with the summer tourist crowds he’d kept the shop open until nine. It was a Friday, and the street had been bustling with activity earlier. His shop was tucked at the end and slightly out of the way. It kept him from getting too many normal humans wandering inside who had no idea what they were buying. Though, he kept a few interesting and harmless things to catch their eyes. And he never sold something really magical to someone who didn’t know what it was.

  That was just bad business.

  By that time, the evening crowds had moved on, the activity on the street outside of his shop was subdued to a few early drunks stumbling home from the bars on Twenty-Fifth Street.

  Ari locked the front doors. Flipped the sign to ‘closed’ and moved into the back with the money from the register. He didn’t like to store it in the shop, if possible, but it was too late to deposit it in the bank without using the ATM. And no matter how much crime had gone down since Jin Yue took over the city’s criminal enterprises, he still didn’t want to chance it.

  Part of him considered going to Sullivan’s for a drink. Rory always gave him one drink on the house, and Ari could use it tonight. Plus, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let Rory know what had happened, if only so he’d tell his lover about it. Maybe get Jin Yue’s eyes on whoever was after this Demon's Sword thing.

  No matter how stubborn Ari might be, he knew he needed help. And he wasn’t about to go begging Cage for it. No way in hell.

  Ari stashed the cash in his hidden safe. Double checked his inventory list to make sure he’d marked off everything that sold that day, and got ready to leave out of the back when he heard the door click and creak open.

  He froze.

  His office was tucked into the hallway next to the entrance of the shop proper (and right next to the bathroom). The backdoor was at the other end of that hall, and it opened into an alley, one that led to a side street.

  If someone came in back there, they’d see him as soon as they walked past the office.

  Even worse, the back door was always kept locked. Ari had the only key. Though, from what Fisk said, keys and locks didn’t really matter to thieves.

  The only thing Ari had going for him was the fact that he had already turned off the office light (which meant he didn’t draw attention to himself), and that the breaker box was in the office with him. The alarm system ran off a different breaker, so he didn’t have to worry about cutting it if he cut the power. He flipped the switch. No way was he about to let someone come into his own shop and shoot him.

  The light in the hall flickered out, and Ari heard someone curse under their breath.

  The voice sounded male.

  And gruff.

  He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from yelling at the asshole and slipped out of the office. Into the shop. He closed the door and locked it behind him.

  The dim glow of street lamps filtered in through the blinds on the windows at the front of the shop, enough so that Ari could see where he was going. He also saw the shadows of a group of people who stood outside.

  They all wore black, and two of them stood in front of the doors.

  Shit!

  So the fucker in the back wasn’t working alone.

  Just his luck!

  Ari watched, his skin prickling with a mixture of horror and annoyance, as one of the figures outside threw something at the streetlamp. It exploded in a burst of sparks and went dark.

  Not what he needed right now.

  Without that light, Ari only had the ambient glow to see by, and it wasn’t much. If he were a shifter (ugh) he’d probably be able to see just fine.

  The guy in the back fiddled with the door to the shop, and it creaked open too.

  How the hell was he supposed to escape?

  He couldn’t even use his phone or someone would see the glow and no doubt hear something.

  Screwed didn’t even cover it.

  Especially since his shop didn’t have a convenient ghost wolf to protect him. Though, in
truth, Kian hadn’t been much more than a lingering presence since that morning with the foxes. He’d left the ghost lantern home for a few days, but Kian never gravitated toward it. Never came when Ari called him. That day, Ari took it to the shop just to see if it glowed as brightly there as it did at the Victorian.

  Was Kian hiding from him now because of what he’d done with Cage?

  That thought hung around his mind for the last few days no matter how hard he tried to expel it. He couldn’t worry about it now. He needed to think in order to get out of here without dying and joining Kian far sooner than he ever meant to.

  Too bad Cage’s pack wasn’t also trailing him or this never would’ve happened.

  No time to think about that either.

  Not when the ambling heft of the guy at the backdoor moved closer to him with each second.

  Ari scrambled by a few display cases and ducked around the corner, dropping low and trying to keep an eye on both of the intruders at once.

  Not easy at all.

  Especially when the ones at the door were messing with the lock, and one of them had what looked like a brick. If they tossed that into his window, he wasn’t sure how he’d keep himself from jumping up and yelling at them.

  Who cared if insurance would cover it? It was the principle of the thing!

  Backdoor guy stopped moving like he noticed the people out front.

  Weren’t they working together? If so, backdoor guy should’ve gone and picked the locks for them and let them inside. That’s what Ari figured. But maybe he was wrong, and they came here separately. What bad timing on their part. And he just happened to have the shittiest luck in the world to be there to deal with it.

  He’d have laughed if his heart didn’t feel ready to pound out of his chest.

  Instead, Ari sucked in a shallow, steadying breath and forced himself to think about the layout of the shop. He’d walked those aisles every day for years. He knew where everything was, including the things that might help him escape.

  There were weapons, swords and spears, mostly ornamental, on the other side of the store (of course). But there was no way he could creep over there and get them without being spotted.