by Jess Haines
“I think I do. I saved his life, remember? I know how much he thinks he owes me, even after I told him he doesn’t.”
That got me an over-the-shoulder glance. Her lips quirked in a thin smile. “No wonder he loves you.”
Without another word, she slipped out into the cold, a swirl of snow trailing in her wake.
Chapter Eighteen
Angus looked like the kind of guy who could strangle you with his beard and grind your bones with his teeth. Every part of him not covered in scars was matted with curly red hair. Built like a brick shithouse, he would have been formidable even without the strength of a vampire coursing through his veins. This was not someone I wanted to mess around with.
“Blast and be damned with ye, woman,” he snarled down at Kumiho, who was glaring up at him with her hands on her hips. She showed not a bit of fear for his great size or bared fangs, nor did she show the slightest hesitation as she went toe to toe with him until their chests nearly touched. “I’ll be the one what decides who goes on the raid, and that’s final!”
“My home, my territory, my rules,” she snapped back at him. “I was promised a feed in return for my services. Are you giving me one of yours?” Those strange, orange eyes flicked to one side, focusing on a young mage who blanched under her hungry scrutiny. “I’ll be happy to take one of them in payment instead—”
A fist the size of a dinner plate struck the counter with a resounding thump, blocking her path to the mage. “Haud yer wheesht, ye bloody besom! Ye’ll do nae such thing.”
Man, I was glad he was on my side.
Arnold stood by my side, practically vibrating with tension. There were half a dozen magi with him, all of them nervously watching the vampires and doing their best to keep their distance from Kumiho. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I wasn’t terribly familiar with his coworkers from The Circle. He never brought them along on any of our social outings. I had the feeling he didn’t get along with many of them outside of the professional relationship he was forced to maintain to do his job as head of security of the coven.
As for the vampires, I knew Angus but had never met any of the others. There were over a dozen of them, and they and the group of magi had arrived in a trailing convoy of matching black SUVs less than an hour ago. Kumiho had dropped off some supplies and new clothes for me before picking them up at the airport, leading them back here just in time to avoid the first rays of the rising sun.
It hadn’t taken long for the arguments to start.
Angus had been given the instruction to keep me away from the coming battle at all costs. Kumiho, on the other hand, had been promised violence, and babysitting me or not, she wouldn’t be denied. She wouldn’t leave me here, but Angus didn’t want me to come with them, even if I stayed in the car or at the fringes of the fight. They had been arguing almost nonstop since they arrived, neither one backing down, both unwilling to find some kind of compromise.
Not that I had much clue what might work as a compromise in this case, but anything had to be better than those two coming to blows. The house and everyone in it probably wouldn’t survive the battle.
I had started to open my mouth, but the two of them had both turned to look at me, and that had been sufficient to get me to shut my jaw with a snap.
As Angus and Kumiho argued in the too-crowded kitchen, Arnold touched my arm and gestured me aside. The other magi followed after us as we made our way to the living room, the vampires lounging against the walls all watching us go with hungry eyes.
Once we had a little distance from the arguing Others, I gave Arnold the hug I hadn’t had a chance to when he had first arrived. Though a bit startled by me throwing my arms around him, he was soon returning the gesture, blowing a shuddering sigh into my hair.
“Oh, Shia,” he whispered, his voice breaking, “I never should have let you and Sara leave New York. Or I should have gone with you. I’ve got to get her back.”
I tightened my grip on him a little, trying to will into him a sense of comfort I didn’t feel. Then I leaned back to meet his green eyes, misting up behind the thick Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses. “I’m sorry, Arnold. It’s my fault she was taken. That necromancer is probably the only reason she’s still alive.”
He grimaced, pulling back and turning away. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you in time. When you called, I mean. Not that I could have done anything about it from across the country. At least that thing isn’t here.”
Clearing my throat, I shuffled aside a few steps to sit on the arm of the couch, rubbing the back of my neck. “Um ...about that . . .”
“Shit. Don’t tell me we’re fighting a necromancer, too,” one of the other magi said, his voice high and squeaky with fear.
Arnold lifted a hand to rub the bridge of his nose, dislodging his glasses and his grimace deepening. “Fuck,” he said, summing up my feelings in a nutshell.
“Sorry,” I replied lamely, knowing it was inadequate. There were no words to make any of this mess easier to deal with. “He’s on our side. Sort of. He’s got an agenda, but I have no idea what it is. Before I got out, he made it sound like he wanted to help us. And Sara told me he was doing what he could to protect her.”
Arnold and the others all had varying expressions of disbelief. I hoped I was right. Gideon wasn’t on any side but his own, but whatever his goals were concerning Max, I thought they might align with ours to one degree or another.
Granted, he would probably turn on us the moment we ceased to be useful to him, but having a necromancer on our side, even if only temporarily, might make the difference between Max walking away from this coup—or being left behind in pieces.
Since the magi were already nervous from being outnumbered and trapped in a house all day with a flock of hungry vampires, I thought I might try distracting them from their added worries about the necromancer with some social niceties.
“Let’s not worry about that right now. Will you introduce me to your friends? I don’t think we’ve met.”
With a start, Arnold gave me a wan smile. “Sorry, I must still be jetlagged. Everybody, this is Shiarra Waynest.” The six magi inclined their heads, one of the two women giving me a shy finger-wave. “Shia, meet Xander, Kim—”
“Kimberly,” she said, giving me a lopsided smile.
Considering she shared a name with the woman Chaz had been sleeping with behind my back, I did my best not to instantly hate her. She was just a kid: young, fresh-faced, and innocent. I had to wonder what she was bringing to the table in this fight and hoped to God Arnold knew what he was doing when he invited her along for the party.
“Yes, right. Kimberly, Jacob, Connor, Lucas, and Bonnie.”
I shook hands all around, though when Bonnie’s fingers slid over my own, she gasped and tightened her grip. “You didn’t say you were hurt. Sit down, let me see what I can do.”
Arnold’s expression shifted to one of concern. The other magi gathered around the couch as Bonnie ignored my halfhearted protests and made me settle in the cushions. She placed a hand a few inches above my heart. Her eyelids fell to half-mast as a fae light deep inside her irises stirred to life.
A pins-and-needles tingle bit into my skin below her hand, spreading into a bone-deep warmth that was like a soothing balm to my sore, aching muscles. Bonnie’s look of concentration became a wince when the warmth hit the brand. I blew out a little hiss of pain, surprised by the pangs of hunger hitting me, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t handle it. The magi exchanged looks among themselves, some of them shifting their weight awkwardly. Though she didn’t stop whatever she was doing, the burn on my hip grew into a brief, intense itch before fading. Then it continued down, easing the aches in my legs, ankles, and feet.
The hunger, though. That was becoming a problem.
With a gasp, she withdrew, a bit pale and drawn. The tingles cut off so abruptly that I winced. Her eyes had turned a bright green, lit with a fae glow, alive with the magic in her blood. The smell of it was l
ike a taint—strong, too near, sweet and corrupt at once. Some part of me wanted to bathe in it, destroy the source. The rest of me wanted to drink it down until nothing was left, and I felt fangs and claws extend despite my best efforts to hold them back.
My stomach had never felt so empty. A low growl rumbled in my throat as I fought the urge to launch myself off the couch toward the nearest source of warmth and drumming life, beating a faster and faster rhythm as the prey realized it was far too close to a hungry predator.
“Shia?”
Arnold’s voice. Questioning. Frightened.
Familiar. I latched onto it. A reminder that I didn’t need to be a monster.
“Food,” I said, clutching my stomach, feeling the bite of my own claws. I gasped and lisped around fangs. “I ... meat, blood, anything ... now!”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Kumiho’s voice. Something hot was pressed into my hands. The scent of herbs wafted from the bowl of broth. I drank it down, not caring it was burning my tongue. “Bloody idiot magi! You trying to get yourselves killed?”
“I didn’t know she wasn’t human,” Bonnie said, stung and defensive. “They told me she was human! That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Yes, well, you use up a hybrid’s reserves, you can expect them to seek sustenance wherever they can get it. Give her some space.”
The broth helped. It wasn’t meat or blood, but it was hot and substantial enough to dull the edge of the hunger. When I lifted my gaze, peering over the edge of the bowl, the magi had moved away and were staring down at me with varying expressions of fear and fascination.
Arnold was the hardest to face. There was pity there. Pity for me. Whatever I was now.
I looked away first.
“Rhathos said nothing about a half-breed,” one of the vampires said, his eyes gleaming red as he spat out that pronouncement around growing fangs. He had an accent I couldn’t place, speaking almost in singsong and rolling his “R”s. Combined with his sharp, pixie-like features and wispy reddish-blond hair, it made it really hard to take him seriously. “We should kill her.”
Well . . . maybe not.
Angus scowled, turning a newly appraising gaze in my direction. “That’s not for us to decide, lad.”
Too bad he didn’t sound like he believed it.
The other vampire was still coming my way.
I didn’t have the energy or the inclination to get in a pissing match with an Other I didn’t know, but he was moving in my direction with obvious intent. Arnold and a couple of the other magi made a few sounds of protest, but none of them looked willing to get in the guy’s way. With a snarl of warning, I braced myself to get up, but Kumiho put a hand on my shoulder to keep me from rising.
“Knock it off, both of you! Fane, you know better.”
The vampire bowed his head and took a step back, though his jewel-bright eyes remained focused on me with a depth of hatred that seemed far too intense, considering we’d just met and hadn’t even officially exchanged names yet. That had to be a record even for me.
Kumiho then looked down to me, her eyes gleaming that odd, burnished orange that startled me badly enough to flinch and look away. She didn’t have to say a thing.
“We’ll fix this,” Arnold said, with such conviction I almost believed it. “When we get back to New York, I’ve got some things we can try. I found a few texts. There’s got to be a way.”
“With so much fresh blood so close? Good luck,” Kumiho muttered, sarcasm threading her voice.
Keeping a wary eye on Fane, I levered to my feet. “Fighting each other isn’t going to solve anything. Can we all get some rest and save the testosterone for tonight? Please? I want my friends to get out of that place alive, and you’re all I’ve got.”
Though Fane was still looking at me like I was the Antichrist, he gave me a tight nod. The others soon followed suit, their postures relaxing, eyes no longer gleaming red. Kimberly mouthed “thank you” at me, her grateful expression telling me all I needed to know. Magi might be capable of wielding arcane power, but they were nowhere near as fast as vampires and their parts were easily squished. If they weren’t careful, they could end up on the menu if one of the vampires got peckish.
Having been in her shoes, I knew exactly how she felt.
Chapter Nineteen
After settling the vampires and magi, Kumiho dragged me along with her into her candy shop-cum-bedroom as she made phone calls, changed clothes, and sent a particularly savage all-caps text message to Royce telling him to kindly go fuck himself if he thought he could renege on their bargain. If he replied, I didn’t see it.
While she was busy texting or e-mailing or doing whatever on her phone, I peered at the brand again. It didn’t hurt anymore. The skin was shiny and smooth, pinkish at the edges instead of a raw red. Like it had happened months ago, not less than twenty-four hours. All my other little hurts had faded away, even the world-class blisters on my feet.
“Fane is a problem. Until my agreement is fulfilled, there will be no walls or doors between us.”
I started, then adjusted my shirt and pants to cover the mark. That out of the way, I folded my arms, frowning at her. “That seems a little unnecessary. I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, but seeing as there is still enough humanity in you to be controlled by another Other, I won’t take the risk of him calling you where I can’t see so he can finish what he started.”
That sent an icy pang of dread through me. Even if Max didn’t always succeed at forcing me to do things against my will, I had enough experience with vampires messing with my thoughts to know just how dangerous Fane was to me. All it would take would be a moment of distraction, just long enough for him to slip close and slit my throat.
Shoulders slumping, I dropped the posturing and gestured in the general direction of the living room. “This is crazy. I have to go back there, but I can’t even trust my own allies not to stab me in the back on the way out.”
“That’s vampires for you, kid,” she replied. “Avoid the temptation to drink, and you might live a few nights longer. Oh, and speaking of crazy, I’m going to tell you now so you don’t run off when we’re in the thick of things. No matter what you see, remember that my first priority is to protect you.”
“What, you mean if you cast some hocus-pocus or take off your skin-suit or something?” I grinned, but it faded pretty quickly when she nodded too vehemently for me to believe she understood I was joking.
“That, and I want you to remember that I am very aware of what I am doing when I am not as you see me now. I have greater mental faculties than Weres do when shifted. I will never do you harm, and for as long as we are allies you will never have a reason to run from me, no matter what you might see me do to others. And I will take my due.”
Recollection of her talk about “feeding” made my stomach turn. I could have guessed what she was talking about before, thinking she might be some kind of vampire demanding blood as payment, but she had gone out in daylight to run errands. Her touch was hot, not cold. She ate human food with me, and she admitted to having some other form, though she wasn’t Were.
Whatever it was she planned on eating, it wasn’t going to be pretty. Was her price for helping me save Sara the life of a human? A vampire? Maybe it didn’t matter, but a sick, twisted part of me was curious. Even still, I didn’t dare ask.
I may not have been able to say the words out loud, but I knew that by going back there I was condoning the death—most likely an ugly, brutal, painful death—of one or more of Max’s men. Not because they were fighting to protect Max’s home and assets, but because I chose to go back, eyes open, knowing it was the bare minimum price to be paid.
It wouldn’t be the first life I was responsible for ending, directly or indirectly, but somehow this felt like I was letting go of some important aspect of my humanity. Taking a life to buy the freedom of another. Several others, really.
It might have made me cold, it might have made me ugly, and
it might have made me a monster, but in the long run I would be saving lives. If I could cling to that thought, maybe I would be able to live with myself when this was over.
“Get some rest while you can,” Kumiho said.
She pulled a cord, loosening some thick curtains that turned the room from a cheerful sunlit space into a twilit haven full of shadows. In the dark, her eyes glinted orange and her shadow seemed ... different. Dangerous. Like it didn’t match the shape of her petite frame, like it hinted at more limbs than she had.
Her shadow reminded me of jack-o’-lanterns and their silent, grisly smiles flickering with dim light on Halloween nights. Maybe that was a glimpse at what she would look like when she wasn’t human. Maybe that was the thing hiding under her skin, masquerading as a person. A bit of niggling doubt told me that the instincts screaming at me to put as much distance between us as possible might be on to something.
She plopped down on her bed, sinking into the thick comforter, then patted the spot beside her. Swallowing hard, I rolled my shoulders and flexed my hands in an effort to get rid of some of the building tension in my muscles, but the knots only grew tighter.
She wasn’t Max. She wasn’t going to hurt me. I knew it, but I couldn’t fight the unreasoning fear of her that sprang up at the sight of those strange shadows.
“Remember, I am no danger to you.”
I nodded, willing myself to believe it. I forced myself to take the few steps necessary to join her, settling into the other side of the bed and curling up so I wouldn’t have to face her.
Every movement, every shift of her weight and breathy sigh made my hackles raise. Fane had already gotten my blood pressure up, bringing out the beast lurking inside me and all of the hidden instincts and desires that entailed. Beyond the room, I sensed warmth and life, the pounding of several hearts, and the unnatural cold of creatures that had something almost as sweet under their skin.
My fingers twitched with the desire to let the claws come out so I could properly hunt. The soup sat heavy in my stomach, alleviating the worst of my hunger but not dulling the desire to have something more like hot copper filling my mouth and throat.
