by Ophelia Bell
He nodded and crossed his arms, leaning back a little to scrutinize me again.
“What now?” I snapped.
“These so-called reasons you’re avoiding her aren’t putting her in danger, are they? Because if I find out you kept something from me, kept me from carrying out my duty to protect her, I can destroy you.”
“I’d never hurt her,” I said, and meant every word, though chances were if she found out the truth, she would never speak to me again.
28
Deva
The morning air chilled my nose and I burrowed deeper under the blankets, soaking up the warmth of the two bodies that bracketed mine. Rohan’s bigger frame was curled around me from behind, hugging me tight to his chest, while Bodhi’s arm cushioned both our heads and one of his legs threaded between mine. His other arm was slung over us almost protectively. In my early morning fugue I was only aware of a strange ache in my core brought on by a warmer wind that blew across my cheeks, rustling my hair with the scent of bergamot. With it came the unbidden memory . . . no, dream . . . I’d often had of Ozzie holding me with just as much protective zeal.
A faint, feathery rustling noise reached my ears with the breeze and roused me closer to wakefulness. Beside me, Bodhi seemed to rouse slightly too, then he lifted his head and sat up abruptly. “What the fuck?”
The ear-piercing screech of a bird of prey split the air, followed by the more pleasant sound of a sea bird. I jolted up, blinking at the pair of enormous birds that perched on the railing, shrouded in the chilly marine layer that surrounded us.
“Ozzie?” I croaked, still groggy from sleep. One of the birds was a hulking falcon that seemed to be glaring down at me. The other was a seagull huddled into itself against the cold wind that kicked up. “Llyr, is that you?” I knew satyrs could take animal forms but I’d never seen him shifted before.
The pair of them shimmered before my eyes and Bodhi cursed, scrambling backward when a pair of naked men stood before us where the birds had been.
“We’ve got shit to do, guys. Where’s Keagan?” Ozzie said.
“Jesus, you’re Ozzie West!” Bodhi stammered.
“In the flesh, man,” Ozzie muttered. “Sorry to ruin your snuggle. Actually, I take that back, I am not the least bit sorry to interrupt. We have a situation on our hands, Deva, and it’s high time we got to work fixing it. Get your pretty ass in gear.”
“Why the fuck are you naked on my widow’s walk?” Bodhi shot.
“Hazard of being a shifter,” Ozzie said. He fished around on the ground and tossed something to Llyr. “Get up and meet us downstairs,” he said, pulling on the pair of jeans Bodhi had worn the night before. Llyr slipped into Rohan’s clothes and a moment later they disappeared down the steps.
“Did he just steal our pants?” Bodhi asked, his voice shrill.
“Motherfuckers,” Rohan spat, sitting up and raking his fingers through his hair.
“Why did the drummer from Fate’s Fools just show up naked and steal my goddamn pants?” Bodhi asked, staring at both of us.
“Because he’s an asshole,” Rohan said. “Why do you think we didn’t invite him to the party last night? You knew Keagan and I are the other two thirds of the band, anyway, so why the surprise?”
“I know, but I guess it didn’t click until he was fucking right there,” Bodhi said, standing and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders.
“He doesn’t bite,” I said. “Even if Rohan’s right about him being an asshole.”
Rohan stood and stretched, as glorious and golden as the morning sun, which hadn’t seen fit to shine on us yet. I blinked up at him and then over to Bodhi who seemed completely dumbstruck by the mesmerizing sight of the naked dragon. I laughed.
“Come on. Let’s go see what he wants.”
“When did you last see the creatures that attacked Willem and Rohan?” Ozzie asked after breakfast. We all sat around the table at the Dylans’, Susannah and Maddie having insisted that we stay for breakfast.
“Last night. The one who bit Rohan was up on the roof with us, but I haven’t seen it so far in daylight in the last two days since it attacked Rohan. Sometimes they disappear during the day. How is Willem?” I’d intended to go back and check on him too, but knew Sandor would be doing what he needed. After seeing the second hound again last night right beside its companion, I had a feeling they moved in pairs and as long as Rohan was still linked to one, I guessed that Willem would still be linked to the other.
“About the same as Rohan,” Ozzie said. “But yesterday he believed he’d been cured. When I went by there this morning, the soul drain had returned.”
“That’s because the hounds were both here all day yesterday. There was something about Gus and Susannah’s wedding that fed them even more power than they could get from their new victims. But they never seemed hostile.” I added the last bit quickly, surprising myself by my need to defend the creatures.
“Why did you call them hounds?” Ozzie asked, leaning forward and scrutinizing me across the table.
“That’s just what I think of them as. Soul hounds. Why? Do you know what they are?”
Ozzie pushed his plate back and stood up. “Mrs. Dylan, thank you for breakfast, but we’d best be on our way if we’re going to get a handle on this situation. On behalf of all the higher races, I am truly sorry for the ordeal your family has been through. We plan to make things right.”
Susannah sat up straighter and gripped Gus’s hand in hers. “I’d have never found Gus if not for them. For that I am grateful. Those creatures, whatever they are, led me to my soul mate.”
Ozzie’s expression darkened. “Your soul mate, yes.” He darted an inscrutable look at me, then tapped a brief rhythm on the table before turning. Just that small, short beat made my heart race for some reason. I wanted to sing the song I’d written him last year but knew better than to belt it out now.
“Let’s go you guys. Willem and Sandor are meeting us at the house. I’ve got a plan, but we need the studio to carry it out.”
I followed him toward the door, giddy that we were moving forward, but also somehow feeling a little ineffectual that I wasn’t the one who’d made the plan. “What did you learn?” I asked on the way out. “Why now and not yesterday?”
“Sophia visited last night,” Ozzie said.
I stopped short, my skin going ice cold. Ozzie turned and frowned, then came back to rest his hands on my shoulders.
“Don’t worry, she’s on our side. She won’t tell your parents.”
“You’re sure?” I asked. Sophia was one of my parents’ oldest friends and despite the fact that she was sort of a grandmother to me, she terrified me even more than my dad. It was like she saw right through me when we were together . . . like she was judging me for my lack of a soul.
“I’m sure,” he said gently, then pulled me into his arms and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “She knows you’re the only one who can fix this. But she told me what we needed to know to actually get it done.”
“What did she say?” I asked, pulling away lest I beg him to never let me go.
He glanced back over his shoulder toward Susannah. “Not here. When we get home.”
Bodhi pushed ahead and opened the front door for us. “Let me help,” he said directing his gaze first to Ozzie, then to me. “These creatures hurt my family. I want to help take them down.”
“We don’t need a human under foot,” Keagan snapped. “Even if you are bloodline.”
Bodhi’s shoulders stiffened and he glared at Keagan. “You know we aren’t just human. There’s got to be something I can do.”
“Something to keep you close to Deva, you mean?” Keagan said, giving Bodhi a bitter look that made absolutely no sense to me. “Or is it Rohan you’re hot for?”
“Dude, chill,” Rohan said, gripping Keagan’s shoulder and squeezing. The ursa only eased a little.
Bodhi’s aura flashed with uncertainty bordering on outright fear when he took in Keagan’s expr
ession. “I didn’t know you had a thing for her too. I thought . . .”
“I don’t have a thing for Deva. I just don’t trust you.”
Ignoring Keagan’s outrage, Ozzie said, “Your family has turul magic, Bodhi. I can feel it here. Not as strong as in a turul house, but it’s here. I think we can use your help. Come on.”
Turning to Keagan he shoved a finger in his scruffy face. “You get your act together. You had your moment with her. It’s time to move on if it isn’t meant to be.”
Pushing through the wall of tense male flesh with Rohan tagging behind, I grabbed Bodhi by the hand. “Come on. The rest of you can get there however you choose but there isn’t room for this bullshit in my car.”
I stomped to the car and got in, stomach churning over the reaction Keagan had to Bodhi’s request. When I looked back at the porch, he was staring at us, his aura a distorted mix of anger and hurt. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was jealous, but that was impossible after how dismissive he was the other night.
“What the fuck was that about?” Bodhi asked as he slipped his seatbelt over his shoulder and Rohan slid into the back seat.
“Oh, he’s just in denial,” Rohan said. “Deva popped into our lives like a fucking gift from Fate two days ago and he’s having trouble adjusting to the idea of sharing her.” He snorted. “They all are, I think.”
“Sharing?” Bodhi asked. “All of you? So why are you the enlightened one here?”
I smacked my hands on the steering wheel and turned to glare at each of them. “Nobody is sharing me! And Fate doesn’t have fuck all to do with me being here.” My head rushed over the confusing display and Rohan’s impossible suggestion. “You guys need to stop wanting me, all right? I’m happy to be here for you, to share what little magic I am capable of sharing, but I am not mate material. I don’t have a soul and that’s pretty much a prerequisite to being someone’s soul mate. It just can’t happen.”
Bodhi and Rohan both stared back at me in shock. When I turned back around, the street ahead of me was blurry. I sniffled and grabbed the key in the ignition to turn it. Bodhi halted me with a hand over mine.
“Let me drive. You’re upset.”
I stared at him, then down at his long legs stretching out of a pair of cutoff jeans. His tanned calves sported a handful of tattoos as well. “You’re too tall,” I groused, then burst into tears at the reminder of Keagan in my driver’s seat the day we’d met, just before we’d fucked for the first time.
“Deva, it’s all right, baby,” Rohan said, reaching between the seats to grab my hand. The driver’s door opened and Bodhi pulled me into his arms, shushing me while he crouched on the pavement.
I sniffled against his warm brown skin, comforted by the scent of him and the soft brush of his dark hair against my cheek. “It isn’t that I don’t want you. It’s just so unfair. You deserve someone who can give you true happiness. Like Gus and Susannah have. Like my parents have. I’m never going to be able to give you that.”
“You don’t have to give us shit,” Bodhi said. “Let us take care of you, all right? You’re the one saving our fucking souls.”
He lifted me in his arms and opened the door to the backseat. The next thing I knew I was cradled in Rohan’s arms and the car was moving. I heard Rohan take a deep breath and I sat up and put a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t you dare use your magic on me, you aren’t strong enough!” He blinked once, then nodded, his brows drawn together. I cautiously removed my hand and slumped against him.
“I can’t stand to see you sad, Deva. I feel how lost you are. It hurts like hell and I just want to fix it. I need to fix it.
“You can’t fix me, Ro. I’m not broken. I was made this way.” The inevitability of my true nature sank in like a heavy stone, pulling me down with it and I collapsed into tears again. Rohan just wrapped his arms around me tight. After a few moments I registered his body shaking softly and realized he was crying too.
I remained in a haze of sadness, dimly aware of Rohan giving directions, his voice thick with tears while Bodhi drove. He kept his arms around me the entire time, and I was grateful for the tender contact despite the fact that he was as distraught as I was. It was an unfortunate trait of being a Gold. He was the embodiment of joy and reveled in hedonistic delights, but he could feel every drop of sadness around him with equal clarity as the happiness. By not allowing him to use his magic to improve my mood, I’d forced him to experience my despair right along with me.
When we pulled in through the gate to the house, I glanced up into a lovely face drawn with the agony of living through my own sadness.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His jaw twitched and his golden eyes grew glassy. “I had no idea that was how you felt,” he said. “I would do anything to fix it if I could. I hope you know this.”
“I don’t think it’s up to you. And I can’t keep falling in love with men like you because it hurts too much when you ultimately realize I can’t give you what you want.”
Bodhi opened the door for us and bent down, peering in with a concerned expression.
“Don’t fall in love with me, please?” I said to him, then looked back at Rohan. “Please don’t. You really shouldn’t love me.”
“I’m not sure if that’s within our control,” Bodhi said.
I stared up into his earnest, gray-green gaze, realizing that he meant it, and that he was giving me the exact same look as Rohan—the one that told me they were already too far gone. How long until they changed their minds like Ozzie? Told cruel lies to justify their abandonment like Llyr? Without a soul to share, I could never keep them, but I would damn sure save their souls.
Wiping my hand angrily across my face I hauled myself out of the car and pushed past Bodhi.
“Well, I plan to find some control over these fucking hounds. I want to find out what Ozzie learned.”
I swept across the driveway and pushed through the door into the studio where we’d left Ozzie with his drums the day before. Ozzie, Llyr, and Keagan were already there, plugging in amps and setting up gear. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that Willem and Sandor had joined them and were setting up a few instruments as well.
“Whoa,” Bodhi said, stopping in the doorway and gawking at them. “How the hell did you guys beat us here without a car?”
Llyr looked up from his task unwinding a power cord and abruptly popped out of existence, only to appear a split second later right behind Bodhi. He tapped him on the shoulder and grinned when Bodhi almost fell over in surprise.
“It’s called drifting,” Llyr explained. “It’s a nymphaea thing, but we can take passengers.” He grabbed Bodhi’s arm and they both disappeared and reappeared across the room in a patch of sunlight streaming in from one of the row of skylights that lit the place. Bodhi immediately doubled over and started retching.
“Llyr! At least warn the guy,” I said, rushing to Bodhi’s side. Bodhi held up his hand to stall me once he’d finished hurling up his breakfast, then stood up and wiped his mouth. Surprisingly he laughed.
“Holy shit! You can teleport! Fucking rad, man. But you owe me a meal after that shit. My grandma’s cooking shouldn’t be wasted out of hand.”
“And you’re cleaning it up,” I said, glaring at Llyr.
He made a twisting motion with his fingers and a tiny whirlpool appeared in the floor, sucking the puddle of vomit away. When it disappeared all that was left was pristine, polished wood.
“I fucking love it,” Bodhi said. “So, what’s the plan today?” He rubbed his hands together and glanced around the room, his eyes wide and eager.
Ozzie sat down at his drums, the clack of his sticks loud in the otherwise silent room. Everyone else seemed to be waiting too.
“We need to be able to see the damn things first, so we know what they are. Right now, Deva’s the only one who can see them, who can locate them when they’re in the room. My grandmother taught me a turul charm that’ll allow us to see t
hem too. It’s a song that’s meant to speak to our true nature, to attune us with the hidden magic. Unfortunately, I don’t have sheet music for it. You’ll have to pick it up by ear when I play the beat. The melody doesn’t matter as long as we’re all in sync. Choose your instruments.”
Rohan made a beeline for a guitar with a metallic gold finish while Keagan opened up an enormous case and fished out a mahogany instrument that was nearly as big a he was. The upright bass thrummed in a deep vibration when he plucked one of the strings.
“We have spares,” Ozzie said to Bodhi. “Llyr’s choice is brass. What’s your poison, man?”
I watched Bodhi, curious whether he’d pick up one of the other guitars or if he’d choose something different. He seemed to ponder the options for a moment before wandering over to the baby grand piano and settling on the bench. His long fingers danced across the keys, first playing a few scales before launching into a quick ragtime tune. When he stopped, Ozzie nodded, his brows raised as though he were impressed.
“What should I play?” I asked. I got the sense that each of them had chosen the instrument they were most adept at, but I had never played favorites. I loved anything that made music.
“Shit!” Sandor said, setting down his guitar and trotting back to the door where one last case stood. “I almost forgot. You left this behind. I think she belongs to you now.”
I took the case and opened it, thrilled to see the beautiful, shining black gloss of Agnes, the guitar I’d played two days before that had summoned the hounds to the store the first time. A winged silhouette was now etched in a matte finish to contrast with the gloss. “Thank you,” I said, slinging my free arm around Sandor in a quick hug.
He dipped his head. “With that voice of yours, and this baby, they won’t stand a chance.”
