Xandrie obliged and everyone piled out of the car. No one moved, all waiting for Jane’s say so.
She took a breath and looked at each of the three friends in the darkness. “Over that hill is the oldest, most powerful vampire I’ve ever encountered. He will fuck with you in ways you can’t imagine. He’ll mess with your head so much you won’t remember why you’re here. If you let him. His charms will overwhelm you. Guard against them. The last time I was here the grounds were littered with spells and memory sigils. I barely made it out of his reach. In fact, I wouldn’t have made it out at all if someone hadn’t dragged me out the rest of the way. If any of you want to go back, I won’t hold it against you. Now’s your chance to say so.”
The fae, vamp, and wolf all looked at the witch who housed a demon like she’d lost her mind.
“We’re going with you,” said Xan.
“Yeah, you don’t get to have all the fun around here,” said Jake.
“This is the most excitement I’ve had in a lifetime,” Theron said, violet eyes gleaming in the darkness.
“You’re not getting rid of us that easy.” Xandrie gave Jane’s shoulder a squeeze and turned the question around. “What about you. Do you still want to go through with this?”
“You bet your fucking ass I do.”
3
Jane tried to swallow the nausea and acid burning at the back of her throat.
The forest was exactly the same, the smell of damp earth and pine needles, the sound of crickets and catbirds. Every detail of the night she escaped came crashing back as she navigated through the thick ground cover and spindly pine trees. Branches snapped under her boots as Jane forced her body to move forward though every instinct within her tried to keep her away from the place she’d escaped.
“This way,” she whispered to the others and veered away from an opening in the trail. Each step clenched at Jane’s stomach, forcing so much bile into her throat she’d no doubt puke in the brush and be forced to meet her captor with vomit on her breath.
But she pushed on until they reached the bottom of the hill.
Jane shook her head. “Something’s not right. It shouldn’t have been that easy.”
“From the looks of you, it wasn’t that easy,” Xan said. “You’re kind of green and sweaty.”
Jane wiped the sweat from her hairline with the back of her hand. “I’m fine.”
“You should take a minute to rest,” said Jake.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Theron said.
Jane sighed. “You’re all missing the point. I’m nervous and nauseated, to be expected, right?”
“It was a traumatic experience,” said Xandrie.
“Wrong. I should have been too busy fighting through layers of Droshin’s magic to notice.”
None of them understood what Jane was getting at.
“Look, the last time I was here I barely made it out alive. I collapsed before I made it passed the boundary of all the crazy-making magic Droshin spider-webbed through the forest. It was too much. I passed out. But I got lucky. Some lady dragged me out the rest of the way.”
What was her name? Jane shook her head, trying to shake loose the name of the woman who’d saved her.
“That’s terrible,” said Xandrie.
“Yeah, it was a bad day. But what I’m saying is, we shouldn’t have made it this far at all. Not without getting caught in a web of spells and sigils designed to disorient and make us forget our own goddamn names.”
What WAS that woman’s name?!
Xan looked at the ground. “Jane, do you think...”
Jane cut the blue-haired fae off with a wave of her hand. She didn’t want the words said out loud. Not until she was sure.
“Come on, follow me.”
The foursome climbed the hill overgrown with thorny thickets of raspberries and creeping vines, each one silent save the cracking of dead twigs underfoot. When they reached the top of the steep hill, the entrance gate to the compound came into view. A once stately wrought iron gate with curving spires and winding embellishments stood between Jane and the house that had been her prison.
As familiar as the sounds and scents of the forest were to Jane, the sight of Droshin’s compound was shocking and alien. The entrance gate hung loose, unhinged and swaying, the surrounding wall overrun with vines and dead leaves. The stone walkway broken and loose, wildflowers pushing their way through the cracks and divots of each paver.
“He’s gone,” whispered Jane.
She pushed through the gate, brushing away a silvery, non-magical spiderweb. The rock in her gut dissolved as she took in the state of the compound.
“Are you sure? What if this is an illusion? What if he’s hiding behind it?”
Jane shook her head. “He’s not here,” Jane said and pointed her boot at the stone paver in front of them.
Scratched into the stone was a message.
Two words.
Find me.
Written in Droshin’s telltale calligraphy.
“Motherfucker,” whispered Jane.
4
“Zora! That was her name.” Jane said from the front seat of Theron’s SUV as the foursome drove back to the mansion.
Jake grunted. “How do you know that slut?”
“Jake!” Xandrie said, disbelief on her delicate features.
“JAKE! I know we’ve talked about not calling women sluts. What happened to ‘it’s your pussy’? Huh? You said those very words to me when I—”
Jake cut her off. “You’re not a slut. She is.”
“JAKE!” This time both women yelled at the wolf.
Jane twisted in the front seat to lay into him about women being autonomous and capable of making their own decisions about who, when and how many to sleep with but hesitated when she caught sight of Jake’s twitching jaw.
Teeth clenched he grumbled, “She’s the reason Amari is dead.”
Jane froze. Jake hadn’t said anything about Amari since the man died. Not to Jane at least. But Jake always said Amari was a good leader, good for The Circle, and good to him specifically.
“She pussy-whipped him into a goddamn face-off with Gunnar because she had to publish that stupid book of hers.”
Xandrie slammed the car to a halt, screeching the tires and throwing everyone but herself three feet forward. “That’s NOT the whole story, Jake, and you fucking know it.” Xandrie’s even, cold tone sent a single shiver up Jane’s spine.
Xan had her serious face on.
Jake crossed his arms and set his jaw, much like a toddler. A giant one.
Theron didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He straightened his shirt and pointed his gaze out the window.
“Zora was trying to fix all the broken shit in The Circle. All the shit that Amari didn’t care about because he was turning a profit on it.”
“That’s NOT true!” Jake’s roar filled the cabin of Theron’s SUV, shaking the windows and the unbuckled seat belts.
Xan leveled an unflinching gaze on him.
Not good in wolf culture. “Um, Xan... maybe don’t push him about this,” said Jane.
Xandrie didn’t break eye contact, she held Jake’s amber eyes with her own over-sized irises.
“Seriously, Xan. I wouldn’t—”
“Why is it so hard for you to wrap your thick skull around the notion that Amari wasn’t perfect? He did a lot for The Circle, yes, but he turned a blind eye to enthrallment and energy imbalance because it gave The Laughing Cat a corner market.”
“THAT’S NOT WHY HE DID IT!” Jake roared and threw open the door, bounding out of the SUV in one smooth motion. “And your fae ethics would never understand what he did for this place.”
“Is that so?” Xan got out of the SUV, slow and deliberate, and put her five foot eight inch, medium build frame, toe to toe with the massive shifter. “And why do you think Amari was so blameless in all of the goings on of The Circle? He could have kept Gunnar from doing the damage
he did, instead, he worked with him.”
Jake’s chest and biceps rippled as he leapt forward, just shy of Xandrie. He shifted into a giant silver wolf mid-air and landed in a low crouch.
Xan spun on the ball of her foot meeting the wolf eye to eye.
“Theron! They’re going to hurt each other. Stop them!” said Jane.
“Little one, I have no desire to interfere with the problems those two have.”
“But you’ll happily watch them tear each other apart?”
Theron shrugged. “Cheaper than a movie.”
Jane’s green magic was no match for either of them. And she wasn’t about to show her cards by using the demon’s magic on them. She didn’t want to seriously hurt them. Or turn them into peacocks. And, they might try to talk her out of using it all together.
So Jane watched as the two people she was closest to in the world battled each other because the third person she was closest to wouldn’t intervene.
Which was exactly why Theron got third place.
Xandrie hopped into a lower stance, spreading her legs and bending her knees to drop her center of gravity. “You really want to do this Jake?” Xan conjured a small blue ball of energy in her left hand. “I’ve got magic older than time itself, ya big oaf. Get yourself together and let’s go home.”
Jake snarled, muzzle wrinkling up to show every one of his teeth.
“This is your last warning, Jake. I’m not pulling any punches here.”
Jake lunged forward, aimed right at Xandrie’s throat.
“NO!” screamed Jane.
In the split second it took for Jake to launch off the ground and connect with Xan’s jugular, the blue-haired fae did something that surprised Jane the way few people could.
Xandrie turned to face Jane and gave her a quick wink.
Then she jumped up from her low crouch, swinging her fist full of blue magic wide and hard into Jake’s throat.
Jane flinched at the yowl that tore from Jake’s throat.
He fell to the ground in a crumpled heap of limbs and fur. Xandrie dusted off her hands and climbed back into the driver’s seat.
She started the engine, leaving Jake’s wolf body in the middle of Warren Forest.
“What the fuck Xandrie?”
“Oh don’t look at me like that,” Xan said, eyes still on the road. “He’ll be fine.”
Jane let out a heavy shuddering sigh. “I thought you killed him.”
“Gods no! I just knocked him out for a while. It’ll also be a few hours before he can shift back to human, but that’s what he gets for lunging at me.” Xandrie put a pretend pout on her face. “He could have seriously hurt me.”
“I doubt that.” Jane eyed the woman she didn’t really know that much about. “I didn’t know you had that kind of juice.”
“I do when I need to.”
Xandrie wasn’t in the habit of being cryptic. But that sentence rubbed Jane exactly the wrong way. “What’s going on with you two? Why the hell did it get so far so fast?”
“It’s really complicated,” Xandrie said.
“Why don’t you un-complicate it for me?”
5
Like the pins of a tumbler sliding into place, unlocking a door Jane didn’t know existed, she felt a shift within her. Something clicked.
This will help. The demon said to Jane’s mind.
Jane had no time to respond before she felt what the demon meant.
Where to begin? How much should I tell her? I don’t want to tell her Jake’s business, but she’s being kind of a brat about it.
Jane stifled the urge to complain about being called a brat in Xan’s thoughts.
This was another secret power she was keeping to herself.
Mind-reading?
Fuck yes.
“You’ll have to ask Jake,” replied Xandrie.
“Well, I would. But someone left him in unconscious in the woods. So that’s not an option.”
Xandrie pressed her lips together.
“Look, just tell me what you’re comfortable with, OK?”
Xan sighed. “Amari did a lot of good for The Circle. But he was into some seriously shady shit. He intentionally kept the energy imbalance among practitioners because it helped his cause with the local wolf pack, who just happened to supply the brute strength needed to keep everyone at his bar in check because the energy was so fucked up.”
Jane saw what Xan was getting at. It was a circular problem that Amari kept feeding.
“Jake refuses to see Amari as anything but a hero on a pedestal because Jake became the local Alpha primarily because of Amari’s backing.” But Jake only wanted to be Alpha to save his mate.
Jane didn’t know what Jake’s dead mate had to do with anything.
She picked around the question. “Jake doesn’t seem like the kind to seek out the alpha spot.”
He’s not. Xan thought.
Better not push it too far, witch. Your friend has glorious mental shielding. It’s ancient and exquisite magic, the likes of which I haven’t felt in quite some time. Nevertheless, she will feel you stomping about in there if you don’t get out now.
Jane willed herself to separate from Xandrie’s thoughts, and just as easily as the pins in Jane’s metaphysical tumbler had fallen into place, unlocking the door to Xan’s mind, they sprung back into their locked position.
Xan wiggled in her seat and Jane watched gooseflesh rise on the fae woman’s arms. “Did you feel that?”
Jane shook her head no and leveled with Xan. “Look, I don’t really care about the issues The Circle used to have. I fixed them when I released the magic. I also don’t care about whatever issues you and Jake have, providing they don’t get in the way of saving those girls.”
“And killing Droshin,” Xan added.
“That too.”
“Got it. They won’t. I think Jake learned his lesson.”
Jane nodded and changed the subject. “Do you know where Zora lives?”
“The west side, I think, why?”
I was Jane’s turn to be cryptic. “Because. Mind dropping me off there?”
“Sure thing.”
Jane turned around to see if Theron minded the pit stop but the vamp was snoring, head leaning against the window and mouth open. Jane smiled at him. “We really do bore you, don’t we?”
“He’s been around a long time. He’s seen everything. Except you.”
Jane and Xandrie rode in silence past the newly rebuilt and reopened Laughing Cat, past the studio Jane barely stayed in anymore because she slept at Theron’s most nights, to the snootier, affluent west part of The Circle.
“I think it’s this one,” said Xan when she pulled in front of a towering condominium complex.
“I think so, too. Thank you,” Jane said as she hopped out of the SUV. “Tell Theron I’ll be home later.”
Xan nodded and sped off.
Jane climbed the cement stairs and nodded at the doorman holding the vestibule door for her. “Thanks,” she mumbled as she walked into the atrium of the building.
Jane didn’t remember a doorman the last time she was at Zora’s. Then again, she’d been malnourished, exhausted, and sick from Droshin’s magic infiltrating her system. There was a lot about the days she spent with Zora that Jane didn’t remember.
Jane’s boots clunked against the marble floor, making hollow, dense thuds, echoing as the sound reached the vaulted ceiling. She tried to step lighter, tried not to stick out so much as she caught the attention of the woman at the front desk.
“Can I help you?”
“No, thank you,” she said and continued to the elevator.
The woman behind the desk rose from her chair. “Ma’am, this is a secure building. You’ll need to have permission from a resident to go any further.”
Since when? Jane didn’t remember much from her time here, but she definitely didn’t remember needing to check in at a front desk.
Jane turned around and turned on her con charm. Ful
l, bright smile, and a cultivated breezy air about her. “Hi, sorry. The last time I was here there wasn’t a front desk to check in with.”
The woman stationed at the desk, whose name tag said Lucy, stared down at Jane, pale hazel eyes nearly the same color as her ash blonde hair.
The woman smiled down at Jane. “Yes, ever since the,” she paused searching for the right word, “the difficulties, shall we say, this building has taken extra security measures.”
Jane nodded and sized the woman up. Lucy didn’t look like a security measure. She looked like an office worker.
“Who are you here to see?”
“Zora... uh, Zora.” Jane faltered. She didn’t know Zora’s last name. Shit.
Lucy pursed her lips at Jane. “Zora isn’t seeing anyone currently. I’ll let her know you stopped by.” Lucy reseated herself, punctuating the firmness in her tone.
Jane looked at the ground a moment. “I know Zora’s been through an awful ordeal. But, I think I have something that’ll take her mind off it. At least for a little while.” Jane had taken a moment to fill her eyes with hope. It wasn’t completely manufactured.
Jane was hopeful.
But Jane was hopeful that Zora could help her find Droshin.
The distraction bit was just a bonus.
6
After calling up to Zora’s condo, Lucy escorted Jane up five floors to the woman who dragged Jane out of Droshin’s reach.
Jane knocked on the door but someone Jane didn’t recognize opened it. “Hi,” she said, pushing her blunt cut bangs out of her eyes. “I’m Jade. Come on in, Zora’s getting cleaned up.”
Jane entered Zora’s condo but Lucy lingered at the door.
“Thanks, Lucy, I’ve got it from here,” Jade said.
Lucy nodded and left the two women with similar names to get acquainted.
“Mind if I shut this?” Jane asked, nodding to the sliding glass door and hugging her arms around herself.
“Actually, Zora’s running a little hot these days. Plus, she likes the fresh air. It gets stuffy in here real quick.”
Jane The Nymph: The Boxed Set (The Circle Series Book 2) Page 10
