Initiation

by Paula Millhouse

  My dad had set Mom up in a brownstone in Manhattan, because she loved the city so much. “Have you checked the Upper East Side to see if she’s there?”

  “We have,” Shade said. “My team has her townhouse under surveillance now, but all they found was a calico cat.”

  “Miss Daisy?” I turned to Max, and grasped his forearm.

  “I suspect so.” Shade’s grim expression said there was more to the story. “She was inside when they went in, but disappeared while my team was searching the townhouse.”

  “She must have been waiting for a chance to escape. I’ll bet she went after Helmina,” Max said, bunching his fists tight.

  “Why would she do that?” Shade asked, turning to search Max’s face.

  Max shrugged. “It’s what I’d do if Sam went missing. Familiars will do anything for their people.”

  “That’s true,” Cyn added. It was the first time she’d said anything helpful since we’d returned. “When the monks broke in to my apartment this morning, Sebastian went nuts. They had to sedate him to get him out of the house. Familiars are very territorial.”

  “The biggest question here is why?” Everyone in the room swung their gaze to me. “Why would Rosencratz abduct familiars? And what the hell does this have to do with our mother?”

  Shade blinked twice, but held his tongue.

  Max narrowed his eyes at the vampire. “What aren’t you telling us? Now would be a good time to let us in on what you know, Fangbreath.”

  “Someone has it in for the shifters Helmina and Miss Daisy are supplying to the Hunters’ Watch Brigade.”

  “Shifters like Max? Shifters who have the power to become guardians?” I pulled him back from Shade. He would be one of those shifters, promised to the ranks of service of the HWB. “Holy shit. This could blow up in our faces. Is she after Max, too?”

  I narrowed my eyes on my sister who hung back, watching all this unfold, as if she might have some inside track. Is she in on this? Why would she be, if she’d lost her familiar Sebastian to Rosencratz? “Someone? Who exactly do you think this someone is, Shade?”

  The vampire locked gazes with me. “It’s no secret in the paranormal world that the Hunters’ Watch Brigade has enemies. Throughout history, it’s always been this way.”

  He straightened to his full height. “It’s a tale as old as time. Kingdoms have risen and fallen because men cannot agree. Our supernatural world is not immune,” he said. “Still, your mother is my top priority here. I don’t care about Rosencratz’s motives, but if someone more sinister is backing her, I need to know about that.”

  “So this is all political for you?”

  “I want Helmina back home as much as you do,” Shade said. “If we catch someone else who’s a threat to the HWB supply lines, then that’s a win for everyone.”

  “I’m not waiting around here. We’re going to New York,” I said. They could do what they wanted. If Miss Daisy was in Manhattan searching for Mom, then that’s where I needed to be. “Miss Daisy was a farmhouse cat. She spent her whole life here, by the sea, in the shade of these trees. What could she possibly do there by herself? She’d be like a fish out of water.”

  “You can’t just go to New York,” Cyn said. “You’ll never find her in that madness.”

  “Watch me. Mom had the foresight to fit her with an electronic transmitter.” I forced my glare over onto Shade. “Surely the HWB has enough technology to trace a cat.”

  “It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack of concrete and glass,” my sister said, “even with the technology.”

  “Fine. Stay here. Search Provincetown for her, but I’m not wasting my time. How soon can you get me wings in the air, Shade?”

  “Four minutes,” he replied. “But maybe she has a point. Stay here and help interview the witches. It could be our fastest way to find them.”

  I shook my head. “Cyn’s perfect for that job. They’ll likely talk to her before they’d talk to me, anyway. Make sure you supervise them, and you can mention my father. If the witches know there’s a Greek god to answer to, they’re more likely to cooperate. Besides, my sister’s friends wouldn’t trust me.”

  Shade grasped my arm. I shot him a heated glare. “Use whatever resources you can to help Cyn get to the bottom of this conspiracy.”

  “You’ll watch out for her, Max.” Shade said the words more like a command than a request.

  Max extended his claws, inspected the pointed tips, then smiled. “Like she belongs to me.”

  “Good.” I turned to Shade. “Buy us some time so Max and I can find them. The Samhain Blue Moon Festival of Light starts in forty-eight hours, and the clock is ticking.” I ripped open the screened door and stalked onto the porch, calling behind me, “Shade, notify your pilot to fire up that bird. Max and I are going to Manhattan.”

  Chapter 18

  Sam

  I TOOK THE THIRD seat on the left-hand side of the private plane. Max settled in beside me, and latched his seatbelt. He grabbed my hand and let his rich voice, deep and low, graze my ear. “We’ll find them, both of them. Look at what Shade gave me.”

  I tore my gaze from the window to look down into Max’s hand. He held a cellphone, and in the center of a map of downtown Manhattan, a red beacon flashed. “That’s her. That’s my mom,” he said. His expression faltered at first, but then I registered his sigh of relief.

  I bent my head down next to his in a gentle head-butt motion we’d shared since he was a kitten. Then I nuzzled his very human head with mine, and said, “You’re damn right we’re gonna find them.”

  Shade and Cyn had stayed behind to interview the witches who wanted to come forward with intel on the missing familiars. These same witches were scheduled to be in attendance at the Samhain Festival in Central Park, and honestly, I didn’t know how the witches were holding it together. If something like that happened to Max, I’d freak. Demigods freaking out could not be good, especially one with a magic trident blessed by all three major Greek gods.

  I looked around and noticed we were alone in the passenger area of the jet.

  A message dinged in on Max’s new cellphone. “Check it out. They’re already sending reports showing who the familiars belong to, their breeds, sex, markings, and names.”

  He scrolled through the data, flipping his phone with his very human fingers. I touched his hand, and ran my fingertips over his warm, soft skin. The energy growing between us was palpable. “That tickles,” he said, but he didn’t pull away.

  He turned to me, lacing his fingers with mine. He looked into my eyes for a second, held my gaze, then pulled me to him. Our lips brushed, tentatively, and that one act sent tremors of desire racing through me.

  Finally alone, with nothing but time on our hands, I deepened the kiss. Our tongues mingled, touching, and the hot, soft sensation of Max’s lips on mine sent me into full-blown need. I wanted him, more of him, more than just this kiss.

  “Mmmm,” he moaned, the hum of his voice reflecting my desire.

  I released my seatbelt, and swung my leg over his waist, straddling him. One perk of flying in Shade’s private jet—the seats were large and comfy with no side rails to separate us. I ran my fingers through his short, soft hair, urging him to kiss me deeper.

  Max pulled me closer, and pressed our bodies tighter, pivoting his hips into mine. A very flattering, very well-endowed erection pressed against the junction of my thighs. “Oh . . .” I said, and smiled. “Is that for me?”

  “Sam,” he whispered, and ran his hand up to cup my breast. “I’ve never felt anything like this.” He worked his mouth up my neck to an incredibly sensitive spot behind my ear. I pressed into his kiss, shivering against the heat of his mouth.

  His phone dinged with a new text message, and he flinched, ready to draw back.

  “Don’t s
top,” I said, my voice low and urgent with need.

  “Good plan. They can wait,” he moaned against my skin, nipping my neck with a graze of his teeth. The pleasure-pain of that intimate nip had me wanting to beg him for more.

  How far could we take this? Gah! I wanted to take it as far as we could. But on a plane? How long before we were interrupted again?

  A ding sounded around us, and then the pilot’s voice broke into our make-out session. “We’ll be landing at LaGuardia in approximately ten minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts.”

  I bolted up and away from Max, and settled back into my seat, breathing hard. “Damned interruptions.” Too bad we weren’t on an international flight. I sucked in tight breaths, and calmed my raging libido.

  He fastened his seatbelt, then helped me with mine. He grinned at me, his face full of mischief. “No worries, sweetheart. We’ll finish this soon. Very soon, if I have any say in the matter.” He pressed one more kiss on my lips, smiled big like the Cheshire Cat, then checked his phone.

  I looked over his shoulder at the intel coming in from Shade, and lowered my brows at the photos streaming in to his device. “A fruit bat. Seriously? Who keeps a fruit bat as a familiar?”

  “Aww. I think the little guy is cute.”

  The fruit bat belonged to a witch named Victoria, one of Mom’s friends from another coven. Then there was a wombat, a litter of kittens Miss Daisy had birthed five weeks ago, and a dragonlet named Solomon who belonged to a male witch named Josh. “There’s more coming in. Other species, and their witches,” Max said. “Shade and Cyn are covering a ton of ground together.”

  “If we find the familiars, we might find our mothers too. You know, the key to this has to be the ransom. Too bad we don’t know where the money is to be sent, yet.”

  “Right,” Max agreed. “The last time you spoke with your mother, she said she was tracking the complaints for ransoms for the familiars. Where do you think she would look first?”

  I shook my head, and searched outside the jet’s window. “We’ll go to my mother’s house first, and then we’ll start tracking Miss Daisy from there. It’s a long shot, sure, but if she leads us to the familiars, we just might have the link we need to nail Rosencratz, and her crazy monks.”

  Hell, my working theory had flaws in it as wide as the Hudson River. Maybe I was the one who needed a reality check, but it was the only lead we had right now. We had to follow it.

  “Why would Rosencratz care if my mother and Miss Daisy supplied shifters to the Hunters’ Watch Brigade?” I asked the question out loud, not expecting Max to answer, just throwing it out there for discussion. “I mean, what’s in it for her?”

  Max considered my argument. “I know they shared this vendetta over their witchcraft, and Poseidon, but that surely wasn’t enough to motivate Rosencratz to mess with the HWB. Maybe she resents a paranormal police agency keeping the peace.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, to be honest with you, I kind of understand if she doesn’t want to be policed, you know, if that’s her argument.”

  I raised my brows. “What are you talking about, Max?”

  “You’ve always bought into the HWB being the good guys, Sam. But look at me.” He spread out his fingers, and stared at his human hands. “Now that I’ve shifted, I don’t have any choice but to join the ranks. If I refuse, the HWB will hunt me down and either assimilate me into their army, or kill me.”

  That much about the HWB was true. Defectors were often dealt with harshly. I’d seen Shade do it, and I was pretty sure the other divisions, or alliances, didn’t tolerate anyone who ran from the brigade.

  Once, when I was about fifteen, I had this terrible crush on a wizard named Alex Vandam who’d worked as a training agent with the brigade. When I found out he’d stolen magic artifacts, I reported him to Shade. He’d disappeared soon after that, and the word in the ranks was Shade had hunted him down and punished him severely. I shuddered when that memory flashed through my mind.

  I turned to Max. “But why would you want anything else?” Did he? I’d never considered he might want to go rogue. If he did, I couldn’t bear it. I would have preferred he stay on as a housecat. Now that my feelings for him as a man, as a possible partner, were growing at this exponential rate, if I lost him, it would leave a hole inside me no one else could ever fill. I clutched the seat, hoping he’d reassure me that wasn’t the case.

  “Because if I follow Shade, and enlist, I could lose you.”

  He was right. The impact of his shift hit home, and my heartbeat quickened.

  I’d always been happy to have my best friend at my side, my talking Maine Coon curling up by my feet at night, but now, now that he’d found his true form, I was going to lose him.

  He had little choice but to join the HWB.

  “You do realize that even if they honored my service by your side for the past seven years and commission me as an officer, we’ll still be torn apart. We’ll have to part ways for a minimum of twelve weeks while I go through basic training. Hell, Sam, I could be assigned any-fucking-where after that.”

  My belly dropped when the plane lurched with turbulence.

  “Who knows? Maybe Rosencratz hates the organization for different reasons, but it is what it is.” The tone of resignation was clear in his voice. “Did you ever even consider the other side?”

  I turned and looked out the window. He’d always been my voice of reason. We talked everything out. It was just that this time, his reasoning spelled out the end of our future. And I didn’t like it one damn bit.

  Max

  MAX PUT HIS cellphone away, and gripped Sam’s hand while the HWB jet started its descent toward the tarmac of LaGuardia. Whatever happened now, he wanted to spend every second with her, holding her hand, holding her close.

  Once the plane taxied to a stop, the staff escorted them to a long, black HWB limo. Sam shook her head at the driver. “At this time of day, public transportation might be best.”

  “Are you sure you know the way through Manhattan?” Max asked, uneasy at the thought of abandoning their official escort.

  “Piece of cake, and probably two hours quicker.” Sam nodded to a waiting city bus. “We’ll take the bus to the E-train in to the city, then we’ll transfer, and ride to the Upper East Side to my mother’s brownstone. It’ll be tons faster.”

  Max glanced around, unsure of the unfamiliar terrain, the noise, and all the people. What if Rosencratz had someone on their tail? While it was unlikely, he didn’t want to put Sam at unnecessary risk. He already had two women to find. Losing Sam was unacceptable.

  “Come on. Let me show you the city.”

  He relented, because she seemed so determined. Besides, she had Atlantis at her beck and call, and he was sporting some fairly deadly claws if anything happened.

  After the short bus ride, the train took them into the city, and the excitement of Manhattan rippled all around them. Sam taught him about the city’s landmarks, and oriented Max to their surroundings. The financial district. Soho. Grand Central Station. The fashion district. The new Liberty Tower. He couldn’t help but get caught up in the way the city thrilled her. “You love it here. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She smiled, and the gesture lightened his heart for a moment. Every other time Sam had gone to HWB headquarters, Max had waited in a cat carrier. He’d never really seen Manhattan. The few times they’d gone home together, it had been to Helmina’s farmhouse on Cape Cod.

  There was so much to see and do. Maybe he’d been wrong about his initial dislike of wandering through the city with her. Maybe he’d steal Sam away from Shade and the HWB, get lost in the city, and when they found the familiars, and their mothers, he’d ask her father to shield them from reality for a little while.

  “My family’s brownstone is located on Eighty-First Street,
four blocks from the Hunter’s Gate of Central Park,” she said. “We’ll use the house as a base camp, and spread out from there.”

  Maybe his mother would come back, and be waiting for them when they got there.

  A short walk from the train station led them to Helmina’s brownstone. The townhouse was three stories, situated in between a row of others just like it. The neighborhood was upscale and relatively quiet, the perfect place to hide out in a city of millions of people.

  An HWB werewolf shifter in his human form greeted them at the door, and ushered them in. Another wolf stood watch upstairs. Max’s skin crawled when he caught their scent, but Sam didn’t seem to mind.

  Inside, the townhome was decorated in contemporary bold colors and modern furniture, with polished dark wooden floors and Persian rugs. After seeing the farmhouse again, Max found the brownstone a stark contrast into the world of Sam’s mother. He sniffed the air, and found a strong scent trail that belonged to his mother, but it was too faint for her to be here now.

  A burning sensation stung his nose when a werewolf shifter in his human form came barreling out of the kitchen to greet them. “Samantha! God, it’s good to see you again, love. Sounds like we’ve got one bugger of a mess here right in the good old US of A, right? Shade told me your mum’s gone missing.”

  Tex was a werewolf with a thick London accent, and ties to the lycanthrope community. Max had first met Tex back in Sam’s early days as a hunter. He ran a mean ship when it came to learning how to navigate various landscapes at night under a full moon. Definitely an asset to the HWB, but Max didn’t like him.

  When Tex hugged Sam, Max’s claws extended. Sam pulled away from him with a quick exchange of pleasantries. “Hi, Tex. Can’t believe you let my mother’s cat out of the house. With that nose of yours, I’m surprised you let her pull something like that on you. Have you seen her? Did Miss Daisy come back?”

  “Afraid not. I put out some food for her, but all that accomplished was drawing a lot of neighborhood strays. Speaking of strays, who’s your friend, Sam?” Tex asked, gesturing to Max, sniffing the air and curling one side of his lips.