Red

by Bianca D'Arc

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” Steve assured her. “Your brother has stood guard while I puked a few times more than I should admit to.” He chuckled, remembering some of those early days in the service when he’d partied a little too hard.

  “Oh, God. Deke. He’s going to have conniptions when he hears about this.” She took another wet wipe from Steve’s hand and held it to her face. Her words were muffled when she spoke again. “Do we have to tell him?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Trisha, you just said you and your friends intended to drink a little. Would you say you drank a lot more than you intended tonight? Or do you always down a row of shots all at once?”

  The wipe came away from her face as she thought. Her expression was troubled. “I’ve never drunk that much in my life. I’d intended to have maybe one shot and a couple of mixed drinks over the course of the evening. That’s usually my limit, but something…I don’t really know what happened. The test tube things were so delicious.”

  “Do you know what was in them? Who ordered them?”

  “I have no idea. They were just suddenly there and everyone was drinking them. I figured one of the girls must’ve asked for them, but it’s kind of out of character for any of my friends to do that, now that I think about it.”

  “Damn. That’s what I was afraid of.” Steve reached for his cell phone.

  “Who are you calling? Not Deke. Not yet.” She looked a little upset with him, but Steve didn’t let it stop him.

  “No. Not Deke. Trisha, there’s something going on here, and I have a buddy who specializes in finding stuff out. I’m calling him and his wife. She’s a…nurse, of sorts. I want them both to get a look at you and your friends. Tonight. Something bad happened here and I want to make sure you’re all really okay.”

  In the moments it had taken him to speak, the call connected. Slade, the Clan’s newest addition, answered on the second ring. Steve skipped the pleasantries, knowing the most magical shifter he knew had already seen the caller I.D.

  “Can you and your lady meet me at Pete’s Pack house? I’m bringing some civilians in with me who’ve been drugged. I don’t think it was anything normal.” Steve had to choose his words carefully in front of Trisha. He suspected something magical was happening here—and not the good kind of magic.

  If that was the case, Slade and his new wife, Kate, who also served as the Clan’s priestess, would be able to tell. Slade was also the best tracker this side of the Rio Grande, and he could be of some help if Steve had to do any hunting. Steve’s inner cat stretched and growled, already eager to claw whoever had tried to harm Trisha.

  “We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, barring more stops,” Steve answered Slade’s question about ETA. He was glad to hear Slade’s response. He and the priestess would be there in twenty minutes. Good man.

  Trisha walked toward her friend while Steve spoke to Slade and followed behind at a slower pace. She talked with the shaky woman for a few minutes, reassuring her that they were among friends and that Steve—or Red, as she called him—was a friend of her brother. The pixie-looking woman seemed uncertain, but when she looked directly at Steve, he saw her eyes flare.

  The pixie was magical. Steve just knew it, even though he didn’t have the gifts Slade had. Slade and his lady were actually able to actually see magic. Steve couldn’t see it—not like they did—but he often sensed it when it was in the air. His spidey senses were tingling now, looking at the short beauty.

  He’d seen that kind of unearthly elegance before. If he didn’t miss his guess, that girl was at least part fey. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t seen it before. Although, to be honest, he’d been so preoccupied with Deke’s sister, he’d only given a cursory look to her friends.

  The evening began to make a little more sense. Jorge had probably been attracted by the scent of fey magic, even if he didn’t realize exactly what it was. That kind of thing could easily make the pixie and all her friends targets of Others who weren’t on the right side of the Light. Magic could be drained and used by evil and these girls were no match for some of the things Steve knew went bump in the night around these parts.

  Steve found it interesting that of the seven women only these two had gotten sick so far. The others were sleeping it off in the backs of the vehicles. Steve could see them as he walked past the open doors.

  He disconnected the call and met up with Trisha as she walked back toward him. She was looking a lot better. Better than her friend, in fact, as she sipped lightly from her water bottle. Steve had watched as she’d fished out another bottle of water from her voluminous bag and given it to her friend. The pixie-woman was going a little easier on actually drinking the water, but had used it to freshen up.

  “Deke talked about you a lot, Red,” she surprised him by saying as she walked beside him back to the SUV. “You and your brother, who Deke seems to think of as some sort of god among men.”

  Steve had to laugh at that description of his brother Grif, who was Alpha of one of the largest and most powerful Clans in the States. Despite all the shifter might at his command, Grif was a humble man. He’d been a fearless soldier and had served alongside Steve as an Army Green Beret. Grif had retired a bit before Steve. He was older and had to come back and take care of the Clan, but he’d earned a reputation among the younger men that Steve had benefited from as his brother.

  Not that Steve hadn’t earned his own rep. He’d enjoyed his time in the service. Sometimes he thought being a Spec Ops soldier was the only thing he’d ever done in his life to really distinguish himself. He’d retired at a higher rank than his older brother, which was an accomplishment and something Grif didn’t begrudge him. They had never really competed in that way. It was well established that they were both Alphas in their own right, but that Grif was the Alpha in charge of the entire Clan.

  Steve was his right-hand man, in charge of security for the immense group of various kinds of shifters that formed the Redstone Clan. Steve also held the official position of Chief Security Officer in the family company. Redstone Construction was one of the largest and most successful building firms in the country.

  “Grif’s just a regular guy,” Steve replied to her veiled inquiry. “You’ll see that when you meet him.” He was, of course, much more than a man, but unless she was playing dumb a lot better than he gave her credit for, Trisha didn’t seem aware of the real, magical world hidden all around her.

  “You mean he lives around here? I hope I have time to clean up first before I meet the living legend.” Steve liked her sense of humor. She was speaking in jest and he had to smile at her words.

  “We’re a pretty close-knit family. I have four brothers, all of whom ostensibly live in Las Vegas, though two of them tend to travel more than the rest of us. The youngest, Matt, likes to spend time in California, and the one right below me in age, Mag, is off to parts unknown lately. But Bob’s here, as is Grif. You’ll probably meet them both within the next few hours or days—depending on what we find out about the bar fight tonight and how well your friends recover from whatever you were all drugged with.”

  She stopped short. “So you think we really were slipped something?” She seemed to get clearer as time went on, recovering well after her bout with the poisonous substance that had been fed to her.

  “I have little doubt. You look a lot better now. How are you feeling?” He held the door for her as they arrived back at the SUV.

  “Like a fog is slowly lifting and I’m finally able to start thinking again.” She paused by the door, her eyes scrunching up as she seemed to ponder her words. “Darnit. That stuff was strong, whatever it was.” She reached out and took the last of the clean wet wipes from Steve’s hand before getting into the SUV and sliding over on the bench seat.

  Steve got in after casting his eye over the rest of the little convoy. Everyone was accounted for and nobody was on the scrubby desert road except them. The motorcycle was heading back toward them after checking their back trail
and the pattern he blinked on his headlight signaled that all was clear as far as he could see.

  So far, so good. Now all he had to do was get them the rest of the way to the Pack house without further incident.

  Steve shut the door and the convoy took off once more. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see Trisha wiping the face of her friend with the last of the wet wipes. Trisha took her friend’s pulse in a very professional way and looked her over, including peeking under her eyelids to check her eyes.

  “She’s really out cold,” Trisha reported as she turned around and sat facing forward once more. “But her breathing is steady and her pulse is good. I think she’ll be okay, but I can’t tell much without my go bag.”

  “You have a go bag?” Steve was surprised, but then he really didn’t know what Trisha did with her life besides being Deke’s sister and the apple of his eye.

  Trisha rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes briefly. “I’m a doctor. A researcher, really. I don’t deal with patients much. Mostly I work in a lab, behind the scenes, playing with Petri dishes and cellular solutions.”

  Steve was impressed. Not only was she gorgeous, but brainy too.

  The SUV rounded a corner and Trisha turned to her friend, who lolled towards her, completely unconscious. Trisha settled her friend again and turned back toward Steve, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she chewed on it in worry.

  Steve tried hard not to look at her mouth. Looking at her mouth only brought uncomfortable thoughts to mind. Thoughts about what he’d like to do to that mouth—and what he’d like that mouth to do to him.

  “I wish I knew what we’d been dosed with. Darnit! I should’ve taken samples back there.” She looked at Steve, clearly thinking fast. “Do you know where I could find a lab nearby? Maybe there’s a hospital or testing facility I could talk my way into?”

  “It’s not a medical facility, but Redstone Construction has a quality control lab with all the latest equipment.”

  “Redstone Construction? That’s you? I mean, Deke calls you Red because your last name is Redstone, right?” She shook her head. “I’m not making sense. Sorry.” She smiled at him and he felt his lips twitch in response. “Do you mean to tell me you’re one of those Redstones?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Second eldest and head of security for Redstone Construction. If you want to see if our lab suits your needs, I can give you full access.”

  “Wow. Even I have heard of your family’s company. They just finished building the new children’s wing on the hospital back home. It’s gorgeous. All state of the art, and I have friends on the hospital board. You guys didn’t overcharge.”

  “We’re in this business for the long haul,” Steve repeated what he’d often heard his older brother and even their father say. “We don’t cut corners and we don’t work solely for profit. There’s satisfaction in a job well done and all our people feel that way.”

  “It shows. I’ve seen a few of the bigger projects your company has completed.” She nodded, visibly weary, but her mind appeared to be racing even as she leaned her head back against the seat. “So that extends to having your own QC lab, huh? I’d like to see it. If nothing else, I might be able to isolate the compound from a blood sample. I’d need a centrifuge, but most labs have those. And I could jury rig a column from some glassware. It’ll depend what kind of machinery you have as to how I can identify the compound.” She yawned, though she kept talking. “Do you know if you have anything like a mass spectrometer or infrared spectrograph? Maybe a gas chromatograph?”

  “We have all those,” he confirmed, glad he’d kept up his interest in chemistry and the lab their mother had founded and kept current until her recent, untimely death.

  “Really?” She looked over at him, her head remaining on the back of the chair as fatigue seemed to creep up on her again. “You guys must take quality control very seriously.”

  Steve shrugged. “It was a pet project of my mother’s before she passed on. She liked to tinker.”

  He didn’t mention the advanced degree in molecular chemistry that his mother had pursued later in her life. She had always been a fearless woman who would try anything, even as she served as Matriarch to one of the largest Clans in North America. She’d had a heart as big as the world and curiosity to match. Nothing had stopped her pursuit of learning and of helping shifters in need. Humans too, if they crossed her path.

  Steve felt a little pang and knew his mother was in a better place, but it still hurt that she’d been taken from this earth too soon. Murdered by magic, she hadn’t stood a chance, and the family had gone a little nuts for a while. But Slade had come and helped find the killer…and then he’d stayed and married the new priestess. He’d become a good friend and a tremendous help as the Redstone family and Clan tried to carry on and heal from the staggering loss.

  Thankfully, the small convoy arrived at the Pack house at that moment and he didn’t have to talk more on the painful subject. Steve took a quick look around and waited for the all clear from the lead vehicle before getting out. He helped Trisha stand and supervised while her friend was picked up and carried into the welcoming light of the big wooden and adobe structure.

  Several of the werewolf Pack’s women were there, including Pete’s wife, Bebe, the Alpha bitch of the Pack. She was organizing where each of the unconscious women were taken. They were given a set of seven rooms, all on the second floor of the house along the same corridor.

  Trisha went ahead to walk with her friend Lynda—the only other woman who was still conscious. They oversaw the comfort of their friends as one by one, they were delivered to small bedrooms. The werewolf women helped make each of the unconscious human women comfortable while Trisha and Lynda clucked over their fallen friends and looked worried.

  Steve stood back, watching to see what he could do to help when Pete joined him. “We weren’t followed,” he reported. “At least not that our guys can see. And your brother called. He’s coming over with Slade and the priestess.”

  Bebe came down the hall, joining them at the point where the long hall joined the upstairs landing of a wide staircase. She was frowning and wringing her hands—something very uncharacteristic for the Alpha female. Steve went on alert.

  “They don’t smell right,” Bebe reported the moment she joined them.

  “They were dosed with some kind of drug—” Steve began, but she cut him off.

  “More than that. There’s the scent of magic in it too. Bad magic.”

  Steve frowned. He knew Bebe had a tiny bit of mage in her bloodlines way back somewhere, though she was a fully capable shapeshifting werewolf. Still, she had a sense about magic that most shapeshifters didn’t. If she said she smelled magic on the women, he believed her.

  “Okay. Let’s limit the exposure of our people, just in case. I’d advise you to call your women back and keep them occupied elsewhere until we have this figured out. Alpha, I’d recommend the same for your guys.” Steve was careful to respect the wolves’ right to rule in their own Pack house.

  Besides, both Pete and Bebe were older than him by about a hundred years. They’d helped raise him and had been close friends of his parents, when they’d been alive. A certain amount of respect came second nature when dealing with the older Alpha couple.

  “Agreed,” Pete responded thoughtfully. “We’ll keep everyone out of this corridor. There are three more rooms here that are unoccupied right now. We’ll keep those empty and limit the humans to this area unless they have escort. At least five of them won’t be moving around much for now. The other two…” Pete nodded at something down the hall and Steve realized Trisha and Lynda were walking toward them, arm in arm as they moved slowly down the long hall.

  “Trisha is my responsibility,” Steve said at once in a low, urgent voice. “Her brother is a good friend of mine and he asked me to keep an eye on her while she was in town.”

  “What about the fey?” Bebe asked as they watched Lynda leave Trisha at t
he door to one of the closer rooms. Trisha disappeared inside and then the stunning pixie squared her shoulders and headed directly for them.

  “Looks like we’re about to find out,” Steve muttered.

  Lynda stopped before the were trio and bowed her head, though she didn’t break eye contact.

  “Thank you for coming to our rescue tonight. I know what you are, though I’m not entirely sure who you are. Trisha says you’re her brother’s Army buddy?” The surprising woman looked directly at Steve.

  “I am. Her brother called and asked me to keep an eye on her and your group while you were in town.”

  The pixie looked weary. “After what happened tonight, I’m really glad he did. And I thank you for interceding and bringing us to safety. I’m Lyndelia van Esperingan, but the humans know me as Lynda. They don’t know what I am.”

  “Forgive me, but other than fey, what exactly are you?”

  The pixie laughed quietly and the sound was almost enchanting. “Sorry. I’m only half-fey. My mother was a human mage. My father is a warrior prince currently living in another realm. I’m making a go of it here, but lately it’s been one thing after another with lesser mages trying to trap me and steal my magic. Usually, I’m a lot better at defense than I have shown myself to be here in your territory. I’m very sorry. I wouldn’t have come on the trip and endangered my human friends had I realized any of this would happen.”

  “So you believe they were after you?” Pete asked as Steve held off, watching and weighing the pixie’s words.

  “Whoever they are.” She shrugged. “I’ve been hunted off and on for a few decades. There’s been a slight uptick in the number of incidents just lately, but I didn’t think anything could get past my defenses. I’ve learned my lesson after tonight.” She made a face. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t reveal my differences to my friends. I like being human and living among them as much as I can. I wouldn’t want that to change because of tonight’s misadventure.”