by Kait Nolan
Cassius stared at Mick. Sophie sensed that very little surprised the old vampire, but this threw him off kilter.
“You’re the bartender at Le Loup Garou.”
Mick made an imitation of Cassius’s mocking bow, never taking his eyes off the enemy.
“What use does a barkeep have for power such as that of the Devil’s Eye?”
“Seems to me it makes for mighty good leverage. Now, you’re going to turn off the saw and carefully let Liza down, or you’re going to get a firsthand look at exactly what the Eye can do.”
Sophie couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. His eyes flashed gold with predatory fury, and she didn’t know what his wolf side would do with the kind of power he now had at his disposal.
Cassius’s eyes narrowed. “I am an enemy. A threat. If you are truly bound to the Eye, then why not wield it to cut me down?”
Mick flashed a wicked grin. “Why send a demon when I’d rather save the fun part for myself?”
He sprang, body rocketing through the air, shifting from skin to fur and fangs so fast she could hardly track him. But Cassius was faster. Even as Mick’s forepaws hit him in the chest, he jerked back, saving his throat from the snap of Mick’s jaws. Then they were moving, a blur of black and white that she could only follow by the sound of their snarls.
Heart in her throat, Sophie ran for the nearest set of scaffolding, intent on getting to Liza. She couldn’t waste this opportunity. Up she climbed, then leapt for the next platform. Still not close enough! She looked up at the pulleys holding the chain and felt terror claw through her as she realized there was no way to reach them.
She looked to her sister. Liza’s eyes were wide and panicked.
“Can you move your legs?” Sophie shouted.
In response she twitched her feet a couple of inches.
“Please try, Liza. Get some momentum going and swing toward me. I should be able to catch you.”
Liza screwed up her face in concentration or pain, but she kicked out, wriggling like a fish on a line.
“That’s good. Come on, a little more. Just like gymnastics when we were kids. You can do it!” Sophie shouted. Her heart was lodged in her throat. This was risky. So risky. If Liza swung the wrong way, she’d hit the saw.
She looked for Mick, hearing the general crash of the fight in the far corner, but she couldn’t actually see anything. They were still moving. That had to mean Mick was holding his own.
Her mind was split between prayers of safety for Mick and shouts of encouragement to her sister who swung two feet. Four.
“Keep kicking!”
A horrible scream of metal ripped through the warehouse.
The roof! Oh gods the storm is on top of us!
The roof peeled back as if by the hands of an enraged Titan and the howl of wind battered her senses. Above her some of the pulleys broke loose, crashing in pieces toward the ground. All around her, wood and scaffolding began to slide and tumble in the gale. She dove flat on the walkway, narrowly avoiding a wooden crate as it pinwheeled above her. Glass shattered. On the cable Liza was buffeted, swinging now in a circular motion instead of back and forth, closer and closer to the saw.
“No!”
Sophie looked around frantically for a rope, a chain, anything she could toss out to try and snag Liza. But there was nothing.
From across the warehouse came another deafening crash.
“Insolent dog!” snarled Cassius. His hand wrapped tightly around Mick’s throat, shoving him against the brick wall. Another few inches and his neck was going to snap.
“Mick!” she screamed.
Desperate, enraged, Sophie drew herself up in the center of the chaos and lifted her face to the hellish sky. Immediately she felt it—the pull of the wind, the lashing rain, the pulsing heart of power at the center of the hurricane. It was hers to command.
She was the eye of the storm.
The building shuddered as she drew down the wind. With one part of her mind, she shut her sister away from the storm, the blue energy field glowing bright and bold. The rest of her focus was on Mick.
Sophie pulled the storm around her like a cloak, everything in the warehouse spinning faster and faster. Wind. Water. Debris. The vampire’s grip loosened on Mick’s throat as he stared back, confusion replacing the fury etched on his pale face.
She reached out one hand and a giant fist of water knocked Cassius aside. He stumbled, trying to right himself, but she hit him again with another tidal punch. Then Sophie caught him in the wind. Sucked him up until he was swirling, whirling around her. Faster, faster. Sophie felt her control on the storm starting to slip. She pivoted, eyes searching for a way to end him once and for all. Finding her target, she brought everything to a slamming halt that sent the splintered end of a wooden support joist straight through Cassius’s chest.
In the sudden silence, he made a burbling groan. Blood dribbled out of his mouth, black and viscous like ichor. The noise he made might have been a laugh. “You have been holding out.”
Cassius tried to pull himself forward, and Sophie shuddered at the wet, sucking noise.
As Mick’s hand settled on her shoulder, she said, “I protect what’s mine.”
“This…round to…you,” Cassius coughed. The breath he drew in whistled out of the hole in his chest. “But war is still coming. Best choose your side.”
With that dramatic pronouncement, Cassius slumped, head lolling, eyes blank.
Sophie exhaled a long breath. It was over.
Chapter 8
“You okay, petite?” Mick asked.
The storm had fully dissipated. Sophie had apparently used all its energy in her fight with Cassius. She looked a little glassy-eyed and shell-shocked now as she stared at the vampire’s body.
“I . . . didn’t know I could do that,” she said finally. She turned, looking up at him with a mixture of wonder and pain. “He was going to kill you.”
Mick brushed a thumb over some dirt on her cheek. “Desperation makes us learn all kinds of stuff about ourselves. C’mon. Let’s get Liza down.”
The mention of her sister seemed to shake Sophie out of the shock. “If I can get the chain loose, can you catch her?”
“Sure.”
She immediately set about climbing the remaining catwalks to get to the pulleys holding Liza up. It was a minor miracle that any remained after the hurricane had ripped through the warehouse, even if it had been under Sophie’s control.
Mick moved over beneath Liza’s feet.
“You just hold on a bit longer, honey,” he called. “We’ll have you down in a jiffy.”
She nodded weakly. Her pale face was stretched tight with pain. Those dislocated shoulders had to be pure agony. Mick’s mind was already turning over the options for how best to get her treated. There would be too many questions to answer at a human hospital. No, Jeannette would be better. They’d take Liza back to his place and have his second in command come look her over. She had a healer’s touch that would be faster than any mainstream medicine.
“Almost there,” called Sophie.
Mick tracked her movements, not liking that she was so far above them. If she fell— His hands clenched, his muscles tensing. No, best not to think of such things. She wouldn’t fall. She was being careful. Still . . .
Behind the gag, Liza screamed, her eyes going wide.
“I know it hurts, sugar. We’re workin’ as fast as we can,” said Mick.
A whistling hum caught his attention as Sophie screamed, “Mick, behind you!”
Mick whirled and in a fleeting instant saw Cassius less than ten feet away, bloody but upright, fangs bared. He had only a moment to dive to the floor before the saw blade sailed through the air and tore the vampire in half. It hit the far wall of the warehouse with a thunk that left it lodged halfway in a beam.
“What the fuck?” shouted Mick. He scrambled to his feet, looking first at Cassius, then up at Sophie and Liza, then back to Cassius. Or rather, the other half of him,
which had flown somewhat further with the momentum from the saw.
The vampire had evidently pulled himself off the joist and crossed the room for another attack. And Liza had seen him coming. Holy shit. If he hadn’t turned around . . . Gods.
“Are you all right?” Sophie called, panic threading her tones.
“I’m fine,” shouted Mick, still looking around.
Where the hell had that saw blade come from?
“Don’t worry wolf, that was a freebie.” The demon materialized among the debris, looking satisfied at the carnage.
“But . . . why?” asked Mick.
“Because the vampire was about to kill you, and I have a feeling that life with you is going to be a great deal more interesting than down in the pit.”
Mick eyed the demon. What exactly had he gotten himself into?
“Well don’t just stand there like a dolt. Let’s get the girl down.”
~*~
Mick was pulling bacon out of a cast iron skillet when Sophie wandered into the kitchen. She was fresh from a long, hot shower where she’d scrubbed and scrubbed to remove every last trace of mud and blood and death. It was going to be a while before she felt truly clean again. She stood in the doorway, admiring his efficiency as he cracked eggs into the bacon grease with one hand and moved over to slide some sourdough toast into the oven.
“How’s Liza?” he asked.
She smiled a little. Of course he’d known she was there.
“Sleeping. But with Jeannette’s ministrations, the pain’s already starting to fade. That’ll make it easier on her. If we’d had to rely on human medicine, she’d be aching for weeks.”
“She’s a tough one,” Mick observed. “Takes after her sister.”
Sophie huffed out a breath and wandered over to examine the pot of red begonias on his window sill, absently rolling the sleeves of the borrowed shirt up above her wrists. As it was Mick’s shirt, it took a while. “Her sister doesn’t feel so tough. I keep playing the whole thing over in my mind, wondering how I could have stopped this. If I’d done this instead of that. Kept my secret from Liza. Or kept her in my hip pocket so I could keep an eye on her. I don’t know. I—”
“That’ll drive you crazy, petite. What’s done is done. Coffee?”
She nodded, and he turned away to pour some into a pair of thick crockery mugs. “I know it is, I just— Even though she’ll heal from this physically, she’s going to have nightmares for a long, long time.”
“And you’ll be there to help her through it,” said Mick, efficiently flipping the eggs. “So will I.”
He brought the coffee to her—cream, no sugar, exactly as she liked. She had no idea how he knew that. As she took the mug, she said, "This is what you do, isn’t it?"
"What?" he asked.
"It’s not just a matter of protecting, for you. It’s caretaking."
He shrugged. "I’m not exactly a mama hen, petite."
She set the coffee on the kitchen table and lay a hand on his free arm. "You take care of what’s yours," she said softly. "Your staff, your patrons, your bar, your home . . . " She trailed off.
Me.
She stopped herself before she said it. The whole idea was ludicrous. She’d known him less than a day. But she couldn’t deny the connection she felt with him, forged through their mutual love for Liza and the strain of extraordinary circumstances.
The arm beneath her hand was firm, solid with muscle. Steady, as he was. Through this whole nightmare, he’d been a rock, keeping her from flying apart. But it wasn’t gratitude making her heart race as he looked down at her with whiskey colored eyes. His arm moved, sliding behind her back to draw her nearer. His other hand cupped her face, the pad of his thumb tracing her cheek, his fingers curved warm and sure behind her neck.
It was easy to melt into him. Easy to lift her mouth to his. Their lips met on a sigh, clung. Something eased inside her, the tension ebbing at last to be replaced with soft, certain comfort. This was what she’d been missing. This sense of belonging, when she’d never belonged before.
Sophie rose to her toes, threading fingers in his hair, needing to be closer. He angled his head, changing the tone, taking the kiss deeper. And they were lost to the dark edge of desperation that had chased them through the long night.
“I really don’t think eggs are supposed to be that color.”
Mick jerked away and glared at the demon, which was peering into the skillet.
“We really need to have a talk about personal space and how you’re totally invading it,” he said, stalking over.
Sophie reeled from the loss of contact and curled her hand around the back of a chair to steady herself. She didn’t recognize the spate of Cajun French Mick spewed out as he fished the blackened eggs out of the skillet, but the meaning was clear enough. The demon looked amused.
“Scram,” Mick snarled. With a chuckle, the demon disappeared. With an apologetic glance in her direction, Mick said, “I can make more.”
“Bacon sandwiches are fine,” she assured him, lips quirking.
She slipped onto a bar stool at the island and watched as he dished up breakfast.
As he slid a plate of steaming food in front of her, he said, “I want you to stay.”
Something lurched in her chest and she opened her mouth to speak, but he rushed on.
“Not because you think you owe me something. But because you want to. Because you feel this…pull between us too.”
She used the time he took circling around to the stool beside her to try and organize her thoughts, sort through the attraction to the logic. “I want to stay.”
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ hanging out there?”
“I don’t have any idea where I stand with the IED. At the least I’ll be sanctioned for taking unscheduled leave. And if they find out about the Eye, well, that’s treason.”
“Both of those sound like excellent reasons not to go back.”
“True. But it’s not like I can just send in a letter of resignation. And one way or the other, we uncovered major intel from Cassius. Now I’m not stupid enough to do something that’s going to get me into further trouble with the Council, but I can’t just walk away from this. I have to investigate, verify. And if it’s true, then I have to figure out what to do with that. It’s all risky, and I don’t want to put you or anyone else in your Pack at risk.”
“There’s no ‘if’ about it. It’s true. The relevant questions are who and when.”
Sophie frowned at the conviction in his voice. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“There have been rumblings for a while that someone was planning to move against the Council, but we didn’t know who.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“I’m a member of a resistance group called the Underground. For years, we’ve been subverting the Council’s orders so that we can protect the innocent that have been caught in the cross-fire of the Council’s extreme isolationist politics. People like Liza. Like you, if you choose to leave the IED. My bar is a hub for intelligence gathering and a meeting place for our operatives.”
Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it again. Whatever she’d expected him to say, this wasn’t it. She’d heard him mention the Underground at Olaf’s and hadn’t given it any thought beyond the fact that he must be involved in smuggling. This was something else entirely. Something she was certain the Council knew nothing about.
“So…what? You want to recruit me?” Her stomach dropped, reinterpreting everything that had passed between them and not at all liking the conclusions.
“We’d be fools not to. You’d be an asset and it would give you a purpose and a support system for what you already want to do.” He stopped and covered her hand with his. “But that’s not why I want you to stay. If you wanted to wash your hands of this entirely, I’d still want you here, with me.”
He’d gone unquestioningly into danger with her. Made what could have been the ultimate sacrifice by taking on the Eye. Whatever happe
ned in the future, she wanted the chance to explore this thing between them.
“Well,” she said. “I do find myself in the position of probably being unemployed. What are the benefits?”
Mick’s lips twitched. “Danger. Intrigue. My unending loyalty.” He sobered. “And a chance to see exactly where this is going.”
Sophie leaned in with a smile. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”
“I can see you two are gonna be a lot of fun. But seriously, you need to get a room.”
Note From The Author
Thanks for reading!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction to Mick and Sophie. As you may guess, their story is not yet complete, and you’ll be seeing more of them—and the demon—as the Mirus series progresses. You can sign up for my newsletter at http://kaitnolan.com or follow my blog for updates.
While I’m working on other projects, you can check out my other Mirus release, Forsaken By Shadow, available wherever ebooks are sold.
And if you’re looking for other fabulous indie reads, please check out the work of Susan Bischoff, Stacey Wallace Benefiel, and Lauralynn Elliott.
