by Everly Frost
She makes a bubbling sound in the back of her throat—a deceptively light laugh at her own pain—but the cold in her eyes makes me shiver. Somehow, I get the sense that it would take a powerful supernatural to mess with her.
“Has Helen given you the spiel about not asking questions?” she asks.
I nod.
Iyana’s smile reveals the tiniest hint of fangs. “Let’s make this easy then. Here’s what you can know about me: I’m a vampire. Twenty-five years old. I haven’t lived with my own kind for the last five years. In fact, I’m one of only a few vampires in Portland. The wolf shifter population tends to keep us away.” She stops, considering the ceiling, as if she’s thinking about what else she can tell me. She shrugs. “If I told you the rest, I’d have to kill you.”
I should have realized she was a vampire from her comment about biting off too much. Also, since her room held no sunlight.
Iyana smirks at my wide eyes. “I’ve surprised you. You didn’t expect me to be a vampire.”
I force myself to relax. “Helen said there were many different women here.”
“Different.” Iyana lets out a heavy sigh. “That’s one way to put it. Broken might be more accurate.” She inclines her head at my room. “How is Ella today?”
“She’s listing colors,” I answer cautiously, not sure how much I’m supposed to say.
Iyana nods. “Yesterday she was screaming, so listing colors is good.”
I blink at the floor as I digest this information. I’ve been through a lot, but I’m nowhere near close enough to breaking so badly that my memories could consume me like that. My hands shake as I try not to imagine what it would take to hurt a woman so much.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Iyana says softly. “Helen’s the only one who can help her.” She clears her throat, and I guess she’s trying to lift the heaviness around us. “I’m headed to the gun range. I’ll show you around if you want?”
My eyebrows rise. “There’s a gun range?”
Iyana grins suddenly, her fangs disappearing up into her gums. She looks pleased that she surprised me again. “Whatever you need, it’s here. This morning, I need target practice, so I’m hoping Helen won’t make me climb three sets of stairs to get to the range this time. Yesterday, I had to walk past the kitchen and the garden first. That woman really wants to shake up my routine.”
Iyana inclines her head at the end of the corridor and I fall into step beside her. The idea of climbing any stairs today is unwelcome. My shoulders are stiff and the drag of material across my torso is already smarting. I keep my arm movements to a minimum, but at least my legs are mostly functional, allowing me to keep pace with Iyana.
The doors around us remain closed, but when we’re halfway down the corridor, one of them opens behind us and steady footfalls approach.
Iyana doesn’t look around. “Morning, Danika.”
“Fuck mornings,” the woman replies.
I study the newcomer from the corner of my eye. She’s shorter than Iyana—slightly shorter than me too—with tousled, light brown hair falling to her shoulders, golden highlights soft in the corridor lighting. Her hazel eyes are flecked with gold and rimmed in dark brown. Her jeans are ripped across her left thigh and she’s wearing a strappy black singlet top that shows off the intricate tattoo of a bird’s wing decorating her entire left shoulder and bicep all the way to her elbow.
I suppress a shudder at the scar that runs through the tattoo from the tip of her shoulder to her forearm. The scar is thick and raised like knotted rope. It must have been a deep cut—possibly deliberately targeted at her tattoo.
At Danika’s harsh response, Iyana casts me a warning glance that I interpret to mean don’t say anything.
Iyana throws a casual question back at Danika as we continue to walk. “Bad night?”
“Are you going to the gun range?” Danika asks, without answering Iyana’s question.
“Yup,” Iyana replies, popping the ‘p’ at the end while keeping her focus on the corridor in front of us.
“Good,” Danika says. “I have memories to kill.”
Danika falls into stride behind us and moments later, we reach the room at the end of the corridor. The full wall of books looks even more inviting in the morning light and the view of the city to the right is pretty as the light glints off the old buildings in the distance.
I’m grateful when we find a set of stairs going down and not up, although I’m not looking forward to coming back up them.
Iyana takes the steps far more quickly than I can in my injured state.
Craning her head around the corner when she reaches the landing, she breaks into another grin. “Hidden House provides! We’re at the gun range.”
She disappears from view until I round the corner at the landing. The stairs let out directly into a wide entry corridor that sits between two rooms, both with transparent walls. On the left is a weapons room with guns lining the walls and cabinets beneath them. Five firing lanes are situated inside the room to the right.
While I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs, Danika strides straight past me into the weapons room. She picks two different pistols off the wall before sliding open the cabinet drawer beneath them to retrieve two boxes of bullets. I don’t know my way around guns to distinguish between them—other than identifying the obvious size and shape differences between a handgun and a rifle—so I have no idea why she picked the ones she did.
Iyana is slower to choose a weapon, appearing to take her time while she casts glances beneath her eyelashes at Danika. I get the sense that she has decided to give Danika a lot of space.
I stay out of the weapons room, leaning against the transparent wall between the entry corridor and the firing lanes, making my stance look nonchalant, even though my body’s aching far more than I want to admit right now.
Danika remains single-minded, pushing through the glass door into the firing range without a second glance at me. The door seals behind her, blocking all sound. I can’t hear her footsteps as she heads to the middle lane.
Each firing lane is divided by walls at the firing end with a bench sitting between them. The bench provides a place for Danika to set down her weapons and boxes of ammunition. The booths are otherwise open in front and behind.
I turn to Iyana when she pauses at my side carrying only a box of bullets and earmuffs. I guess she already has her weapons of choice sitting at her waist.
“We might want to give Danika a minute,” she says, as if this is not an unusual thing.
I jump when the wall I’m leaning against vibrates.
Jolting away from it, I spin to stare at Danika through the glass.
Inside the firing lane, the brown-haired woman stands with her right arm extended, the angle of her body meaning her face is turned slightly away from me. She squeezes the trigger in rapid succession. I freeze when the bullets rip through the exact center of the paper target at the end of the lane. Dead center. So perfect that only a single, widening hole appears in it.
She’s a perfect shot.
But it doesn’t explain the vibration through the glass.
Within seconds, she must have emptied the entire clip into the target because she slaps the weapon onto the bench in front of her. Snatching up the second handgun, she switches her stance so that her left arm is outstretched.
An ambidextrous perfect shot.
Now that her torso is twisted in my direction, I can see that she’s screaming. I guess that explains why she didn’t bother taking earmuffs with her.
I back away from the wall, wary of whatever magic she controls that’s shrieking through the glass between us.
“Don’t worry,” Iyana whispers. “She’s not a banshee or a siren. Her scream can’t hurt you.” She shrugs. “Other than blowing out your eardrums.”
“What is she?” I ask. “I know I’m breaking the privacy rule, but it seems important for my safety that I know.”
“Hawk shifter,” Iyana says. “As you ca
n see, she has perfect eyesight. She can hit any target. But… like the rest of us… she’s a little different than normal. She can shriek in her human form—and at a frequency that can do a lot of damage.”
Iyana sighs, pressing her free hand against the wall and spreading her fingers wide. “She’s most dangerous when she’s upset.”
“Who is Danika shooting right now in her mind?” I ask, knowing that that sort of rage can only mean Danika’s picturing someone in place of the target.
“Her ex-boyfriend. He taped her mouth shut so she couldn’t use her scream to defend herself and then beat her to a pulp. He left her for dead.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, leaning against the glass, feeling the rage and pain vibrating through it. “How did she survive?”
Iyana presses her forehead against the transparent wall, closing her eyes, pensive and subdued. “The same way we all survived. Tristan Masters found her, killed that son of a bitch boyfriend, and brought Danika here. Helen healed her.”
I stiffen. I can’t keep the shock from my voice. “Tristan saved her?”
Iyana nods. Still facing the firing range, she says, “He saved us all, Tessa. There isn’t a woman in this place whom he didn’t pull out of some hell and bring here to safety.”
Inside the firing range, Danika lowers her weapon, grips the edge of the bench, and leans forward, hanging over the space as if she’s trying not to throw up. The air becomes still again, but the silence feels charged as she collects her weapons from the bench and stumbles to the door.
My hands clench and unclench. There’s no way Tristan Masters saved these women out of the goodness of his heart. “What was his price?”
Iyana draws away from the wall, casting me a curious glance. Her lips part in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what does Tristan want in return?”
Her forehead creases. “Nothing, Tessa. He doesn’t—”
The glass door hisses as Danika pushes it open and leans against the open doorframe.
“Fuck.” Her hands shake as she presses the back of her hand across her forehead, a gun still gripped in it. “He can’t die twice, can he?”
Iyana swings away from the wall. “He’s dead for good, sweetie.”
“For better.” Danika picks herself up off the doorframe and wobbles toward me. “I’m sure Iyana has told you what she can about me, but just in case… I’m a hawk shifter. Twenty-four years old. I don’t like mornings.”
“I’m Tessa,” I say. “Wolf shifter. Twenty-three.” My father died last night.
I fall silent, but Danika gives me a nod of acceptance without asking for more information. My heart opens a little that I can trust these women to understand some things are too painful to talk about.
Danika sways in the direction of the weapons room. It looks like she’s struggling to stand up, but even so, she takes care placing the pistols safely back where they belong. Then she drags herself up the stairs.
Iyana exhales slowly as she watches Danika go. “Don’t let Danika near your room when Ella’s counting canaries. Hawks and canaries are predator and prey.”
Now that Danika’s gone, I lean against the glass wall, still fighting the pain inside my body.
I accept Iyana’s verbal attempt to lighten the intensity of the mood around us and respond just as lightly. “I bet.”
Iyana holds the door open for me. “Come on. I can teach you how to handle a gun.”
“Who says I don’t already know?” I ask, my defenses flying up again.
Iyana’s lips rise into a sly smile as she reaches for me and wraps her fingers around my arm. She keeps the door open with her foot. “Honey, if you knew how to shoot a firearm, you would have picked your weapon of choice already.”
I swallow a moan as pain shoots through me when her fingers close around my bruised bicep. Leaning more heavily against the glass wall to support myself, I abandon my false bravado.
I desperately want to learn how to handle a gun—I need to learn everything I can from anyone who is willing to teach me—but I shake my head. “Honestly… I don’t think I’m up to lifting a weapon today.”
Iyana’s forehead creases as she studies me. “What do you mean?”
I point to my face with a dry laugh. “This is everywhere—shoulders, ribs, hips. I’m having trouble rotating my shoulder. I don’t think I have a hope of extending my arms to fire a gun.”
Iyana purses her lips, tilting her head to the side. “You’re in pain right now?”
My laugh becomes sarcastic. “No, I’m not in any pain at all.”
“Damn. I thought you looked pale. I assumed it was your normal shade.” She carefully removes her hand from my arm as if she’s only just now realizing how much she’s hurting me. Her shoulders are tense, her grip on the box of bullets in her other hand tight enough to crinkle the cardboard.
“You shouldn’t be in pain right now,” she says, peering at me, her gaze passing rapidly across my face. “That’s not how this works. I need to get you to Helen right away.”
I attempt to step away from Iyana but only succeed in sliding along the wall.
I hate the concern in her eyes.
“I can handle pain,” I snap. “I don’t need your pity.”
Iyana’s expression hardens. Her lips press into an unhappy line. “This is not pity. If Helen’s magic hasn’t taken away your pain, then something’s wrong. Helen needs to know. Right away.”
“I’m fine—”
“Helen!” Iyana raises her voice, as if she expects Helen to materialize out of thin air. “We need you!”
Within seconds, running footfalls precede Helen down the stairs. I’m surprised at how quickly she arrives until I remind myself that this house contains stairways that magically connect floors. Helen is only ever a corridor and a set of stairs away from me. Today, she’s dressed in jeans and another soft-looking sweater.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, pulling to a stop, her attention dashing across us both.
Iyana is stiff and alert beside me. “Tessa’s in pain.”
Helen startles. “That’s not possible. I used the strongest spell I have.”
I attempt to back farther away from both of them but don’t make it far before Helen closes the gap, much faster than me in my sluggish state. She grips both of my shoulders in her hands.
This time, I can’t stop the moan slipping between my lips when she presses on my bruises. I squeeze my eyes closed, my jaw clenching. “Can everyone please stop grabbing me?”
Helen immediately releases me. “This shouldn’t be happening. Tessa, can you walk on your own?”
“I can walk fine,” I snap, turning myself into a liar when my head swims, and I lose my footing, thumping against the wall behind me before I slide down it onto my backside.
Helen follows me down, kneeling in front of me. “Okay, we’ll do this here.”
She holds her arm out horizontal to the floor, as if she’s reaching for something. A second later, her wand flies down the stairs and across the corridor into her hand. Her fingers close around it and she draws it through the air around my head and torso, keeping the wand parallel with my body.
She moves the wand slowly, as if she’s shining light on my body that only she can see.
I watch her carefully, but I’m too exhausted from fighting the pain to push her away. “What are you doing?”
“I’m assessing your body for remnant magic,” she says. “If the pain blockers aren’t working, then neither is the healing spell.”
Moments later, she pulls back, her forehead creased. “I can’t detect a shred of magic in your system, Tessa. The spells I used should have lasted an entire week.”
“Then… what does this mean?” I ask.
“It means you might be metabolizing magic much faster than anyone I’ve ever met,” Helen replies. “I’ll know more once I run some tests, but for now, I’m going to place a basic pain-blocking spell over you so we can get you up the stairs without hurt
ing you.”
She mutters under her breath while she waves the wand over me, trailing it across the space in front of my chest and up over my face. Slowly, the ache in my limbs eases, becoming dull and distant, although it’s not gone entirely.
Popping her wand into her waistband, Helen pulls one of my arms across her shoulder, gesturing to Iyana to do the same. “Help me carry her, please.”
Iyana follows Helen’s lead, angling her shoulder under my arm so that the women support me on either side while I clamber to my feet and we proceed toward the stairs.
I pull to a stop when I find myself facing an elevator instead of a staircase. Helen said I wouldn’t see the elevator again until I was ready to leave.
Iyana seems equally surprised. “Elevator today, huh?”
Helen’s response is gruff. “I’m making an exception. I don’t want Tessa tumbling down the stairs and taking us both with her.”
Just like yesterday, Helen hits the button for the twentieth floor once we’re inside. When the doors open, she and Iyana help me down the corridor to the same room Helen examined me in yesterday.
Once there, they lay me down on the examination table.
Iyana takes herself off to the side of the room out of the way while Helen hovers over me, chewing her lip nervously. “Tessa, I need to do a quick test, but I’m afraid it could hurt you if my theory is wrong.”
Tension creeps through me—I’m already in enough pain—but I give her a nod.
With my permission, she mutters under her breath and points her wand at the back of my hand, where I rest my palm on my stomach.
A second later, a golden flame flares across my fingertips, burning hot as it bursts along my skin.
Chapter Eight
I let out a scream before the flame vanishes.
I blink at my perfectly unharmed hand.
“Did you feel any pain?” Helen asks, her question urgent.
I shake my head. “None at all.” My scream was instinctive. A reaction to the pain I thought I would feel.
