by M F Adele
The vampire sucked in a sharp breath. “What the—”
“Oh my gods,” Lo hissed, making a beeline for her best friend.
It was weird to see Jack so relaxed—not that he wasn't ever relaxed. But I’d expected him to be the life of the party; one of the drunks playing too close to the crackling bonfire in the center of the field.
When we approached, he handed my mate a bottle of tequila and the rest of us beers. He fussed at Lo about how he knew she wouldn’t come prepared.
The hellsteed had brought enough alcohol for the entire party, but it sat in two large coolers in the bed of Baylor’s truck.
“Jack,” she bit out, interrupting him. “Why didn’t you or Grim say anything?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, explaining, “You’ve been busy with your own shit, and I wasn’t sure at first…”
“I was sure, but Jack needed a little convincing,” Grim cut in.
Blaire shrugged nonchalantly. “It was a shock.”
“And then we met Baylor…” Grim nodded to the wolf in question, and Briggs’ eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.
“Everything’s been sort of strange,” Jack admitted, grimacing when Sloane gave him and the reaper a scathing look.
“And you’ve both been letting me drag you into my own shit when you should have been getting to know your mate,” she admonished before turning to Blaire. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, and if I had, then I wou—”
“Lo,” Grim blurted, stopping her sudden rambling. “Blaire knows what you’re doing is important. She’s been helping, and she’s managed to get leads on a few fae-mages for us.”
Jack grinned, wrapping his arm as her shoulder in a half-hug. “We went straight to her when we left Hell, Lo. It’s not like we’re ignoring her. It was a week, for Devil’s sake, bitch. Chill out.”
“Novak? Are you okay?”
“I was just thinking that if Jack and Grim can keep you in line, then they should be able to handle Blaire too. She’s not quite as murdery as you are.”
Jack snorted, and Briggs threw his head back, his laughter booming around us.
“Oh, Bay. You’re in for a ride, dude.”
Stone shook his head at Baylor. “Did your brother ever tell you about Blaire kicking his ass?”
“You mean that time she came to visit, and they ended up arguing in the kitchen?” I asked, thinking of several other times Blaire had put us all in our places.
“She kicked him in the chest, and he slammed into the fridge so hard that the door fell off,” Novak whispered to Baylor like it was a secret.
Blaire rolled her eyes, and Sloane chuckled.
“Are ye ready for that, Bay?” Palmer asked, bouncing his finger between Jack and Grim. “I know they are…”
The guys playfully bickered back and forth as Lo wandered off. She walked around the party, smiling as she greeted some of the shifters, but I felt like she was doing more than just being friendly.
I watched her from a distance as she moved from one cluster of people to the next. Her casual touches were strategic, but they wouldn’t seem out of place to those who didn’t know her.
By the time she was done meeting people, she’d touched every person currently here. I didn’t know, but I had a hunch that she had been memorizing their mental signatures and faces.
Sloane stood near the fire, tilting her head to the left as she twisted her hand to make the flames dance. I ambled up behind her, wrapping my arms around the top portion of her chest as I pulled her against me.
There was a group of female shifters across from us, partially obscured by the fire. She observed them as they muttered amongst themselves, and that small act cemented my earlier idea. She was either looking for staticky minds or threats.
“Listening to the latest gossip?” I whispered in her ear, feeling a shiver race through her body.
Her familiar presence brushed against my mind. I closed my eyes and watched the brilliant pinks of her mental essence mix in a chaotic, swirling pattern as darkness crept in around the edges.
The gossip began to trickle into my thoughts, and the darkness in Sloane’s mind grew hungrier, swallowing up bits of the pink.
“She said to pick a fight, but every time I go near one of the Elliott brothers, those fucking vampires run me off.”
“I don’t care what she asked us to do. I want to fuck Bay again, and I wouldn’t be upset if his brother or one of those other guys wanted to join.”
“How difficult is it to kill a vampire? He’s hot, so it’d be a shame, but is it really that hard to accomplish?”
“Did you see the other guys, though? I don’t know what they are, but I want to find out.”
“Who is that stunning English guy? I’d sell my soul to the Devil for a night or two with him.”
I scoffed, running my lips down the side of her throat.
“The Devil already has my soul,” I murmured against her skin.
“I don’t just want your soul, Fae; I want all of you.”
“I know you do, Princess,” I confessed, tucking my face against her neck.
The group across from us had grown silent, and one last statement had some of them splitting apart.
“Do whatever you want. I’m not risking the wrath of the Supreme Alpha’s daughter. I’m leaving. The moment you bitches start shit, it’s going to get nasty, and I don’t want to be a part of that.”
Sloane cut off our connection to them after that, and we made our way back to the group. It was clear to me that we shouldn’t separate while we were here.
I felt like we were all being watched. Someone was waiting for one of us to leave the safety of our own misfit pack so they could pounce.
Palmer was tipsy, and Baylor and Jack were rather drunk when we reached them. Stone and York were a few feet away with Grim and Blaire, chatting and laughing. Novak and Briggs looked exhausted.
“How does it feel to be the babysitter for a change?” I asked Novak.
“Keeping Jack from prancing off is the hardest job I’ve ever had,” he bitched as he rubbed his eyes.
“I’ve not so much as blinked in like twenty minutes. I was worried that his drunk ass was going to disappear and take these two idiots with him. Then we wouldn’t know where the fuck they went.”
“They made me the beer bitch,” Briggs grumbled.
Sloane covered her mouth with her hand as she tried not to laugh.
Novak rolled his eyes as the hellsteed slurred, “Lo, do you remember that time that Dad came to the academy when we got in that fight?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking about it.”
Baylor glanced between them before his wide, serious eyes settled on Jack. “What happened? Was it bad?”
“When we were freshmen in high school, there were some kids at school who kept trying to bully us. Girls are fucking mean,” Jack stated dramatically.
“Wait, wait. I know how this goes.” Palmer patted at the air before asking, “Ye killed them, didn’t ye, Love?”
She grinned, shaking her head at them. “No. Jack and I got into several fights at the Devil’s Academy, but I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Tell them what happened,” Jack urged her before turning to Palmer and Baylor. “She’s shit at telling stories, but I love this one.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence,” she told the hellsteed.
He grimaced and shrugged at her.
“Anyway,” she started. “One Sunday night, this girl texted me after an argument, saying that she was going to bring a knife to school to stab Jack and me the next day.
“That weekend Dad—Charlie—was in town, staying with us at Papi’s house in Michigan. We mentioned what she said to Dad, and he asked to read the text messages. Then he said I’ll handle it.” Sloane lowered her voice, mocking the Supreme Alpha as she quoted him.
“What he meant by I’ll handle it was that he was going to go to the school and talk to the principal
, or in this case, the headmaster. When Dad got to the office that Monday morning, he marched in, dragging Jack and me behind him, and growled at the receptionist.
“He asked to speak to the principal, and Jack and I giggled behind him. The receptionist looked so confused when she saw us with someone other than Papi, but we didn’t explain.
“When she walked us to the headmaster’s office, Dad came face-to-face with Papi. He was so pissed because he thought Papi wasn’t doing anything to stop the bullying.”
“But everything that Papi tried only made it worse, so we stopped telling him about it,” Jack added.
“So Papi called the girl—the main girl—to his office to talk to her with me, Jack, and Dad in there. And she denied everything, but Dad asked me to show Papi the text messages she had sent saying she was going to bring a knife to school.
“Which, of course, as with any school, is against the rules. Not that we were going to say anything because, at the time, the Devil’s Academy was only for demons. And honestly, a stab wound does not hurt that bad.”
“If she would’ve stabbed you, you would have killed her,” Jack cut in, heated like he didn’t already know the end of the story.
Sloane held her hands up in surrender. “I don’t deny that. I’m just telling them what happened, exactly like you asked.”
When the hellsteed nodded, she continued. “Papi asked her about the text messages, and she denied it again. Dad was so aggravated because he could tell that she was lying.
“So he did what any normal dad would do. He turned his back to the headmaster and pulled his wallet out, tossing a couple of hundred-dollar bills onto Papi's desk. He told Jack and me that he would pay us $100 for every tooth we knocked out of her mouth.”
“Papi was so pissed at Dad that he gave us three days of excused absences from school so that he and Father—Nate—could talk us out of fighting.”
“And that was our last day at the Devil's Academy,” Jack announced, delighted that he could finish the story.
Briggs studied her for a moment. “That’s why you homeschooled?”
Sloane nodded. “We homeschooled through high school because we couldn’t stay out of trouble in a regular school. I’ll never complain about bullies, though. We only ever had those few at the Academy, and they were intimidated by us.
“But in return, it taught us to be humble with our power. I mean, Jack’s always been a prideful bastard. He might not show out, but he does show off.”
He cackled at Sloane and began spinning another tale from their childhood. I looked around while I listened, taking stock of how many more shifters had shown up.
We’d been in our own little bubble as the party had grown busier around us. There were too many faces to keep track of, but as I scanned the crowd, a few sparked my memories.
I was just about to ask Sloane if she’d told the guys what she’d overheard when the first nuisance of the night stepped into my line of vision.
The busty, auburn-haired woman walked into our group completely unannounced and unwelcome.
She didn’t try to speak to any of us as she headed straight for Briggs. The way her eyes glazed over with lust when they landed on him made us all tense.
Her behavior bothered Lo immediately.
When the woman saw Briggs wrap his hand around Sloane’s elbow and pull her to his chest, she narrowed her eyes at my mate.
And we all went on high alert as Sloane let us hear the quiet static in her mind.
“Briggs,” she purred, running a nude-colored nail down his forearm while she ignored Lo.
“Cassie,” he acknowledged, stepping back to get out of her reach. “Have you met my mate?”
She advanced on him, placing her palms flat on his pecs. He used his thumbs and index fingers to lift her hands off of his body.
“Listen. I don’t know what this is about, but I’m gonna need you to keep your hands to yourself before my mate removes them for you.”
“Briggs, baby. Can’t we talk about this? Us?”
He choked, then coughed to clear his throat. “There is no us; there never was.”
“There could be,” Cassie simpered.
“No fuck, there can’t,” Briggs said quickly, sidestepping as she tried to touch him once more.
Sloane watched their exchange without saying a word, but the fingers on her left hand tapped wildly against the side of her thigh.
Her mind was still connected to mine, and there was so much more darkness than there was earlier.
There was only a single swirl of pink left now.
Briggs dodged Cassie’s attempts again, moving behind Novak to put some distance between them. She tried to shove the vampire out of the way, but couldn’t, so she moved to step around him.
Our mate’s head tilted slightly to the right as the last of the pink in her mind faded away. Angry and agitated, the darkness rolled like billows of black smoke.
And Sloane snapped.
Between one blink and the next, her eyes completely blacked out.
Her talons extended from the tip of her fingers, and she slammed them into the back of Cassie’s neck. She snatched several vertebrae out, severing her spinal cord with a quick jerk of her hand.
The shock and pain on Cassie’s face was frozen in time as her body crumpled to the ground in a heap at Sloane’s feet.
I leaned over to look at my mate’s hand and instantly regretted it. In her grasp were three bloodied bones, pieces of—
I gagged.
Palmer chortled, taking the bones from Sloane and tossing them over his shoulder.
She narrowed her eyes at the lifeless body, looking thoroughly offended. “I didn’t catch her name.”
I wasn’t stupid, and I definitely wasn’t going to tell her now, so I curiously asked aloud, “Why did you do that?”
“She was talking to that petite brunette bitch over there—the one who still won’t stop staring at you guys—and mentioned the wrong things in conversation. I killed her for it. I feel zero remorse.”
“You’re awfully bloodthirsty tonight,” Novak teased.
“Lack of dick,” she deadpanned, a sardonic grin tugging at her lips as her eyes faded to their normal multicolored hue.
The vampire scoffed. “You have six mates. That’s not an excuse. If you need some more dick, all you have to do is ask.”
11
Stone
Thursday, June 4th
Late Night
Over the past few weeks, something major had shifted. I had been trying my fucking best to work it out. But it hit me earlier today.
I couldn’t think of a single time I had allowed myself to really flirt with Novak, and the same could be said for Vaughn. There had been an attraction there, for sure, though there had always been small worries too.
Knowing that Sloane didn’t have an issue with our attractions made it easier for me to acknowledge them.
I wasn’t keen on ruining friendships with sex; I still had my reservations. Tension was tolerable, usually fun, but it had never been in the cards to act on those feelings. Not that I had planned on doing it…
Now, though? My thoughts were being altered.
I didn’t have to worry about the attachment I had to my friends being an issue when I found my mate. Everything would have been flipped on its axis had we not all shared a mate.
She could have been someone different, someone who would have been upset about us flirting or fooling around with each other.
We could have had different mates, and they could have had problems with our semi-codependent relationships with each other.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what I would do without the guys. They’d been through more ups and downs with me than I could remember.
Sloane fit into our group so seamlessly that I often forgot how much time had passed since we’d met her. Sometimes it felt like yesterday; other times, I had to remind myself that we hadn’t known her for years.
The emotions that I felt for her
were becoming blinding. It was an intoxicating mix that was both terrifying and exhilarating. How I could go from being logical to constantly confused about my mental state was beyond me.
That’s just what she did to me.
She tugged at all the pieces of me that I’d buried under rationality and thought-out choices.
She made me forget to overthink.
I didn’t know which way was up anymore, but it didn’t matter when the stars surrounded me. She was so simply complex.
And I’d had too much to drink.
I turned to set my half-full bottle of beer on the tailgate of Baylor’s truck when something hit me in my chest. I glanced down, finding bones at my feet.
Jack whistled as Grim shook his head, muttering, “First kill of the night. That took her longer than I thought it would.”
The reaper’s statement brought me back to the present. Blaire looked oddly amused and not at all bloody. Which meant that Grim wasn’t talking about his own murderous mate.
I surveyed my surroundings, wondering how I’d missed her kill anyone, and snorted when I found her. She appeared thoroughly disgusted as she wiped her hands on her t-shirt.
“I won’t kill any more of your exes,” Sloane responded to Briggs as I ambled into their group.
“The vertebrae of the last one hit me in the chest,” I announced, and she covered her mouth with her left hand.
With her right, she pointed to the mage, her words muffled as she said, “He threw them.”
Palmer cackled. The sadistic glee in his eyes made me wonder how he ended up being a light mage and not dark like his siblings.
“Are you drunk, Mage?”
“Nope,” he popped back. “Well, yes. A wee bit. But if we’re killin’ people, then I’ll sober up. I know a spell.”
“No,” Briggs and I both exclaimed.
“We have a rule about drinking and practicing magic, Palmer,” I reminded him. “We don’t do it.”
While I was reprimanding the wasted mage, Vaughn leaned down, speaking quietly into Sloane’s ear. They both tensed as a small hand slid around Briggs’ bicep.
