“Mais non, Chérie! ‘Tis not fair! We need more parties, and a binding is the best excuse!”
The tiny French woman looked truly sad, and Lila remembered that she needed allies.
“Let’s have lunch next week and discuss an alternative,” Lila suggested.
“Ah! Bon ide!”
Lila loved how Catherine fell into French when she got excited, and thought that she could find a genuine friend in her. Isobel, on the other hand, was trying to ignore them and catch Evan’s eye, in spite of the blood bond. She would have to watch this bitch. Even though Evan was schooling his features, she could see that he all but ignored Isobel.
“So Evan, beside this mating, how has your life changed since I last saw you?” Isobel asked.
Evan paused before taking his eyes off of Lila and looking at the other woman.
“My life hasn’t changed at all except for Lila,” he said mildly.
“But you are here as a guest tonight, not your usual background guard detail.”
She sounded a bit thrown off, as if she couldn’t understand the situation.
“I am Lila’s body guard, as well as her bonded mate, Isobel.”
The woman’s eyes went wide.
“Why?”
Catherine let a short laugh escape, telling Lila that no love was lost between these two women. Lila decided that Catherine DuBois was her new BFF.
“Lila is the Chosen One,” Catherine said, almost gleefully.
Well shit, from the expression on Isobel De Medici’s face, that probably wasn’t the best reveal. It was a mixture of shock and...Lila was going to go with deadly intent. Evan must have seen it too, because he looked at Lila and said, “Come dance with me,” and he led her back out to the entry hall where a dozen couples were now dancing.
Evan took Lila into his arms and began a slow waltz. This was much better than conversing with people who would judge or condemn them. He looked into Lila’s eyes and saw her love for him reflected back.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Lila raised her eyebrows questioningly. She assumed that Isobel was trying to listen in on any conversation they might be having. She let her love flow through their bond instead of saying it. If Evan wanted to tell her about his history with Isobel, she’d let him do it in his own time. After all, this bond was the only true mate bond for him. No matter what that vampire bitch thought, it would be hard if not impossible for her to separate them.
A loud guffaw made them both look up to see James standing on the edge of the makeshift dance floor next to Sebastian. He was also dressed as a musketeer in the blue and white poncho and a short sword at his belt.
“Who’s idea was the musketeer thing?” Lila asked.
Before Evan could answer, the loud sound of windows breaking was heard all around them. They heard the crash of a full tray of glasses hitting the floor and servers ran from the hallway that led to the kitchen. More screams came from the other rooms, and black smoke curled out from the two doorways on either side of the foyer. More crashes could be heard coming from the upstairs, as if more windows were being broken. The musicians stopped playing abruptly, dropped their instruments, and fled out the front door.
A Mage came screaming into the room completely engulfed in flames and fell to the floor, writhing in pain as he was consumed by the flames. A fireball shot into the front door, lighting the door and framing on fire, and blocking the only visible exit.
They were under attack.
In the blink of an eye, Evan had Lila backed up against the wall in the curve of the staircase, and was shielding her with his body. The sounds of fire and screaming surrounded them now.
Lila saw a flash of blue to her left and turned her head to see Sebastian rip his poncho off over his head. His hat went flying, and he used the poncho to beat flames off another man, also wearing blue.
“Oh no! It’s Xander!” Lila cried as she lunged for them and Evan held her in place.
“Stay with me, Lila,” Evan said. “Bastian has him!”
But he didn’t. The flames were spreading to Sebastian via his poncho, like a wild fire in a field of dry grass. Lila could smell the coppery scent of blood, and the charred smell of burning flesh.
Without being bidden, Lila’s magic surfaced. Her light glowed around her and Evan, creating a bubble of protection. Then Lila felt her magic reaching out to the flames that were growing in strength all around them. She stood against the wall behind Evan and wrapped her arms around his torso and held him to her as she reached for her magic, trying to comprehend what it wanted her to do. She saw the fire’s energy feeding from the air around it, hungry to consume everything it could. No! she thought, and she pulled the air away from the fire with the thought cutting it down by half. Then she thought to snuff it out completely, and let her magic lay over it like a wet blanket.
She saw Sebastian and Alexander fall to the floor in a smokey pile of limbs and charred fabric, but she felt the same thing happen to the flames in other parts of the house. The screams died away, replaced by moans and crying. James staggered out of a room supporting Catherine DuBois, and helped her to sit on the stairs before going to check on Xander and Bastian. Lila eased up on her grip around Evan and he pulled her away from the wall to guide her over to the stairs to sit next to Catherine so that he could guard the both of them.
Smoke billowed out from the side rooms and up to the central ceiling. As if wanting to be fashionably late, the sprinkler system was finally triggered and rained down on them. Catherine DuBois leaned into Lila, and cringed as Evan removed his coat and put it over Lila’s head and shoulders. He picked up Catherine and looked at Lila.
“Come,” he said and he headed out the front door towards fresh dry air.
Lila followed without complaint, and saw James helping Sebastian and Xander as they followed behind.
Outside, others were gathering in the circular driveway, carrying or helping others to exit. Sirens could be heard in the distance.
Evan set Catherine down on the grass to the left of the front door, and Lila collapsed next to her. James deposited Xander a few feet away from Lila on his back. The man was badly burned, but breathing, and already healing. Evan knelt next to Lila and shielded her vision from the awful sight of his charred flesh.
Sebastian, who was only singed, looked to Lila and Evan for assurance that she was in one piece.
“She’s all right, Bastian,” Evan said. “She stopped the flames, did ya see?” There was a hint of pride in Evan’s voice.
“I did,” Alexander croaked, ”Magnificent.”
“Save your energy, Xander,” Sebastian said.
An annoyingly high pitched female voice preceded the appearance of Isobel De Medici and Claude Artois as the man escorted the woman outside. His wig was gone, and she had his top coat on her shoulders. She continued to make a fuss, even though she had no burns or scratches on her.
The sirens were louder and closer now, and colored lights flashed off the trees of the long driveway. The fire truck had to go slow because cars were parked on one side of the one lane drive. The noise abruptly stopped, but the lights continued to flash. A large fire engine pulled around the circle and stopped in front of the gathering on the lawn. Firemen swarmed off the truck in full yellow reflective gear and into the house. A minute later they were carrying and escorting people out, and the lawn behind Lila and her team was being filled by Magiques in different stages of healing.
Four paramedics arrived to tend to the victims, assessing the severity of injuries and focusing on the ones needing immediate attention. Isobel could be heard screeching her insistence that she needed medical attention. Alexander waved them away when they got to him, insisting that others needed them more.
Lila wished she could hold Xander’s hand to support him as his body slowly healed itself. Why did his mate not come tonight? Why was she not here to hold his hand? Lila felt Evan’s warm hand on the back of her neck, giving her his strength. She looked up at him, and
he leaned down to kiss her gently on her lips.
“We are all okay, Angel,” he whispered.
She smiled at him and held her hand out to Catherine who looked to be in a stupor of shock. Catherine gripped Lila’s hand in both of hers and closed her eyes.
“Quel desastre,” Catherine whispered, and she laid her head in Lila’s lap and began to sob.
The next three days were filled with police reports, ISF interviews, and Lila’s retelling of how she followed her intuition and magic to douse the flames that would have otherwise killed everyone trapped inside the DuBois mansion. Considering that they had been attacked by multiple flame throwers, it was a miracle that there were only seven casualties. Eighty-eight people made it out alive because Lila was able to control the flames from spreading.
In the mage community, Lila’s ability and quick thinking was being lauded. Even vampires were murmuring their approval, no doubt due to the fact that their council Head, Artois was confirming the reports that Lila had been the one to stop the flames from consuming everything. In the shifter community, however, she was being blamed for the attack, as the rumors spread that the attackers were trying to kill her, the “Chosen One.” Even though no shifters were hurt or killed, they still pointed fingers at Lila and the mages for causing the attack in the first place.
Lila was not used to being a public figure or even being in the limelight, so she took the personal accusations very hard. After the second morning Evan had to coax her out of bed with the promise that no unfiltered news or gossip would reach her ears, the filter being himself and Sebastian. The three of them stayed close to home, Sebastian working remotely with the rest of the team to figure out which shifter pack was responsible for the attack.
It was obvious from the rumours that shifters had attacked the party. It was probably an extension of the pizza parlor and forest attacks. There was a shifter pack or packs that wanted the Chosen One dead. Alexander, recovered from his burns, had every shifter in his ISF building investigating all packs in the area. Sebastian, worried about insulting his neighbors, spent some time with Allen Bishop discussing the problem, and when he was certain that the Bishop pack was pro Lila and the Chosen One, he arranged to have a late autumn barbeque with the two households.
Lila and Evan’s visit to the Vampire council office of registry was delayed a day, but on Tuesday of the following week, Artois met them in the basement of the ISF building where the vampire council offices were located. They filed and signed the necessary forms and Artois ordered the secretary to immediately forward the files to the Mage council so that Lila’s name change could be recorded and made official as soon as possible.
When all the recording and signing was finished, Artois reached for Lila’s hand, intending to kiss it. Instead he got a shock and an apology from her. After a brief explanation, Artois smiled at Lila approvingly.
“Madame, I wish you nothing but happiness and success in your mating and your future. You are both blessed to have found each other, do not take your true mate for granted. I will always be at your service, Chosen One.”
Artois bowed to her and left the registry office, leaving a surprised Evan and Lila behind.
Evan was dumbfounded. He’d always thought that the man’s distaste for him had to do with the fact that Evan used to steal his love interests away before Artois had the chance to bed them. He had thought that they had both been playing the same game. Now he was not so sure, and a pang of guilt sat tightly in his gut.
Lila looked at him and smiled. She was holding his hand, so she felt his confusion and guilt.
“It may be an adjustment for you, Babe, but I think Artois just became an ally for us.”
Us. Not me. Lila’s ability to accept him for him continued to catch Evan off guard. It was her human upbringing, and the influence of her circus family. He couldn’t wait to meet them. She talked about all of them as if they were her blood relations, but for her, family meant something different. Something Evan had not had.
Chapter 12
October
The day before the barbeque with the Bishop pack, Lila spent most of her time in the kitchen baking pies and cakes. Lila loved to bake because everyone loved dessert. When she was finished, she loaded two apple pies, one pear tart, two different chocolate cakes, and one lemon cake into the back of the SUV to be transported over to the Bishop estate by Sebastian. She and Evan would walk through her escape plan that led to the Bishops and meet everyone at the backyard barbeque. This idea was at Lila’s insistence. Now that direct threats had been leveled at her, she saw the need to practice all the possibilities, including escape.
At the designated time, Lila led the way downstairs to the gym, across to the wall of weapons where the hidden hand scanner was. She placed her palm on the scanner and the hidden door slid open to reveal a dark stairway. She made a light, and descended the stairs, Evan behind her. Fifty yards down a rough tunnel, she passed the stairs that led up to the garage and kept going. The tunnel went on for about a mile. It gradually sloped upward and ended at a ladder and man sized grate cover. She unlocked the grate, flipped it open, and emerged from the tunnel onto the trail that led to the Bishops’ estate. Evan climbed out after her and closed the grate, checking that it locked behind him, and recovering it with fallen leaves. Now they had two miles of peaceful forest to walk through to get to the party. Of course if Lila was really escaping, she would be running in a panic, possibly being pursued, but the point to the exercise was to become familiar with the plan.
They reached the party as the sun was setting over the trees, and the bonfire was lighting more than the sky could. Two shifter guards were looking out for them and accompanied them across the back lawn to the grill where Allen Bishop and Sebastian were watching the meat cook with beers in hand. Both men smiled at Lila and Evan as they approached, and the pack closed in to scent and greet them.
The Bishop pack was relatively small, only numbering thirty, but they were a strong pack. Allen, the alpha, had two Betas, or seconds, his twin brothers, Aidin and Avery. Below them there were two more brothers, Axel and Anthony. They were all pure blooded and strong wolf shifters, and all were mated to pure blooded she-wolf shifters. The rest of the pack was comprised of children and brothers-in-law who needed to branch out from their own packs.
After the male shifters scented Lila and Evan, the women pulled Lila away to ask her about the desserts she had provided, and give the women and children a chance to scent her away from her mate. Evan allowed it only because he could still see her only fifteen feet away.
The alpha female was named Beatrice, and she introduced her sisters-in law, Shari, Wendy, and Grace. Shari and Grace were holding babies. Lila looked at them quizzically as she admired the babies.
“Shouldn’t there be one more sister?” She was sure that Allen had said all his brothers were mated.
The women laughed, and Shari spoke up.
“I’m mated to both Aidin and Avery,” she explained. “It’s pretty common for shifters who are raised very close together to share a mate.”
“Are there a lot of twin shifters then?” Lila asked.
“No more than in other cultures. In family packs cousins can be raised as brothers, or even non family members in larger packs. Boys that grow up together seem to gravitate towards the same mate.”
“Are you talking about True Mates?” Lila asked.
“Yes, a true mate is the only woman who they’d be able to convince to be shared.”
“I have a sister-in-law who mated two of my brothers and a cousin,” Wendy offered. “They live in Ohio.”
“Hunh. So is menage mating common enough in shifters that it’s widely accepted?” Lila wanted to know. She was thinking about the prophecy and what it expected of her.
“Well, among wolf shifters it is, not so much everywhere else,” Wendy admitted.
“And as far as you know, are the matings good? Happy, I mean?” Lila asked.
“I’m happy,” Shari said.
“And my sister-in-law is,” Wendy added.
“So do you or anyone else try to get wider acceptance for those families?”
“Again, outside of the shifter community it’s kind of hard to gain acceptance,” Beatrice said. “It’s a double edged sword. We tend to be insular because we are already surrounded by family, and because the general public doesn’t accept more then two to a mating, we don’t all socialize outside the pack.”
Lila nodded her understanding.
“How come you aren’t shocked or disgusted by it?” Grace asked Lila.
Lila smiled at the shy shifter.
“I was raised in a circus. I knew what ‘gay’ and ‘trans’ meant before I knew my times tables. Multiple mates sounds like just another variation to me.”
As Lila spoke the words, she listened to herself. Did she mean that multiple mates were okay for her too, or was it okay as long as she wasn’t involved? She was going to have to think about that one. At the moment, she couldn’t fathom loving anyone else besides Evan, no matter what the Oracle had said.
Evan watched Lila with the women. When she took the offer of holding a baby, he felt a tightness in his chest. Did Lila want children? Had she hoped for them during her human life? Would adopting children be enough for her?
Riding home in Sebastian’s SUV, Lila was quiet, still mulling over the conversation with the shifter women. Shari had said that only a true mate could be enticed into a menage, but that was with two or more men who had been raised as brothers. In her case, she would be gathering three different mates, and the four of them would join together as one. She had issues with the concept on all kinds of levels, and not much specific information to go by. For instance, Would she feel the same magical pull towards each of them? Could she love each of them as much as she loved Evan? It seemed impossible, and disastrous, and she had to force herself to stop thinking about it before she drove herself mad. She would just have to cross that bridge when it landed in her path. For now she vowed to make the most out of her time with Evan alone.
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