by Rhys Lawless
“What are we going to do, huh?” he asked. “If I don’t find Christian and put an end to all this, we’re doomed.”
“I don’t know, baby. Maybe what Ash asked you to do will lead to something. What I do know is that there’s nothing here for us, I’m exhausted, and I could use a nice dinner.”
Yeah, it might have sounded selfish after the devastation, but if everyone insisted on my uselessness then they couldn’t blame me for wanting to look after my own.
“That…that’s a great idea, baby. I definitely need to recharge my batteries before I go find…you know,” he said and pursed his lips. He didn’t want any intercepting witch or other creature knowing what he was doing next, but I knew what he meant. Before he went deep into the vampire bullshit he had escaped a long, long time ago.
I gave him a kiss that felt neither naughty nor warm, it was more…familiar. It was about reassurance we were on the same page and we would always be. That is if we managed to get out of this unscathed.
“Should we stop by Rune’s place? I’m dying to meet him,” he said.
“That’s a great idea. We can check in on him and the rest of his coven.”
As we exited the complex, we bumped into Troy and Easton, who looked as lost as we did among all the important witches around.
“Are you guys done here?” I asked.
Easton nodded. “There’s only so much I can help. Especially considering my power,” he said.
“And Ash doesn’t want me to use mine because he’s afraid anything I do can be traced. Even after I reassured him it won’t,” Troy said.
“In that case, would you join us for dinner?” I asked. “We really aren’t of much help in there either, and we are in desperate need of sustenance. There’s a witch in Brick Lane who owns a Thai, and we were going to check in on him.”
Troy laughed out loud.
“Not in a million years. The truce is over. Witch hunter.”
Easton took Troy’s hand and kissed the back of it.
“I think we should extend it over dinner, my love. Trust me on this,” he said, and Troy succumbed to his boyfriend’s thrall.
“I’ll get us a cab,” Caleb said and reached for his phone.
“It’s okay,” Troy said and closed his eyes. “There’s one on its way,” he said when he opened them again.
“Gods, Easton. Your boyfriend is scary.” Caleb winked at Easton.
“I know,” Easton said and gave Troy a quick kiss on the lips.
The cab arrived a few minutes later, and we jumped in. We stayed relatively quiet during the ride to Brick Lane with Caleb and Easton doing most of the talking. Troy spent the ride with his eyes shut, probably using his powers for something that the rest of us weren’t privy to, while I tried to focus on the outside that blurred past me in nauseating fashion.
When we got to Rune’s place, it was vibrant with life, although its blue-haired owner wasn’t. As we walked through the door all chatter stopped and all eyes turned on us. All the customers were of Asian origin, and I was certain they were all witches that belonged in Rune’s coven.
“Wade,” Rune called out from across the room and squeezed past all the chairs and tables to get to us.
“Hi, Rune. I thought I’d check on you and introduce you to my boyfriend. We thought we’d grab some dinner here, but I can see you’re busy so we can go somewhere else,” I said.
“Nonsense, sweetie. The whispers told me you were coming. I saved you all a table,” he said with a big smile.
Of course. I’d forgotten about his power. And when he said it, I noticed the empty table in the middle.
“You must be Caleb,” Rune said, extending his hand to him.
“Indeed. Nice to meet you, Rune.” Caleb shook his hand and smiled back. Then he introduced him to Troy and Easton.
“Come on, don’t just stand there,” Rune said and turned his back to guide us through the small restaurant.
I felt Caleb’s empathy reach out to me, and I let him in as we followed Rune.
He’s cute. I can see your obsession with him now, he said.
What? What obsession? I’m not obsessed with him, I replied.
Did he think I had a thing for Rune? Was it possible I had a thing for him when I was mated to Caleb? Well, it didn’t matter if it was possible or not, because my heart, my body, and my entire soul belonged to Caleb.
Relax, baby. I was kidding.
Caleb turned and winked at me before taking a seat at the table. Once we were all sitting down, Rune leaned into the table and showed everyone the menus.
“Choose anything you want. Anything your heart desires. It’s on the house,” he said.
I shook my head. “I can’t let you do that again.”
“Sweetie, if it weren’t for you introducing me to Mother Red and if your brother hadn’t put protections on this place, we’d all be dead,” he said. “I heard what happened in Primrose Hill.”
Rune looked around to the other tables whose occupants all looked solemnly back at us.
“My coven wants you to know that we’re here for yours, if you ever need our help,” he said, and everyone raised a glass in agreement.
“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” they all sang in honor of the fallen witches.
“Thank you,” Caleb said, and Rune winked at him.
“Now, you lot, get out of their business and let them enjoy their dinner,” Rune shouted to the other tables and soon the chatter resumed in the restaurant.
Once we’d placed an order and Rune had provided us with sufficient booze, Troy relaxed in my presence, and Caleb took lead of the conversation again.
“Tell me, what happened to you two? Where did you go after you left Java Jinx that night?”
“We went to Mother Red Cap.” Easton laughed. “It sounds like she’s kept busy since we’ve been gone.”
“Not before your killer boyfriend ambushed us in Camden and tried to kill us,” Troy interjected.
Before Troy took the conversation in a different direction, Caleb asked another question.
“And then what? You got to her, but how did you avoid BLADE hunters? How did you survive?”
“We changed identities,” Easton said. “We took on different personas. And so we started our new lives together. We couldn’t tell anyone who we truly were, or the spell would be broken, and our real identities would be revealed. We tried to stay in London, but…but it was too painful being around my skulk and them being unable to recognize me, to smell my true scent, so we went abroad for a while.”
“Lorelai is going to be so happy you’re back. So will the rest of the skulk,” Caleb said.
“So, I take it she hasn’t adhered to the Nightcrawlers’ shut off?” Easton asked.
“When have you ever known Lorelai to adhere to the skulk’s rules? Besides, the coven practically raised her. She’s as much part of the coven as she is part of the foxes,” Caleb said.
“True,” Easton agreed.
“What did you guys do abroad? When did you discover you’re a witch?” I asked, turning to Troy.
I knew the guy didn’t like me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try to win him over. He’d see the truth. See me for who I was once he knew the truth about me. About us. About what had happened since I last saw him. I was, for all intents and purposes, a new person.
“We were in France helping out the Nightcrawlers there with a…an issue, but Troy’s parents got really sick, and we had to come back. He wanted to check on them. It coincided with the big burst of energy two months ago. It…it ignited Troy. Since then, he’s been honing his technopathy power. But, unfortunately, his father was also ignited…” Easton turned to look at his partner who took a deep breath.
He didn’t need to say more. Caleb had told me what could happen if ignition happened on a witch in non-ideal circumstances. It could turn fatal. Especially if the witch was old and weak.
“He died before I could tell him I was okay,” Troy murmured.
&nb
sp; I wanted to reach for his hand, to hold him in my arms and apologize for what BLADE and I had put him through, but how could I? How could I ever make it up to him?
Troy cast a glance at me and then looked at Caleb. “By the time my mom buried him, we found out that BLADE had been decimated and the witch hunters were no longer a threat, so I revealed my identity to my mom and the whole spell broke apart. After the battle at Tower Bridge, we decided to take my mom and Easton’s mom to the south of France for a holiday and to keep them away from all the bullshit. It was a great chance to introduce them to each other.”
“And since my mom is an ordained minister, she also married us,” Easton added.
Caleb whistled. “What? Congratulations, guys,” he said, raising his glass in the air.
Troy broke a smile for the first time that evening, and I was hoping he’d keep it on. Easton seemed to have forgiven me. Why couldn’t Troy?
“What happened to you? How are you together?” Troy asked Caleb.
Caleb sighed.
“Where do I start?” He laughed.
He took it from the top. He told them about the high council witches dying, about finding me, discovering our shared past, Christian’s plan, his control over Winston and me, the demons that had threatened everything, my emerging powers.
Of course, he kept our bonding and my inability to cast a spell to himself.
“What the actual fuck! You guys have been through everything,” Troy said.
Easton rested his hand on top of Troy’s and patted it.
“See, baby? That’s why I told you. Take it easy and hear them out first.”
Troy turned to his boyfriend. “Your premonition—”
“Was this moment,” Easton said.
Troy glanced at Caleb and then at me. Rune interrupted the awkwardness with our food order and more booze, and I stayed quiet while Troy processed everything.
“This is literally the best Thai I’ve ever had,” Easton marveled.
“Aw, you’re such a sweetheart,” Rune shouted from behind the bar.
Easton blushed and smiled at Rune.
“Oops, didn’t mean to be so loud,” Easton said to the table.
“It’s the whispers, hon,” Rune shouted again.
Easton nodded in understanding, and I laughed.
“I mean how cool is his power?” I said.
“Very,” Rune answered, and everyone on the table laughed.
When we’d finished, Rune cleared our plates and offered us some coffee, but we kindly refused.
Thinking a whole meal would have been sufficient time and energy to have Troy process the truth, I turned to address him.
“I hope you can forgive me for what I’ve done to you. The part I played in everything. Maybe not today. But someday I hope you will.”
Troy glared at me and then took a sip of his wine.
“We’ll see. I get it, okay? You were being controlled. But I still lost my father and I couldn’t save him or reassure him I was okay because of you and your witch hunters.”
Easton coughed and Troy gave him the side-eye.
“But it might happen. One day. I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t make any promises.”
“That’s all I could ever ask for,” I said.
Caleb rested his hand on my thigh and gave the inside a little squeeze. It gave me the strength I needed after a draining experience. Why did it surprise me that Caleb knew what I needed, when, and how much? We were linked for life, and his power could break me apart or put me back together, if I let it. He was my everything, and I was the luckiest man alive to have him.
I wouldn’t let anyone take him away from me. Not the high council, Christian, the demons, or the vampires. He belonged to me, and I belonged to him.
Easton pushed his chair back, excusing himself to the bathroom, but as he stood up, he lost his balance and collapsed onto his chair. Troy turned around as if by instinct and held his hand.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“He’s having…” Caleb started, but Troy turned around and finished his sentence.
“A premonition.”
A couple of seconds passed and then Easton opened his eyes, straightened himself on the chair, the color drained from his face.
“That was interesting,” he said and stared right at me.
“Wh-why?” I asked.
Easton trembled as if recapturing the premonition made him weak.
“It was about you,” he said, but before I could ask him to clarify, he corrected himself. “No, not about you. About your father.”
“What about my father,” I asked, and Caleb’s hand was now intertwined with mine, our fingers laced together, holding on to each other.
“Your father is alive,” Easton said. “And he’s a prisoner.”
Ten
Caleb
Meeting Easton and Troy at the complex was a godsend as it turned out. Amid the brewing war and the vampire attacks, Wade’s inability to cast spells, and the constant fear those we loved could die at any moment because of Christian’s minions, Easton’s premonition was the first piece of good news we’d had in fuck knew how long.
If anything, it’d brought Troy and Wade closer, even if under the guise of joining forces to find Wilder.
“Do you think Troy will ever forgive him?” I asked Easton when we left Wade’s apartment the next day. After we left Rune’s restaurant, we all went home and reconvened the following day to figure out how Troy could help us find Wilder.
Easton smiled and opened the exit door for me.
“I know he will,” he said.
“Let me guess. Premonition?”
“Gut instinct.” He shook his head. “I know Troy, and he doesn’t have the capacity for hatred and grudges. Once he sees the real Wade, he’ll forgive him.”
“You seem to have forgiven him very quickly,” I added.
I didn’t mind that Wade had one less person to convince of his good nature, but the witch hunters had destroyed more than one life.
“I only ever encountered him once, at Camden, when he tried to kill us. Troy had to work with him and Winston. Besides, my premonitions have helped me see the truth. If only I could share them with others, it would save us so much trouble.”
“So…France, huh? What was that like? How is the coven there?”
We walked away from the block of flats and entered the park. God, I hated winter. The sun setting at four fucking in the afternoon was the worse, never mind the bone-chilling cold.
“Different. That’s for sure. And they don’t take as kindly to half-breeds like the London coven, but they found a good use for my premonitions and Troy’s hacking skills, so they let us help them with some stuff.”
“Trust me, dude, the London coven is all different kinds of fucked up, I’ll tell you that.”
“Yeah. That,” Easton muttered. “At least Ash seems keen to change things.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how much difference it will make. The Nightcrawlers don’t believe anything is going to change, and the older witches don’t see the high council’s betrayal as a good enough reason to make radical changes. You know, when Graham told me I was a witch and ignited my powers, I thought: this is it. I’m going to live a life free of the human and Nightcrawlers’ politics. Who could have told me then that I’d be in the middle of more fucking politics and a war that no one seems keen enough to stop?”
“It’s a strange world we live in, Caleb. And strange times. All we can do at the end of the day is try our hardest to make something good come out of all this.”
“Amen to that,” I said, and at the same time, I felt my head buzzing.
Easton snapped his head to look behind him, his body lowering to the ground, ready to attack whatever was coming our way.
I readied myself, tuning out all the distraction and focusing on the number one threat.
A hazy apparition came within my vision, and a tall, muscular man appeared in front of me, pale, but sexy,
and grabbed me by the neck, lifting me off the ground.
Another vampire was trying to tackle Easton, but he was almost as fast as the vampire.
“You’re yummy. Such a waste.” The vampire holding me tutted.
“Re-really?” I said and pushed back at him, my empathy wild and intoxicating on him.
He collapsed on the ground and let me go, but I didn’t do the same. I looked at him, bent in half, screaming in pain, and I almost felt sorry for him. He was just a pawn in someone else’s game. It could have been me in his place if I hadn’t died and ended up a witch instead.
“Who sent you?” I asked him.
It’s not like I was expecting a verbal answer, but I pushed harder into his mind.
My clan master, he said.
Who is your clan master?
Darius, he answered.
Laughter roared out of me, and I almost lost my connection to the vampire.
“Darius is a clan master now? He could hardly beat me in a fistfight,” I said.
The vampire stared at me from the ground.
“Darius and I go way back, my friend,” I told him. “I take it you’re a new vampire.”
He tried to open his mouth and reply to me, but I didn’t let him.
Two years, he said.
“So he sent you after me? What? He wants a rematch?”
No. He sent us out in the field to take down witches, he replied.
I looked at Easton, who had turned into a fox and was fighting with the vampire, quite literally, teeth on teeth.
A simple pull of my empathy brought the second vampire down, and I made sure to tell Easton that I had him under my control.
Easton stood back but didn’t return to his human form. His reflexes worked much better in his animal form, and he could tackle any other oncoming threat.
“Why?” I asked the vampire. Why does Darius want witches dead?
I don’t know. He doesn’t either. He’s just following orders.
Whose orders? Christian’s?
How the fuck should I know?
And why are you blindly following someone else’s orders? Don’t you have a will of your own?