The Viper's Nest

by Tate James

  “Well, I could have told you that,” I teased him, heading into the living area and tucking my legs up under me. “Will you be back before we leave for the airport? Vali and River said they’re driving us when they get back from sorting out your next safe house.”

  “Yup, for sure. You don’t leave for another couple of hours, right?” Caleb double-checked, and I heard Austin murmur something in the background.

  “Yeah, like just over three hours from now,” I confirmed, and Caleb made a noise of acknowledgement.

  “Austin says we can be back in two if I let him drive. Cole called me a second ago and said he’ll be back around the same time.” Caleb sounded annoyed, and I smiled.

  “Guess his lead was a dead end too, then?” I teased. “Don’t worry, Cal. We will probably get to Ireland and find this is a dead end as well and end up back here in two days.”

  A knock sounded at the suite door, and I uncurled from my seat to stand up. “Cal, I have to go. Our room service just arrived. I’ll see you soon, though.”

  A long sigh came down the phone. “Yeah, I’ll see you soon. Love you, Kitty Kat.”

  “Love you too, Caleb,” I whispered back to him, “and your asshole brother who is probably listening right now. I’ll see you both soon.”

  Hanging up the call, I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and went to answer the door. We’d both been too lazy to try and make ourselves lunch, so we’d ordered in. It was one of the perks to staying in a hotel, wasn’t it?

  “Hi,” I greeted the smartly uniformed hotel worker who stood at the door behind a room service cart, “Just through here would be great. Wes! Food’s here!”

  The man dipped his head and pushed the cart into our suite, parking it beside the dining table and offloading the tray carrying my pasta and bread and Wesley’s Thai beef salad. The smell of cheese sauce was already reaching my nose and making my mouth water. Ugh, yum. Carb goodness.

  While he did this, I waited by the door, holding it open for him. Call me crazy, but it felt creepy to close the door with a waiter inside the room. Maybe that was just my own insecurities making me paranoid.

  “Is that everything, miss?” he asked when everything was set on the table. “Just sign here.” He held out the leather bill folder with the room charge docket, and I scrawled a signature onto it. Not my signature, obviously, just a signature. I wasn’t that dumb.

  “That’s everything.” I smiled, holding the door while he pushed his cart out into the hall and then closing it behind him. “Oh yes, cheesy pasta. Come to mama.” I groaned aloud as I rushed over to the table to dig in. I’d skipped breakfast, thanks to a wake-up call of a different sort courtesy of Cole and River—a valid reason to skip meals if there ever was one. But now I was starved.

  “Did I just hear you dirty-talking your food?” Wes snickered, coming to join me at the table and giving me an amused smile.

  “That was sweet-talking, not dirty-talking, and hell yeah, you did.”

  On the side of the tray was a white access key that the room service dude must have left behind. I’d take it down to reception later; surely he could wait until after I ate.

  Setting it aside, I raised a forkful of pasta to my mouth right as a knock sounded on the suite door again.

  Dammit. He must have noticed and come back for it. Saved me a trip down to reception though, so I sighed and placed my fork back down to pick up the card and answer the door.

  “I’ll get it; you keep whispering sweet nothings to your pasta,” Wes teased, taking the key card from me and heading over to the door.

  “Hey man, you forgot your key—” he started to say as he opened the door, but his words were cut short when the door burst open thanks to a heavy-booted kick, and several heavily armed men seized hold of Wesley. A gun was pressed tight against his temple and another aimed at him by a different guy before I could even stand from my seat.

  It was the person who entered the room next that froze me to the spot.

  “Simon?” I gasped, not totally believing my eyes. Despite my shock, I still sized up his reenforcements to find the best way to free Wesley.

  My childhood friend stood there in the door to the suite looking like death. Which I guessed was damn appropriate, given I had seen him die in an avalanche!

  “Hey Foxy Girl,” he sneered at me. “Bet you never thought you’d see me again.”

  Stunned, I said nothing, just flicked my gaze between him and his goon squad, who were fastening a pair of handcuffs on Wesley. Worse than that, they were handcuffs like I’d never seen before… meaning I had no idea how to get him out of them.

  Simon was dressed in the same clothes he’d worn that night in Alaska—I knew because the image of him being obliterated by a wall of snow and ice was imprinted on my brain like it was etched in stone—but his backup was all business. Head-to-toe black with not an inch of skin showing anywhere. They even wore heavily tinted helmets, hiding their faces from view.

  “Si, this isn’t possible,” I started, and he chuckled an odd, hacking sound. His skin held an unnatural blueish tint, and his eyes were so bloodshot they almost looked to be bleeding.

  “Why, Foxy? Because I’m dead?” He curled his lip at me in disgust and jabbed me in the chest with a finger. “And whose fault was that?”

  “Simon, you died in an avalanche. That had nothing to do with me, but I would have killed you myself if I could have. You fucking shot me!” My wits were slowly coming back to me along with my anger. This was the boy who’d been my devoted best friend though so many horrific years of abuse, the same man who had tried to have me tortured and broken. Yeah, I should have killed him myself. “What the hell are you doing here? What do you want?”

  Simon shrugged, ignoring my questions, and the foul odor of decay wafted across my nose. “Well, should have, would have, could have. Your fucking abominations and their fireballs caused that avalanche, but luckily someone was watching. Someone who knows how much I fucking hate you.”

  He jabbed me in the chest, and I smacked his hand away, trying to ignore the ice-cold, waxy feeling of his skin.

  “You think you’re so safe, Ban Dia. You think you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you? Mr. Gray is dead, so it’s only your dad out to get you now, right?” He leered at me with a superior look on his sallow face. “Wrong, Foxy Girl. You have a lot more enemies than you know, and some of them are closer than you might think.”

  With this ominous threat, he pulled his fist back and punched me clean in the side of the face, making my head snap to the side and my breath escape in a sharp gasp. While it hurt, sure, I’d experienced worse. Even being an undead... whatever he was, Simon was no stronger than a normal human male.

  Raising my hand to my face, I wiped the blood from my mouth and glared murder at my former best friend, now turned enemy.

  “Oh, Simon,” I mocked with an evil grin, “you’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”

  My fists curled, and the familiar surge of adrenaline poured through me as I visualized everything I wanted to do to this pathetic excuse for a human. Not even, anymore. Fuck only knew what he was now, but it didn’t matter.

  “I’d think really carefully before making your next move, Kit,” Simon sneered at me, jerking his head toward my guardian, still held captive and now gagged.

  “What the fuck do you want from me, Simon?” I snarled again, meeting Wesley’s panicked eyes.

  What the hell do I do now? I can’t take on all of these dudes before one of them shoots Wesley… and I can’t take that risk. I won’t.

  Simon snickered a sick, evil-sounding laugh as he watched me with beady eyes. “You know, it always was your most predicatable weakness, Foxy. Always throwing yourself in front of buses to save others. Has that changed?” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “No, I think not. After all, your friend here doesn’t even know what species he is… let alone whether he can heal from a bullet to the head. My intel says you’re not bonded either, which means he’s not immort
al.”

  He paused then, letting that information sink in, and I felt sick. How the fuck did he know so much? “So, you have a choice to make. Fight, try and kill me again, and get your boyfriend shot. Or play nice and let the special ops men cuff you.”

  My gaze met Wesley’s once more, and I knew what he would say. He was just as bad as me. The clear message in his eyes was “Hell yes, fight!”

  But I couldn’t do it. Simon was right. Wes and I hadn’t bonded, so there was no evidence to suggest he’d survive a bullet to the brain. Certainly not enough to even risk it.

  Wesley’s eyes pleaded with me not to give in as I gave him a slow, sad headshake.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to him, even though he was across the room. “I can’t lose you.”

  Simon made a noise like he was dry retching, then indicated to two more black-armored men to come over and detain me, just as they had Wesley.

  Shuddering, I forced myself to stay still as the two towering men crowded me, roughly grabbing my wrists and placing the unusual cuffs around them. When they closed, there was a flare of light, and the seam where they met disappeared, leaving a cool, blue glow in the metal.

  “What the hell are these?” I demanded, panic overtaking my body as a quick barrage of grusome images flickered through my mind, all scenes from my nightmares and my life, sometimes both. I’d never dealt well with being restrained… unless it was River on the other end.

  “Oh, you’ve never seen these before?” Simon acted innocent, and a wicked smile curved over his blue-gray face. “Try using your magic. Go on, anything. Tell you what, we’ll even take the gun away from your friend’s head.” He snapped his fingers and one of Wesley’s guards lowered his weapon.

  Clearly he was taunting me—I wasn’t stupid enough not to know that was what he was doing—but at the same time, I needed to know.

  Reaching inside myself, I stretched my mental fingers out for the glowing ball of my own magic and passed straight through it like it was little more than an illusion. Or I was a ghost. Frantically I reached for it again and again, to the same effect. It was there, but I couldn’t access it.

  “Uh-oh,” Simon mocked me with a snicker. “Did someone lose all her magic? What a shame... I wonder if that means you can die now? Guess we’ll soon find out, where you’re going.”

  “What have you done?” I gasped out, feeling frightened tears pricking at my eyes. The only thing keeping me sane was the feeling of Wesley’s reassuring gaze on me. We’d gotten out of worse before, right? We’d do it again.

  “You didn’t think we would capture supernaturals without some way of neutering their magic, did you? Fuck, Kit. We’re evil, not stupid.” Simon snorted and stepped out of the way, allowing my guards to drag me out of the hotel suite.

  On instinct I struggled, wrenching my arm from one of the men’s gloved grip and throwing an elbow into the other’s gut. But the sickening crunch of something hard slamming into Wesley’s head made me freeze.

  I turned to look back at him, just in time to see his unconscious form crumple between his guards, a line of blood running down his forehead where they’d just slammed him into the wall.

  “That’s it, Foxy Girl,” Simon purred. “Always so pliable when there is an innocent to save.”

  The fight drained from my limbs, and my vision spotted as I allowed myself to be dragged into the service elevator, all the while praying an employee might see us. Instead, all I heard was the maniacal laughter of the boy I’d once considered family.

  To be continued in The Crow’s Murder…

  About the Author

  Hello! I’m Tate, or TJ, or Goldie 2. I write books about people who do things, meet other people, things happen and stuff gets said. I am a wine and coffee addict who swears too much and thinks of sarcasm as the highest form of wit.

  For more rambling, contact me directly via my website!

  www.tatejamesauthor.com

  Or join my readers group on Facebook!

  www.facebook.com/groups/tatejames.thefoxhole

  Ps. Thank you so much for buying/reading The Viper’s Nest. If you made it this far, it’d mean the world if you left a review on amazon!

  Also by Tate James

  Kit Davenport Series

  #1 The Vixen’s Lead

  #2 The Dragon’s Wing

  #3 The Tiger’s Ambush

  #4 The Viper’s Nest

  #5 The Crow’s Murder (2018)

  #6 The Alpha’s Pack (2018)

  Contemporary Reverse Harem

  Slopes of Sin

  Also by Tate James

  Co-Authored by Tate James and CM Stunich

  Hijinks Harem

  #1 Elements of Mischief

  #2 Elements of Ruin

  #3 Elements of Desire

  The Wild Hunt Motorcycle Club

  #1 Dark Glitter

  #2 Cruel Glamour (April 1st 2018)

  Foxfire Burning

  #1 The Nine (April 18th 2018)

  Turn page for a sample of C.M. Stunich’s Spirited…

  SPIRITED

  The Academy of Spirits and Shadows (Book 1)

  by C.M. Stunich

  Brynn of Haversey is a spirit whisperer—a person blessed with the ability to see and speak to the dead. In the country of Amerin, she's one of a select few with magical gifts known as whisperers.

  Every year, the Royal College accepts a small number of new students, all magically inclined, all whisperers. Competition is brutal and the classes, nearly impossible to pass for a half-breed angel with two left feet and a massive pair of black feathered wings.

  Oh, and especially if she brings her six ghostly boyfriends with her to the academy (including the recently deceased crown prince, a master thief hanged for his crimes, and a former student of the Royal College). What kind of spirit whisperer is Brynn of Haversey if she can't exorcise her own soul mates? But Brynn isn't attending the most prestigious academy in the world to become a better exorcist—she's searching for a way to bring her lovers back to life …

  Spirited - Chapter One

  BRYNN

  The instrument of my own destruction loomed above me, casting a long shadow in the bloodred rays of a dying sun. Its crumbling facade was decorated with a morbid metaphor of a face—soulless eyes, a gaping mouth, tangled green locks. Okay, so I was exaggerating the broken windows, the front entrance with its missing doors, and the cluster of wild blackberries that had morphed into a monster of their own making, but come on: the former Grandberg Manor was bust.

  “This is the place?” I asked, hoisting my equipment up on one shoulder and eyeing the crumbling old house with a raised brow. “It looks half-ready to collapse. You know me—if there's even the slightest opportunity that I might trip, I will. Just be honest: am I going to fall straight through the floor?”

  “Probably,” Jasinda said, moving around me and over the twisted, rusted remains of the front gate. Once upon a time, this place was crawling with nobility from around the world, and its gardens … even the drawings were enough to make my mother's green thumb well, green with envy. “Air and I have a bet going on whether or not you'll make it out of here alive.”

  She threw a smirk over her shoulder at me and I pursed my lips.

  Jasinda and Air were always making bets about me despite the fact that Air was the flubbing prince and shouldn't be making bets with anyone, let alone my handler. I had to admit though: if there were anyone around that was worth betting on, it was me.

  First off, I was a half-angel which meant I could see spirits. And second, I was a half-human which meant those spirits actually deigned to communicate with me. A full-blooded angel was too haughty and highbrow to give any ghost the time of day, and a full-blooded human couldn't see one if they tried.

  This special ability of mine did end up getting me into heaps of trouble. For example, there was that one time I followed a ghost straight into the queen's chambers and found her, um, indisposed with the head of the royal guard who, you know
, also just happened to be my mother.

  Then of course, there was the fact that I had the small, slight frame of my mother's desert dwelling ancestors but the wide, heavy span of wings from my father's side. Let's just be frank and say I toppled over a lot. Oh, and I ended up having long, in-depth conversations with people who weren't really people but were, in fact, very tricky ghosts. Even my first kiss had been with a spirit.

  I took a deep breath of the cool, lavender scented air and followed after Jas, tripping and cursing in my own made-up language.

  “Go flub yourself,” I growled at a thick tangle of blackberry that had gotten wrapped around my ankle. “You bleeding blatherer.”

  “Are you making words up again?” Jas said, parking her hands on her hips and sighing at me. “Can't you just say you bleeding bastard like everyone else? And don't even get me started on you using the work flub instead of fuc—”

  “Hey!” I snapped, putting my palm over her lips with one hand and pointing at myself with the other. “Half-angel over here. Just hearing somebody use a word with an extreme negative connotation makes me lose a feather.”

  “Oh, please,” Jas said, pushing my hand away from her full red lips and smirking at me as I tried to rub her makeup off on my breeches. “That's a myth and you know it. Air told me that when you were kids, he used to chase you around the castle saying damn and bastard and the like, just to see if you'd lose any feathers—you didn't.”

  I narrowed my eyes on her as she turned and headed up what was once an impressive flight of marble steps, now cracked and chipped like an old beggar's teeth. I shivered and followed after her, examining the red stain on my palm that stunk like copperberries. A lot of women painted their mouths with the stuff, but to me that fragrant floral scent was tinged with a metallic sting, like copper. Like blood. Thus, the name—copperberries.