by Zoe Forward
“I’m not ungrateful, even if you did cause the wannabe warlock to explode, which complicated everything.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Jesus, she was hot when she got angry. Just watching her, he was getting harder, something he couldn’t afford right now.
When she made no move to leave, he pulled the car back onto the road and sped toward the small, private airport.
“I’m not sure I like you.” She drummed her fingers on the door.
“You shouldn’t.” You like me. He’d caught her checking him out not once or twice, but three or four times since they got in the car.
“Who’s on the other end of that ear communicator?”
“My brother.”
“Are you a spy? You were using a British accent, but now it’s more muddled. Are you MI6?”
“Something like that.” Accents came easy to him since he’d lived all over the world over the centuries. England certainly wasn’t a place he’d ever call home. His base accent had become more a blend of Spanish and Italian. Who knew anymore? He focused on the road’s icy curves while pushing the car to speed three times the limit toward the airport.
“Who do you work for?” she asked.
“I’m… It’s classified.”
She wrapped her hair around her hand, lifted it, and stretched her neck slowly to the left.
What was that on her skin? A raised set of interlocked triangles marked the back of her neck. The pagan symbol represented old magic, something most of his kind distrusted and feared. The Lycan Council forbade their kind to practice that kind of magic and strongly discouraged the use of any other kind except for glamour, a rule put in place after last century’s witch war. That asinine and brutal conflict left too many dead on both sides and a simmering distrust between species. Whatever she’d done to get those marks hadn’t been legal. Roman dabbled in some magic, not the kind on her skin, not elemental magic for which the caster drew upon elemental power and shaped it for a desired result. He did lower-spell witchy magic with spells, runes, scrying, an occasional potion…things like that. The Council didn’t concern him. He hadn’t considered himself under Council rule since the moment his curse took effect.
Flynn chatted about time frames in his ear. Quietly, he said, “Flynn, we’re going to Austria first.”
“The mage?” Flynn asked. “He didn’t like it the last time we showed up without an appointment. Remember he tried to execute you with some sort of magical hand blast thing?”
“Then get an appointment.”
He pressed his ear and said low, “There’s much more at play here than anticipated. He’s our next stop before I return.”
“Is she coming with us, or are you doing tears and goodbyes at the airport?” Flynn asked.
“We’re all going.”
“I’m not flying the plane while you get it on in the bathroom. Now, a three-way I could get into that. I’d—”
“What the actual hell?” he roared. “No. Just no.” He met Nova’s gaze for a moment and shook his head to indicate the outburst wasn’t at her.
“Fine, she’s yours,” Flynn replied in a pissy tone. “I get it. But if you don’t make a move for her, no promises from me not to try.”
“Don’t.” Fighting over a woman was definitely new.
“What was that about?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
“My brother never matured beyond sixteen. Ignore him when you meet him.”
In his ear, Flynn said, “I’ll get you for that.”
“We’re going to Austria?” She tried to smile, but the upturn of her lips didn’t look happy this time.
“There’s someone there who might be able to help you remember.”
She assessed him for a moment. “But?”
“Fifty-fifty chance he kills us on sight.”
Chapter Four
Roman led the way through the side door into the dark, rented hangar housing his airplane. The smell of jet fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluid assaulted him. The scent an aircraft emitted, either standing idle or after streaking across the skies, resonated deep in his soul. His Cessna was the one quintessentially perfect thing in his life. It was his, not the property of the U.K. Bought and paid for from investments made long before the curse.
Flynn hadn’t arrived yet.
Warning flashed through his brain. The faintest disturbance of energy. The slightest whoosh of air.
On instinct, he pulled Nova to the left against the cold metal wall, covering her body with his own. A bullet hit near his ear, puncturing the steel. He pressed the button for the hangar’s automatic door to open and ducked both of them behind a shelving unit. Ambient light from the streetlamps outside slowly filled the space.
If anyone messed with his plane, he’d kill them. No one could get on the plane until either he or his brothers lifted the protective wards on it. So, he wasn’t worried about anyone stealing it or taking the magical talismans he kept on board. But they could damage the outside.
On a growl, his true lycanthrope form emerged. He dropped the glamour he usually used to appear wholly human. He didn’t become a movie werewolf covered in hair with a popping of bones, nor did he shift to an animal. As far as he knew, werewolves in those forms didn’t exist. His change happened at will and was more an enhancement of his muscles, something closer to Wolverine from X-Men when he got angry or Michael from Underworld without the vampire part. His teeth grew longer and sharper, his eyes glittered preternaturally bright, and his nails grew into sharp claws. If desired, he could leap from one side of the hangar to the other in the blink of an eye.
“Wow,” Nova whispered, touching his mouth where his elongated canines were more prominent. No revulsion reflected in her expression. No fear.
He didn’t have time to marvel at her reaction. With heightened senses, he recognized the odor of their attacker. Roman called out, his voice now deeper and resonating, “Cooper? We established rules last month about this sort of thing. The rule is you stay away from me.” Roman leaned in and whispered to Nova, “It’s the A.W.L.”
“The what?”
He kept his voice low. “Anti-Werewolf League. They’re a well-funded international group of humans that have been hunting our kind since the early 1900s, although they’re not very good at it. Cooper is one of their lower ranking members. Moving up in the ranks requires a documented kill or two, which he hasn’t made yet.”
“You’re a…” Her breath hitched, and she touched her throat. “No. But your teeth and body… You didn’t turn into a wolf, though.”
“Turning into an animal is fiction. Also, we’re lycanthrope, not werewolf. This is what we turn into. The A.W.L’s name is stupid. And wrong.”
She reeled back, palms against the shelving unit behind her as if she were using it to remain upright. “Oh my God.”
“I didn’t hit you yet, did I?” Cooper shouted back.
“Is this a training exercise again?” Roman called out as he scanned the hangar. Nova pointed to the nose of the plane, which was where he, too, detected Cooper.
Cooper yelled, “If you’re dead, then I guess it was an effective exercise.”
“You’re saying our truce is off, and we’re back to trying to kill each other?” At the sound of Nova’s gasp, he leaned over and whispered to her, “You’re going to be okay. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Maybe I can help.” She smiled, showing her own elongated canines, which for a female were smaller than a male’s, but no less dangerous. He didn’t think she was aware she’d done a partial shift to her primal form. He could count on one hand how many females he’d seen like this in his entire life—one. His mother.
Everything about her kicked up in potency, including the intoxicating scent unique to her. Breathing in the luscious smell made him dizzy, tipsy even. It activated primitive urges—protection, aggre
ssion, and mating. He imagined knocking Cooper out and taking Nova against the wall. Mere moments is all it’d take to be deep inside her, hearing her scream in pleasure.
She’s injured and amnesic, so that’s a definite no.
His protective instinct ramped up. This was beyond dangerous with a human nearby. If Cooper hurt her, even accidentally—which was more the kid’s speed—Roman might lose his mind. He liked Cooper’s gumption and didn’t want to hurt him.
“Stay here. This is decent cover if you don’t move,” he rasped, low. “We don’t know what you’re capable of. It’s not worth risking it.”
“I can fight. I’ve got skills.”
Her fearlessness made him smile. With a small touch to her cheek, he whispered, “I respect your skills, tesoro, but you’ve done enough for one night.”
He scooted to the nose of the plane at top speed, pinning Cooper by the chest against the metal side of the hangar.
“Who’s your friend? Looks like a she. A curvy, sexy she in leather,” Cooper said in an American accent. He stared in Nova’s direction, undaunted by the fact Roman held his chest in a vise. He seemed confident Roman wouldn’t hurt him, acting as if he was unaffected by him without glamour and in his primal form. How annoying.
Worse, Roman battled the urge to rip Cooper apart for noticing Nova.
“Roman’s got a girlfriend,” Cooper goaded in a sing-song voice.
“We don’t do girlfriends. If you know anything about us, you know to never mess with our females.” His voice was a rough growl.
Cooper’s face paled. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. That’s more like it. That’s the fear I deserve. Cooper smelled like he hadn’t showered in a few days. The partially grown beard might be an indicator of how long.
Roman said, “I refuse to repeat this conversation about you laying off all of this bullshit. This is your last warning. Next time, I’ll kill you.”
“You said that the last three or four times. Why don’t you just do it? You got some sort of no-human-killing rule? Or are you only allowed to murder people if the Crown says so?”
He’d used his persuasive tone two months ago to ask how Cooper knew who he was and who he worked for. Cooper had quickly confessed he’d received an anonymous tip. “Did you figure out who’s feeding you information about me?”
Cooper shook his head. “I’m here to warn you. Someone close to you wants you dead.”
“What makes you say that?”
The small, scruffy man did as much of a shrug as he could manage while caught in Roman’s grip. “Who knows about you? Who could say exactly where you are right now or that finding your plane is the best way to find you, even if they didn’t know exactly where you’d be in Berlin?”
Very few people.
“You’re one of the good ones, Cooper. This is too dangerous for you. Go back to New York and return to being a cop.” Roman released him and squeezed his shoulder. He lowered his voice to the soothing, mesmerizing tone he used to do voice coercion. “Forget about the woman with me. Go to sleep. Wake up in an hour, and go home.”
Cooper conked out like a robot whose batteries had been removed. Roman resumed his glamour, picked him up, and moved him well out of the plane’s way.
“Can we review the stuff about an Anti-Werewolf League again?” she asked.
“I didn’t tell you it was safe to be over here.” He shook Cooper gently by the arm, confirming that he slept. “Let’s get on the plane.”
Moments later, once they were on board, a car drove into the hangar. Flynn jogged up the loading stairs, pulling them closed behind them. He had the wavy blonde hair of a movie star, but up close an angular, antihero mug.
Flynn tossed a backpack with his laptop into a seat, rotated his ball cap to his favorite backward position, and pulled a lollipop out of his mouth. He could never be their face man, which was why Roman got stuck interfacing with humans or non-human entities on most of their missions. Sure, Flynn was pretty enough, even with his few facial piercings and obsession with arm tattoos. But he made questionable fashion choices. And his general laissez faire attitude might get him a lot of action from women, but it didn’t work in most situations dealing with dangerous, dark, otherworldly creatures.
He held out his hand to Nova. “I’m Flynn. And you’d be…?”
She stared at his offered hand but didn’t shake or reply. “You are his brother?”
“I’m the fun one.” Flynn retracted his hand but looked undaunted. “Why’d you interfere? The fact that you waltzed into the middle of our mission today and mucked it up seems colossally weird.”
“Interfere with what, specifically?” She frowned at Roman.
Roman resisted an eye roll. “She doesn’t know any more about us than we know about her. She has no clue we saved the world from Strumous Malum by getting this vial.” He removed the vial from his inside coat pocket and held it up.
Flynn lowered his voice to speak conspiratorially to her. “I would’ve given a million Euros to be a fly on the wall to see how you got Roman to take you with him. Did you kiss him? Slip him some tongue? Him bringing anyone onto his sacred plane is way out of character. Him kissing you or even interested in you as a woman for more than two minutes…” He did a mind-blown mime with his hands.
“How’s the gunshot wound?” Roman asked.
“I’m good.” There was vulnerability in her stare and a shaky edge to her tone. She lifted her arm to show a small entry point at the back that was almost sealed. “Went all the way through. And my side?” She pushed the bustier aside to expose a tapered waist above the waistband of…
Not looking.
Oh, he looked. And couldn’t look away.
Holy shit. The barest hint of lace underwear at the top of her waistband.
Her skin was marred by a jagged, mostly healed laceration. In human terms, it would mean over a week of healing. By the morning, it’d be no more than a small scar.
She palpated the edges of the wound. “So, I’m like you…werewolf—no, lycan? Am I some sort of science experiment?”
He became utterly still, giving her a chance to see he wasn’t lying when he said this. “You’re not human. You have to remember this. I don’t know how one of us could ever believe otherwise, even if we lost our memory. Maybe if someone hypnotized you into believing yourself human, I could buy you not remembering. Knowing what you are is as basic as knowing how to walk. We are lycanthropes. Lycans.”
No one said anything for several long moments of silence. Even Flynn seemed to have stopped breathing from wherever he stood behind them. Flynn was probably looking at her again. Why did that make him want to punch his brother, whom he trusted with his life?
Skepticism laced her tone. “Can I change into a dog or something?”
“No. That’s a human urban myth. We do change to become stronger when necessary, like I did in the hangar. In our feral form, we can do many superhuman things, but it’s not an ugly creature covered in hair like in the movies. You almost did the shift at the club. You started the change again in the hangar. It’s why I distracted you both times. You can’t do that in public.”
“You’re lycan, too, Flynn?” she asked. “Does that mean you both got bitten at the same time?”
“What?” Flynn shot a shocked glance at Roman. “Bitten? What the actual fuck?”
“Chill. She’s got no clue,” Roman said in a calm tone.
“Of course I’m lycan.” At her skeptical eyebrow raise, Flynn groaned theatrically and rolled his eyes. “It’s genetic, not something like in the movies where a bite will turn you. I was born this way. My parents were 100 percent lycan, as were theirs. And yours. It’s a different species than humans.”
She asked, “Why do I believe so strongly I’m a person, that I’m human?”
Roman shrugged
“Superspeed healing?�
�� She touched her side.
“The older we get, the more rapidly we heal. That speed means you must be at least fifty, maybe older.”
“How old are you?”
“A lot older.”
“You think I’m fifty? I look maybe early twenties.” She nibbled her lower lip. “How long do you…we live?”
Roman shrugged. “Centuries. I don’t know any that died of natural causes.”
“What about that spooky guy named Antonio? Is he like us?”
Both Roman and Flynn exchanged glances.
“You didn’t know what he was?” Flynn asked.
Roman said, “He’s a vampire, not exactly a friend of our species.” They had yet to pin down if Antonio was involved with the dealer who peddled black magic artifacts like the vial. But every time they found something deadly like it, he lurked about.
“Maybe that’s why I didn’t like him. Probably good I didn’t act on one of the five ways I envisioned he could die.”
Shit, he was staring at her.
“Yeah, probably smart,” he muttered.
Flynn said, “Nova, I ran your image through the MI6, Interpol, FSB, and CIA facial recognition software. Nothing came up. Even Roman and I have hits here and there, and we’re ghosts in society. How’s it possible you have nothing in any image library?”
“If I remembered a single freaking thing, then I’d answer that. I’d venture to guess whoever did this to me erased me.”
“Let’s go to Austria and try to figure out who you are,” Roman said, peeking out the small window to the side of the plane where he’d left Cooper. The human was gone. How was that possible? He should’ve been asleep for at least an hour with his voice coercion.
“I thought you weren’t a babysitter.” She gave him a double eyebrow raise.
“I might’ve changed my mind.” He didn’t have time to sort out the human, but worried he was losing his touch with the ability to convince humans to do his bidding using his voice.
“Really? You’re going to help me?”
“Yes. I swear I’ll help you try to find answers.” He paused. “And then we’re going to go our separate ways.”