by Amie Gibbons
I shrugged the thought off.
In the middle of the woods, where the convention center was literally the only thing nestled in the trees like this, the odds of anyone wandering around outside near enough to get hit by a stray bullet weren’t good.
“How are we going to explain the bullet holes?” I asked. “They’re going to notice them the second they get close enough to the walls. Wow, that’s not something you ever think you’d be saying when you rent a place for a professional conference.”
AB clucked her tongue. “Good thing no one was shooting toward the convention room.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but this… now that I see it, it’s really obvious.”
Grant shook his head. “Fix it with magic when we get back.”
“We?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re not going without me.”
I coughed. “Um, you-”
“Not up to you, Ryder,” Grant said. “If you insist on doing this, I’m going.”
“Me too,” Thomas said.
“What?” AB asked, staring at him like he’d just grown an extra head.
“I’m not going to let you go in there without me.”
AB covered her mouth, eyes filling with tears.
I mimicked the motion.
To keep me from sayin’ something stupid.
Cuz that didn’t fit the self-centered jerk who’d said those horrible things to her in November, then ditched her after insisting he wanted to make things right between then, and then moved and hadn’t bothered to call her for nine months.
I shook my head. “Thomas, you don’t have serious powers like Grant. You’re not a null like AB. And you don’t know anything about this world besides what you learned today. You’d be a liability more than anything.”
He glared at me, eyes holding an intensity that’d impress me if I wasn’t used to Grant’s million-watt stare down.
And I stared back.
“You can’t stop me,” he finally said.
“Yes,” I said simply, “I can. And besides, the more people going, the more power it’s going to cost me. Can’t have that unless the person’s a real asset. And you’re not.”
Hurt coated his face, and I flinched.
I was probably meaner than normal on AB’s behalf. I’d never be so direct and rude otherwise. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t telling the truth.
“Thomas,” AB said in a soft voice, “this is going to be really dangerous. And you-”
“That’s why I should be going. I’m the best shot out of all of us.”
“No, you’re not,” Grant said dryly. “You’re good. You’re not better than me.”
Thomas looked at him, then nodded. “Good point. But I am good. Did I…” his forehead creased as something made his face look almost scared.
“Did I kill anyone?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Did ya hit anyone? Were they kill shots?”
I turned to Grant, holding up a hand to shut Thomas up for a moment. “You checked the bodies, right? Everyone was dead? Nobody injured or playin’ possum?”
“I checked,” he said, looking almost amused. “Not a rookie, Ryder.”
“Right.” I shook my head. “Sorry, sir.”
He smiled, that tiny tug at the edge of his mouth.
I cleared my throat and turned to Thomas. “Do you know if you hit anyone?”
He shook his head. “It all happened so fast. I may have killed someone and not even known it. I can’t… I can’t live not knowing if I killed someone.”
“They deserved it,” I said. “What’s the big deal?”
His mouth dropped open and he met my eyes. “Killing changes you. You have no idea how much damage that does to the human psyche.”
“One, I would know,” I said. “Killed before, will again in my line of work. And says who?”
His mouth worked, and he suddenly gave me the impression of being a lot younger than his forty years.
Technically he was older than Grant, but you’d never know it by his looks or behavior.
“You… it’s one of the things we learn,” he said. “It’s supposed to affect you.”
I shrugged. “They start it, they attack innocent people, they attack me, I’m good with killing them. Figure kill the threat and God will know his own.”
Thomas blew out a breath and shook his head. “You know that’s not the saying.”
I shrugged. “I twisted it a bit. Oh well. I didn’t feel bad when I killed a girl who summoned a demon and put people under a spell to have sex against their will last year, and I didn’t feel bad when I killed a serial killer. Don’t feel bad here, even though I could’ve technically just knocked them out.”
I paused. “I should’ve probably left one alive for us to question. That wasn’t the brightest of me. I feel a little bad about that. I’ve felt bad when Carvi has kept someone alive to torture them. That’s too much for me. I mean, unless you need to question them. But torturing them for punishment is too far for me.”
“But torturing them for information is fine?” Thomas asked.
“If they’re the bad guys, yeah,” I said. “What? I’m not sayin’ I’d do it myself. I’m just sayin’ I’m fine with it getting done.”
Thomas looked at AB. “And you call me a sociopath.”
“Hey!” AB and I said together.
“I’m not the person who doesn’t care about people I sleep with,” I said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I got a… never mind. But you’re the person who doesn’t care about people you should. People who care about you.”
“Yeah, that’s why I keep trying to talk to her, because I don’t care,” Thomas snapped.
“You blew her off last December! Then moved and didn’t bother contacting her at all for like nine months. Sound like someone who cares to you?”
“Shut. Up,” Grant said. “Get this going one more time, and I will put you all on the ground. Ms. McMill, do you have the list?”
I looked over and realized Emily had been scribbling this whole time.
“I keep thinking of things,” she said. “There’s so much you need to get.”
Grant took the list for a moment to read it and nodded.
Oh yeah, photographic memory.
He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call around.”
He meant to find the ingredients, but Grant had never been big on explaining things.
“Anything you can think of that will help our magic recharge?” I asked, snapping my fingers. “Oh yeah, and something for energy. If we’re going to be up a while, we should have something to give us a good spike of energy. Like vamp blood.”
Emily creased her forehead and went back to scribbling.
Sadness swept through me.
Quil should be here.
But he wasn’t. And my heart squeezed as I wished for my boyfriend as hard as I could.
“We could call our friends in the nest,” AB said. “Someone’s got to be willing to donate blood. Though, I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking it from someone I just casually know.”
“Yeah,” I said, “me neither.”
“Why?” Thomas asked.
I snorted. “Well, swapping blood’s kinda like sex. It’s intimate. If you take intimacy at all seriously-”
“Unlike you,” AB inserted.
“Then you don’t take blood any lighter than you’d have sex with someone,” I said before Thomas could snap back at AB. “And I’ve got plenty of friends in there, but nobody I’ve wanted to play with.”
“Carvi really needs to answer his phone,” AB said. “He could give both of us a boost.”
I snorted.
She’d totally said that for Thomas’s benefit.
His eyes flew wide as he looked between her and me.
“Not at the same time,” I said, smirking. “AB’s not opposed to playing with girls, but I don’t swing that way, especially with friends.”
And I had said that for his benefit too.
<
br /> I could feel the arousal shooting through Thomas.
AB had told me before how much he liked bi girls. Even if they weren’t into threesomes just cuz they were bi, knowing a girl had been with other girls just did it for him.
And she hadn’t known she had some interest in that area until Carvi had brought it out of her.
Telling him that was a little jab, but subtle enough he probably didn’t realize I’d just said it to make him wish at least a little bit he could have AB back.
“You’re bi?” he asked, licking his lips.
She blushed, looking down as she mimicked the motion. “I, uh, am more bicurious than anything else. It’s more of an I enjoying playing with girls here and there with Carvi, but I know I’m not really bi because I don’t feel for them, fall for them, like I do with guys.”
She flicked her eyes up at him.
Thomas grinned wide. “How many?”
“That is none of your business,” AB said primly, the light dancing behind her eyes saying she was enjoying this.
She definitely had his attention now, and she liked that.
“So you’ve played with girls you don’t feel for?” Thomas asked.
AB shrugged. “I can be casual with girls a lot easier. It already doesn’t mean anything, so I don’t feel like it should. As long as I know they feel the same way.”
“So you could get blood from a vamp chick,” Thomas said, eyes fixing on AB’s as she looked up again.
Blood rushed through both of them so hard I felt it even at my diminished power levels.
And suddenly I felt the need to give them some privacy.
“I’ll, um, call the nest,” I said, pulling out my phone and rushing for the doors.
I hit the outside and took a deep, cleansing breath.
Not realizing how panicked I’d been being trapped in there until I was finally able to go outside.
I slumped down in one of the cushioned patio chairs, exhaustion taking me.
What was I thinking, planning to go into Fairy like this?
That magical world was serious stuff, and even with my powers at full, I was no match for an entire world made of magic.
No matter what Emily said about me.
Who was to say she was even right about what I could do?
I called Quil, and it went straight to voicemail again. I didn’t bother leaving a message this time. He’d call me back when he got up.
I dialed Len’s number and he didn’t answer.
Not surprising, since he was probably getting his club opened for the night.
It was a Sunday, but with all the tourists in town, and with many people taking off work for eclipse parties tomorrow, his club was going to be slammed.
I tried Carla next and got her on the third ring.
I explained the situation the best I could, and she said she’d happily come over to help. When I explained we needed someone to give blood, she was a bit more squeamish.
She wasn’t any more into casual intimacy than AB was, but for her, girls were not an interest, and that would feel wrong to her.
She said she’d call if anyone came to mind, and to call back if AB had a specific vamp in mind, and I said I would.
I stared at my phone, pulling up my contacts and going down to the Cs without consciously realizing it.
My finger hovered over Carvi’s name.
If he didn’t answer for AB, he wasn’t gonna for me.
We hadn’t spoken in over nine months. He hadn’t even sent a text for my birthday in May, and he hadn’t picked up any of the times I’d called with legitimate questions about magic use.
He’d well and truly abandoned me.
I put my phone away.
When I got back inside, Grant was back with the others.
He nodded at me. “Store has all the ingredients listed so far.”
He didn’t say what store.
Still playing it close to the vest?
Not giving Emily more info than he had to?
The fact that he still didn’t trust her told me I shouldn’t either.
But then again, how many people did Grant really trust?
“Ms. McMill,” Grant said, “finished with that list?”
She nodded, still bent over the pad with a look of intense concentration. “But I feel like I’m missing something, or something’s going to come up.”
Grant took the pad out from under her still poised pen and ripped the page off before setting it in front of her again.
“Teach Ariana how to do the magic she’ll need,” Grant said, nodding at AB. “We’ll grab the ingredients, and you call us if anything else comes up.”
“What?” AB said. “Why am I-”
One look from Grant made her slam her mouth shut.
“You’re the magic expert,” I said. “He probably wants you there to grab anything else you can think of too. Especially anything that’ll help us with recharging and energy fast.”
“Vamp nest a no go?” AB asked with a flick of her eyes towards Thomas.
“Kinda,” I said. “I’m sure we could find one, but someone to do that with? That’s askin’ a lot. I’m sure some of the guy vamps wouldn’t mind, but… I would.”
“What about girls?” Thomas asked.
“Same issue, but most girls are less willing to be slutty than guys,” I said.
Grant took AB’s arm as Thomas opened his mouth and half dragged her away.
“Why do I feel like he did that to split us up more than anything?” Thomas asked as he watched them leave out the front doors.
“Because you’re not blind,” I said. “You two weren’t exactly staying on topic.”
He snorted. “Lot of unresolved issues there. And it’s easier to focus on even that than it is on all of this. I’ve never been in a battle like that before. I mean, I’ve been in fights, but that was…”
“Real?” I asked. “Yeah, fighting for your life’s a far cry from throwing a few punches in the schoolyard.”
He snorted and muttered, “Or taking the punches.”
I gave him a look and he shrugged.
I resisted the urge to dig into that and turned my attention to Emily. “Can you teach me while they’re gone?”
She nodded. “I can certainly try.”
###
By the time they got back about two hours later, we’d all already eaten, and Emily had walked me through the steps of the spells a few times.
I still needed to recharge before I could actually try any of them.
And that whole clear your mind, meditation part she was insisting was a requirement wasn’t gonna happen.
My mind didn’t shut up even when I slept or had sex, how was I supposed to make it be quiet when I was awake?
I had the steps written down, and most of them were things that were either really precise, like exact amounts of ingredients and distance of candles, or the exact opposite, like the meditation mumbo-jumbo.
Emily and Thomas had spent the last half hour trying to get me to where I could meditate.
And I was really glad Grant had thought ahead and taken AB with him, because Emily and Thomas were back to flirting, tossing little quips and smiles at each other the whole time.
“You wasted your time, General,” I said as he and AB put down the bags. “I can’t do the meditation stuff, and she’s telling me there’s no way around it.”
Emily sighed. “You’ve done this before.”
“Yeah, when I was scared and running, not sittin’ on the floor saying ‘Ommmm,’ while I contemplated my navel. You can’t clear your mind. It’s impossible!”
“You’re being stubborn,” Thomas snapped. “I have taught at least a hundred people how to meditate over the years, and none have been as difficult as you. You’re just being stubborn.”
I glared at him, propping my hands on my hips.
“Yeah, well, I’m a Taurus, what’s your excuse?”
Thomas tossed his hands up dramatically, and AB snorted.
“Kowalski or Bridges awake yet?” Grant asked.
“No, sir,” I said, biting my tongue a second too late.
I really needed to drop the sir thing.
“Find anything to amp us up?” I asked.
“I think so,” AB said. “Hey, have you heard from Carvi? He still hasn’t called me back.”
I shrugged, not wanting to admit I hadn’t even tried calling him. “It’s Carvi. Probably in the middle of an orgy.”
Thomas choked on a mouthful of water and coughed out, “What?”
“Half sex demon,” I said. “He feeds off it, makes people want to do it, enjoys it, all that.”
“So he’s like one of the lust Fae?” Thomas asked.
“No,” AB and I said together.
I looked at her. I’d said it automatically outta defending my friend, well, my ex friend.
AB sounded a lot less defensive and more knowledge based.
“Carvi feeds off sex,” AB said, sounding clipped and professional, like she was lecturing anyone about this and not the man who took her virginity. “Those Fae feed off lust.”
“Difference?” Grant asked before Thomas could say anything.
Probably a good thing, cuz I could almost hear him thinking something snarky.
And mean.
“Sex is the whole spectrum of human emotion that comes with that. The connection, fun, joy, even love. Lust is the far end of the spectrum, the worst side of sex. The part that is just about the person’s pleasure. No emotion, no connection, no caring for the other person. It’s the evil side of sex.”
She stared Thomas down.
Ice, ice, baby.
I was so proud of her.
“I had a talk with her while we were out,” Grant said in my head.
“And?” I asked.
“She’s damaged, but healing, and part of that is her standing up to and staying away from Thomas. He will keep hurting her while he’s around. And she agrees with me. She needs the strength to stick to it though.”
“You have something to say to me?” Thomas snapped.
I flinched.
AB didn’t.
“I just did,” AB said, voice even as she crossed her arms. “What you did to me was wrong. And while we’re on the subject, stop talking to our friends about me.”
Thomas’s eyes flew wide.
“Yeah,” AB said. “I talked to Paul while we were at the store, and he said you’ve been ranting about me for weeks, saying I’m keeping up this rift to punish you and I’m trying to hurt you. I haven’t even heard from you in months. I haven’t done anything.” She stabbed a finger up at him. “So stop playing the victim card with them. You talk to me or you don’t, you work things out with me or you don’t, but stop trying to put others in the middle.”