by J. L. Weil
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” Oliver replied dryly, but walked through the door after me.
“Sorry, kids,” the bouncer greeted just inside the lobby. Behind him, a black rope tied off the entrance into the club. “Private party.”
Melody stepped up to the beefy guy three times her size and smiled. “We’re on the list. You should check again.” Compulsion. It was Melody’s wicked talent. She could compel anyone. No toxic or spell blocked her ability.
I knew how to pick my friends.
The bouncer’s eyes went glassy as his hand reached for the clasp that secured the rope, allowing my friends and I inside without complaining. The five of us grinned and went straight for the bar. Priorities. I had problems to drown.
For the next hour, we drank, danced, and drank some more. I lost myself in the music, letting the alcohol liquify my muscles, and when my drink was empty, I wove my way through the crowd, straight to the bar. The best thing about this private party? Open bar.
I’d just ordered another Long Island Iced Tea when I saw him.
I couldn’t pinpoint what it was about this particular guy that drew my eyes to him. Perhaps it was the arrogant way he tipped his head, or the way he watched the blonde bombshell on the dancefloor. Intense and firm. His emerald eyes were alert, in a way I recognized only in someone with combat training.
He wasn’t my usual type, but I wondered what his blood would taste like on my tongue. His chocolate hair was messy like he’d spent the night wrangling his fingers through it. Had the blonde been giving him a hard time? The thought made me smirk. I inched closer, to see if I could draw his eyes away from the girl, whoever she was.
No one special, though. Not like me.
I wanted to see the full effect of those eyes, but more than anything, I wanted to smell him, and the coppery scent of his sweet, delicious blood.
His body stiffened at that moment, and he spoke into an earcom, snapping me out of the blood frenzy I had worked myself into, in no more than a second. It wasn’t like me to allow my control to slip so easily.
My eyes tracked what had captured his attention. Something was wrong. I scanned the club until I found the source. Is that—? It can’t be. Can it?
But it was.
The same thing we’d seen in the mirror. Or at the very least, the same species. The guy with lime green hair faced the blonde fully, taking a few steps toward her while pretending to wipe a table. A muscle in my jaw tightened, seeing the shadows that edged around his form, a darkness that had my thirst for blood rising swiftly within me. The hunter inside me flourished.
I blinked, watching as my mystery man suddenly ran toward the thing that didn’t belong in this world, shoving him to the ground. A gunshot rang over the music, the sound echoing in my ears.
Hell broke loose.
People screamed. Panicked. Pushed and shoved, as they scrambled to make their way out of the club. Oliver appeared from the sea of chaos and grabbed my hand, then reached for Melody’s. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Melody shouted.
“Back to the academy,” he replied. My ears picked up the growling texture to his voice, and I knew he was close to shifting.
Oh, hell no. “You saw it too?” I had to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind.
They both nodded.
“Where’s Tricksy and Jacob?” I asked, already pushing our way through toward the exit.
“Don’t know,” Melody murmured, her face paling.
There goes my Friday night.
Melody chewed on her pink nails, a nervous habit. “Do you think it saw us?”
“I don’t know,” I uttered. Words that rarely came from my lips.
Breaking through the door, we rushed into the streets with everyone else. “I hate to say it, Renna, but it might be time you spoke to your father,” Oliver admitted, in an unnerving calm.
Shit. He was probably right. Oliver was rarely wrong about being honorable and an overall saint, but speaking to my father… The idea filled me with dread.
My eyes searched through the throngs of people, looking for Trisky and Jacob. “He’s going to kill me,” I groaned.
“Again?” Melody joked.
I frowned. “Don’t be a smartass.”
Shit.
3
SCORPION
The next five nights passed painstakingly slow while I drifted in and out of consciousness. Nurses walked into the room every two hours, checking on me, performing all kinds of tests, and taking several vials of my blood—making it hard to sleep. That, added to the fact that no one believed me when I told them I was perfectly fine, made for long, long nights.
After receiving such a life-threatening intoxication from whatever neurotoxin was used on me, the doctors believed it impossible for me to be just “fine”.
Well, he said it had been life-threatening, but that was hard for me to believe. Besides, I had been in more than enough dangerous situations to recognize which one could end my life, and the way I recovered from this said this was not one of them. Not to mention that his diagnostic directly contradicted what the female doctor had told me, and there was something about her…
I didn’t know her, the doctors here believed she had been nothing but a hallucination of my injured mind, and yet, I felt like I could trust her. Of course, if I had indeed invented her, then it made sense that I would trust her. Especially, considering how nonexistent the word was in my vocabulary.
Those weren’t the only reasons that stopped me from sleeping, though. Every time my eyes fell closed, I saw it. The green mist floating toward me from thin, wide lips. It was merely a glimpse, an image piercing the darkness, but it looked so real. I was afraid the doctor was right, that I was still under the influence of the toxin, and my mind was playing tricks on me.
There was no way on this earth that any man existed, who could blow deadly smoke from his mouth.
Right?
See to believe was my motto, but at this moment I couldn’t trust my mind, and that was dangerous.
A frustrated sigh left me, and my gaze drifted from the window to my hand. The skin that should be scorched stared back at me, unblemished, but what had burned me in the first place? I hated having so many questions unanswered. Unable to rely on my own memories.
“How are we doing this morning?” The nurse’s voice brought my attention back to the present, and I turned to see a small woman with a sweet smile on her face walking in, the breakfast tray in her grasp. She was always the first to visit in the mornings, when the rest of the hospital still “slept.”
A slight grin stretched my lips. “Good morning, Hellen. How do you think I am, imprisoned here without my consent?”
Throwing a knowing glance my way, she huffed, loudly, and my grin widened. Hellen was probably in her sixties, but she seemed to have more resilience than I did. She had been tending to me for the past few days, and always brought me breakfast before her morning checkup.
They had increased security after the “alleged doctor” had somehow gotten into my room—just in case she wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Now, only absolutely necessary personnel were allowed on the floor.
“You know what you need?” she asked, placing the tray on the hospital table, and starting her checkup before she allowed me to eat.
“Two good smacks on my stubborn ass?” I answered knowingly; it wasn’t the first time she’d threatened to put me in my place.
“That’s right!” she huffed again, taking my blood pressure. “You should be grateful, you are being treated like a king here. Do you know how many times the president has personally called the CEO of the hospital, to make sure a patient is taken care of with the utmost importance?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure you are about to tell me.”
“Smart ass.”
Laughter escaped me as she playfully smacked my arm. “I’m sorry. I’ll behave, I promise,” I offered her my most dazzling smile, giving her an enticing wink. It always got me out of trou
ble with the ladies.
“You’re lucky I’m three times your age, boy, or you’d be in serious trouble for flirting with me.”
My lips twitched as I watched her finally set the food tray in front of me. “Does that mean you are not going to give me a sexy sponge bath this morning?” Wiggling my eyebrows at her suggestively, I plunged a fork full of scrambled eggs into my mouth.
Hellen was the only good thing about being stuck here.
“Listen, Captain America. You are hot, yes, but I’m not fainting over you like the rest of the women on this planet, okay? You have two hands, two good feet, and the last time I checked you were perfectly fine. Get off that lazy butt, and get in the shower. You can clean yourself up.”
“Fine, but I hate showering alone. Can you at least help me soap up?”
“You are incorrigible.” She shook her head as though I was a lost cause, and changed my IV, trying her hardest not to laugh and give me the satisfaction.
It was the same dance every morning. Somehow, we had fallen into a routine where we battled each other while I said outrageous things, trying to get her to laugh or to blush, but she was tough to crack.
“Why are you so desperate about showering early, anyway? Is your family finally coming to see you? I thought they would have come by now.”
I snorted. “You obviously haven’t met my family. You know who my grandfather is.” She nodded. “He had a complication in his schedule, so he had to postpone his visit. Father doesn’t see the point of coming without him, and my mother doesn’t dare do anything my father doesn't want her to do. Like come by herself. She’s a submissive kind of woman. All the women in my family have been. Sweet, nurturers, smart and beautiful, but in a strong military family the men command, and the women follow.”
Hellen gave me a troubled glance, pinched with sadness. “If you were my boy, I would have been here the second I found out what happened, and no one would have ripped me from your side,” she confessed.
A heavy breath pushed down my lungs, while my eyes went to the perfectly intact guest couch inside the VIP suite at the hospital. Flowers, balloons, and get well wishes adorned every inch of the room, but no one from my family had bothered to visit.
The James family was just... not wired that way.
Forcing my throat to clear, I smirked at her. “Nice try at changing the subject, but it didn’t work. We were talking about your forbidden desires. You know... me.” I wiggled my brows at her again. “I saw you drooling over my eight pack the other day, when you placed the electro-sensors on my chest.”
“I did no such thing!”
“Come on, just admit it, Hellen. You want me. Damn, I’d want me. Young. Sexy. Ripped in all the right places. Strong like a stallion, and with an unbreakable sense of service and duty. Plus, I’m a giver. I won’t disappoint. Want to take me for a ride? There are certain parts of me that need stimulation.” Reaching for the bottom of my hospital gown, I pretended to lift it and her eyes widened.
“What is wrong with you?!” she shrieked, nervously throwing the unused bed sheet on me.
Laughter burst out of me, mixing with hers as she finally caved. A deep red hue tinted her full cheeks, and she smacked my arm. Hard.
“I won,” I smugly announced, taking a bite of my biscuit. “What’s my prize? Do I at least get a kiss?” Angling my head, I offered my cheek for her to kiss it. She did, still chuckling. “See? Women can’t resist me.”
“What you need is a good butt whooping,” she mumbled. “I will smack you so hard—”
“Promise?” I interrupted with a naughty smirk, and her eyes narrowed, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes came out to play.
“Oh, child...”
“Don’t worry. I’m not one of those freaks in bed. Well, not completely,” I teasingly corrected. “I know how to treat a lady.”
“Save it for that model-looking brunette that came to visit you yesterday. Now, that one seemed like she wanted to do freaky things to you. Floozy.”
“Jealous?” I taunted and she huffed. “Don’t be. You are the only one for me. Besides, Diana and I are not even exclusive.”
“Men these days.” She tsked. “That’s just an excuse to jump from flower to flower, like a promiscuous bee.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m so irresistible. Ladies love Captain America, after all.” I winked, throwing the mocking nickname she had given me back at her, and her hand connected with my arm again. Chuckling, I shook my head. “Nah, Diana and I aren't really serious. She travels too much with work, and we are both too busy for a real relationship. We are just good on paper, which is why my grandfather and her father arranged for us to date, but we want different things.”
“Is that so?” Hellen asked, nudging the tray table slightly, to sit on the edge of my bed. Instantly, the mood in the conversation changed. “And what exactly is it you want?”
She was probably the only person to ask me that in my entire life.
“To protect and serve,” I answered, without an ounce of hesitation. “I know it sounds like some cheesy recruiting commercial, but it’s the truth. Yeah, I come from a long line of military legends, but that is not the reason I enlisted,” I confessed.
My gaze settled on her grayish-blue eyes for a moment, and I became silent as I searched for something in them, an answer I didn’t have.
“There is this... this fire in me. It has always been there, ever since I can remember. It demands and takes, asking everything of me, and the only way I’ve ever been able to calm it is by being out there. In the trenches. Fighting to defend others along with my brothers in arms. I should be out there with my unit, not here, playing bodyguard.”
Shaking my head, I dragged my hands down my face as the tension began to mount, then forked my fingers through my hair.
“Don’t fret, child,” Hellen offered, cupping my cheek in a motherly manner. Her warmth instantly seeped into my skin, soothing and almost familiar. “Everything that is fated to happen will come to pass. Not all get a call to greatness, but something tells me you will.”
I wasn’t sure why, but with the words, she did what no one else had been able to do before... quenched the fire in me. It was as though her statement was a promise, more than an attempt to let me down easy.
With her palm still against my cheek, and leaning closer, she pressed a kiss on my forehead—like my grandmother used to do when she was still with us. My lips stretched into an appreciative smile, that soon tilted into a crooked smirk as I prepared my next zing. Hellen had such a fun spirit. Definitely my kind of people, even though I was usually a grouch.
“You know, brunettes are my weakness,” I admitted, unable to help but mess with her. “What do you say about that shower?”
She narrowed her eyes at me reproachingly, but a kind-hearted laugh still escaped her, eyes twinkling, while I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
“Okay, okay. I know you are much older than I, but if I’m going to be stuck in here, we might as well have fun.”
Suddenly, the door brusquely opened, and she jumped to her feet, startled. My grandfather, the General, and my father walked in like they owned the place, with three guards on their heels. I sat up straighter on the bed, giving them both a brief military salute born from instinct, which they returned.
“General, the nurse.” The head of his security tipped his head toward Hellen, remaining by the door with the others.
“You are excused,” Father instructed her, without even looking at her, while my grandfather waved her off dismissively.
“Close the door behind you,” he ordered, and Hellen’s face paled in shock.
Her eyes widened a second before she viciously scowled at them, and I swore she was giving them the evil eye. Without a word, she turned and left, but not before giving me one final smile. One of the guards ushered my mom inside the room then, after everything was clear.
“My baby,” she whispered, eyes filled with tears as she rushed toward me. Her arms wrapped around
me, and I kissed her cheek soothingly.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
She nodded, a tear escaping her eyes when she stepped back and caressed my cheek. “I wanted to come sooner, but your father said it was best if we waited. That we should let the doctors take care of you.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I know.” I smiled at her, hugging her once more.
“For goodness sake, Doris. Stop embarrassing yourself,” Father grumbled, impatience crinkling at the corners of his eyes.
“He’s a grown man, you need to stop babying him,” my grandfather added, removing his peaked cap to show pearly white hair—he was in full uniform. “You make him soft, and he’s a James. There is no room for softness.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom whispered back, leaning away from me, but I stopped her. Pulling her into another hug, I kissed her cheek one more time, before my father escorted her away from me, and sat her on the sofa. She was such a sweet woman.
“I just spoke with Harold,” the General informed, using the president's name casually. They were friends, after all.
“You are not even going to ask how he is feeling?” my mother chided, with more fight than I had ever seen her have, and my grandfather sighed frustratedly.
“What is there to ask, Doris? Look at him. Everyone can see that he is fine. He looks fine. Tell your mother you are fine, Ethan,” he ordered me, and it took everything in me not to roll my eyes.
“I’m fine, Mom. Don’t worry, okay?”
She nodded, sniffling into a tissue Father gave her.
“As I was saying,” my grandfather continued, sending a stern glance to my father as though telling him to keep my mother in check. “Harold is willing to disregard the little fiasco you caused, putting his daughter in danger. You still have a job, thanks to me, but don’t mess it up again.”
And there it was. How did I know they were going to turn it on me? Probably because that was what they had done all my life.