“I want to say goodbye in a more private space,” he’d whispered before I opened the car door. It was the first thing he’d said since begrudgingly agreeing to stay with Shawna and head back to Washington. He’s a grown man and could do what he wanted, but he agreed that his presence had probably given Shawna the safety to fight her inner demons and he wanted to help her to continue her fight to emotional stability.
When the decision for my aunts and Shawna to return home was solidified, Marcus said he’d accompany Oliva, Celeste, and me. To which Shawna’s smirk dropped and she wrapped her arm around his bicep and squeezed. Her wide eyes begged him to rethink his decision.
My sister was strong as hell, but everyone needed a helping hand when healing—be it physically, mentally, or emotionally. Ever since Marcus lifted Shawna from the Hunter’s bed and carried her to my aunt’s car amidst the Hunter/Wild battle, Shawna had chosen him to be that helping hand. Her trauma mindset linked Marcus with safety and protection. And the link was of titanium grade. I couldn’t blame her, either. Every minute I spent with Marcus made me want to spend an hour more.
Separating from him and Shawna gave me another reason to be irritated with Marie. I was sure she’d give me ten more reasons within the first few minutes in her home.
Marcus followed me from the car and shut the door behind him, giving us the semblance of privacy. I thought to lead him to the alley beside the apartment complex, but remembered it was a Hunter’s hand I held. Marie wouldn’t be too pleased knowing a Hunter stood within arm’s reach of her home. And we didn’t need more drama today. Another reason he should go with Shawna.
I walked with Marcus, hand-in-hand, to an enclosed bus stop nearby. Thankfully it was empty. And due to the rain, if we whispered we were just out of earshot of the car full of huldra. The sun had set hours ago. Orange halos illuminated the ground around the bottom of each streetlight.
Marcus released my hand to wrap his arms around my waist and pull me close. “I don’t like leaving you here to face supernatural males without me.”
“You said we’re stronger than them,” I reminded, partly to ease his worries and partly to ease my own.
“You are, but it doesn’t mean they can’t still do plenty of damage.” He shook his head. “Just the thought of one of them touching you...”
Well, then. I’d never seen this jealous side of Marcus. I kind of liked it.
“I can hold my own,” I said.
“Yeah.” He leaned his chin onto my head. “That doesn’t help.”
I took in Marcus’s scent, wishing I could wrap it around me like a blanket wherever I went. I didn’t have the energy to check in with my heart and my head on this whole Marcus thing, so I promised them we’d do it later. For now, when it came to him, I’d just live in the moment.
His breath on my head and the gentle beating of his heart drew me deeper under his spell. “I’m afraid,” I found myself admitting. I dropped the briefcase I’d taken with me from the car and let it lean against my calf so I could wrap both arms around Marcus’s waist.
He smoothed a hand over my hair. “Of what?”
“Afraid that I won’t be able to keep up. There was no training or election. I just fell into this whole saving the Wilds thing. But there is so many to save, and they’re all so different. It’s like, I’m trying to deal with A while thinking and planning for B and then C, D, and E pop up. The moment I make a mistake, drop a letter, everything will go to shit and it’ll all be my fault.” My confession slipped from my lips and took with it the weight of worlds.
Marcus leaned back and cupped his hands onto my cheeks. His eyes bore into mine. “How did I get so lucky?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
He didn’t crack a smile. “That’s what it is.”
I expected him to say more, to explain his thoughts, but he showed them instead. With his fingertips at my temples and his palm at my jaw, he leaned in and rocked my world with his lips. My hands crawled up his back and pulled him into me with urgency.
I hadn’t expected to leave Marcus again, now that my coterie had accepted his existence, let alone his contribution. I guess I’d always just imagined that he’d be with me every step of the way from here on out, that we’d work together and sleep together, and when this was all over, then we’d decide what came next.
Having to say goodbye so soon, even if for a short time, stabbed at my heart. This concerned me. Huldra don’t marry. Our partners in life are our sisters. We are expected to raise our children together, run a coterie together. Men are not part of the lifelong equation. And yet here I stood, at a bus stop, rain falling around us while streetlights lit the night. Kissing. Not wanting to let go. Not wanting to part.
Words stirred in my heart, words that should never be spoken from my lips. I pulled away from the only male whose embrace made me want to melt into him. I treaded on dangerous territory.
“I’ll keep you updated, let you know what type of creatures we’re dealing with as soon as I find out,” I said, trying to fill the space between us with less dangerous words than those filling my mind. It didn’t work. I grabbed the leather handle of my briefcase and let it hang from my straight arm against my leg.
Marcus nodded and ran a hand through his thick hair. “Yeah, okay.” I didn’t need mind-reading skills to know he felt me pushing my emotions away and assumed I was trying to get rid of him as well.
He turned to walk back to the car, but I caught his hand and held it tightly. I refused to move forward and he turned back to see why.
“My issues about us have nothing to do with you,” I assured him. Since a day or so after he came to stay with us, we’d been discussing the topic of us off and on—more off than on. I gathered that he wanted a label for “us,” and I still wanted to clear my own confusion about what it meant to even be an “us.”
Marcus licked his bottom lip and looked up at the streetlight. “I’ll try to force myself to believe that.”
I refused to let go of his hand, but we walked back to the car in silence.
When we neared the minivan, Celeste and Oliva jumped from the car with their travel bags, ready to get to work. I dropped Marcus’s hand. He slipped past my sisters to fold himself into the car and buckled his seat belt. My own suitcase waited for me beside the back tire.
“Don’t worry,” Abigale said from the back seat. “We’ll take care of her. Hold up the fort at home. You girls stay safe down here.”
“Will do,” I said before hugging Shawna goodbye and shutting the car door. “Hopefully this’ll take a day, two at the most, and then we’ll all be flying to the east coast together.”
The three of us stood in the middle of the street watching our coterie and Marcus drive away. When the red tail lights turned a corner and were no more, we headed toward the apartment building, dragging travel bags and rolling suitcases behind us.
“Why are you carrying that thing like it’s handcuffed to you?” Olivia asked, pointing her chin at my brown, soft-leather briefcase. “I noticed you’ve been storing it beside you in the car and not in the back with the other bags.”
I lifted the thing to examine it as I spoke. “I wasn’t planning on working during our wine-tasting trip, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to bring a couple skip files just in case I had a few minutes of down time.” I added another option I’d considered while packing for our Oregon trip. “Or if I ran across one down here.”
“Is it the human-trafficking ring?” Celeste asked, the first to step onto the curb in front of the succubi’s apartment building.
I nodded. “There’s been a couple developments that’ve leaked that may help me make sense of who’s really on top, if I could get some time to work on it.”
Dale had called me the other day, asking why I hadn’t contacted him in a while, although he knew I only check-in when I needed something, so I’d figured he was just checking to make sure I was all right. He’d used rumors that he’d heard Bria
n was offed by a deal gone wrong as his excuse to call. The same Brian I offed at the Westin in Bellevue, though I didn’t mention as much to the guy who paid me for picking up bail runners.
After I’d assured him I was fine, Dale had told me my early hunches that the human traffickers were targeting the women in online amateur porn had been proven correct. It had been a theory I’d been working on, and even trying to get in front of, until that day in the cabin at the Washington Hunter’s complex when Clarisse mentioned something about Samuel Woodry having ties to the trafficking ring. The victims he’d chosen didn’t fit the profile and threw a huge kink in my chain of a theory. Even if his earlier victims were just for him, and his trafficking involvement was a newer development, that didn’t explain the young barista he’d been trying to snare when I’d caught him. I’d checked and found nothing online that led me to believe she was a secret porn actress.
“I know I promised the Hunter’s daughter, Clarisse, that the rusalki would get their revenge on her for killing their sister, but she’s also a part of the human trafficking ring in Seattle. If I could get some alone time with her, I’m sure she’d point me to the key players and help me find the puzzle pieces I’m missing. Taking them down would ruin the ring and save so many lives. I can’t let it go. She’s a skip I’d make good money on if I took her in, but more than that, I want what she knows.”
“Why?” Celeste asked. “Marcus even said that women within Hunter families aren’t allowed to know or do much outside of the home. How’d she know the ins and outs of a whole damn human trafficking scheme?”
We made it to the apartment building’s door, but didn’t move to open it, or knock to get buzzed in.
“Because,” I answered my sister. “I think she did their book keeping. She had to have. She took the fall for them, claimed to be the leader of the whole thing, which we know she couldn’t have been. But to make those claims and have lawyers and cops believe her, she had to know a lot about their operation, give them enough to bring up charges against her. I’ve been reviewing her file. The stuff she said during interrogations couldn’t have been made up or coached into her. What she shared came from personal experience.”
My sisters grew sullen. “What did she share, exactly?” Olivia asked.
I didn’t have a chance to answer before a red-haired succubus flung the front apartment door open.
“Come in,” she said. “Marie is upstairs in her apartment.”
“Thanks,” I said slowly, shocked that Marie hadn’t sent an entourage to walk me up to her place like last time. Maybe she needed me a little more than I’d thought. But why? She had a whole galere at her disposal.
Succubi stood along the stairwell watching the three huldra ascend the stairs. Some closed their apartment doors, shutting us out. Others peered from their homes. Old ways die hard. You’d think we hadn’t just fought beside these Wilds a week prior.
My sisters stood behind me as we entered Marie’s apartment. Her door had been left open and she lounged on her red couch. Alone. I’d fully expected to see her in a tiny robe, but she wore silk sleep pants and a tight tank top. The pink fabric looked bright against her tan skin.
“Please shut the door behind you,” was her greeting.
I peered around. No succubi flanked her. And she wanted to be left alone in a room, behind a closed door, with three huldra?
“Go ahead,” she urged. “We have a lot to discuss.”
Celeste shut the door and stood to my right. Olivia stood to my left. I didn’t feel any threat, but it was wise to stay alert.
“You’re sad,” Marie said, eyeing me. “Love can do that to a person.”
Her reminder caused my shoulders to slump for half a second before I realized they were giving me away and I righted them again.
My sisters shot me a look. Thank you, Marie, for putting words to emotions I hadn’t dared to sift through yet.
“We’re not here to talk about me,” I reminded. “This visit is all about you.”
“Yes, well.” Marie leaned forward and poured red wine into four glasses, then gestured for us to join her. Olivia and I sat in separate chairs facing the couch. Celeste eased onto the couch beside Marie with hesitance before grabbing a glass of wine. “I’ve found myself in a bit of a predicament.”
“With supernatural males?” Celeste asked before taking another sip of wine.
Marie turned to her and I saw the exact moment her eyes twinkled at my sister. A smile lifted half her face as she took Celeste in. My sister’s dark hair, light skin, and almond eyes made Marie sit up straighter and smooth the wrinkles in her silk pants.
“So, tell us about these males,” I interrupted Marie, who was clearly taking in the sight of my sister. I’d come for a reason and wanted to get that out of the way so I could leave.
Marie snapped to attention. “Oh, yes, excuse me. Lost my train of thought.” She cleared her throat and took a drink of wine. “Last time you visited we discussed a younger sister of mine. Her disappearance.”
I remembered. “I’d visited the mermaids to get her back.”
“But she wasn’t with them,” Marie added.
“And so we figured she could be with the Hunters,” I said. At least I’d assumed as much. Not sure if there was an actual discussion about it, not with everything else going on and Marie’s secrecy around the whole thing.
“But she’s not with the Hunters. She never was.” Marie paused and looked up to the ceiling while nibbling her lower lip. Her voice barely cracked as she said, “She ran away.”
“With the supernatural male,” I added. Thoughts of Marcus and how being with him would mean leaving my coterie filled my mind.
Marie took a deep breath. “Yes. An unfortunate situation I have tried to rectify. But it’s gotten past the point of my being able to fix it on my own. She won’t come home, feels more thoroughly protected living with the males.” Marie glanced at Celeste before directing her words at me. “Our check-in is in three days.”
“Shit, Marie.” And now I knew why she’d insisted I come. “You don’t think this is just a little last minute?”
“I know, I know. But I believed she’d listen to reason.” Marie exhaled and her shoulders slumped forward. “I was wrong.”
Celeste comforted Marie by rubbing her thigh. “It’s not your fault. You can’t hold yourself accountable for what your sisters choose to do, who your sisters choose to love.”
Was that comment directed at me? I controlled myself, held my mouth shut and didn’t call my sister to the carpet. I’d do that in private, not in front of the succubi leader she was making googly eyes at.
Marie rested her hand on Celeste’s. Their eyes met. “Thank you.”
I stood to pace. Yet another letter was being thrown at me to deal with. “If she doesn’t show for check-in, the Hunters will be even more suspicious that you all may have had something to do with the destruction of the Washington Hunter complex.” I spoke my thoughts as I worked them out. “If they grow too suspicious, they’ll imprison you at their compound.” I shook my head at the impossibility of all this. I was a huldra. A young, scared succubus would never listen to me. That is, if I could even get past the big, bad, protective males to get to her. “And if they imprison you, that’ll jeopardize our whole plan. You won’t be able to fly out to help us take down the east coast complex, and the other Wilds won’t have enough time to be here and ready with a plan in three days to take down the Oregon Hunter complex. We need every Wild if we want to pull this off. All of this.”
Yeah, we were screwed.
I paused my pacing to stare at an orange and red tapestry almost covering a whole wall. I had no idea what the geometric design represented, but I assumed it had something to do with energy. Crystals tied to a string hung from each top corner of the tapestry.
If the succubi were detained, trying to take down another Hunter complex would be too risky. That meant the other already-imprisoned Wilds would have to suffer even longer. Includin
g my mother. They’d already waited for our help long enough. And hadn’t the Wilds as a whole already waited long enough for the freedom to be wild?
“You have no fear of attending check-in?” Olivia asked. “Despite using your abilities last week during our Washington complex battle?”
Marie shook her head. “We’ve figured out a way to use just enough of our energy-manipulating abilities to not give us away at check-ins, but that’ll also prove effective when combined as a group. If we each use a little, at the same time and in the same way, it appears as though we’re using a lot.”
“Smart. Makes sense,” Oliva stated.
This succubus sister of Marie was really irritating me. First, she pulled me away from my much-needed time with Shawna and Marcus, and now she threatened the safety and happiness of every United States Wild. “All right. Well, where can I go to find her?” I wanted to meet this young succubus causing me all this trouble.
“You’re skipping the male part of this equation,” Olivia reminded me.
Of course. Why did there always have to be a male in every difficult equation?
“I’ve set a meeting with them for tomorrow morning,” Marie said. “It’s better that way—to wait. Your energy is all over the place. They’ll see you as unstable and won’t trust you enough to give you access to my sister. They may even immobilize you, somewhat like my sisters did the first time you visited us. If you’re still feeling this way in the morning, I am more than happy to work on you before we leave.”
Only succubi saw and manipulated energy. And succubi were female. Not male.
A headache formed in my right temple and grew with each breath. “What type of male creature has succubus abilities?” I asked, turning away from the tapestry and focusing on the three Wilds.
Marie slowly drank her wine and carefully set the glass onto the coffee table, leaving her hands free. She didn’t need her hands to manipulate energy, but they seemed to help. I suddenly became super-aware of everything I felt, in an effort to know if Marie was shifting any of those emotions.
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