by Dakota Brown
We settled into an easy silence while the other guys worked on dinner.
My phone chimed, and I pulled it out of my pocket. I had a text waiting from Victoria.
Victoria: Mom is wondering if you all can come down to Denver for the weekend. She's got someone who wants to talk to you. You can all crash at our place.
"Hey, guys, want to go to Denver this weekend?"
They all paused what they were doing and looked at me. I tilted my phone so Doc could read over my shoulder.
"Victoria's mom has some people who want to talk with us," I supplied for the other three.
"Denver sounds interesting," Nikolai said slowly. "Also interesting to meet other mages."
"How much do the Andersons know about you, Nikolai?" I had no idea what they might have figured out about him since I had been locked in my own head most of the last few months.
"Not sure." He shrugged, unconcerned. "Don't know how much Ash figured out, and no idea how much he had to tell the Andersons."
"I think it's a good idea," Doc said after a few minutes.
Ed and Allan shared a glance before shrugging. "You do realize that Victoria's parents will probably learn all sorts of interesting stuff about us if we go," Allan cautioned.
Doc shrugged. "If Victoria is anything to go by, we can trust them. Though, I would still prefer to be quietly ignored if we can manage it."
"So, we're going to Denver?"
Doc glanced around and when no one offered objections he nodded. "Yes. Tell Victoria she's welcome to ride down with us."
I texted Victoria back and she replied with a thumbs up.
"Well, that's settled. Now we just need to avoid any confrontations for another day or so and then we'll be out of town." I smiled warily.
"And hope they don't take out the yurt while we're gone," Allan said.
"We will not tell anyone we're leaving." Nikolai shrugged.
"Let's hope that works." I sighed. This sucked so much.
"Should." The mage sat down on the other side of me and put his arm around me and Doc. "Will be fine."
"I wish I was as confident as you."
He nuzzled my hair. "All of the irreplaceable things will be with us. Yurts are easy. You should not worry about it."
I stopped myself before I could apologize about the situation again. Nikolai was grateful and the other guys didn't blame me. I wished I could stop feeling like it was my fault, but the guilt wouldn't leave.
Doc kissed my neck. "It's not your fault," he whispered, lips brushing against my skin.
I shivered, distracted from my guilt as he nibbled.
"Hungry?"
He hesitated, as if he hadn't considered that question. "Offering?"
"Yes. We all get dinner, you may as well too."
Doc leaned back and arched an eyebrow at me.
I gave him a sly look.
"I feel like I'm getting spoiled," he chuckled. "Getting offered blood every day."
"Spoiling you is not without its rewards," Nikolai answered for us.
"Our dinner will be done in about twenty minutes," Ed interrupted us while Allan put something into the oven that Nikolai had magicked for us. "We have a little time."
"I'm definitely the spoiled one," I protested.
"Are you now?" Doc pulled me into his arms.
"With the four of you looking after me? Absolutely."
Doc nibbled and I moaned in anticipation.
Doc sank his teeth into my neck, and I could tell he was thinking more about food than sex because his hands didn't wander. He didn't spare whatever it was that made a vampire's bite feel good, though and soon I was seeing stars as I climaxed and cried out in pleasure.
Though I lost track of time, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before I came back to myself. Ed had joined us and was laying on my stomach, while Doc had curled up around me. He stroked my temple gently while I recovered.
Both of them favored me with heavy lidded, satisfied looks when I glanced at them.
Nikolai had his arm around Allan, and the two of them looked content as well.
An alarm chimed on someone's phone and Allan moved away from Nikolai and pulled dinner out of the oven.
Ed leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips before getting up to help.
"Thank you," Doc whispered when I reluctantly stirred from his embrace.
"Of course." I pressed my lips to his for a moment before finally getting up. My stomach rumbled, and I sat at the table between Allan and Ed, pressing my knees up against both of their legs. For a few minutes, anyway, everything was all right. Now if only we could keep out of trouble long enough to get some help.
∞ ∞ ∞
Victoria carried the leftover pizza as we walked down the sidewalk toward the parking lot where her car waited. It would be too cold to walk back to campus for months, and it certainly wasn't safe with the Andersons after me. A handful of other residents and tourists wandered through the last open shops, came out of restaurants, or headed to the pub. The still air chilled my warm skin and I could see the brightest of the stars over the streetlights that lit the main road.
We were heading down to Denver in the morning. The guys would pick us up early and we were supposed to meet with Victoria's contacts in the afternoon.
It would be Nikolai's first time in a modern city. Hopefully the internet had prepared him.
Victoria's gasp brought me out of my pizza coma and quiet contemplation. I threw up shields around us without thinking and focused on my surroundings—which I should have been doing all along.
Still, my shields held the blast of sickly green magic at bay. Something I had learned from both the demon and Nikolai was to identify what spells were intended for. This one was nasty. The weaves in the magical net were barbed, designed to cause a great deal of debilitating pain in a short period of time. It was strong enough that it could kill the person it hit or might just take them out of the fight for a while.
Victoria shrieked as the magic settled around us, held back by the dome of my shield.
I snarled, rage flooding my veins, followed by a rush of magic that crackled along my arms in lavender waves. Maybe it was left over from the demon. Maybe I was just done with their shit, but I was not putting up with this any longer.
The target of my fury stood in the middle of the road. I didn't recognize her magical signature, or her physical form, but the attack on me and Victoria I wasn't going to forgive.
Though I now knew several spells that would kill her where she stood, I wasn't quite ready to go there yet. Instead, I wove a magical starburst that would distract her. It carried the signatures of a particularly nasty spell, but would do nothing more than dazzle her eyes.
I dropped my shield and launched the starburst. It flashed bright in the dark night. As I had hoped, the woman threw a shield over her head. Quicker than she could react, I tossed the other spell. This one I had concealed, and it shot along the ground, a barely visible arrow of purple light that twisted around her legs and coiled up her body.
The mage screamed and her shield fell as the leach I had cast pulled all of her magic out of her body and sent it into the ground. There were other things I could do with her magic, but this was currently the safest.
"Run!"
I grabbed Victoria's arm and we sprinted back the way we had come. I dragged her down an alley and cast Nikolai's invisibility spell. I wasn't as good as he was, but I didn't have to fool anything but a handful of humans.
A few of the tourists shouted and sirens blared in the distance, but they didn't cover the agonized wail of the mage I had taken out. The spell was intended to hurt enough to take someone out of a fight, but the real horror that fueled her cry was probably her belief that I had stolen her magic forever. She would recover, though it would take a day or two. She didn't know that.
I leaned against the wall, panting and trying to catch my breath. My phone buzzed and I fished it out of my pocket.
"Shouldn't
we keep running?" Victoria's voice shook.
"They can't find us. We'll need to get to the car but we have a minute. Nikolai?" I answered the phone in a whisper.
"What happened? We all felt you draw on your powers."
"Got attacked," I answered. "We're okay. Trying to get to the car now."
"Come up here for the night," Allan said into the phone. "Bring Victoria."
"Yeah, we'll head that way as soon as it's safe."
"Use invisibility on car. Just, remember no one will see you," Nikolai added. "Did anyone see what happened?"
"I don't know. There were a handful of tourists. We're in town. The cops are probably going to get the mage that attacked us. I disabled her."
"Well, it was self-defense. Hopefully no one identifies you."
"You don't sound too worried."
"We can disappear into Russian steppes. No one will find us." He laughed.
"I don't like winter that much," I grumbled.
He laughed harder. "You should hurry. See you soon."
He disconnected the call and I shoved the phone in my jeans pocket. "They want us to come up to the yurt."
"Yeah, sure." Victoria stared at me.
"What?"
"What did you do to her?"
"Uh, not much actually. Leached all her magic out so she couldn't attack us. She probably thinks it's permanent. I doubt she's seen that spell before. Let's go." I grabbed Victoria's arm. She didn't flinch, which I took as a good sign, and we made our way to the other street and jogged for the parking lot. Victoria still clutched the pizza box in her arms. Good.
Sirens blared down the main street and we could still hear people shouting. The mage had stopped screaming, but unless she had backup, I doubted she would get away. I wasn't about to stick around and find out, but this probably would be the last time they only sent one magic user to capture me, and clearly, somehow, they were watching us.
Victoria's hands shook as she tried to unlock her car. I finally took the keys from her and she wordlessly went around to the passenger side.
I extended the invisibility that cloaked Victoria and I to include the car then booked it out of the parking lot, praying I wouldn't run into anyone else on the road as it was difficult for someone to avoid something they couldn't see and I wasn't used to driving an invisible car.
Once we hit the main roundabout, I hit the accelerator a little hard as I headed up out of the valley. If they were going to attack us, now would be the time. While they might not be able to see the car, they would know we were heading up to the yurt and it wouldn't be hard for them to ambush us. I could think of a lot of ways I would do it. That I had all that knowledge both thrilled and terrified me. In some ways I had earned it by hosting the demon. In others, it felt like I was cheating by suddenly being so powerful.
Of course, until we freed Ash, we would need all the power we could muster.
Victoria had calmed down by the time we pulled off the main road and bounced down the narrow dirt road that was Doc's driveway. I breathed a sigh of relief once we passed through my wards and were once again in relatively safe territory.
"Are you okay?" I finally asked.
Victoria nodded. "Yeah. Wow, that was pretty intense. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I just hope no one can identify us. Hopefully there aren't a lot of street cameras or anything." I shuddered.
Victoria nodded.
I dropped the invisibility spells and weariness tugged at my limbs. I parked next to Doc's truck and leaned back in the car. By the time I had mustered enough energy to get out, the guys had come over.
Ed opened the driver door and I climbed out and fell into his arms. Doc offered a hand to Victoria and pulled her into a quick hug before we all trailed down the path to the yurt, my hand held tightly in Ed's. I avoided looking at the remains of the cabin, knowing it would only piss me off again. Hopefully soon, we could go back to normal. Though I wasn't even sure what normal was any longer.
Chapter 8
Ed
Victoria sat in the passenger seat while Doc, as usual, drove. Ed was squished up against the door with four of them in the back seat, but Sofia was pressed against his other side and that more than made up for any discomfort.
Nikolai had pressed in against her, and Allan sat between the mage and the door. It was tight with six people in the truck, but Sofia, with Nikolai's direction, had cast some sort of seat belt spell that would keep everyone safe if an accident did happen. No one in the back seat minded being squeezed in with the others.
Some of their classes had exams the following week and Victoria was quizzing Sofia with the occasional input from Allan. Ed stared out the window, having a hard time concentrating on school when they were about to go meet with other supernaturals.
For many reasons, they had kept separate from the rest of the supernatural community. He and Allan hadn't wanted to run the risk of being forced to join an established wolf pack. Now that they were both over eighteen it wasn't as much of a concern, though truth be told, neither of them knew enough about werewolf society to know if that was even a valid concern. Doc was naturally a bit of a loner anyway, though Ed and Allan had changed that to some degree. Nikolai and Sofia had completely broken that tendency in Doc, though Ed doubted anyone would ever call Doc outgoing or social.
He and Allan had stayed apart from others for fear of discovery, not because they didn't want others around. Having Sofia and Nikolai join them made their small pack larger and even more comfortable to a wolf's way of thinking.
Sofia sighed. "I'm going to fail everything."
"You won't," Doc replied. "You answered everything Victoria asked you correctly."
She muttered under her breath. "I still don't feel like I know it. Clearly the knowledge is there somewhere, but it's... I don't know how to explain it. It's like it's not mine and it might vanish at any moment."
"I sincerely doubt it is going anywhere," Nikolai said.
Sofia shifted slightly as Nikolai put his arm around her and squeezed her tightly.
"You will be fine."
Sofia sighed again but fell silent.
Though she didn't say anything, Ed could smell her emotions and she still felt guilty. He hadn't been lying when he had told her they would have ended up in this situation without her anyway, but she didn't believe him. She had stopped apologizing, but he hated that she felt guilty about anything. To him, and the others, there was no blame and they would all rather have Sofia in their lives than the fragile truce they had with the Andersons before she came along.
He hadn't been down to Denver in quite some time and went back to looking out the window as they descended out of the mountains into the more heavily populated suburbs of the big city.
Sofia tucked her hand into his and squeezed.
Her touch warmed him. When he had thought they may never be together again, that had been the worst feeling ever. Now she was nearly as badass with magic as Nikolai was, she just needed practice. She could protect herself, and the rest of them, against magical attacks. That made Ed glad.
Nikolai leaned forward, looking between the two front seats and staring out the windshield, eyebrows rising as he took in the sights. As well as he had adapted to modern technology, he had yet to see a big city.
The snow from the storms had mostly melted in true front range Colorado fashion and the interstate was crowded with midday Saturday traffic.
Sofia put her hand on Nikolai's back. After a moment, Allan did the same.
"Is very different than Sunnyglade."
He remembered Nikolai's reaction the first time he had returned from being down in their small mountain town. He had adapted quickly and he didn't seem nervous now, simply curious.
Traffic thickened as they went deeper into the city. Victoria's parents lived in one of the nicer suburbs and Doc changed interstates to head south.
He glanced at Allan. His brother had clenched his hand around a bit of Nikolai's shirt and looked more nervous than the m
age did. Ed probably was, too, if he really thought about it. Big cities were not really his element and he had spent more time in small towns than the city. The reason for their trip hadn't exactly set him at ease either. He wasn't looking forward to meeting these mages that Victoria's parents knew. He was sure they were all right since they were involved in the activist circles and her parents trusted them, but it still made him nervous.
Sofia just looked around and he couldn't smell any hint of distress from her. Victoria was at ease and Doc felt fairly normal. He had been on edge for several months and that hadn't really changed.
After a little while, Doc exited off the interstate and headed back into neighborhoods.
Victoria gave him directions and before long he parked in front of a largeish two story tan brick and wood house.
Everyone climbed out and Victoria led them up to the door. She knocked once before opening it and letting them all in.
The door opened into a comfortable looking living area. The two couches were overstuffed and Ed made a mental note to see if they could get something like that for the new cabin. Books lined shelves and a gas fireplace burned near an armchair.
David, Victoria's boyfriend, looked up from the other armchair and grinned. He waved at everyone else, and got up to pull Victoria into an enthusiastic hug. "Hope you don't mind that I came by."
"Of course not, silly." Victoria melted into his arms. "I would have told you if I didn't want you to come by."
Victoria's parents, Jasmine and Xavier, came out of what was probably the kitchen based on the smell of food, big smiles on their faces.
"Hello, everyone," Jasmine said. "Please, come in." She looked at Nikolai. "I don't believe we've met yet. I'm Jasmine, and this is Xavier."
"Nikolai." He took her hand and bowed slightly before shaking Xavier's with the same bowing motion. That charmed her parents.
They all kicked off their shoes and hung coats on the small rack before following Victoria into the kitchen.
"I made lunch for everyone. Donna Schafer and Adriana Sciarra will be here in an hour or so."
Doc twitched at the second name. Ed only noticed because he was watching, but both Sofia and Nikolai glanced at him.