The Last Warrior: Shifters Unbound Book 13

by Ashley Jennifer

  “She’s the best,” Ben said, his affability returning. “Thanks, Janie.”

  “Y’all enjoy.” Janie and the lad bustled off, leaving Ben and Rhianne with the savory smelling food.

  “Dig in.” Ben lifted a spoon and scooped up thick broth from his bowl. He stuck the spoon into his mouth, then an expression of great pleasure softened his face. “This is damn good gumbo. Here, try some.”

  He grabbed one of the extra spoons, filled it with broth and meat, and held it out to Rhianne.

  The droplets would splatter all over the table. Rhianne leaned forward and quickly caught the spoonful in her mouth.

  Incredible flavor poured over her tongue. A bite of spice, but not too much, savory sensations of herbs and sausage, and something pleasantly fishy.

  “Oh, my,” she said when she could speak.

  “Didn’t I tell you? There was shrimp in that. Here.” He took up a fork and speared a curled pink thing on her plate of colorful rice.

  Rhianne opened her mouth and Ben gently slid the bite into it. Their eyes met over the fork, and Rhianne felt suddenly hot.

  Was the food too spicy? Not at all. It was the sensation of Ben’s hand behind the fork, the smile on his lips, the enjoyment in his eyes.

  Ben had been exiled, but he’d not forgotten how to live. He was now trying to show Rhianne how to live too.

  She sat back, chewing and swallowing the mouthful. “I think I like shrimp,” she announced.

  “It’s pretty awesome.” Ben retreated to his side of the table. “Humans have come up with some wonderful stuff.”

  “How did they think to eat critters that crawl on the bottom of the sea?” Rhianne loaded her fork with the shrimp and rice and ate, closing her eyes to enjoy it.

  “When you’re hungry, anything’s food. After a while, you figure out how to make it good. Very resourceful, are humans.”

  “You like them,” Rhianne said with sudden insight.

  Ben nodded. “They’re not so bad. I’ve always had to try to fit in. When I first came to this world, I figured out fast that if humans didn’t know what you were or where you came from, you were pretty much dead. I adapted. Try the beer with the jambalaya.”

  Rhianne took an obedient sip. He was wise—the flavors of the warm rice and the cool beer complemented each other well. He also was trying to distract her from prying into his hardships.

  “I understand why Dylan wants me to spy on Walther,” she said, returning to their earlier topic. “It’s not only because he’s worried about what a hoch alfar lord, even an ambitious one, is up to. He wants to know why my father is helping him.”

  “Probably.” Ben ran his spoon through the gumbo. “If your dad’s so dangerous, why did Lady Aisling marry the guy in the first place?”

  Rhianne had wondered this most of her life. “She fell in love, she told me. My father is a very handsome and compelling man. Other ladies have fallen hard for him before, during, and since their marriage. Ivor de Erkkonen is powerful, smart, and extremely confident. When my mother was young, he was irresistible, so she says. She said she fell to the delusion many women have—that she could change him into something good.” Rhianne let out a sad breath. “Maybe some women do transform other men, but my father was impossible. A man has to have some goodness in him, even if buried deep, for it to work.”

  “Yeah, some of us are true sweethearts.” Ben assumed a mock modest expression, which evaporated. “Your dad, not so much?”

  “I was very young when my mother sent him away, and I don’t remember much about their marriage. He certainly never had any warm feelings for me. He regarded me more like a game piece he could use when he needed. My mother kept him away from me, which I didn’t understand then, but for which I’m very grateful now. I grew up in innocence, thanks to her. She encouraged my studies, and for me to travel far from home once I’d finished university, to remove myself from his domains. He’s mostly ignored me until now.”

  Again, Ben listened with his full attention, nodding along in sympathy.

  “He’ll have a harder time reaching you here,” he declared. “The power of Faerie only extends so far into the human world. Too much iron. Which, looking at you, doesn’t bother you at all.”

  “I’m not hoch alfar.” Rhianne took another sip of the beer. Still good. “Iron confounds hoch alfar magic, changes the very molecules in their bodies. They could have corrected that genetic flaw centuries ago, but they preferred to keep their magic as intact as possible. Becoming resistant to iron would have robbed them of some of their power. I’ve done research on the subject.”

  Ben’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Read a lot as a kid, did you?”

  “Pretty much everything I could. I took a degree at the university. There’s not a translation in English for that degree, I don’t think, but in Tuil Erdannan, I am a master in astronomy and the science of the heavens.”

  “Ah, a learned woman as well as a beautiful one.”

  He was teasing, but Rhianne flushed in enjoyment. She had no business being flattered by him—her stay here was temporary, and they were from completely different worlds. Even in Faerie their paths never would have crossed.

  Ben tucked into his gumbo, oblivious to her fluster. “If you like to read, the house has a huge library, including books on astronomy and astrophysics. It can find you what you’re looking for…if you ask it nicely.”

  “A sentient house,” Rhianne said thoughtfully. “How did that happen?”

  “Who knows? It’s on a ley line, but there’s also a lot of woo-woo stuff around here. Maybe it taps into that.”

  Rhianne’s brows went up. “Woo-woo?”

  “Magical shit. Unexplained phenomenon. There isn’t much in the human world, but you get pockets of magic here and there, and it’s concentrated in this area. There are many popular vampire stories set in New Orleans.”

  “Are there vampires here?” Rhianne glanced about, but the inhabitants of the restaurant were normal humans. She didn’t have the gift for discerning auras, but she knew the telltale signs of magical creatures.

  “Nah. They avoid the place. Had a run-in with a few vampire-like beings Dylan thought about using to help Shifters, but Dylan changed his mind. After I worked my ass off contacting them and setting up meets. Dylan decides they’re too dangerous, and that’s the last I saw of them. Fine by me. They gave me the creeps.”

  “This is a very interesting world.” Rhianne finished the jambalaya, which was filling, but she could have eaten more.

  Janie came by just then with a plate of doughy pastry covered with icing sugar. “Beignets. On the house.” She grinned at Ben, swept away their dirty dishes and settled the sweets between them. The young man hurried out of nowhere with small, clean plates and set them in front of Rhianne and Ben.

  “Janie’s awesome.” Ben offered the pastries to Rhianne.

  Rhianne carefully lifted one of the small, delicate cushions and bit into it. She tasted warm, crackling layers of crust and the sweet brush of sugar.

  “Women in the village near where I live make something like this,” she said as she savored. “But I think not as good.”

  “Food is king here.” Ben ate a beignet whole. “Not just the tourist food you’re supposed to eat, but everything. French, Creole, Cajun, Caribbean, South and Central American, Southern … everything.”

  “Have you lived in New Orleans long?”

  “Not very. Spent a lot of time in North Carolina and in Las Vegas. Moved here when Jasmine needed someone to look after the house. I knew about haunted houses—I was a resident ghost in one in North Carolina for a while.”

  Rhianne narrowed her eyes as she took another bite of the wonderful beignet. “But you’re alive.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but the owners of the inn and guests who came for the authentic ghost experience didn’t.” Ben chuckled. “Those were good times.”

  “I do not believe I will ever understand you.” Rhianne finished her beignet and
chose another. “Though I thank you for showing me your city. Or perhaps you think of it as your adopted city?”

  “I do. But you ain’t seen nothing yet, sweetheart. The sun’s still up.”

  “And I barely understand your English.”

  “You’d understand my goblin less.” Ben waved at Janie, who arrived with a slip of paper that she laid next to his plate. He pulled out his square rectangle again and handed it to her.

  “Your coins are interesting.” Rhianne rested her chin on her hand and nibbled the last beignet. “Not coins at all. And they give it back to you.”

  “Credit card.” Ben tapped the slim leather pouch he kept the card in. “It’s like keeping a running tally with a merchant and then paying everything at the end of the month. Except a separate company keeps the running tally and pays the merchants for you, and then you pay up to that separate company.”

  “Ah.” Rhianne licked sugar from her fingers. “A few hoch alfar tried to set up a syndicate rather like that. Whenever a debtor could not pay them, they’d threaten to take their home or livestock or even their lives. It happened too many times, so a hoch alfar prince had the creditor syndicate put to death.”

  Ben’s brows went up. “Well, that might make credit card companies think twice about raising their interest rates.” Janie returned the card with more paper and a smile. “Thank you, Janie. You’re the best.”

  “And you’re a flatterer. I’d watch this one,” Janie said to Rhianne.

  Banter seemed to be common, and good-natured. “I will, I promise,” Rhianne returned.

  Janie laughed and danced off to another table.

  “Come on.” Ben reached for Rhianne’s hand, and it felt natural to clasp his. “Time to show you the rest.”

  * * *

  Ben’s world was one Rhianne never knew existed. New Orleans had shops filled with many delightful things—books, trinkets galore, colorful wraps and clothing, and more shoes, plus places that proclaimed their psychics could read your future or your past lives, whatever past lives were.

  Rhianne lingered next to a clothing store, knowing she could not borrow from the two unknown women forever.

  Ben led her inside, telling her to pick out whatever she wanted. They left with two shopping bags, one containing a T-shirt that read: New Orleans, Where Partying is an Art Form.

  Rhianne expressed curiosity about the psychics, so Ben took her to a shop with books and crystals on its shelves, a waft of incense in the air. In a small, pleasantly sunny room in the back, a young woman with dark skin, wearing colorful wraps similar to what Rhianne had just bought for herself, instructed Rhianne to sit across from her at a table.

  They were alone in the room, the young woman telling Ben that the reading was strictly private, but Ben lurked on the other side of the curtain.

  “Let me look at your palm, honey,” the young woman said. “I’ll do your lines and then a set of cards. That’s the basic package.”

  Rhianne wasn’t certain what she meant about a package, but she laid her hand on the table, palm up. Ben had warned her that the psychics in many of these shops were charlatans, but Rhianne wanted to know what this one had to say. Perhaps she could give some hint as to how long Rhianne would be here, or what specific danger her father posed to her. Even if she were a charlatan, this venture was all in good fun.

  The young woman brushed Rhianne’s palm, her fingertips warm and relaxing. She peered at Rhianne’s hand a moment before she gasped and jerked upright, her eyes widening to dark brown pools of fear.

  “By the Goddess,” the woman whispered. “What are you?”

  Chapter Seven

  Ben heard the psychic’s words loud and clear. By the time Rhianne finished a quick intake of breath, he had shoved aside the curtain and charged into the room.

  The psychic was a young black woman with long, glossy hair pulled into loops on the back of her head. She’d donned the swirling scarves and necklaces of a stage psychic, but Ben sensed the aura of no ordinary woman.

  The psychic should have snapped at Ben to leave, but she was too busy staring at Rhianne in shock.

  “I’m no one special,” Rhianne said faintly.

  The woman seized Rhianne’s hand. “No one special? Sweetie, these lines are crazy. And your aura—” She waved at the air in front of her. “Never saw anything like it. And you …” More shock as she beheld Ben. “Shit, should I call nine-one-one?”

  Ben leaned his fists on the table. “You should forget all about us instead.”

  “How can I? Both your auras are screaming at me. No, don’t run away.” The woman clamped her hand down on Rhianne’s to keep her seated at the table. “You’re in trouble, honey. You need to hear what I have to say.”

  “Release her,” Ben said in a hard voice. “Now.”

  “No.” Rhianne’s quick word cut through Ben’s order. “Let her speak.”

  For a moment, the room hung with silent tension. Then the psychic slowly uncurled her fingers from Rhianne’s hand.

  “I’d never hurt you,” she said. “I’m Lily, by the way. And you are the most magical people who’ve ever come in here.”

  “Rhianne.” Rhianne touched her chest then indicated Ben. “And Ben.”

  “Well, you make a nice couple.”

  “Oh, we are not …”

  Lily cut off Rhianne’s protest with an imperious wave. “Yes, you are. I’m never wrong. But the danger I see for you both is huge.” She brushed Rhianne’s palm with a pink painted nail and glanced at Ben. “Let me get you a chair.”

  Ben waited as Lily exited through a door in the back of the tiny room and reappeared instantly with a straight-backed chair identical to the other two. Once Lily had Ben seated, she leaned on the table and gave them both a frank assessment.

  “I don’t know what you people are, or where you come from. It’s not this world, I’m pretty sure. I don’t think you mean me any harm, because believe me, when evil walks in this place, I know it.” She tapped the table with a stiff finger. “But you’re not exactly angels either. Though they can be pretty tough when they want.”

  “What kind of danger is she in?” Ben asked sharply, returning her to her point.

  “Something pretty bad.” Lily’s brow wrinkled in worry. “I see much darkness, fear, and rage. Fury. Against you.” She pointed at Ben, her finger a skewer.

  “Fury from me?” Rhianne asked in concern.

  “No, no. From outside forces. Bad outside forces.” Lily turned to Ben. “Who the hell did you piss off?”

  Ben grimaced. “A lot of people. I’ve gone through my whole life pissing off anyone who comes into contact with me.”

  “Hmm.” Lily peered at him. “Recently, you’ve done some kind of damage, or it might be damage you’re going to do, but the rage I’m detecting is serious. They want to kill you, whoever they are. Not only kill you, but erase you completely. And you.” She switched her attention to Rhianne. “The trouble is, if you stay with him, you’ll share the danger. The only way to avoid it is to be far from him. But like I said, you’re a couple, so that choice might not be up to you.”

  “Can you be more specific?” Ben asked Lily. “I can prepare better if I know what I’m facing. What are they? Vampires? Shifters? Fae? Zilithal annoyed that we canceled the meeting on the winter solstice?”

  Lily’s eyes went wide. “Zilithal? You mean those evil, bloodsucking demons? You were going to meet with them?”

  “Yeah, well, in retrospect it was probably better we called it off,” Ben conceded. “So, who is it?”

  Lily shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can see a general danger—it’s like a blackness, hovering, waiting to crush you. But not who will cause it. When it gets closer, yes, I might be able to. Right now, you have a chance to avoid this danger if you go far, far from here.”

  “How far?” Ben asked. Alaska? Russia? The Arctic? How about the Antarctic?

  Lily blew out a breath. “A hell of a long way. You might not be able to go far enough.
”

  Every once in a while, Ben ran into someone who wasn’t fooled by his glams or the tough magic he wove to keep himself appearing human. Lily impressed him.

  “Can you dig into it?” Ben balled his hands. “I won’t ask you to if it’s too dangerous for yourself, but I’d appreciate any intel. Will pay for it too.”

  “That’s kind of you. I can look. Won’t charge you unless I find anything specific. Now you.” She switched back to Rhianne. “I can tell you not to go home. You’ll find the most danger there. Stay away, and let things work themselves out.”

  Rhianne shot Ben a troubled glance. “I hope it doesn’t take too long.”

  Lily shrugged. “I can’t divine that. I can tell that you have a lot of power. It radiates from you. Like I said, though, it might not be enough to battle what waits for you at home.”

  “My power is not that great.” Rhianne shook her head. “If you sense something, it’s only because of my ancestry. The talents my parents have did not get passed down to me.”

  She stated it as a simple fact, one she’d come to accept long ago. Ben forbore to point out that a Tuil Erdannan with a tiny amount of magic was more powerful than the highest hoch alfar magician. He supposed it was a matter of perspective.

  “If you say so, honey.” Lily withdrew her hand. “But your aura is powerful—I bet you have more in you than you know. It’s almost ...” She looked thoughtful, then shook her head. “Never mind. I’m not sure what other advice to give you. Either go so far away you’re on the moon, or prepare yourself for battle.”

  Ben regarded her with disquiet. Lily might be overconfident in her abilities, or she might have the clairvoyance a few rare humans had.

  He was acquainted with one other woman with similar talents. “Do you know Jasmine McNaughton?” Ben asked her on impulse.

  “Sure I do.” Lily’s brows rose. “She’s the real thing. You’re friends of Jazz? Why didn’t you say so? How is she?”