"Sure, I better get these beats jump'n if we're gonna have us a party tonight." He pulled his shades down off of the top of his head to cover his eyes and his hair puffed back up. "Catch ya later."
Before we even closed the door behind us the music was blasting. We walked out and stood near the balcony that over looked the main floor. I could see club goers starting to rapidly fill the area around the bars.
"I can't believe she was here," I said to him.
"I know. Try not to worry about Patience, she's half way around the world by now. As for your mother, I think that she is more resilient than you know. She has been around The Taker for nearly twenty years now." Graven tried to make me feel better.
"You said we could go back to Sedona tonight, we have to start making a plan to rescue my mother. Now that I know Patience is safe we can focus on saving my mom and defeating the darkness that gives The Taker his power."
"That sounds like a plan. But we have been having a great day, let's make the most of tonight and round out the night and make this our day to indulge in what can make us happy. We can wake tomorrow and prepare for the fight ahead of us."
Graven was right; we went down to the bar to have a drink to toast our cares away if only for a few hours. The dance floor was packed. People were elbow-to-elbow and hip-to-hip grinding and bouncing to the beats. We were lucky that we didn't have to wait in the three deep crowd to get a drink.
Maritza spotted us and came over to check on things at the bar. "How is everything?"
"Maritza, everything is perfect, you have outdone yourself." Graven gave her a little pat on the side of her arm.
"Will you have a drink with us?" I asked her.
"I normally don't drink while I am working, but I can make an exception just this once." She waved over the bartender and ordered herself a spritzer. "If it's half club soda it only half counts. Right?"
"That works for me," I said as we clinked our glasses together and said, "Cheers."
"So I guess Kaden's new promoter did a good job getting the word out. Have either of them showed their face yet?" Graven asked.
"No, I haven't seen Kaden at all tonight. I don't know why it surprises me that he's not here. He is such a dick sometimes," Maritza mumbled under her breath.
"You have no idea," I mumbled back.
Maritza gave me a look and mouthed the word what.
I shook my head. Now was so not the time to tell her what happened.
"There's that kid, Nate, now," Maritza said pointing to the hall that lead into the club. He walked in with two young women on his arms. I couldn't believe who was with him. I put my drink down and ran over to them.
Before I made it all the way over, Jean was screaming with her arms flailing around in the air before she embraced me in a giant bear hug. Teresina was behind her with her arm still locked around Nate's.
"Holy crap, I can't believe you're here!" Jean yelled in my ear. "What are you doing here?"
"It's a long story, I kind of work here," I yelled back. "What are you doing here?"
"Teresina invited me, I don't know if you got to meet Nate that night you found out about your grandmother. He was the guy that helped Teresina plan our last party at college. We came up for the weekend," Jean explained.
"Where have you been? I have called and emailed you a million times," she asked me.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I lost my phone and I haven't been on a computer since I left college." I pushed a loose strand of hair away from my face that was getting stuck in my lip-gloss. "I miss you. How are you here with Teresina?"
"Crazy, we both got a job at the same place and well, here we are. You look outstanding by the way." She held up my arms and looked at me. "I knew there was a sexy beast hiding under all those khakis."
"Very funny." But I knew it was true.
Nate and Teresina came over to where we were yapping at each other. Teresina gave me a hug and yelled in my ear over my shoulder, "It's great to see you."
"Come on over to the bar, I'll get you guys drinks." I was too busy and too excited to see my friends from school that I failed to even say hello to Nate, not that I knew him in the first place.
When we got over to the bar, Graven greeted us by putting his arm around my waist. "You want to introduce me to your friends?" He smiled and shook their hands.
"This is my...Graven." I didn't know what to call him.
"I am her everything and she is mine," he said to clarify although I'm not sure that helped me put a label on our relationship. He kissed my shoulder and waved over the bartender.
Jean waved her hand in front of her and lipped "HOT!"
I giggled, and nodded in agreement.
"You are going to need to tell me everything," Jean said.
"Kasha, I love your dress. Are you living here in Santa Fe now?" Teresina asked.
"Not exactly, I am actually only here for the weekend to help with the opening of the club."
"So how about you, a boyfriend?" I asked.
"Yeah, how rude of me. This is my boyfriend, Nate." He turned his attention in our direction.
"You were supposed to be here two hours ago, Nate," Graven informed him.
It made for a bit of an awkward moment. Luckily Jean and Teresina were busy getting drinks.
Nate stood there with a smug look on his face. The kid clearly had no regard for authority or responsibility. He was some sort of spoiled brat. It wasn't like me to not like someone. I tried to see good in everyone. Unfortunately I have been learning the hard way that not all people can find the light that burns within.
I was catching up with the girls while Graven had a talk with Nate about punctuality and working for him. I didn't like the way he looked at me. Every time I turned in his direction he was looking at me. I had been ogled plenty of times in my life and this was not that kind of look.
Whenever I looked at him he seemed to come in and out of focus. I looked around the room to see if it was just him or if everything was getting blurry. I looked over to the bartender and at my glass sitting on the bar. I hope someone didn't slip something in my drink.
I reached behind me and held onto Graven's hand. The thing was, that everything else looked normal. I looked back at Nate and calmed my emotions. I tried to draw upon my gifts to be able to see what that over gelled hair pretty boy might have been hiding.
His spiritual bodies around him were the darkest I had seen yet, even darker than what I noticed with Ziona. Could it be that Ziona stood a better chance of redemption than this young man. Not that it was for me to judge.
Something wasn't right with him. He turned and looked right at me, not hiding it at all. He widened his stance. I did not find him nearly as menacing as he was shooting for. But I watched his eyes shift from a brownish to yellow. For a split second I thought they turned red.
I too widened my own stance, getting ready to be on the defensive. I continued to search his essence and his soul as Graven taught me, I could see a vague shadow of a black coyote hovering over him. Gram's face flashed in front of his before he started shifting form between boy, coyote, and skeleton in front of me.
I squeezed Graven's hand. I astral projected on the other side of him. "Do you see what I am seeing?"
"No, where?" What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nate. You don't see it?"
Graven looked at him and shook his head.
At the realization that the young man that stood before me killed Gram, my body started to shake with anger.
"He is the skin-walker."
"For real? That little shit. My brother is a dead man."
Holy shit, was all I could think. Kaden was the one that got this kid the job as club promoter.
"Does this kid work for The Taker?" I asked him.
"I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. If he doesn't, the question and major concern is, who does he work for?"
"Hey Nate, how would you like a private tour. I would like to show you where you will be working," Graven asked him.
<
br /> Nate never took his eyes off of me. "Sure."
"Ladies, please accept my apologies, I need to steal your friend here for a few minutes. Whatever you want is on the house."
Jean and Teresina clinked glasses and thanked him. They were going to be in need of a serious cab and a hangover cure in the morning.
Graven gently grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him. "Stay here." He sternly demanded in my ear. His lips brushed against my cheek for a seductive little kiss. Never for a second did he stop smiling.
Graven then appeared next to me in astral form. "I'm not kidding, stay here."
"Where are you going?" I whispered to him.
"We are going to take a little walk and see just who's pocket this kid is in."
Chapter Twenty-Five
I WASN'T CRAZY ABOUT THE idea of Graven walking off with my grandmother's killer. Not so much because I thought that Nate was a threat to Graven, but that I wanted to be the one to confront him. I wanted to dismantle him limb by limb.
Instead, I stood at the bar and pretended to have a good time with my old friends. "So, Teresina, how did you and Nate meet?"
"I saw him hanging around campus a few times. One day he came over to me to hand me a flyer for a bar and we started talking. That was when he said he could help me throw our graduation party. After that we started seeing more of each other," she explained.
"So he was at the party?" I was trying to do the math in my head to figure out if he could have been at the party and been responsible for Gram's death. They told me that she had been in a bad car accident, but they had never seen anyone thrown from a vehicle so far, and that she was then mauled so badly by wild animals. The images haunted me for weeks; they still creep into my thoughts.
"I didn't get to meet him, I had to leave early," I said, as if she didn't know.
"Whoa, look at this hottie," Jenna said. Before I could turn around, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned to find the second most handsome man I had ever seen and slapped him right across the face. Kaden didn't flinch; he just stood there.
"Kasha, what the-" Jean's eyeballs almost flew from her head.
"I deserved that, but-"
"You don't get to but anything, not with me."
I heard the girls talking behind me about how I just slapped this guy, how hot he was, and how did I find myself with these two hot guys.
"How do you know this guy?" Jean asked me.
"I don't know him at all," I said to his face.
"You don't understand, I need to speak to you. Alone." Kaden grabbed at my arm. I thrust the palm of my hand into his chest and he went flying back in to the crowd.
"What the heck, Kasha!" Teresina said.
The crowd started to disperse. I could feel the static and the tension in the air. I don't know what I just started, but I didn't like the feel of it.
Graven flashed next to me. "Bloody hell. I need to find Maritza and get this place cleared out."
Within seconds the music stopped and the lights came on. "Sorry everyone, we just got shut down. Please make your way out the front entrance. There will be flyers for you to come back that include free admission and one free drink. We will be open for our official Grand Opening tomorrow night. Hope to see you here," Tobias announced.
Kaden stood up. He didn't leave and he did not re-approach me. The crowd began to thin out around us.
I turned to the bartender and asked her to give me a hundred dollars out of the drawer and that I would let Graven know. I handed it to the girls and told them to take a cab home. "What about Nate?" Teresina asked.
"I am pretty sure he won't be joining you tonight. He has some business that he needs to attend to here," I explained as I practically pushed them toward the exit.
Maritza walked behind the bar and locked the register. She told the bartenders they could go too.
"Kaden!" Roared from above. I looked up and Graven stood at the top of the stairs with Nate at his side.
Graven started to walk down the spiral staircase and Nate followed. "You shouldn't be here brother."
"I know but-" Kaden began.
"You know, that's just it brother, you seem to know more than you should. I think it's time you cut the conniving bullshit."
Graven grabbed Nate by the hair and threw him the rest of the way down the stairs.
"What the heck, dude?" Nate hollered as he started to push himself up off the dirty dance floor.
"How dare you bring this scum of a skin-walker in my house, in my club? Whose grips are you under these days, brother?" Graven stalked toward Kaden.
Nate got to his knees and shot death looks at Graven, his eyes shifted from brown to yellow to red. His head shook from side to side as he pressed his hands in to the floor. I thought he was going to stand up, but his back began to widen and rip apart his shirt. His neck rolled hard to the left as a black snout immerged from his pretty boy face. His eyes grew hot and locked on me like armed missiles.
Without taking his red eyes off of me, "Call me what you want, but I will be leaving here with the redhead even if I have to kill every last one of you."
Graven started to laugh. "He must be kidding and not know who he is threatening."
"His mother is on her way here. Honestly, I didn't know, if I had known..." Kaden was stumbling over his words.
"I don't want to hear your stories, Kaden. Wherever you go devastation and heartache is not far behind. Was it you? Did you take her?" Graven demanded.
Kaden's head hung low. He was actually quite disheveled. His hair was flying around all over the place, his dimple was nearly covered by stubble and he had circles under his eyes from what looked to be from a lack of sleep.
"Graven..." I heard Maritza's strained voice coming from the entry hall that lead out to the main dance floor. I hadn't even noticed that she left the bar; she must have gone to lock the front door.
She was being ushered into the club by her hair, it was held in the fist of the wrinkled old hand of Phaela. "I think this belongs to you," she said shoving Maritza to the floor in Graven's direction.
"Now who the hell is this lady?" Graven was beyond pissed.
"Phaela," I said and my blood began to boil. This woman who I trusted with my secrets and my emotions, the woman who made my friends Axel and Patience suffer, and now to find out that she is the mother of Gram's killer.
The hairs on my head started to tingle as they stood on end. My muscles contracted as tiny zaps of energy buzzed across my skin. My vision began to shake from the intensity of my vibration. The rage was building inside of me. I wanted to take the time to find my breath, but all I could see was what that woman had taken from me.
All that time I worried about The Taker being my greatest enemy when all along it was this woman who clearly had the blackest heart of them all.
"Kasha?" I heard Graven's voice call my name, but it sounded like he was a million miles away.
"Bring her to me, son. Let no one stand in your way," Phaela instructed her son.
Nate reached his hand in his pocket and took out what appeared to be some kind of powder, he smeared it over his paws and dragged the ash in a striped pattern across his face.
If it was corpse powder, I knew that whatever he touched would pay the ultimate price. His lips quivered back as he snarled at me. Everything started to happen so fast.
Graven lunged forward in his direction as Nate made an attempt to pounce in my direction. I couldn't let anyone else come to any harm because of me.
Kaden went flying in front of me to block me from Nate's attack. I pushed Kaden out of the way without thinking. I wasn't afraid anymore. I knew that I could defend myself and in the end if my life was taken I knew that Gram and Axel would be waiting for me. I also knew that if I died, that no one could use me or exploit my abilities to do harm.
Nate was but a hand away from me. I lifted my hand into the air with a hard thrust. I assumed that I would be able to throw some kind of energy burst or wind thing to k
nock him back and hopefully back like I did to the men in the van.
Except the only thing in my mind was picturing myself grabbing him and breaking him apart. He stopped frozen in his tracks. I squeezed my fingers in the air and watched as he gasped for a breath.
"Get off him," Phaela warned.
"You killed my grandmother. Don't bother denying it. You were marked and I can see what you did."
I lifted my arm higher and his body rose off the floor. Graven, Maritza and Kaden stepped back and stood there watching.
"I believe in doing the right thing and that karma is the foundation of humanity. The action and inaction of those who chose life without light harm the fate of mankind. You are blinded by your ego."
My first thoughts were to kill him, to pull him apart at the seams, and I was pretty sure at that point that I had the power to do so. Instead I focused my core light. I thought of all the love and happiness I had experienced in my lifetime and forced them with my other hand into him.
Nate started to writhe in pain. His body flailed back and forth in the air.
"Stop it! What are you doing to him?" Phaela yelled.
"Showing him what you have failed to." The black fur singed at the edges of his body and turned to ash falling away in a trail of dust to the ground below his feet. The more I pushed and the brighter I tried to shine, the more he began to transform back to a human.
I opened my heart and chose not to accept what he had done, but to offer him forgiveness in the hopes that he too would find peace and allow the light to embody who he could truly become.
Nate's body became rigid as his back arched. His hair softened and the color on his skin warmed. I wanted him to feel the love that I had known from my grandmother, the love that I assumed he had never received.
Tears began to fall from his face. I pulled back on my emotions as I started to weaken. He slowly fell forward curling into a fetal position on the floor.
"What have you done!" Phaela cried.
Nate lifted his head, "What have you done, Mother? How could you do this to me? You made me a monster." Nate collapsed to the ground and held his knees crying like a small child.
Betrayed: Breaking the Darkness Series Book Two Page 25