by D. N. Hoxa
“Good thing this isn’t that kind of a meeting, then. You’ve already wasted half my day.”
I wasn’t a nun. I’d had my share of boyfriends, and I wasn’t immune to Julian Walker’s charms. Yes, he was beautiful, and I’d have probably even given him a chance had Dylan not crossed my mind. I was tired of dating, and I was not a one-night-stand type of gal.
When I got out of the car, I couldn’t even count the bullet holes in the side of it. Wow. Those werewolves had really meant business. A shiver washed down my back as I imagined my body with that many holes in it.
“What’s in the package?” I asked Julian when he got out of the car, too, looking like he was stepping out of a fashion magazine instead. So unfair. I probably looked like Frankenstein’s monster, and his hair wasn’t even that messy.
“Blood,” he said. The package was in his hands, and when he looked at it, it was obvious that he didn’t intend on letting anyone take it. Not that I wanted to.
“You’re a Blood witch.”
It was a guess, but his nod confirmed it. I was actually proud of myself for not giving him my hand to shake. Bloodies—as we called them—had some pretty nasty tricks up their sleeves. A simple needle between their fingers and a single drop of your blood could make your defense against them completely useless.
“Correct. And you’re Bone,” he said, like he was proud of himself for remembering.
“And I’m leaving.”
I couldn’t wait to get back home and to my vodka and Netflix again. Too much stuff in such a little time after the long pause I had had worn me out rather quickly. It was time to get lazy for a couple of days. I’d done my job. Delivered James’s package to the person he wanted it delivered to, and now I could go turn those gold coins into dollars and hit the liquor store.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” Julian slammed the door of the car shut with all his strength. A look at his face confirmed that he wasn’t kidding.
“And I should care about what you think, why?” I raised a brow in question.
“Because those officers saw you. They’re going to come after you, and you can’t really hide from people like that.”
A sour smile stretched my lips. “I can take care of myself just fine, thanks.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second, but you’re safer if you stay with me. At least for a little while.”
Tempted to flip him off, I turned my back on him instead. “In your dreams.”
“You’re going to die, Winter Wayne.”
The sound of his footsteps told me he was coming towards me. I stopped in my tracks. Damn it, I couldn’t seem to catch a break today. Was it Friday the thirteenth or something?
With a deep breath, I slowly moved my hand to the back of my pants and to my gun. Call me paranoid, but when a Paranormal “kindly asked” something from you, they would never do so unprepared. I was willing to bet my life on it that Julian either had a weapon pointed at me, or a spell to conjure at the tip of his tongue. He was a stranger, one I didn’t trust, and that’s why when I turned to face him, I did so with my gun in hand. I’d been hunted before. I was still there, wasn’t I? Of all the freelancers in Finn’s secret devision, I was the best fighter. The fact that they all had magic, too, wasn’t something I wanted to think about in that moment.
“Even if I do, Julian, that’s none of your business.”
He had no weapons in his hands, which could only mean his mind was set on the spell he would attack me with. I drew up my shield, too, though it wasn’t that strong. My concentration was piss poor.
“Believe it or not, it is. I’d hate to see you dead. You’re going to have to stick by me.”
Something changed in his face while he said those words. His metallic eyes became darker, his jaw more pronounced. It was like he was willing me to do what he asked.
“I don’t have to do anything.” If there was one thing I hated, it was people telling me what to do.
Julian took a step forward. He looked dangerous, all right, and when he put his free hand up, I raised my gun.
“Don’t.”
I knew what he was doing. Whatever spell he had planned to use against me, my bullet was faster—as were my beads that were now around his head. They looked more dangerous than they were, unfortunately, but they still could do damage.
“Look, you need me right now, and I need you, too.”
Huh?
“You need me?” I barely even knew the guy.
“I do. To make sure we both stay alive for the next few days.”
“What makes you—” but Julian cut me off.
“I’ve met people like you before. You’re a freelancer, aren’t you?”
Shit. Was I that easy to read?
“I can handle myself just fine, but I need to be focused on something else for a while. I need you to watch my back, and in return, I’ll keep you under the ECU’s radar.”
“If you can keep me under the radar, you don’t really need anyone watching your back,” I said, laughing dryly. Who was he trying to fool?
“Believe it or not, the ECU isn’t our only concern right now.”
He had to be shitting me.
“Our concern?”
He was definitely delusional. He was getting more pissed off by the second, and it wasn’t just his eyebrows giving me that impression. His eyes continued to get darker somehow.
“Winter, I need you. I’ll pay you. Name your price.”
My God, the man was serious. “I don’t want you to pay me. I want you to back off, so I can be on my way.”
Julian pressed his lips. That was not a good sign. “I can’t do that.”
“You can if there’s a bullet in your head.”
I put my finger on the trigger, and he saw it clearly. I was exhausted, in pain, and way beyond pissed off. The only person I took orders from was Finn, because he was my boss. Nobody else was going to tell me where to go or what to do.
Julian’s hand pulled up in a tight fist. Another not-good sign. My shield was in place and my unblinking eyes on his perfect lips. One whisper and I was going to fire. Screw not wanting to get my hands dirtier.
But before he could even take a breath, the phone in my pocket rang. Talk about bad timing. I was going to ignore it—the situation didn’t exactly invite me to answer a call—but then, what if it was Finn? What if he wanted me back?
Shit. This was not going as it should.
“Wanna get that?” Julian said, and a hint of a smile returned to his face.
With my eyes still on his face, gun still pointed at him, I slowly reached for my phone. If it was Dylan, I swore to God I’d cut his fucking dick off when I saw him. I was sweating by the time I convinced myself to look at the screen. My heart tripped on itself. It was Finn.
“Do not move, Julian,” I warned, and to his credit, he took a step back. I needed to answer the phone. Finn wasn’t a patient man, and I was not going to waste my opportunity because of this Bloody in front of me.
“Not going anywhere,” he said, and I finally put the phone to my ear.
“Wayne.”
“What the hell did you get yourself into?”
Uuuh… “Excuse me?”
“What did you do, Winter?”
Finn’s voice was heavy with anger. I looked around me, sure that he would be there, watching me. He always knew things that seemed impossible to find out, and I kind of envied him for that. At times, I got the feeling he was everywhere, following everyone all the freaking time.
“Nothing,” I mumbled. It just wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have heard about James. Nobody knew about the package or about Julian Walker.
“You’re delivering packages now? Without even knowing what’s in them? Have you lost your damn mind?”
Finn was shouting, and I moved the phone away for a sec because I didn’t want to go deaf. My eyes were still on Julian, but he didn’t move a single muscle. He just took in every inch of me without any expression on his face
.
“If you’d have given me a job, I wouldn’t have needed to take a delivery job,” I said to Finn as my heart raced. This wasn’t good. Finn never got angry.
Well, Finn was always angry, but not that angry.
“Damn it, Winter,” the werewolf said with a loud, exhausted sigh.
“What’s wrong?”
My voice was weak because I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear his answer. My hands began to tremble when he didn’t answer right away. Finn was not a man who liked to waste even a single second.
“There’s a price on your head, Winter.” My heart fell all the way to my heels. “Literally. Whoever brings in your head gets the gold.”
All of a sudden, there was no more oxygen in the parking lot.
“You’re kidding.” He had to be. It was the only thing that made sense to me.
“Two of mine are on you, and who knows how many more.”
Did that mean he was kidding?
“You screwed up, Bone. Keep low, and if someone asks, I never called you.”
When the line went dead, the view in front of me turned really dark. I couldn’t even see where I was standing.
A price on my head.
Finn wasn’t kidding.
Julian had been right.
The butterflies in my stomach made every hair on my skin stand to attention. I kept expecting somebody to start laughing already, but as the seconds ticked by, no one did. Eventually, the view cleared in front of me, and I found Julian the same as I’d left him.
This was exactly the kind of thing my mother had always feared. It was exactly why she’d hired a private tutor and homeschooled me. Why she never wanted me to come to power and why she kept me away from my own coven, which used to exist and even worked as a proper coven a decade ago.
A loud sigh escaped my lips. What’s a girl to do when there’s a price on her head?
Turn to someone who could keep her safe and find out what the hell was going on. My mind raced as I tried to come up with options. Not many of them ended up with Winter-lives, but two of them did.
I could either take the package back from Julian and send it to whoever was trying to kill me, or I could stick by him, find out what the hell the package was all about, then figure out a way to get that price off my head.
The temptation to just pull the trigger and shoot Julian dead almost got to my head. Lucky for him, I was never bloodthirsty. I wasn’t going to kill without being attacked first. That, and if Julian Walker had a spell that wasn’t registered in the books, then he was someone who would see a bullet coming from a mile away. My magical shield could only do so much against spells.
“What the hell is in that box?” I asked him, completely defeated now. I even lowered my gun.
“I told you. Blood.”
With that, Julian turned around and walked away from me and towards an elevator at the end of the parking lot. Cursing under my breath, I followed. Whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to stick by this witch until I figured out a way to clear my name.
“Whose blood?” It must have been someone important; otherwise nobody would have bothered to put a price on my head over it.
“I can’t tell you that,” Julian said, pressing his lips together.
The elevator arrived just in time for me to step in behind him. A second later, we were going up.
“I have a price on my head,” I hissed. “You can tell me everything I need to know, right now.” I wasn’t about to take no for an answer.
Julian’s metallic eyes grew wide as he looked at me. I hated the sorry written on his face. I definitely wasn’t someone people needed to feel sorry for.
“Let’s just get inside first,” he said instead.
I wasn’t a patient person, either, but before I could argue, the doors in front of us opened. A wide hallway with dim lighting and an actual dark red carpet was in front of us. Hurrying his steps, Julian walked ahead, and I followed him all the way to the middle of the hallway, and to door 14B. Everything looked expensive, even in the hallway, but when we entered Julian’s apartment, I was left a bit disappointed. Not a whole lot of things were in there. It looked the way a place would look if someone just moved in and hadn’t unpacked yet, but I had the feeling this was not the case with the witch.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Julian mumbled, and he went straight for the corridor on the left of his living room. His furniture consisted of an old sofa and a black coffee table. The kitchen on the right looked brand new, like it had never been used to even pour a glass of water from the faucet.
The corridor had three doors, and Julian led us to the one in the middle. It was dark at first, then the lights went on, and I found myself inside a laboratory.
I’d never seen one in person until then, but I was a fan of Breaking Bad. Two large tanks were at the far right side. Next to them were cauldrons of every size—at least ten of them. Tables, weird looking stuff in flasks and jars, a huge microscope right in the middle of the table…
“What’s going on here, Julian?” I whispered, but he didn’t even turn to look at me. Instead, he put the package on the table, then took off his jacket and threw it at the corner of the room.
“I’m a scientist,” said Julian drawing a laugh from me. “No, really. I am.”
“But you’re a witch.”
Humans did stuff like math and science. Where was the point in science if you had magic at the tip of your fingers that could make impossible things possible without any reason or explanation?
“Correct. Paranormals can be scientists, too.” Julian turned to me. “In fact, there’s an entire institution run by the ECU dedicated to studying magic and supernatural creatures, but we’re pretty secretive about it.” He flinched. “They are pretty secretive about it.”
“But what’s the point? I mean…you lost me.” Yep. I was lost.
“The point is understanding. There’s no purer motive that that,” Julian said, smiling brightly. “And how else can the ECU figure out how to create their own breed of the paranormal?”
“Create their own breed? You mean like…”
“Exactly. They’re not content with having the best of every species under their wing. They want something even better.”
Talk about what goes on behind the curtain.
“I thought you said you were pretty secretive about it.” And there he was, telling me about it like we were discussing the weather.
“They fired me today,” Julian said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. That’s when I noticed that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and his muscles were perfectly visible. Every curve of his arms made me want to touch him, just so my skin could get a taste of his, and a shake of my head was needed to get the stupid thought out of my head. Now was not the time.
“Pretty pissed off about it, too.” He looked away from me. “There was no way in hell I was going to let them have this.” He put one hand on the package on the table and smiled victoriously.
“Will you tell me what the hell that is already?” I walked closer because I wanted to see inside when he opened it.
“Let’s see, shall we?”
Julian began to unwrap the package. I didn’t know what I expected to find in there. A box full of blood? Instead, the box held three thin jars covered in black leather bags, neatly placed above a dark red velvet piece of fabric, under which was a cushion. Julian let out a loud sigh, and when I looked at him, I found him smiling widely as if the whole world was his. That was not a good sign, in my book. Had I made a mistake giving him that box?
He put his hand above the jars, fingers open, his palm as close as it could be to the jars without touching them. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, his pupils were dilated—which indicated that he’d just performed a spell. The smell hit me a second later. I was growing more and more restless in Julian’s presence.
Using only two fingers, he grabbed the middle jar and looked at it as if it were a fucking mir
acle covered in black leather.
“This, Winter Wayne, is dragon blood.”
I should have realized it sooner. I should have seen it coming. I should have known by now that Julian was mentally unstable.
“Dragon blood,” I stated, just to make sure I’d heard him correctly. I was pretty good at masking my emotions most of the time, but when caught off guard like this, I did a pretty shitty job. Julian noticed.
“You don’t believe me.” He grinned.
“No, no, I do. I do believe that that’s dragon blood. Why wouldn’t I? Have you looked up lately? The sky is swarming with dragons. Totally.” I needed to get out of there, asap. A look at the door and it was still open, so I took a step back.
“Winter, I’m not lying.” Julian put the jar back in the box and turned to face me. “I swear it.”
“I’m going to leave now. Thanks for, uh…the story.”
I would take my chances out in the world. I could keep a low profile, become invisible. Nobody was going to be able to find me. I didn’t need Julian or his magic. I was on my own, as always.
He followed me out of his lab and into the living room, as I expected. I wasn’t exactly scared of him, but my attention was on my gun. I could reach it just as fast as he could cast a spell. It wasn’t my time to die just yet.
“Winter, please. Why would I even make up something like that?”
Did he really want me to answer that? Probably not, so I didn’t. I just headed for the door as my heart beat faster and faster. Dragon blood. What a lunatic.
A lunatic who stepped in front of the door before I could reach the knob. All my alarms went off. Before he could blink, the barrel of my gun kissed his forehead. I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Move.”
His eyes grew wide with surprise, and even a little fear if I read him right, but it didn’t matter. All I needed was to walk out that door.
“You need to listen to me. If the ECU get their hands on that blood, we’re fucked,”
I chanted the spell that rose up my shield with only half my focus. “So protect it. And while you’re at it, move away from the door, Julian.”
But Julian didn’t move away from the door. He tried to grab my gun instead. Good thing my reflexes were spot on because I snatched my gun right out of his hand again and took a step back, a knife already in my other hand.