by Helen Scott
"Christian!" She hissed my name but it didn't slow me down or stop me. I couldn't afford to look weak in front of my subjects and after an already emotional outburst, this was a line I couldn't cross, not without risking my role within the vampire faction of the prison. I happened to like being the king of my little territory. I didn't want any more territory or to rule the entire supermax section of Nightstone, but I didn't want to give it up either.
Once we were clear of the vampire quarter I slowed my pace slightly so that Nasima could walk next to me.
“Why are you so angry? We can work this out together,” she said.
I was sure she’d told Ambrose the same thing. I scoffed, and her cheeks flushed faintly pink.
"Fine. Be that way." Nasima stalked next to me silently.
I wanted to curse my temper, but I also needed time to process what Ambrose had told us. Nasima wasn't used to the fickle nature of a vampire's emotions just yet. We generally were considered a moody bunch, with our moods getting worse as we got older.
"What do you want?" Doc's voice reached me before I stepped into her cell, or at least the cell she used to see patients.
I wasn't sure if the warden or guards knew that she'd basically co-opted another cell to use as her clinic. If they did know, they certainly didn't care, any more than they’d cared when we were dying of lack of medical care.
"I want to ask you a favor," I replied, the words dropping into the space like tiny bombshells one after the other. It was rare these days for me to owe anyone a favor, but if I had to owe someone I'd rather it be Doc.
"A favor? For the great vampire king? What do you need? Tell me that first and then I'll tell you the cost," she said, though her eyes darted past me to Nas more than once.
"A shifter has been murdered and the vampires are suspected, but according to Nasima, the body had other injuries. I was hoping you would consider examining the body."
"Oh, is that all?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Just start or prevent a faction war based on my findings. No pressure."
"Doc?" Nasima's voice was quiet and respectful, more than I had been really.
"Yes?" The small woman moved to the side so she could fully see Nas whose presence was like a burning flame at my back in the best way. Her presence was reminding me why it was so important to get to the bottom of this. If vampires were responsible for the death of a shifter, then what would she think of me? Would she choose to distance herself so she wasn't guilty by association? Pick Ambrose over me?
I wasn't usually the anxious type, but it was only the voice of the woman in question that pulled back my mind from spinning out of control with questions. "I believe there were also traces of magic on the body. I don't know what kind of spell it was, and I have no idea how long it will last, but Ambrose and the other shifters didn't seem to care since I couldn't prove it."
"Sounds like shifters. All instinct. Not that that lets you off the hook," she said pointing at me. "Now, just so we are clear, you want me to go into shifter territory without an invitation to examine one of their dead?"
I nodded. "Nasima could go with you. No one will dare hurt her, so you would be safe by association until you can speak with Ambrose."
"I'm sure Ambrose wouldn't let anything happen to you," Nasima said from beside me.
I glanced over at her and took in the sloping planes of her face. From her elegant nose, to her high cheekbones, and the regal set of her chin, she was a woman who, once she could control the full extent of her power, no one would mess with. My eyes landed on her lips, luscious and soft, and I wished for a moment I could see her eyes.
When she glanced at me as though she could hear my thoughts my heart raced in my chest, not just because of the timing but because of the softness in her gaze. Something about it told me she'd never choose between Ambrose and myself. At this point, it was both of us or neither of us, though I was sure Ambrose didn't realize that. Either way, it made this whole thing even more important.
"You will owe me a favor, vampire king. It will be redeemed at the time and place of my choosing, and nothing will be too large or too small. Understood?" Doc demanded, her voice cold and calculating as she exacted the highest possible price.
I stared at her for a moment, the part of myself that got me to this point demanding that I walk away and refuse the deal. I couldn't though, not if it would rip Nas away from me as I suspected it would. I might not be gifted in the same sense as my witch, but I had centuries of reading people to fall back on.
Eventually, I nodded.
Doc sniffed, unable to hide her surprise. She didn't want to do this, that was why she'd set the price so high. She'd expected me to refuse. Why would she not want to help? The fact that she could start or prevent a war was nothing new, we'd been in the situation many times before, not that we'd ever called on Doc to solve it, but she had to know it was a possibility when faced with large factions of the supernatural populace all vying for power.
"Can we go now?" Nas asked, interrupting the staring contest that I had unknowingly been having with Doc.
"Yes, yes," the older witch said as she moved to pick up her black bag of tricks before she waved at Nas. "Lead the way little witch, and know this: if I die, I'll haunt your visions, your dreams, and your waking hours for the rest of your life. A witch does not die to prevent a war between vamps and shifters."
"No one's asking you to die, Witch. Just to look death in the face. Slight difference." I grumbled as we walked toward the doors that lead to the shifters' area. I wasn't stupid enough to cross that threshold, but I would be watching.
I reached out to Nas before I could stop myself and twined my fingers with hers just as she reached to open the door with the other hand. "I'll be waiting for you, sweetheart," I said before kissing the back of her hand.
"Not me?" Doc asked, batting her eyelashes at me profusely, in a way that no woman ever would if she was serious.
"No, not you, witch. Though I do hope you come back unharmed as I'd like to see what you choose to cash in your favor for one day."
"I'm sure you would love to know, but I won't tell, not until you can't refuse." She turned away from me and addressed Nas. "Leave your undead boyfriend here, and let's go look at an actual dead body, shall we?"
8
Nasima
Doc sighed and squared her shoulders as we headed toward the gate to the shifters’ yard. She had her bag slung over one shoulder, and she gripped the strap just tightly enough to betray her nerves. But I had a feeling she’d never back down once she’d made a deal.
I tried to think of something to say to make conversation, but it was hard when it was so rude to ask anyone about their past.
As soon as I started, though, she cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’m not one for small talk at the best of times, Nas. And this is not the best of times.”
That actually did make me wonder what the best of times consisted of around here, but I kept my lips closed. She pulled open the door and gestured me in ahead of her--probably less to be polite and more to ensure I was eaten first.
I could almost feel Christian watching me, and I glanced over my shoulder to find his worried gaze on me, betraying his emotion despite his coldly beautiful face. The man was so untouchably gorgeous--but he was mine to touch.
I turned and walked into the shifter compound with my chin held high.
We made it halfway to the body before I heard a howl go up, and I heard trees and bushes rustling nearby.
Doc gripped the strap of her bag even tighter, her brown ponytail bobbing. “God, I hate everything about Nightstone,” she muttered.
“We’ll be fine,” I said. In a louder voice, I called, “Where’s Ambrose?”
I expected him to find me--he had a knack for that--but nothing happened.
Doc shot me a look. “I can’t believe I went to Harvard to end up like this. Probably going to get my throat torn out trying to do a vampire a favor, even though I don’t actually like any of you.�
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“You went to Harvard?” I asked in surprise.
“Harvard med. Why are you looking at me like you were convinced I’m a moron?”
“No, not at all,” I said. “I just--it’s a long way from there to here.”
She snorted. “Didn’t seem like it took long at all, to me. Where are we going?”
Apparently, we weren’t going to dwell on her past in the Ivies. I pointed ahead. “The body’s just through those trees.”
“The body?” A tart female voice demanded. A naked wolf slunk out of the forest, the one who had been preparing the body with Tisha. She looked around my age, and her long blond hair swayed over her breasts.
“Someday, I’m going to convince these shifters that bathrobes are their friends,” Doc muttered.
“He wasn’t a body. He had a name.” The blond met my gaze fiercely.
“And I’m here to try to get justice for him. By finding out who killed him. Where’s Ambrose?”
She shrugged.
Great, just great. I was supposed to be safe in here by myself, but I preferred not to test that theory.
“Well, lead the fuck on, Nancy Drew,” Doc muttered.
I nodded to the blond and kept moving. Doc threw a glance over her shoulder and, as we reached the body, she muttered to me, “You’re going to have to establish dominance. That sweetness-and-light act of yours isn’t going to get you that far with the pack.”
Everyone had unsolicited advice for me. I was loving that.
“I’ll add it to my list,” I promised her. “Does poking and prodding vamps and shifters make you an expert?”
It sounded bitchy, but I was genuinely curious. There was so much I didn’t know about how life worked in here.
She knelt and opened her bag, snapping on a pair of gloves. “Well, I know a few things. I know those look like fang bites.”
“What about the head wound?”
She flashed me a dark look. “I said they look like fang bites. Give me a little credit and hold on, please.”
She muttered something about how she hadn’t gone to Harvard to deal with smartass witches who couldn’t make up their mind, but she began to examine the body carefully. Then she drew a scalpel out of her bag. It glinted under the sunlight filtering through the trees as she leaned forward, carefully cutting around the wound.
“What the hell are you doing to him?” The blond stepped out of the bushes, still as naked as the day she was born, but this time, she was accompanied by a big, angry guy.
“This is his vigil,” the guy snarled. “How dare you?”
Doc paused, holding the scalpel up and raising her hands to her shoulders to show she wasn’t going to cut him anymore.
“Ambrose wants the body examined,” Doc said airily. “You can take it up with him.”
The guy snarled, an inhuman sound that kept going as his nose and mouth began to transform into a snout. He dropped to his feet. Doc cut her eyes at me. “Do something,” she hissed.
“Take it easy,” the girl hissed at him. “Ambrose will kill you if you hurt her--”
“Or me,” Doc supplied helpfully.
“Well, maybe,” I said. I rose to my feet. “Everyone relax. We’re trying to find out who killed him. Whoever it was--if it was a vamp, we’ll get revenge.”
That didn’t even sound like me. I wasn’t really a vengeance kind of girl.
Well, maybe I was when it came to Bane. Bane deserved a little bit of punishment, didn’t he?
“Oh yeah?” The girl sneered at me, but the guy had stopped transforming. “What if it’s Christian?”
Christian’s name sounded like a curse on his lips, and irritation flared through me. But I was trying to calm the situation down, not make it worse, so I swallowed the emotion.
I’d have to think about that later. I apparently felt protective of the alpha vamp--even though I’d bet he didn’t think he needed protecting.
“Whoever it was will pay for killing a member of the pack,” I said calmly. “You know Ambrose.”
“Do we?” The guy glanced at the girl. “Because it seems to me as if ever since he got his dick wet with a--”
There was a roar that shook the trees. He froze.
A moment later, an enormous wolf bounded into the clearing. Fear spiked through my chest before I realized it was Ambrose, recognizing him from when he came to my rescue, but that only eased some of the fear. I was rooted to one spot as I stared at the huge wolf, at his long, powerful body with a sleek gray and white coat and the broad head full of snarling teeth. His eyes were bright and flashing--Ambrose’s eyes even in a wolf’s body.
In my head, I knew he would never hurt me, but the instinctual human response that flooded my body was terror.
He snarled at the two who faced us, and they fled into the woods without any further discussion. He darted into the woods after them, and the next thing I expected to hear was a growl and a crunch of teeth through bone. But there was only silence.
Doc returned to her work, although her hands were shaking. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
“That was scary,” I admitted.
She huffed a laugh. “You sleep with him every night. You’d better get used to it.”
Well, there was a chilling thought.
Ambrose strolled back out of the woods, in his human form once again. The light shone across his powerful broad shoulders, and he was once again naked. I never minded that, but the shifters’ ways took some getting used to.
“I thought you said I’d always be safe in here since they know I’m yours,” I said.
His brows rose. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But our conversation wasn’t very pleasant…”
I trailed off, realizing that to Ambrose, it would sound as if I were being too picky. Like Doc said, I had to establish dominance--and that meant standing on my own.
Even though I couldn’t turn myself into a two-hundred-pound giant wolf.
Doc sat back on her heels. “I want to talk to you--and Christian--about these wounds. But I don’t care to have that conversation here.”
“Scared, Doc?” Ambrose smirked.
I was rapidly discovering that loving him didn’t mean never wanting to punch him.
“Where were you?” I asked as the three of us headed back across the yard.
He glanced at Doc, and his voice was brusque when he said, “Pack business.”
That tone of his made me bristle. But I tried to assume he just didn’t want to speak openly in front of Doc instead of growing angry all over again.
Near the entrance to the yard, Ambrose pulled on his sweatpants and grabbed his t-shirt, slinging it over his shoulder. He pushed the door open and held it for Doc and me, and walking past him, I breathed in the intoxicating scent of his body--something earthy and masculine but warm and pleasant too.
It was always strange to step from the beautiful sunlight and open greenery of the yard back into the endless gray metal framework of Nightstone itself. I was glad I got to spend some time there--when no one was threatening my life--but it seemed cruel that no one but the shifters got to enjoy the yard.
I glanced at Ambrose, his tight jaw and the bunched muscles in his biceps revealing how tightly wound he felt at the moment, and decided to save my arguments in favor of equality-and-fairness for another day. It must be hard for him to lose one of the shifters--he felt so protective of all of them.
As soon as the door swung shut behind us, Christian melted out of the shadows. “Well?
“Well, Ambrose seems to have his hands full keeping anyone from eating Nasima,” Doc snapped. She was obviously still a bit shaken from our encounter with the shifters.
Christian looked instantly furious, and Ambrose just as much.
Ambrose frowned. “You didn’t say they threatened you. I will deal with them.”
“They didn’t have to,” Doc shot back.
“One of them started to shift,” I said.
Ambrose cocked an eyebrow at me. “They are...shifters. That’s what they do. Especially when emotions are running high, and one of their own was just killed.”
He sounded almost hurt.
“I think we should believe Nas and Doc when they say they felt threatened,” Christian began.
“I never said we shouldn’t,” Ambrose shot back, his voice heated.
“Enough,” I interrupted them both. “Let’s go someplace quiet and discuss Doc’s findings. You two can continue to growl at each other later when the rest of us don’t have to watch.”
Doc almost smiled as the two of them bristled.
Christian bowed slightly at the waist, holding out his hand to indicate a direction. “Neutral territory.”
“Terrific,” Ambrose growled.
The two of them stalked ahead of us toward the other side of Nightstone.
It’s not an easy thing to love an alpha.
It’s probably worse to love two.
9
Nasima
The laundry? Really? Just hearing the sound of the washing machines going sent panic racing through my heart. I hadn't even been back there since everything that happened with Nana.
When my feet stumbled in the doorway I glanced down and saw the way the ground was torn up with claw marks and dents. They had to be from when Christian and Ambrose had been trying to get to me because they certainly hadn't been there before. I feel like I would have noticed.
As I stepped over them, I looked up and saw the two alphas looking at me from across the room, concern altering their stoic expressions. I forced a smile, but that only seemed to make matters worse. Their faces mimicked each other, with their eyebrows drawing closer together and their mouths tilting down at the corners. Seeing them like that reminded me how much they had in common, even though they were different series of supes,
When Doc shut the brand new door behind us, I had to choke down a scream that tried to claw its way up my throat. A cold sweat broke out along my spine and I found myself unable to take another step. I stood frozen in the middle of the room as Doc moved around me and began talking about what she'd found.