by Scott, Helen
I knew that the man watching the TV in the upper corner of the room had to be the owner or an employee, because no one else was in there. The man, Ricky, was an open book. I wasn't sure what Rav saw when he went walking, but I saw everything like a snippet of a TV channel as I was flipping through them. I'd never really had much chance to watch TV at Westbrook, but when I had, I never found something I wanted to watch, so I had flipped through the channels.
When I saw a flash of dark hair I stopped and went back. It was Elizabeth. She was screaming at him, and she didn't look like she was in good shape. There was something about the way they were interacting that indicated there was more than just an employee-customer relationship. My guess was confirmed when Ricky moved out from behind the counter and pulled her into a hug. For some reason, I couldn't hear what was going on, but their body language was telling enough.
I began to flip through the channels again, and I saw more of the same. He and Elizabeth knew each other... intimately, and as I saw from one memory, he would often give her money after her visits to his backroom. I didn't think she was prostituting herself, but from the state of her, she wasn't going to turn down the cash either. As I watched clip after clip of the two of them, I knew there was an easy way to get to Elizabeth.
Text her. You need to see her, feel her. Tell her to come to you, that you've got a surprise waiting for her. I left the thought in Ricky's head, and watched through Raven's gift as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and texted our mark. She responded faster than I'd expected, but she was excited about the surprise.
I retreated and gasped when I opened my eyes, suddenly feeling very aware of my own body, and the way it moved and breathed.
"Told you she did it again," Rav said.
"You've got to stop doing that, Marcella," Darius said with a growl to his voice.
"I'll think about it, but in the meantime you should know that Elizabeth is going to be coming to visit her sugar daddy within the next hour."
"What?" They almost all asked the same question, and even Gid had turned around in the driver's seat to stare at me.
"Did I stutter?" I retorted, feeling their lack of confidence in my abilities like a slap in the face.
"Can you tell us what you did?" Keir asked.
"I used Rav's powers to go through the clerk's memories, although I think he's the owner actually, either way, I found out that they were sort of dating and had him text her, saying that he had a surprise for her. She replied and is going to meet him here, where he's going to take her into the back room and then boom, we show up and take her ass home while we figure out who her supplier is."
The crowded space in the vehicle was silent for a moment, other than the sounds filtering in from outside. I wanted to shake them all, I'd come up with a plan, executed most of it, and all that was left was the last step and they seemed upset with me because of that. Indignation flowed through me as they all shared a knowing look with one another.
"It's not a bad plan, actually," Cade said.
"Why would she need a sugar daddy if she's a squire? She'd have access to all the funds she could want, right?" Gid asked, as he looked over at Darius.
"She would, but there are limits to our tolerance of the younger squires’ adventures, which she would know. If she wants to avoid detection, then she wouldn't want to request too much money at once, otherwise it could start to look suspicious. The last thing she'd want is one of us checking on her if she truly is using Kronos."
"Huh, and here I’d thought that squires were free to do whatever they wanted while they weren't with the family," Barclay said from behind me.
I turned to the shifter and scrambled back, so I could sit in his lap while the others were talking. He welcomed me with open arms and I snuggled into him. "I thought I was helping," I murmured quietly enough that I knew no one else would hear me
"We were just worried about you, sweetheart, that's all. Next time, can you at least give us warning before you go walking?" he requested, while his thick fingers pushed my hair back from my face.
If I could stay in my mates’ arms for the rest of my life, I would be a happy woman. I'd never felt safer, or more loved, than when I was in one of my Brotherhood’s embrace.
"I supposed that's not unreasonable," I muttered. "I can handle it though, you all know that right?"
"We know it intellectually, but you have two freshly-mated beings, as well as four other men who would lay down their lives for you without question, we are bound to worry right now. Maybe that will lessen once we’re all bonded, or maybe it won't and it will just be something that gets better with time. All I can tell you is that when you go off by yourself like that, it scares us, and we all care about you. Deeply."
Barclay's words struck me right in my heart. I wanted to be their equal, but I also had to respect that they'd been working cases a lot longer than I had.
I sighed and squirmed on Barclay's lap so I could pay attention to what they were all saying, but the only thing that got my attention was my shifter's hard cock that was pressing against my butt. I had to fight against the urge to strip naked and fuck him right then and there, as well as feed from him.
Maker, the amount of blood I wanted to consume was terrifying.
"She's here," Gid's voice called from the front seat, where he'd apparently been watching the front of the store in the side mirror. "I mean, I assume it's her."
Darius looked out of the rear window. "That's her."
"Let's go," Cade said, as he opened the sliding door.
Just like that they all sprang into action, with me in the middle, like always. I was protected above all else, and that was something I had to get used to after never being protected before in my life. The bell on the door chimed as we entered, but there was no one around.
I motioned for them to wait there and took Gid's hand, leading him back behind the counter and through a doorway to the back of the shop. Once we were back there, I motioned for him to stay in front of the back door. The whole time we were back there, Elizabeth's cries of pleasure were echoing through the building.
"Oh! Yes, daddy! Fuck me just like that with your big dick! Oh! Oh! Yes!"
I'd never heard anything that sounded so fake in my life, and I'd heard a lot of bullshit.
I couldn't help but roll my eyes as I pushed open the door to the room they were in. "Surprise!" I called out, happy with myself for the way the mission was turning out.
"What the fuck?" Ricky spluttered.
"Get out of here, freak!" Elizabeth joined in.
He had her up on a table, and his pants and his tighty-whities were around his ankles. When he pulled out of her and tried to look threatening, all I had to do was laugh at the 'big dick' she was begging him to fuck her with a moment ago. His face turned beet red and he rushed to pull his pants up, while Elizabeth pulled her underwear back into place, brushed her skirt down, and shoved her boobs back into her bra. Such an elegant position to be found in.
"Darius? Want to come in here?" I called out once she was decent.
Elizabeth's face went pale as soon as she heard his name. I understood. The man was intimidating as all get out, and he'd found her, probably when she didn't want to be found as well.
"You can't just come into my store and treat me like I don't exist," Ricky said, as he started to get his wits about him. As soon as Darius appeared around the doorway his attitude changed though.
My mate cut an intimidating figure, even on his worst day, and today was far from his worst day. The three-piece suit he was in, the perfectly coiffed hair, the elegantly arranged pocket square, all made him drip with confidence and was enough to make a man like Ricky tremble in his slip-on shoes. I couldn't help but admire him as he walked in. There wasn't an ounce of nervous energy around him, not even concern for what Ricky might think, because he knew that between the seven of us, we could handle whatever came up.
"Elizabeth, darling, how are you?" he asked, his tone was kind, but the expression o
n his face was enough to keep Elizabeth frozen in place, unable to utter a response.
"Darius, you're scaring her," I hissed at him.
"She should be scared," he said, turning his cold eyes on me. "She's risked the Maximus family name with her reckless behavior, and she's risked exposing us all because she wants to get high on Kronos. Elizabeth knew she was playing a dangerous game, and now the game is over and it's time to tally up the scores."
"Please, I never said anything to anyone," Elizabeth muttered, as tears started trailing down her cheeks.
"You can make it up to me," he offered, waiting until her watery gaze connected with his to continue. "All you have to do is come with us and answer some questions. Easy, right?" Darius spread his hands to each side as a sly smile worked the corners of his mouth.
Maker, if Elizabeth believed that, she was more stupid than we thought.
19
Keiran
She was terrified.
That much was evident.
I stared at the girl, because that was all she was. A little girl playing adult, thinking she was old enough to run with the big boys and girls. Well, she’d played it, run with them, and here she was, fucking some fat, old dude for cash in the backroom of his store.
Maker, sometimes I wondered what was wrong with people.
Most of the unwanted kids at Eastbrook would have killed to have an ounce of parental care in their life. Whenever we were around children who treated their folks like crap, I knew we all found it damn hard not to snap. Especially when said parents seemed to be good people.
Not all were. We knew that. We’d been born to scum who’d dumped us because they’d fucked up, so we knew that just giving life to a child didn’t make someone a good parent. Still, from what Darius had said, Elizabeth had taken her rebellion a step too far, and her mom and dad were shitting bullets over the spoiled little witch.
Okay, so I was naturally predisposed to dislike her. That was a major issue, because if I was, then the Maker only knew what the others were feeling.
Cade and Raven in particular.
We were all lined up on the back wall of a room that stank of human sweat and sex. It was gross, but with the evidence of how low she’d sunk still in here with her, it was a great way of getting her to talk when she didn’t particularly want to. Even if she was pissing-herself scared of Darius.
I couldn’t blame her.
Darius was enough to make a grown pursang shit himself. As an Enforcer, his rep preceded him, but in real life? He was an even scarier motherfucker.
“Talk to me, Elizabeth.”
Her bottom lip quivered, and at my side, Marcella huffed.
“I need you to talk to me, Elizabeth.”
There was a bizarre croon in his tone that made me wonder if he had some kind of gift over his voice where humans were concerned. But the dude had to watch himself because, more than anything, it was pissing Marcella off.
Another huff and I had to lift my arm and press it to her shoulders. Though she snuggled into me, and as she did I scented our sex from earlier, I scented that her tension was at an all-time high.
Was her Vampire jealous? At the attention her mate was showing another female?
I tugged on my bottom lip with my free hand as I tried to quantify the repercussions of what that meant exactly. Marcella’s control was beyond strong for a female her age, and I didn’t mean that to sound so patronizing either. Even before she’d mated, she’d had preternaturally strong walls around herself, but now? It would only grow. Mated pursang females were vicious, that I knew from my lessons. We were always warned never to get in between a mated full blood and her male, which was exactly what Elizabeth was doing…
Whether she knew it or not.
“Who’s your dealer, Elizabeth?” Darius asked again, that same tone dancing in the words.
Behind Elizabeth, on the wall between the shelves loaded down with ‘World Class Pawn’ that looked more like people’s old junk to me, the owner’s eyes were heavy. Whatever Darius was doing was working on him, but not on our target.
Why was that?
Had the Kronos changed her?
Squires were full-blooded humans with links to our world. Nothing more, nothing less. They knew what roamed the streets, knew the dangers and the highs and lows of life on the supernatural spectrum, but they had no talents of their own.
There was no reason why the pawnshop’s owner should be responding to whatever Darius was doing to Elizabeth, but she wasn’t.
The girl huddled in on herself. When Darius had approached her, she’d practically dove to the ground—not to escape, but to curl up into a ball. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I knew the others guys were just as surprised.
We were accustomed to targets running, trying to kick our asses in an attempt to escape. We sure as hell weren’t used to them turning into a fetal ball.
“What are you involved in, Elizabeth?” Darius tried again, but it only resulted in the fetal ball spreading somewhat—each time he spoke, the tight purchase she had on her knees slipped, making her unfurl on the ground, slowly but surely.
His words also resulted in Marcella pulling against my loose hold on her shoulders. When I held her back, she hissed at me then pressed her face into my throat. She did it so quickly I didn’t even have time to brace myself for her attack, only she didn’t bite. She just... I blinked. Smelled me?
“Mine,” she purred, her tongue licking over the place where she’d bitten earlier. It was unerring how she knew where it was, but the skin was healed now, if tender. Tender enough to be sensitive. The feel of her tongue there had my eyes shuttering closed, and when they did, I wanted to kick myself.
Absorbing the lowering of my defenses in her stride, she stormed away from me, getting out of my hold before my brain even thought about reaching out to tug her back into my side. Then, in the next blink of the eye, she had her hand wrapped around Elizabeth’s throat and she’d picked her up, one handed, and was dangling her in the air like she’d picked up a kitten by the scruff.
The instant Marcella touched her, Elizabeth shrieked, and the pawnshop owner jerked to attention, jolted out of whatever stasis Darius had placed him in, hollering, “I’ll call the fucking police if you hurt her!”
Darius grunted, but Raven said, “Don’t worry, I’m on it.”
At my side, my fellow walker went to work and within seconds, the guy was drooling as he slumped back against the wall. He was also sporting wood.
I knocked my elbow into Raven’s side. “The fuck you doing?”
“Made him think about Cyndi Lauper’s tits.”
My brow furrowed. “Why hers in particular?”
“Dude has a thing for ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun,’” he said easily, making me snicker as I shook my head at him. Of course, the snicker soon died when Darius shot me the death glare, as he stepped toward our furious mate.
“If you kill her, piccola, she can’t answer our questions.”
Marcella’s nostrils flared at that, and rather than relinquish her hold on the other woman, she tightened it—the tendons in her fingers and thumb pulled taut as she spat, “Who. Is. Your. Dealer?”
“I don’t know his name,” the girl squealed instantly.
“What information have you passed to him about our ways?” Marcella parroted, sounding faintly robotic, as though the pursang in her soul was fully in charge here.
“Nothing!”
“You’re a liar. They must have figured out who you are.”
“No!” she rasped, her hands coming up to grab at Marcella’s as our woman apparently tightened things up a notch. “I haven’t told them anything.”
“How long have you been hooked?”
“Nine months.” Now, that was interesting, because I sensed it was a lie.
“How long have you been sleeping around to pay for your habit?”
“Six.” Tears fell down Elizabeth’s cheeks. “I don’t want to do it, but I can’t
stop myself.” Another lie.
“Why didn’t you return home to your parents?” was the next question, and it was wooden, cold.
“Because they wouldn’t have wanted me back. I’m tarnished. Like this, I’m a shame on the family’s name.”
“You’re right, Elizabeth. Like this, you are. But if we take you home, clean you up, then you can fight this addiction with them and go back to your rightful place,” Darius enticed.
Though her thumb dug deeper into Elizabeth’s throat at her mate’s words, Marcella did lower her a foot or so, meaning that Elizabeth was dangling only a few inches from the floor.
“Kronos is more addictive than heroin. There’s no going back for me.”
“You’re lucid now,” Darius pointed out.
“Only until I can get my next score. Why do you think I’m here? Ryan pays well.” A sob tore from her throat. “Are you going to kill me?”
Marcella snarled, but it was Darius who said, “No. We’re going to get you into a rehab of some sort. Even if we can only wean you off the drug, that’s something, right?”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t do that. I need it. If you don’t let me have some, I’ll never finish my book.”
Marcella shot Darius a look. “Her book?”
The pursang male merely shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Elizabeth.”
“My oeuvre,” she whispered, her tone close to dreamy.
Unease slipped through me. The girl was using it to write? For what reason? To slow down time so she could write more in a day without feeling the pinch on her schedule?
That was more than fucked up.
“I can’t leave her here,” Darius whispered, low enough for us all to hear, but for the sobbing Elizabeth to miss. “I have a duty to her parents, and she has a duty to the family.”
“We bring her in and make her go cold turkey. Sure, it will suck, but what doesn’t?” Cade stated, his tone as cruel as ever.