by Talyn Scott
She fisted her hands, her nails digging into her palms. “I can’t wrap my head around this. Are we related?”
“No, your father and I were partners in another life. Holston worked for the Vojaks, I worked for the Elite. We thought we were unstoppable. Or at least I did. I met your mother through Holston, and realized I was stoppable after all.”
Kalen could sense Syon’s pain. “So you knew Mamma well?”
“Knew her? I worshiped the ground she walked on.” Syon settled behind the desk and picked up a stack of parchment-colored, handwritten documents — putting the ancient in ancient tomes. “That is, until she turned into a blood-lusting monster, a shell of her former self.”
It took Kalen a moment to swallow that ball of information. “You didn’t really practice black arts. Did you, Dad?”
“I certainly did, only to bring your mother back from the bloodlust, but the spells I’d attempted only made things far worse than imaginable.”
“I never knew who transformed her into a vampire, and why it didn’t take right,” Kalen said, looking between the two.
“I should have left her as a halfling.” Her father sighed, “Your mother was aging. And due to my lineage, I was not. I watched her birthday after birthday, and I couldn’t let her die. I transformed her myself.”
“And you refused to ask me, right?” Syon seethed. “I’m a powerful pureblood who would have transformed her without flaws!”
All the blood left Kalen’s face. Only a pureblood could transform another human or creature into an Undead vampire. “So mother was deranged because of your endless selfishness,” she spat harshly. “You couldn’t let her age naturally. And you refused to allow Syon or anyone else to change her because they would own her.” She gripped her stomach, thinking she might throw up. “How long have you been like this, a phantom?”
“Since Karen died,” Holston explained. “Years before her death, I had bound our souls. I guess it worked because I no longer have mine.”
“You deserve no soul.” Syon slammed his fist on the desk. “You’re to blame for all of the lives your precious Karen stole, and now you exist on nothing but air to breath. It’s fitting.”
Kalen couldn’t take anymore. “Shut up!”
Syon stood. “Don’t drop fang near me, beautiful, unless you intend on seeing it through.”
She clenched her teeth, willing her fangs to recede. Then she looked at her father. “Will this existence ever end for you?”
“Never,” he rasped. “And I agree with Syon. I deserve this. Besides, life without your mother isn’t worth anything to me.”
“Well,” Syon leaned back, crossing his ankles on her grandfather’s old desk, “Your life’s not worth much to me, either.”
“You knew!” She pointed at Syon. “When Sage and Oycher were discussing removing this spell,” she snarled, “you knew all along who’d placed it. What it was about, and you even tried to draw me in to your murder investigation. As if any of those murders had to do with me!”
“Your damn straight I knew all about your spells!” He pointed an accusing finger back at her. “Make yourself comfortable. This will take a while.”
“What are you talking about?”
Syon lifted a paperweight off the desk, pitching it up and down. “Holston placed spells on you to block your memory, true. But the main spells subdue your vampiric traits.” His eyes snapped to her father. “You’re going to remove your filthy taint from Kalen once and for all. She shouldn’t have to hover between the human and the vampire world, so you’re going to make this right by her.”
Flames leaped in her father’s eyes. “How do you propose to make me?”
The corner of Syon’s mouth coiled like a snake’s tail. “I’ve spent the last five years of my life studying the black arts you practiced, only concentrating on one thing, however.”
Her father stopped hovering, his posture eerily still. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, but I would.”
“Would what?” Kalen asked warily.
“Bring your mother’s soul back here in the form of a wraith, only to rebind every remaining part of her to your father.” He smiled. “She would be in the same state of mind as she was when she’d left this world. Deranged and starving.”
“Enough!” Holston hissed. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Night had fallen, allowing Mason to see much better from a distance. “So unbelievable.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Archer reached for his favorite bag, stroking it lovingly before pulling out his selection of supplies.
Jude tore his eyes away from the Young’s old place for a moment, glancing at Archer. “Should I even asked what you’re doing when we all know you have a questionable penchant for pyrotechnics?”
“And to think,” Mason continued on as though Archer hadn’t just pulled out enough dynamite to level Captiva Island, “she would just drive over into vampire territory and meet up with Syon.”
“Yeah,” Archer grumbled, adjusting his portable blow torch. “Kalen had me on the phone the whole time while driving here, letting me ramble on about how we’d planned to train her ass tonight. I wondered why she was halfway agreeable.” He curled his lip as he pulled out a crossbow, checking the components with the single-minded intensity of the certifiably insane. “She wasn’t even listening, that’s why.”
Jude glared. “Forget the phone call. Take a look at what she’s wearing. Or better yet, what she’s no’ wearing in front of Syon.”
Archer’s chest rumbled. “That dress is no bigger than a Band-aid. Our sweet Kalen is turning into a bimbo, and I’m going to put a stop to it.”
“She needs a spanking. And that fucking Syon is trouble,” Mason grated, watching the bastard talking to Kalen through the window. “Obviously, you two didn’t slam his head hard enough on the concrete wall, to prove our point about him not touching what’s ours. Do I have to do everything?”
“Wait a minute,” Jude shushed them. “She looks like she’s talking to someone else.”
“There’s no one else in there.” Archer pulled out homemade arrows carved from the root of a Banyon Tree. “I hear two heartbeats, smell one luscious female and one soon-to-be-dead leech.”
“I’m telling you Kalen’s talking to someone else. Her head’s moving back and forth.”
Mason blinked his eyes, fighting to keep his werewolf at bay. If he transformed, even allowing the Beta Beast to focus his eyes, Syon would at least see the resulting glow within this close range.
Archer had his bow at the ready, dynamite strapped onto two arrows. “Doesn’t matter who’s in there with her because she’s coming out with you two. So as soon as you do your part, I’ll start this little party.”
Jude did not look impressed. “And what are those party favors?”
“Flaming. Arrows.”
“For so many obvious reasons we would be here a fortnight to discuss them all,” Jude explained levelly, “we stopped using incendiary weapons around the sixteenth century.”
“I aim to revive them.” Archer’s sudden focus moved between an old pickup truck parked behind the house and a collection of rusty propane tanks piled next to the pier. “Trust me, boys. My mamma didn’t name me Archer for nothing.”
Mason inched forward on his elbows, searching the waterline with interest. “We need to get you an AA sponsor.”
“I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Arsonists Anonymous.” Mason cocked his head, still watching the water. “Did anyone else notice shadows across the water?”
Archer kept his eyes on Kalen, but Jude said, “There’s only one reason for shadows cutting across the shore in the fall of night.”
“Yeah, a bad reason.” Then, Mason thought he spotted a Vampyr Vojak hiding in the palms.
Still keeping his eyes on Kalen, Archer whispered, “We’re down wind. We should be undetectable.”
“Tell that to the Vampyr Vojak waiting on us.” Mason ca
ught a flash of a blade. “Why won’t he just mist over here? What is the Vojak, a newbie?”
Sage misted in, crouching low. “He’s not a newbie.” He seethed. “He was following Kalen for me until you arrived. So knock on the fucking door like a normal person instead of staring in the windows like a pervert. Whoever owns this place now has it rigged. Somehow the owner always knows when we show up.” Sage raised a brow at what Archer was up to. “I wouldn’t let those go, if I were you. Or didn’t I mention the property owner also has the same fetish for explosives as you?”
Mason looked at Sage a hard moment, wondering what the vampires were up to. In fact, he scented Jenny on Sage’s clothing. “You’re not dressed in your leathers, neither is the asshole Vojak wiggling his blade at me.”
Sage explained, “We’ve a lead on that underground club, and we can’t very well check it out in our leathers.” He brushed his suit pants off as he stood. “It was suggested we dress like American business men.”
“With your immortal eyes, size, and accent. Luck be with you this night, American Business Man.” Jude’s eyes landed back on Kalen as she finally left the house. Syon walked her to her car, leaning over to close her door for her. “My mate is on the move, I will take my leave of you.” He vaporized into the air, his molecules flying high over Captiva Island and whirling in a fit of anger and possession. He spread wide over Kalen’s rental car before he tunneled inside her vehicle and materialized to drive her home.
Mason reached over and put his hand on Archer’s bow. “We need to figure out what Syon’s game is with our mate. Don’t kill him just yet.”
“Syon was checking out the internal perimeter of the property for me,” Sage admitted. “Supposedly, the owner pays the bills but no one living resides there.”
“You mean they’re winter residents, that’s not uncommon.”
“No, I mean no one living resides there. Rumors around the island claim a phantom lives there.” Sage cocked his head. “But it’s your mate who we need to address. As I said on the phone, Kalen was going to put an offer on a Captiva Island restaurant. I told her the reason she couldn’t, but I suspect she didn’t believe me.”
Mason winced. “She’s been away from our world too long. I’ll take care of it.” He glanced at Archer. “We will take care of it,” he amended.
Archer opened his mouth in a wordless warning as he lifted his bow to aim right over Mason’s head.
“Could you put that thing away?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
They inhaled collectively.
“Nothing smells like that unless — ”
“Wraiths,” Archer said, “like a million of them.”
“More like fifteen,” Sage hissed. “And my partner already misted out. If they get too close stab them in their stomachs, not their heads. They’re a different breed than we’re used to.”
“So you’ve been hiding the existence of these things from Pack, even though we’re a stone’s throw across the water!” Mason took the blade Sage offered him, one blessed to kill a creature considered Undead.
“Pretty much.” Sage shifted his stance, feet shoulder width apart. “I was under orders.”
“And you didn’t think to mention we needed to move while we were standing around chitchatting?” Wraiths preyed on souls, and if they consumed one they grew in strength and darkness. This was a bad combo any way you looked at it because they were hard kills.
“They don’t always come out to play.”
“Get down,” Archer demanded.
Mason and Sage sank low.
“You’re going to piss them off.”
“There’s no other way than by jumping in headlong.”
Mason stabbed one as it reached for his ankle. “Then be quick about it and shoot the damn things. I refuse to be herded by anything that can actually kill me.”
Try as he might, Mason couldn’t mist or transform into the Beta Beast. He noticed Archer having the same problem. And next to him, Sage had not released his Vojak. So the wraiths had a way of keeping their creatures in hand, which should have left them at a serious disadvantage.
If they were humans, that is.
Archer sidestepped one, worked his portable blow torch on another, then sprinted towards the old propane tanks where a few of the dark demons circled in a smokey swirl. Archer froze, aimed, and let a dynamite-fueled arrow fly. The impact stunning, the explosion killed three wraiths, their bodies disintegrating back to the sickening depths from which they came.
Mason lifted the dagger Sage had given him and ran headlong into another, his hand actually going through the wraith’s stomach along with his knife.
A sheen of sweat covered Mason’s skin, his mind racing to Kalen. Thankfully, Jude had driven her home, and the male was very well versed in fighting these fuckers.
To his left, a wraith had its tentacles wrapped around Sage’s throat, starting to tear it out. Mason dove on the creature, slamming it backwards and upending Sage in the process. The wraith bellowed in rage, but Archer spun in front of Mason in an act of courageous stupidity and lifted it high before shoving a lit stick of dynamite inside the spirit’s belly.
Archer sent the thing flying high, barely missing the explosion himself. Then everything seemed to move very slowly. Seconds passed as a strange distortion ran the length of the property, trapping the wraiths in its gooey confines.
Mason managed to slam down to his knees, yanking Archer with him. Archer and Mason had escaped the worst of it, but not Sage. The male was wheezing, his heart half torn from his chest. His face was swollen and already covered in odd, black bruises. Sage could regenerate his heart, heal his wounds even, but not without some assistance from Mason and a helping of immortal blood.
Mason worked his hands in his native speed, the signature blue-blur of his movements oddly slowed in this weird stasis of hang time he couldn’t wrap his mind around. But even with slower movements, he managed to put Sage’s heart back in his chest and adjust some of his other entrails that had escaped.
Archer looked resigned. “You patched him up. I’ll feed him,” he said on a raised voice as gusts of wind moved across the property.
Sage refused, his finger pointing high. “My Master will…feed me.”
In unison, Archer and Mason looked up to find Maestru brandishing a Druid spell mercilessly. White smoke left his fingertips, the tendrils forming into the clear, jelly like substance that was encasing the wraiths.
“Go,” Maestru commanded Archer and Mason. “Leave my island to me.”
This was, in fact, Maestru’s territory, and they would obey that command. Mason lifted from Sage’s side, Maestru creating an opening where Archer and Mason could mist into the sky. Sage gripped Mason’s ankle before he dissolved. “I owe… you”
Chapter Seventeen
After intercepting Kalen and driving both of them back to the house, Jude’s fiery mate had utilized the silent treatment. He, however, had had enough. He walked into his kitchen, finding her still wearing that knitted dress no bigger than a dishtowel. “I think you’ve had long enough to calm down, so I suppose we need to discuss this.”
“How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do!” Kalen hissed, pointing at him with her knife.
“I can show you the tome on Joint Faction By Laws to prove my point.”
She gritted her teeth. “Okay, so my dream about The Wild Lime is shot today. But how dare you follow me around like a… stalker!”
“A stalker? I only followed you after Sage called me.”
She swung the blade too close to her face. “I’m a grown woman!”
“Who locked herself inside a refrigerator!”
She pursed her lips. “That wasn’t my fault, and Sage shouldn’t have made it out to be.”
“Why did you meet Syon?” Flames leaped in his belly. “In vampire territory!”
Jude took the knife from her hand and placed it on the chopping block next to the potatoes. Currently, he was in the middl
e of two battles: One with Kalen, and the other with his werewolf.
Mine, his werewolf howled inside his head, making all sorts of ruckus and pain.
Stand down, Beast!
“I didn’t meet him for sex, if that’s what you’re suggesting, Jude. But I’m too pissed off at your caveman tactics to discuss this.” Her eyes glowed, the irises bleeding into the whites as vampires do. He didn’t know she had that ability.
“We must settle this calmly.” Jude loosened the tie at his nape, letting his hair fall, but it didn’t help with his tension. “We need to set some ground rules.”
“Again, grown woman here.”
“Oh,” he said softly, eyes raking her from head to toe.“I can attest to that.”
Her eyes kept flicking over him before she wrapped her arms around her breasts. He could sense that she was sinking at the sight of him wearing his low-slung jeans and a thin t-shirt. He hooked his thumb in the waistband, tugging them downward. From there, he was rewarded with immediate satisfaction when Kalen’s eyebrows came down hard and she hissed at him.
Jude wanted nothing more than to hold her.
Only after he spanked her silly.
But he stayed coiled, his werewolf wound up, and he braced himself for another slam to the skull.
Mark female, his werewolf growled.
The growl erupted out of his mouth full force, nearly shattering the drinking glasses Kalen had placed on the kitchen table.
And no matter how well Jude braced himself, he thought as he grabbed his forehead, the Beast still managed to slam him again. This time like a biting cold wind out of nowhere.
“That ought to cool you off!”
Water, he was dripping with icy water! His body trembled before Jude re-regulated his body temperature. He wiped his eyes with his fingers in unhurried, calculated moves that made Kalen look a little nervous.