by Dannika Dark
Without taking his eyes from mine, Simon said, “By whom?”
I bit my lip and glanced at a butterfly caught in the breeze. “Nero’s men. They were out for Finn.”
He drew in a sharp breath and held it for a minute. “Nero wants you to surrender to him. I thought he was out for revenge at first, but that’s not his style. He’s the kind of man with an agenda. Getting back at a woman by stalking her friends is not something an ancient Mage would do. He still wants you, Silver. He wants your addictive light because it’s strong. I gather he’s trying to make sense of the documents he stole from the truck and hasn’t quite pieced it all together yet. The boxes will only titillate his feeble mind but not provide him with all the answers he’s seeking. I suspect he’s still collecting humans to turn into one of us.”
“Adam told me that during Nero’s attack, he revealed he had an Infuser.”
“Fancy that,” Simon said sarcastically.
Merc, the former Councilman who had betrayed the Mageri and died, had possessed the ability to pull core light from a Mage, rendering them human. But he could never hold on to it and the light would dissipate within a day. We’d found out he was working with Nero, but without an Infuser, they weren’t able to seal core light into Nero’s light.
Now that he had an Infuser, all he needed was someone with Merc’s ability. If Nero found a way to steal gifts from a Mage, there’s no telling how powerful he could become.
“Nero has quite a harem,” Simon murmured. “Not likely any of them is a Unique, but it’s possible they have extremely rare gifts due to the method by which Samil created them, in combination with their unusual genes. Their light must be strong if he paid for them.”
“If he finds someone with Merc’s gift, then we’re all in trouble. Knowing Nero, he would have the light of a Creator put in him so he can weed out the middleman,” I said. “The lab documents he stole may not tell him much, but he’ll notice the names and piece together what Samil was up to. If he gains the ability to make his own progeny, then nothing will stop him. I don’t know if he’s keeping them long enough to find a way to steal their powers or if he’s trying to build an army.”
Simon laughed and walked to the edge of the water where he dipped his toe in the stream. “I wager he was trying to find a way to absorb their gifts. Maybe his initial intent was to build an army, but it would take years of brainwashing to get a man of free will to join his little camp. Maybe he’s been doing just that. Do you remember Ray?”
“Ray?” I thought about it and Simon glanced over his shoulder. “The guy I helped from Nero’s compound? That Ray?”
“The very one. Three months ago, he was arrested by Enforcers and is now facing punishment by the Mageri.”
“Holy shit. What for?”
The last I’d heard, Ray wanted to start a new life. I’d found out Samil had kept Ray as his progeny before turning him over to Nero. Perhaps that early influence made him weak.
Simon hitched up the back of his white long johns and scraped a hand through his messy brown hair. “Attempted murder of a Councilman. Attempted murder won’t get noticed by the Mageri unless it’s against one of their appointed leaders. They hired me to do a little investigation and computer hacking. Looks like Nero had gotten to him after all. Whether he was with him all along, blackmailed, or Nero paid him a substantial fee, Ray was a man with an agenda.”
“But why kill someone on the Council? What does that accomplish?”
Simon shrugged. “They’re looking into it; my job is done. If I had to guess, I’d say the man he tried to assassinate was interfering with Nero’s plans, either directly or indirectly. Highly doubtful it’s a plan of revenge, but your former captor is a man with a purpose, and I suspect his ultimate goal is to dismantle the justice system.”
I rubbed my face in frustration.
“Ask me to hunt him,” Logan said in slow words.
I peered through my fingers and saw he wasn’t talking to Simon but looking down at me. “What?”
Logan stepped closer and the hairs on my arms stood up.
“If you ask me to hunt him, I will. I’ve offered my assistance with the investigation, but no one has specifically asked me to—”
“No. Absolutely not.” I shook my head and Simon gave me a look with the tilt of his head. “Logan, I thought I’d lost you when you fought against Tarek. I can’t go through that again.”
“And I can’t stand here knowing my female and my brothers are being hunted down like prey. Turn the tables and let me sink my teeth into that Mage’s neck until his blood runs cold.”
“Silver, it’s not a bad idea,” Simon interjected.
“You get back to your bacon-frying trollop and leave us alone! I don’t want you putting any ideas into his head.”
The next thing I knew, I was shaken awake and lying on the sofa in Logan’s secret room. Only the corner lamp was on, but I could see Logan’s face clearly.
I blinked a few times and stared up at him with wide eyes. The black rims around the amber looked engorged. “Finn’s hurt.”
Startled by his words, I vaulted off the sofa, gripping the back of his sweats as Logan hurried out the door. The light from inside the apartment blinded me and I squinted as he tugged me toward the living room.
“What happened? Is he okay?”
“I scented distress and forced myself awake,” he said, circling behind the couch.
I carefully stepped around pieces of glass sprinkled across the floor, but the windows weren’t broken out all the way. They looked like the cracked windshield of a car after an accident. The shutters hung askew, and the curtain rod had fallen down. In the center of the window was a hole big enough to put your head and arm through, blood all around the surrounding glass. There were spatters of it everywhere and puddles on the floor.
“The laminated glass was punched out,” he said, pointing to the bloody hole. “This wasn’t a Vampire—one of them would have knocked out the entire window.”
“Chitah?”
“I can’t tell, but it’s a good thing they didn’t make it inside. I didn’t see a body outside the building. If he fell, it wasn’t to his death.”
The door crashed in and Logan whirled around, protectively shielding me with his body.
Christian strolled into the room and flicked his eyes around. “If either of you lost a fecking Chitah, he’s tucked away in the dumpster downstairs.”
I glanced around, looking for the wolf. “Where’s Finn?”
Logan touched my shoulder. “He’s in the kitchen. I got him to shift once but he needs to keep on—”
I flew past him and Logan snatched my arm.
“Let me go!”
“Silver, he’s hurt. He might also be in human form without clothes.”
I looked at him incredulously. “I hate to break this to you now, but I’ve seen a naked man before.” I jerked my arm free and quickened my pace toward the kitchen. The lights were bright, illuminating the gruesome display on the tile.
Beside the kitchen island, Finn’s wolf lay on his side, unconscious and bleeding from the neck or shoulder—I couldn’t tell which. Blood was caked in his fur and streaked across the floor.
Logan held a rag beneath the faucet and then placed it over his wound.
“Can’t you heal him?” I begged. Chitahs could heal superficial wounds by use of their saliva.
“Not as a wolf,” he said. “There’s too much fur. I found him in human form and worked on his neck a little, but the wounds are too deep. I think his wolf fought off the attacker and the glass cut him up bad—unless the man had a knife. He needs to shift.”
I glanced up at Logan while holding Finn’s paw. “He’s unconscious, Logan. We’ll never get him to shift, and Finn once told me it’s easier to make a human shift to a wolf than vice versa. We need a Relic.”
Logan’s fangs punched out and his face contorted in anger. “The man who did this will pay.”
“He already did,” Christian
said.
I shook my head in disbelief. “We don’t have time for this.”
Logan’s voice rose to a shout. “He could have killed Finn! When I’m dreamwalking, I’m not as attuned to what’s going on around me. He could have slaughtered us in our sleep!”
Blood soaked the rag Logan held against Finn’s neck and my heart raced like a hummingbird in my chest. I scrambled to the hall and dug frantically through my purse.
“Who are you calling?”
“Page. She’ll know what to do.”
***
“You called the right person,” Page said, pulling her hat off her head. “Where is he?”
“Follow me.” Logan opened the hallway closet that led to the adjacent apartment.
Page looked apprehensively at the kitchen on her left, noticing the blood smears all over the floor. When the closet door closed behind us, the wall opened up. Logan kicked aside some of his sneakers and we stepped into the room. Christian stayed behind so he could call the cleaners to take care of the Chitah.
I switched on a few desk lamps and Page knelt in front of Finn’s wolf with her medical bag. He was sprawled out in the center of the room in front of the sofa. “I’ve treated all different kinds of Breeds and try to keep my clientele diverse, but Shifters are who I specialize in on a daily basis. Slater never wanted to deal with them and always took our Mage or Vampire clients because they paid better.”
A Relic served as a consultant—not unlike having a doctor, therapist, and researcher rolled up in one. Relics provided insight to the abilities or limitations of different Breeds. Page sometimes dealt with Mage clients, but what she knew of them was basic. There were too many gifts and nuances she hadn’t learned in detail. Her ancestors had specialized in Uniques, a rare type of Mage. It might be comparable to knowing a little about Ford cars in general but being an expert when it comes to Ford Mustangs.
While hunched over Finn, she opened her black bag and pulled out an injection needle and a few other items.
I bit my nail and nervously watched as she shaved a small area on his leg. “What are you giving him?”
“Can I ask Logan to leave the room?”
Logan strolled toward her and leered down. “And what is your reason for suggesting I abandon my brother to bleed out on the floor?”
She peered up at him with doe eyes. Logan could intimidate the hell out of anyone, even if it wasn’t intentional.
“Because if you flip your switch in here, Chitah, I could get hurt. This is a precautionary measure to protect the person who is trying to help your brother. He’ll have a reaction to the injection, and I can’t afford to take any chances. Do you want to risk harming a woman because you couldn’t control your impulses?”
Logan pressed his lips together tightly, conceding defeat. She was right; if Logan lost a grip on his emotions, it could be dangerous for Page because she’d be the one administering the shot.
“I’ll come right out if we need you,” I promised. “Can you call Justus and let him know what’s going on? He’ll probably reach out to Leo, but my Ghuardian needs to be aware of the danger we’re in. I’ll take care of Finn; maybe you should clean up.”
Logan had blood smeared across his bare chest and stains on his grey sweats from carrying Finn’s body. His bare feet had picked up some of it from the floor and tracked it around.
Without a word, he quietly left the room and looked on the verge of erupting in anger. It was a good thing Page had asked him to leave because I was certain he would have flipped his switch and gone primal. I knew Logan wouldn’t have hurt me, but no matter how protective Chitahs are of women, I couldn’t guarantee Page’s safety.
I stroked Finn’s fur and tears stained my cheeks. “This won’t hurt him, will it?”
After pushing out the air bubbles from the tip of the needle, she flicked the end with her finger. “No. I came up with a solution that forces a Shifter to change. It helps when they’re unconscious or unwilling and need to heal. I’m not sharing this solution with anyone outside of a few trusted Relics. It’s helpful to us for obvious reasons, but people always seem to find a way to use good things for wicked deeds. Stand back, Silver. Sometimes there’s a dramatic reaction.”
I stood up and stepped back a few feet. “What do you mean by dramatic?”
With lightning speed, Page inserted the needle into his leg, pushed the plunger, and yanked the syringe out. She’d begun to get up when Finn’s wolf flipped onto his feet in a violent motion and knocked her down. Finn thrashed and snarled as if attacking an invisible entity only he could see. Within seconds, his body moved like liquid and transformed into his human form.
I grabbed the red throw from the sofa and draped it across his lower body. “Finn, are you okay? Can you hear me? It’s Silver.”
He moaned and coughed, rolling onto his back. I smoothed my hands around his neck and shoulder, noticing the wounds were no longer visible. His eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness again.
“Page? Is he…”
When I looked over my shoulder, Page was still on the floor, lying on her side.
I crawled over and moved some of her hair away from her face. “Are you hurt?”
“Is he healed?”
“Yes, I don’t see any wounds on his neck.”
“Good. He’ll sleep for about six hours. There’s a strong sedative in the solution.”
Page still hadn’t moved and her voice sounded off.
“Here, let me help you sit up.”
I pulled her to a sitting position and she unzipped the front of her coat. A bead of sweat rolled down her temple and her cheeks were flushed. Without asking, I pulled her coat away because she hadn’t bothered to take it off when she’d come flying through the door.
“Wait, Silver. It’s fine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to burn up in that thing if you—”
I froze. All the blood drained from my head and rendered me speechless. The jacket fell halfway off her shoulders, revealing an unexpected and shocking revelation.
She moved her arms away from her body and exposed her swollen belly.
Page was pregnant.
Chapter 7
Once Finn had shifted and healed himself, Logan carried him to the living room sofa. I brought in a couple of soft blankets and a change of clothes. Logan knelt down beside Finn and washed away the congealed blood from his hair and neck.
I left the two alone so Logan could care for the young Shifter he considered a brother. When the cleaners arrived, Christian went outside to show them the dead Chitah and give a statement. These men were legit and would report their findings to the authorities.
After sweeping up glass and mopping the kitchen floor, I put on Logan’s brown sweater and went to the kitchen to make cocoa. Page carefully sat on one of the stools and rubbed her tired eyes. She kept her coat on and wanted to talk with me privately about her condition.
“When did this happen?” I began. “You seem so… big.”
She smiled and set down her green coffee cup. “Thanks. That’s what every woman wants to hear.”
“I just mean you’re bigger than Sunny, and she’s got twins. How far along are you? And how the hell have you managed to keep this a secret?”
“I’m not even four months.”
I gasped, bumping my drink as my arm flew out. “That’s impossible! Are you having sextuplets or something?”
She took a long, unsteady breath and another sip of cocoa. Her unpolished fingernail pushed a marshmallow beneath the frothy surface.
“It’s Slater’s baby. As far as the accelerated gestation, I’m not sure what’s causing it, but I think it has to do with whatever Slater injected me with.”
“What can you remember about the kidnapping? Maybe I can help.”
“Only Slater knows what he did to me, and now Slater’s dead. The secret is buried with him and I’ll never know. Whatever he injected me with, the other two men weren’t aware of it. They collected
information from me for testing, but at night when they left, Slater pumped me up with a concoction of his own. When the doctors began giving me their own injections, I just lost it. I screamed and struggled so much they had to sedate me. I tried to get Slater to talk to me, but he wouldn’t give up any information. He just said he was sorry it had to come to this.”
That bastard, I thought to myself. What kind of low-down, dirty man would do something like that, all for the sake of getting a woman pregnant with his baby?
“What did he say when he showed up at your apartment before the kidnapping?” I asked.
She tugged absently on the straight tips of her brown hair. “He said he wanted to help me. I tried to talk reason into him, but he was going to do what he wanted regardless.”
“But why you, Page? Why go through all that trouble just to have a baby with someone who isn’t even a willing partner? Couldn’t he find someone else?”
“It’s a Relic thing. There are those who come from esteemed families, and mine is one of them. He wanted to combine our genetics. If you want to call it anything, call it ego.”
“Great way to bring a child into the world.”
She covered her face and sniffed. “I’m so scared, Silver. I’m afraid of what’s growing inside me. I can’t pinpoint the exact day, but based on the accelerated growth, I’m probably just a few weeks away from going into labor. God, what did he do to me?”
I caught her wrist and lowered her hand. “You’re not alone, Page. Is this why you broke up with Justus?”
She turned her head and appeared emotionally spent. “I saved him the disgrace of knowing the kind of woman he took into his bed. He would have never wanted me with another man’s baby. Aside from that, it’s too dangerous to raise children among Breed. Relics still live in the human world—our kids go to school and the only interaction we have with immortals is through our jobs. It’s not the same as with Chitahs, for example, because they have healing abilities. Relics accept the risks that come with raising children because we ourselves are mortal. It would never have worked out between us, Silver. A Mage has no desire to raise children; it’s something they choose to give up when they enter this life.”