Claws and Effect

by Amanda Arista

  “I think I’m intimately connected to the dark, thank you.”

  “I have seen it coming, Violet. The Veil will fall and the war that follows will be bloody and burn through the best of us,” she turned her head and closed her eyes as if she could see the visions again as she spoke.

  “Then stop getting in the way of your best people and let us fight it. Have some faith.”

  And there it was. In the burning eyes of the most powerful being I will ever meet. Pain. Betrayal. The story ran through my concussed brain, leaving me wondering if it was my brain or hers putting it there. There had been faith and that faith was betrayed and now it was either her way or being launched into a wall.

  Who else did we know was like that? Throwing people randomly into walls. I really was never going to live that down.

  I watched as she hardened into perfection again, her smell locked up again behind those perfect walls. Her white eyes calmed back into her golden brown eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Violet. But I can’t risk that.”

  “So what? You’re going to keep Chaz on the road forever? Going to let him burn out on the road until you’ve become the beast that burns through the best of us.”

  I really knew that I shouldn’t have said that, but I was ready for her attack this time.

  She flew at me, like classic banshee style flew at me, her eyes white like Storm’s. I slunk down into a crouch on the floor and launched myself at her. My shoulder caught her midsection like a linebacker. We flipped, and I slammed her down with my whole body on the conference room table.

  “Violet!” Myers called out.

  I straddled her bony hips, sitting on her pelvis. Thank you, Sensei for finally mixing in some submission wrestling.

  I slammed her wrists on the table above her head, grinding her ancient bones into the table top.

  My power pressed down on her until I couldn’t smell anything but brimstone. The power burned around us like a desert tornado. Anger singed her sharp breathes as she glared up at me.

  “You can feel the pull, Violet.” She wheezed. “Jovan is so close to you I can smell him.”

  A chill racked down my spine. I’d never used Haverty’s power like this. Never used my power like this before. Unleashed, I felt as big as the room, bigger than the building. I could feel Myers scared panther in the corner, and the man upstairs who was not a man still wiping down the same glass. The people in the town, the dreaming children, the cold winter night above that.

  Amid the red hot anger that whipped around us, five strands pulled tightly at my center. They pulled me back to the struggle at hand.

  I grabbed Yasmina’s hand and held it against my breastbone. “You feel that? That’s the reason that I’m better than you. It’s the reason that I will always fight harder, and the reason that I will always win. It is never about the power.”

  Tears streamed down her face as she felt my boys, my family, each with a solid place within my heart. Her lips parted but no more words came out.

  I leaped off the table and landed gracefully on the floor. Yasmina stayed where she was.

  My head spun and my stomach began to flip-flop. I headed for the door. Between the head injury and the unrestrained power still circling around me, I needed fresh air.

  “Violet?”

  “Come see me when you’re done being a puppet,” I growled.

  I clambered up the stairs when the first spasm happened. The power wanted more. More fight. And it wouldn’t go back. Now that it was out it wanted to stay out. I knew it would happen.

  I pulled at the door to let me out into the bar.

  The man behind the bar stopped cleaning the glass as his beady black eyes followed me across the bar. I went as quickly as I could, unsteady on my feet. I grabbed the tops of the tables as I made my way to the outside.

  I broke out into the night, power still circling around me. I tried to put up a border but the power burned through anything that I mustered up.

  Heart pounding, I couldn’t catch a full breath, the power beating out space for oxygen around me. The panther donkey kicked the inside of my ribs. It didn’t help.

  If I really was going to go nova, I couldn’t do it here, in the middle of a street. I needed to get away from here. Even if I burned myself into cinders, I didn’t want to do it here and risk scaring some poor townsperson getting their morning coffee.

  So I ran, I fell back into the inky blackness of my other self and sped through town. I just followed the night, trying to burn out the power before it burned out me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THE LEGACY HAD burned through him and left him cold in the morning light, laying flat on his back in the middle of the room. His father’s ashy smell melted away into the magnolia scent that was soft but thick. It was hers now. It recognized her as the master now.

  The power from the Biggers had guided him toward a city and let him walk among the denizens as a force, not just as a man. The keeper’s daughter had been more than accommodating the night before to the stranger that landed injured on her door step.

  He’d showered and shaved and felt human again and yet so far from his old self. He felt his new strength in his bones, his new power.

  With the day of rest and food eagerly brought to him, he’d finally been able to read the grimoire that he’d been carrying around for months. Taking other Wanderers power was part of a prides promise, a strength of his bloodline. But what he was doing and in this place, was a piece of a darker puzzle.

  Part of a darker puzzle that would get him back to his world. A way to take what she had taken from him.

  He pushed himself up from the floor. This connection was growing tiresome. He wanted to be rid of it. He was tired of sharing her triumphs while he was stuck here.

  There had to be a way. That’s why he was reading this book. He’d let that mutt instruct him last time and looked where it had gotten him. He would do it himself this time and no one was going to stop him.

  The door of his room flew off its rough hinges under the boot of a man who looked more like a tree than a flesh.

  He immediately drew on his power and flexed his claws.

  “Don’t bother fighting,” the man said, but it was more the groan of a branch in the wind than a voice. “Jovan wants to talk to you.”

  “And if I don’t want to talk to him?”

  “Then you never talk again.”

  His eyes bounced from the man who was already in the room and the man in the hallway. He could run, leap out the window with nothing but pants and a prayer.

  He wasn’t ready to deal with Jovan and with Jovan it was always a deal. Parts for power, a body for a crown. He had nothing to deal with.

  Except for her. He wondered if he could bargain with her. If anyone could break this connection, Jovan could. And what would Jovan give him for having a link to the soul of one as powerful as her?

  No. He would do it himself, but to do that he was going to need power. He assessed the two men, reading their energies. Both would be good additions and easy marks.

  With no intention of making it would of town with these two, Spencer pulled on his shoes and wrapped his book into a proper bag, slinging is across his chest. “Fine. Take me to him.”

  THERE WAS A tap on my shoulder. Slowly, I opened my eyes and found myself on a porch. A very white, wooden, wrap around porch.

  “Excuse me,” a male voice said.

  I leaned up on my elbows and looked up at the man leaning over me. He was older with silver at his temples and silver green eyes that had a permanent furrow between them. It was a very familiar look.

  “You’re sleeping on my porch.”

  Slowly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I stood and brushed the grass off my jeans and adjusted the bag at my side. Every stitch was in place. Days of nakedness after a shift were finally behind me.

  And man it was freezing. I looked around to see the winter wonderland that was my new surroundings and this jacket was no where near warm enough.<
br />
  “I’m sorry. I must have gotten a little lost,” I managed as I pulled my hair back into a pony tail. I could see my breath as I spoke.

  As quickly as I could remember, I checked my borders. I was fine. Different but fine. Whatever happened last night was there, but quiet. Hiding again? Waiting for another opportunity to be free?

  Suddenly, I was brushed with a thick sweet scent that smelled what I thought jungles would smell like. And the very familiar feeling of fur against my bare cheek.

  The man cocked his head, and I frowned.

  “You’re panther,” I said astounded.

  “So are you,” and he took a step back from me on the porch.

  “Now, Kye, that’s no way to treat our guest.” An older woman with chestnut hair and a warm smile came out of the front door.

  “Welcome home, Violet Jordan,” the woman greeted standing in front of the man. “I’m Piper and this is my husband, Kye.”

  Completely in shock that the woman knew my name, I was bathed in this glorious warmth that smelled like chocolate chip cookies and well, home.

  I melted in the warmth of it all and I felt the cat within begin to purr. I gasped, embarrassed.

  The woman just smiled. “Happens,” she shrugged. “Why don’t you come in? You look like you could use a hot cocoa.”

  I SAT ACROSS THE cheery kitchen table from the woman and was somewhere between shock and relief. She felt so comforting after the weeks that I had been through. Kye sat down in the chair next to me and he too felt comfortable, like I was supposed to be at this table, like something bigger than me, than Yasmina, had brought me here.

  “How did you get on our porch?” Kye asked.

  “I was running,”

  “Away from something? That’s how most everyone else gets here,” Piper said.

  “I was angry. Where am I anyway?”

  “New Forest. In Maine.”

  “Maine. I ran to Maine.” I hadn’t thought I was in panther form that long. There was no way. Though, I really didn’t know where the Cause headquarter was. Yeah, not the best planner on the planet.

  “But you’re from Texas, right?”

  I nodded and took a sip of the warm and creamy hot chocolate. It was perfect, or perfected. I was getting the distinct feeling that I was not the first who had been brought to this table and had this talk.

  “You’re the one they tried to breed,” Kye said softly.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “You’re not working for them, are you?”

  “Lord no,” Piper laughed. I felt it. It danced across my skin like petals. “I think they are too high on themselves. Who cares if you can poof through walls if you don’t have a lick of character?”

  I smiled. I loved her, already. Something about her made every muscle in my body and fiber in my brain relax. I felt safe here.

  “We are neutral and have tried very hard to remain so,” Kye narrated. “We take care of our own and don’t get too involved in the bigger picture.”

  “I like that,” I said, as I took another sip of chocolate.

  “Kye, would you give us a moment?” Piper asked.

  The man nodded and patted my shoulder as he left.

  “He likes you,” Piper said. “And he doesn’t like anyone.”

  “Must be a breed thing.”

  “Must be,” Piper said with a smile. “You know that you’re from a line that is usually evil.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And the boy they sent you wasn’t from the same line.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, I’m glad you saw through it,”

  “Almost didn’t,” I confessed. “He was good.”

  “But your beau is better,” Piper said very assuredly.

  “He is and I really need to be getting to . . .” I trailed off. Another plan of mine that hadn’t really come to fruition.

  “What?”

  “Yasmina had him, and I sort of beat her up and ran out without getting a where.”

  Piper’s eyes widened, but she reached out and patted my hand. “Call your pack. You’ll feel better when you find out their safe.”

  “How did you know I was a . . . Prima?” It was still hard say, but I felt it more than ever now.

  “You have a glow about you. I suppose in our terms it’s like being pregnant.”

  “Except without any stretch marks.”

  Piper laughed. “Exactly.”

  With every moment with her, I was more centered. It was more than just her power that beat like a heartbeat all around her; it was her smile, her easy manor, her messy ponytail, and the twinkle in her eye.

  Piper leaned forward on her hand. “I’ve heard it through the grapevine that you are a great storyteller. Tell me about your beau.”

  “Chaz? Well, he’s quite when he shouldn’t be and fights me when I need to be fought, and is just this golden ball of wonderfulness that I just realize recently I can’t live without, though he seems to be able to live without me just fine.”

  Piper shivered. “You do have a way with words, Miss Jordan.

  “I suppose,” I said back, finishing off the cocoa.

  “Kye and I have a good story.” Piper cocked her head and listened to something that I couldn’t hear. “Met, fought, fell in love, died, and then got married. Much to the chagrin of my mother who didn’t think that a human should marry a shape-shifter.”

  My jaw nearly dropped. “You’re not a shape-shifter?”

  “Lord no. I’m a Zenith, a fount of magical energies. I provide the shape-shifters with the power that they need to keep strong against their enemies, or at least that’s what the prophecy says.”

  “Wow.” That beat anything that I could think up today, but, then again, I had just beat the tears out of an earthly goddess. And I was a little tired.

  “Something like that,” she smiled.

  I trailed the pattern on the kitchen table cloth. “So it can happen then? Humans and shape-shifters can make it work, with all the . . . complications.”

  “Kye and I have been together seventeen years, and I’m still not furry.”

  Wow, I thought to myself this time. That meant that there was hope. There was a way.

  Piper stood and held out her hand to me. As I took it, I felt calm again, and she pulled me to my feet. “Call your pack. Get some sleep and a good meal. I’ll explain the whatnots later and then you need to go home.”

  I nodded. Phone calls and then sleep and then we’d get to the saving the world thing.

  JESSA WASN’T HAPPY that I’d somehow managed to end up in Maine, but Tucker and Tyler hadn’t been released on bail yet. There had been some “complications” with their paperwork. As her lawyer worked on their case, Nash and Jessa worked on the symbols. They were ordering takeout and the only one that had been out of the house was Shadow to use the facilities.

  “Nash and I woke up the middle of last night freaked out because we could feel you.”

  I licked my lips. Was there a good way to tell your best friend that you had basically gone nova? No. But I guess if I were the advocate of truth, here it was. “I’ve been suppressing Haverty’s power since last December and last night I let loose.”

  “Holy crap, Violet. Are you okay?”

  “Better than ever. But I need some time here. This place is like a Mecca for shifters.”

  “It’s like your Hollow, the sacred spot for fairies.”

  “Good to know. . . . But no Chaz yet?”

  “No.” I yawned and stretched my back. “I need some sleep, and I need to find out more about this place and then I’ll be home. Call me the second you get word on the boys. I’ll keep my cell on.”

  “Okay. Just try not to be too long.”

  I MANAGED THREE HOURS of sleep in one of the many guest bedrooms upstairs before my stomach growled in protest for having been empty way too long. I brushed my hair and headed down stairs to the kitchen. “Hello?”

  A pretty little redhead was sitting in the kitch
en. “Are you Violet?”

  I nodded.

  “Merci,” she said as she stuck her hand out, her bright emerald eyes sparkling.

  As I shook her hand, I felt something new tickle up my arm as I smelled a salty sea breeze. I was going to smile and ask about it but it turned into a large yawn.

  “Piper said you’d want coffee?”

  “I love this place.”

  Merci offered to fix lunch if I wanted to make a pot of coffee. I rolled my shoulders as I filled the carafe with water. Out of the kitchen window, I watched a pack of kids run manically after a young man through the backyard. The cold didn’t seem to bother them as they launched snow balls at each other. A small fort had been built on either side of the yard and only the brave ones darted away from its protection.

  It was then that I realized that I didn’t have borders. Or I did have borders. The power was there, but I could still feel everything around me. Like I was radioactive. Was this the glow that Piper talked about?

  As I poured the water into the coffee pot, Merci slipped up next to me. “That one’s mine,” she pointed to a slightly built man who ran and jumped and dodged with the children outside.

  I just looked at him and knew. “The wolf?”

  Merci turned to me. “Have to warn you. If I ask you a question, you have to answer truthfully.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome.”

  “Not really. I’m one sixteenth Grifter and people have to tell me the truth against their will and I have a devil of a time lying myself.”

  “Beats turning furry once a month.”

  “It has its down sides.”

  My mind raced. With a gift like that, she’d always know she was on the level with someone, always know when to end a relationship, and always know when she was getting stiffed with the check.

  “I just wanted to tell you that I worked with Charles in Chicago. He was amazing. I was there covering the story, from the human side of course. I’m a reporter. One of the upsides to having my gift.”

  My stomach immediately went into knots when I thought again about what I’d seen in Chicago. “He doesn’t tell me much about his other work.”

  Merci went on with her story. “He saved ten young girls from a crypt of vampires. He honed in on one of them from a stuffed animal. From a little turtle that the girl had had her whole life, he was able to track them down when no one else could.”