Taken by the Others

by Jess Haines

  It was me I was running from.

  See, the funny thing about that is you can’t escape yourself. Even as I tried to forget what I’d done, tried to forget Peter’s blood on my hands, Royce’s blood in my mouth, Max’s fangs in my flesh, the pain in Chaz’s eyes when he looked at me, I knew I couldn’t get away from it. Self-loathing washed over me in a sickening wave, and I ignored the startled looks of the people around me, the crush of traffic, the looming buildings. All I wanted was for the sunlight to warm my skin, to wash away this taint on my soul, to put as much distance between myself and Royce’s home as possible so I could forget all I had done there.

  I veered into the park, losing myself in the trees. Barely noticing my feet were bleeding and lacerated from going barefoot.

  I’d begged, not just asked, but begged for Royce to give me more of his blood.

  I stopped, my stomach heaving as I gasped in air and swallowed back the urge to throw up. I was alone in a copse of trees, thick maple leaves providing shade and privacy. A few dappled streaks of sunlight between the trees illuminated the dust motes dancing in the light breeze. I crept to one of those beams of sunlight, using both hands to wipe tears away as I closed my burning eyes and turned my face up to the pure, unsullied warmth, breathing it in like my life depended on it. Even the heat of the sun couldn’t banish the soul-deep chill I was feeling.

  The one thing I feared most in life was being bound to a vampire. That fear had been realized when Max took me. So deep under their influence was I that by the time Royce had done it, too, it hadn’t seemed like such a tremendously bad idea. I had willingly put myself under his power. I had wanted, needed to stay there, happily fixed to his will and jumping to do his bidding like a puppet on a string.

  And he let me go.

  Royce always had a million and one reasons he didn’t reveal behind the things he did. Everything was calculated, designed to win him some manner of advantage or influence, to put you more under his thumb. So why hadn’t he reinforced the bond when I was literally begging him to do it? Why hadn’t he taken advantage of it, when he’d so obviously tried to influence me in so many ways before? Why hadn’t he used the bond to the hilt and ordered me to give him my blood and my body the way he’d clearly wanted me to before all of this had happened?

  It didn’t make any sense. It also didn’t make me less afraid. In fact, his actions made me even more terrified. His actions, or lack thereof, meant he was manipulating me in some other fashion–somehow I hadn’t thought of yet.

  Lowering to my knees, I put my face in my hands, and wept until there were no more tears left to cry. I’d come so close to losing my life, my will, my freedom, and my soul, I would have completely lost it if I weren’t already so numb from my emotional breakdown.

  When the tears stopped, I thought it mightily unfair the sky should be such a flawless, cloudless blue, and the sun shining so cheerfully in that sky. There was even a bird singing in one of the nearby trees–a raucous, joyful song. It was more irritating than comforting. Especially since my feet had really started to sting, and now I was going to have to either walk back to Royce’s place and explain myself, or figure out some magic means of getting home.

  I raced a hand through my hair, brushing the unruly red curls out of my eyes while I cursed and limped my way back toward the street. I hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to where I was coming from or where I was going while I was running, so I took a little time to see if anything around me looked familiar.

  Surprisingly, it was a face rather than a place that caught my eye.

  “Fancy seeing you here!” came a cheerful, gravelly voice. “Don’t tell me you’re still in trouble with vampires?”

  I dredged up a smile for the Were cab driver who had taken me from Royce’s office back to my car a long time ago. Ironic that the last time he’d seen me, I’d also been crying my eyes out. That time, it was over Royce backing me into a corner and making me agree to sign contractual papers, leaving me without any legal protection from him. Now I was crying my eyes out because, in a twisted sense, he hadn’t taken advantage of the benefits those papers gave him.

  “Unfortunately, yeah, that’s the kind of trouble I am in,” I said, using the sleeve of my sweater to wipe away some of the tear tracks from my cheeks. I don’t know if it did much good, but the cabbie was still gratingly jovial and wasn’t making it a point of rubbing in that I looked like a slice of hell warmed over.

  He took a bite out of the hotdog he was holding, leaning against his cab parked at the curb. The restrained power radiating off him was as I remembered, along with the ridiculous amount of thick black hair visible on his arms and peeking out in tufts at the neck of his shirt. Weres are usually pretty furry, even as humans; he was no exception.

  “She break up with you or something?”

  “What?” Confusion took me. Then I remembered how last time he’d thought I’d gotten in a fight with my vampire lover. My female vampire lover. Who didn’t exist. I sighed and rubbed my hand over my face, trying to think of a tactful way to explain to him that I was not a lesbian, nor was I sleeping with vampires.

  His free hand reached up to rub at the salt-and-pepper stubble on his jaw as he eyed me, gauging my hesitation before he spoke again.

  “Well, either way, you look like you could use some help. Do you need a ride to a hospital?”

  He pointedly glanced down at my feet and I blushed a bit, feeling stupid for having reacted so poorly when I woke up. Running away didn’t solve anything.

  “Actually, I could use a lift home. I don’t have any cash on me,” I admitted.

  “Don’t worry about it. You can always pay me later.”

  I felt myself sag with relief. That small kindness was almost more than I could bear.

  His cab reeked of stale cigarettes and old fast food mingled with Were-musk, just like last time. The cabbie kept up a pleasant, unobtrusive chatter the whole ride back to my place. I think he intuitively knew how stressed out I was, and how very much I needed to be kept focused on something other than the thoughts rampaging through my head.

  It was only after he dropped me off in front of my building, waving as he screeched into an illegal U-turn, that I realized I had never learned his name.

  Chapter 38

  The next few weeks were centered on me trying to pick up the shattered pieces of my life.

  The bullet holes in the walls of my apartment were plastered and painted over. The pissed-off clients whose appointments I had missed ended up with discounts sufficient to make them happy and me grit my teeth.

  I bought a new cell phone and wasted three hours digging up all the phone numbers I needed to add into the replacement. With the bond gone, Sara lost some of her edgy nervousness around me. Officer Lerian forgave Chaz and I for blowing off making our statements once I gave him everything I knew about Max Carlyle. Funny how handing him the keys to unlock the mystery behind one of the biggest slaughters this city has ever seen, along with information to track down the bastard who did it, might make the police forgive me.

  I dug up the number to Jim Pradiz, the reporter who’d written the article that had me spazzing out in the grocery store. I gave him a statement to chew over so people could know the real story behind my disappearance, Max Carlyle’s plan, and how all those people died in Twisted Temptations. I kept the White Hats, Dawn, Arnold, Sara, and Chaz out of it. J.P. stayed true to form and added embellishments, but none of them included anything to do with me being a vampire’s toy or Royce having any hand in the deaths of the revelers at the club.

  Officer Lerian wasn’t too happy I went to the press, but the police backed me up and concurred with my story.

  Devon and Tiny disappeared to parts unknown. Neither one of them returned to Royce’s or tried to contact me after the night Chaz told me what a shit I was being. I could have gotten in touch with them via Jack, but that wasn’t an avenue of possibility I wanted to explore. Jack has not tried contacting me either. I’d like to ke
ep it that way.

  As soon as I got my car out of the impound, I went to see Mom and Dad. I omitted a few details, like how my boyfriend was a Were and my friend Arnold was a mage, but otherwise told them pretty much everything. I explained about the contract that tied me to Royce and what led up to him showing up at my apartment. I even showed them the teeny, tiny scars left behind from Max and Peter biting me. Mom nearly fainted. Dad got this dark look like he was ready to start whittling up some stakes and go hunt down Max himself.

  After my explanation, my parents decided they weren’t speaking to me while they got a handle on the fact that their only daughter was consorting with Others. We all agreed we’d take some time to cool off and just have a nice, sane, normal family dinner once Thanksgiving rolled around. No need to tell my brothers, Mikey and Damien, about any of it either. Not unless they saw the news and came around asking questions.

  That was just fine with me. My parents had to find out sometime about the wacky turn my life was taking. Frankly, they took it better than I expected.

  I haven’t been able to sleep well since the bond broke. Without it, I can’t stop thinking about all the things I’ve done and experienced thanks to my ties with the Others. What Peter looked like after I smashed his face in. How it felt to drive the stake into John’s chest. The whispered encouragement to kill and hurt things I gave in to when the belt was around my waist. The unnatural attraction I’d felt to both Max and Royce.

  Sometimes I wake up in cold sweats, my hands rubbing at the place where Peter and Max bit me. I wish I could forget what it felt like, what they had done.

  What I had done.

  One of the things I’ve learned from all of this is that, even though the visible scars might fade, some emotional ones take a lot longer to heal.

  Things between Chaz and I are settling down. He’s distant with me now in a way he’s never been before. I wish I knew how to fix it and make things right between us. Somehow I get the feeling I broke what we had into too many pieces to put our relationship back together again. Still, I’m trying. The dinner we had a few nights ago was like it used to be, a pleasant escape where we talked about what was going on in our lives, not about Max Carlyle, Alec Royce, or anything related to me fighting with or being bound to vampires. It’s better, if not exactly the same.

  Royce hasn’t made any attempt to call or see me since the day I freaked out and ran off. All he did was send a package to my office a few days after I left. He’d sent my clothes, weapons, and boots, along with a little note. It took a few days for me to screw up enough courage to open the plain white envelope it was sealed in and read what it said.

  I’m sorry for the pain you had to endure while you were with me. I know those words are inadequate, but please believe they are sincere. If you need help, or a friend, don’t hesitate to call on me.

  –Alec

  So that’s my story of how I (kind of) became a White Hat, and (temporarily) became blood-bonded by Royce, and (no, really) learned that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

  Please read on for an exciting sneak peek

  of the next Shiarra Waynest novel,

  DECEIVED BY THE OTHERS,

  coming in July 2011!

  My hands shook as I put my pen to the contract laid out before me. The Notice of Mutual Consent to Human/Other Citizen Relationship and Contractual Binding Agreement that would permanently cement my relationship with Chaz.

  If he’d sign it too, that is.

  “Shia?”

  The pen left a streak behind when my hand jerked. I looked up, quickly shuffling some other papers over the contract to hide it amidst the clutter on my desk.

  “Yes?”

  Jen, our receptionist and bookkeeper, peered into my office over the rims of her glasses. She eyed the papers like she knew I was hiding something, but was too tactful to say anything about it.

  “What was the name of that crazy guy who was here a month or so ago? The one you didn’t want to take calls or appointments from?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You’re talking about that tall blond guy, right? His name is Jack.”

  She nodded and disappeared around the corner. Curiosity piqued and the contract momentarily forgotten, I rose from my squeaky office chair to lean against the door frame. Jen was on the phone, her feet propped up on her desk while she wrapped up a game of solitaire on the computer.

  “No, sir, I just checked and she’s in with a client. I’m sorry, but I’m not about to interrupt her meeting. Like I said, you can leave her a voicemail or I can take a message.”

  I frowned, folding my arms as I watched her multi-task her game and the phone call. Jack calling wasn’t a good sign. The man was a White Hat, one of those crazy vigilante groups that go around destroying any supernatural critters that cross their paths. The first time I’d met him, he’d threatened me at knifepoint to join his cause. The second time around, he walked into my office in broad daylight and held a gun on me because he thought I was working for vampires. Aside from being a few beers short of a six-pack, he was bad news, pure and simple.

  “Like I said, sir, she is not available.” Jen’s tone had turned professionally icy, and I strongly considered giving her a raise. She was doing an excellent job of getting rid of the pushy creep. “You’re free to leave a message with me or call back another time.” She paused, listened to his reply. Shortly she was nodding along to whatever he was saying with a sly, triumphant smile. “Yes, I’ll see she gets it right away. What’s the message?”

  Swinging her feet off the desk, she opened up an e-mail and clattered out Jack’s message. She saw me out of the corner of her eye and made a face, though she kept her voice cool and polite on the phone.

  “Yes, I’ll get this to her as soon as she’s free. Thanks for calling Halloway and Waynest Investigations.”

  “Thanks for getting rid of him,” I said as soon as she plunked the phone down. “That guy is nothing but trouble.”

  “No kidding. I’ll forward the message since he left a phone number, but I don’t know if it’ll mean anything to you. All he said was ‘tell her this time it isn’t us.’ Any idea what he means?”

  I frowned, brows furrowing. “That’s all he had to say? ‘It isn’t us'?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

  Shaking her head, she turned back to her computer and sent me the e-mail, my preferred form of message. Sara was much more organized than I was when it came to keeping track of Post-it memos. My desk was a rattrap clutter of dust bunnies, chewed up pens, and scattered business cards that should’ve been filed away or organized somehow long ago.

  “If he shows up here looking for me while I’m out of town, call the police. He’s a nuisance.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, not bothering to turn away from her game. Shrugging off my uneasiness, I turned back to my office, but she stopped me with another word. “Oh, Shia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I almost forgot. Some guy named Alex or something left a message on the main voicemail for you last night. I forwarded it to your phone.”

  I’d ignored my calls earlier so I could avoid any new emergencies getting piled on me before going out of town. Which Alex might have attempted to reach me before I left? Alex Mills, the insurance agent? No, he was out of town on vacation. Alex Temps, the client I tracked down a stolen antique for a couple weeks ago? No, no, he had bitched about my rates from start to finish and hadn’t been in the least grateful when I completed the job. He’d already paid, shortchanging me by $150, the stingy bastard. I doubted I’d ever hear from him again. Who could it be?

  Wait a minute. “Alex” calling me right around the same time as Jack the White Hat?

  Oh, no. No, no, no. That could only mean one thing.

  Stifling a shudder, I made sure to keep my expression calm and blank. I didn’t want to upset Jen. If she’d listened to the message more closely or caught me looking upset, she’d realize who it was, too.
Her wounded, disapproving looks were the last thing I wanted to deal with right now.

  “Thanks, Jen. I’ll check it out.”

  “No prob.”

  I closed the door, stepping back around my desk and moving the files aside so I could review the contract one more time. My concentration was shot, my good mood and anticipation for my vacation soured in the uncertainty that came with having a White Hat and Alec Royce both trying to get in touch with me again.

  The clock on my computer read 3:15 PM, which meant I still had a little over two hours left before my boyfriend Chaz would swing by to pick me up for my first real vacation in months.

  Being stuck recuperating in a hospital or taking time off from work to wait for the effects of a vampire’s blood bond to wear off does not count as a vacation, by the way.

  Sara was supposed to keep an eye on my apartment and my messages while I was gone. It was only for a few days, but that was more (voluntary) time off than I’d taken in quite a while. Her boyfriend was letting me borrow one of his laptops so I could keep an eye on my e-mail and stay in touch. He’d threatened to sic his familiar, a tiny black mouse named Bob, on me every night for a week if anything happened to his coveted Fragware 5000. I’d sworn up and down I’d treat it like my own. Seriously, who wants a mouse crawling on them in their sleep? Ugh.

  Anyway, things should’ve been winding down. My current clients were given the message that I would be out and Jen was supposed to refer everything to Sara until I got back. Jack and Royce surfacing again changed all of that.

  I frowned down at the blinking message light on my phone, strongly considering waiting until I returned to town to listen to it. Alec Royce, like Jack the White Hat, was straight up bad news. He was a wealthy, good-looking man who had made a couple of half-hearted attempts to seduce me away from my boyfriend Chaz. We should’ve been able to go our separate ways since I’d saved his life, and he’d returned the favor by saving mine.