by Amelia Jade
Not anymore.
A century before he’d been content to banish her when she’d started to lose control. Lex had hoped that a hundred years in the Underworld would convince her of the error of her ways. Obviously he’d been wrong, and she’d spent the entire time stewing over the situation. And along the way someone had taught her how to amplify her spells with human blood. That spoke of a larger player in the game, but dealing with that would have to wait until later. For now, he needed to deal with Gabrielle. Permanently.
The sprite laughed crazily as he came closer, opening her arms wide, inviting him to leap at her. Lex wasn’t stupid though; he was aware of her strength. Her magic may slide off him, but she could still kill him easily if he wasn’t careful.
“Well, come on then!” she challenged. “Let’s get this over with, little puppy. I remember you, you know. I’ve learned a thing or two since last time.”
Lex felt a moment of fear at the sudden lucidity in the Auri. She had never pretended to know who he was until just then, acting like the unhinged wind sprite he’d expected. Now though, she was revealing a bit of knowledge that he did not want to hear. If she knew who he was, she knew his capabilities.
Before he could hesitate and overthink it, Lex pushed off, running right at her. He bent low like he was getting ready to leap, and Gabrielle laughed in anticipation. But Lex never completed his leap. Instead he stayed low to the ground. His jaws opened and he clamped them around her ankle. A twist of his head and he pulled powerfully. The Auri shrieked in pain and his teeth crunched through the foot, separating it from the body as he severed the connection.
“You beast!” she shouted, trying to club him with her fists as she fell to the ground.
Lex was long gone however, darting out of reach. He ran around behind her, jumped onto the sprite’s head, and ripped some of her wind-hair from her body, pulling it right from the skull. Gabrielle hollered in pain. Instead of spinning, she drove an elbow backward, catching him in the side. Lex rolled free and came to his feet.
The game continued for several minutes, but it was obvious from the start that the woman was outclassed. On his fifth pass he took her right hand, and then on the eighth, her left arm from below the elbow came away. Finally he snapped her left shin. Limbless, the wind sprite fell to the ground. It wouldn’t take her long to regenerate, but it was more than enough time.
Lex raced back to the side of the house, past a startled Petal who had been watching everything around the corner, and to the carport. Stacked next to the door into the house were supplies used by the maintenance crew, including stuff that had been stockpiled for winter. His teeth ripped open a bag, taking a mouthful of the contents.
Wincing in distaste and trying not to spit them out, he returned to the backyard. The Auri had already fixed one hand, and was working on a foot. Idiot, he thought. Should have done the feet first, so you could run off. Too late now.
When Gabrielle saw what was slowly spilling from his mouth, causing his lips to pucker up and eyes to water, she started freaking out, dragging herself across the ground with one hand in an attempt to escape.
Lex just calmly walked up to her and opened his mouth.
“NOOOOOO!” she shrieked as the salt crystals ripped into her ethereal body, pinning it to the ground.
He walked up to her body, slowly depositing drool-covered clump after drool-covered clump of road salt on her. The more he covered, the more the wind seemed to slow within her form. Gabrielle continued to struggle. But she was trapped, and they both knew it. Last time Lex had taken it easy on her, simply ripping her head from her body, forcing her back to the Underworld. This time he had pinned her body into his world.
Several clumps of salt penetrated her face and skull. He’d had more than he needed, apparently. With distaste he spat the rest from his mouth, most of it tumbling across her features, pulling them away.
Your time is up. He couldn’t speak in his wolf form, but his eyes conveyed the point well enough.
With that he bent down and tore her head from her body. Power erupted from the spot as the salt contained her essence, keeping her from fleeing back to the Underworld. Lex was pushed back several steps by it, but unharmed.
One last howl of wind in the air reached his ears, and then there was silence. Blessed silence.
He immediately turned his attention to the side of the house, his eyes catching Petal’s. She was safe, and aside from a cut on her arm that he’d seen, she seemed unharmed. He hadn’t scented much of her blood when he’d run by, and when he’d been running for his life, she’d had enough presence of mind to engage in a verbal battle with the Auri. So her mind was in one piece as well.
Lex blessed his lucky stars at the good fortune. If Gabrielle hadn’t been quite so obsessed with destroying Surrey, she surely would have wasted no time draining Petal of her blood, in which case Lex would have lost his mate forever.
He trotted over to her, ready and willing to tell her everything now. After all, how was he going to hide the fact that he’d just done battle with a spirit of the air? Not bloody likely.
But as he got close Petal’s eyes went wide with fear, and she started yelling at him to stay away. A piece of chopped firewood from the stack alongside the house came flying at him. He ducked and paused. What the hell?
“Stay away from me! I’ll call animal control! They’ll kill you!”
Oh. Right. She didn’t know it was him. With a sigh, letting his head hang, Lex stopped advancing and retreated a bit. Petal was obviously a little unhinged at the moment, and who couldn’t blame her. Changing in front of her was probably not the best idea. Regretfully he turned and ran into the forest. Once he was out of sight of her he angled around toward the front of the house and headed down the driveway to her work truck, hoping he’d find a change of clothes.
Showing up naked, while better than a wolf, was still probably not the best bet.
26. Den Life
Petal
“What the fuck was that?”
She leaned against the stacked firewood, a piece still hanging from her hand as she watched the white and gray wolf disappear into the forest. He had to run a lot farther now to reach the edge, after the…the…whatever the fuck that thing had been, had destroyed it with her tornado bombs.
Tornado bombs? Christ, listen to you. How the hell are you going to describe this to anyone? “Oh yeah, Jay, she just started throwing miniature cyclones from her hands that got bigger until they started destroying trees.” Yep, may as well just call the white-coats now and lock me up in a lab. ‘Cause I’m going crazy.
After a minute of heavy panting Petal managed to get herself back under control.
“Time to leave.”
Right. That was absolutely the first thing. Get herself out of the property, and then back to the truck. Lex would come along soon, and then they could call the police. At least the families of the four missing people could get some closure, and have the bodies recovered for a funeral.
“Closure,” she muttered. “Wouldn’t that be nice? I’d love some answers right now.”
“Answers about what? Whoa!”
The sudden presence of someone behind her sent Petal into a spin, where she hurled the wood in her hand at the spot the voice had come from. Before she’d finished releasing it she had picked up another one. Two more followed before her brain caught up and told her she knew the voice.
“Lex?” she asked, stunned at how weak her voice sounded.
“Hi.”
“Lex, I…there was, but then a wolf, and the thing, the wind, it was, and the trees, and people. Dead. They’re all dead, Lex.”
“I know,” he said, stepping forward, his arms open. “I know.”
Petal was confused. How could he know? He’d just gotten there. But then his arms closed around her and she slumped into them, feeling weak.
He whispered into her ear over and over again that it was okay, that he was there now. She could relax. Petal slowly broke down. When the
tears began to fall Lex grabbed her in his arms and they sat down. She felt so tiny and small curled up in his lap, but his big, powerful arms assured her that she was okay. That now it was fine. The sobs came at last, racking her whole body as she shook from the trauma of her experience.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have gotten here earlier,” he told her, stroking her hair with one hand, the movement slow, methodical, and relaxing. She leaned into him harder, never more appreciative of him than just then.
“I don’t understand.” She didn’t. Her brain was having a hard time reconciling what she’d seen with what Petal knew was possible. None of it made sense. “Am I sick? Am I hallucinating?” She pushed herself back from Lex. “Tell me the truth. Don’t pamper me.”
He shook his head. “No, you aren’t going insane, or imagining things. I’ll explain it all to you when you’re ready to hear it.”
“I’m ready.” Somehow she wasn’t surprised to hear that Lex knew what was going on. It just made sense that he did.
Lex smiled softly, shaking his head. “No, you aren’t. Later.”
“I want to know now, Lex. I’m already getting tired of thinking I’m crazy, and it’s been ten minutes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
He sighed. “Okay, let’s get back to the truck, call the police. They can come and deal with the bodies. Once we’ve done that and left, I’ll explain everything. I promise. Okay?”
She considered that. “Yes. Let’s deal with this first. Then you tell me everything. No more secrets.” There was a pause as she thought of something. “Is this what you wanted to tell me about earlier?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Well, maybe you were right in waiting.”
They both laughed over that, and Lex got to his feet, still holding her to his chest.
“You’re strong, you know.”
He smiled.
“Really strong.”
“Stop it,” he said, his tone a mix of joking and seriousness.
Petal let it drop, content to deal with the situation now before pressuring him for answers. Now that her brain was starting to work, several things were starting to coagulate, thoughts and theories coming together. Nothing that she was ready to confront him with, but she had a suspicion.
Lex showed her how to work the radio in the truck, calling in to the shop and arranging for the police and emergency services to arrive at the location. With the report of four dead bodies, it didn’t take long. What did take forever was sticking around to give the interviews. Three different detectives wanted to talk to her and Lex.
They’d come up with a story that Petal had lost control of her vehicle and it had ended up in the ditch. She’d then gone up to the house to look around for help. She’d stumbled into the backyard and passed out from the scene there. Lex had arrived, saw her truck, and come up to find her. She’d come awake at his touch, and together they’d retreated to the truck and called the police.
The police weren’t sure what to make of everything, including the sacrifices in the backyard. But all the evidence corroborated the fact that neither of them had been out that way until today, so the police let them go. One of the constables gave them a ride back to Lex’s truck. He quickly swapped in a spare tire and they were off, back to the shop to get his truck.
Vince didn’t put up a fight when Lex said they were going home for the day, and wouldn’t be in tomorrow. Nobody questioned the fact that she was going home with him either. Petal didn’t like it, not because she was ashamed of Lex anymore, but because she was his boss, and that was against corporate policy. But even she really didn’t care just then.
After what had happened today, everything was going to change.
***
The truck turned off the side road and began to head up a narrow, windy road.
“You live here?” she asked, sitting up in the passenger seat as it became clear that they were finally almost home.
Well, Lex’s home, not hers. But just then, she wasn’t going to complain, not even in the slightest.
“I do. It’s not much, but it’s mine.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said dismissively, looking up the road as it cut back and forth while heading up the side of a hill. She peered through the windshield. The land seemed driveable enough now, but up ahead it seemed to take a rather steep incline, almost sheer, but not quite.
“How much farther? That looks more like a cliff than a hill,” she said, pointing.
“That’s our destination,” he said as the truck emerged from the forest into a clearing that surrounded the base of the rock face.
Petal’s eyebrows lifted in surprise as his house was revealed to her.
“You live in the hill itself. Like a cave. You live in a cave.”
“I do. Crazy, right? But trust me, it’s nice in there. South-facing, lots of light. Nice and cozy.”
“No wonder you were so comfortable in the cave when we got trapped. It was like a second home to you.”
He smiled. “Well, that and the company wasn’t too bad.”
She rolled her eyes. “Pig.”
Lex chuckled as he pulled the truck onto a flat part of earth that had obviously been leveled for that purpose. She got out before he’d even killed the engine, walking around to admire the cave-house.
It was pretty, she had to admit. Lots of glass and dark stained wood. It had a mix of modern design made from old materials. Sleek lines covered the front of the house, capped off with two giant logs that held up a slanted roof nearly three stories off the ground.
“Protects against boulders and such. Those logs are actually filled with a steel alloy and driven ten feet into the ground. The roof has metal supports twelve feet into the face of the hill itself. I’ve not been hit with anything huge yet, but I’ve had a few table-sized rocks bounce off it. No damage besides some scuffs.”
She just nodded, trying to appear impressed.
“Your little man-cave.”
He grinned. “It’s not nearly as manly as you might think.”
“Right.” Petal turned to look at him, pieces of the puzzle all clicking into place. “Lex,” she said, eyeing his cave-house.
It was more of a den, really.
“Yes?”
“Are there such things as werewolves?”
Lex sucked in a bit of air, his head coming around to stare at her. She met his gaze steadily, her blue eyes unyielding. They stood like that for several long moments before Lex dropped his gaze and stepped back from her. Then he did the craziest thing she’d ever seen.
He transformed into a familiar gray and white wolf, right in front of her eyes.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
27. Revelations
Lex
He didn’t stay in his wolf form long, switching back to human form right about the time Petal began to speak rapidly, sentences overlapping one another as she asked about ten different questions at once.
“Whoa, okay, okay. Listen, I’m going to explain everything to you. But first, can we go inside and sit down? I need to eat, and you probably do too, and I’m exhausted. I know you’re going crazy right now, but I think I answered your question.”
To his surprise, Petal laughed. “I suppose you did, didn’t you? Not quite the answer I expected, but nobody can deny you were straight with me. Holy shit. Damn! Werewolves.”
Suddenly she stood ramrod straight, looking around. “Should I be worried about you? How do I know I can trust you?”
He’d been expecting that question, preparing himself to face it since he’d realized just how much Petal meant to him. Still, with all the time to get used to the idea that she’d asked it, hearing the words still hurt more than he’d expected.
“You don’t need to be worried about me, no. I don’t lose control and turn into a ravaging beast.” He paused. “There are types like that, yes, but I’m not one of them. I can control my abilities. They do not control me.”
“Well, you saw a wind sprite earlier today. What do you think?”
Petal’s face had a little smile to it. “Is that what they’re called?”
“Um, well, that’s what they are. Beings of the air. They call themselves the Auri, but in most circles they’re simply called Banshees.”
“Banshee. Yes, that would make sense. The howling of the wind. I get it. Very appropriate.”
Lex smiled. “I’m glad you agree.”
“Okay, so, there are werewolves and Banshees. What else?”
“A lot. Ever read fairy tales?”
“Sure.”
He didn’t respond. Petal was smart; Lex didn’t think it would take her long to understand. He was right.
“You’re kidding. Those are based on real things?”
“Yes, mostly. Some exaggeration or twist.”
“Wow.” She shook her head. “But that doesn’t answer my second question, Lex.”
“I know. I don’t have an answer for you. That’s something you’re going to have to decide on your own. No matter what I say, you’ll still have doubts unless you decide for yourself.”
He smiled sadly and opened the door to his den.
“I know what I want you to pick, but I can’t make you do anything.” He stepped inside, leaving the door open for her to follow, if that’s what she decided.
He wanted her to, desperately. But unless Petal decided that she could trust him, they could never have a relationship. He needed her to believe fully and completely that he wasn’t dangerous to her. And that was something only she could decide. It was something that would take time, and that she would have to think long and hard about before—
The door closed behind him and Petal kicked her shoes off.
Or not.
“Nice place.”
He smiled. “That didn’t take long. What made you so positive, if you don’t mind me asking?”