by Jayne Hawke
“We should talk about your stalker,” he whispered in my ear.
I sighed and tossed the necklace to Castor for him to handle.
“What about them? They like sending threatening notes,” I said.
Elijah gently stroked my cheek.
“I don’t want to see you hurt. You know as well as I do that if the wider community finds out who you really are, what you really are, you’ll have everyone coming for you. The witches will hunt you for killing your coven and want to steal your magic. The fae will want to control and/or kill you. And the gods only know what everyone else will do.”
There was good reason for my having kept it a secret for so long. That didn’t mean I wanted to discuss the stalker issue right there and then.
“He’s been quiet for over a week,” I said with a shrug.
I was painfully aware of his presence. He was watching me, he had to be. And it had to be someone with enough magic to be able to spy on our conversations. That made him incredibly dangerous. Not just to me, but to the pack, too. The idea of the pack’s being hurt because of me didn’t sit well at all. I cared about them. Even Rex, who I was pretty sure was plotting to try and kill me in my sleep. They were my friends – more, in the case of Elijah. I’d fight to keep them safe.
“You can’t shrug this off or hide from it, Lily.”
I leaned into him and allowed myself to feel the comfort and security he offered. He wasn’t wrong.
“We don’t have any leads on who or what he is. We don’t know how he found me or what he wants. I don’t see any benefit in wallowing in the possibilities.”
“Was there anyone at all who stood out at the coven? Any possible survivors?”
The grisly scene of blood and death flashed into my mind. No one had survived that.
“No.”
“What about people who moved away prior to that night?” Liam asked.
“I wasn’t really allowed to be involved in the coven. A few guys were shipped off as studs and political bargaining chips.”
Liam raised an eyebrow.
“Male witches don’t have as much magic as female. Very rarely, there will be a guy who does, and they’re prized more than any magical artifact. Male witches are studs, business partners, and bargaining chips. Blood lines are incredibly important to witches; everyone wants the very strongest. As the guys can’t help the coven on the magical front, they have no choice but to help in other ways. It’s pretty shit, but there was nothing I could do about it.”
“Any guys stand out? Anyone who might remember you for some reason?”
I frowned. There was one. We’d spent quite a bit of time together when we were young. He’d snuck into the library to hang out with me a few times a week. When we were nine or ten, we’d sworn to always find and watch over each other.
“There was Cameron, but he wouldn’t remember me. He was the coven jewel, a ridiculously talented male witch. He was shipped off over a year before that night.”
“Cameron what?” Liam pushed.
“I don’t remember which coven bought him. I wasn’t privy to all of that.”
“I’ll start digging,” Liam said.
Cameron had been a spark of light in my otherwise grey existence. It couldn’t have been him.
“We need to look into everyone,” Elijah said softly.
I nodded and let him pull me into a warm embrace. It wasn’t just about me anymore. The entire pack couldn’t just up and leave the lives they’d built here. Exhaling slowly, I hoped that Liam’s tech skills would allow us to go on the offensive. It was time to remove the threats and the weight from around our necks.
Five
I’d been informed that it was game night for the pack. Unfortunately, the type of games they meant were video games, mostly first-person shooters. I sucked at video games, especially shooters. I could just about win driving games, but I didn’t have a chance at shooters. Elijah and Rex soon figured this out and took great pleasure in kicking my ass. Again. And again.
Jess tried to play sniper and hide in little corners no one else could find, but Liam always managed to find her. To my great shame, I tried to throw a grenade and ran the wrong direction such that I blew myself up. The pack howled in laughter at that one.
I was just sneaking up behind Rex’s character when my phone rang. I was distracted long enough for Rex to spot me and get a clean head shot. His usual cockiness was returning after the beating I’d given him in the sparring match.
It was late at night, and my work phone. Normally I’d have handed it to Castor to handle, but given he was actually doing well at the game it seemed unfair to pull him away. Stepping into the kitchen, I answered.
“Ms. Harper?”
“I’m afraid I don’t save lost cats,” I said.
“I’m sorry...?” the masculine voice asked.
“Nothing. What can I help you with?”
“I’d like to hire you. When can we meet?”
I was already in my ridiculously comfortable pyjama bottoms and my soft old t-shirt.
“Tomorrow morning, ten, do you have the address for my office?”
“Yes. I’ll be there at ten.”
“What’s your-”
He hung up before I could get his name.
“’Sup?” Liam asked.
“Can you trace a number? A potential client rang, I want to make sure they’re all good,” I said.
I’d never bothered with such a thing before, but I’d never had a potentially deadly stalker before.
“Sure.”
I handed Liam my phone and peered into the living room. Jess was doing her victory dance around the middle of the room. It looked like her sniper plan had finally worked.
“Everything ok?” Elijah asked.
“Looks like I have another client,” I preened.
“Who? What do they want?”
“No idea yet. I’m meeting him at the office tomorrow.”
“What time?”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I’m a big girl. I’ve been doing this whole hiding and kicking ass thing for years now...”
“Oh, I’m not worried about keeping you safe. I want to make sure I get my cut down in writing,” he said with a grin.
I laughed at the audacity of him. The worst thing was, we both knew I’d give him that cut.
“We’ll take my car,” Elijah said as I went to pick up my keys.
“My client, my office, my car,” I said.
He grabbed my keys.
“I’m driving then,” he said with a wicked smile.
I went to snatch the keys out of his hand, but he moved too fast. Given he had a foot on me, I didn’t have much of a chance at getting them back without crippling him. I refused to hop up and down trying.
His keys were still hanging on their hook. I’d been wondering what it would feel like to drive his pretty car. It certainly felt like it picked up well. I grabbed his keys off the hook and sprinted to the door. His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me away from the door. I slipped out of his grip and rushed to his car with him in hot pursuit. I hopped in through the open window of the sleek gold-flecked black beauty and started it with a slippery purr that gave me nearly the same liquid chill that my muscle car did. I turned it to my favourite EDM station and maxed out the volume, completing the effect.
“Race you there,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him and backing out of the space at high speed.
I saw him fiddling with the lock on my Charger and grinned triumphantly. I plotted a route in my head. The little roads that wove through the city were a shorter path to my office than the broader ones I normally took my car down, and I was pretty sure the cornering on his machine would let me minimize the impact of the extra swerving. If he tried to follow me, he’d be left behind, I knew that from experience. If he did the smart thing and took the main roads, we’d have a real race on our hands.
I swept down a long, narrow street, relishing the sound of the tire
s sweeping onto the cobblestone and the buildings on either side reverberating with the rumble of the engine. I hardly ever got to go down these at any speed, a fact I expect the locals appreciated greatly. I swore I could hear my Charger a few streets over taking the long way, and I pushed his engine harder to compensate.
I passed through a series of switchbacks that seemed to serve no purpose beyond giving the road character, since the route was pancake flat and there was nothing in the space between them but ugly fae thorn bushes so full of poison magic that they would probably paralyze the car itself if they pricked the paint. I felt the ass end try to slip and went with it, drifting a foot or two on each turn and maintaining speed.
By the time I made it to the main drag that would take us to my office, I saw Elijah turning onto the same road 200m back. I gave him the finger out the window as I slammed on the accelerator, laughing like a madwoman as I swept down the last mile and relished my lead. He was coming up behind me fast, too fast, and I struggled with the gearbox trying to get another few horsepower. Foot by foot he approached, the top speed on my highly tuned Charger beyond the limits of his Aston Martin, until he passed me just in time to spin his way into my lot with room to spare.
He stepped out of the car looking like a god among men.
“Looks like I’ve got the better car, after all,” I said, leaning out the window with a smirk as I pulled gracefully up beside him and killed the engine.
Six
As we walked into the office, we were wrapped up in each other and laughing, the adrenaline of a close finish and the thrill of competition putting us both in a dangerous mood. We made it into the office and found ourselves making out against the door, the boundaries forgotten and the client long forgotten. I managed to stay out of my head for a long minute, revelling in him and thinking of nothing but the fun we’d be having together. By the time he broke away, we were even more out of breath than we’d been climbing out of the cars. We stayed in each other’s arms, leaning up against the wall and grinning at each other.
“Seriously, EDM at this time of day? Who listens to that?” Elijah teased, off topic but still in the moment.
“I do. It helps me wake up, which given your beta was a shit...”
Rex had made a point of heading to the sparring room at five that morning. His music rumbled throughout the house. I hadn’t been awake enough to form a noise cancelling spell, and it hadn’t really felt safe to do so. False silence meant one less cue if an attacker showed up. The grin on his sweaty face when I’d stumbled into the kitchen muttering every curse I knew hadn’t improved my mood any.
“You have to give a little,” Elijah said, his tone changing as he remembered the bigger picture.
I could feel his gaze on me. He wasn’t talking about the music. As much as the pack was fun, I hadn’t really allowed myself to integrate into their rituals and customs the way I probably could have. It wasn’t as if I was refusing. They’d kicked my ass at video games, after all.
We sat on my desk, close but not too close. He put his hand on my thigh.
“We’re not your coven. We care about you. Anyway, we don’t even know any goddesses.”
I laughed and put my hand briefly on his.
“It’s not like I can flip a switch and become social and chill. I grew up being ostracised, it takes time to get over things like that.”
“Let us help,” Elijah said.
“I don’t know how. I’m doing my best.”
He gently caressed my cheek.
“I’ll be right here when you’re ready. For anything.”
I leaned in and kissed him. I was shooting for gentle, affectionate, and comforting. I ended up far harder and more aggressive. We pulled away from each other with smiles.
We had a few minutes to get ourselves back into professional order, as much an emotional process as anything.
“What do we know?” Elijah asked as he started making coffee.
That was his third cup of strong coffee that morning. His blood must have been pure caffeine by the end of each day.
“Not much. Male. Weird accent.”
Elijah wrinkled his nose.
“I don’t like working with outsiders. It can be more difficult to dig up dirt on them.”
I didn’t approach clients the way the pack seemed to. They dug into who and what their client was while they did the job they were hired to do.
“You never know when you might need some dirt on someone. It helps encourage them to pay on time,” Elijah said.
He wasn’t wrong; it just hadn’t crossed my mind to do it. Partly because it was just me and Castor, and neither of us were all that great with tech. Asking around would get us somewhere, but it’d quickly become costly. Nothing was free, after all.
A knock came from the door. Elijah went to walk towards the door, but I glared at him. It was my office and my client. I wasn’t having the client think otherwise.
“I thought only shifters were that territorial,” Elijah said as I strode past him.
I ignored him and plastered a polite smile on my face as I opened the door. An olive-skinned man with pure-black hair and golden-brown eyes was standing waiting for me. He was almost a head shorter than Elijah, but power rippled beneath his skin. His magic pinged something in the back of my mind.
“I’m Lily, and you are?” I asked as I held out my hand.
“Seth. We agreed to meet here,” he said without taking my hand.
I stepped aside and gestured to my desk. Elijah was standing tall with his wolf shining through his eyes.
Seth walked with the practised grace and power of a feline shifter. He didn’t make a sound as he moved efficiently and sat down in the chair opposite my desk. He hadn’t so much as glanced at Elijah. Given the glare Elijah was giving at the back of Seth’s head, he didn’t appreciate being ignored so thoroughly.
“Would you like something to drink?” I asked.
“No, thank you.”
Seth spoke with clipped efficiency in an accent I couldn’t place. It certainly wasn’t from anywhere in the Fae Isles.
I opened up my laptop with his file, currently empty, on my screen.
“And how can I help you?”
“Someone stole something very valuable. I need it back.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need a lot more details than that.”
He sat very still as he looked into my eyes unblinkingly. I was unfazed by the feline gesture, but I was increasingly curious to know exactly what type of shifter he was. There was a distinct feeling of magic running through him. Shifters didn’t wield magic.
Finally, he exhaled slowly and relaxed back into the chair. Elijah came and stood at my side, his hand on the back of my chair. I wanted to poke him in the ribs and tell him to back down. I resisted, as I wanted to appear professional.
“I’m a jaguar guardian. Someone has stolen a god artifact.”
Seven
“Lily, a word?” Elijah rumbled.
Not wanting to cause a fuss in front of the client I stood and followed him out into the hallway.
“A jaguar guardian and a god artifact? Do you have any idea how dangerous those two things are?”
I crossed my arms.
“I don’t see a problem.”
He shook his head.
“Jaguar guardians are a branch of jaguar shifters created by a goddess a very long time ago. They protect the most dangerous of the god artifacts. They’re incredible warriors, and they wield magic. If someone, or something, managed to steal whatever it was from him, we’re in over our heads.”
“No, you are in over your head.”
He growled and paced back and forth.
“This isn’t the time to be arrogant.”
“I’m not being arrogant. We have no idea what happened, or what the artifact is. You’re overreacting.”
Elijah rolled his jaw.
“Fine.”
We returned to my desk. Elijah stood next to me with his arms crossed look
ing pissed off.
“If you could tell us exactly what happened and what we’re looking for,” I said.
Seth’s hands clenched and unclenched for a moment.
“It appears to be a clay pot, however it contains a storm from the god Huracan. I’m unsure exactly what happened. There were a large group of them, and I was clearly betrayed by someone close to me as only a small handful of people knew where to find said pot.”
A storm didn’t sound so bad.
“Why should we be worrying a storm?” I asked.
Seth cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Huracan is the god of storms. This storm would be classified as a category five with expected winds of over two hundred miles an hour.”
Well shit. A storm like that could wipe out the entire Isles.
“A group of jaguar guardians, or...?” Elijah asked.
“No. Well, I believe there was one guardian involved. It happened very fast. I was overwhelmed. It was clearly something they had planned for a long time, as they knew my weaknesses.”
“And what makes you think this pot is on the Isles?” I asked.
“I tracked it this far, but I lost it. Having never stepped foot here before, I have no contacts.”
Well, that made sense.
“What happens if we don’t find it? What is our timeline?” Elijah asked.
Seth raised his eyes to Elijah.
“The storm would wipe out your Isles. Perhaps your fae royalty are more powerful than I think and they’ll be able to salvage something, but it’s unlikely.”
“Is that all?” Elijah said mildly.
To Seth’s credit, his expression remained nonplussed. How old was he, anyway?
“What can you tell us about the jaguar guardians? You said they might be involved,” I asked.
“The youngest of our kind is three millennia old. We were created as warriors and guardians by a now-fallen goddess.”
“So, we’re looking for something that can take down a very experienced warrior?” Elijah asked as he looked at me.
“Yes.”
“If your goddess is fallen, can’t you ask her to help?” I asked.