by Cecy Robson
Three-story buildings, adorned with stone steps that lead to wraparound porches with stout granite pillars and outdoor fireplaces, line each row. The landscaping is subtle, not that it needs much. A few shrubs here, a tree there, and sculptures made from boulders and petrified wood strewn in between. Just as the vamps have their share of wealth so do the weres, and they’re not afraid to shine a spotlight on all they’ve accrued throughout the centuries.
Ordinarily, there aren’t many cars lining the streets. The majority of residents park in the underground garages that double as reinforced bunkers in case of an invasion. Tonight, a parade of Hummer limos and high-end cars that must have had a bitch of a time burning rubber up the steep mountain path hug the curb, their presence showcasing just how many have gathered seeking protection and adding to the heaviness drifting in the cool night air.
Gemini parks behind a familiar limo with BYTEME plates. “Are we late?” I ask, stepping out.
“Looks that way,” he answers, glancing up toward the center building. “Emme, come with us and stay to my right.”
Ordinarily, Gemini and I walk into the Den grounds holding hands. It’s something he prefers since he claimed me to remind others who I am to him. He doesn’t like how the stares of males, and sometimes females, linger on my face and body. And with everything that’s happening, I also think he worries about who may try to harm me in an attempt to hurt him.
“It’s all right,” Emme says, shutting the door. “I don’t mind walking behind you.”
No, she doesn’t, which is why Emme is the sweetest person who’s ever walked the earth. She never wants to be perceived as intrusive, nor does she need to be coddled. She is, however, non-too confident in her getup and likely wants to run and hide.
She yanks up the waistband of her sweatpants, creating a bulge along her midsection and fanning out the borrowed long-sleeved T-shirt she’s wearing. I think she was trying to improve her appearance, only now her slight frame has an odd shape, similar to Tweedledee and Tweedledum, only way cuter.
I think.
Her nose crinkles when she lifts her sleeve and she takes a whiff. God bless her. Honolulu Sunshine cleaned off our hands and her face, but the scent of entrails lingers and her hair is well, “crunchy”.
A deep growl has her jumping and me whipping around with my firing arm out. Blue and white flames ribbon around the length of my arm, sending sparks to trickle against and char the sidewalk. The knuckles of my left hand cracks, my lightning ready to nail whatever threatens us, if my fire doesn’t burn it to ash first.
“Gemini,” I say, widening my stance as I look around.
“It’s all right,” he murmurs.
Regardless of what he claims, the muscles along his back stretch, threatening to split his shirt in half and allow his twin wolf to leap out. He scowls, looking up, the intensity in his stare rivaling the heat in my arm.
From the roof a brown wolf leaps like liquid fur, landing before us with his haunches raised and his gums peeling back from his jowls.
My arm shuts off, recognizing Bren long before I do. “What the hell is your problem?” I ask.
I glance around, certain he must be growling at another wolf behind us. But the only one behind me is Emme.
She averts her gaze. “No,” she whispers.
“No what?” I question.
“She’s not speaking to you,” Gemini answers. He sidesteps in front of Bren, keeping him from Emme. “She’s not hurt and she won’t be. You have my word I’ll keep her safe.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Bren tends to be protective of me and my sisters, especially Emme. He probably scents the vampire blood still soaking her body and is stressed about what happened to her.
I step forward only to startle when he snaps his fangs.
“Not tonight,” Gemini fires back, his voice as deep as the growls Bren greets us with. “She needs space and we need to get inside.”
I don’t see Bren move, his motions too quick. Gemini does, shoving his body between him and Emme when Bren lunges to the right.
“Bren,” Gemini snaps. “We need to portray a united front. I’m going to ask you one more time to keep your distance from her. If you don’t, the Pack won’t allow you anywhere near her.”
Emme wrings her hands. “Bren, go,” she says, her expression breaking. “We’ll talk later.”
It’s not Gemini’s threat that makes Bren back down, it’s the way Emme appears to splinter. As I watch, I can sense pieces of her fall away like shards from a once glorious piece of crystal.
Bren’s growls fade away, and from one moment to the next, he’s gone.
“What was that?” I ask, turning to Emme.
It takes her too long to answer. “He doesn’t want me hunting.”
That’s nothing new. Like I said, Bren has always been protective. But this wave of protectiveness isn’t directed at me, or Shayna, or Celia. Not this time. This time, it’s all about Emme.
“No, he doesn’t. But that’s not why he’s pissed.” I take in her demeanor and how she seems to pull away. “Emme, what’s going on?”
Emme meets my face, saying nothing all the while appearing to hold too much back.
“Just tell me,” I say.
Gemini’s fingers trail to my lower back. “Now isn’t the time,” he says, the way he grips my hip giving away the severity of the situation despite his gentle hold. “A lot is happening between the weres and how Emme is perceived,” he explains. “It’s firing Bren’s defensive nature.”
He focuses on Emme. “I need you to stay beside me,” he tells her. “And you’re not to leave with another male unless it’s me, Aric, or Koda. Females are fine, but not other males. Am I clear?”
It’s often hard for me to keep my trap shut. This is one of those moments, and if it weren’t for how Emme seems to withdraw further, I would be demanding a lot more than I’m getting.
“All right,” Emme agrees just above a whisper.
“Let’s go,” he says.
I glance at him, hoping he’ll give me a clue to what’s happening. He keeps his stare ahead. He’s trying to keep Emme from appearing alone and vulnerable. I know that much. Except there’s more to it based on Bren going all animal.
Two weres in human form guard the double front doors leading into the main building. I recognize them from last year’s graduating class. They nod to Gemini and open the doors, allowing us through. The viciousness in their deep-set eyes alert me of their anger and how they’re prepared to maul anything that tries to get past them.
But the way they regard Emme is entirely different.
I was already tense, but all this heaviness soiling the air is doing little to soothe me and Sparky. I mutter a curse when she starts to quiver. Gemini reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out my gloves.
“Here, take these.”
“I’m not trying to hide who you are,” he adds when I reach for them slowly. “But I am trying to keep as much attention off you as I can.”
“All right,” I say, realizing he only means to keep me safe.
We pass through the large foyer and continue down a long corridor paneled in dark wood, our steps the only noise in what should be a building busting with activity and magic.
I tug on my gloves as we walk, stretching my fingers through them. “I didn’t know you had them.”
His focus locks onto the entrance to the ballroom ahead. “I found them when I first entered the alley. They slipped my mind when I saw the situation you were in.”
“I had it under control.”
He looks at me.
“Well, I did,” I mumble.
“With that logic so did Emme,” he says, jerking his head in her direction. “And we see and smell where that led her.”
“You can smell me?” she asks.
She could smell herself when she pressed her sleeve against her nose, and likely reasoned it was only because she’s close to the source. Personally, all I smell is Honolulu Sunshine
, having lathered it on her like she was covered with bile, because hey, she sure as hell was.
I glance at Gemini, knowing his nose scents a lot more than my sanitizer.
“My apologies Emme,” he says.
Emme’s panic-riddled features whip my way. I know what she’s thinking, the room is going to be packed with supernatural noses. They’ll scent her, and see her, and good Lord, no wonder he wants her so close to him. He’s the best line of defense she has.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, in true pa-shaw fashion, lying through my damn teeth.
She covers her face. “Yes, it is,” she moans.
The doors part ahead of us. I think it’s some spell. I don’t know the extent until we close in.
I don’t see the weres, not at first. Their appearance slowly taking shape as I near, starting with the blurry images of their outlines seconds before their large shapes fill in.
Two hulking men wait on either side of the door, wolves the size of buffalo standing guard at their sides. They scowl when they see us. However, it takes the gray wolf with smooth dark fur sneezing and thrusting her tongue in disgust to make me realize they’re not exactly angry.
Like the weres at the front doors, they smell Emme, and like them, they don’t think my hand sanitizer did the trick. If anything, it’s like all the glop she was doused in is burning its way through their snouts.
“Is it that bad?” I whisper.
“No,” Gemini answers.
He’s lying. Obviously.
I stop in the doorway. The massive room, surrounded with floor to ceiling windows that unveil a sky littered with stars, appears to be under construction. Several tools, ladders, and piles of lumber are strewn haphazardly across the large expanse and the skeletal remains of broken furniture rest against the far walls.
“Keep walking,” Gemini says.
I do, my eyes widening as the piles of lumber and remnants of construction vanish, and a large group of supernaturals slowly come into view.
The room has been disguised and altered with a cloaking spell. A formam mutatio spell if memory serves. Anyone who manages to get through the wards and guards will only see a room in the process of being fixed, not the magical muscle hidden within it.
Yet once we’re in, the magical muscles collectively flex, tracing like points from an arsenal of daggers across my skin, not enough to hurt, just enough to show me how easily they could puncture my flesh.
Uri, Misha’s master is close, as are the Pack Elders, and Misha himself. I feel them. Genevieve, Tahoe’s Head Witch, is here, too. Her magic like the others is strong enough to drip like warm blood against my skin. But even if I couldn’t feel her power, I’d know she was here. No one else could have cast a spell of this magnitude so quickly.
Some of her coven linger just a few feet away, huddled closely and speaking in hushed voices. I nod as I pass them, trying to be polite. Ordinarily I’d stop and chat. But these are extraordinary circumstances and no one is in the mood for friendly conversation.
Seated at a large granite table along a raised platform are Celia and the Pack Elders. Aric stands directly behind Celia, his arms crossed and his expression as dark as the five o’clock shadow lining his jaw. Celia is saying something I don’t quite hear, and she doesn’t quite finish. She and Aric turn in our direction, their eyes widening when they fix on Emme.
A cluster of weres and witches loitering beside an elaborate buffet quiet as we near. I assume it’s because Gemini has arrived or because they sense my magic. It’s not until we’re almost to them that I realize they barely notice us. Oh, no, they’re attention is all on Emme.
The weres lower their plates stacked with prime rib, fruits, and bread as we reach them. The witches mostly clasp their mouths, their faces blanching. It’s bad enough Emme looks like a hot mess. She reeks of one, too.
Witches have a way of sensing suffering and death, and likely sense all the damage Emme inflicted on the vampires. The weres sense more than that, their noses wrinkling, and more than a few walking away and leaving their food behind.
“Oh, God,” Emme squeaks, covering her face.
“It’s not you, it’s them,” I say.
I look to Gemini who regards me as if I’m crazy. “Isn’t it, love?” I ask through my teeth.
“Yes,” he mumbles. “Of course.”
Damn, he’s a terrible liar when it counts.
The wall of bodies ahead of us, some more or less human, others in beast form, part, giving us ample space as we make our way toward the raised platform where Celia appears worried and Aric is close to losing his cool. I’ll give us this, we know how to make an entrance.
And so does Destiny.
A spray of black, white, and hot pink feathers pop up over a crowd of very uncomfortable looking witches. The witches spread out, their medieval, crushed velvet gowns elegant and lovely, the exact opposite of the little number Destiny is sporting.
Oh, and when I say “little”, I’m lying.
Picture a zebra pantsuit, as painful as it sounds, and throw in a pair of polka dot hot pink boots. I know what you’re thinking, they don’t make that shit. I’m sure “they” don’t. Destiny, being the little creative stinker she is, must have dropped a few grand on the boots only to staple black leather circles to them. Don’t believe me? I can see the staples from here, fixed to the center of the dots so the edges flap like birds with broken wings as she races toward me.
She hangs tight to the pink cowboy hat on her head, the spray of feathers on the front fanning out like a giant turkey’s ass.
“Taran!” she says, waving madly with her free hand. “You didn’t get eaten!”
I point at her and make this clicking sound with my tongue. “Not yet, girl.”
She throws her arms around me. “It’s great to see you, and Celia, oh, and Shayna, too.” She hooks a thumb. “Shayna is outside,” she says, dropping her voice. “But I’m afraid she and Koda are fighting. Something about a vampire head, and finding her standing over the vampire’s writhing body.” She thinks about it. “Or was she writhing and the vamp’s body standing?” She shrugs. “I couldn’t hear well over his growls.”
“Yeah, ah, rough night,” I say, glancing at Gemini who is unusually quiet.
His stare is intense and glancing ahead to where Aric appears to be arguing with the Elders. I can’t hear what’s being said, but we both see enough to know Aric isn’t happy.
“Where’s Emme?” Destiny asks, looking past me.
I turn to where Emme is standing directly behind me. She offers Destiny a wave. “Hi, Destiny,” she says. “It’s nice to see you.”
Destiny, bless her fashion faux pas heart, keeps her smile. “Wow. Look at you,” she says. “I’d hug you, but I don’t want to get anything on my new outfit.”
“I’ll bet,” I say.
Her smile softens. For what has to be the second time since I’ve known her, I get a peek at the human beneath all that crazy persona. “I really want to thank you, for stepping up and having my back. It means a lot.”
Gemini and I exchange glances. Like me, he doesn’t seem to know what the hell she’s talking about.
That’s when the crazy persona that is Destiny returns with a vengeance. “Haven’t you heard?” she squeals, jumping up and down and clapping. “You’re my new bodyguard.”
Chapter Six
I pat her shoulder, trying to reassure her and hoping not to piss her off. That brain zapping thing she does is for real, peeps, and I’m not going through it again. “I’m sorry, but I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“No.”
I smile. At least I try to. It’s hard to smile with the amount of zebra stripes currently blinding me, and because something, a really bad something, makes me think she’s telling the truth.
“That’s not possible,” Gemini says, his voice trailing as Aric and Celia approach.
Both of Celia’s hands are wrapped around Aric’s arm and she’s leaning close to h
im. It’s something she always does when he’s close to losing it. Awesome.
Aric’s tight stare shifts to Uri, Misha’s maker and the granddaddy of all master vamps.
I’d noticed his presence when we walked in, you can’t not notice power that potent. But I’m not a fan of Uri, and didn’t bother to seek him out. I do now, mostly because Aric makes it a point to check on him.
Uri is seated a few rows down from where we wait. He’s infamous for three things: his strength, the array of young, studly, and shirtless men always at his side, and his capes. That’s right, capes. Money and influence evidently affords you the right to dress any way you damn well please. Tonight his cape, a deep green one with speckled fur along the collar is draped over the chair.
Genevieve bends in front of him, tending to his face similar to a makeup artist applying the finishing touches to a Broadway star set to take the stage. It’s not until he turns to the side that I realize Uri’s face is covered with holes!
They’re oozing, burrowing deep into the muscle and partially exposing his skull. “Jesus,” I rasp, my shock and disgust forcing me to take a step back.
“He’s had a bad night, too,” Destiny says, her voice sad.
She must have a better relationship with Uri than the rest of us. Celia can’t stand him, writing him off as a cold, cruel leader, and master manipulator. “Misha is getting too powerful,” she told me in a whisper. “It won’t be long before Uri tries to kill him so he can take that power for himself.”
I agreed, and it scared me senseless. Misha is Celia’s friend. If Uri goes after Misha, Celia will rise to protect him.
Since I first met Uri, an inner voice warned me to stay clear. Despite those stupid capes he flaunts like his young lovers, he emits danger like a coiled cobra. I’m not afraid of him. I’m just aware that snake can strike, and if he does, especially against my family, so will I.
The young men Uri feeds from stroke him lightly, speaking words of adoration. The one closest to me is crying those thick awful tears that form when your soul is falling away in pieces. All of Uri’s lovers are like that, completely enamored with him, desperate for his attention however piddly.