by Kristie Cook
Everett rubbed the back of his neck, then gestured toward the bar. “Um … I think I’ll get Graysin a drink.”
I chuckled as he hurried off toward the far side of the room. “I don’t think that was quite the pleasure of meeting you he’d expected.”
Mammie giggled. “It was certainly a pleasure for me. That man has quite the ass.”
“Maybe you should go back to giving the kitchen staff hell,” Michaela muttered.
Madame Luiza’s image disappeared before Michaela could admonish her any further, and a few nearby hotel guests gasped. Murmurs scattered across the room, asking who else had seen the ghost.
Turning to face me, Michaela rested her arms on my shoulders. “So everything looks good? Do you think separating our personal guests at different tables is okay? I was going to sit us all at one big table, but then I thought the inn’s guests might feel left out, so—”
“I’m probably not the best person to ask these things, but it looks perfect to me.” I leaned in and gave her a kiss. “Stop worrying so much. Try to enjoy yourself. You worked hard for this.”
She pushed up on her toes and gave me another kiss, this one longer. Just as our lips parted, she pulled away. “I should probably go mingle before I convince you to leave early. Which wouldn’t be cool, considering I’m the hostess.”
I grasped her chin and stroked my thumb over her lips. “Let me know if you need anything at all.”
“I think we have it under control. Sindi is seriously a godsend. I’d better go check on the kitchen, though, before Mammie makes them all quit.”
According to my untrained eye, the feast went off without a hitch. Which was saying a lot, considering the mix of guests. Rusty, a wolf, and his mate, Sherry, a human, had come for dinner after a small food disaster at their cabin, and sat with Savannah Bast, who was the high school’s new history teacher and something not human that I couldn’t pinpoint. At another table sat Elias, a fallen angel who’d lent a helping hand with some of the inn’s work; Addie, the witch; Tase, the vampire and the only other Roca in attendance; Everett and Graysin, the gargoyles; and Callie, a gypsy demon. I had to give it to Everett for putting up with my brother. The McCabe construction crew, a mix of species, were scattered across a couple of tables, except for Mike and Anne. The mountain lion shifters sat with Michaela, the kids, Sindi, and me—aka, the vampire family. Even Aurelia was on her best behavior.
As we finished dessert, though, it quickly fell apart.
Most of the inn’s guests had already left for an evening stroll around town or to their rooms. As the last ones trailed out, including a high-school-aged girl who was staying with her parents, something about the way Gabe watched her go caught my attention. It could have been normal adolescent hormones … or it could have been something more sinister.
He suddenly jumped up from the table. “Can I go?”
Michaela motioned toward his untouched pie. “You don’t want to finish your dessert?”
He made a rude face. “I don’t like pecan pie.”
“Well, you can still sit here a little longer with our guests,” Michaela said firmly, giving him the mom-eye. She was already learning to perfect it.
She was a lot better at this parenting stuff than I was. Of course, she’d had better role models, and her charges were younger. Andrei and Aurora were a lot closer to eighteen and had pretty much been on their own long before our parents died. As long as I could get Andrei to finish school this year, I was counting it as a win.
“I’m done, and I’m bored,” Gabe argued. “These are your friends, not mine!”
“Gabe,” Michaela started.
He ran off before she could say anything else. She huffed in exasperation, and Tase and I stood at the same time.
“Let me,” Tase said, glancing from me to Michaela. “It’s what family does, right?”
I cocked my head at the bizarre statement coming from him, of all people, to her, of all people—I knew full well he’d never consider the Petrans family. But Michaela simply nodded, distracted by her buzzing phone—the special one, from the Court. Addie picked hers up at the same time.
Tase strode out the same way Gabe left, while Addie and Michaela both jumped up, exchanging a look before Addie whispered, “Harper,” and ran toward the front door.
“I’m sorry,” Michaela said to her guests. She spoke quietly, probably to avoid scaring any of the inn’s guests still lingering. “We have a town emergency. I have to go. You should all probably get home quickly. Everett and Graysin, you might be needed.”
“We’ll be at my place on standby,” Everett said as he took Graysin’s hand.
Just as they all left and Michaela was on her way out the front door, a muffled scream sounded from behind the inn. She looked at me with wide eyes.
“Go,” I said. “I’ll check it out. You do what you need to do.”
She hurried over and gave me a quick kiss before running out.
Glad to have an excuse to follow Tase, I went the opposite way, crossing the dining room in a handful of strides and exiting through a set of French doors, into the night. My eyes scanned the rear lawn and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but my ears caught a commotion behind the cottages and my nose smelled blood.
“You let it get out of hand,” Tase’s voice growled as I approached.
I jogged around the corner to find Gabe and Tase standing over an unconscious girl, Tase handing Gabe a small package.
“What the fuck, Tase? You bled her out?” I demanded, dropping down to check on the girl. Her pulse beat steadily. Only a small amount of blood stained the snow.
“No. I knocked her out so I wouldn’t want to kill her,” Tase bit out. “A little of our blood and glamour, and she’ll be no worse for the wear.”
“God damn it. This isn’t cool.” Standing, I looked at Gabe and the small package he held—displaying a logo I was quite familiar with. My gaze bounced to Tase, then back to Gabe. “What the hell’s going on?”
“You need to turn around and walk away,” Tase said quietly, but firmly. “You don’t want to get pulled into this.”
“Hell no! What are you doing?” I snatched the package out of Gabe’s hand. The logo of Circle J, Adrian’s pot dispensary, was emblazoned on it. “Edibles? You’re giving a twelve-year-old edibles?”
“I’m giving a vampire trying to control his bloodlust edibles,” he snapped. My brow shot up. Tase sighed. “Seriously, you should go.”
I stood my ground. “No, you should really start explaining what the hell is going on. Does Michaela know about this?”
“No!” Gabe shouted. “She can’t know.”
I shoved my finger in Tase’s chest. “Explain yourself. Now.”
He shook his head slowly. “I tried to warn you. I didn’t want to put you in this position, but if you insist … Gabe’s struggling. He’s only keeping it together because of the cannabis.”
My head snapped toward Gabe. “What do you mean, you’re struggling?”
“The cravings … they’re hard to control. It’s getting worse.” He motioned toward the body on the ground. “It was like her blood begged me to drink it. But the cookies and brownies help. They’re the only things that help.”
“Fuck,” I whispered, pushing a hand through my hair. “Why didn’t you tell your sister?”
“She can’t know! She’s on the Court. She’ll tell them. Then they’ll make me stay at the Academy.”
“You obviously need to. Why didn’t you at least come to me?”
“Because you’ll tell Michaela. So would Sindi.”
“That’s why he came to me,” Tase said. “He knew I’d help without burdening either of you or causing problems between the two of you.”
“You can’t tell her,” Gabe pleaded. “Please, Xandru. Just let me learn to control it.”
I threw my arms out, toward the girl. “But you’re not!”
Tase shifted on his feet. “Yeah, well, that’s my fault. He ran out, and
I didn’t give him more.”
“Yeah, because you want the stupid watch,” Gabe accused.
“Excuse me?” I said.
Gabe ignored me. “You know what? You can have the dumb thing. It’s not worth it. Then I won’t need your stupid cookies, either. If Xandru promises not to tell Michaela about this, I’ll tell you where it is.”
Tase and I both stared at Gabe. Was this little shit really giving the two of us ultimatums? I wasn’t sure if I was more pissed or impressed at the size of his balls.
“You found it? You know where it is?” Tase finally asked, and shock replaced both pissed and impressed. Because he sounded excited.
“Of course! What do you think did this to me? It’s because of that dumb watch that I attacked Michaela. It made us wreck, almost killed Aurelia. And now my life is ruined! You can have it. I hate that thing!”
He shouted loudly enough to cause lights to blink on and a wolf to howl in the distance.
“Lower your voice,” I said through a clenched jaw. “The last thing we need is Rusty or one of the Kasuns to show up.”
“So where is it?” Tase’s tone was both cautious and demanding at once.
“I buried it. But it doesn’t matter. I can still hear it.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“It speaks to me,” he said, his voice haunted. “It tells me what to do to be strong and powerful. To be better than everyone. But its words are … evil.” He lurched toward Tase and grasped his hands, begging. “Please, just take it away. Far away, Tase. Promise me you will if I tell you where it is.”
What the hell? Michaela hadn’t said anything to me about the timepiece being dark. Just that it was old and possibly valuable. Were we talking about the same thing?
“I swear on my mother’s grave,” Tase vowed, and I knew that tone—I could practically hear him doing the cha-ching sound in his head. Yeah, we were talking about the same thing. Gabe was just a kid, who’d probably freaked himself out with some made-up stories about the old watch.
The kid looked at me. “And you promise not to tell Michaela?”
I glared at him. For once I knew the best parenting move to make, except he wasn’t my kid to parent.
“Xandru, please?” he begged.
I dropped my hands to my hips. “I promise I won’t tell Michaela … as long as you do.”
“Xandru,” the boy wailed.
“It’s the grown-up thing to do,” I said. “If you don’t want the Court treating you like a baby vamp, then step up and be a man when it counts.”
He scowled.
“Look,” I said, “tell us where the watch is, and I’ll give you one week to get yourself under control and come clean with your sister about the edibles. That’s my final offer. Deal?”
Gabe groaned. “All right, fine. Deal.”
“One week,” I said again. “I’m serious. If you don’t tell Michaela or if you don’t get better, I will tell her. And you better be upfront with me about how you’re doing.”
He nodded so hard, I thought his head might bounce right off his neck.
I turned to Tase, an uneasy feeling crawling down my spine at the thought of letting him retrieve the heirloom. The kid had to be imagining the evil voices. Right? Blowing things out of proportion? On the other hand, Tase smuggled artifacts, and he seemed especially interested in this one, because of its value. Which meant it might have held some kind of power.
“What do you want with it?” I asked my brother.
“I’m sure you already know.” He held his hands up. “I want nothing to do with any power it might have. This is the last piece, Xan. It’s what I’ve been needing to finish the job. It’ll set us all up, and then I can be done with what we talked about. I swear.”
“It’s their family’s, though, so the money goes to—” I cut myself off as realization dawned on me.
“I prepaid her,” Tase said. “Handsomely.”
Son of a fucking bitch.
This was the real reason Tase had paid off the inn’s mortgages and covered all the renovation costs. He’d even paid for furniture and fancy throw pillows. All as a cover so he could gain access to the inn and claim ownership of this timepiece. I’d known all along there had to have been an ulterior motive.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I growled through a clenched jaw.
“So we’re doing this?” he asked.
My head fell back, and I stared at the sky as thick snowflakes swirled downward. To be fair to Tase, he’d shelled out nearly two hundred grand for the inn’s mortgages and renovations. I knew Michaela had been searching for the timepiece, but she’d given up a while ago, believing it was long lost. She might have let Tase have the thing, if he’d been upfront with her. But if it was truly hurting her brother, then maybe it was best she continued to believe it unrecoverable. And if Tase could extract himself from the business with the Bishops, that would be good for all of us, including her.
But I sure as fuck hated keeping another secret from the woman who trusted me more than anyone. The woman I planned to make my wife one day soon.
I sighed, my breath pluming out like smoke as I lowered my head.
“Go get the watch and meet me at home. We’ll discuss the rest later.” I looked down at the tourist girl. “Gabe and I will take care of her.”
“I got this, bro,” Tase promised me.
He glanced at the girl, and the slight glow of green in his eyes didn’t make me feel any better. I had to rely on his greed—and possibly that he actually did want to be a good dad—to overcome whatever power the timepiece might possibly possess. I gave him a shove to send him on his way.
After he jogged off, I turned to Gabe. “So, are you ready to heal your first victim?”
“Will you teach me how to compel her, too?” he asked excitedly.
I snorted. “Not on your life. I’d say you have a few years before you get to learn that power.”
Chapter 15
Michaela
I didn’t have to worry about nightmares after Thanksgiving—I didn’t have time to sleep. Snowfall after snowfall had Tase opening the slopes early, and then the visitors’ bureau hauled in the tourists by the busloads. Holiday events filled up the calendar, including the Cold Moon Ball.
And then Heidi Bennett went missing.
This was when I discovered just how hard the Court worked at keeping things hidden from the public. I’d already learned about the sirens and how the Court gave them names of men who deserved death sentences, such as the recently demised Dr. Nance, and nobody else in town had a clue. I’d helped with disaster recovery at the homecoming dance and altering teens’ memories (a tool certain Court members, like Roman Bishop, liked to abuse, in my personal opinion and experience). The battle on Thanksgiving night between angels and demons had been relatively easy to keep quiet, since it involved only a handful of people and had been contained to the other side of the mountain.
But when a teenage girl disappeared in the woods the night of one of the largest parties in town, people noticed. And they talked. Especially the high schoolers. Aurelia pretended not to be bothered, but I could smell the fear on her. What if she was next? Parents all over town wondered the same thing about their own kids. Before worry could escalate to widespread panic, the Court soothed everyone by having Sheriff Kasun deliver a public story that his men were investigating, but all initial evidence and firsthand accounts pointed to the belief that Heidi had run away.
That wasn’t true, though. We had her phone—stained with blood. A child harmed, possibly killed, by a supernatural was the Court’s worst nightmare. We quietly formed and executed a search party of supes, and we scoured the woods surrounding the entire town two nights in a row. We’d found nothing so far. We fed the public the runaway story while continuing a secret investigation, questioning all possible suspects.
“School’s about to let out, so we’ll be over to the inn to question Gabe,” Sheriff Ric Kasun told me on the third
day of her disappearance as we closed the second emergency Court meeting of the day. The first one had been to discuss Dr. Jared Lewis, who was expected to arrive in town this weekend and start at the medical center after the first of the year, replacing the late Dr. Nance. The second meeting had been to discuss updates on the Bennett case.
I about choked on my coffee. “I’m sorry?”
“We have to cover all our bases,” Roman said from Kasun’s side. “Question all suspects. We discussed this only minutes ago, Ms. Petran.”
“Well, I know, but he … Gabe …” I spluttered. “Why would he be a suspect?”
“From my understanding, he might be struggling with control,” Kasun said.
“What?” I nearly shouted. “He’s fine!”
Kasun pierced me with silver eyes. “Are you sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’ve been keeping an eye on him. I make sure he gets plenty of bottled blood to keep him satiated. He’s doing well in school. What makes you think he has control issues?”
Roman arched a dark brow and said in his arrogant, sarcastic way, “You might want to check his backpack, Ms. Petran.”
He brushed past me as he strode for the door, leaving me with my mouth gaping.
“Don’t take it personally,” Kasun said. “We’ll be questioning Atanase, as well.”
I snorted. “At least that makes sense.”
Kasun dipped his chin. “See you in a little while, Michaela.”
It took all of my control to not make a childish face at his back. I had a feeling Roman instigated this questioning of Gabe, probably in retaliation for my vote on his brother’s case last month. Kasun, of course, loved any chance he had to harass vampires. At least that was just natural instinct and not necessarily vindictive.
“You want me to curse him to smell farts the rest of the day?” Addie whispered in my ear.
I nearly spit out my coffee again. “You’d do that?”
She shrugged. “It’s one of my favorite ways to handle asshats. And Roman is the epitome of an asshat. It wouldn’t be the first time.”