by Tate James
“Should we get the rest of the cats?” Tate asks, before turning and disappearing from the room. I stay just a heartbeat longer to watch, enthralled by the music and the costumes. I don’t see Kasselin Claire anywhere, but I’m sure she’s in here.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” our guide asks, and I glance over at her briefly. She’s watching me, not the crowd. I don’t like that much. I look back up and from across the room, I catch a pair of familiar green eyes.
It takes me aback for a moment, how much I recognize that stare.
Because I most definitely do not recognize the man behind it.
As the music plays on, he works his way through the crowd toward me. He’s got an unusual hairstyle, one that I’m sure I’d remember if I’d seen it before. His hair is long, but spiked up, blonde on the top and dark on the bottom. His eyes are as green as Syxx’s, and he’s as tall as Dutch, with a spunky smile to match.
“May I have this dance?” he asks, his voice this quiet murmur, like a placid river just before a storm. It can rage, but if you ride the current now, you very well may have a smooth trip.
“I …” I start, but the way he reaches down and takes my hand, curls his fingers through mine … it’s mesmerizing. The green-eyed man pulls me into the crowd, sliding an arm around my waist and tucking me in close. I’m about to tell him I can’t dance to save my life, that I’m working a job right now, but … those thoughts flee my mind as soon as he starts to move.
They way my feet follow his steps, it’s almost unnatural. I’ve never danced like this in all my life, my blue dress swirling around my legs.
“He’s going to kill me for this,” the man murmurs, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. I’m too tongue-tied by his touch to ask. The way his fingers press into my spine, gentle but firm, I’ve never felt anything like it. Butterflies flitter in my stomach, and I feel instantly like I’ve somehow betrayed Dutch. Who is this guy? I wonder as he spins me around the dark marble floors. “You’d have looked better in green,” he whispers, leaning close to me, his subsequent chuckle ruffling the hair on top of my head.
“Is that a compliment or an insult?” I ask, because I genuinely can’t tell for the life of me.
“A girl as pretty as you?” he queries back, spinning me around and then tucking me in close to his warm body again. “You deserve only compliments. Tell me, why do you chase after men that don’t deserve you?”
“What are you talking about?” I should be creeped out that this guy seems to know things he shouldn’t know, and yet, I’m intrigued. I’m dancing with an enigma, and I can’t seem to look away.
“You know what I mean,” he continues, parading us past the orchestra, and back in the direction of the cats. When we get there, I realize that Luke, Tate, Rhythm, and Dutch are all staring at me like they’ve never seen me before.
Suddenly self-conscious, I pull myself from the man’s grip and turn.
“Who were you dancing with?” Luke asks, blinking wide eyes in my direction. I glance back over my shoulder, but … my dance partner’s already gone.
“I … don’t know,” I reply, stepping out of the way of the other dancers as Kasselin Claire herself makes her way over to us. Dutch and Rhythm are both staring at me, but I don’t know why. What does it matter if I danced with some guy at a party?
“I’m glad you’re here,” Kasselin says, her blonde hair coiffed perfectly atop her small, round head. She looks like a porcelain doll with her big, blue eyes, thin wrists, and glimmering white dress. Meanwhile, the best I could do with my pink hair was coil it on top of my head in two braids, so it wasn’t quite so obvious that the length is different on either side. “The night is short, and my guests are eager.” She claps her hands and the blue torches on the wall flicker, signaling the orchestra to stop, the dancers to slow.
Before I know it, we’re surrounded by spectators which, of course, is just fine with Dutch.
This is what he lives for.
He glances over at me, and I nod. I’m ready. For six months, I’ve been his assistant. A little weirdness during the past week doesn’t change that.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he says, sweeping off his hat and romancing the crowd. His voice is pure indulgence, meant to be listened to in short bursts. It’s too rich to consume forever, that high-class confidence and ironclad surety. “Cats are messengers between this world and the next. They were trusted by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and tonight …” He snaps his fingers and a lit candle appears in his hand. I’ve seen Dutch practice that trick for hours on end, just so he can get it right in a single instant. I must admit: it’s impressive. “We’ll put that same trust in them. If there are entities in this house, we’ll find them.”
“Oh, we’re counting on it,” Kasselin whispers, which, if you think about it, is kind of a weird thing to say.
I pass treats through the bars of the carriers, unlock the doors, and repeat the process.
When Dutch whistles, all ten cats hop out of their carriers. When he snaps his fingers, they take off, weaving between the legs of the crowd. Nobody moves to follow them. Instead, as a collective whole, it seems like the dancers step back, leaving an empty space of floor between us and them.
I wrinkle my brow when I notice the cats trotting back in our direction. Not once since I started working for Ten Cats have I seen them refuse to perform their tricks. Not once.
Dutch makes a series of clicking sounds under his breath, but the animals don’t so much as glance his way.
Instead, they form a perfect circle in the middle of the floor and sit down. All of them are facing inward, all of them are staring up at the ceiling. Just ten cats gazing at a specific spot on the roof, high above our heads.
“What the hell, Dutch?” Rhythm asks, but for once in his life, I don’t think Dutch knows any better than I do. We exchange a worried look.
I step forward, following the cats’ collective gaze.
Dutch does the same, along with Rhythm, Luke, and Tate.
A light flickers to life above us, a glow that mimics that of the orbs I’ve been seeing all week. It shimmers and dances like a candle flame … just before a head slides through the roof and stares at us with bright blue eyes.
“What the fuck?!” Rhythm shouts, just before the lights go out.
I get the briefest glimpse of white horns, and an awful smile, but the darkness obliterates that image of the upside down head completely, leaving us in this ice-cold void that used to be the ballroom.
When the lights come back on … there’s nothing but ruins around us, broken furniture, scattered bits of debris, rocks and rotten wood, winter-dead leaves.
“Um, what?” Tate whispers, her voice as shaky as the broken beams gleaming in the moonlight above our heads. Most of the ceiling is … gone.
I stare across the circle of cats and catch Dutch’s silver eyes.
I’d say he was afraid, but Dutch Wylde isn’t afraid of anything … right?
“This is some party trick,” Luke says, but it’s pretty clear he’s just about ready to piss his pants.
“What the fuck is that?” Rhythm asks, pointing at a wooden box in the center of the cats’ circle. It’s about as plain as can be, an old, rugged wooden box with a pair of doors on the front. As I watch, Rhythm and Dutch make their way over to them and pull on the little metal rings.
They don’t budge. Neither does the cabinet. It’s like it’s glued to the floor or something.
I’m too preoccupied with the fact that Claire House is in literal ruins around us. But we’ve all been in this game too long to believe that anything supernatural could ever happen. No, clearly this is a trick. A good one, but a trick nonetheless.
Even though I’m not stronger than Dutch or Rhythm, I step up and reach out for the handles on the box.
“This oughta be good,” a voice whispers from the shadows, and I glance over just in time to see Syxx staring at me from emerald eyes.
By then, it’s too late.
The doors swing open with a creak and we all step back.
Inside the box is an assortment of random items: hair bound with cord, a goblet, some pennies.
Hanging on a tiny hook on the back wall is a necklace with a dried rosebud hanging off a silver chain.
I reach out to take it … when a hand clasps around my wrist.
Silver-blue light emanates from the box, rippling across the room in a wave. A head emerges from inside, the very same head I just saw come from the ceiling, followed by a massive muscular body with huge silver wings.
“I don’t like liars and con artists,” a rumbling voice growls. The hand releases me, and the creature points a single finger first at Tate, then Luke, Rhythm, and Dutch. Red lightning crackles from his fingertip and hits them each in the forehead, burning a sigil into their skin, and sending them crashing back into the floor. “You like to play with magic, do you? Let’s see how much you enjoy having the powers you laid claim to you.”
The monster from the box turns to look at me, his blue eyes locking onto mine.
“Hello necromancer,” he says, lifting up a finger to point at me next. I scream as I feel flames etching a design into my forehead. “You, you I’ll have as my bride.”
The last thing I see before my skull cracks against the marble floor is the wicked awful smile of the Demon King.
About the Author
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HOW TO DATE A WEREWOLF… OR 3
KNOX & MIERS
Description
Frankie’s hidden from her gift of sight for as long as she can remember. Long enough that the headaches, the nightmares, and the failed relationships seem to be just her life, and not the symptoms of her true pain. She’s known among her friends as the matchmaker, but no one knows just how she manages to find the perfect man for others, when she’s been hurt so badly herself.
When death forces her to return to the idyllic, but stifling small town she grew up in, that threadbare restraint threatens to fail her completely. Cash draws her to him, and with each touch, the premonitions grow stronger, and her ability to ignore them weaker. Adam gives her the calm she needs to stay in control, but the pull of his body makes her feel anything but. Devon is the spark that welds them together and stirs a flame threatens to burn her to ashes.
Together, they’re the perfect man for a girl with runaway psychic powers to keep from going insane. If being with them all doesn’t drive her crazy.
1
I stared at my luggage, still lying on the floor at the end of the bed unpacked from the weekend before. The wedding had been beautiful, a fairytale in the Hamptons. It had made me happy for Kiersten and her new husband but made my heart ache for myself.
The groom toasted me at the wedding dinner, gave me credit for bringing them together. “Thanks to the matchmaker,” Paul said, and my face had got hot and red as everyone laughed about my so-called psychic talent. Monday and the mundane, if hectic, work of real life had been welcome. Then I got the call.
My phone buzzed in my hand for the tenth time in as many minutes. That’s the business of death, upends your life and gives you a thousand things to do. Just like a wedding. And for me, at least, with just as much heart ache.
Mammie Blue had been a part of my world for as far back as I could remember. When New York wasn’t even on my map, let alone in my dreams, Mammie had bandaged scraped knees when she sat for my mother. She’d also swatted my ass for stolen cookies from the kitchen with equal love.
Now as I stared at the open luggage sitting on my floor, spilling over with clothes fit for parties and pictures, I couldn’t make myself move to empty it. I didn’t want to take out the happiness and fill my suitcase with grief, it was already brimming over my eyelids and down my cheeks.
The phone buzzed again, and my door echoed it harshly less than a second later. “Hellfire and damnation, who is it now?” I flipped the switch on the intercom and said in a much nicer voice, “Who is it?”
“It’s Amy. I’ve tried your phone a dozen times. You’d have known it was me if you looked at it.”
“Oh. Sorry, Ames. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” I buzzed her up and unlocked my door, then went back to my room to stare at my suitcase some more. Amy would know what to take. Black, of course, but I doubted any of the little black dresses in my closet were funeral appropriate. No one in my life had ever died before. Not since Fletcher, my black lab, had passed when I was seventeen.
“I know you have a lot on your mind, girl, that’s why I brought you take out and wine,” she called a minute later as she let herself in. I could hear Amy rustling bags and clinking silverware in the kitchen but didn’t feel like eating. “Hey.” I turned, and she was standing in the bedroom doorway. “You need some help packing? I got Thai, it’ll keep for a few more minutes.”
I nodded dumbly, fresh tears stinging my eyes as her compassion made my chest feel tight again.
“I brought a couple of things too, one of them is a…” she laughed and shook her head. “Honestly, the only word I can think of is ‘matronly’ for this dress. My mother thought it looked professional.” She grinned at me and I had to smile back. Mrs. Luang had taught kindergarten for longer than Amy had been alive. She was queen in the kitchen or the craft room, but her wardrobe ran to shapeless dresses and cardigans.
“If it’s black and doesn’t scream ‘fuck me now’, it’ll be perfect.”
“You’re just lucky to have one friend as small as you are.” The banter was our usual, and even in the midst of grief, I honored the friend code and continued it.”
“At least you have boobs and an ass, Ames.”
“And at least you’ll never be as wide as you are tall, Frankie. You know the women in my family run to fat.”
I snorted, I couldn’t help it. Amy would die before she let herself gain an extra ounce. We’d been running partners for years, and it took me half that just to feel like I wasn’t going to collapse and die on the floor every time we said goodbye.
“Okay, that’s a little better. Good to see you’re still in there. Real talk now, how are you holding up?”
“Well, Mom just called to tell me…” I checked my watch, “five hours ago that her best friend and self-proclaimed adopted mom died suddenly of a stroke.” I sniffled and kicked my luggage. “I was fine right up until I got home and realized I had to pack for a funeral, where I’d watch my nana get put in the ground.”
She put her arms around me and let me cry into her shoulder for a few minutes without saying a word. “Well, you don’t have to go alone, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you have no car, and you just paid your way to an expensive wedding in the Hamptons. Unless you’ve been making extra money somewhere, that hit you as hard as it did me.”
“Yeah, I might have gone overboard on the gift.”
“Only by a couple hundred dollars. Obviously, you were overcompensating for your own canceled wedding. No big deal.”
I sat on in the middle of the bed cross-legged. “God. Get to the point, Ames, you’re killing me here.”
“I have a car. It’s a long-ass drive, but a helluva lot cheaper than flying. And Kate’s already offered to come too. She wants to meet your parents, and with three of us driving, we’ll make good time and not be exhausted when we get there.”
She was wearing the face that said I had no chance of winning an argument. I still tried, but I knew I’d lost already. Five minutes later, I finally conceded my loss. Kate was called and agreed to pack her things and sleep over, so we could get an early start.
“I shouldn’t even be going. I don’t know why you guys are fighting to go with me.”
“Why shouldn’t you go?”
“Jonas threw a fit that I was asking for time off. Even after going up later than everyone else for the wedding, and
having maxed out my vacation hours, he threatened to replace me for taking time off to go home.”
“What a prick. Did you tell him you hated working for him anyways and to have your last check waiting when you got back?”
I scoffed at the mental image of his head exploding upon hearing such news. “No. though it was tempting. I just kept crying until he yelled at me to get out of his office and not return until I’d learned to control my emotions.”
“Fucker. We should slash his tires before we go.”
“That’s why you’re the only one of us with a criminal record, Ames. You’re so quick to violence.” She threw herself across the bed, laughing. Her ‘criminal record’ was a shoplifting charge she’d taken for a friend who had actually committed the crime. But she wore it with pride, the only hardened criminal in our friend group.
Then again, she’d freed lab bunnies and rats at Columbia, where we’d met as freshman roommates. If she thought someone, or something, was being hurt, she was a tigress. I was just glad she was on my side forever.
2
“All I know, is that I am never going on a road trip with you two again,” Kate bellowed from the end stall at the restroom. “God, you’re so fucking annoying when you’re sad.”
“Okay, so never go on a road trip with us again when I’m grieving my surrogate grandmother, then. Were you even invited?”
She sauntered over to the rusty sink and washed her hands, eyeing me in the mirror. “I don’t mind that you’re sad, asshole. I mind that you’re trying so goddamned hard to be cheerful for us. Don’t bother, you’re a shitty liar.”
I groaned and walked out without a reply. We were only a few miles from my childhood home, and yeah, I’d been a little keyed up for the last couple hundred miles. What did she expect? The things that hadn’t changed were almost as traumatic to see as the things that had with Mammie Blue gone.