by Lisa Marie
“Well, now we know why Sebastian hired him. Most won’t deal with the instability of werewolves during the transformation cycle,” Ash said through clenched teeth.
“What are you going to do about it?” Seth’s question brought all eyes to him, and for the first time Ash noticed how upset he was.
“Excuse me?” Ash took a step forward, his eyes narrowing and flashing red.
Seth growled in response, the anger he felt written clearly on his face. “This is your fault. You led them here.”
“That’s not fair!” Eve stood, her voice snapping with annoyance, and planted her hands on her hips. She nearly sat back down again when Seth’s rage-filled gaze fell on her.
“I never asked to be involved in this and now my home is in danger.”
“You’re home? What about our fucking lives? Isn’t that worth more than a pile of logs?” Ash practically shouted, glaring at the shorter man. Seth took a step forward, the two night creatures staring each other down.
“Isn’t Cyrus’ life worth more than this? They killed him, Seth. They. Killed. Him.”
“Cyrus understood the consequences of the life he chose,” Seth answered Mark, his voice cold but his eyes flashing with pain.
“You son of a bitch!” Mark was off the couch and lunging for the vamp/wolf before Brie had a chance to blink. She screamed, cursing herself as she did it. Ash caught Mark in mid air, struggling under his weight. Seth didn’t flinch, but he did tense to defend himself if Ash lost his grip. “He was your friend!”
“Yes, he was,” Seth agreed quietly, his gaze sad, but his resolve strong.
“Would you stop!” Eve and Brie shouted at the same time.
Flora watched the whole scene play out with quiet fear. She’d never had to be in this position before, with the danger literally lurking in the woods. Mark, Cyrus and Ash had taken pains for her to be protected and the seriousness of the situation numbed her.
“In case you haven’t noticed, we have a serious problem. If you all want to act like cavemen and beat each other to a bloody pulp, I don’t give a shit. But could you at least wait until a more convenient time?” Eve glared at the three men, silently satisfied that they looked somewhat contrite.
“This isn’t about who did what, where or when. Edward is here, now. Which means Sebastian isn’t too far behind, if he isn’t here already. We are all going to die. All of us. So knock it off.” Brie’s voice shook as she spoke, but her gaze never wavered as she drove her point home. For the briefest instant, shame flashed across the men’s faces, before steely resolve replaced it.
“You only saw Edward?” Ash asked Seth, releasing Mark, but keeping an eye on him just in case.
“Yes.”
“There were no other cars at the road?” Mark threw out, yanking his duster off the chair and sliding it on.
“Just the usual traffic. Nothing that looked out of the ordinary.”
“So, it’s just the wolf so far. If the three of us take him out, Sebastian might not be able to get up to the house.” Wishful thinking, Ash told himself. But they didn’t have much choice.
“Sounds good to me,” Mark said, checking the hiding places in his coat and making sure his weapons were still in order.
Brie watched as he pulled out the guns and checked the rounds with deadly efficiency. She knew with perfect clarity that she was looking at a killer. One as cold and calm as Sebastian had ever been. In that moment, he scared her more than their situation.
“What should we do?” Eve asked without hesitation.
“Stay here,” Ash answered, not seeing her bristle, but feeling it just the same. He looked up at her, his eyes willing her not to try to come with them. She scowled for a second, hating the idea that she was supposed to sit there like some ‘damsel in distress’. But, really, what could she do against a werewolf? A whole world of nothing, that’s what.
“Okay,” Eve said, her voice sullen. Ash flashed her a grin and a wink. Her eyes drifted closed when he walked over to her and ran the pads of his fingertips over her face.
“Thanks,” he said, brushing the barest of kisses across her lips.
“For what?”
“Not arguing.”
How he could manage to tease her at a time like this was beyond Eve, but she smiled just the same. “Don’t get used to it.” She quickly turned serious. “Please, be careful. I don’t…” She hesitated, when her throat clogged with everything she held in her heart. “I don’t want to lose you,” she admitted, blinking against the sting of tears in her eyes.
Ash smiled softly, his clear blue gaze telling her everything he couldn’t say. “You won’t,” he promised, stroking a finger over his mark on her neck. She shivered with the contact, but felt calmer after the soft touch.
Mark was checking weapons, Seth standing by the door, scanning the trees with his sensitive eyes. Flora still seemed to be wallowing in her own world, oblivious to what was going on around her. But Brie watched the exchange with voyeuristic intensity, the stab of envy she felt making her gaze settle on Mark. He wasn’t even looking at her, obviously unconcerned with whether or not she was worried about him. Suddenly feeling like a selfish brat for being upset that he wasn’t paying attention to her, especially after all he had been through that day, she walked over to her sister as Ash moved away.
“Storm’s coming.” Seth announced, turning to face the others.
“Wonderful,” Ash replied with a sigh.
“Bring it on,” Mark stated, finally happy with his hidden arsenal, and straightening out the length of his duster. “Flora?” He turned towards the woman and his brows drew together when she didn’t answer him. “Flora?”
“What?” She blinked and looked up at him, her face confused, like she didn’t know where she was. Mark walked over to where she was sitting and kneeled down, taking her limp hand between his two larger ones. “You all right?”
“You’re asking me that?” she said, incredulous. Her love for the boy expanded ever further, and she pressed a rare kiss to his cheek. He immediately looked flustered. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” he replied, his voice a little gruff. “Can you set up some kind of spell? A shield of some sort?”
She shook her head. “Not a shield, but a warning spell. It’ll let us know if someone is trying to get in.”
“Good. If you can adjust it to make it so we can get back to the house without setting off the bells and whistles, great. If not, set it up anyway.” Mark pushed to his full height.
“All right.”
“Ready?” Ash asked, glancing over his shoulder at his friend.
Mark briefly met his eyes before turning his gaze towards Brie. “Not yet.”
Brie barely heard Eve’s gasp of surprise. All she had eyes for was Mark stalking toward her, his full attention fixed on her. She melted against him when his arm snaked around her waist and her lips parted easily when his crushed hers in a hard, bruising kiss. Her fingers fisted in his duster and her mind blanked out.
When they came apart, he fixed her with a look swirling with emotion. He placed a softer, gentler kiss on her forehead, then quickly released her and strode past his two companions. “Ready.”
Seth and Ash exchanged a look. With a shrug, Seth headed out after Mark.
“Stay inside. Unless you have to leave,” Ash warned, his gaze lingering over Eve. She nodded and gave him a reassuring smile.
“Bri-ie, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do,” Eve sing-songed, in the worst Spanish accent Brie had ever heard.
Brianne slid her gaze to her older sister and smirked, a look so close to Mark’s it made Eve blink in surprise. “I’ve got some explaining to do? What about you, you hussy?” She waved a hand toward the fairly obvious bite mark on Eve’s neck.
Eve snorted and rolled her eyes. “Hey, you should have told me about that vampire stamina.” She waggled her brows.
“I would have, if I’d known,” Brie shot back.
Flora watched the conversation with
much more amusement than the situation called for. But the look on Eve’s face was priceless.
“Wait, you never…” Eve wagged a finger toward her sister, leaving the word up in the air, “…with Sebastian?”
“Nope.”
“Can I heave a great big sigh of relief?” she asked, quirking an auburn-gold brow. She had a feeling that while Brie and Sebastian never got horizontal, her and Mark had been making their time alone useful. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, since the idea of her sister having sex seemed wrong on so many levels. She figured that was her overprotective streak kicking in, and decided to push it away for now. Still, Mark had better watch his step.
“Yeah. Although, I think I would have preferred him to have wanted to use my young, nubile body for his pleasure.”
It was said as a joke, but Eve heard the guilt lacing the words and saw the sadness piercing the bright depths of her sister’s eyes. Quickly, she wrapped her arms around Brie, squeezing hard. “You don’t worry about that right now, honey. He’s a bastard. You did what you had to do to survive.” She rubbed her hands along her sister’s gently quivering shoulders.
Brie closed her eyes against the tears burning them and absorbed the feisty strength Eve exuded.
Flora let the sisters comfort each other for a moment, hating that she would have to interrupt the only time they’d had to talk since she, Eve and Ash had burst in. “Ladies…”
The two women pulled apart, sharing a watery smile before turning to look at Flora.
“I need your help, moving the furniture so I can create the circle.”
They nodded, giving each other a quick hand squeeze before separating to pull the furniture out of the way. Flora dug into the voluminous, black bag that she had brought with her, and withdrew a large mason jar full of salt. She unscrewed the cap and started to pour it in a perfect circle in the middle of the hardwood floor.
“Is this going to work?” Eve asked doubtfully. She’d never had any experience with magic and she wasn’t sure of the mechanics. Flora nodded as she finished.
“God willing.” She screwed the cap on the jar and put it back in her bag. She withdrew some well-used candles, handing them out to the sisters and instructing them where to place them. “Brie, are Siren’s experienced with magic?”
“Some of us are,” she answered with a nod.
“Are you?” Flora asked more pointedly.
“A little,” Brie admitted.
“Good, you can help. Eve, I need you to choose a point and just lend your strength to the circle. All you have to do is stand there and hope like hell that this works.” Flora lit the candles she’d placed at the points of the huge pentagram she’d created with the salt. Shaking out the match, she looked up at the other woman.
“I can do that,” Eve assured.
“All right, let’s get started.” Flora lowered her large body to the ground at the top most point of the pentagram with surprising grace. “Pick a point. Sit down.” The sisters quickly flanked her, sharing a nervous glance as they got settled. “Okay, here goes nothing,”
* * * *
A light rain had started to fall as Ash, Seth and Mark walked down the steps to the yard.
“I’ll start with the back of the house, circle around to the road, then come back up,” Seth said, glancing at his companions. They nodded in agreement as he started away, their minds already mapping out their own plan.
“You rode the bike out here,” Mark said mildly.
“Yeah. That thing’s a death trap.” Ash hefted the dart gun he’d grabbed from where Mark had placed it by the door the night before.
“Well, you’re technically dead anyway,” Mark told him, turning to his friend. He surveyed the damage he had done to Ash’s face, the guilt he should be feeling over it buried deeply beneath his need for revenge.
“True.” Ash shrugged and started away, pausing after only a few steps. He didn’t turn back around when he started to speak, but his shoulders slumped marginally. “I’m sorry.”
He’d spoken so low that at first Mark wasn’t sure what he had said. A brief flash of pain had his jaw clenching and he stared at Ash’s back through the increasing sheet of rain pouring from the sky.
“It’s not your fault,” he answered finally, letting go of the last of the blame he’d held for the vampire. “Let’s go kill something,” he said with a predatory smile. Ash turned his head and flashed a grin so full of fang that a lesser man would have lost control of his extremities.
“My pleasure,” he purred, before walking away.
Mark walked over to the edge of the woods in front of the house, drawing his guns before taking a deep breath and stepping inside.
* * * *
“Well, that’s all we can do for now,” Flora declared twenty minutes later. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out on her upper lip as she had recited the spell, the strain of it showing on her skin if not in the air around them.
“That’s all?” Eve glanced around the room, wondering what she’d been expecting. She knew it wasn’t this great big nothing.
Flora chuckled as she started to blow out the candles. “This isn’t TV, hon. Most spells can be cast without a lot of blowing wind, electrical sparks and rising music.”
“Oh.”
Brie giggled at how disappointed Eve sounded. “You don’t want to advertise what you’re doing. Kind of defeats the purpose.” She blew out the candle in front of her and reached for one of the others.
“Yeah, I suppose not,” Eve agreed, but she couldn’t help feeling a little let down. “Okay then, what’s next?” With the candles blown out, she stood and stretched, working out the kinks that seemed to be a permanent part of her lately.
Flora shrugged. “We wait.”
“Fun,” Eve said, sounding terribly dejected.
Flora chuckled again and pushed up off the floor. Worry twisted her heart as she thought of her boys out there in the woods. She didn’t doubt their abilities. But that didn’t make the fact that they were three against who-knew-how-many seem any less terrifying.
A loud crack of thunder shook the cabin, making the women cry out in surprise.
“Just great,” Eve grumbled the second before the lights flickered and went out, plunging them into darkness.
* * * *
Edward circled around the back of the house, his skin slick with rain. He grinned wildly as the storm raged around him, the electric current in the air making him feel more powerful than ever. He wasn’t worried about the three prowling around in the dark as night woods. He’d spent his time in the woods marking them, leaving his scent behind to confuse the men. They would circle around for hours before finally figuring it out. And even if the rain washed his trails away, they still wouldn’t know where he was until it was too late. By then, he’d have Brie and be long gone.
He quickly made his way across the slick grass, excitement charging through his veins that this was almost over. Brianne was almost his. He knew Sebastian was coming, if not already here with the onslaught of the storm. He didn’t care. He could practically smell Brie, despite the rain beating down on him, washing away any trace of her scent that might be lingering in the air.
A flash of lightning split the sky, illuminating the windows and allowing Edward to see movement inside the house. He imagined that the figure moving across the window was her, the fever in his mind burning him on the inside. His body was hardening in anticipation, the jut of his erection against his stomach—the force of his blood rushing through his veins exhilarating.
He crept closer, spying a window around the back of the house. His grin widened and his feet moved quicker across the yard until he was at a slow trot. A howl of triumph ripped from his throat as he took a leap toward the window, the fact that he had probably alerted everybody in the house and the woods to his presence barely an afterthought in his mind.
Triumph swelled in his chest. The image of Brie was the last thing he saw before he slammed hard against the side of the ho
use with his misjudged leap.
* * * *
“Edward’s outside!” Brie came tearing out of the bedroom from where she had been changing. From the looks on Eve’s and Flora’s faces, she guessed they had already heard the inhuman howl, followed closely by a cracking thud.
“So soon? Jesus fucking Christ.” Eve had just settled on the couch to wait, but quickly surged back to her feet. She didn’t think they had been done with spell for more than ten minutes; the fact that the spell hadn’t worked glaringly obvious.
“Shit,” Flora spat, anger at herself for flubbing the spell obvious on her face. She turned on her heel and headed into the kitchen.
Weapons. They needed weapons. Now.
She started to pull out drawers, yanking them fully out so the contents spilled to the floor. “Start screaming, girls. As loud as you can. Get the boys back to the house.” Even before the last word was out of her mouth, an ear splitting whine filled the air, letting them know the spell had worked after all. “Better late then never,” Flora ground out, grabbing a wicked looking meat cleaver from the pile of kitchen utensils on the floor.
“That ought to clue them in,” Brie shouted, running into the kitchen and snatching a small knife off the floor. “We need to get out of here.” The shatter of glass announced Edward’s arrival into the house.
“Brie, run!” Eve screamed, surging toward the door as Edward emerged from the bedroom, the smile on his face chilling her to the bone.
“Brianne,” he cried.
The insane lust in his eyes shone brightly, sending a chill up Brie’s spine.
Eve wrenched the door open, the force of the wind outside smacking her in the face in a wet wave. Brie and Flora were right behind her, plunging blindly into the storm that seemed to get worse with each second that passed.
Brie considered letting loose a death song, but quickly discarded it. The idea of inadvertently hurting someone she cared about made her stomach twist. They ran, not looking back, toward the sanctity of the trees. They skidded to a stop as Sebastian and two other men emerged from the darkness. At the same moment, Seth and Ash emerged from another point, their transformed faces hideous in the flashes of lightning brightening the sky.