Like I had a choice. I bit back the snarky comment, and plastered a fake smile on my face. “What do you want, Lucien?”
“Straight to the point, little Carus. All work, no play.”
“If you asked me over for a play date, I’m leaving.”
Lucien smirked, and stepped up to his chair. He gracefully turned and sat on the padded cushions. “I have no interest in you that way. Your Alphas can relax.”
I bit down on my response. Apparently, my greatest achievement for today was keeping my mouth shut.
“I want you to rid the city of this Demon Bola.”
“Already working on it.” My skin itched to shift, and my falcon screeched her encouragement.
Fly! She demanded.
“Not fast enough. Kill the host,” Lucien ordered. His voice wrapped around me and tugged.
“That’s only a temporary solution. I’m looking for a more permanent one.” The fluffy white material of the robe scraped against my skin. My body warmed and sweat started to form in the dip of my lower back.
Lucien leaned forward. “It’s not a request.”
He didn’t need to remind me of the blood bond or his willingness to torture those I cared for. Wick’s safety and health were constantly at risk whenever I balked at Lucien’s demands. The Master Vampire might make decisions for the best interests of his horde, the supernatural community, and hell, even the norms, but his continual choice to use me as his workhorse sucked.
“This Demon is hunting me. I’ll find a fast resolution.” And I’ll do it for me, not for you.
His eyes narrowed, and he probably sensed my defiance, but he eventually nodded. “Good.”
A knock on the door interrupted whatever Lucien planned to say next.
“Enter,” he said.
The door opened, and Tamotsu walked into the room. A Japanese supe, the turtle-like Kappa became bound to whoever filled his bowl with water. I’d handed him over to appease the high-and-mighty blood sucker. At the time, I’d hoped it meant Lucien would leave me alone after doing his bidding.
I was wrong.
Carus, his voice rasped in my head.
Tamotsu, I replied.
“You are dismissed,” Lucien said to me, breaking up the possibility of further conversation. Fine with me. I didn’t have anything to say to the Kappa anyway.
“Okay,” I replied and walked to the large window, leaving sweaty footprints on the Italian marble.
“And Andrea,” Lucien said.
I looked over my shoulder at him. “What?”
“Remember the consequences for tardiness.”
And there it was. The imminent threat. I’d expected it, but Lucien’s words still sent a shiver slicing down my spine.
****
I bolted upright in bed. This was becoming all too familiar. My heart hammered in my chest. My thin white summer sheets clung to my body, slick with sweat. The fragrance of night-blooming flowers hung heavy in the night air, but something else tangled with the smell, something tantalizing and foreign.
Berries and earthy scents wound around my body like a lasso and tugged. I staggered out of the bed, bringing my sheets with me. I peeled them off and stumbled to the window. When I flung it open, the smell grew stronger. It beckoned. It seduced. I needed to go to the source.
I clambered out my first-floor window, bumping my knee. Pain rushed up my leg, but I didn’t care. The scent claimed me and pulled.
Dressed in cotton pajama shorts and a white tank top, both plastered to my body by sweat, I made my way to the river. Bare feet pressed against rough cold concrete, then dug into soft summer soil, then plodded against the pebbles and sharp rocks used for the part of PoCo Trail running along the forested river. Crickets buzzed and hummed. The eerie call of an owl flowed with the rushing water and rustling leaves.
A couple of homeless living in the woods called out to me, but I ignored them. Let them make cat-calls and innuendos. I could always circle back in animal form and scare the crap out of them.
When my feet hit the icy river water, a sense of calm washed over me. The cuts and scrapes on my bare feet numbed in the cold. I flung my head back, stretched my arms wide and closed my eyes to the full moon above. My heartbeat slowed to match the natural rhythm of the forest.
Wick would be out running with his pack.
I shooed the thought from my mind. Tonight wasn’t about Wick. Or Tristan. It was about me and whatever animal had called. Her presence pricked at my nerves, tingling my skin like a homing device. She lumbered through the woods, brushing passed bushes and stomping on twigs. A couple of the homeless people shrieked and scurried away.
The water flowed over my feet as I turned to greet my new fera.
A lot of humans believed bears stunk. A common misconception. In actuality, all the ones I’ve come across were fresh and clean. Not even their poop smelled bad unless they’d recently eaten meat or lots of insects. This bear smelled divine. Like strawberry shortcake.
Hi, I said, lamely.
Carus, she grunted.
Red chose this moment to race out from the underbrush. She must’ve followed me from my apartment. She wound around the legs of the two hundred and fifty pound black bear, as if she was a long-lost litter mate. I knew what she’d say before she said it.
I am you. You are me. We are one, Red said. When we’d bonded, she’d recited the same thing. They all had. My other feras chimed in, repeating the phrase over and over again in my head as I walked toward the bear.
Her cute little ears perked up and pointed forward.
I am you. You are me. We are one, the bear said, joining the chant. Her deep gravelly voice somehow made the choir in my mind more grounded.
I nodded and stepped out of the river, closing the short distance between us. I reached out to rub her silky nose. The moment my skin touched her, she shimmered. Wavering in my vision, the bear lost all colour as if my finger formed a magical straw and sucked it out of her. Her energy flowed into my body, filling me with power and strength. The now translucent bear’s eyes met mine, big and doe-like, before she completely disappeared.
In tune with the flowing river, her energy streamed into my body, my brain, and into my very being down to the cellular level. Then, it ballooned out, pushing against my skull and rib cage. I crumpled to the leafy ground as all my feras shrieked inside and battled for dominance. Red sat by my face. Her ghost-like body, perched inches from me, but I couldn’t reach out to her. I couldn’t move as my head pounded, and my bones ached.
The beast stirred.
Too much, I said. It’s too much.
The beast stretched.
Dispel the bear, Red whispered, and prodded my face with her nose. As if that would help.
The beast pushed against my control.
My skin stretched and pulled, bones cracked and my hold on the beast slipped. She surged up, wanting control, wanting to break free. I rolled on the ground and screamed, the pain like cold icicles shearing through my flesh.
Help me! I yelled.
The beast roared.
My feras stopped squabbling and as one, tackled the beast inside my mind and pushed her down. She slashed at them with sharp talons, but the other feras ducked, weaved and slipped by her.
I tightened my hold on the beast and shoved her back, deep inside my core.
She rumbled and spat curses at me.
Sweat poured off my face, I wiped at it and stared at my hand. It was covered with blood. My nose continued to gush, and the world around me spun.
My mountain lion hissed at the bear, and my wolf growled. They circled the new fera as she stood her ground, just as dominant. She growled and swatted at them with her large clobber-like paws. I needed to act fast before they started going at it again.
Bear! I mentally yelled. Leave my mind. I dispel you.
She stopped swinging at the mountain lion and wolf and focused on me. Her love warmed my body as if I lay on a tropical beach and basked in the sun. Then the heat dis
appeared, slowly, like cooling prey after a successful hunt, leaving me cold and empty. I opened my eyes to the dark summer’s night and shivered.
A ghost-like bear sat beside a ghost-like fox.
Sleepy, the bear said, opening her pointed snout to yawn.
Me too, I replied as I staggered to my feet. “I’m calling you Baloo.”
She snorted at me. I am you. You are me. We are one.
Yeah, I get it. But I need something to call you. Too awkward any other way.
We lumbered back to my apartment. I plucked leaves off my sweaty skin and tried to brush the dirt from my damp clothes, all the while replaying Donny’s words. He’d once said feras would present themselves as I needed them. How the heck was a giant black bear going to help me with my current predicament?
And how would I fit all these feras in my place? Baloo was massive, and if Donny was correct, she and Red were only the beginning of my fera add-ons. I’d have a zoo in my place before long.
You’re not going to fit on the couch, I told the bear.
She clicked her tongue at me.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.”
~Albert Einstein
The university smelled of hope, stress and raunchy freshmen sex. Not much had changed since I attended.
The bold blocked room number WMC 3260 stared at me before I took a deep breath and slipped into the auditorium.
The double doors slammed shut and slapped my ass, pitching me forward. Thirty heads swiveled in my direction. I stumbled a couple steps, and my cheeks warmed. Maybe my grand idea of attending class undetected wasn’t so fabulous after all. I froze, ready to turn around, but it was too late.
I should’ve brought Baloo and Red with me for invisible support.
Then again, they’d probably laugh at me.
Thirty pairs of blinking eyes continued to observe me. A couple of mean girls smirked, and a few hipsters yawned, but most looked incredibly nosey.
“Umm,” I mumbled and looked around. “This isn’t Women Studies 102, is it?” Why couldn’t this be an afternoon class? Who wanted to study Demons at 9:30 in the morning? Who functioned this early in the day?
The professor’s head popped up. Tall and lanky, with sinewy muscles, he moved like a willow tree branch in the wind, circling around the podium to stand at the end of the aisle. With dark brown inset eyes bridging a long pointed nose, his stare could intimidate even a snotty post grad student.
“No, it’s not,” he said as his dark eyes narrowed. “This is Demonology 421. But I suspect you knew that. You can join us, if you’d like. Please, have a seat.” He waved his hand at the empty seats in the front row, fanning out his long fingers. “I’m Professor Westman.”
I cleared my throat. “Oh. Okay. Busted.”
Each step I took down the steps echoed in the small room as the students watched in silence, their bobble-heads and glasses swiveling to track my movement to the front of the auditorium.
“Maybe you should introduce yourself, tell us what you already know? We’re a small class,” the professor said as I slid into a plastic chair by the aisle. My neck hairs screamed at my exposed back. Too many people behind me.
The vanilla and honey Witch scent wafted off the pale professor and curled around my body before filling my nose. Maybe he could help me. Did he know what I was? Witches didn’t have as keen a nose, but they had other ways of telling, of protecting themselves. My nose involuntarily flared, taking more of his scent in. There was something odd about it. Tainted. Maybe he practiced black magic? That would explain his starving-student look—dark power tended to take more than it gave. Magic had a price.
“Oh, umm,” I stuttered. Truth? Or lie? Opening my senses to the room, I registered more supe smells: Weres, Shifters, a few more Witches, a lot of norms. A lie wouldn’t work here. “My name is Andy McNeilly,” I said.
The professor’s eyes widened in his elongated triangular face. He’d heard of me. How? The news, maybe? “And what do you know of supes, Andy?”
“I, uh, work for the SRD.”
A collective gasp sounded in the auditorium, bouncing against the padded walls and vibrating my eardrums. Really? How sheltered were these students? Working for the SRD had never been prestigious.
Well, if they knew I’d been one of the assassins, the gasping would be warranted. We had a pretty good reputation, or bad, depending on how someone looked at it.
The professor’s smile twisted, warping his face into something almost ugly, before he widened it, showing bright white even teeth. “And what type of supernatural being are you?”
“A Shifter,” I stated. Thanks to the Channel 5 news who recently did a piece on the local ambassadors, I no longer clung to the secrecy of my identity like I had in the past. The exposure left me feeling like someone had ripped away my baby blanket.
“But you smell of the forest.” A man leaned in behind me.
I turned my head slightly, and took in the burly man with a patchy beard and professor sweater. His Werelynx scent—fresh snow and tree sap—clogged my nose. A sweater? In summer? Probably took pictures of all his meals and posted them on social media, too.
“Just came back from hiking,” I said. When his breath kept hitting the back of my neck, I flashed him my teeth over my shoulder. “Piss off.”
The man grunted and leaned back in his chair. My mountain lion yowled, leaving my head ringing. She wanted to claw his face. So did I. No Were or Shifter liked having a stranger approach from behind, let alone lean close enough to feel and smell their breath. Werelynx boy needed a breath mint. And he should’ve known better.
“A Shifter. How interesting,” the instructor interrupted, giving the Werelynx behind me a pointed look. “And in what capacity do you work for the SRD?”
“I’m a liaison,” I answered. My forehead prickled, the urge to wipe the beading sweat strong.
“For who?”
Geez. This guy wasn’t letting me get away with anything. I eyed the emergency exit. If he could tell me something to help bring down Bola, this little information sharing would be worth it. I no longer worked as an assassin, and my identity had been revealed already. You’ve already let go of your anonymity, I reminded myself. Relax.
“I’m the liaison between the SRD and the Master Vampire of the Lower Mainland.”
Some more gasping. Really? These were fourth-year students majoring in Supernatural Studies. Obviously field work wasn’t a requirement.
“Lucien Delgatto.” The professor’s mouth curled into a half smile, telling me nothing.
“That’s right.”
The instructor nodded before sauntering around to stand behind his podium. “Well, we’re pleased to have you with us, Ambassador McNeilly. I’d appreciate it if you stayed behind after class so we can discuss what brought you to my domain.”
I dipped my chin slightly. This might work out after all. How’d he know my title? Not all liaisons of the SRD had the Ambassador title. And his domain? Talk about arrogant. Mentally shrugging, I slouched into my seat, settling in to do some learning.
****
Today’s lecture was on a Demon known throughout history as the Slender Man. Professor Westman ran through various accounts of the Demon’s transgressions, including historical references from ancient Egypt hieroglyphs, Brazilian Cave paintings and German woodcutting. The Slender Man got around, making numerous appearances in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well.
Westman’s pale face took on an unhealthy sheen as he outlined his “favourite” sightings. Seemed the Slender Man really got off on rending animal flesh, including humans. But why take fifty minutes on one rather minor Demon with relatively little power or influence?
Thankfully no one asked questions and on the fifty first minute, Westman dismissed his class.
I remained seated, fighting the urge to turn around and hiss at the movement behind my back as each student filed out
of the small lecture room. My feras didn’t fight too hard, though; the professor rated higher as a threat to them than thirty undergrads. I agreed.
Why did I want to run? Black Witches, capable of extreme power and destruction, never put me on edge like this in the past. Except maybe that creepy voodoo priestess I had to retrieve over a decade ago when I was new to the job.
I kept my attention trained on Professor Westman, and he watched me right back, our gazes locked together in some secret battle no one told me about. I almost missed the shuffle of feet in the aisle beside me.
One deep intake of breath told me what I needed to know. Musky coconut, burnt sugar and canned ham. An unfortunate mix. I’d met enough professor groupies to recognize her type right away—completely infatuated with Westman to the point of desperation. No need to attack. She would self-destruct on her own by the end of her fourth year.
My lips twisted up.
“Professor Westman?” Her high-pitched, breathy voice made me think of Smurfette in a porno.
“Not now, Jane,” the professor said, not sparing her a glance.
“But,” she stuttered.
Westman broke eye contact with me to settle his unnerving gaze on the woman. I won!
“Not now,” he repeated.
A petite woman with a naturally puckered pout stiffened at the steel in Westman’s voice. Her eyes widened.
“Go,” Westman said.
With trembling lips and a short sniff, she swiveled around and jolted up the stairs, a wake of sour air trailing behind her.
“I apologize for the interruption.” Westman’s smooth tone caressed the air as he moved to stand in front of me, effectively closing me in and forcing me to remain seated.
To hell with that.
I slowly rose to my feet. Would he take a step back or stay put?
He didn’t budge.
We now stood a foot apart, and the height difference pissed me off.
“May I call you Andy?”
“May I call you Westy?”
“You may call me Takkenmann.”
Standing this close, his scent burrowed deep into my respiratory system and scent memory, the vanilla and honey Witch smell overpowering. And wrong. There was something about it, something off. My nose flared again. Something familiar. “An unusual name for a…Witch, isn’t it?”
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