by L. E. Wilson
She couldn’t be tied to him. This was only supposed to be short term. Until they found the vampire who had attacked her.
Yes, she’d also agreed to let him try to help her with her addiction and to deal with the voices, but deep down, she’d always known it wasn’t going to work. She’d always known she would go back to the drugs. If she were completely honest with herself, she didn’t really want to learn to deal with the voices.
She needed the dope to function. Needed it to keep her sanity. Besides, he didn’t want her around long term. He’d made that pretty damn clear.
She didn’t need him either. Or the others. She would be fine.
Chapter 38
Josiah stood across from the high-rise apartments in downtown Seattle. Craning his head back on his neck as far as it would go, he watched as a powerful figure paced restlessly in front of the window on the top floor. His vampire eyesight even allowed him to see the male’s dark hair and tall physique.
Luukas.
He’d filled out more since Josiah had last seen him. But that didn’t matter. It wasn’t the Master vampire that Josiah was here for.
He was here for his fucking witch.
Actually, he was here for all of the females. After his visit from Leeha, he’d done a lot of thinking. She wanted him to prove himself? Fine. He’d fucking prove himself. And he didn’t need the demons or anyone else to help him.
His plan was simple. So simple that he was amazed he hadn’t thought of it before. He would watch and wait. The witches had to leave that fortress sometime. And when they did, he would catch them unaware and take them out quickly and efficiently. No more games. No more playing around. He would prove to Leeha once and for all he was worth sticking around for. She wouldn’t agree with his plan, she liked to play with her victims too much. But he would accomplish what she never could. And he would do it without her help.
Once the females were dead, their mates would soon follow them. It was so simple, he didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Josiah wouldn’t have to do anything but watch and wait.
Game over.
Chapter 39
Christian was antsy as he sat in the corner of Luuk’s office listening to Nik lay out plans for their next move in the quest to find Dante. Something felt off, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. At first he thought it was because Luukas was finally home, or because of what all had happened the last few weeks to all of them. But it wasn’t because he’d been gone, or Shea had been gone, or Aiden was possessed, or Luukas was unstable. As a matter of fact, if Dante had been over in his usual corner, it would be like none of it had ever happened.
Glancing out towards the other room through the glass wall divider, he saw Keira had returned from talking to Ryan and was grabbing another bottle of wine out of the cabinet. She gave him a thumb’s up as she headed back out the front door. The girls were practicing down at Nik and Aiden’s tonight, as they wanted to work on some heavier stuff and Nik had told him that too much magic in the air made Luukas “jumpy”.
He’d been surprised but not shocked when he’d shown up tonight and Keira had pulled him aside and told him that Ryan was a Moss witch, and that she was going to go down and talk to her if that was all right with him. He didn’t know why he hadn’t figured it out earlier. But with everything that was going on, it just hadn’t clicked.
He wondered if the fact that she had family here would make her want to stay. Not that it mattered. What they had between them was just a fling. A fling that he was thoroughly enjoying because for the first time in seven years he wasn’t being forced to fuck her just to relieve the agony of his body. No. He was fucking her because of plain old normal lust for a female. And he was helping her because she had helped him get out of that damn room. He owed her at least that much before she went off to the next chapter in her life.
“Maybe we should go back up to the mountain.” Luukas spoke up from where he was pacing by the window. His body was tense but his voice was firm. “Shea can lead us inside…”
“No!” Shea blurted. They all turned to look at her except for Luukas, who remained at the window looking out at the cityscape. “I mean, we’d be wasting our time. Dante isn’t there. The demons aren’t there. There’s nothing there to see. Everyone is gone.”
“Leeha wouldn’t have just left that altar unguarded,” Aiden argued.
“But Leeha is dead,” Nik pointed out. “It makes sense that her followers would no longer be there.”
“Who was watching you, Shea?” Luukas asked. “Someone had to be there to keep you there for so long.”
“No one was there. I was locked in a cell and it took me a while to get out is all.”
Aiden frowned at her and opened his mouth to say something, but Shea frantically shook her head at him to keep quiet. “Besides,” she continued. “Dante could be anywhere. I mean, look at Christian, he was all the way in Mexico.”
Christian had only been halfway listening to the exchange, his mind on the woman downstairs in his bedroom, but the sound of his name brought him back to the conversation going on around him.
Luukas turned from the window and studied him with bright silver eyes. “Do you recall anything else about your little vacation?” he asked. “Anything at all that may be useful to me?”
Christian could feel his face turning red at Luukas’ implied accusation. “Vacation”, indeed. “No,” he said shortly. “I’ve told you everything I could remember as soon as I came upstairs tonight.”
Nik broke the tension in the air, as he was so good at doing. “And you didn’t recognize the vampire that attacked Ryan down there? Before you chased her into the street to get hit by a car?”
Aiden laughed and smacked him on the arm as Christian rolled his eyes. “I didn’t make her run into the road. She panicked and ran out there all on her own, and I found her later at the hospital.” He kept her little friends to himself for now. He wasn’t sure how Luukas would react to her bringing spooks into his home. But as soon as he got the chance, he was planning to sit down with Nik and Aiden and fill them in, see how they thought he should handle it. They’d been around the new Luukas longer than he had.
Maybe the girls would have more insight as to what Ryan could do after they hung out tonight. They could probably help her better than he could.
“Surprising, really,” Aiden mused. “My Grace barely flinched when she found out I was, shall we say, enhanced. And she enjoys it immensely. And I know for a fact that Emma doesn’t shy away from Nik’s manly teeth. I can hear her clear on the other side of the apartment.”
“Shut up, Aiden,” Nikulas growled.
“Really, mate. You should try a ball gag…”
“Aiden!” Shea scolded.
“Fucking hell!” Nik shouted as he shot up out of his chair. “I fucking warned you, man.”
“Nikulas. SIT.” Luukas had watched the back and forth between them with a tolerance usually reserved for rowdy children, but apparently his tolerance level had been reached. “Sit down,” he repeated. “And Aiden, stop instigating.”
“But he’s so fun to rile up.” He dodged the swing Nik took at him and laughed.
“Nikulas.” Luukas’ tone would brook no argument.
Nik sat back down but pointed at Aiden. “I’m not forgetting about this.”
Aiden grinned and winked.
Happy that the attention had been diverted away from him, Christian rubbed the center of his chest. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
“…won’t hurt to look. If we head out now, we can be there and back by dawn.”
Christian had only caught the tail end of what Luukas had just said, but he was quick to figure out what he’d missed. They were going to Leeha’s old fortress. The place where Luukas had been held and tortured, where Aiden had been possessed, and from where Shea had just escaped. The four of them exchanged anxious looks as Luukas turned his back to them and said, “We can stop at Nikulas and Aiden’s and let the fem
ales know that we’re leaving on the way down to the garage.” Glancing at them over his shoulder as they stood up to leave he added, “Bring weapons.”
“Everything is ready down at my place,” Shea told him. “I’ll take the guys to collect them and we’ll meet you at Nik’s.”
“Yes. Good. Thank you, Shea.”
They filed out of the office and out of the apartment. No one spoke until they reached Shea’s place. Aiden stopped her before she could open the door.
“You’re keeping him a secret and I want to know why.”
“I don’t have a secret,” she insisted. “I just don’t want to upset Luukas.”
“But he should know.”
“Uh, what are we talking about here?” Nik asked.
“The warlock. The one that put the bloody demon in me. Shea is protecting him.”
“I’m not protecting him.”
“Holy shit. Is he still up there?” Excitement shone in Nik’s eyes.
Christian looked from one to the other of them and crossed his arms over his chest. “What the fuck are you all talking about?”
Aiden filled him in. “When we got to Leeha’s mountain fortress to rescue Luukas, I went with Leeha when she ran from the werewolves that came along to help.”
“They weren’t there to help,” Nik grumbled. “They were there to save Mark and to fuck with us by stealing Emma in the middle of the day.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. “They were just having a bit of fun. I don’t know why your knickers are still in a twist about it all.”
“Fun?” Nik looked like he wanted to hit him again. “They nearly got Emma killed!”
“They didn’t know what had happened to her…”
“All right, all right,” Christian interrupted them. “Get back to the story.”
Aiden quirked a brow as Nik glared at him, but he continued where he’d left off. “So, I went with Leeha down into the bowels of her mountain, and after walking for what seemed like miles through tunnel after tunnel, we came to this cozy little altar room. And lo and behold, who is already there in silver chains? But our little Shea. Apparently, she had been the one Leeha wanted the demon in, and not me. Which makes sense, as Leeha has always had her cap set for me.”
“So, why was it put in you instead?” Christian asked him.
“Because the warlock with the dark magic has the hots for Shea and refused to use her.”
“He does not have the hots for me,” she scoffed. “But he did protect me from her, and he let me go. We owe him for that much at least.”
“We don’t owe him fucking shit,” Nik said. “He tried to kill my brother.”
“But did he? Really?” Aiden asked. “Seems to me that someone with the power to call forth beings of hell would have no problem defeating a vampire. Even a Master vampire like Luukas. And yet he let him and Keira go.”
Nik was shaking his head. “No. I don’t believe it. I think he just got bested by my brother the bad ass. And, he was a bad ass that was protecting his female. That right there is a scary fucking combination.”
“He’s probably long gone by now in any case,” Shea said. “So, can we all just agree that Luukas doesn’t need to know that I was with him all this time? Please?”
“I agree,” Aiden said after a moment. “He doesn’t need to know. At least not right now.”
“I don’t like this,” Nik told them. “I don’t like keeping stuff from him.”
“We’re not keeping it from him, mate. We’re just not mentioning it for right now. If it becomes pertinent that he should know, then we will tell him. All right, Shea?”
After a moment, she gave a reluctant nod.
Nik crossed his arms and looked like he was about to argue some more, but then he sighed. “Fine. But the moment that information becomes something he needs to know in any way, shape, or form, you’re telling him, Shea.”
“I will. I promise.”
“You good with that?” Nik asked Christian.
“Yeah. I’m all right with that.”
Aiden unblocked the door and Shea set about entering the code to let them into her apartment so they could gather up the weapons she’d gotten ready all those weeks ago, when they were supposed to go meet Nik and Aiden and rescue Luukas.
As her place was right next door to Christian’s, he told them, “I’ll be right there, I just want to change clothes,” and punched in the code to get inside his place.
Shutting the door behind him, he rushed into the bedroom. “Ryan?” The bed was made and the bathroom was empty. Nothing was out of place. Everything was as it should be.
Hands on his hips, he stood in the middle of the room and chewed on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t know why he’d expected her to be here. She was probably down the hall with the others.
So, why couldn’t he shake this feeling that something was horribly wrong?
Chapter 40
Ryan approached the dealer without a hint of hesitation in her step, in spite of the pandemonium going on in her head and the tugging pain in her chest. Both of which were urging her not to do this, and both of which she wanted nothing more than to shut the hell up.
The city of Seattle, like most large cities, was a hotbed of dealers, users, and pushers. Ryan walked down the sidewalk with no fear of the people around her, stepping around a homeless man carefully so as not to wake him. Being on the streets was as familiar to her as being home. She was way more comfortable here than sleeping in the soft bed of a practical strangers’ apartment. This was her life. This was where she should be. And this was where it would end.
Not playing house with some supernatural creature that she didn’t even know existed a week ago. She didn’t belong there. She didn’t belong to him. No matter what they all seemed to think. They barely knew each other. And although she appreciated him taking care of her and his offer to keep helping her, the fact of the matter was that she didn’t want to live with the dope, and she didn’t want to live with the voices. She hated them. Hated what they’d made her become. And she was going to shut them up once and for all.
Approaching the dealer she had spotted a mile away, she gave her a friendly smile. “Hey.”
“Hey,” the woman said, and took a long drag off her cigarette as she looked Ryan up and down. Average looking, with lanky dark hair and sun worn skin, she wouldn’t attract much attention if a person didn’t know the signs.
“I’m looking for some stuff,” Ryan told her. “Tar…whatever you have.”
“Haven’t seen you around here before,” the woman stalled.
“Seattle is a big city,” Ryan retorted. She knew the game the woman was playing. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t a nark. “Look, I need something. I’ll take all you’ve got. I can pay.” She couldn’t pay, at least not with money.
The woman glanced around, and then eyed up Ryan’s new clothes and clean hair. She must have decided she wasn’t a threat, for she nodded and tossed the cigarette into the street, hitting the windshield of a passing car. She flipped the driver off when he honked at her. “All right, come on.”
Ryan followed her into a doorway. Less than five minutes later, she walked back out with tears streaming down her cheeks and the woman’s bag slung over her shoulder. She walked for a good five blocks until she hit the waterfront by Pike Market. Finding an empty bench, she sat down and rummaged through the goods she’d just stolen. Inside was everything she needed. Even a spoon and a lighter.
She sat there for a few minutes with the bag held tight against her side, staring across Puget Sound and wishing she could see the Olympic Mountains, but it was too dark. The voices were quiet; as if even they couldn’t believe where she was at as she sat there contemplating what she’d just done, and what she was about to do.
A misty rain began to fall, and Ryan lifted her face to feel the cool wetness against her skin. She contemplated putting off what she was going to do until tomorrow, so she could feel the sun one more time, then she laughed to herself. She
was in the Pacific Northwest; the chances of her seeing the sun anytime soon were slim to none. It was probably why the vampires liked it here.
Vampires. Ryan’s laughter died on her lips and she lifted her hand, touching the side of her neck. It still seemed so surreal to her that she’d been spending her time with a real live vampire. He’d bitten her, drank her blood. And she’d drank his! The thought almost made her gag in spite of the memory of how good it had tasted. And the way it had made her feel…words just couldn’t describe it. The way he had made her feel.
But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. If Keira was to be believed — and Ryan did believe her — he had only kept her around because he knew she was his mate.
Well, he’d just have to find some other chick to bond with. He shouldn’t have any problem with that. Not with his history of women.
The rain started to fall heavier now, and the people that had been wandering past her began to run for cover. Holding her bag closed and gathering it close to her side, Ryan stood up to go find some shelter herself where no one would find her until it was over. Heading towards the giant Ferris wheel, she walked past it and ducked down a side street. She kept going until she was far enough away from the attractions that the pedestrians thinned out and the streets were mostly empty. Just down the street, she saw a sign pointing to an underground garage.
Getting into the elevator and punching the number four, she twisted her wet hair into a ponytail, wringing out the water as best as she could. Her clothes were also soaked through and she shivered as the doors opened again. Peeking out, she only saw about four or five cars and absolutely no people. Perfect.