by Anthology
“Oh, I get it. Hope,” Sullivan said.
Arian looked at his friend in confusion. “What?”
“SC said there was hope in the cabin before he left last year. He must have known Charli was pregnant.”
Charli blushed sharply. “Really? Oh man.”
Arian hugged her with a laugh.
“Are you three ready to go? We need to get this new dad buckled up for his flight,” Declan said.
“Buckled?” Arian asked.
“You didn’t think we’d give your job away, did you?” Rhys said. “SC knew you were coming back. We never filled the Blizten position.”
“How could he when I didn’t even know?” Arian asked.
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “You know he’s magic. More than elves, more than shifters – he knows things that no one could possibly know. Plus, he named your baby. That’s just weird.”
It was extremely weird, but Arian was used to weird things that couldn’t be explained in any way other than attributing them to magic. For example – falling out of the sky on Christmas Eve a year ago and landing in the backyard of his fated mate. Beyond magic, how else could that be explained?
“I’m ready to go home now,” Charli said.
“Me too.” Arian said.
Arian and Charli followed them to the center of the yard. Arian gently transferred his still-sleeping daughter into his mate’s arms and wrapped his arms around both of them. “This will be strange,” Arian cautioned.
“I hope I don’t throw up.”
“We all hope that,” Declan said. The four males surrounded them, and Arian felt the rush of magic sweep over them as they were transported to the heart of North Pole City.
The last year had passed quickly. Charli had realized she was pregnant two weeks after Christmas, and it had been the second happiest moment of his life. The first, of course, being when he met Charli. She spent her days writing, and he worked around the cabin and found paid work at a local farm to help out with bills. When Hope had been born in September, Charli said she wanted to move to the North Pole, and Arian had made her promise to think it through for thirty days before they talked about it again. She had never wavered in her decision, even knowing that she would only be able to see her sister on Christmas Eve, when the security team would bring them back for a short visit.
She had stopped publishing her stories in November, posting on all her social media sites that it was for family reasons. She had told Arian that she didn’t need to write romances anymore because she was living one. Any royalties she earned in the future were going into an account for Hope. Although they didn’t use currency in North Pole City, Hope may someday want to explore the human side of herself and live somewhere outside of the city. If or when that happened, Charli wanted Hope to have money at her disposal.
Arian had thought he was fortunate to be a quad and to become part of the sleigh team, but now he knew that he was truly a lucky male because he had found the most precious creature in the universe – his fated mate.
If it weren’t for a broken buckle, he and Charli might never have met, but that was an alternate reality that he never cared to contemplate. He had his mate and his daughter, and the future was theirs to build. He couldn’t wait for the next chapter of their lives to begin.
In North Pole City.
The End
About R. E. Butler
A Midwesterner by birth, R.E. spent much of her childhood rewriting her favorite books to include herself as the main character. Later, she graduated on to writing her own books after "retiring" from her day job to become a stay-at-home mom. When not playing with her kids and dogs, you'll find her typing furiously and growling obscenities to the characters on the screen. www.rebutlerauthor.com
Thief of Souls by Jaycee Clark
Immortals are powerful beings, but soul eaters are dangerous even for them. Can Devon and Francisco stop the soul thief before she becomes too powerful?
Soul Thieves are real. Francisco Beauxchamp knows that fact all too well. Devon McClane wishes she didn’t have to work with the playboy vamp, but they’ll do whatever they must to stop the evil witch from devouring more immortals.
1
The man tied to the bed no longer fought. His wide stare no longer held distain of her. The eyes didn’t hold fear either. Instead they held…
Well, nothing, did they? Flat eyes, once bright blue, now were a dull slate, like the north Atlantic before a storm.
He was dead. Dead as could be.
Another immortal down. Yes. Poor bastard.
She breathed deep and tasted his power she’d consumed. The ashy taste on her tongue called to her. Like a perfectly chilled vodka.
She licked her lips, tasting the sweet copper of blood.
Her heels clicked as she walked to the mirror hung on the wall and checked her reflection. Just there a smudge at the corner of her mouth. Odd. She dipped finger in the flute of champagne and rubbed gently at the smear of blood.
Her blue eyes sparkled brightly; she could see it. She pressed her nail to her cheek and knew her skin was better than it had been. All wonderful side effects. The youthful glow was one she loved and enjoyed, but it was hardly the reason she did what she did. Well, not the only reason.
Youthful beauty was not why she hunted whom she hunted.
Why she killed those she killed.
Killing immortals allowed her to gain more power, and who didn’t want more power? She would always want more power. She’d known this secret for a very long time. Though it had only been recently she’d been set free long enough to kill her captor. Not her fault the warlock had been an idiot.
Once freed there was no stopping her. None. She had had too long to plan and plot in the dungeon in France, all but walled up and forgotten.
She’d found her copies of the old texts she’d hidden in an old cathedral in Scotland. The flagstones were not easy to move, but she did it, even in her weakened state. She’d managed to not only gain the books, the texts, but her box had still been filled with bottles containing precious herbs. Useless after so long, but they’d been there. Been ready and waiting for her.
Once she’d gained her strength, she’d settled on where she’d hunt. The world had changed so much in the last several centuries. Things moved so quickly now, and strangely it was to her advantage. In some places she had more power than others. There was still plenty of power in the old world, and some of those allowed her power bursts, like a bright light going on to her soul.
When she saw a vampire in London, she knew he was hers. She seduced him, and enjoyed every delicious moment of it and of him.
She smiled at the memory of the rush of power.
Let the heroin addicts chase their fix; she had her own dragon to hunt.
She gazed at the bed and chuckled. She’d just slayed one.
There were so few dragon shifters left in the world. She’d thought about keeping him alive longer, just to see how much power she could gain off of him. If she could train him.
Break him.
Own him.
It had only taken three days for her to realize that would never, ever happen. His body had glowed hot ready to shift and destroy. Had it not been for her dampening spell to contain his powers, well… She might as well have been tied to the stake and torched. The man heated up the angrier he’d become.
She walked back over to the bed, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood floors.
“A shame really,” she told him patting his cold skin and traced the mark she left on him. “We could have had a lot of fun, you and I. If you’d only listened. Only bowed to me. But you didn’t. These are the consequences.”
She turned and walked out of the room, whistling as she climbed the stairs to the main level of his house.
He’d been dumb enough to think she was harmless, to think she was just a quick fuck for the night.
“Men are so predictable. Immortals more so. At least the women make me work for it.”
; Lure them in with a smile and a glance and bam! Then, they were at her mercy. Their power became hers. It didn’t matter where they were—in a hotel room, in someone’s house, outside—she didn’t need some sacred place. She had preferences, yes. In the woods was her favorite place to transfer power, to devour souls. She actually preferred to take them in nature. There was often another layer of power she inhaled when she took them in such a primal fashion. Sadly, it seemed transfers rarely worked out that way anymore.
Once upon a time the world was nothing but nature. Now she, along with most others, enjoyed her comforts. And her shoes. She was not a hiking boot kind of girl. Give her a pair of designer heels and a let’s-have-a-good-time dress and she could rope in all.
In his entryway she checked her reflection again in the mirror and sighed.
Time to move onto the next.
She just hoped she’d found the one she was really searching for. She thought she’d found him before, but it was the wrong vampire. When she did locate him, the bastard would pay for all the hard work she had to do to regain her powers.
2
Bourbon Street filled with lights and a rainbow of sounds. Jazz swirled with shouts while bass thumped from another club across the street. People were out in droves tonight.
Devon McClane wove her way through the crowds. Men whistled, at whom she didn’t know, nor did care. She wasn’t here to collect beads, get drunk or get laid.
Well, maybe getting laid wouldn’t be so bad…
No, not going there.
Shaking off the dangerous thought, she continued on. She should have given this assignment to one of the guys, but they were checking out other leads in the black widow cases. Black Widow… dumbass name. Idiots in the office or on the council gave the witch her moniker. Probably Grayson. The woman was not a widow. She just killed men, and women. Long-lived immortals that had survived decades or centuries even, were fair game. Those who had survived wars, famines, the very making of history were not safe. The witch drained them all of power. If she’d just killed them, that’d be one thing, but no. No, she liked to play with her prey.
The guys Devon worked with thought the woman was something new. Something of legends. Devon had a suspicion the witch was something different altogether. The witch wasn’t one of legends and folklore, but the one who had created them. Or had lived with them and learned them herself.
The cacophony of sound pulsed against her. She took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders. The dark street was alive with the sounds of fun. People yelled, a smaller group of people staggering down the street were laughing. A couple groped in the shadow of an alcove. She stopped and stared up at the neon sign, Desires. Rolling her eyes, she walked up to the open doors. People spilled out onto Bourbon Street. She slid by one person, then another. Too many damned people.
Desires? That was the name of his club? For some reason, she was not surprised.
Looking around, she saw the people were a mix of tourists enjoying the jazz, and those who liked leather and pale makeup.
Goths? Really? Hadn’t they gone out with at least the nineties?
She stood there for a minute, watching. Then she made her way to the bar. A set of stairs led up one side of the room, but it was roped off and someone stood guard at the bottom. The large bouncer jerked his chin at her. She nodded back. Shoving her way through the frat boys, she leaned over the sticky wooden bar, wincing. “Where’s Fr—Beaux?”
He always went by Beaux.
“Who’s asking?” the leggy brunet behind the bar asked.
“A really old friend.”
The woman looked her up and down. Shrugging she said, “No idea. Went upstairs with a couple of women earlier.”
Snide are we? “Honey, being jealous of that man is like using a hair dryer in a thunderstorm.”
The woman stopped, smiled then laughed. “That’s about right.”
“Let me guess. They were blondes.”
“Aren’t they always?” the bartender leaned over and jerked her head toward the doorway. “He left not long after. He rarely stays past midnight. Probably went home.”
“He still live over on Chartres?”
“I think so. He doesn’t always share what he’s doing or where he’s going, ya know?”
No, he didn’t. Not usually. She felt someone step up behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the bouncer stood there.
“There a problem?”
Bartender shook her head. “Nah. Red here just wanting Beaux.”
“Don’t waste your time, darlin’,” the man said. “You’d best look elsewhere.”
She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “What? Is the fact I seem too smart, or is it the lack of boobs?”
The man’s skin was so dark, the lights reflected off him. “Hair color. He never goes for redheads.”
The bouncer wasn’t a normal, his scent was off. He was a shifter of some sort. They always smelled like the outdoors to her. Deep forests, or something. Grass, rocks, rain.
“Is that right?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Man goes for blondes more times than not.”
Now she did smile. “That’s ‘cause I ruined him for reds.” She laid a twenty on the bar and to the bartender she said, “Thanks.” She strode back out into the night.
Why did he have shifters working in his bar? Was there a problem and he needed the help? None of this was any of her business. She wasn’t here to check out his latest ventures or how he ran them.
Again she wove through people, keeping her hands out rather than in her pockets. She didn’t trust anyone and honestly she hated crowds. Just as she turned the corner, her phone trilled out a tune. Sighing, she pulled it from her pocket and answered her boss.
“Where are you?” the man asked.
“Theo. I’m following up on a lead.”
“On our current case?”
“Yep.”
“In New Orleans?”
“Well, I’m not in Kansas.” How had he known where she was? Could ask, but she knew he probably wouldn’t divulge that information. Close to the chest was an expression her boss had down to an art.
He waited for more, but she didn’t oblige. She could keep her secrets as well. They might be friends, but he was her boss. “You were supposed to be taking time off, remember?”
“I don’t vacation well.”
He snorted. “None of us do. Keep me posted. I don’t like my people going off on their own. I can have someone there if you need. Grayson’s in Texas.”
“Grayson is a pain in the ass.”
“But he wouldn’t let anything happen to you. He knows you’re important to me, even if he feels the same about you as you do him.”
She laughed. “I’m fine. But I’ll let you know.”
He sighed and hung up. Theo, owner of Dark Light Unlimited, was not into chatting on the phone. He created a company made up of Others. Others was a nice broad term for shifters, vamps, weres, witches, fae, or combos thereof. She was a daughter of a fae and a vampire. She’d tried to be a normal once upon a time. Back when people danced the Charleston, she’d thought she’d fallen in love too. With two different men. One a vampire. One a fae. Now she had neither and almost a century had passed since then. Now she wasn’t soft. She didn’t dance. She wasn’t carefree. Now she hunted. Dark Light Unlimited was one of the most prestigious investigative firms in North America. She didn’t know who all they worked for, nor did she want to. She went where she was told, did was she was supposed to and went home at the end of most days alone.
And she was fine with that.
So why was she here?
Music from Bourbon Street one block over swung through the air to meld and mix with the boisterous laughter of a crowd. She walked on and the crowd trickled to a few couples, a trio of girls, and a group of men. The quieter part of New Orleans held her captivated. It always had, but she wasn’t here to party, wasn’t here to discover the French Quarter’s secrets.
If this was Bianca, the woman would not do anything short of torture Frankie for a long, long time before she finally ended him and took not only his soul, but his powers.
Devon knew that.
“Probably should have sent one of the guys to check on him.” She shoved the phone back into her pocket. She could just call him. That would have worked. She knew his number. She worked for a major PI firm. She knew where he lived and where he worked and what holdings he had, not just in New Orleans, but in a few other locations as well.
She didn’t want to call him.
She walked on, over another block and kept going, her boots the only sounds on the sidewalk. Taking a deep breath, she smelled the sweet scent of rain mixing with the muddy waters from the river.
The bells from the cathedral chimed the hour.
She stopped at one stoop and stood there, staring at the door.
Just knock. That’s all she had to do, knock on the door. He’d open it. Or someone would open it.
What if he wasn’t alone?
She glanced up and down the street, noting for the first time the Christmas lights twinkling off of several wrought iron balconies. Christmas. Christmas was in a few days.
They’d spent a Christmas together once upon a time.
She smiled at the memory and looked again at the door.
He was in there.
The short stoop before her was painted purple and she wasn’t surprised at all. The door was black with a brass knocker the size of a baby’s head.