Her father didn’t give them any notice. His Wendigo form was the stealthiest of beasts as it slashed through Alexia’s form. Blood gushed from her mouth, and the Vuković fell on top of her, lifeless. Her father didn’t waste any time as he tore at the other wolf, a tall, Native American man who she didn’t even know the name of. Within seconds, her father decimated the other two. Devon, Alexia’s mate. And finally, Ben. Ben tried to fight her father, tried to get to her, tried to protect her, but a Wendigo was as powerful as they came, as vicious as any Other that existed. She should know. She was her father’s daughter.
Her father stalked toward her, and she gently moved Alexia’s body to the side. She didn’t check her pulse. She knew Wendigos. Her father had told her that a Wendigo’s poison was deadly to the Clans.
She stood slowly, but as she stood, the languid resolution that death was coming left her bit by bit. Her anger, that piece of her she tucked deep inside every night her father moved inside of her, came to the fore, and she felt her Siren call come to life.
Except, the call felt the heartbeats around her instead of the human men she’d been reaching toward in her sleep. Clan. They weren’t dead of course. Poisoned, but not dead. She called the poison from their bodies and used the Siren’s musical gifts to give their hearts a jolt, to bring their anger out to match her own. Ben was the first to rise, his body moving so much more quickly than it had when he’d been just a Taryn. His smile was brilliant, full, and she was glad at least that her gift made someone happy.
She didn’t get to enjoy the moment, though. It was as though she were seeing the battle from inside of her head, unable to control what she was doing, as though her own Siren’s call had worked on her as well.
She left her father to the tender mercies of the Light Clan, who even as she walked away, were slowly waking and moving in on her father with renewed strength and vigor.
She was covered in blood, vomit, sweat, and tears, but her gift pulled at her… her gift called her to another place, and she couldn’t have stopped that pull for all the world.
Eight
Lost in the Echo
Clans. Magic. Men turning into big cats. Gemini should have been freaked.
But damn, the jaguar moving toward her was beyond beautiful.
She’d been feeling so much better these past couple weeks. She didn’t assign any meaning to it. The tumor hadn’t disappeared. In fact, her doctor had taken one look at her latest scan and sternly advised her that it appeared the mass had grown. He was going to do more tests, of course. They always wanted more tests. More science. More facts. She got that. She really did. Without the science or the facts, she wouldn’t have made it the first time.
But this time, there was that small voice that asked, “But what if magic exists and we can get better?” She knew it was fanciful. Matthew had told her about the Clans. The Taryn, born as twins who were exact opposites in coloring and temperament, but who could use their mind gifts to do amazing things. The Azima, a Clan whose leader was chosen by the gods and each member worked with an element. The Vuković, men and women who turned into wolves and fought the Skröm, the Dark Clan, Alexia’s Clan. She’d been a little excited that there were vampires and witches and werewolves, but Matthew had told her that she probably shouldn’t use those terms around the others.
And of course, there was Matthew’s own Clan, the Luna. Matthew’s black jaguar was tied directly to his spirit. He was his jaguar. More than a man, and not really human at all, she’d started noticing how much like an animal he really was recently. He liked touch, and his growly purr, although not typical of a black jaguar definitely spoke to being raised by two housecats.
The jaguar moved against her legs as he prowled.
“Matthew, I’ve got to finish this,” she said looking at her ledger and absentmindedly petting the big cat. She’d spent the last four hours balancing the books, and her eyes were strained and tired, but she needed her finances to be set, especially if her doctor thought she’d need more chemo or treatments in the future.
“Hello, Trouble.” Damon’s voice cut through her thoughts, interrupting her progress and she wanted to growl at the man.
“Garrison, Jesus,” she said, throwing her pencil at him. He easily caught it before it hit his head, and she smiled that her desire for the writing tool to hit him square in the head had been almost successful. He placed the pencil in front of her and he returned her smile.
“Good aim.”
“I’m working on throwing things at people who show up randomly on my doorstep,” she said and ended with a whispered, “asshole.” Her laugh told the truth, though. She was always happy to see Damon. Not in the same way as her big cat, but Damon, Alexia, Devon, and even the stoic Ben, who she’d met last week when Matthew had taken her to their place in the mountains, were just good people. Safe people.
You know, except for the fact that they were super fucking powerful.
But power wasn’t always a bad thing. These people used their power in the best ways.
Even Damon, who was Other.
“Ah, so he told you,” Damon said, smiling sadly, and sitting down in the seat across from her, his presence calm and relaxed.
“Got the whole Clan lesson a couple weeks ago, but yeah,” she said, “he’s been sharing bits and pieces. The other day, he sat down all serious, and we talked about your superpowers, and he said-” She blew out a breath and looked him dead in the eye, her brown gaze meeting the stirring gold that was the only indication that his emotions weren’t in complete check. His jaw ticked and she knew he’d read her thoughts. “He said he could smell the Darkness on you.”
Damon was quiet for a minute, but his gaze never faltered, never left hers.
“And what did you say, Trouble?”
She smiled at him. There was a growling purr from her big cat, but all the lazy animal did was lick her with his rough tongue and move to her feet to plop down in the rare February sun.
His body, which lay partially on her feet, felt warm and cozy and she closed her eyes at the feel of their connection in her soul.
“Trouble?”
“Shit,” she said, opening her eyes. “Yes.” She smiled at the memory. “I told him that everyone has Darkness and Light. I told him that I could hear the Darkness and the Light from him and Alexia.” She tilted her head to the side. “Not so much Devon, but Ben definitely.” She looked at the stoic Damon, who was waiting for her to finish. Her hand reached out for his, and he met her halfway, his tattooed hand grabbing onto her smaller, untattooed skin, although she’d been thinking of getting one recently. Maybe of a jaguar.
“Garrison Damon Trappe,” she said, meeting his gold gaze, “you are Darkness and Light. You are not evil.” She shushed him when he would have argued. How could she explain this? “You know how Matthew and I can feel each other’s emotions?” Damon nodded, but otherwise was motionless. “Well, I can’t read emotions, but I can hear-” She stopped talking, trying to find the words. “I can hear the lines of color from your souls like music coming from everyone around me, the different notes that play the song of a person’s life, and there aren’t many people who are all Light or all Dark. In fact, I haven’t met one person in two weeks whose particular colors, whose particular notes were only one thing. And your music, Garrison Damon Trappe,” she said, holding his grip more firmly, letting him know she was a friend who would never let go, “your music isn’t just Darkness.”
The gold in Damon’s eyes brightened to the point that Gem thought she might have to look away, but she shouldn’t have worried. Not with Damon. Damon would never hurt her.
She felt prickling notes play along her spine and a screeching in her bones and she looked over to find Annie standing at the small gated entrance of the patio to the café. Gem looked down at her feet in worry and realized Matthew had snuck away.
“Annie,” Gem said cautiously, recognizing the prickling notes for what they were. This girl had quite a bit of Darkness in her.
“Annie,” Gem said in a rush of compassion, taking a step in her direction, but she suddenly felt Matthew at her side, human and fully dressed. Damon stood in front of them both, and Matthew let him. That was her first clue things were not as they seemed. Matthew would never let anyone take a hit for him. He’d want to be on the front lines, it was in his nature.
“I promise, Other,” Annie said, her voice like the finest of piano keys playing in Gem’s mind. “I promise I am not here to hurt her.” She looked to Damon and then to Matthew, and then finally to Gem herself. “I will not hurt you, Gemini Lynn Harrington.”
Gem nodded, drawn by her voice and by the pull of the music that moved around her in a variety of colors and sounds, similar to the bond that was etched steadily between her and Matthew. This was another road, another path she needed to take.
“Gemini Lynn Harrington,” Damon said, but stopped when Annie’s gaze moved to him.
“Do you not remember your histories, Other?” Annie continued. “There was a time when the Sirens were not just the evil lures for angry men and women.” Gem watched as a light dawned in Damon’s golden eyes before he suddenly stood to attention, and let her pass.
Her Matthew wasn’t as easy to charm. She wanted to scream at him to move, to get out of the way, to set her free. She wanted to comfort him and tell him it would all be okay. Except, she couldn’t speak. Her mind was in Annie’s power, and she could feel her brain pulsing, obeying the whims of the woman, the Other in front of her.
Matthew fell to his knees, and Gem felt the slightest tickle in her mind, the slightest warning that she should fight this. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t fight the pull. Music had always called to her, and the Siren in front of her wasn’t just musical, she was made of music. The notes that Gem now heard from everyone around her were wired into this young woman’s being, knit into the very fibers of her soul, and Gem couldn’t have escaped that wonderful feeling of music invading her mind for all the world.
It was the most generous, the most beautiful, the most wonderful way to die.
Nine
Roads Untraveled
Swig. Spit. Swig. Spit.
One month after that day, and all Matthew could do was watch Ben steadily as he drank himself into oblivion at one of the large tables in their little community in the mountains.
Damnit. He was going to have fix this shit.
Matthew walked over to the table and sat across from Ben, grabbing the tin can Ben had stolen from him.
“That stuff’ll kill you, Hercules,” Matt said, tossing the can into the trash nearby. He didn’t need the shit anymore, and Ben didn’t need to be picking up any of his old habits.
“Can’t die,” the rough around the edges giant Taryn said through clenched teeth. Then he took another swig from the beer in front of him. Twelve bottles of beer weren’t going to get a Taryn drunk. Of course, three times that might, at least for a half hour or so, and that’s exactly what was sitting next to Benjamin Oliver. Two more twelve packs.
“Fuck it, Ben, what the hell? At least get the strong stuff, so you get drunker quicker.”
“Nothing else at Carrie’s. Just the goddamned detective’s favorite beer.” Ah, yes. Carrie was the resident chef. Cooked to calm her soul and all that shit. Girl was a mess since her accident with a dragon nine months earlier.
“So, you what? Grabbed the whole stash.”
The Taryn grunted and Matthew seriously wanted to try a different tactic, a more aggressive tactic, but he knew Gem wouldn’t have wanted that for him, wouldn’t have wanted him to take a moment where he could help a friend and–
Ben stood and punched his arm as he walked into the clearing to the side of the benches and fire pit.
“Come on, you pussy whipped bitch.” Jesus, now he had to fight him. Not because of the name calling, but because, if Ben was stringing together more than one or two words at a time, there was definitely something wrong.
Matthew hadn’t made it a half of a second into the clearing before he felt a punch to his gut. Jesus, he’d let his guard down too much recently.
He’d liked to have blamed Gem, and hell, maybe he should have. He’d go crawling back to his trailer later and have her kiss it all better. His lopsided grin at that thought was punched square off his face while Ben roared at him to get his head in the fight.
Hell, Ben was slinging all sorts of words out today.
Matt’s fist met the other man’s face, but the Taryn was bigger and Matt didn’t have it in him to beat a man who was already beaten.
Matt let Ben pummel him until they both fell to their knees.
Ben didn’t say anything.
His head was in his hands, and Matt just waited.
He hadn’t been all that patient these last twenty years, but he was finding that his old self was slowly returning since Gem, since finding her, since bonding her, since getting her back, having her life and mind gifted to her by the Siren who he’d thought would take his mate from him.
Ben lifted his eyes to meet Matt’s, and Matt saw something he rarely saw, except he had seen it. He’d seen it in the mirror for twenty years. Desolation. The desire to be numb to everything. The need for the world to swallow him up until he was nothing but an empty abyss.
“Shit,” Matt said.
“Don’t.” That was all Ben said. Just ‘Don’t’. Don’t tell. Don’t speak. Don’t think. Don’t.
Ben stood, and Matt watched him walk away, a deafening roar of silence being dragged in his wake.
“His music is different,” Gem said, moving into him and kneeling at his side, quiet as a cat. He hadn’t even heard her movements. “It’s darker. More lonely, but…” Her voice trailed, and he knew she was keeping a secret. He could feel that coming from her. Her smile reached her brown eyes and she laughed at his apparently suspicious look. “All right, all right. I’ll tell you, but this stays between us, my big cat.” She nuzzled his neck, rubbing her body against him like the little cat she was.
Despite his fear for his friend, he smiled at her playfulness. He’d been given a gift by Annie, and he’d never take his Gem for granted. Ever.
“Annie,” she whispered.
“Annie?” he asked, trying to figure out why the hell his friend had been so on edge recently, more so than even before. “We did everything we could. We couldn’t have done anything more for her.”
“I know, baby,” his little cat said with surety. “But you two are so alike. He couldn’t save Carrie, and he couldn’t save Annie. The women around him keep getting these big wounds, and he can’t make them better, whether physical or mental… he can’t help them.”
“He feels powerless,” Matt said in understanding. He too had felt like that, especially when Gem has been sick. He hadn’t been able to heal her. And they still hadn’t figured out why. Their bond was as strong as any. And Ben was feeling that helplessness now. There was just nothing Ben could have done to help the young woman with the broken soul.
Then Matt looked to Gem, a sudden thought entering his mind. Ben had seen a lot of loss, but it hadn’t made sense why he’d been in so much pain since the incident with Annie.
“You don’t mean… Annie?” Matt could barely get the words out, wrap his head around the possibility.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Gem said, tapping her fingers against her leg, “but I sensed something. There’s a connection there of some kind.” Her darkened gaze met his own, and he saw her pain for Ben there. He reached out, touching her newly grown hair that had healed and was even more vibrant than it had been before her illness. “But that feeling of being powerless. Yeah, that’s what I’m sensing in him. And a man who feels powerless will go to great len
gths to make the world bend to his power. A man who feels powerless has nothing to live for but finding a way to feel powerful again.”
Gem’s words were like a dark omen that haunted Matt as he cleaned up from his day working at Montville University and also from his tussle with Ben.
When Gem had been healed a month ago, he’d had to find new work, and Alexia had put a good word in for him at the university when a job had popped up for him. As much as he missed working beside his mate, he loved the manual labor of fixing any shit the college kids fucked up. Maintenance was much more Matt’s speed than making coffee.
He climbed into their large King bed, taking a moment to look at her strong body and her open smile as she lounged in their bed. She put her Kindle on the side table and looked at him expectantly, and he knew what she needed.
They didn’t need words. He could feel her, could sense her need for him, and he pulled her into his lap, enjoying the feel of her solid, healthy body. She’d not only become stronger this past month, their bond had strengthened as well, and he enjoyed the warmth of her soul as it brushed against his own. Her sunshine and his storms mingled in a map of roads and paths, laying out a journey that spoke of an eternity they would get to share together.
“I love you, Gemini Lynn Harrington,” he whispered as he kissed the crown of her head and then moved to her forehead, her nose, her jaw, and finally, her lips. He took her mouth like he took everything from her, with love and contentment and calm, patient hope. Because she’d given him back those things.
Her lips were soft and firm, and she nipped at his lips, a smile lighting up her face as she took his mouth. She pushed his chest down, so he was laying on her bed, and he gave her the power, gave her his weakness, letting her give him what she needed. Letting her take what she needed as well.
Dancing with the Devil (Wild Beasts Series) Page 8