by Ivy Sinclair
“Like a real person,” Nina said. “You’re not running around barking orders at people, acting as if you don’t care about anyone else in the world but yourself. Instead, you’re acting like you are like everybody else.”
Eric wasn’t sure what to make of that. He wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. So he decided to ask.
“It’s a compliment. I just mean that you’re so driven all the time that it seems like you may have forgotten what it’s like to be part of the world and not just looking at it from the outside like it’s some big puzzle that needs to be solved,” Nina said. “I know you guys are trying to save the world and all, but if you don’t take time to stop and enjoy living in it, then what’s the point?”
Eric stopped and pulled her up to him. He planted a hard kiss on her lips. “I’ve got something that I plan to enjoy many, many times in the future.”
She giggled against his chest. “Me too,” she said.
Eric couldn’t deny that he felt lighter than he had in years. Somehow, all of the drama around taking his company public and all of the board room meetings and the stuffy dinners and the constant glad-handing with people he didn’t even like fell away. It just didn’t matter anymore. He wanted to see where life could take him, and he wanted to see what it looked like with Nina in it. He didn’t care about the rest anymore.
“I’m thinking about retiring,” he said suddenly.
Nina stopped and looked at him in shock. “Retiring? You’re only thirty-five.”
Eric shrugged. “I’ve got all the money I could possibly want. I’ve spent my entire adult life building a company that no longer brings me any kind of joy or satisfaction. There’s something else that I want to do with my life; I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.”
Nina looked at him with a considering nod of her head. “You really have changed.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that for the last couple of days,” Eric said in a joking tone as he kissed her forehead. Even though he knew the situation was nothing for them to be joking about, he had to lighten the mood a little bit. They were in a life or death situation, but if he couldn’t laugh at it, he didn’t know what else he would do.
“So are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“I can’t take my mate on a stroll through the city park in the middle of the night and not get a question about my intentions?” Eric said.
“We can go for a walk anytime you want, but I know you. No matter how much you’ve changed, you’re not a guy who will sit around and rest on his laurels. What did you figure out?”
That was another thing that he liked about Nina. He didn’t have to beat around the bush with her. She had seen him at his worst, and the fact that she was still there was a testament to how much they obviously felt for each other. He still wanted to hear more of the actual words of her feelings, but the soreness of the bite on his neck was enough for him for now.
“So getting back to the idea of what we talked about earlier, I think we can assume that she hasn’t stopped going after mystical victims here. I just found somebody who wasn’t that far away from here who could be in her line of fire. I thought we would go check him out.”
“So is he the real deal?” Nina asked.
“If by real deal you mean that he might have a slight psychic twinkle on the scale of psychic ability, he might,” Eric said. “Or he’s a really good con man.”
“A well thought out con does look a lot like magic sometimes,” Nina said.
They had arrived on the other side of the park, and Eric pointed at where they were going. “The address is right over there,” Eric said.
Nina looked around. “This is a pretty nice neighborhood. The guy must do pretty well for himself. Unlike Madame Rivaldi.”
Eric wasn’t sure what to think. He just wanted to do a casual drive-by to see if there was anything amiss. They walked up to the address of the tall brownstone. Not surprisingly, all of the lights were off inside.
That was when Eric heard a crash from inside the house. He saw Nina’s raised eyebrows. The faintest of cries broke through the still air. If he wasn’t a shifter, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have heard it. He looked at Nina with a questioning glance and saw that she had heard it too.
“I think somebody’s in trouble,” she said.
“Stay here,” Eric said. He shuffled up the steps and then put his ear to the door. He could hear something going on inside that sounded like a scuffle. He tried the door, but it was locked. He looked back at Nina and saw that she was glancing around the street. Then she gave him a nod like ‘get your ass in there.’ Eric didn’t need any further permission.
He slammed his shoulder into the door. Nothing. It was solid walnut. There was no way he was getting through. He crested down the steps as quickly as he could go. “Come on. Let’s go find the back door.” They blew around the block and came up on the back side of the brownstone. Here, he saw the glow of a solitary light in one of the upper floor windows. The sounds of struggle and distress were louder now. Eric didn’t want to expose Nina to anything else, but he also needed her eyes and ears. He knew that Nina knew how to take care of herself. Still, any additional physical exertion would potentially speed the transition. He didn’t want her starting to phase anywhere near any of this chaos.
“Same plan. You stay here and keep a lookout. Call or whistle if you see anything.”
He could tell that she wanted to resist, but then she nodded. Good. He didn’t want to have to argue about this. There was a sliding glass door off the deck, and he could see that it was cracked open. It was going to be easier than he thought to get in. He quickly sped up the steps and through the doorway. Once inside, he caught a smell of something that was familiar. It was heavy and tinged with a coppery scent. It was the smell of death.
Eric didn’t want to turn on any of the lights, but he also didn’t want to move any further into the townhouse without knowing what he was up against. He cursed himself for not letting either Tony or Kyle know where he was going. Now he was going to be on his own. He slowly crept through the room in front of him, wishing for something to be able to defend himself with, then he remembered he had the best defense of all. Eric quickly stripped out of his clothes and phased into his panther.
He could see and smell better in his animal form, and his panther had been eager to get out. He let the animal guide him. He could see now in the room that it had been destroyed. The furniture was torn, and paperwork and other objects were strewn everywhere as if a great struggle had happened. Then he heard a bump on the ceiling above his head. His cat gave a low growl. Whatever was happening had moved to the second floor. He stalked up the stairs, barely able to keep control of the panther.
His cat was eager for a fight. It had had enough of what was going on, and it was eager to have its own time to play as well. There were three doors off to his right, lining the landing as he came up the staircase. He could see that two of them were closed. The one that was open was at the far end at the back of the house. It was the room where he had seen the light outside. This was his destination. He plodded across the hallway and stopped in the threshold of the door. What his cat saw made him shiver.
Jillian stood there with Floyd in front of her. She had her hand on the man’s throat, and her mouth gaped open. Although he didn’t see anything visible in the air between them, it was clear she was doing something to him. It was as if she was sucking something out of him. She caught sight of Eric, and he saw a cruel smile cross her face. She threw Floyd across the room as if he was nothing more than a rag doll. He landed in the corner and crumpled into an unmoving heap.
“Have you come to watch, lover?” Jillian asked. It was the first time he had seen her like this since that night in the quarry. Her face was unlined, and she looked exactly as she had back then. She wore a white, long-sleeved dress that covered her almost entirely as it flowed around her feet. Jillian braced her feet and stood there as if inviting him to attack he
r.
Eric couldn’t control the cat anymore. He pounced at her intending, to slash her throat. But she was already ahead of him. She disappeared even as his claws met the space that she had just occupied and then reappeared on the other side of the room.
“That’s not how you greet an old friend,” she said in a taunting tone.
His panther let out a roar. It charged her again, and this time, when she disappeared, he slammed into the wall.
“We could do this all day,” she said behind him. “You just need to submit. Give in.”
There was no way in hell he would ever submit to her. He let his cat tell her so in a loud roar that vibrated through every surface of the room.
“You will. You will submit, or you will die. Take that back to your friends. We are bound together, all of us. We are bound together by blood forever,” she said. Then with a dramatic flourish, she disappeared.
Eric heard the thump of steps running up the staircase. He knew then that Nina had not listened to him. He moved as quickly as he could out to the hallway, but then he heard her yell.
As he came out of the room, he saw Jillian standing there at the top of the stairs with Nina in front of her. She had her arm curled tight around Nina’s throat. She pointed at the mark on Nina’s shoulder blade.
“That was the wrong thing to do, lover. Remember, you are mine.”
Nina struggled, but Jillian held her fast. Eric didn’t know what to do. He could try to charge Jillian, but then he might take Nina down in the process. He watched in horror as if Nina read his thoughts. She backpedaled, throwing Jillian off balance, and they both went down the staircase. Eric phased back into his human form even as he moved down the stairs. At the bottom, he found the two unconscious women. He went to Nina first. He could tell that she had been beaten up badly coming down the stairs. He moved to the pile of his clothes to get his phone. Even as he turned, he saw that Nina was the only body at the bottom of the staircase now. Jillian was gone.
He cursed as he waited for Kyle to pick up the other end of the line. As soon as he did, he barked the address without any further preamble. “Get here. Get here now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It all happened so fast. One moment, Nina stood outside the townhouse, trying to look everywhere at once and waiting for Eric to come out. But then she heard the sounds of an unholy struggle happening inside and the roar of an animal that she knew was Eric’s panther, and she couldn’t stay outside. Not when Eric might need her help. She went to find him as quickly as she could.
In her haste, she hadn’t been paying attention. That was how she ended up in Jillian’s cold embrace once again, and she cried out in surprise. Just before the panther appeared in the doorway across from her, Jillian whispered in her ear. She had not and did not want Nina to die. She didn’t want Nina to die because Jillian wasn’t quite dead, but not quite living either, and Nina was her ticket back to the land of the living.
This was Jillian’s secret. She had been in transition for eighteen years. She needed a new living vessel, and she had chosen Eric’s mate for a reason. Then she intended to make the lives of all of the Urban Dwellers a living hell.
It happened so fast that Nina didn’t have a chance to absorb the full impact of her words. The panther growled low in its throat, and she knew that Jillian was going to taunt Eric with her. She wasn’t sure if Jillian could be killed, but she had to try. If she succeeded, she could have saved them all. That was what propelled her to shove Jillian backward. As her head struck the edges of one of the steps going down, her world went dark.
When she woke up, she quickly realized the joke had been on her. She was in a padded room. She was also naked. The room looked like a cell in a mental hospital. The door opened, and Eric stood there. His face was drawn, and it looked as if he hadn’t slept in a while. She realized that in the chaos of what had happened, and the trauma of the healing from throwing herself down the staircase, she must have overexerted herself and set her full transition into motion.
“Is it over?” she asked. Her voice felt hoarse, as if she had been screaming for days.
Eric walked into the room and knelt down beside her. He gathered her up into his arms, and despite the fact that she knew things were precarious, she still appreciated the fact that he was tender with her.
“I’m so sorry, Nina. I didn’t know what else to do. Once it started, this was the safest place for you until the first phase was over,” he said hesitantly.
Now Nina was aware that there was something else in her head. It hissed at her from the corners of her mind. Her snake was present and accounted for. It was the most disconcerting feeling she had ever experienced. She knew then she would never be alone again.
“At least I made it through,” she said. If there was an upside, she figured that was it. She would live to see another day. Maybe.
“I’ll get the doctor to take a look at you,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“We don’t have time for this, Eric. How long have I been out?”
“Three days,” he said. She could see the edges of worry on his face. He had been afraid that she wouldn’t come back.
“Three days? What happened to Jillian?”
“She got away,” he said. “There have been three more sightings around the city, though. She’s definitely increased her efforts to collect as much magic as she can. We still don’t know why.”
“I do,” Nina said. “She intends to cast a possession spell.”
Eric looked at her with surprise. “A possession spell? For who?”
“For me. If she can handle it, maybe for all of us,” Nina said. “That’s her plan. She hasn’t let go of you, Eric. This will be her way of making you stay with her forever.”
Eric helped Nina get to her feet. He produced a small white robe and threw it around her shoulders. She felt slightly more comfortable covered up. But then there was a part of her that realized that she didn’t really care if she had clothes on or not. She was different now. She could feel it. All of the concerns that had plagued her about her new state of being had fallen away.
She could see Eric watched her carefully. He was worried. Kelly entered the room from behind him. She had a clipboard in her hands, but she wasn’t wearing the same lab coat that she’d been wearing during their last interaction. She gave Nina a small nod with a tumultuous smile. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine,” Nina said. “You have to have somebody tell me what all of this means now, though. I don’t know what happens now.”
Eric put his arm around her shoulders. “I will help you. Don’t worry about that.”
She winced as she heard the voice growing louder in her head. It was very insistent, as if it was trying to get her attention. She tried to ignore it. She figured that was something that she was going to have to start learning how to do. She had someone else living in her head now. They were going to have to figure out how to work together. That was when Nina realized what it was trying to tell her. She pulled away from Eric slightly and looked up at him. “I think I could find her.”
Eric’s face darkened. “I was afraid of this.”
He looked at Kelly, who shrugged as if she wasn’t surprised. “It’s not unheard of. We should have expected it was possible.”
Nina pushed on his chest to remind him she was there. “What are you talking about? What should we have expected?”
“When a blood bond is formed between an alpha and their clan mates, there is an innate kind of homing beacon that can occasionally be paired with it,” Kelly started to explain. “It’s very useful in times of war or when the clan is separated from each other. It was an evolutionary type of instinct that developed. It’s something that has been lost in further generations where the bloodlines have been diluted, but depending on how pure the bloodline of the alpha is, it can still be quite strong. But the reverse is also true. Not only can you sense where your alpha is, but the alpha can sense where you are too.”
&
nbsp; “I didn’t do any kind of blood exchange with Jillian. I don’t understand,” Nina said.
“The purer the bloodline is, the less that I think the rules as we know them today might still apply. This is simply the way that it was done in the beginning as far as I can tell.”
Nina could tell that Kelly was frustrated that she didn’t know the definitive answer. “I need to find her.”
“Over my dead body,” Eric said. “You just told me that she wants to possess you. I’m not letting you anywhere near her.”
“Especially now that she knows you survived the transition,” Kelly grimaced. “I don’t know that you are going to need to go seek her out anymore,” she said to Eric. “If what Nina says is true, she will find her either way.”
Eric’s jaw looked like he was chewing on rocks. “Great. So now what you’re saying is no matter what I do, she is going to come for my mate.”
“It’s a guarantee,” Kelly said. She put her clipboard against her stomach. “And I’m afraid that once she comes for Nina, and if she succeeds in possessing her, she will come for all of us.” The words weren’t said with any kind of hostility. Nina thought that Kelly genuinely wanted to help; she just didn’t know how.
Nina felt a sense of something that she had not experienced in years. It was the feeling of being part of a larger family again. She could see that despite the way that Eric and Kelly had a bit of a sibling rivalry between them, this was bringing them together. They were all comrades in arms. They were all fighting for a common goal and against a common foe. She was part of Eric now, and he was part of her. She was part of the Urban Dwellers now. She would stand with Eric, no matter what.
“You’re right. Madame Rivaldi said that I didn’t have to go looking for her. She said that she would find me. I guess this is what she meant,” Nina said. She was starting to finally put things together.
Now that she had her family, she felt a wave of possessiveness toward all of them. What she wanted to do now was just protect those that she cared about. She had a bigger purpose than herself. She would do everything that she could to protect her clan and to protect Eric. They had to make a stand.