“My neck hurts,” Livia whines. I move her hair out of the way to examine the spot. A wide blister has formed around a puncture wound. The skin is purple, radiating out into a sickly green. I touch the injury gently with the pad of my finger. Clear fluid dribbles out.
“What did you do, Gates?” I’m appalled. They don’t care who they hurt, even little kids.
Gate smirks. “Insurance to guarantee your cooperation. Livia is our only leverage over you. Do you want to know the reason for your amnesia? We couldn’t figure out how to break you so every time you became too much to handle we just started over. Erased you to a more manageable state. Imagine the damage it did?”
In the Institute, the nurse said they started over again. She meant they erased my memory. Again, she said. How many times did they reset me? How much time has passed? Gates and his employer had hijacked my life.
“Why are you telling me this?” In the movies, the bad guy reveals his plan right before the hero defeats him. Hey, a girl can hope.
Gates shrugs. “We can reset you again if we have any problems. Somehow I think knowing will make you more agreeable not less.”
He’s right. I don’t want to start again. I will find a way out of this, for Livia. First things first, I need to know what they did to her. “Will she be okay? What did they give her?”
Gates is peering out the window, bored with our discussion. “Another virus. Not Arcana, an older formula that didn’t perform within accepted parameters. Don’t fret, we made an antidote as well.” He examines his nails, barely paying attention to me.
And if I believe that, you have a bridge to sell me in London. My gut tells me he’s lying about a cure. “So unless I do what you want, Livia will die?” I clarify.
“Correct. The process is quite painful.” The way he looks at Livia makes my skin crawl. I think he is excited to watch her suffer. Sadistic bastard.
The Limo rolls to a stop. Headlights beam in through the back window. A Humvee pulls up behind us and parks. Gates gestures towards the door, “Ladies first.”
Climbing out of the limousine, I am joined by Richland Institute guards from the Humvee. Outside, I get my first close up look of the club. Lune Rouge is a magnificent building. Not overly large, but with plenty of room for a small crowd. While it does not possess the pizzazz high end clubs do, it feels inviting. A subtle charm. The kind of place where everyone is a regular. Gates takes Livia’s hand from me and holds it in his own. I hate that he is touching her. She didn’t say a word in the limo as we talked about her fate. So young, she doesn’t understand what is going on. Praise the lord for that.
I take the lead with Gates and Livia behind me. The five guards in civilian clothing bring up the rear. I don’t see any weapons. Must be concealed somewhere on their bodies. I highly doubt they’re walking into a shifter club unarmed.
I push my way through the door and look the interior over. A bar is installed in the back right corner. There are three sets of booths and a scattering of tables on either side of the entrance. Straight back are the doors to the kitchen along with a staircase that leads upstairs to a loft. A few pool tables and two arcade games fill out the first floor. A full house tonight. Shifters are everywhere. Auras, auras, everywhere. Just like with Alonzo in the tank, I can see the animal inside them.
I understand what Kadema meant about made versus born shifters now. The made ones have the displaced aura. A mirage that wavers over them. With born shifters, it’s all in the eyes. They look inhuman for split second. If I concentrate, I can hold it longer and even see the beast contort their face. Doing a quick count I find wolves, bears, and cats. Whatever Gates organized, we will fail. Too many of them against one of me. My heart sinks in my chest. I can’t do this.
Just inside the door Gates raises a gun from inside his suit and shoots into the ceiling. “Cover the exits,” he says over his shoulder. Initially the shifters look tense, but after realizing it’s just a bunch of humans they visibly relax. Their expressions vary. Some are amused, others annoyed. Several shifters have gone back to whatever they were doing before Gates shot the gun. The music has been turned down, only a few people are talking quietly. Gates and his guards move deeper into Lune Rouge, guns drawn. Why are they shifters letting them pass? They certainly don’t appear to feel threatened. That’s scary.
Gates is in the center of the club. I follow behind him curious to see what happens next. I should grab Livia and run. I look up at the loft. People are lined up against the railing watching the display below. My eyes are drawn to one man in particular. From my angle and with the low lighting, I can’t tell much about his features or height. His clothes and hair are dark, he rests one arm on the top rail and holds a pool cue in the other hand. His gaze is a penetrating green and I swear they glow, I have to make myself look away.
“Guns are not appreciated here, sir,” says a young woman behind the bar.
Liquid courage, come to mama! Moving around Gates, I walk over and take a seat in front of her. “Can I get a drink please?” I ask politely.
“What do you think you are doing?” Gates grinds out through clenched teeth. He is standing directly behind me.
“You folks had me locked up playing lab rat. I just want a few minutes of me time before the shit hits the fan.”
Gates doesn’t know what to say to that. Patrons watch me curiously. Let them. I am past the point of caring. The bartender grins at me. She has hair that’s a silvery lavender dancing around her shoulders. Her eyes are a mesmerizing shade of purple. She doesn’t seem real. I am spellbound. Not a shifter, what is she? I have to stop myself from reaching out and touching her.
“What would you like?” She asks me breaking the trance.
Back to reality, in a room full of doom. “What would you recommend for a woman’s last drink on earth?”
Now I have the attention of the room. No one is talking anymore. Someone turned off the music. The bartender is bothered. She chews on her bottom lip and frowns at me. Gates is growing annoyed.
“What are you blathering on about, Miss Ryan?”
I’m ignoring him. The bartender thinks for a second and says, “Whiskey. The good stuff.” She pours a shot and hands it to me. Her hand touches mine deliberately and our eyes lock forming a connection. Warmth and comfort course through me. When she disengages her hand from mine I’m disappointed. Once again, dread and fear take over.
Downing my shot, I shake it off. I’ve never had whiskey before. If I live, I won’t repeat the experience. Blech!
“Rachel, I am talking to you!” Gates is losing what grip he has left on his temper and waving his gun around.
He looks like a raving lunatic.
I am losing my temper too. Alcohol loosens my tongue. “Oh hold your damn horses. Are you really so eager to die?”
Stumped, Gates asks, “Why would we die?”
I huff. “I count a few different flavors of shifter in here and only six guns. I don’t even know if a gun can kill a shape shifter.” I turn and raise a brow at the bartender.
“Depends.” She shrugs. “You’d need a lot of complex ammunition to do ‘em all. Then you’d still have the non-weres to deal with.” She says matter-of-factly.
Peachy! I need an armory of special ammunition. Too bad I left that at home.
“We don’t need special ammunition,” Gates scoffs. “We have you, Rachel.”
He’s putting a lot of faith in my Arcana. “I killed one werewolf. One! I didn’t even do it on purpose! What makes you think I can do a roomful all at once? You don’t expect them to wait patiently in line do you?”
He cannot possibly be that stupid. The whiskey is effecting me, I feel light headed. I grip the bar to calm the spinning. Gates looks baffled by my question then it dawns on me, “Aw geez, you do expect me to wipe them all out. You are a dangerously stupid man.”
“And you are wasting Livia’s time,” he counters. A guard grabs my upper arm and pulls me off the stool. A growl from nearby scares him and he
lets me go. I stumble sideways and look for the source of the sounds. The guy from the loft with the amazing green eyes snuck down when no one was looking. Still not close enough as I would like so I could really check him out. He’s down at the end of the bar glaring daggers at Gates. I can see he’s tall and well built, but I really need to pay attention to crazy Gates and his boys.
My knight in shining armor.
Gates is a lost cause. I plead with the guards closest to me. “None of us are going to survive. One of them will snap my neck or Gates will give the order to execute me. Livia and I are dead in any scenario.” I’ll give Richland credit for hiring dedicated guards. They don’t even flinch.
Gun pointed at me, Gates rages, “Damn it! Why can’t you do what you’re supposed to?!”
I square off against him. “I’m talented. Let Livia go, and I won’t twist you up in knots.” For a moment, Gates blanches, but recovers quickly. “You think you can barter with me? Kill her now.”
A guard reaches out to grab me but soars backwards instead. A support beam running from the floor to the loft above catches him in the back. His spine cracks like a twig. Gates gapes at me.
I shrug. “I warned you.”
He retaliates by wrenching Livia’s arm behind her back until it curves at an abnormal angle. He has broken her arm. Using her body as a shield Gates edges towards the exit. Livia screams. “Shut up!” Gates bellows and jerks her hard making her yelp louder. People are yelling all around me. The guards move closer together for protection. The shifters are no longer spectators. When Gates broke the child’s arm he started a chain of events. Gunfire erupts as one shifter takes a guard down.
Fire erupts under my skin. All I want now is to make Gates suffer. “That was a big mistake.”
Arcana is building so fast I can’t hold it. I fixate on Gates looking for vulnerabilities. Alonzo was a werewolf and Gates is just a run of the mill human. No shapes to divide from his body. Nothing that defines him as supernatural and giving me something to work with. My thumping heart echoes inside my head. Another heartbeat joins in. This one belongs to Gates and it is racing. I know it’s his heart because it beats in time with the pulse jumping at his throat. He’s terrified of what I’m going to do to him. I focus all my energy on his heart. I squeeze. Gates clutches at his chest, letting go of Livia in the process. He opens his mouth to yell, and a blue beam spills out of him.
Livia hits the floor, and a stout biker scoops her up and out of the way. Gates staggers forward and crumples to his knees. Chaos ensues as the patrons of the Lune Rouge annihilate the remaining three of Richland’s guards. Gates puts to use his remaining strength to raise the pistol and fire it at me. The bullet catches my shoulder, and I fall. My skull bounces off the plank floor before settling.
Livia sits by my side. She strokes my hair with her good hand and pleads with me. “You can’t leave me Rachel. Please, don’t leave me.”
Hot tears edge out the corners of my eyes. What will become of Livia? Who will take care of her? The lavender haired bartender kneels down next to me and catches my hand. Her lips are moving, but I hear nothing. Darkness consumes me.
CHAPTER 4
Rachel
More than once I tried to claw my way up from unconsciousness. I remain unable to move through the arguing and crying, people prodding my body. All I want is to wake up. I’ve got to find Livia. Pain propels me over the threshold of sleep and into waking. Another prison cell. Not a sugar coated version like at the institute. Brick walls and a door made of steel bars cage me.
The fiery throbbing on the left side of my body calls to mind I was shot. The bullet entered below the collar bone. White bandages wrap my shoulder and encircle my chest covering my breasts. To hold my arm immobile, a bandage is holding my arm to my side at the elbow. The wound itches and I scratch at it absentmindedly. I realize too late it is going to hurt, except it doesn’t. I got shot, why doesn’t it hurt? Just a second ago it hurt like hell. Gingerly, I peel back the bandage to look at the wound. Before my eyes, I can see it healing. Well, that’s not normal. Um, thank you Arcana?
A pair of jeans and a tee shirt have been laid out for me at the foot of the cot. Whoever the jeans belong to is close to my size. Well-worn with holes in the knees, the jeans fit comfortably, but the t-shirt is too big. I don’t mind. Fitted clothing would aggravate my wound. Dressing is cumbersome, and it burns, but I manage. Utilizing my good arm, I run my hand through the tangled mess on my head.
I turn towards the door, and a man is on the other side. The guy that growled at the guard for grabbing me. My knight in shining armor, the man from the loft, close enough I could reach out and touch him. Tall, lean, and muscular, his hair is an earthy dark coffee color with gold highlights; longish and unruly. His jaw is clean shaven and he wears a pair of dark blue jeans and a grey sweater. Not glowing, so maybe I imagined it, but his green eyes are still amazing as he carefully takes me in. Did he watch me get dressed?
He crosses his arms over his chest, widening his stance. “If I think you are going to try any of your Jedi mind tricks on me I will break your neck before you can blink.”
My jaw drops and I sputter, “Um, that’s fair. Wait, if I am a Jedi does that mean you believe I am one of the good guys?”
One corner of his mouth tips up. “No, it means I like Star Wars.”
“Bummer,” I mutter.
I make bad jokes when I am nervous. He’s too handsome for my brain to view him as threatening. Stupid brain. He’s a werewolf. Of that, I am sure. Different from Alonzo, no aura. Born, not made.
“My name is Bastien” he says. “You and I need to discuss what happened in Lune Rouge last night”
I take a step forward and grasp the bars. “I will tell you everything down to the last detail, promise, but first, please, how is Livia?”
“You really care about her, don’t you?” he comments softly.
Tears threaten to spill over. “I do. Do what you want with me, but she needs help. The men who held us captive shot her up with a virus; it’s going to kill her.”
“She’s sick, the fever started a few hours ago. I promise everything is being done to help her. Right now I need to get some answers from you. What the hell happened last night? Are you a witch? Is that what the blue light was?”
Retreating to the cot, I sit down gingerly to rest my aching side. “Arcana. They call the blue light Arcana. I’m no witch. I was given a virus like Livia. It induces mutations in the brain. I don’t know about any others, but my Arcana makes a blue light when in use.” I feel the heat in my cheeks.
Bastien nods, “Did the military or the government do that to you?”
“I don’t know where they get their funding. Might be the president, might be from neighborhood bake sales. The place is called the Richland Institute. A psychotic asshole named Richland runs things. He has a plan to rid the world of anything not human. Arcana was designed to level the playing field. That much he told me. Clearly he’s not taking into account the experiments might not be keen on cooperating with him.”
I start at the beginning and tell him everything. He listens to every word. Halfway through my tale, I start to pace. Bastien obviously doesn’t think I am a threat because he unlocked the cell to sit on my cot some time ago. Finally, I run out of things to tell. He runs a weary hand down his face before leaning back against the bricks.
“Guess Dad was right when he said this was going to bring the tribunal down on our heads. It will take a few hours before they’re all assembled. You are going to need to repeat what you told me to the council. For what it is worth, I believe you.” Sympathy warms his eyes. I could look at them all day, but I am worried about what he just said.
“Tribunal? Council? What are those?” I ask.
“Governing bodies. The tribunal is comprised of the heads of each house for all the major families, Packs, Vampire Clans, Covens, and Fae Courts.”
The United Nations of the not quite human?
“The council i
s Therian community only,” he says.
“Therian? What does that mean?”
“Therian is short for therianthropy, which is the metamorphosis of a man into an animal. Therian is the word we use to encompass all species of shape shifters.”
“Great. I am just learning to handle the idea of werewolves, and now you throw vampires and fairies my way,” I huff.
“Fae,” he corrects.
“Whatever.”
He has the nerve to laugh. “Baby, you have no idea what you just got cast into, do you? Therians and Vampires are the bulk of the tribunal in this region. The others rarely show up. Witches are too human to care about our problems. Fae are stuck up. They live on an alternate plane of existence parallel to ours. If it does not happen over there, we’re not likely to see them.”
Soberly I ask, “How much trouble am I in?”
His sigh is heavy and brings me no relief. “Humans want to use you as a weapon, right?”
“Yes, but don’t I get points for foiling their evil plan?” I murmur.
“You already cashed that favor in otherwise you would be dead. The vote barely went in favor of keeping you alive long enough to find out what you know.”
“What are my chances?” I demand.
“I won’t lie, they're slim. I intend to talk to my dad about vouching for you. He’s the alpha over all the other wolf packs. It gives him influence in political matters.”
The council or tribunal may decide to kill me, but surely Livia will not be considered a threat. Would they kill a child? “What about Livia? They won’t hurt her, will they? She’s only five, how dangerous can she be?”
Bastien sighs. “That’s a little more difficult. Did you know she’s not human?”
“I noticed she was different, but hadn’t had time to think about it,” I answer, surprised.
“She’s half werewolf. My older brother Athan went missing over a decade ago. Many have disappeared through the years. Madalaina and I both noticed his scent on the girl last night. Tests are being run, but they’re only a formality. She’s Athan’s daughter. Her mother’s side of the family is where things become interesting.” He sounds bitter. “Winter, the Fae bartender from Lune Rouge, says Livia is a royal red Fae. If it is true, then she has a hard road ahead of her.”
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