by Kate Wendley
George spent years as a lonely widower before being turned vampire. Stumbling on Sonya gave him new zest for life. He doted on her and fashioned for them the kind of life he’d always wanted with his own family. But once Sonya became an adult and eventually discovered his secret nature, she’d demanded he turn her vampire, like him.
It was many more years before Ethan wandered into their lives and fell in love with Sonya. So in a way, George lost more than Ethan had that horrible night of her death. George not only lost Sonya when Isaiah drove a stake through her heart and cut off her head, he also lost his reminder of his humanity. He wanted to see the vampire hunter dead just as badly as Ethan did, which was why Ethan didn’t trust him anymore.
“Try again.”
Ethan strained to keep his temper in check as George’s anxiousness seeped into the air around them. George wasn’t the one Ethan wanted to kill, Isaiah was, but because of George’s lessons in how to beckon vampires home, Ethan was now going insane with the constant maddening presence of the murderer’s emotions at the edge of his consciousness.
George had been Master a long time before Ethan happened upon his family, and he’d taken his role seriously enough to know good and goddamn well what it would’ve meant for Ethan to beckon home the only vampire he’d ever made. He would’ve known Ethan would intimately feel the man’s presence once he began drawing closer. He should’ve told him all that before coaxing him into beckoning Isaiah back here.
At times he wished he’d never come to Atlanta over seventy years ago because then he wouldn’t have run into Anthony, the spitting image of his father. Ethan wouldn’t have come to the horrific realization that Sonya’s killer was still alive. He didn’t exactly find happiness after Sonya’s death, but believing her killer had committed suicide when he found out what he’d been turned into had at least given Ethan some measure of comfort over the years.
Learning he was actually alive, and had turned his true family vampire felt like a tortuous, shocking injustice. He’d nearly gone insane with rage that night, and every night since whenever he ran into Anthony.
He grabbed his jacket. It was no use getting upset at George since there was nothing Ethan could do to stop any of this craziness. “I’ll try again later. Cory, let’s go to the club.”
George threw his hands up in exasperation and helplessly watched them leave.
**
Harmony combed through every bit of cryptic information, gossip and hearsay she’d gathered over the years about Atlanta and came to the city as prepared as she could possibly be. Still, she was alone in a new territory with no allies to back her up this time. Big knives, small daggers and other cleverly hidden self-protections helped ease her nerves… somewhat.
Supposedly the Master of the Atlanta territory set up shop in the suburb of Brookhaven. The basement club of one of these apartment buildings was where he could frequently be found.
The old brick apartment complex looked stately, yet cozy, with leafy, green vines climbing the walls of the building she could best see. A full, lovely magnolia tree looked well cared for and sat like an old mother hen on the lawn nearest the road, watching who came and went. And a barricade of evergreens lined the property behind, making this place seem more like a fortress. Even the drive down the street to get here had been canopied with a thick tunnel of trees.
Inside, power pulsed in the air, which was typical for a vampire’s lair. She descended the stairs to the club on full alert. The shifter guard upstairs seemed sane enough to at least be able to keep peace with the vampire guard that had also been up there with him, but she still didn’t know what the rest of the supernaturals in the city were like. And luckily they didn’t frisk her to find all the weapons she hadn’t been honest about having. So the guards here were either lazy, stupid, or didn’t much care if violence broke out in the club. Maybe fighting was expected, in order to figure out your rank in their pecking order.
She got to the bottom of the stairs and looked around in wide eyed wonder… and alarm. If her senses were right, and they always were, this room was overrun with shifters. Warm bodies, thumping hearts, and the feel of wild energy filled the air. She felt the cool, solid energy of vampires somewhere, but not nearby, and definitely not very many of them. It gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Hi.”
Her heart nearly jumped out of her ribcage as she spun around, her hand already on her thigh to grab at a hidden dagger if she needed it.
The man standing in front of her looked to be around her human age. He had short black hair spiked in a messy style, intense green eyes, and was not at all hard to look at. But he was shifter. Jaguar if she wasn’t mistaken. His scent was earthy like a shapeshifter, but the cats had a more subtle smell than wolves and coyotes. They were also good at masking it until the last possible moment. She’d learned that the hard way years ago.
He eyed her suspiciously and took a half step back. “I’m Zach and you’re obviously new here, or else suicidal. I’m going to assume you’re new, which means I’ll give you one chance to do this right. You’re going to turn around and head upstairs with me to drop all your weapons in the bins before you come back down, or you’ll be banned from the club forever. I don’t think you want to be banned, and I don’t think you want to be on Anthony’s bad side, either. And in case you don’t know who he is, he’s the Master Vampire of this territory. He’s sitting over there in the restaurant.”
She stared Zach down while she tried really hard to calm all the internal alarms that went off about the Master of Atlanta possibly only being about thirty five feet from her. It had to be a lie. She didn’t feel any vampires that close by. She wanted so badly to look where Zach pointed, though. But she also wanted to figure out if he had any tics that gave away the fact that he was lying. He didn’t seem to.
She scoffed and said under her breath, “Fine, let’s do this. But if you so much as lay one hand on me, all bets are off.” She flicked a quick glance towards the restaurant and saw a man with a giant scar on his face looking her way, but he didn’t feel vampire to her so she didn’t pay him any mind.
She turned her attention back to Zach instead. He gave her a nonchalant look, then twirled his hand in the air, gesturing for her to turn around. “You’re going first, Miss Sneaky Pants.”
She gave him a look. “Miss Sneaky Pants?”
He smirked. “Just go before I get the wrong impression about why you’re here and things get ugly.”
She groaned under her breath and did as she was told. “And why should I worry about you trying to take me down?”
He laughed out loud. “You are new here.”
She frowned, but kept walking.
“I’m Anthony’s feeding partner, the Alpha Jaguar, and I’ve had lots and lots of Anthony’s blood. If you want to have a go at me, I’ll fight you out at the ranch. No fights at the club. That’s a rule.”
She eyed him more suspiciously, then thought better of taunting him any more than she already had and kept plodding up the stairs.
“So where’s the Master really at? I didn’t feel any vampires in the club.”
He kept close pace behind her. “You’ll never feel Anthony. At least you shouldn’t. The one time I know of that he wasn’t holding his power close to himself, people fried from the inside out before they even got near him. He usually feels like a void, so be thankful. He’s in the restaurant, like I said. He’s with his girlfriend, a human, and don’t be stupid enough to hurt her unless you really are suicidal.”
They made it upstairs again, which put her on edge even worse than before. The same two guards were still up here, and just as she and Zach entered the foyer, another vampire and shifter walked in the front door. Five supernatural men to one woman in a small space weren’t good odds no matter how many daggers she had on her. But the fact that there were now three vampires to three shifters made her feel better. She’d had worse odds in fights before and still miraculously survived.
&n
bsp; Zach said to the vampire guard, “Benicio, this one needs to add some more items to her bin. Seems like she forgot to leave a few things up here before she went down to the club.”
She curled her lip at him and the confused guard, then reluctantly started pulling bone daggers, ropes, and other loner safety precautions out of her various pockets and other hidden places. She wasn’t stupid. She knew they’d probably only been scenting for metal weapons when she first came in. And that’s all she’d given them.
The vampire that had walked in the door with his shifter buddy stopped and watched in surprise, then finally chuckled. “Zach, you have the most interesting friends.”
Holding one of her daggers in a solid grip, she snapped, “Hey buddy, get any closer and I’ll show you exactly how interesting I can be.”
He didn’t seem at all worried by the looks of his easy going smile. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, my beautiful butterfly.”
She scoffed as she dropped her weapon in the bin. “Butterfly. Please.” She wasn’t in Atlanta to get personal, she was here to… well what the hell was she here for if not to let her guard down and get to know people? That had always been her problem, she supposed. She had a hard time giving anyone a chance anywhere she traveled because she knew she wouldn’t be staying. And since she didn’t like emotional goodbyes when it was time to inevitably move on again, she didn’t let herself get close to anyone.
Maybe things could be different here, or maybe not. She’d wished too many times for an end to the ache of the loneliness and isolation of her life. Each new city was a new hope, a new gamble that the thirst in her soul might finally be quenched.
But she’d been disappointed so many times that now she always arrived assuming she’d be let down again. It was a double edged sword. The initial excitement and hope of a new place inevitably sent her into a fit of self pity and depression. So she’d started only skimming the surface with each new city, and each new person she met. Had she missed out on something along the way because she wasn’t strong enough to open herself up to new people and experiences anymore?
She turned back towards the handsome, flirting vampire, but he’d already disappeared through the door that led down to the club. Hmm. Maybe he could give her some insight into the Atlanta community and introduce her to some other vampires. At the very least, if she talked to him again, she could figure out how twisted the people here might be.
So she was in a new territory and she had a plan. Sort of. It was better than nothing, she supposed. It gave her a little hope anyway.
She reluctantly gave up all her weapons to Zach and the shifter guard and felt completely naked standing here without any protection. She wondered if she could sneak at least one small dagger by them.
Zach pulled out his cell while he kept a watchful eye on her. She scowled at him while she waited, figuring she wasn’t going anywhere until he told her she could. She couldn’t believe she was actually taking orders from a shifter.
He spoke casually into his phone. “Hey dude, I need you to come read someone. She’s with the guards and me in the upstairs foyer.”
He hung up and turned his attention back to her. “Is that everything?”
She curled her lip at him. “Yes.”
He gave her a look. “For the record, I can smell lies. Dump it in the bin.”
She grumbled and pulled her last weapon from the general area of her cleavage.
He exaggeratedly said, “Is that everything?”
She huffed. “Yes.”
He stared her down for a moment, which only made her nervous. “Fine. What’s your name?”
She gave him bored eyes. “Harmony.”
“Why are you here with an arsenal of weapons?”
She flicked a look at the vampire guard, Benicio, then back at Zach. “I’m new to Atlanta and I don’t know what to expect from you shifters.”
He surprisingly didn’t react to her taunt. “Never been around us before?”
“Oh, I’ve been around your kind. Just not willingly.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “So are we going to have a problem?”
She flicked a glance at Benicio again. He minutely shook his head, and even though she didn’t know him from Adam, he was vampire and she had to believe another vampire wouldn’t give her up to a filthy shifter. She turned her attention back to Zach and said, “Apparently not.”
He casually leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms as if daring her to do something stupid. “You still want to go back down to the club?”
“No, but I need to present myself to the Master of this territory.”
“If you want to stay on his good side, don’t bring weapons here again. The whole point of the club is to have a place that our kind can relax and be ourselves. You sneak even one in and I won’t be so nice next time, though I’m pretty sure Anthony would beat me to the punch.”
“I’m not here to hurt anyone. Sheesh. Just keep your damn paws off me and we’ll be fine.”
He nodded. “All right, then we understand each other. But before you go back down, Sebastian’s going to read you.”
“Read me? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means he’s going to find out why you’re here.”
“I just told you why I’m here.”
Zach cocked an eyebrow again, looking like he’d just about had it with her. She cursed herself for being so snide to him when it was painfully obvious shifters were in charge of this place. Shit. She looked to Benicio again, and he finally spoke.
“If you’re being honest, Miss Harmony, then nothing bad will happen to you.”
It didn’t even matter anymore. If shifters actually ran the supernatural scene in Atlanta, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be here after all. She traveled light, a skill she’d had years to perfect. She could just take her laptop and couple bags of personal belongings and keep on driving to Savannah, where she hoped her vampire friend Mary still lived. She hadn’t actually heard from her in a few years, though, so for as far as she knew, Mary’s Master could’ve already drug her to yet another new city.
Except Harmony was in Atlanta to search for the cure to her restlessness. If she didn’t even give the place half a chance, she’d forever be mad at herself for not being brave enough to do some self-discovery before moving on to the next unfulfilling town.
An intense looking shifter tromped up the stairs and joined them before Harmony could decide what to do, and this one didn’t even pretend to be friendly. He looked irritated and on the edge of wanting to tear into someone.
He grumpily said, “Jade’s waiting for me.” He pointed at her. “Is she the one?”
Zach said, “Yeah,” and the man she assumed was Sebastian reached for her hand. She took a step back, his anger and intense energy leaking into the air around him, making her heart hitch in her chest.
He glared at her, pinning her with his intense brown eyes that quickly turned golden. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I usually prefer the hard way but my girl’s waiting for me so give me your fucking hand so we can get this over with.”
Benicio calmly said, “Give him your hand. It doesn’t hurt.”
Harmony hated that her hand was trembling as she forced herself to do as she was told. Sebastian immediately grabbed her and then she didn’t know what was going on. She had memories and old thoughts popping up in her mind. They were blazing by quickly until they finally stopped on her deciding to come to Atlanta. This memory played out more slowly, and then, finally, she wasn’t absorbed in her thoughts anymore.
Sebastian abruptly let go of her and turned away, heading towards the stairs. Before leaving, he blurted out, “She’s fine. Just new in town.”
She gave Zach a smug look, but he just laughed, his mood surprisingly easygoing again. “All right. You’re free to go back to the club. By the way, if you fed from a human tonight, don’t do it again in Anthony’s territory unless you want him to have words with you. Most supers prefer to not
be on his radar, including vampires, so feed from shifters while you’re here.”
She cringed at that. She’d heard about feeding from shifters, and read the gossip, but she hadn’t really thought it was true. She looked to Benicio again. “Is he serious?” She had no idea why she thought she could trust him, especially if vampires actually answered to shifters, which seemed like a distinct possibility so far. But her gut told her he was safe. Even so, she was starting to feel like it’d been a bad idea to come here.
Benicio chuckled. “Yes on all counts. But don’t worry. You’ll never crave for a human again once you get your first taste of shifter blood. Trust me.” He gave her a menacing smile, though his vibe didn’t seem all that scary.
She turned her attention back to Zach and tried to will herself to see him as food. All she could actually imagine was that he’d more likely rip her throat out than let her feed from him.
“You’re not feeding from me, sister, but I’ll find you someone. Come on.”
She snapped, “Well aren’t you accommodating?”
He chuckled. “I can be.” He cocked a thumb towards the door that led downstairs. “After you introduce yourself to Anthony, maybe you should apologize to Ethan.”
“Who’s Ethan?”
“The vampire you snapped at a little while ago. The other major Master in town.”
Harmony’s eyes went wide and she silently mouthed the word ‘shit’.
Zach cockily smirked. “Welcome to Atlanta.”
**
Ethan’s heart beat in anxious confusion. Why did he call that woman his beautiful butterfly? That was Sonya’s pet name. It’d never even accidentally slipped from his lips since her death, and he’d been with other women since her. Just not for long. He wasn’t against filling his needs when the mood struck, but he was against getting too close with someone he didn’t love. Sonya had been the only one he’d ever loved, and his only beautiful butterfly.