by Kristie Cook
When I thought he’d regained some semblance of control, I let my fangs out and bit into my wrist, then fed the girl my blood, my eyes never leaving Tase, and his never leaving her throat.
I inhaled as I listened to our surroundings. Besides the girl, we were alone in the warehouse, but a faint scent of someone not human lingered on the air. They’d left only in the last few minutes.
“Find them,” I ground out through a clenched jaw, needing Tase to leave before the blood he’d just drank gave him more strength than I could fend off. “Someone set you up, and you’re letting them get away with it.”
He glared at me for another moment, then nodded before becoming a blur as he ran outside. At least if he found them and killed them, it wouldn’t affect the curse, since they weren’t human.
When the girl had enough of my blood for her wounds to start healing, I untied her and carried her out to the car. Tase was nowhere to be seen, and I didn’t want to stray too far from the girl, who might have been our only witness. Fifteen minutes later, there was still no sign of Tase, but the girl began to stir.
“Who are you?” she asked with wide brown eyes as she tried to sit up, her dark brown hair blood-crusted and matted to her face. Her gaze flitted around the cramped backseat and out the windows. “Where am I?”
I rushed over and squatted in between the door and the seats. “We’re at the railroad warehouses in Montrose.”
“Who the hell are you?” The smell of fear came off her in waves. She rubbed at her bloody neck, then looked at her hands and screamed.
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay,” I tried to soothe. “I found you. You’re okay now. It’s not your blood,” I lied to calm her down.
She blinked at me as her pulse quickened. Her eyes darted around, and then she tried to push past me and out the door, but I blocked her way.
“Please let me go,” she cried. “Please don’t hurt me again.”
I placed my hands on her shoulders and held her in place. “I won’t hurt you. I promise I didn’t do this to you. But I have a few questions so I can find out who did.”
Her eyes were wild as she looked around again, and then she swallowed, her gaze returning to me. Her whole body trembled under my grasp.
“Do you know who brought you here?” I asked. She shook her head. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Her brows came together, as if she struggled to recall. “I went hiking, and my foot slipped . . . I remember waking up in my motel, then going to Black Canyon. I started down the trailhead . . .” She paused. “But nothing after that.”
“Were you alone?”
She frowned. “Yeah. My boyfriend doesn’t like the outdoors. It’s my sanctuary, though.”
Not much of a sanctuary today. “Did you see anyone on the trail?”
She gave it more thought, then shook her head again. “No. Nobody.”
“Isn’t that odd? It’s a busy time of season.”
“Yeah. It is, isn’t it? So tell me what happened.” Her voice went from dazed and confused to angry and accusatory.
I held up my hands. “I didn’t do anything. Remember? I found you. I saved you.”
“From who? Or what?”
“That’s what I’d like to find out.” I leaned in closer and stared into her eyes, searching out the connection to compel her. When I felt it click in my mind, I asked her again, “What happened to you? Who did this?”
She stared at me with a vacant look. I probed harder through our connection. “I don’t know. I went hiking and my foot slipped . . . I remember waking up in my motel . . .”
Fuck. She’d already been compelled. A magical blockade in her mind prevented her from remembering anything else. I just couldn’t tell if it was done by another vampire or something else, such as a fae or a witch.
Footsteps sounded on concrete behind me, and I jumped and spun. Tase sauntered toward us.
“Did you find who did this?” I gestured toward the girl.
“Nah. No trace,” he said. “No footprints. No scent to follow. Did she say what happened?”
I shook my head. “She’s been compelled or glamoured.”
Tase stopped in front of me and pushed a hand through his hair, his gaze bouncing around the darkened parking lot and warehouse. When he finally spoke, his voice came out low. “Does she know what I did?”
“No. She remembers nothing.”
“Then let’s make sure of that and get out of here.”
I lifted a brow. “We’re not going to leave her here. She has no idea where she is.”
He blew out a harsh breath. “Damn it. Fine. What do we do with her then?”
The girl snorted. “Uh . . . hello? I’m right here, and I’m not some piece of trash you found on the side of the road.”
Tase growled.
I dipped my head. “Is there somewhere we can take you?”
She started to get out. “I think I’ll walk, thanks.”
“Sounds good,” Tase said, heading for the driver’s side.
I grabbed his upper arm, stopping him. “You really think it’s a good idea to just let her walk off?” I asked with sarcasm.
He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“We’re not leaving you here,” I told the girl, pushing the front seat back, blocking her in. I slid into it as Tase went around to the driver’s side.
We found her motel and parked in front of her door, then Tase slid out and waited impatiently as she climbed out from behind his seat. He leaned down until they were eye to eye, and he compelled her, changing her memory of everything that had happened.
“You were sick today, so you stayed in all day. You’ll go hiking tomorrow. You just really want a shower and sleep, then everything will be okay in the morning,” he told her. “And throw away those clothes. You never liked them anyway.”
Hunching her shoulders and crossing her arms over her stomach, she went into her room, convinced that she didn’t feel well.
We drove for miles in silence.
“This had to have been a set-up,” I finally said, once we were well out of town and headed home. “Someone wants you to go strigoi.”
“No shit,” Tase agreed.
“Who?”
He shrugged. “I have enemies.”
I turned to glare at him. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Not at all. I’ve made a few enemies in my business dealings.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I gestured at him. “I mean this attitude. Like you don’t give a fuck. This is serious shit, brother.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
“How I would love to stop,” I muttered. “It’d make my life so much easier.”
“It’s easy. Stop caring.”
If only. “Unfortunately, you’re my brother. Family. It’s not so easy. Maybe for you, but not for me.”
He didn’t respond for a while. “Yeah, it’s not easy, is it?”
We rode in silence again for a good thirty minutes.
“It has to be someone familiar with the curse,” I said. “Who knows besides the Court and the family?”
“The Petrans.”
“Michaela wouldn’t do this.”
“You sure about that, bro? She’s pretty pissed.”
“She has a right to be. You fucked everyone up. Killed her parents. Killed our parents. She’s just as mad at you for that as she is for her own family.”
He let out a sigh. “You’re right. She has every right to be pissed,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know what would happen, though. Otherwise, I would have never turned . . .”
“And she knows that. Which is why she wouldn’t be setting you up. She’s pissed, but she’s not out for murder. So who else? What about the witch who paid you to turn her? The one who so conveniently disappeared shortly after the Court found out about your arrangement?”
“Magda?” Tase’s jaw popped. “She’s not a problem. Trust me.”
“She’d
want you dead, especially if she wanted to come back to Havenwood Falls. Your word against hers, and with you gone . . .”
“I said she’s not a problem.”
Something in his tone pricked my ears. “Tase, man, don’t tell me. You didn’t kill her, did you?”
“No.” He answered too quickly, though, and I could smell a lie on him.
“Fuck, bro.”
“I didn’t kill her,” he insisted. “But she won’t be a problem anymore. Just leave it at that.”
“Well, if not her, then who?”
“I’m not worried about it. It won’t happen again. I’ll change some things up. I’d never met that contact before. I never will. I’ll drop the whole line of connection, just in case.”
Lies, lies, lies.
“I have an idea. Why don’t you just drop the whole damn business? Get our family businesses back on the legal side of the line?”
Tase laughed. “Don’t be stupid. You know as well as I do that most of Dad’s businesses strayed far from that line. I’m just carrying on his legacy.”
I scowled. For a long time, before Michaela left, I’d wanted to believe the Roca reputation was undeserved. Dad had always sworn it was when we were younger. He’d claimed the Old Families, and especially the Petrans, had been out to get us from the beginning. They’d let go of Mom, Dad, and our aunt and uncle as their servants, but according to Dad, they wanted to make sure we could never become equals, so they made up whatever lies they could to keep us down. That was also how he justified both families’ behavior toward my and Michaela’s relationship.
While she was gone, though, I’d become more involved in our family dealings and learned that our family really was as bad as everyone said. I just couldn’t bring myself to care, though. Not after they sent her away. Now, I had a reason to care again. Sadly, the rest of the family didn’t. Not even Tase, whose very life was at stake.
As we pulled into town, my phone went off with several missed text messages. All from Michaela.
Are you busy? I wouldn’t mind some company.
Hey, did you get my last text? Do you want to come over?
I guess that’s a no?
You could at least answer
Well, you’re either busy or sleeping. I’ll see you whenever I see you
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.
“Something wrong?” Tase asked as we turned onto our cul-de-sac.
I blew out a breath. “Nah. Just do what you said you’d do. Don’t let this happen again.”
I couldn’t be mad at him or myself for going. If I hadn’t, that girl would probably be dead and Tase would be one step closer to becoming strigoi . . . which meant one step closer to being put down by the Court.
As we walked up the drive toward the house, Tase snatched my phone out of my hand.
“Fuck, dude,” he said after reading the texts. “Cock-blocked again. Sorry, man.”
“The night was doomed from the start.” I told him about the skinwalker and Gabe’s fall through the wall.
Tase’s eyes sparked when I told him about the worthless bracelet Gabe had discovered in the wall. I couldn’t tell if he was amused . . . or something else. I would have almost said nostalgic, if I thought Tase had a nostalgic bone in his body.
“I’ll make up for it,” he said, handing my phone back to me, all humor gone. “Consider it taken care of.”
Once inside, I followed him up the stairs to our rooms and watched as he paused to look in on our younger siblings. Before Mom and Dad died, Alina, Aurora, and I were the only ones Tase could tolerate—Aurora because she was the baby and he’d had a soft spot for her since before she was born, Alina because she was a girl, and me because we’d basically been best friends growing up. But something had changed since our parents’ deaths. Since the curse. I was no empath, but my vampire senses picked up something new from my older brother. He hid so much of his life, but I realized for the first time what he’d been hiding the most—his feelings. Regret. Shame. Depression. I could practically smell them in his blood.
Who knew Atanase Roca, asshole extraordinaire, actually might have had a heart?
Chapter 3
Michaela
Three weeks after what became known as the Day of the Goo, I awoke to the sound of saws and nail guns blasting outside my window. Stomping out, I found a McCabe & Sons Construction crew working on the inn.
“What the hell is going on?” I yelled at one of the guys.
“Ask the boss man,” he yelled back, motioning toward Mike McCabe himself.
I strode across the green lawn to the inn’s parking lot. Mike leaned over his work truck, his hands splayed out on the hood, a large document spread out in front of him.
“What is this, Mike?” I demanded before I was even halfway across the lawn, knowing he could hear me with his shifter senses.
He glanced over at me, then immediately dropped his gaze. I didn’t care that I was dressed only in a tank and short sleep shorts. I’d worn less to work in Atlanta, and it had finally warmed up enough to at least be under the covers in them. But he was of a different generation, the gray sprinkled in his brown hair and the crinkles by his eyes evidence—although some of his weather-beaten look was a direct result of working outside for so many years.
“What is what?” he asked, his voice low as he continued studying what I realized were plans for the inn. The same plans Everett Weston had asked Graysin to deliver to me months ago. Plans that I’d had to put to the side until I found a way to pay for them all.
“First of all, what are you doing here?” I asked, softening my voice. “You shouldn’t be working. I’m really sorry about—”
“Work provides a distraction,” he growled, and I could tell by his tone he didn’t want to discuss his recent loss. My heart hurt for him. He’d been through so much lately with Braden, Reeve, and Aster, and although I didn’t have kids of my own, I just couldn’t imagine how he and his wife were coping. “Besides, the world doesn’t stop turning, even when it feels like it ought to. We have jobs to do. I’m just checking in on this one, getting it going before I go back to the library site.”
“But this isn’t a job,” I argued. “I haven’t hired you for anything more than the roof, and you finished that a while ago.”
Actually, I’d only hired him to repair the roof, but he’d gone and replaced the entire thing, saying it needed to be done. Of course, he’d been right. It’d needed a whole new roof pretty badly. I just hadn’t had the money for it. He only charged me for the few patches I’d originally contracted for, though, saying the rest was covered.
“Well, let’s see.” He pulled out a stack of rolled up papers from his back jeans pocket. “I have a bid here. All of it based on Everett’s plans. You remember that?”
I glanced at the paperwork. “Yeah. And I remember telling you that I couldn’t do all of that right now. Only the absolute necessities.”
“Well, see, right here I have a copy of full payment. It’s all taken care of. Including the newly added tasks of a permanent repair to the hole in the turret and redoing all the glass in the conservatory.”
I practically tore that piece of paper out of his hands. My jaw dropped at first. The bid had been to repair, replace, and/or restore any of the inn’s exterior that needed it, from siding to the gingerbread trim to windows, as well as to prep and paint the entire outside. Nearly ten thousand dollars’ worth of work. Except for the fairly recent issues with the turret, most of the work was cosmetic in nature and I couldn’t yet afford to address it. But here was a copy of a cashier’s check for the entire amount and then some.
“There’s a deposit on there for interior work,” Mike clarified. “Hear you have some issues inside your walls. We should inspect every wall. Spiders could be the least of your worries. And we can replace plumbing and electrical while we’re in there, and bring it all up to code. According to what I’m told, it’s all taken care of.”
“How . . . ? Who . .
. ?” My eyes narrowed. My nostrils flared. “Oh no, he didn’t!”
“Yeah, he did,” came an unmistakable voice from behind me.
I spun to find Xandru approaching with a cup bearing Coffee Haven’s logo. Despite the indignation bursting at my seams, I couldn’t help my smile. We hadn’t seen each other for over a week, and even then, only a few minutes here and there since our last failed attempt at a date on the Day of the Goo.
He held the cup out to me. “Good morning.”
Mike gave him a strange look before going back to work. He’d probably been up for many hours, like normal people. I wasn’t normal. Of course, he wasn’t either, but I supposed mountain lion shifters weren’t nocturnal.
“Good morning,” I said giddily, taking the cup.
Xandru walked back to the cottage with me as I sipped the delicious coffee.
“You know how I feel about this,” I said.
“The coffee?”
“The money.”
“Mmm.”
“Mmm? That’s all you can say?”
He shrugged.
“I can’t take it. I wouldn’t take yours, and I can’t take any more of his. He’s already paid off the inn’s mortgages and everything else. He can’t keep doing this,” I ranted.
“You won’t change his mind,” he countered as we climbed the steps to the front door. “And stop trying. Tase has done a lot of bad shit, Kales. This is his way of making up for everything he’s done to you and your whole family, and it’s something to make him feel good about life. He needs that right now.”
“Hmph,” I grunted, opening the door.
“Do it for me?” He closed the door after we entered and leaned against it, lowering his chin and looking up at me through his thick, dark lashes. He surely knew by now what that look, those eyes, did to me.
I punched his arm lightly. “Stop it. That’s not fair.”
His gaze swept down my body, over my thin tank top and short shorts, lingering on my breasts and the tops of my thighs. His finger slid under the strap of my tank, the light touch sending goosebumps over my skin.