Andromeda's Reign

by K. S. Haigwood

  The charger and her Kindle were lying on the corner of her bed, beside her luggage, so she grabbed them both, tucking them beneath the plate of food, and then she ran out of the room.

  Sinna and a vibrant redhead were laughing as they disappeared into a room on the other side of Ace’s, but Andra only lifted her eyebrows and descended the grand staircase.

  Gay. The girl Ace had taken to the concert was a lesbian, and he’d only taken Sinna to make her jealous. That had to mean something, right? Maybe she hadn’t burned the whole bridge. Had that been Clay’s sister who’d gone in there with her? Andra refused to let the mental image of what the girls were doing in the room now surface. It was none of her business.

  After she reached the end of the long corridor, Andra pushed the wall-slash-hidden door then followed the steps down to the basement. The room was lit and the food was untouched, as usual. The dead bodies were beginning to put off a foul odor. Eww.

  Trying not to breathe through her nose, Andra made her way to the third cell, noticing immediately that the girl was sitting up, with her back rested against the bars on the far side.

  “Did you bring a key?” the girl said.

  Andra sat the sodas down, and then bent the plate, so that she could get it through the bars without spilling any of its contents. She placed it beside the other plate on the cell floor, eased her hand back, and then slid the cans through to sit beside it. She held up her e-reader to show the girl. “It has a full battery. I have over a hundred books on it. I don’t know if you like to read or not, but it has to be better than what you’ve been looking at. Before you get excited, there’s no way for you to get on the internet to let anyone know where you are.” She turned the Kindle sideways and slid it through to the other side, placing it beside the Sprites.

  Andra caught the girl staring at the sodas and smiled, before moving one of them closer. The girl looked away, uninterested.

  Andra sighed. “Suit yourself,” she said as she started to pull her arm back through, but she wasn’t paying attention and accidently touched the bar with her forearm. Her flesh sizzled, and she jerked her arm the rest of the way out. “Dammit!”

  The girl laughed. “You’re the one who deserves to be in here, not me. You aren’t even human.”

  Andra looked through her lashes at the girl. “I used to be. I’m not a monster, if that’s what you think.”

  The girl smiled. “Oh, I don’t think you are. I know you are.” She gave an up nod toward the sheet-covered bodies behind Andra. “That right there proves it. If you’re one of them, you don’t deserve to live. My friend would still be alive if monsters like you didn’t exist.”

  Andra narrowed her eyes. “And my friend would still be alive if people like you didn’t hunt us.”

  The human looked down at her lap without responding.

  Hunt us… Andra pondered that thought for a moment. Why had she said it like that? The memory of Phoenix telling her the story his father told him played back through her mind. He’d waited and waited for days, expecting the village in its entirety to come at him with torches and pitchforks. He’d expected the humans to hunt him after finding out there was a monster in the forest. They hadn’t, because they never found out about him, but this girl obviously knew about shifters. For some reason, she sensed Ace thought another shifter or vampire sent this girl and her friends to kill her, but Andra didn’t get that sort of vibe from the girl. To her, this girl despised Andra’s kind. She definitely wouldn’t work for them.

  “Are you some kind of a slayer? Is that what you are?” Andra said, already knowing her assumption was correct before the girl even had a chance to respond.

  Instead of answering Andra’s questions, she slumped to the floor and tucked her arm under her head, using it as a pillow. “They’ll find you. They already know where you are. It’s only a matter of time now.”

  Andra slowly got to her feet as the girl closed her eyes. “Let them come,” she said, before turning and walking out of the room, in search of Ace.

  Chapter 27

  Friday, February 6th 2015 1:16 a.m. PST

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Ace

  It felt so fucking good to be back on stage. The only thing missing was Andra. I knew she wasn’t in the crowd that had gathered around our makeshift stage in my backyard. The meditation was wearing off and I could tell that she was still in the house somewhere.

  And she was anxious, maybe a little pissed, too, though I didn’t think she was pissed at me.

  I fought with the urge to leave the stage and go to her but, in the end, I lost the battle. I couldn’t concentrate on playing while she was upset.

  Before the band started the next song, I leaned in close to Clay. “I’ll be back.”

  His eyebrows drew in. “You gotta piss or something?”

  I held up my empty beer bottle. “Yeah, and get another beer. Want one?”

  “Grab me a double shot of Jack. I stopped drinking beer,” he said, and then turned to let the band know I was going to be gone for a few minutes.

  I didn’t waste any time leaving the stage. Getting through the thick, ever-growing crowd was more difficult than I anticipated. I swore at least two hundred more people had shown up since we took the party to the backyard. Damn Clay, I thought as I inched my way toward the back of the house.

  What I was going to say to Andra once I got to her, I still didn’t know. I’d left on a sour note, but I could feel that she needed me. Maybe I’d let her speak first and play it by ear. Saying all those things to her earlier was haunting me like nothing ever had, but no problems in our relationship were getting solved by dancing around the huge, pink elephant between us.

  Through the back door, I saw her running through the living room that was just off the back foyer, like someone was chasing her. I shoved standing bodies out of my way and pushed my way forward, toward her.

  I broke free of the crowd just as she sprinted through the back door, onto the patio. I ran for her. She didn’t stop when she saw me. At the last second, she threw her arms wide and collided into me. I held onto her trembling form as she sobbed against my chest.

  “What is it?” I said as I scooped her up in my arms and carried her back in the house. I shut the door with my foot, so some of the noise from the band and screaming people would at least be muffled.

  She didn’t say anything right away, so I set her down on one of the couches then ran to the kitchen to get her some water. She was still in the same position I’d left her in and staring at the wall when I returned.

  “Andra,” I said in a stern voice.

  She raised her head to look at me, and then took the water from my hand. After taking a sip, she lowered the cup to her lap. “We’re being hunted, Ace.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  She nodded. “I took some food to the girl.”

  I blinked twice more. “She talked to you?”

  “It’s not like we’re friends or anything. She hates me. She hates us. She said they would find me… that they already knew where I was.”

  I sighed. “She’s just filling your head full of shit to scare you. I think I know who sent—”

  She shook her head as she raised her gaze to meet mine. “No. You don’t know who sent her. You’re not hearing me. She hates us. She hates our kind, Ace. Whoever sent her, hates shifters, and possibly vampires, too. I couldn’t get much out of her, but I do know that if you think another shifter sent her you’re wrong. She’s a slayer.”

  Three blinks this time. “A slayer? Andra, that’s all fairytale bullshit.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “Is it?” she whispered.

  In all my ninety-six years on this planet, I had never heard of a real instance of slayers hunting our kind or vampires. We fought amongst ourselves, the vampires and us, and did a fairly decent job of keeping what we were a secret from the human population. Was it a possibility that slayers existed? Yes. Did I believe they existed? No.

  “Yes,” I
said as I turned to pace away. “Humans don’t know about us, Andra. You’re safe. Nobody that wishes you harm will find you here.” Turning back to look at her, I raised my hands to my hips and huffed.

  She swallowed as she looked down at the cup between her hands. “I’ll believe you if you can look me in the eyes and tell me that again. There are at least four hundred people in your backyard. Can you look me in the eyes and promise me that not one of them means us harm? If they know who I am, then they know who you are, and who you used to be.”

  My blood ran cold as my head turned toward the noise coming from out back. She was right. Whoever was chasing us had found us in a public place. All they would need is an invitation to a party to get closer. One thing was certain, I couldn’t look her in the eyes and promise her that nobody out there meant us harm. However, I could promise her one thing. “Nobody will touch you. I’ll fucking kill them if they try.”

  I swiftly moved in front of Andra when the back door opened, letting in a flurry of screams, and then I relaxed a little when I saw it was Clay. “Dude, where’s my whiskey?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Got sidetracked. Look, man, you need to get these people out of here. We may have an issue.”

  Clay shrugged as he made his way to the bar in the corner to pour a drink. “I already told them to scat. They’re leaving by the side gate, instead of coming back through your house. Rainey just landed and got a rental, so they will be here in about ten minutes, five if Déus lets her drive.”

  “Déus?” Andra and I said together.

  Clay’s eyebrows drew in as his lips pursed. “Um… yeah, about that. Rainey’s a vampire, and so is her mate. I didn’t even think about that before. It’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have a problem with vampires. Well, other than one.” I ignored the look Andra gave me.

  Clay downed the contents of the glass then smacked his lips as he stared at the floor. “Good,” he said sadly, but didn’t elaborate on whatever was going through his mind.

  I wondered if something had happened in the past between him and his other sister or if he was just unhappy in general. I’d seen eyes like that before—not his, mind you, but I’d seen a look like that in my own reflection, the day I made the decision to disappear from the music world. It was a mixture of pain and relief. Pain for giving up something you were passionate about and relief that you had the courage to do it before it swallowed you whole.

  I wondered what his motive was. Was he burnt out playing in the band or was it a girl? There were really only two things that would move a person to that decision. Well, unless one is immortal and can only stay in the limelight for certain periods of time. I should have never allowed him to throw a party at my house and picked up that guitar tonight.

  Stupid move on my part. Now, the urge to play was a little punishing. I could deal with the suffering. I’d done it many other times in my long life after letting go of something I truly loved doing. Clay, on the other hand, wasn’t immortal. I made a mental note to talk to him in private about it before he left tomorrow.

  “Slade and a few of your pride are helping the band take all that shit down out back.” Clay said. “They’re going back to the casino immediately after. I’m going to crash on one of your couches tonight, if that’s okay.”

  I smiled. The guy had practically lived on my couch for over six years when we weren’t on tour, until he’d met Leslie and I’d had the wreck. I wondered if she was the reason for his dilemma. It wouldn’t surprise me. He’d been totally in love with that girl back then. The sap always did wear his heart on his sleeve, though. Maybe it was another girl turning his world upside down. “I still have your favorite one in the den. I refused to let the interior designer throw it out when we had the house renovated last year. I made her color-coordinate around it. You should have seen the look on her face. She hated brown.”

  Clay beamed, the lost look in his eyes long gone. “I hope she got rid of the smell and all the snail trails.”

  “Eww…” Andra covered her nose and mouth.

  I laughed. “We had it thoroughly cleaned.”

  Squeals issued from the front foyer, and Clay rolled his eyes. “Sounds like Rainey didn’t let Déus drive. We just left Eternal Island a month ago. You’d think they hadn’t seen each other in years.” He picked up the bottle of Jack Daniels and filled his glass, but as he sat it back down and brought the glass tumbler up to his mouth, it slipped from his hand and splattered all over the carpeted floor. “Fuck,” he swore on a whisper as he stared slack-jawed at the foyer entrance of the living room.

  Andra and I both turned to see four people walk into the room. A black-haired beauty with shocking, bright-blue eyes had her arm looped through Embyr’s arm, and a guy of average build and dark hair stood protectively to the woman’s right. The slender girl that stood shyly on his other side had long curly brunette hair, and when she lifted her head, her pale green eyes locked on Clay.

  I glanced back at Clay. He was in the same frozen position he’d been when the group walked in, his hand out in front of him, like he was holding the glass of whiskey still.

  I chuckled to myself. Yep, a girl was definitely the reason he was considering leaving the band. By the look on his face, I bet that he didn’t even remember who Leslie was.

  Chapter 28

  Friday, February 6th 2015 1:28 a.m. PST

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Ace

  I cleared my throat as I furrowed my brow at Clay. “You want to introduce us, Clay?”

  “Shit,” Clay said, as he grabbed a towel from the bar and threw it on top of the spill, and then put his boot on top of it, pressing it into the carpet, trying to soak up his mess. “Sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to—”

  I waved a hand through the air. “Leave it. I already plan to send the housekeeper’s bill to you. Your friends trashed my house, asshole.”

  He nodded sheepishly, his neck and cheeks turning pink as he glanced back up at the unnamed girl. He cleared his throat and moved his gaze to the black-haired woman. He nodded toward her. “This is Rainey, my other sister, and her mate, Déus.” His eyes floated over to the girl, who hadn’t looked away from him since she’d walked into the room. “And this is, um… uh…”

  “Katrista,” Rainey said as she took the three steps down into the living room and made her way across the room to hug her brother. She whispered something in his ear that even I couldn’t make out. With a grim expression, he nodded, and then she pulled out of his embrace. Rainey turned to look at me as her sister, mate and Katrista came into the room.

  “It’s nice to meet all of you,” I said as I sat beside Andra. “Please, have a seat. Would you care for anything to drink?”

  An amused look passed between the three newcomers, but Rainey was the one who spoke up. “Well, if you’re offering, we’d love one.”

  All the blood drained from my face, and Déus laughed. “Sorry, no,” I said. “I forgot that… Clay told me—”

  “That we’re vampires?” Rainey said. “Yes… we are.”

  Did that mean Katrista was, too? Clay was clearly enamored with the girl. How was that going to work on a long-term basis?

  Rainey sat beside Déus on one of the loveseats, and Katrista chose one of the recliners to sit in. “Don’t worry about it,” Rainey said. “We’re all satiated for the time being.” Déus handed her a leather satchel and she reached inside to pull out five pink potions and one green one. “I assume you’re Trey?”

  I nodded. “I go by Ace now, but, yes, I used to be Trey. And this is Andra, my bonded mate.”

  “Are those…” Andra started, and then her hand came up to cover her mouth as tears filled her eyes. “Oh, Ace,” she said, and then threw her arms around my neck and hugged me hard. “Thank you,” she whispered in my ear.

  Rainey nodded as she handed them to Clay to give to me. Andra pulled back as I took them, but her eyes were on them, greedily. I handed all but the green one to h
er. “Give them to Phoenix,” I said. “Six of them are still linked, but only five of them will have to drink them to kill the spell.”

  Andra’s gaze moved to the green potion that was still in my hand. “What’s that one for?”

  I pressed my lips together. “Payment for them.”

  Her emotions were all over the place as she stared at it, and then she raised her eyes to look at my face. “What will happen to you?”

  I looked at Rainey to answer that one. She only shrugged.

  “I wasn’t paying attention when I grabbed it, so it could be any number of things,” Rainey said.

  “Like what, exactly?” Andra demanded.

  “Well, it could cause his hair to turn blue, make feathers sprout on his head, cause him to have horrible gas—”

  “He already has that problem,” Clay said. “Doubt there would be a change if that’s the potion you brought.”

  I frowned at him.

  “Like I said, it could be anything,” Rainey said as a slow smile played across her face. “I’m very creative. He could even grow boobs or his, um, junk could shrink.”

  I cleared my throat as a sudden sweat broke out on my brow.

  “I’ll take it—” Andra started, and my head whipped around so that I could look at her.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes, Ace. You got them for me—”

  “I got them for four members of our pack, Andra. After losing Rogan, I couldn’t imagine the grief we would both endure if something happened to them. You’re not taking this.” With it clamped in between two fingers and my thumb, I shook it at her. “Either I take it or Rainey takes all six back with her to Eternal Island tonight. Do you want them to have the potions or not?”

  “Can’t we share it? You take half and I drink the other? I feel—”