by Everly Frost
“You’re going to have to lock me out,” Tristan says.
There’s a pause. I hear a sudden confusion in Helen’s voice. “What do you mean?”
“You need to lock me out of Hidden House. If you don’t, I’ll be back tomorrow. And the day after. I won’t leave without Tessa next time. My ability to control this impulse is diminishing.”
Helen sounds suddenly flustered. “But what if we need help? What if something happens and you can’t get in? What if we have another situation with Ella? You’re the only one who can calm her since Jace refuses to come near her. What if the woman in the dark wakes up? You promised you would be here—”
“That’s why I have you!” Tristan snarls. “Do the job I asked you to do, Helen.”
Her sharp inhale tells me she’s indignant and insulted. “You are not the reason I’m here,” she snaps. “Each of these women deserves a better life. You know that or you wouldn’t have brought them here!”
Tristan’s hand leaves my chest so suddenly that the air rushes across the space he leaves behind, a rapid cold that creates a dull ache inside me.
I hear the sound of skin on skin, followed by Helen’s gasp.
Did he grab her? What’s happening? Damn this human medicine! I fight its pull again now that Tristan’s power recedes across the room.
Tristan’s fierce growl would make me shudder if I could move.
His speech is slow. Dangerously soft, while every syllable is forced. “Listen to me carefully, Helen. Baxter Griffin killed Tessa’s father because his son was coming after Tessa. Cody Griffin needed to get to Tessa. That’s the effect Tessa has on our wolves. Our wolves will endanger anyone to get to her. I can’t let this impulse control me too.” The distance between me and his voice increases. “I’m leaving now. As soon as I’m gone, you will lock me out before I hurt someone.”
Helen’s response is an angry whisper. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Good.”
Tristan’s retreating footsteps are heavy. The door whispers open, quiet this time, but Helen calls out to him. “You know more about Tessa than you’re saying,” she says, a deep accusation in her voice. “What are you keeping from me, Tristan?”
“Your magic should give you all the answers you need,” he replies, dismissive of her concern.
“My magic tells me her power is nothing I’ve seen before,” Helen says. “Her energy is wolf but not wolf. Her human soul is masking an essence that I can’t identify. I can’t even define the limits of her power. What do you know that I don’t?”
Tristan gives a harsh laugh. “You have your secrets, Helen. I have mine.” There’s a brief pause and I picture the derisive snarl on Tristan’s lips. “What is it that you tell newcomers? A little bit of knowledge can get you killed?”
The door clicks shut and Tristan’s scent fades. Not gone entirely. Still filling my chest like a lingering cologne.
I’m left with a mix of fear and confusion. Before he decided to fight for me the other night, Tristan had leaned close and told me he “had to be sure.”
But sure of what?
Worse than not knowing the answer to that question is the grief that rises inside me. My scent—the nature of my wolf—drove Cody wild enough that he couldn’t let me leave. My father tried to protect me from him, and Cody’s father ripped my father’s throat apart.
What sort of fucked-up crazy shit is going on inside me?
Whatever it is, I never asked for it and I don’t want it.
I don’t fucking want it!
A moan rises to my lips.
Shockingly, the sound breaks across the room. Finally, my eyelids flutter open, obeying my internal scream to get up. My fingers twitch and shift across the table, gripping the edge, the muscles in my arms answering my commands.
I roll to the edge of the table but can’t keep my balance, falling right off.
Thudding onto the floor, I manage to draw my feet under myself in time to land in a crouch. Several ice packs thump onto the floor around me. A sharp pain in the back of my hand tells me that I’ve wrenched my IV line around. A second later, the stand topples and crashes to the floor. The nearly empty IV bag makes a wet sound as it slips free of the hook and slaps the floor.
“Tessa!” Helen is poised halfway between the table and the door, clutching her wand.
She hurries toward me, but the door crashes open before she’s made it two steps.
Tristan races across the space between us.
I can finally see him now that my eyes are open. He’s naked from the waist up. His muscles gleam with dirt and sweat. One leg of his black jeans is slit and tattered. The skin across his left cheekbone is cut, a precise but shallow wound like a knife would make, leaving a crimson line across his face. His raven black hair is slicked to the sides of his neck, damp with sweat, and his crisp green eyes are piercing.
He’s a mess of blood, sweat, and bruises.
I blink up at him as he rages toward me, his muscles bunched, biceps tense.
My instincts scream at me to get up.
Get the hell out of his path, Tessa!
He scoops me up just as I scramble to the side. Colliding with my torso, his arms hook beneath mine and he lifts me off my feet. His wolf’s growls vibrate from his chest to mine, an overwhelming thrumming that sounds almost like a purr as he hoists me back onto the table into a sitting position. My legs straddle his hips, my thighs pressing against the outside of his muscles, but he doesn’t push forward, leaving a gap between our jeans that doesn’t exist between our chests.
His right hand slides up my back beneath my shirt, coming to rest over the catch at the back of my bra, gripping the elastic so tightly that it could snap.
His face is inches from mine, his lips parted.
“You woke up,” he says, his lips curling into a self-satisfied smile, as if he thinks I obeyed him after all. He told me to wake up when he first came into the room.
Despite his close proximity to me, he’s unfocused. Blood oozes from the cut across his cheek and his eyes are dazed.
Someone definitely took a knife to him. Dear fuck. I inhale a confusing mix of his sweat and the scent of blood that isn’t his. There’s a splatter of someone else’s blood across his earlobe.
“You had a bad night, huh?” I murmur, trying to calm my breathing and figure out how to extricate myself from his arms without thumping him. He deserves a good wallop right now, but the hitch in his breathing tells me he already has bruised ribs.
“Don’t make my night worse, Tessa.”
“Worse how?” I whisper, searching his eyes.
“Tell me you’re not in pain.”
I frown. “I’m not in pain.”
His order is harsh, vibrating through me with his increasing growls. “Don’t lie to me.”
I bite my tongue before I fire back an angry response. After all, he just ordered me to tell him I wasn’t in pain.
He either wants me to follow orders or he doesn’t.
I arch an eyebrow at him, keeping my voice low. “I’m not in pain, Tristan. These human meds are amazing.”
He tips his head at me, his eyes narrowed. “But you whimpered.”
I consider the hard line of his lips as he presses them together, along with the clenching muscle in his jaw. I’d moaned seconds before he burst back into the room.
“I heard what you said,” I whisper, my voice sticking in my throat, honesty wrenching at my heart. “I was upset because… I killed my father.”
His fingers suddenly claw my back and his expression changes so rapidly that it shocks me, gleaming and alert. The deepest rage storms across his face, his eyebrows drawing down, teeth clenching, his incisors appearing and making his voice even deeper.
“No,” he says. “You didn’t kill your father.”
I exhale a frustrated sigh. If he’s trying to tell me I’m not responsible for my father’s death, then he’s turning himself into a liar. “My father died because of me. Because of my fucked-up
wolf. I heard you loud and clear, Tristan.”
His green eyes storm across my face, his fingers pressing so hard into my back that I arch away from them, which only pushes my breasts harder against his naked chest. My flannel shirt and bra are thin barriers between us. The tension at the base of my stomach increases, a needy ache that urges me to slide my hips forward, but I resist its power.
Forcing my hands between our stomachs and leveraging the gap he left between our hips, I slide my hands up across Tristan’s abdominal muscles, curving across the chiseled lines. I rest my palms against his pecs, listening for his quick inhales, aware of the gentle part of his lips. Fighting his power and all of its dizzying effects, I push against him, softly at first and then harder when he doesn’t budge.
“You need to let me go now or Helen’s going to lose her shit,” I murmur.
Behind Tristan, Helen stands with her wand raised. The air crackles in a way that tells me she’s ready to separate us using magical force if she has to.
Tristan slides his arms away from me, his fingers trailing down my back, making me shiver before he slowly steps away, taking the scent of sweat and blood with him.
His jaw is tight as he spins to Helen. “Lock me out. Or next time, I won’t leave Tessa behind.”
The door is already open. He breaks into a run, moving so fast that he slides into the opposite wall in the corridor, cracking it on impact. He doesn’t stop. His rapidly disappearing footfalls sound down the corridor.
I listen to every beat, hearing Tristan’s movements, his running feet, pumping arms, his inhales and exhales, until they finally, suddenly stop and I know he’s gone. All the magic in the world can’t seem to dampen his impact on me. For better or for worse.
Helen lets out her breath.
“Okay, then.” Her shoulders finally relax and her wand lowers. She clears her throat. She’s still collecting herself as she strides toward me. “Are you okay, Tessa?”
At my nod, she says, “I want to check you over before you attempt to stand on your own.”
Raising her wand again, she quickly runs it across the air in front of me. Her eyebrows rise a little, but the tension disappears from around her mouth. “Good news. Your body is healing itself far more rapidly than I expected. The bruising around your ribs has settled, so has the swelling in your face. Most of the visible bruising is gone too. How long does it normally take you to heal a broken bone?”
“About a week for a bad break,” I say, answering her factually-spoken question with a matter-of-fact response.
“You heal far more rapidly than most shifters then.”
“It’s how I’ve taken so many beatings,” I say, staring back at her.
It’s how I’ll take many more. I have no illusions that my future is filled with peace.
Helen’s jaw clenches. “Not anymore, Tessa. Not on my watch.”
I’m starting to believe she means it. That she genuinely wants to help me.
I break the charged silence by swiveling to the window to confirm that it’s the middle of the night. “I’m starving and I really need to pee,” I say.
Helen pulls away. “Of course. Let me get this off you.”
She quickly removes the cannula, releasing me from the fallen medical apparatus on the floor beside the table.
One thing I’m not is sleepy.
“Is there any chance Iyana is up and about?” I ask. I’m hoping that her vampire behavior will follow the cliché and she mostly sleeps during the day.
Helen smiles. “She keeps erratic hours. She should wake up any time now.”
“Good, because I don’t feel like sleeping.”
I feel like training. I’ve wasted enough time already. I plan to make the most of every moment from now until Tristan comes back for me.
I shake off the remnant power that reminds me of him.
It doesn’t matter how much Helen tries to protect me, my future will contain more battles. But I’m determined that the next fight will be on my terms.
Chapter Ten
The 9mm pistol feels foreign in my hands, a cold weapon for cold kills.
Iyana shuffles around me while I stand at the bench at the top of the firing lane. She instructs me about my stance and posture, shifting my arms and feet until I’m in the position she thinks is best. Her hands are cool, but not as cold as I was expecting a vampire’s touch to feel.
“Knowing how to safely hold your weapon is just as important as knowing how to hit your target,” she says.
We have the whole place to ourselves. It’s still early morning, but even so, Iyana told Helen not to allow anyone else onto the gun range this morning. I guess she’s worried I might not stick to my lane.
“If you’re moving around a space carrying your handgun, hold it close to your chest like this,” Iyana says, continuing to demonstrate. “You need to be ready to fire at any moment, but you also need to maintain control of your firearm at all times. A trained killer will also be trained to disarm you.”
With a final look at me, she says, “Okay, you’re good. Take your first shot when you’re ready.”
She places a pair of earmuffs over my ears. Apparently, I’ll move on to silenced weapons eventually, but for now, I need to protect my ears.
I breathe out quietly, trying to center myself while Iyana steps back and pulls on her own earmuffs.
Taking aim—or at least what I’m hoping is a good aim—I squeeze the trigger like Iyana showed me.
The first bullet tears through the paper target at the end of the firing lane, leaving a ragged rip in the right-hand edge.
I’m way off target.
Adjusting my aim, I try again, this time tearing through the left-hand side of the target.
I empty the remaining thirteen rounds into the target before I lower the weapon, the corners of my mouth turning down as I survey my handiwork. It’s not so much “target practice” as the slaughter of every edge of the target, leaving the center frustratingly untouched.
I can feel Iyana’s disappointment burning across my back. I guess she hoped I’d be a quick study.
Placing the empty weapon carefully on the bench, I remove my earmuffs.
“Shake it off,” she says. “It’s your first day. Let’s keep at it for a while and then we’ll head upstairs to the gym.”
Twenty minutes later after making zero progress despite all of Iyana’s instructions, I bite my lip in defeat. I even managed to hit the targets in the neighboring lanes several times.
“That’s okay,” she says. “You just need practice.”
She’s far more gentle with my feelings than I was expecting her to be.
“Let’s try again tomorrow.” She inclines her head toward the door.
After showing me how to clean the pistol, she leads me back up the stairs. A single flight up, the corridor opens into a gym with a boxing ring at the closest end, weights on one side, and punching bags on the other. At the far end is an open area with wrestling mats leaning up against the wall.
Before she can say anything, I point to the boxing bags, needing to redeem myself.
She arches an eyebrow at me, as if she didn’t expect the bags to be my first choice.
When I go to choose a pair of boxing gloves from the ones hanging on the wall, I’m not surprised to find a pair in my size. Hidden House constantly adjusts itself to my needs. I strap my hands while Iyana leans against the wall. She’s already smiling, since it’s clear I know what I’m doing this time.
Taking up position and finding my balance, I jab the bag a few times to get a feel for its weight and density before I lay into it with a rapid combination of punches, dodging around the bag while it swings before I pound into it again.
Damn, it feels good to hit something knowing it won’t hit me back.
After keeping up a series of rapid combinations while I dance around the bag, I’m sweating through my shirt by the time I step back to find Iyana smiling at me. Tomorrow, I’m going to dig around in my closet for
better workout clothes—hopefully a gym shirt and shorts to train in.
“That’s good, but can you kick?” Iyana asks.
I smirk, take a step back, and wallop the bag with my foot—high and fast where a man’s face would be.
“Okay,” she says, her smile broadening into a grin. “Now that I know what you’ve got, be prepared to work harder than you’ve ever worked before.”
By late morning, we’ve progressed to the mats and Iyana has tested my reflexes and identified weaknesses she wants me to work on. I’m not upset that she finds chinks in my combat skills—I’ll never be invincible, but I can’t let any man beat me again. I have to be stronger and faster than anyone else.
Iyana hands me a towel and a bottle of water when we’re finished. “Tomorrow, I’ll start you on some different styles of martial arts. We’ll see what you take to.”
Turning to leave the gym, I find two women standing in the doorway whom I haven’t met before. They’re nearly identical—both have tawny brown hair with golden highlights and sage green eyes, and their cheeks blush peach. They stand shorter than Iyana and I both, petite, wearing flowing skirts and loose sweaters—but I spy the shape of gym shorts and straps of gym tops under their clothing. One of the women clutches a pack of cards in her hand, while the other leans against the door.
They’re blocking the exit but don’t appear to have any intention of getting out of the way anytime soon.
Iyana doesn’t seem fazed by their behavior. “Morning, Lydia.” She greets the one leaning against the doorway first, then inclines her head at the one holding the pack of cards. “Luna.”
“It’s afternoon,” Lydia says, rising from her lean.
Iyana grins at her, still appearing unconcerned by the fact that the women continue to block the exit. “It is. But in an hour, will it still be the afternoon?” she asks.
Lydia grins back. “Yes.” She folds her hands in front of herself, but a flash of uncertainty fills her face, her grin fading before it reasserts. She nods firmly. “It will still be the afternoon.”