by Jayne Hawke
Ethan stiffened, but said nothing.
“That doesn’t mean we take moonmen on their own say so. Maybe you’re a goddess, and maybe you aren’t, but you’ll prove it every night and every day.”
I clenched my fists and saw the war magic, at long last, come to life and fit them with familiar war gauntlets. The power glimmered in the darkness, unmistakeable threat in pearlescent glory.
“Let me make something extremely clear to both of you. On my best day, you’re both dogfood. On my worst, I’m going to be looking to you for help. If a pack means I have to fight for myself while Wonder Dog,” I gestured at Dean, “tallies up my GPA, I might as well fly solo. If I haven’t proven myself,” I held my war gauntlets in front of me, sharp claws up and glimmering, “then please by all fucking means let’s settle the issue here and now. Otherwise, this is the last time I play games with any of you.” I looked at Ethan, spreading out my words into incontrovertible statements of their own, a definitive pause between each and every one. “I will live and die for you, but this is the last test and the last time you cut me out or treat me like a neophyte.”
I punctuated it with a flourish of my gauntlets, and I meant it. I didn’t know the story behind the fae packs any more than I knew what the fury cults believed in, but I had paid my dues and proved my worth, and if there was anyone who didn’t think so I had no interest in their opinion.
Ethan looked around into the darkness and growled.
“We’re moving to the safe house,” he said definitively.
“I’m going home for a nice hot shower,” I said.
Ethan looked at me and gently caressed my cheek.
“I want you and Matt with us. I know you can kick ass, but this is getting more dangerous. Would be so awful to spend a little time in our safe house with us?”
I sighed. He wasn’t wrong, and I did need to think about Matt.
“It’s already late and I’m exhausted,” I said.
“At least stay here tonight, then,” Ethan said.
He looked to Dean for back up.
“You know he’s not wrong. You’ve already had that elf in your house, and now this. It’s only going to get worse,” Dean said.
“Fine. We’ll go there tomorrow,” I said reluctantly.
I hated the feeling of losing control and being pushed around. It wasn’t Ethan, he was doing his best to give me room and respect my need to stand on my own two feet. The assassins had just taken my childhood home from me, and they were going to pay for that.
Ethan and Kerry had both insisted on coming with us back home the following morning. I hadn’t missed the fact that Matt had stayed in Kerry’s room the night before. He had a warm glow about him and couldn’t keep the smile off his face. I allowed myself to enjoy his happiness and used it to remind myself that I was doing the right thing. He was my priority. I needed to do what was best for him.
My clothes had been burnt the night before, undamaged but thoroughly bloodied, leaving me to wear one of Ethan’s shirts. The sleeves hung down to my mid-thigh, and Kerry had to lend me a belt to put around the middle. If it had been warmer, I could have easily worn it as a dress. As it was, I was wearing a pair of Kerry’s black jeans and my boots. The fury hadn’t done those any harm, thankfully.
It didn’t take too long for me to pack everything up. We didn’t know how long we’d be in the safe house, so I packed clothes and toiletries for every occasion. I tucked my only pair of sexy underwear and matching bra deep into the bag so no one saw it was there. The opportunity to let Ethan see them might arise, and I realised I was ready for that moment. Of course, it really wasn’t the time to be thinking like that. Shaking my head, I tried to get my thoughts back on track.
The assassins knew where I was. That meant they were tracking me somehow. I’d been careful with my magic; the pack had said the signature wasn’t particularly prominent. So, someone must have gotten hold of something tied to me so the assassins could track me via that. I wasn’t a fool. I made sure no one got my hair, and they hadn’t gotten any of my blood willingly.
I was thinking back over the cases I’d done as a bounty hunter. There had been a good few rough jobs where they’d drawn my blood. Someone could have been creepy enough to keep some. I wracked my brain trying to think if any fae had had an opportunity to keep my blood. None came to mind.
Then I remembered the hounds and the gods that we’d saved. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable to think that one those betrayed me. The gods had a bad place in the world, and they would surely have felt what I was. One of them could have gotten some of my blood from the fight scene and handed it to a fae lord or lady as a bartering tool. I cursed loudly and prolifically.
“Everything ok?” Ethan asked.
“I’m just trying to figure out how the assassins are tracking me.”
I put the backpack onto my shoulder and picked up the holdall full of toiletries and weapons. Ethan held out his hand to take the holdall from me.
“There are just too many options. You’ll drive yourself mad trying to figure out where they got the signature from,” Ethan said.
“It was probably the fight with the hounds. You were using a lot of magic. A hound that stayed out of the fight could have gotten it then,” Kerry said.
She was right. I was trying to save people and look where it had gotten me.
TWENTY-NINE
Matt’s mountain of alchemy books was almost as tall as he was.
“Haven’t you heard of a thing called the internet...?” I asked.
Matt rolled his eyes at me.
“These are all old books, translations from fae. Most of my textbooks have been digitised, but these are the really old ones,” he said.
I had no smartass reply for that.
The safe house was an unassuming red-brick building down near the river. It appeared to have seen better days, and the exterior was well-worn, but the roof looked solid and the windows were all clean and unbroken. The pack all parked out front in a neat row, leaving plenty of room for quick escapes should they be needed. I stepped out and looked around the cracked concrete with small green plants bursting between the cracks.
“Home, sweet home,” I muttered.
The front door was a wide, heavy metal door with rivets around the edges. I noted that the windows were all set back into the heavy walls and there was a crackle of heavy magic that washed over the entire building. Looking around, there wasn’t another living soul anywhere nearby. I picked up my backpack and started approaching the building. It stretched up three storeys tall and was capped with a dark slate roof. At first glance, it didn’t look like somewhere you wanted to be after dark.
The buildings on either side had gaps large enough for a big truck to comfortably drive down. Neither of those buildings looked like they had anyone in residence. As I walked up to our new home, I noted there was no graffiti, normal or magical. A quick glance at the river showed the river to be clear and without any malicious beings. Still, the feeling of unease wouldn’t shift. The pack had been around for centuries, they knew what they were doing, I told myself.
Ethan opened the heavy metal door, which was a good six inches thick. It swung open easily on well-oiled hinges, but it gave me the distinct impression of a fortress. I followed him inside, expecting the interior to be rough and basic. It was the stark opposite. Beautiful oak floors stretched out before us. Pale silver fae orbs hung just over six feet above us, casting a bright light over the spacious entryway.
I tugged my boots off and placed them on the boot rack before following Ethan deeper into the house. The hallway was wide enough for three people to walk abreast. The duck-egg-blue walls gave it a slightly homey, if chilly, feel. I looked through the doorways as we passed them on our way to the back of the building. On the right was a huge dining room complete with an antique-looking table large enough to seat twelve people. The next room was a very comfortable living room complete with huge heather purple sofas big enough to use as beds.
Matt paused and grinned at the tv on the wall. It wasn’t that much smaller than the one in Ethan’s private sanctuary. The kitchen was unsurprisingly well-appointed. The table was heavy and made from more hardwood. Ten seats were positioned around it. Ethan walked around the island as big as my bed and began checking the cupboards. They held jars and tins, but the fridge was entirely barren when Cade opened it.
“We’ll stock up,” Cade said.
“I’ll show you to your room,” Ethan said with a smile.
Kerry had already taken Matt’s hand and was leading him back towards the stairs. He was very willing to let her lead him wherever she pleased.
“We’re on the top floor,” Ethan said as we started up the floors.
We continued past the first floor where Kerry had led Matt down a long hallway. The top of the stairs opened into a generously sized landing with three doors leading off it. Ethan pointed to the white door furthest from us.
“My room, but it could be our room...” he said with a grin. I was sorely tempted. “Your room if you choose.” He pointed to the middle door. “And that’s my office,” he said, pointing to the leftmost door.
I opened the middle door and found a room that looked like it belonged in a luxury magazine. A high-pile slate-grey rug had been placed next to the nearest side of the super-king-sized bed, which came complete with the most exquisite-looking bedding. I ran my hands over it and found the cotton to be incredibly smooth and soft.
“It’s fae made. Only the best for you,” Ethan said with a warm smile.
He really was spoiling me.
The furniture was heavy hardwood with lots of space for a great number of clothes and weapons. The en suite was beautiful with an amazing bathtub big enough for two. Ethan gave me a seductive smile as he pulled me into a kiss.
“Just say the word,” he whispered.
Sinful images played through my mind. The thought of his bare skin against mine and his scent wrapping around me. It felt so right.
The timing felt so wrong, though. We were hiding in a safe house from assassins. I needed to keep my head in the game.
THIRTY
The magic wrapped around the building gave me a sense of comfort. I curled up in a large armchair with Mom’s grimoires and a mug of hot chocolate. It was time to see what information the grimoires had to give me. I needed to come to grips with my magic, and fast. The threats were bigger than I’d faced before, and I wasn’t going to leave Matt alone in the world.
Mom’s neat handwriting was easy to read, and I found myself slipping between the pages with ease. It felt as though something passed between myself and the pages as I turned them. I would have thought that was ridiculous, but I was reading a book that bit people.
The opening pages of the first book offered insight into Mom and her childhood. It was all new to me. She’d been trained as a classic witch, but her coven had known there was something weird about her. Witches are taught to use every form of magic, but they are usually stronger with some forms than others. It’s normal and natural. Mom’s gift for blood magic was very unusual, though. She said that her coven became fearful of her as she reached her teens and really came into her skills.
I felt awful for her, to be turned away by the people you’d grown up with and loved. As I turned more pages, I became torn between wanting to learn everything and trying to look for information on the witches. There was a chance that Mom knew something about them. Her information could tell us why they were targeting the fae, and how to stop them.
The blood witches we’d seen so far were cold and brutal killers. I didn’t want to become one of them. A thread of fear coiled deep within me as I thought on the euphoria that came with giving myself over to the blood magic. There was a chance that one day I wouldn’t be strong enough to pull myself away from that high.
A tapping came from the window high on the wall to my right. Frowning, I wondered if Matt had lost his keys already. Standing, I walked over to the window. It wasn’t Matt standing there with a bashful grin on his face. It was the elf assassin, Sin, and he was carrying what looked like a dead pixie over his shoulders like a shepherd carrying a lamb.
I stood looking at him for a long moment. Ethan was upstairs taking a shower, Dean was in the workout room. The cu sith weren’t happy being in the city unable to stretch their legs through the moors. Still, Ethan had insisted that it was the safest place in the territory.
Sin frowned at me and mouthed something that I couldn’t quite understand. I didn’t know how he’d found us. The point of the safe house was to hide from people like him. Finally, I gestured to the back door, not wanting a passerby to see him strolling around with a dead body. I unsheathed my daggers and walked around to the back door in the kitchen.
Opening the door ,I looked at Sin with what I hoped was a fearsome expression.
He grinned at me.
“I brought you a gift. He was on the roof of your house, likely waiting for you to return,” Sin said.
It took me a long moment to really process what was going on. The terrifying elf assassin, the same one that struck fear into the cu sith, had brought me a dead assassin like a cat bringing me a dead mouse.
“What am I supposed to do with him?” I finally asked.
Sin dropped the body on the cracked concrete and shrugged.
“I just wanted to show you that I’m your side. I’ve made my decision. My lord is not worthy of my loyalty.”
On one hand, I could understand his sentiment. I’d be pretty pissed if I was sold into slavery as a little girl. On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly filling me with trust that he’d turned his back on his lord like that.
He held up his hands.
“Maybe that wasn’t the best way to show you can trust me... I will return, though. I’m quite determined to join your pack.”
“And what if we have no desire to have an elf in our pack?” Ethan rumbled.
I almost jumped. He’d moved silently. I’d thought he was still upstairs showering. A glance over my shoulder showed him to have wet hair in messy curls and no shirt. His skin glistened and drew my eye down the beautifully carved muscles that formed his torso.
Sin grinned at Ethan.
“I’m a very useful pack member.”
“You don’t seem to be entirely sane,” I said without meaning to.
Sin rolled his eyes.
“What about me makes me not sane?”
“You broke into my house to make pancakes!”
“Again I ask, what is so wrong with making someone pancakes?”
“You broke into my house to do it... you, by your own admission, were sent to kill me. What if you do join our pack and you decide to make one of our bounties pancakes instead?”
Sin laughed.
“Now there’s a ridiculous idea.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Ok, fine, so my social skills aren’t what they should be. My intent was to show you that I am not going to kill you.” He nudged the dead assassin with the toe of his boot. “And this was an offering to prove that my new goal is help keep you safe.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I told you. You and your boyfriend are strong enough to free me from my bond, and I want to join your pack. I’ve never been part of a pack before.”
“No. You have three seconds to get out of my sight,” Ethan said flatly.
Sin sighed.
“I stand by my word to keep you safe,” he said before he disappeared.
“He could have taken the dead body,” I muttered.
THIRTY-ONE
I’d opted to head to bed early and get some quiet reading in from Mom’s grimoire. It wasn’t the best bedtime reading, given the talk of various methods of obtaining the blood and the impact that had on the quality and type of magic. There was so much left for me to learn. Normal witches spent the first twenty-one or more years being taught everything about their magic. I needed to know why Mom hadn’t told me what we were or given me a chance t
o learn about my magic.
I was mostly asleep with the grimoire open in front of me when Ethan knocked on the door.
“Huh?” I called.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
He stepped into the room with a small frown.
“Another victim as been claimed. Same M.O., another highborn fae taken right outside of a restaurant. Witnesses say there were three women involved.”
I groaned.
“Any connection between this victim and the previous?”
“Yes, that’s why I woke you. They’re all from the same bloodline. I was hoping maybe there was a mention of that particular bloodline in your Mom’s grimoires.”
I looked down at the books on my duvet. I certainly hadn’t come across anything like that yet, but I had a few hundred pages to get through yet.
“I’ll see if I can find anything. Thanks.”
“Would you like me to help? Or do you just want to talk about...?” he gestured at the grimoires.
“I’m confused and a bit hurt by the fact she hid all of this from me. There’s no reason why I couldn’t have passed as a normal witch. Who knows how much that would have changed our lives,” I said.
Ethan came over in his blue and white stripy pyjama bottoms and tight white t-shirt. I watched the sway of his hips as he did so and looked away before my head went to inappropriate places. We were talking about saving lives.
“Perhaps she was hoping that you would have a normal life free from fear of the hounds, or other witches,” he said as he sat next to me.
“She should have given me the opportunity to choose,” I said.
“I don’t disagree.”
He put his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him as I picked the book I’d been reading back up.