by C. P. Rider
A month ago, Lucas and I had taken out her megalomaniacal alpha leader. Ana, Lupita, and Maria Cortez had joined the Blacke group soon after that.
"I'm so sorry this happened to your beautiful panaderia, Neely." Ana crunched through the doorway.
"Honey, be careful. The glass will go through your shoes."
The young shifter held up a booted foot. "Steel shank and toe. My sister made me wear them after that last wolf attack."
While Lucas and I were in San Diego, Ana's sister Lupita had fought off a group of wolves trying to kill her sister and herself. Both young women had nearly died in the attempt.
"Okay, but be careful, even with the jeans and boots. And thanks for the sentiment. I think it's a beautiful bakery, too."
Ana's face lit up. "Oh, it's wonderful. All these happy colors. And it smells like heaven. I've always wanted to learn how to bake, but I never had the chance. I mean, I've made box cakes and brownies and stuff, but nothing from scratch. Mom is a good cook, but she doesn't bake much."
"I can understand that. She's busy with moving and getting the medical office running."
"Yeah. We didn't even put up our ofrenda this year. We've done it every year since my dad died." She tugged on the hem of her purple T-shirt. "Yours looks good."
I followed her gaze to my ofrenda. Somehow, the altar was untouched, the glass candles and picture frames intact. A small miracle, given the condition of the rest of the room.
"If you'd like, you could bring your dad's picture here and put it on mine."
"Really?" Ana looked from me to the ofrenda and back again. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I'd be honored to remember him with you. Did he like pan dulce?"
"Oh yes. He had a huge sweet tooth. Conchas were his favorite. When I was a little girl, we used to buy them fresh every Saturday morning."
"I'll put one on the ofrenda for him."
"Thanks." She nodded at the garbage bag in my hand. "Want me to hold that? I didn't bring my prosthetic because I sweat a lot in the desert heat, and it irritates me. Also, because I hate wearing it and look for any excuse not to—don't tell my mom that." She glanced over her shoulder as if she thought Maria might be standing there. "I'll hold the bag with my hand and little arm."
Ana's left arm ended just below her elbow. It wasn't an injury—simply a lottery of birth, a random happening. Lucas told me that her wolf was the same way. He'd admired the way the young woman had taught herself to run on three legs. She was faster than some of his shifters who ran on four, but that was to be expected since she was an alpha and naturally stronger.
"Thank you, I could use the help." I handed Ana the bag and she popped it open with her hand and her opposite arm. "Keep your fingers away from the glass. Drop the bag if it gets anywhere close to skin. I'd rather spill it than cut you."
"Got it." She grinned. "Don't worry, though. I heal fast."
I knew that, but the idea of her being hurt still bothered me. "What are you doing around here so early?" I dumped a dustpan full of glass pieces into the bag.
"I came to help stock the apothecary with my mom. She's so excited about getting it running, she goes in early every day." Ana shook the bag to distribute the glass on the bottom. "Alpha Blacke told her she could have whatever she needed. We all like him very much."
Lucas could definitely be sweet when he wanted to be, but I also knew the arrangement benefited his group as much as it did the Cortez family. Sundance had needed a medical professional. Our last one had been murdered by one of Saul Roso's shifter spies.
Ana smiled, then frowned. "It's strange. I've never liked an alpha leader before. Usually I try to keep out of their way."
"I was once like that, too. And then along came Alpha Blacke…" I smiled.
Her smile returned. "He is a different kind of alpha. My mom, sister, and I are a different kind of alpha, too. We don't like to bully others just because they're not the same as us. Like, perceived as weaker or something—a beta wolf, for instance. Laura, my best friend in school, is a beta wolf. It would be dumb to treat her differently just because of that."
"I agree. But then, my tío was a beta wolf." I scooped up another dustpan full of glass. "And he was my favorite person in the world."
Over the next two hours, Ana helped me fill three contractor bags. Once we'd cleared the glass and broken items from the café and swept the tracked-in glass off the kitchen floor, we took a water break. It was 8 a.m. and the temperature was climbing. It wasn't summer hot, but it would be in the nineties today.
"Are you going to dress up for Halloween?" Ana asked in between drinks of water.
"Halloween?" I paused, did some mental math. "Holy crap, it's Halloween. How did I miss that?" I set my water bottle on the worktable and went to the freezer. "I put two dozen polvorones in here a couple days ago. I wanted to hand out fresh ones, but given the condition of my bakery, these will have to do."
"I'm definitely trick-or-treating here," she said.
"What are you dressing up as?"
"A wolf." She gave me a broad, toothy grin.
"A little on-the-nose, but I like it."
"On the snout, you mean." She giggled as she walked around the kitchen, peering into the ovens, running her hand over the worktable and the counters.
"You know, if you really want to learn to bake, I could teach you."
Her dusty, sweaty face lit up. "You would do that?"
"Sure. Just let me get things fixed here and talk to your mom about it, and we'll set something up." I picked up my water bottle and downed half of it.
"Can you teach me to make conchas?" Ana looked so happy I couldn't help but smile.
"You bet."
"I'd like to make some pink ones for Lupita. They're her favorite."
"Your sister has excellent taste. They're mine, too. I mean, along with mantecadas, cochinitos, cuernos de crema…"
We both laughed as I ticked off five more pan dulce varieties on my hand.
Ana's cell phone buzzed. She fished it out of her back pocket and peered at the screen.
I gave a thought to my own cell phone and took a moment to be grateful it had been in the kitchen when the glass broke, so had made it through the ordeal with its screen intact.
"Got to go. Sorry. Mom needs my help with pricing. I installed a program for her to track inventory and prices, but she hasn't learned how to use it yet."
Interesting. I might have to hire Ana to teach me how to use one of those programs. My tío had done his books the old-fashioned way, with a notebook and a pencil. "Tell your mom I said thanks for loaning me her best worker."
"Ooo, Lupita would be so jealous if I said that." From the way she grinned, I was pretty sure she not only would tell her sister that I said that, but she'd rub it in, too. "You'll be okay here alone?"
It was truly sweet of Ana to care, even if I was completely capable of taking care of myself. Her sincerity touched me. It also activated my vengeful side, made me want to drive up to San Diego right now and spike the life out of everyone who had ever hurt her. "I'll manage. Thank you, Ana."
"You're welcome. Neely?" She put her hand on my arm. "Cuidado, okay?"
Cuidado. Be careful. No one had said that Spanish word to me since my uncle died, and it went straight to my heart. I was definitely going to teach this teenager how to bake conchas and anything else she wanted to learn.
That is, if I survived whatever awfulness came my way next.
"I'll be careful, Ana. I promise."
Chapter Fourteen
Since it was Halloween, I decided to step out of the bakery and be social.
Thankfully, my closet was completely free of broken glass, as there were no windows or mirrors inside it, so I rummaged through a box of old clothes and unearthed a black cat costume I'd worn to a party a few years ago. The outfit was simple: a short black dress with a stuffed fabric tail attached to the skirt. A pair of sneakers, black tights, and my birthday bracelet completed my ensemble.
; I pulled my hair into two puffy ponytails and stuck the ears on top of my head. Using an eyeliner pencil, I drew whiskers on my cheeks, adding a little blush first because the color had kind of gone out of me while working through the damage in my bakery.
My bakery. I finally figure out what I want to do with my life, and this happens. If I were paranoid, I'd think I was on the universe's hit list and it was sending its nastiest foot soldiers to do the groundwork. Because, if someone had wanted to hurt me, they'd found the sharpest, surest way to do it—outside of going after one of my friends.
I loaded the thawed polvorones into a paper-lined basket and ventured out onto the front walkway in the early evening, since desert kids did their trick-or-treating when the sun was all the way down. I offered cookies to adults and children as they passed by on the street, not expecting much of a response from anyone.
People stopped. In fact, I was surprised by the amount of people who made an effort to stop and talk to me. Several Blacke paranormals told me they hoped I would reopen soon because they loved my pastries, and that they were so sorry about what happened to the bakery, that it was a shame someone would be so mean to me.
Three Blacke shifters I barely knew even gave me hugs.
Sundance's newest residents, the Reids, brought their newborn daughter by to visit me. Baby ReAnne was dressed as a cute little wolf, which was exactly what she was. I told Carter and Imogen to be sure to stop by the apothecary so Ana Cortez could see her miniature twin, since she was also dressing up as a wolf.
I read everyone who approached me, since I didn't believe a single word of what any of the paranormals said and figured this was all Lucas's doing—that he'd threatened or coerced his shifters into being kind to me. One by one, I swept into their thoughts, steeling myself for the inevitable hatefulness hidden behind their smiles.
Only, I didn't find any. Lucas hadn't made them stop by. They'd done it on their own.
They were … sincere.
This made me wonder how much of the animosity I'd assumed they all felt for me was, in fact, my own assumption and not a reflection of reality. It made me question my own part in the distance between myself and the Blacke shifters.
My smile grew wider as the evening wore on and more people stopped by. I felt buoyant, happier than I'd been in weeks. I'd just emerged from the bakery after making a stop in the kitchen to refill my cookie basket when a black SUV rolled up to the curb and three bulky men in business suits got out. Alphas.
It was official. I was not only on the universe's hit list, I was right up at the top of it.
Slowly, methodically, I began to pull power from the men, careful not to take too much too fast and alert them.
"Cookie?" I tossed one of the yellow polvorones to the nearest male, a dark-skinned Latino man whose bulky, muscular physique resembled that of a famous TV wrestler turned movie star. He wasn't wearing sunglasses like the others, and his eyes were sky blue, clear as glass, and glowing. The other two were alphas, but he was different. Paranormal, but not a shifter.
He caught the cookie, bit into it. "Thanks. You're the spiker?"
"Who wants to know?"
"My alpha. But you expected that. After all, your people murdered one of our coyotes in cold blood." He kept eating the cookie as he said this. It was a little surreal.
I stiffened. "I was recently attacked by coyote shifters in my own home. Drugged and nearly kidnapped. Were they yours?"
He continued eating the cookie.
With a sigh, I opened myself more, allowed the power from the shifters to stream into my consciousness, flooding my entire being. There was immense power here, and I had to fight not to drain every last sugar-sweet drop. One good thing about paranormals coming after me was that they were handy power sources. If I had to spike, I had everything I needed right in front of me.
"I wouldn't recommend testing my patience. I have had a bad couple of days." I was looking at Blue Eyes, but I was talking to the alpha advancing on my left.
Blue Eyes finished the cookie and dusted his hands on his trousers. The shifter pulled a gun from a holster under his jacket.
"Put that away." I gestured to the costumed children on the sidewalk across the street. "There are trick-or-treaters here."
The armed shifter continued advancing, clearly unbothered by the idea of harming children.
My blood boiled. Nobody put kids in danger in my town.
I locked onto the frequency of his brainwaves, rode them into his head. With the power he'd provided, it was easy. I sent a jolt of energy into the alpha shifter. Quick and deadly, a metaphysical silver bullet to the brain. The shifter froze. His gun clattered to the cement and he went down stiffly—first to his knees, and then tipping flat on his face.
My peripheral vision registered the activity around me. Families on the street had picked up on what was happening. People shepherded their children into the nearest shelter—the medical clinic and apothecary, Sundance Auto, Sundance Grocery, Bienvenidos Diner, and, farther down the street, the Dusty Cactus Saloon and the post office.
Sometimes this strange little town reminded me of the set of an old west movie. All we needed was a Morricone soundtrack and a few more cowboy hats. We even had the obligatory tumbleweed and dust.
"You should go now. Before someone else dies." The basket lay on the ground at my feet, cookies scattered. I didn't remember dropping it. I didn't remember much of anything that happened in the world around me while I spiked, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't worry me.
"Why would we do that?" Blue Eyes grinned. "We're just getting started."
I had no idea what he meant by "we," as the shifter beside him was dead and the other was nowhere in sight.
I pulled hard, receiving a giant jolt of energy, and locked onto Blue Eyes's brainwaves. Drank it all in, every syrupy drop. His power was addictive and delicious, and the sudden rush of it coursing through my body was a high like nothing else.
I spiked.
Blue Eyes grunted and gripped his head with both hands. My eyes slid closed as I drove deep, tunneling through his mind to the core of his being. Smooth-walled geometric shapes floated like asteroids in my path. My power tried to blast through them, slide past, push them aside, but they were too strong, too big, too heavy. His brain was a complicated collection of mathematic equations that I didn't have the capacity to solve.
My eyes flew open. Blue Eyes was fighting. Even more surprising, he was winning. I had no idea how he was still alive, much less on his feet and pushing back.
"Stop right now, spiker." The missing third alpha came out from behind the SUV. When I saw who he was holding in front of him, I pushed even harder at Blue Eyes. I needed to finish with him so I could deal with this last piece of garbage.
"Let her go," I ground out.
The man gripped Ana Cortez by the throat. She gasped for breath, slapping at his forearms. His hands were so big I couldn't see any skin from her chin to her collarbone. "Not until you stop spiking him."
"You don't want me to stop spiking him, trust me." I forced myself to remain in the present while keeping the pressure on Blue Eyes. I hissed in pain as I fought the urge—no, the need, to lose myself in his energy. My brain was ripping in half inside my skull, but I held on, I listened to that tiny voice that reminded me there was more at stake here than my need.
Ana growled. The air in the atmosphere went from warm and breezy to hot and leaden. I wanted to scream at her not to shift, because I knew that the minute she did and tried to attack the alpha holding her, he'd snap her neck. I could see it all as if shown on a movie screen, presented like the Hollywood version of a mystic's premonition.
"Why not?" The man tightened his grip on Ana, and she howled.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Lupita Cortez, Ana's sister, exit the medical center and sprint toward the alpha holding her sister captive, shifting as she ran. The Blacke alpha third, Dan Winters, burst out of the grocery store at the opposite end of the block and did the same.
Even given their shifter speed, they'd never make it in time to save her. If I didn't do something, she was going to shift and attack, and he was going to snap her neck.
All of this I knew in an instant, which left me plenty of time to act. The problem was that my addiction to the power streaming through me was shrieking, while the drive to help was a raspy, weak whisper.
Addiction never reared its ugly head when things were going well.
Mija, I heard my late uncle's voice in my head. Tú lo controlas. It doesn't control you. Recuerda esto. Remember this. You control it.
I didn't want to let go of Blue Eyes. I was doing what I was meant to do, and it felt good. The energy funneling into me, the pain I was creating inside him, even if it wasn't killing him—it was all so divine.
But Ana needed me.
"You hear me, spiker? Why the hell not?" The shifter yelled.
"Because," I hissed. "Once I stop spiking him, it's your turn."
Using every scrap of will I possessed, I yanked my energy out of Blue Eyes and sank it into the man holding Ana. He hit the asphalt a second after I spiked, and Ana was free.
One stupid second.
That was all Blue Eyes needed. He tackled me to the ground, gripped the sides of my face, and stared into my eyes. Blood drooled out of his nose. His blue irises glowed like shifter's eyes before they changed, but he wasn't a shifter. I didn't yet know what he was, but I knew that.
He whispered words. They were in English, but I didn't understand them. The part of my brain that comprehended speech had shut itself off, though I felt his intent in my bones. He held my gaze so tightly I couldn't look away, couldn't blink, couldn't stop him.
When he finally spoke in a discernible voice, it was to say, "Obey me."
And that easily, he had me under his control. I would follow him wherever he wanted to go.