by Quinn Loftis
She tilted her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. Sucking in a deep breath of air, filling her lungs to their maximum capacity, she held it. She held it until her body forced her to let it out. Peri managed to relieve a little of her tension but not anywhere close to all of it.
“Can I ask what we’re doing here, besides trying to annoy the Alpha?” The pixie said in a calm, soothing voice. It made Peri want to punt her across the room like a ball. She hated when others were calm when she was so far from it. But it wasn’t Stralina’s fault, so she refrained from kicking the little pixie.
“Stalling,” she answered as she began to pace the room. Her devious mind was always at work, so, as she paced, Peri touched everything she passed. Decebel was going to hit the roof. It would be hilarious. Focus, Peri, she growled at herself.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said, deciding that talking out loud would better keep her on task. She was pissed off about Alston, and was, for some reason, projecting her anger onto Decebel. Okay, she knew the reason, he was a butthead. Boom. Reason enough to take unwarranted anger out on him. “Sally’s memory is jacked up. It can be fixed, however.” She held a finger up. “It must be done slowly.”
“You’ve covered this,” said Stralina.
“Shh,” Peri snapped. “Don’t mess with my mojo. In order to uncloak her memories, we will need to take our time. If Costin finds out that we’ve found her, he won’t give us the time we need. He will simply follow his instincts and go take back what is his. So, Costin cannot know. Now—” Lowering her finger she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “The question is, who do we tell, if anyone at all?”
“Do you think it wise to keep this information from Vasile and Decebel?” Lucian’s voice rumbled in her mind. “I understand why you can’t tell Costin. But the Alphas will be very angry if you keep the location of a lost pack member from them—not to mention her two friends.”
Peri was well aware that Jen and Jacque were going to have a barbeque featuring her as the stuffed pig when they found out that she hadn’t told them where Sally was or what had happened to her.
“The more people that know, the greater risk that Costin will find out. If he tries to get to her while her mind is still so heavily affected by the magic, he could kill her,” she pointed out.
Peri could feel Lucian’s frustration at the situation. He didn’t like the idea of two powerful Alphas angry with his mate.
“Go to the meeting and feel them out. Perhaps, you should gauge their ability to handle the information before you decide what to reveal.”
“I will likely find that their ability to act rationally about their lost friend and healer is about as likely as your ability to do a striptease while wearing a tutu. Then what should I do?” She felt his amusement at her which brought a much-needed smile to her face.
“You might find that I’m perfectly capable of doing a striptease while wearing a tutu. But just because I’m capable doesn’t mean I’ll do it. You might find the same situation there. If they are not in a state to be helpful, then I suppose you should sit on the info for a few days. Decide if you should tell Vasile or Decebel in private. Vasile, certainly, can keep a level head.”
“Fine,” She huffed at him. “We’ll do it your way but in exchange I expect that striptease. You better get to finding a tutu, Wolf.”
“As my lady commands,” he responded in that slow, sexy, voice that he knew made her want to kick saving the world to the curb and go home to him.
“Play fair,” she growled at him.
“Then I’d never win.”
She laughed out loud as she felt him pull back from her mind. He was wrong. Her mate was cunning and patient. All he had to do was wait for her to make a mistake in whatever little game they were playing and then he’d make his move. He only cheated because it amused her and he liked pleasing her.
“So have we got a plan now?” Stralina asked her.
“Was it that obvious that I was having a conversation in my mind with my mate?” Peri asked the pixie.
Stralina lifted one shoulder. “Well, your face sort of moves around. Like your eyebrows raise, or your mouth tilts up or down. Your forehead creases and occasionally you huff or roll your eyes. So it’s like you are responding with your face to something no one else can hear.”
Peri stared down at the little female for a few seconds before shaking her head. “You could have just said yes. I didn’t need the play by play.”
“Since you talked to your mate, do we have a plan?” she asked Peri again.
Peri held her hand out and tilted it from side to side. “Meh, we have a loosely thought out next step.”
“So, a plan,” Stralina added.
“A plan implies that you have looked at all of the other available options and decided the best possible action based upon likely results. We have not looked at all of the other available actions and we have no idea of the likely results,” Peri countered.
“What’s another option?”
“Going home and making wild monkey love with my mate.”
“And another?” Stralina asked again, un-phased by Peri’s response.
“Repeating the aforementioned option,” she answered without pause.
This time the pixie laughed. “Right, so we aren’t going to look at any other available options. I think we’re good where we are.”
Peri nodded. “I sort of thought that would be how you felt.” She placed her hand on the pixie’s shoulder once again and flashed them to Vasile’s office.
The normally calm, organized room was a big, loud chaotic mess, and Peri briefly wondered if she’d somehow flashed them to the wrong house. But then she heard Jen’s voice.
“Us standing around like a bunch of yapping hyenas isn’t helping us find him,” she growled at her mate. Decebel snarled back so viciously that Peri took a step toward the couple as though she needed to protect Jen from her mate. Which was ludicrous because Decebel, nor any mated male, would never intentionally harm their mate. They’d sooner rip off their own man parts.
“I know what I need to do in order to find my Beta, female,” Decebel said to Jen with amber eyes lit up like Christmas lights. “I do not need you pointing out the obvious to me.”
Okay, Peri had never seen Decebel like that, not with Jen. And by the look on her face, Jen hadn’t either. She’d had enough of the chaos. Where the crap was Vasile?
“ENOUGH!”
“Oh, there he is,” Peri whispered to herself as Vasile strode into the room, his power radiated off of him and reached out across the silenced room.
“Chaos divides. Disagreement, disharmony, keeps us idle. How many times have we faced darkness together? We’ve never let it tear us apart and we aren’t going to start now.” His eyes roamed over each of them, pausing for a moment when they landed on Peri. She inclined her head as he held her stare. When he finally looked away, he didn’t speak immediately.
Peri took the moment to glance around the room to take stock of who was present. Alina was in the corner holding Slate. Decebel was leaning a shoulder against the wall, his arms folded in front of him, and he looked about as pleasant as a raging bull. Jen stood a few feet from him and her head refused to turn in her mate’s direction. Rachel and Gavril were standing with Zara, who was holding Titus’ hand. To Zara’s credit, she didn’t look like a scared rabbit. Go her. Fane stood next to Jacque looking as brooding as ever and next to them was Lilly and Cypher. Peri’s eyes widened when they landed on the last two people present.
Vasile still hadn’t resumed talking so Cyn wasn’t interrupting when she stepped forward with the Prince of the elves at her side and spoke.
“We have news,” Cyn said in her matter-of-fact way.
Peri tilted her head granting the warrior to continue.
“The King of the elves isn’t dead. He’s very much alive, and with his resurrection he has brought the Order of the Burning Claw to our doorstep.”
Sally stepped into The Dog House surprised
to see that there was no one manning the bar. Granted, there were only a few customers and they were regulars so the lack of responsible employees wasn’t a big deal. But Jericho never left the bar, like ever.
She waved at the patrons who bid her hello, and she walked back to Cross’ office. Sally had just stepped into the hall that led to the office when she heard voices. They sounded angry and she immediately knew that she should back away and mind her own business. So like any person who was too curious for her own good and didn’t have good survival instincts, she stood there and listened.
“You’re sure it was Perizada?” Cross asked.
“Are you kidding me,” Jericho snapped back. “There’s no mistaking her and no forgetting her once you’ve crossed her path.”
“She can shift her form, glamour herself at will,” Cross pointed out. “Your eyes could have been fooling you.”
“The power coming off of her was too great to be anyone else. It was her.”
“Fine,” Cross growled. “It was Perizada. Now, what did she want?”
“Ugh,” Jericho made a disgusted noise. “I think you know what she wanted. She was asking questions about any new employees, looking for a female with long brown hair and big brown eyes. I told her we didn’t have any females working here that matched the description. It’s a damn good thing I convinced Sally to try something new with her looks.”
Sally rolled her eyes at his comment. As irritated as it made her to admit it, Jericho had indeed convinced her that maybe she needed a new look if she was starting a new life. Something bold and totally different. It was definitely different, but she liked it. Sally felt lighter with the heavy locks gone.
“Well, I doubt you fooled Peri.” Sally’s attention was drawn back to the room at the sound of Cross’ voice. “If she came here under the impression that Sally was here, it was because she had no doubt. She wouldn’t have wasted her time if she didn’t already know,” Cross explained.
“She said she’d be back. If she tells…” Jericho’s voice dropped lower and she couldn’t hear the rest of what he said.
Sally stepped forward, trying to get closer without alerting them that she was there. Her foot landed on a peanut shell, something that, under normal circumstances, certainly would have made only the slightest noise, if any. But of course, because Sally was trying to be quiet, the peanut made a loud crack that seemed to echo up and down the quiet hall. She froze, praying they wouldn’t come out of the door.
“Shut that door,” Cross barked.
And quick as that, her eavesdropping plan was thwarted. She stepped back into the bar area and grabbed a pad and pen. Sally wrote a short note for Jericho and left it under a bottle of vodka that she knew would be used a hundred times that night.
The sun was warm on her skin once she was back on the sidewalk as she headed toward the closest beach. She’d only been once since she’d been in Oceanside, but it had been so relaxing that she’d fallen asleep on the sand. As she walked, her mind went back to the moment outside of her apartment earlier that day. She could have sworn that she’d felt a breath of air on her neck. And not only that, but she had felt as if someone had been standing right there behind her, within touching distance. But no matter how much she had willed them to make themselves known, the air behind her remained empty. That experience alone had been enough to weird her out. But the conversation she’d just overheard between Jericho and Cross cranked the weird scale meter sky high.
Why had they been talking about her in secret and who could possibly be looking for her? Was it something to do with her parents’ estate and the will? Sally was pretty sure that she took care of everything before she ran off for her new life, but then again, any time she tried to remember the days and months before coming to Oceanside, everything seemed very fuzzy and unclear. It was like using a bottle of water as a telescope, everything on the other end was distorted.
As soon as her feet hit the warm sand, the eerie feelings and the disturbing conversation was pushed away. It was just her and the wind in her hair, the ocean roaring out its power—wave after wave, the sun beaming down proudly, and the earth steady beneath her, all communing together in perfect harmony. Sally sat down just a little out the reach of the crashing waves. She leaned back on her hands, tilted her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She let her ears be her guide. Without realizing what she was doing, she began meditating, tuning out all of the noises around her. After some time, she began hearing only the call of the elements.
Her eyes popped open and she sat up abruptly. Call of the elements? Where had that thought come from? She’d never thought like that. She never imaged the water or air as elements, let alone the earth. An eerie feeling shot down her spine and she suddenly felt cold all over. A part of Sally didn’t want to acknowledge any of the feelings that she’d been having from the moment she’d arrived in Oceanside or the strange things that had gone on recently. But another part of her refused to let the feelings go. Some part of her knew that something was wrong—really, really wrong.
Jericho was shaking with the need to phase and let his wolf run free. The appearance of Perizada, and his own emotions, had changed the plans that had been previously set in place.
“Why is she affecting me like this?” he growled at Cross.
“Well, apparently you can take the girl out of the supernatural world, but you can’t take the supernatural out of the girl. She’s a gypsy healer, which is why we want her in the first place.”
“And?” Jericho prompted, his patience at an all-time low.
“And gypsy healers can have an effect on unmated males, well any wolves really. Don’t forget that the healers are filled with light, more than any other being in the world. Most of the time this light has a calming effect on the wolves of a pack. But this light is so pure, so beautiful, that it can also cause young wolves to be infatuated. It’s one of the reasons healers are protected so diligently and why they always mate with a dominant male,” Cross explained, sounding way to calm for Jericho’s liking. Cross sat on the other side of the desk and leaned back in his chair, his shoulders relaxed and his hands clasped together under his chin. Everything about his posture screamed I am in control and nothing can ruffle me. Jericho supposed that was why Cross was the Alpha of the Burning Claw wolves.
“And what if I really do want to take her as my mate, not feign affection in an attempt to draw her in to our organization?” Jericho asked.
“Then I suggest you brush up on your fighting skills. She was a mated gypsy healer, under the protection of not only her mate but also the Romania and Serbian packs, and you know who the Romanian Alpha is. Obviously, her disappearance has not gone unnoticed. I’d be willing to guess that Peri is just a scout. The rest will be coming. Her mate will be coming and he will die before he lets you keep her,” Cross warned.
Jericho’s chest tightened at the thought of losing Sally. It angered him that he could lose her but it didn’t sadden him, a subtle reminder that she wasn’t his true mate. His true mate had died at the hands of a vampire before Jericho had had the chance to perform the Blood Rights, so instead of being able to join his mate, he was left on earth with only half a soul and no desire to carry on. The darkness had won and his only chance at redemption had been lost to him.
Cross motioned to the door. “If you don’t mind, I have some phone calls to make. The Order needs to be made aware of what’s going on.”
Jericho took his leave and made his way back up to the front of the bar. His nose twitched at Sally’s scent lingering in the hall. She’d been there very recently. As soon as he rounded the corner, he saw the note under the bottle of vodka; it was the only bottle out of line of the others. He snatched it up and unfolded it. His eyes scanned it and he let out a breath.
“Jericho, I know you wanted to do lunch but I really just want a break from the bar. I’m going to head to the beach for the day. I’ll call you when I get home. Xoxo, Sally.”
Nothing in the note aroused his suspici
ons. There was no hint that she might have heard their conversation earlier. He was actually glad she wasn’t going to be hanging around the bar today, just in case Peri or her little spies were watching.
Cross was right, Perizada was a game changer. He’d have to move up the timetable. When Sally called him tonight, he’d seduce her and claim her as his own. He didn’t have time to make sure she was head over heels in love with him. He already knew she was infatuated with him. That would have to do for now.
Chapter 16
“Yes, I would like fries with my order of the world is coming to an end, just quit trying to save it. I think that’s the #544 value meal.” ~Jen
Jacque had no clue what Cyn was talking about, but by the looks on some of the other faces it was clear that she’d just dropped a bomb on them and the aftermath wasn’t pretty.
“What is the Order of the Burning Claw?” she asked Fane silently.
Her oh so helpful mate just shrugged his shoulders. He and Decebel had both been short and snarly with her and Jen since they’d returned from the horrible scene in the forest. Something was wrong and it wasn’t just the shock of Costin going feral.
“The Order?” Vasile’s voice had deepened as his wolf, who he rarely lost control of, surged forward. His eyes flashed and his canines lengthened as he visibly fought for control. Jacque found herself taking a step back from her father-in-law. It wasn’t until Alina placed her hand in his that he was able to bring his wolf to heel.