Authors: Talyn Scott
“It?” Sixten cursed loud and long from above her. “Keep giving her hell by opening your foolish mouths. Qudir, at least send the younglings out of here,” he asked respectfully, though he was clearly snappish with the commander.
She hadn’t seen anything close to ‘younglings’. But she watched several monster-sized vampires follow pointed fingers out the door. She guffawed as they slumped out like chastised children.
“Can’t you order me out, too, Qudir?” She covered her mouth, hiccupping into her palm. Her stomach was hurting from her efforts to stop. “Leaving sounds pretty good about now,” she added when she finally settled down.
“You crashed on us for a minute, Blythe,” Dru explained and he appeared to be all finished. “Spiked adrenalin can do that easily, but your heart sounds perfect.”
“You don’t need a stethoscope,” she muttered.
“No.”
“You used one on me in your clinic.”
“Props.” He smiled weakly. “Can’t give myself away, can I?”
“No, I guess not.”
“You’ll be fine, Blythe. Most humans would have crumbled after experiencing what you have, especially in such a short period of time.”
She heard shuffling and noticed the vampires were sitting down. Sixten still had his arms wrapped around her as she sat on the desk. She was immediately reminded about those vampire etchings in the tunnel and decided she didn’t want to be sitting on anything that resembled an ancient ceremonial slab. “Down. I want down, please.”
Sixten pulled her to a small chair. Everything looked dark and industrial, serviceable without any grandeur. He pointed at the seat and she sat obediently. Why? She knew when to pick her battles and this wasn’t the time to tell him the caveman thing was only a turn-on in certain situations, depending on how horny she was.
Dr. Holt was putting his stuff away, and Kash stood next to Sixten, bordering her in a way that made her nervous. Were the rest going to jump her? Drink her dry any minute? More questions pummeled her mind as they waited for something or someone, but no one spoke. So she had more time to think. Dru said there was no kitchen here. If vampires didn’t eat food, did they have a bathroom here?
“There’s a bathroom here.” Someone said.
He had orange eyes. Orange freaking eyes. “I’ll walk you,” Sixten said.
“Not necessary,” she said hotly. Then Blythe asked a one-worded question, “How?”
“He can read human thoughts,” Sixten said snidely and stepped in front of her. No matter what he’d done earlier, Blythe wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab his sinful ass. How hormonal was that? Dark blond stubble had shadowed his strong jaw and it was knotting while he stared down the mind reader.
The vampire laughed back, shaking his mahogany hair until she heard the clatter of beads. He was tall like the rest, maybe more powerfully built. Arrogant features, and a mouth to match, challenged his masculine beauty.
“She wants you, Six,” the mind reader spoke again, though he’d quickly been downgraded to arrogant asshole mind reader. “Surrounded by death, she still wants to do the dirty, and that’s what she’s thinking about: your sinful ass and my masculine beauty.”
“Shit,” someone said distantly.
“Here we go,” another chimed in.
And they were off
. One second, Sixten was next to her. The next, he and arrogant asshole mind reader were rolling on the floor screaming obscenities she’d never heard before, and she worked in a bar.
“Hmmm, Six, your breath smells like fresh pu -”
Wham. A serious blow flattened an aristocratic nose. Blythe flinched, covering her face though peeking through her fingers. Yeah, he deserved it, but still. Yuck. More blood was everywhere, s
trangely scented
blood – that is. Then, her stomach howled. Yuck again. Yet hadn’t she tasted it along the way? But where?
A flavor - a memory of flavor - settled on the back of her tongue like one of those childhood flashbacks. One when she heard a familiar, old song playing on the radio, and she was suddenly a small child sitting in the backseat of her parents’ car watching them sing and laugh, never thinking death would come for them before they reached middle age.
Memories.
I know that smell.
She’d smelled it before.
But when?
“Children.” A low command laced with annoyance interrupted her thoughts. “Let’s act civilized in front of the pretty.” The one they called Maestru had entered the room. Barely. His shoulders were almost as wide as the doorway. And it was a big doorway. She bit her lip thinking ‘the pretty’. Blythe fisted her hands in her lap. No wonder these vampires were so overbearing, considering their chauvinistic ringleader. She watched Sixten step off arrogant asshole mind reader and face Maestru.
“The name’s Oycher,” he aimed another unsolicited answer at her, smirking from a freshly healed face.
Oycher had ocher eyes to match his funky name. She shook her head with a sigh. She hated fighting. And what satisfaction could they garner when they healed right up?
“Cause it feels good,” Oycher answered her unspoken question.
In the next second, his nose was broken again, flattened all over his face. Blood sprayed the floor and Blythe stifled a scream.
Sixten shook out his hand. “Did I not make myself clear enough? I thought I had. But you just keep going there.” He tossed his flaxen hair from his face. “No one is inside her but me. That includes her head.” Kash and Qudir peeled him off when he lunged for Oycher again.
“Crude,” Blythe grumbled under her breath, but they all caught it with their astute hearing, though wisely pretended not to hear.
“I would have expected a better welcome from our Coven than this, especially from our Vojaks,” Maestru said in a smooth whiskey voice that permeated the room. “For those that haven’t heard, Blythe and Sixten were joined in vampiric matrimony.” Blythe started choking on absolutely nothing. Kash pounded her on the back, and Sixten gave her a look that could ice over the Sahara. “And Sixten has decided to fill our vacant ambassadorship, acting as liaison between the Species and Weres…and Habalines.”
Tall order, Blythe thought. Though anyone who could transform their body at will should be able to hold up under the pressure. So Sixten was probably the best man or vampire or whatever for the job.
She figured the vampiric matrimony thing Maestru spoke of was the marking - a way to keep others off her.
Blythe crossed her legs and realized she wasn’t wearing any underwear. In the bedroom, he’d dressed her like a magician without the smoke and mirrors. So putting her underwear back on shouldn’t have been a hard thing for Mr. Ambassador to do, yet here she sat with a bare bottom.
Oycher met her eyes and pointed to Sixten’s ass. She thought he was making a silent joke about her sinfully sexy ass thoughts until she saw a small roll inside his back pocket. Oh, yeah, he was carrying them around. And she wouldn’t put it past this Oycher to comment on it in front of everyone here. Since Six was standing in front of her again, she reached forward, but he caught her hand behind his back and gave her a slight warning squeeze. He didn't even turn around. Could she get away with anything?
Panty snatcher.
Maestru cleared his throat. “Normally ambassadors don’t hunker down in the sanctuary, but the Weres have made it clear they are going to use Sixten to infiltrate the Habalines, thinking he has the inside track because of his half-brother. Beasts are beasts. They’re making noise. Chatter says they’re calling Blythe mixed-blood.” Everyone sucked in a collective breath and Blythe felt the oxygen leave the room. “So we have a call to protect our ambassador’s mate as she is of the Coven now.”
Mixed-blood? Sixten said she wasn’t entirely human. But mixed-blood?
“She wants to know what’s with the mixed-blood talk.”
A violent hiss left Sixten, so savagely intense her hair whipped around her head as if a Cat 2 hurricane had suddenly hit the island while she was still standing on the beach. “Um, excuse me,” she whispered. Six stiffened next to her. She didn’t know the protocol in these ‘meetings’, and she wasn’t into angering creatures who could kill her before she took her next breath. But she was beyond sick of Oycher. “Oycher, I think broadcasting my inner thoughts is cruelly rude. It’s a mild form of rape. At the very least, you are a bully, and I don’t like bullies. I don’t like
you
.”
Her voice grew stronger. “In fact, I’m beyond pissed off right now. I encounter men like you all the time. Those who override, overrule, overbear, and overthink their importance in the grand scheme of
anything.
I don’t know what world this is below ground, but in the human world, you don’t piss off an ambassador’s… uh, wife.” She brought her chin up, staring Oycher square in his orange eyes and added, “So if I have a question, I’ll ask it myself.”
Shouts of laughter nearly brought down the ceiling and Oycher’s lips were twisting behind his mock scowl. She turned to Maestru and asked, “Would you mind explaining why these Weres think I’m a mixed-blood and why that
intrigues
them - for lack of a better word.
Maestru moved. His powerful body rippling and gliding toward her, but Sixten stayed put. She placed her hand on his back to push around him, but his arm came out and tucked her body to his side. “Be careful, moja láska. There are things better left unsaid.”
“Six, if she wants to know.” Maestru shrugged those broad shoulders. “She’ll find out eventually.”
“Fine,” Six relented, but explained himself. “Blythe, a mixed-blood is a human who has Were blood in their body. Infused by genetics and not, uh, from their diet source.” More sniggers followed by a lot of quite laughter.
“Were blood?”
Dru stepped forward and offered. “My wife, Renee, was brought up in the human world. Has no supernatural abilities – not even heightened speed. Yet her father is half werewolf. But the bloodline doesn’t have to be that close. The Weres have found those that descend from Weres hundreds of years ago. Sometimes the gene is dormant. Most of the time, Weres detect it by smell. And then they can match-mate if those mixed-bloods are found.”
“Renee Shirley is a mixed-blood?” She knew Renee from the club. She used to work there with Dakota and visited every so often.
“But you’re a vampire.”
Dru shrugged. “Yes. I met her in the hospital and discovered she was my Bride – a predestined mate for Species Breed Vampires. She was also fated to Bane and Arian, both full werewolves, so we had to work it out. We’re very happy together.”
She pieced that together quickly. They shared. What Kash had said earlier on that deck hit her hard: Would they expect that from her? “Wait a minute.” She backed up. “No offense, doctor, but I’ve got my hands full with Sixten.” Qudir stomped his foot on the floor once, cutting off the beginnings of more laughter. Sixten was still as stone and Kash hadn’t cracked a grin.
“Enough!” Maestru yelled and the room heated up, boiling until her bones were jelly. No one else seemed to notice.
“Coven Master,” Sixten chided, “she’s buckling on me.”
Cool air reached her skin instantly, reviving her. “Blythe, you are joined with Sixten. You are his. As far as the Coven is concerned, you’re one of us now. And I can smell a Were mixed-blood from a long distance. You’re not one.”
“Then why did this Bane guy say my blood…” She pushed her fingers to her temples. “Was of consequence – he said my blood was of consequence to the werewolves.”
“We haven’t figured that part out, yet,” Qudir spoke up. “But we will. They’re evasive creatures, same as us. And it’ll take a while.”
“I can’t stay under here while you figure it out, especially if it’ll take a while. You guys obviously live indefinitely. What’s a while to you? I’ll probably be dead by then.”
“There’s a chance
you
can become immortal, sweet Blythe,” Maestru told her. “Still, we need time to find out.”
“We have meetings to attend,” Qudir interrupted. “And if everyone cooperates. Blythe will be above ground before she misses the sun.”
“Meetings?” Her head was pounding and intense cramps were coming.
“The Weres have requested a meeting with Blythe - one where their side is represented without everyone” – he looked pointedly at Sixten – “threatening war or bodily harm in front of her. The Alpha himself called me. He insists Blythe’s been disrespected during these particular
discussions
and he wants a mediator between the pack and the coven sitting in to keep things in perspective and running smoothly. He’s requested that she stay on his property where she will be treated and I quote ‘as well as his queen’.”
“Representing their side?” She raised a brow at Qudir. “The only side I’m on is
mine
. I’m not going to any meeting with those…did you see them? They’re freaky. I think they’re freakier than you guys and that’s saying a hell of a lot.”
“Well thanks for that,” Kash deadpanned. “Blythe, at one point, you and Sixten are going to need peace. Why not meet with the Weres face to face. We’ll insist they remain in their human façade and, of course, you’ll be under our protection the whole time.”
“Human façade,” she said sarcastically, “that’ll help. It’s not like they can’t just explode into something feral and dangerous at the snap of a finger. Oh, wait, they can.”
“And so can we,” Oycher said.
“I understand you’ve known Rock for years.”
“Yeah,” she answered Qudir, “that was a shocker.”
“Your friend, Ryan, is one of us. Were you aware?”
“What?”
“He’s a Species Breed like us.” Qudir said. “He kept it from you, as he should have.”
“Well, how hard could it be to wrap my head around that, right?” She chewed her lip. “I’m thinking I’m the only human left in southwest Florida.”
“So,” Maestru explained, “when you came back to America, your friend, Rock, kept the Weres at bay as long as he could. He has influence as head of security for their pack. As your friend, he wanted you to adjust to living at home again. You were coping with your brother’s illness and working hard. He saw the strain and asked his pack leaders to give you space for as long as they could. You see; werewolves have been more aggressive in finding and protecting mixed-blood females since the Habalines began harvesting them for their nefarious purposes. Lately, for reasons I’d rather not discuss,
all
their males prioritize finding and protecting
all
Were females and mixed-bloods. It’s become their top law. Were females are their top
hunt
.”