Enlightened (Love and Light Series) (14 page)

“And this,” Calisto lifted the corner of his mouth at Bloody-Lips, “is Fiamette, a healer. She is new to our family and is from Venice, aren’t you, Fia?”

Fiamette’s eyes darted from Calisto’s careful smile to Loti’s extended hand before extending her own.

“Charmed.” She pressed her lips together in a tight, piqued smile and lifted her chin while she shook hands with Loti.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Loti pulled her hand away with a clear feeling that Fiamette was anything but charmed—maybe even insulted. But it made no sense to Loti, so she dismissed it as a projection of her own fears.

Appearing to ignore the edge in Fiamette’s voice, Calisto moved right on to Keane and Marcus, the ones who had been in the bathroom earlier that evening. They nodded at Loti in turn, staying by the fireplace. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Wolf staring down Fiamette, who cast her eyes down at her food, her catty look faltering.

“And this is our Korinna.”

Loti caught up with the introductions, following Calisto’s outstretched hand to the youngest of the vamps at just 200 years old. She was from Greece.

“And of course, you’ve already met my Margarite. She comes from Auxerre, a little place outside of Paris.”

“Not so little these days, I think,” Margarite teased.

He dropped his eyes demurely. “Of course, my love. Time flies, does it not?” The two exchanged a sickening, sweet look. “Now that you know everyone, I think we need to discuss this attack.”

“How did someone get past you?” Wolf’s rigid face matched the intense, angry bees stinging Loti’s spine. She ground her back teeth together, fisting her hands in her lap.

“
C'est ma faute
.” Margarite rubbed one tired eye. “He marked Loti, and I didn’t find it when I checked her before she came into the house.”

“It’s not your fault, Margarite,” Calisto said quietly.

“He? Who? And how’d he penetrate your protection wards?” Wolf’s voice rumbled.

“He used death magic,” Loti interjected, looking from Wolf to Margarite, not liking the cold stare he gave the woman. Barely containing the urge to jump out of her skin, Loti rubbed at the bees that had escaped her spinal column and stung their way down her arms.

“No, it was my fault. I should have found the aberration in her aura. I—”

“Now, Margarite, don’t be so hard on yourself. Rachel stopped the attack.” He looked pointedly at Wolf. “And in the end, she is safe. Margarite healed her.” Calisto looked back at Margarite. “You did your job. The wards are not your responsibility alone.”

“I’ll check all the protection spells with you, Margarite,” Justin offered, half getting up from his cushion.

Something passed between Calisto and Wolf until Wolf’s stare melted, and he was normal again. Without warning, he grabbed Loti’s hand. His thumb rubbed absent-minded circles. An invisible liquid glided over her skin, drowning the stinging bees and stilling her restless spine, replacing it with a steady hum that calmed. She stared at their hands, too relieved to react to the assumptive and intimate gesture.
Much better, so very much better.
But he was so arrogant to touch her like that and in front of everyone. She glared at him and jerked her hand away. Wolf kept his hand on her leg, but she smacked it off. He watched her struggle with the stinging, a shadow of consternation passing over her. Then begrudgingly, she picked up his hand and brought it back to her leg, relief washing over her in slow, undulating waves.
What. The. Hell.

 “Yes, in the end.” Wolf muttered apologetically.

Margarite slumped against Calisto, who shifted so he could lean against the couch.

“Yes, in the end. But, it can’t happen again.” Calisto focused his reassuring eyes on Loti. “You need to be protected, at least until you’re more capable of taking care of yourself.”

“What does that mean?” Loti only half heard what Calisto had said. She was distracted by Wolf’s surprisingly warm hand on her leg. He should have been cool to the touch.

 “All in good time,” Calisto assured her. To Wolf he said, “Rachel thought she knew the attacker which is why she contacted Katie Brown. She says it was Patrick Lynch.”

Wolf squeezed Loti’s leg, sharp pinpricks needling her. “Ouch,” she yelped, trying to pry his hand loose, but Wolf held on. She narrowed her eyes. “What the hell, Wolf?”

Spoons ceased clinking and whispered conversations dissolved. Glances were exchanged around the room as Loti tugged at his hand harder until Wolf, at last, let go. As soon as he did, the buzzing returned.

“What is going on?” she yelled. Jumping up, she scrubbed at her arms.

Wolf stayed calm as he shifted back onto his hands, his gaze weightless.

“Will somebody please tell me something instead of staring at me?” Her nails bit into her palms as her hands clenched.

“Try to calm down—” Margarite began.

“Calm down? Do you have any fucking idea what’s happening to me? What is this? It’s like stepping on a hornet’s nest and sticking your finger in a light socket all at the same time.” She squeezed one shoulder toward her ear, grabbing the back of her neck, her face scrunched up around her nose.

“And
you
.” She pointed at Wolf. “You know what this is. What is it? I only feel it around you.”

Wolf tilted his head, offering his hand to her. “I can make it stop.” He wasn’t snide or belittling in the least, just patient and that pissed her off.

Leaning away from his hand, she controlled her tone. “No, you can’t. You can change it, but you can’t stop it.” She looked down at her feet. “Unless you go away.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” His face a strange mixture of hard edges and soft appeal, he turned the proffered hand palm up.

She gave it her best defiant look, but her heart wasn’t in it. The vibrating, stinging bees were unbearable.

“First, tell me what this is.” Her voice was full of her misgivings.

 “Nunne’hi. You are nunne’hi.”

Loti gaped at him, surrendering her hand. His dark face opened up into that disarming gentleness as he pulled her to the floor. To his credit, he kept the smile at bay and respected the tentative truce. She sank into the pink cushion, her breath slowing.

“Nunne’hi,” she breathed out. “Underground spirits? They went extinct. That makes no sense.” She turned puzzled eyes on him.

“That’s the legend my people tell, yes,” Wolf said. “It’s not clear if they were a separate race. Probably not. It’s more likely they were humans with unique energy—like witches or healers.”

“Why do you think I’m one?”

“This.” He held their clasped hands up for everyone to see. “You’re feeling uncomfortable energy when you’re around me, aren’t you? But if I touch you, it changes, right?”

Loti looked away, wishing he hadn’t said the thing about it changing when he touched her out loud.

“That’s absurd, Wolf. No one has seen or heard of the nunne’hi since the 1800s, and even then, they were fairytales.” Fiamette’s jaw flexed as she shoved fisted hands into her lap.

Wolf’s look hardened into a warning, fanning the flames in her chestnut eyes.

“I felt it the night I found Rachel on Davis Street. Loti was a few blocks away.” He spoke in a monotone, keeping wary eyes on Fiamette.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” She enunciated each word.

Loti’s eyes widened at Fiamette’s brave stare down. Wolf met her challenge with narrowed eyes and chilling, stony features until the fire in her eyes stuttered. He turned away from her and back to Loti.

 “I didn’t know you were there the first time, but I felt it. I didn’t understand what was happening.” Color returned to his voice, and Loti let out a sigh of relief.

Fiamette jumped up, knocking the table in the process, making tea slosh and spoons rattle. All eyes followed her as she stalked around the table to loom over Wolf and Loti.

Wolf ignored her, talking to Loti as if Fiamette didn’t even exist. “When you showed up at Rachel’s, I knew it was you.”

 “You better hope you’re wrong.” Fiamette spoke through her teeth, scowling, and her hands curled into white-knuckled fists.

Wolf’s eyes didn’t so much as flit in her direction, but they darkened into much more than a warning; they threatened. The tension between Wolf and Fiamette heated up the already warm room.

“Because you have no idea what kind of trouble you’re stirring up.”

“Then we better find out for sure, don’t you think?” Calisto’s voice bounced light and pleasantly, diffusing the tension. Rising from the floor, he guided Margarite as he stepped between Fiamette and Wolf.
Too much personality in one room
.

“How do we do that?” Loti surprised herself by finding her voice. “And wait,” she held up her free hand to Wolf. “I still don’t understand. You gave me a name, but not an explanation.”

 “I think the Travelers can help us with that,” Calisto offered.

At his words, the others in the room relaxed and returned to their tea and meals, murmuring to each other in subdued voices. Wolf’s gaze settled on their interlaced fingers, and he rearranged his features in a mildly amused expression. Margarite drifted around the room, filling cups with the last of the tea as if Fiamette wasn’t staring at Wolf through Calisto’s back. With a practiced air of decorum, she carried the tea pot into the kitchen. Although Loti didn’t understand why, she was aware that the fight between Wolf and Fiamette was about her. Reluctantly, she released Wolf’s hand, but at his questioning glance, she turned it over so his palm cupped her thigh and then she finished her soup. Calisto clapped his hands together, and Loti dropped her spoon into the bowl with a clank.

“I believe we have a drum circle to host,” he declared.

Wolf shifted his eyes from Loti’s lap to Calisto, who gave a single nod to the curly-headed Keane, still leaning on the fireplace. They all looked at each other, some communication taking place before the short vampire shifted his weight off the mantel. Without a word, Keane glided around the room, gesturing at the others to get up and out. Loti watched them file out as she dug up what Wind Daughter taught her about nunne’hi—spirits that could take on physical form. They traveled on light waves across the world and between universes, and they could move prana—the life force in all things—change its nature. They could do these things because they were subtle energy personified, and it was good luck to befriend one. How could anyone think she was one of them? She was human. Period. With a little healer mixed in, maybe, but she couldn’t heal like tribal healers. She didn’t have their gifts. Based on the last year, what she had was a curse.

Margarite returned from the kitchen, weaving through the exodus with the tea pot wrapped in a green dishtowel. “Let it steep for a few more minutes,” she said as she set it in the middle of the table.

A thoughtful expression on his face, Calisto bent over the coals in the fireplace, stirring them with a poker. Wolf reclaimed her idle hand, working his fingers between hers. Fiamette stood in the same place with fisted hands, but the color was returning to her knuckles.

“Fiamette, I think you better explain what has you so upset,” Calisto spoke evenly, never looking up.

Fiamette blew a quiet exhale through her nose, readjusting her jaw and shoulders. “If she’s a nunne’hi,” she said the word like it tasted bad, “and you go through with this test and wake up her powers, you are opening a metaphysical can of worms.”

“Why? Because others will find out about her?” Calisto hung the poker back on its hook as he straightened. All four of them, Margarite, Calisto, Wolf and Loti, watched Fiamette shift her weight to the other foot and look away.

“Yes,” she said to the wall with a worried frown.

“Then your point is moot, my dear. Somebody already knows,” Margarite said in an appeasing tone.

Fiamette whipped her head around at Margarite. “But you could let it lie. Don’t wake her up.”

“And leave her vulnerable and in constant need of protection?” It was Wolf’s turn.

“That’s not up to us, is it?” Margarite drew Fiamette’s angry look away from Wolf.

Fiamette’s mouth opened, her eyes darting from Wolf to Margarite, and she pressed her lips together.

“No. It’s not.” She turned on Loti and Wolf, her gaze lingering over their clasped hands. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she whispered before turning on her booted heel and stalking out of the room.

Loti sat in shocked silence, staring after Fiamette. The front door slammed shut. When she looked back at Wolf, he sipped his tea, calm and unaffected.

“She’s a little concerned. You must understand what a leap of faith we are taking.”

Calisto knelt beside her, and she’d never heard a sound; he was just there, offering her the tea pot. Loti yipped like a scared little girl.

“Can you not do that?” she grumbled, holding her tea cup out.

“I think you ought to get used to it,” he said with a guileless light in his eyes.

Loti sighed, rolling her eyes in mock irritation. “I suppose.”

He chuckled and she smiled. Taking his time, he spooned a little honey into his tea and stirred, watching Loti watch him as she sipped.
Hot.
She licked her scalded lips. Calisto stood and extended his hand to Margarite.

Loti suddenly remembered what he’d said when he scared her. “I don’t understand what you mean—what leap of faith?” she blurted.

“If you will join us, my dear.” He took Margarite’s hand and gestured for Loti to follow. “We are needed at the circle.”

Loti pushed herself up from the floor. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know.” Calisto drained his tea cup and set it down. She stared at the steam still rising from the now empty cup. “The answers are best shown, not told. Come.”