Authors: Quinn Loftis
Stella chuckled. “Um, no offence but only people who have gone under the knife or have their pictures photo shopped look as pretty as you
freaks do, so ragtag you are not.”
“She’s going to give Jen a run for her money,” Crina laughed to Peri.
“Yes, like Jen, she doesn’t seem to have a filter,” Peri agreed. “Tell me Stella, do you believe in the supernatural?” Peri watched as the healer’s eyes narrowed.
“I believe in God if that’s what you mean,” she answered confidently.
“Lucian,” Peri said her mate’s name but didn’t take her eyes off of Stella. “I think you should just show her. Let’s just rip the band aide off fast. Then after she has her fit we’ll break it all down for her. Then we need to move onto the next one.”
“Are you sure you want
me
to?” Lucian asked calmly in his deep voice.
Peri turned her head to look at him.
“You’re beautiful in your wolf form.”
Lucian
smiled at her, obviously pleased at the compliment. He leaned forward and kissed her chastely on the lips before standing. “We should probably go outside for this.” Lucian was a large wolf and with this many people in the room, he knew there would not be enough room for him.
They all followed him out the front door int
o the front yard of the house. The night air of Farie was cool and refreshing, a stark contrast to their previous surroundings. The sky was full of stars too innumerable to count.
Stella noticed the only other girl who looked as lost as she felt and managed to ease herself closer to her. “You’re not one of them
, are you?” Stella asked the girl.
“I’m Anna,” she answered. “And according to them I am one of them, and you must be too if you’re here and they’re about to show you this.” She motioned to the
incredibly handsome guy who was removing his shirt.
“Uh, why is he undressing?”
Stella asked as her chest began to tighten and the familiar feeling of dread welled up at the idea of knowing a man in any intimate way. She had no desire to see a half dressed male, no matter how magnificent he was.
“I can’t even begin to answer that,
but rest assured he won’t hurt you and he won’t even look your way,” Anna said, obviously picking up on Stella’s distress. “He belongs to that one.” She pointed to the one called Peri. “And they are quite committed to each other.”
Stella wanted to believe Anna, but she had watched too many married men come in the club and slip their wedding bands into their pockets
, as if that somehow made them free agents.
Lucian
turned to face the group and looked at Peri. “I’m going to leave the breeches on.”
“Good call,” Peri nodded
and smiled at his lapse into a manner of speaking long past.
There was a shimmering in the air around
Lucian and then his human form slipped away the pants falling as rags to the ground, and in its place was a massive white wolf.
“I don’t know what you slipped me, but you could make a killing in the Bronx,” Stella muttered as she stared at the massive wolf before her
, where only moments ago a man had been.
Sally smiled sympathetically at the new healer. “Believe me
, chick, if we could bottle this crap and make some money off of the stuff we live, we’d be rich.”
“Uh
, hello. People like Anne Rice
are
freaking rich because of the stuff we live, and they don’t even know it’s real,” Crina piped in.
“How do you know she doesn’t know it’s real?” Adam asked
, joining in the banter.
“Are you implying that Anne Rice wrote her books based on facts?” Sally asked skeptically.
“I’m simply saying that…,”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt what is sure to be a conversation that I might actually care about later, but could someone please explain to me where the man went, and where the wolf came from?” Stella jumped in cutting Adam off.
“I mean, this may be normal to you people but even in the Bronx we don’t have werewolves.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that…” Peri said
with a twinkle in her eye as she stroked the huge white wolf.
“If you have ever lived in someone’s shadow then you know what it is like to feel second best. To feel as though you are the credits that nobody wants to read at the end of a fantastic movie. Though you may have played a major part in the production, you are but a passing thought to the viewers. I have played second fiddle to my sister long enough. I have been the afterthought to her triumphs for as long as I can stand. I am done, I have reached the end of my rope.” ~
Lorelle
Lorelle
stared at the empty spot where the healer had been standing. She was frozen with shock. Her sister had been right there within her grasp and she had just stood there like a daft fledgling as her prize was stolen. That was two. Two healers ripped right from her grasp. Two healers that would have gotten her closer to her goal of escaping yet another evil man hell bent on ruling the world. Why couldn’t men just be happy with killing their obnoxious sibling and being the powerful one on a council? Why did they always have to strive for world domination and all that crap? With no reason to linger in the dim, smelly room that scantily clad women used to change their clothes, she flashed herself back to the dark forest, back to the place that had been her salvation until Volcan showed up.
As soon as the sounds of the city were gone and the familiar darkness of the forest surrounded her
, Lorelle resumed her pacing. With three girls accounted for, there were only two left. She
had
to get those two, there was no getting around it. If she failed to produce more healers than Peri stole, she was sure Volcan would somehow magically zap her even in his bodiless form.
“
I hate to bother you since you seem busy in thought, but my mom will be expecting me home soon, or well I think soon. I’m not really sure of the time,” a sweet, innocent voice broke through Lorelle’s concentration. She turned her head slowly to look at the girl and for all her contrast to the healer known as Sally, this one reminded her of the Serbian pack healer. Where Sally had tan skin, this one had milky pale skin, where Sally had brown eyes, this one had green eyes and where Sally had long dark chocolate hair, this one had strawberry blonde hair cut to just below her ears. Again she was struck by just how beautiful she was for a human. She had that glow about her that was common in healers, though to humans they would never understand why they were drawn to the girl. She wasn’t short or tall, simply average and she was just beginning to show the curves of womanhood. She looked much too innocent for this world. Much too innocent for the unimaginable things she would be facing in the near future and here she was simply worried about getting home to a mother who expected her, but would never see her again.
“Are you not more worried about the fact that a stranger somehow transported you to a forest that looks dark enough to hide only the most horrifying creatures
?” Lorelle asked.
The girl crossed her arms in front of her and shivered as she looked around the forest as if seeing it for the first time.
Lorelle was sure that at any moment she would fall apart in tears begging to go home and then she’d have to knock a backbone into her. But the human surprised her.
“I’ve seen things that I can’t explain before, and I’ve learned that asking questions doesn’t mean you will always get answers. I’ve also learned that sometimes you will get an answer that you wished you’d never asked for. So I typically try to stay
out
of the know, if you know what I mean.”
Lorelle’s
eyes narrowed on the girl. “What’s your name, healer?”
“Jewel
,” she answered simply.
“Jewel what?”
Lorelle snapped.
The girl looked down at the ground as if the grass suddenly was the most interesting thing in the world. She muttered something so soft that
Lorelle didn’t hear her.
“It can’t be that bad,” she growled.
Finally Jewel looked up at her with a flash of defiance in her eyes, daring Lorelle to laugh at her. “Stone. Jewel Stone is my name.”
Lorelle
stared at her for several seconds before she burst into laughter. “I was wrong, it is that bad,” she said through the chuckles that racked her body.
“It is
not
that funny,” Jewel stomped her foot. This only caused Lorelle to laugh harder. Finally after several minutes she composed herself and looked at the obviously ticked off healer.
“Well
, Jewel Stone, if I were you I’d change my last name. That’s just a little free advice from me to you.”
“
I would prefer some advice on how to get home. That’s what I really need to know. Not how hilarious you think my name is,” Jewel stated calmly, attempting regain her composure.
Lorelle
’s brow rose as she finally began to see a little backbone rising up in the unassuming looking healer. “The best advice I can give you, healer, is to accept your fate. Sometimes in life we don’t get choices, this is one of those times. Enjoy your time in this forest because it is bound to be the most pleasant left in your short life.” Lorelle didn’t let her conscience be touched by the fear that flared up in the green eyes on Jewels pale, pretty face. Instead she let Volcan’s magic once again pull her, dragging her away from the forest and the frightened healer, to her next victim—to the next life she would destroy. She decided this time she wouldn’t ask for a name. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t need to know because knowing their name made them a person, made them somebody’s daughter, niece or sister.
Then again
, maybe she was doing somebody’s sister a favor by taking their sibling away. Maybe their healer sister out shined them for all of their lives with her gentle nature and unpretentious ways. Maybe, just maybe, she would keep feeding herself her own crap and it would begin to taste like chocolate.
∞
“Do you think it was wise of us to leave Stella so soon after telling her about all of this?” Sally asked Peri as they stood outside a dilapidated old home in the Chicago suburbs. The entire neighborhood looked as though it could use a good coat of paint and the world’s largest lawn mower.
“Right now
we don’t have the luxury of wisdom,” Peri said though not unkindly. “We have three more healers to rescue from the talon like clutches of my bitch of a sister and I can’t be holding a bottle out for these young healers while holding their hand and singing
Hush Little Baby
.”
Elle laughed as she stepped up beside the two women. “You’re descriptions always do get better the angrier you become.”
“Bite me, Elle,” Peri growled.
“That’s not my job
, Peri, but I know someone who could assist you,” Elle winked at Lucian who was staring quizzically at the two. He was still confounded by their banter and had openly admitted that most of the time he simply ignored them.
“Are we going to do this or what?” Adam asked.
“Why, are you in a hurry to get back to your mate, Adam?” Costin asked with a chuckle.
“Like you wouldn’t be chomping at the bit to get back to Sally if she had been left behind,” Adam said with an unapologetic shrug.
Peri turned to look at the group behind her. She had made all of the males come with them on account of what Sally had explained to her about Stella and left Crina with the two new healers, knowing she could handle them if need be. She stared at the four huge, devastatingly handsome men and frowned. They weren’t very inconspicuous in the rundown neighborhood as their beauty, and that’s what it was, shone like polished copper against tarnished silver. “Can you all please quit your incessant griping for five minutes so we can get this thing done? I swear it’s like dragging three year olds across the damn globe while they scream I want my lollipop.”
“Well
, she is lickable,” Adam mumbled.
There was a snort of laughter from the other males, including Lucian
, which earned them all a glare from the females.
“Ladies
, the men obviously need time to mature, so why don’t we go in and save the day while they deal with their thirteen year old libidos.” Peri motioned for the girls to follow her, ignoring Costin’s response of, “It’s more like sixteen year olds, if you want to be accurate.”
“Sally
, that one is yours,” Peri huffed.
“At the moment I don’t claim him,” Sally said as she tried not to laugh.
“That’s not what you were singing this morning, Sally mine,”
Costin’s rich voice whispered in her mind.
“You shouldn’t dwell on the past
, Costin Miklos, nothing good ever comes of it,”
She teased back.
“I beg to differ. E
very time I remind you of my past kisses, you give me more, and by more I don’t just mean kisses.”
Sally choked as she felt her mate’s hands in places not appropriate for a mate’s hands to be while rescuing a girl from the clutches of evil.
“Costin, I swear if your mate falls over in the throes of ecstasy I will declaw you and let Jen neuter you,” Peri called out as she reached the door.
“How does she always know?” Costin asked as the males joined them on the porch
.
Lucian chuckled. “She’s just that good,” he answered with pride in his voice.
“Shh,” Peri held her finger up, hushing the males though she sent Lucian a caress of affection through their bond, pleased by his praise. She pushed the unlocked and unclosed door open slowly. As she stepped into the room she didn’t have time to react before Sally gasped and the males all snarled.
“Is that blood?” Elle asked as she stepped closer to the wall. Sorin was by her side
as his instinct to protect her took over. He and the other males, besides Adam, had their noses in the air trying catch any scents that might tell them something of what had happened in the home. Adam roamed through the house checking to see if there was anyone present and when he returned back to the main room where the group still stood staring up at the defiled wall, he shook his head at Peri.
“Dammit!” Peri shouted as her power surged though her along with anger and a sense of failure that she was not accustomed to.
Lucian took her chin in his hand and pulled her face up to look at him. His steel colored eyes stared intently down at her as he spoke. “This is not your fault. You expect too much of yourself.”
“I’m
supposed to save them Lucian. It is my
job
to save them,” she told him almost desperately.
“I know
, love, and we will. We will get her back. That is what I am for, remember?” He pressed a kiss to her forehead before looking back up at the wall. “Adam, get me something from the girl’s room please,” he told the fae.
When he returned Lucian took the shirt Adam handed him and he sniffed it, then he stepped up to the wall and sniffed the blood. “It’s not hers.”
Peri and the others let out the breaths they had been holding.
“What does it mean?” Sally asked.
Peri read it out loud as she thought about the words.
“
You freed one, but in doing so, you condemned the world. He has returned, though he never truly left. I will take what you think is yours, and you will pay for all you have done to me.”
“I feel like one of us should whisper
He Who Must Not be Named has returned
,” Sally mumbled.
“What is with you American
s and your movies?” Elle asked.
Sally shrugged. “How else can you enter a fairy tale, fight in an epic battle, or win the hot guy?”
Elle gave her a pointed look.
Sally looked sheepishly at her mate and then back to Elle. “I’m sort of living that aren’t I?”
Elle held up her hand with her forefinger and thumb slightly a part as if to say,
just a tad
.
“You’re sister sucks at rhyming,” Adam told Peri.
“Rhyming would have been a tad more dramatic,” Peri agreed. After reading it one more time Peri raised her hand and ran it through the air in front of the wall and, just like that, the blood, and dooming words were gone as if they had never been.
“We shouldn’t linger here
, Peri,” Lucian told her softly in his deep rumbling voice.
She nodded. “You’re right. Sally
, where’s the next one. Let’s just keep going. If we go back to Farie we’ll linger too long and then my soon to be bloody sister will snatch another one out from under us.”
Sally closed her eyes and sifted through the memories she and Rachel had been getting from the healers they were searching for. She smiled. “We’re going home.”
“To Romania?” Peri asked as her brow creased.
“Bigger than that,” Sally smiled.
The rest groaned. “Seriously, we have to go to Texas?” Adam huffed along with the others as they had heard Sally talk about Texas enough to want to beat their heads against a longhorn, or whatever it was she was always talking about.
“What?” Sally asked innocently. “Everything’s bigger in Texas.”