INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (16 page)

Chapter
Thirty-three

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

Leave it to Mandy to verbally bitch
- slap me before she entered the room. Fortunately, behind her I heard a shout.

“OMG!” And that quick
, Kelly pushed Mandy aside. Not an easy feat, as Kelly launched herself into the room and wrapped me in a rib bruising hug.

That made me feel better. Even if Noziaks as a rule were not the huggy kind. A back slap maybe. Or slug to the shoulder, definitely. But
… not hugs.

“I knew you weren’t dead. I just knew it.” I could actually feel my shoulders relax
, accepting that at least one of my teammates hadn’t abandoned me.

“So where the hell have you been?” Mandy demanded as she marched past Kelly then eyed
Sabina. “And who the hell are you?”

I ga
ve Kelly a quick back pat then stepped back, in part because I knew I still smelled like eau de catacombs.

“This is
Sabina. She and I have been held hostage by unknowns until we could escape.” There, that about summed things up. A little. More details could wait.

“Unknown what?” Mandy gave me the stink eye.

“Unknown implies I don’t know.” Yeah, there was enough smarm in my tone to drown a bull elephant. Then, to make sure no one said anything they shouldn’t say in front of civilians, I added, “Right now I could eat a half a cow. I need a shower, clean clothes and sleep.” I nodded to my cohort who was still drooling over Herc. Wait till she saw Stone. Or Bran. Now they were drool worthy males. Nix Bran. Not the way I wanted to get my hands around his throat and squeeze. My voice was a little deeper and a lot more ragged as I said, “Sabina here needs food, new clothes and a break.”

“Of course
.” Kelly grabbed the hint and started hustling Sabina from the room. “Shower’s in here. I’ve got some clothes that might fit you. And I’ll run next door and grab some food.”

Man, Kelly was good. And efficient. Before I could blink she hustled Sabina out of the room and reappeared.

“So spill,” she said, sitting on the edge of the nearest chair like it was a sleep over. Not that I attended many, once I discovered I was usually invited on the off chance one of my brothers might show up at sometime during the night.

I arched a brow at the remaining
civilian in the room, which Kelly waved off by saying, “New team member. He’s making some awesome weapons we can use against preternaturals.”

About time, I wanted to shout, even I was surprised that life had gone on
so quickly without me. “How long have I been away?” I asked, sinking down beside Kelly, the exhaustion catching up with me.

“Five days,” Mandy snapped, still standing by the door, her legs braced as if for battle, her arms crossed in a badass attitude. Only with her
, it was her normal approach. “And why aren’t you dead?”

“Nice,” I snipped back.

Herc kept me from telling Mandy just where she could shove it as he interrupted, “You mean you really are Alex Noziak?” His eyes were saucer-wide.

“Yes. Unless there have been more teammates missing
.”

“No, no, not that.” He cast an anxious look at Kelly then Mandy before continuing, his voice shakier
, “It’s just that I thought … I mean … didn’t you say—”

As my energy took a nose-dive so did my patience. “What’s he babbling about?”

It was Mandy who answered. “We were told you were bitten by a shifter. Your brother. If that was true why no wounds? You should be dead.”

“Well I’m not
.” I jumped to my feet before I realized the ramifications of Mandy’s words. She was right. I should be dead.

Unless
… I sank back on the chair, fast-forwarding through the last day or more. The pain. The ability to throw and lift more than I’d even been able to before. My sense of scent and hearing amplified. Even now, I listened to four heartbeats in the room, Mandy and Herc’s elevated, Kelly’s slower, and Sabina behind closed doors muffled.

But I shouldn’t have heard any of them.

I glanced at Kelly who must have seen some of what I felt as she took my hand. “What’s important is that you’re back.”

As if. I raised my head, shaking it because the words jammed somewhere south of my breastbone.
No way, no way, no way.

I could
not
be a shifter.

Chapter
Thirty-four

A hard knock at the door took the focus off me, which was just as well. I hated falling apart; to do so publicly was beyond the pale.

Mandy looked out the
side window next to the door then yanked it open.

Stone marched in like he
commanded the place, Vaughn right behind him. It was she who caught my attention more. Her and the bandages and bruises she sported. A look I should be wearing if I was still mostly human.

“You’re supposed to be dead
,” Stone growled, glaring at me.

“Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately.”

“What the hell happened?” he snapped.

I gave a short, sweet summation that skipped over the amount of pain, the fear, the more fear
, and the off chance the Weres were able to track me. I’d get to that in a minute, but not while everyone was looking at me like a circus freak. A look I’d be shooting at myself if there were a mirror handy.

“So you don’t know who’s behind
snatching you or what they wanted?” Vaughn asked, focusing in on the salient issues. Which is why she was the team leader.

I shook my head. “All I know is the name
Zaradian. Needing me to find some demon and two guys with accents. One French. One Irish. And the Weres. Except you don’t need to worry about the French dude.”

“Why not?” Kelly
said beside me.

“I killed him.” Guess
ing by her wide-eyed expression I forgot to mention that small point. And the way the new kid was looking, we might need to find a paper bag for him to hyperventilate in.

“
Were you trying to kill him?” Kelly asked.

“Technically he was trying to kill me first, so yes.” Since everyone seemed to have gone quiet I added
, “The Irish guy didn’t seem to be bothered by the death.”

“And you never saw
this Irish guy before?” Vaughn asked.

“No, but there was something that seemed familiar about him. Other than he sounded like
Colin Farrell.”

Stone rolled his eyes as Vaughn placed a gentle restraining hand on his arm. At least it looked gentle until I noticed her white knuckles.

“Damn, you’re riling a lot of folks,” Jaylene offered, having joined the group about halfway through my after-action report. “And you’re sure the girl in the other room doesn’t know anything more?”

“She might, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of time to question her.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t even sure where to start.”

“Kelly, you might be the best to take the girl and talk with her. See if she might know more than she’s shared or even that she’s seen,” Vaughn suggested, realizing that of the team Kelly would be the least threatening to Sabina.

Kelly looked wary for a second, then nodded, giving me a half-smile before she
rose and headed to the back bedroom where from the sounds of the shower being turned off meant Sabina could be joining us any moment.

“I think we should have a physician look you over,” Vaughn continued
, looking at me, but it was teammate to teammate and not leader to freak. “See what they can tell us about your …”

I didn’t blame her. I didn’t even know what to call me now. Witch/shaman/shifter? I’d never heard of such a screwed-up genetic make up. “I’d need a doctor used to working with
—” I waved my hand around.

“Ling Mai
will know of someone,” Stone said, his tone less badass than usual. “You didn’t mention Bran or your father. You’ve been in contact with either of them?”

“No.” I wouldn’t call hearing Bran’s voice as contact. It wasn’t like we communicated. Then I looked at Stone’s face. “Why? What’s happened?”

Bran wasn’t hurt. He wouldn’t be. No way. Which left my dad. And as mad as I was about what had happened between us, that didn’t mean I wanted him in any danger.

“I
was to meet with Bran but some simin fae interrupted us,” Stone said, earning raised brows from everyone in the group who knew who the fae were and who they worked for. “Last I saw of him they were trailing him.”

Mandy whistled. “Doesn’t sound good for your boyfriend.”

“He’s not—”

But I never finished the sentence as another
knock on the door had Jaylene heading to answer it. But before she could, the door burst inward and a swarm of Weres came stampeding in.

What was it with these guys?

Chapter Thirty-five

There was no time to think, just act.

Jaylene went flying against the nearest wall. Sto
ne stepped in to stem the tide pushing aside Vaughn, who didn’t look in good enough shape to go after Weres or even kitty cats. Mandy grabbed a floor lamp and swung it like a baseball bat. I’d expected the blonde kid to scamper to safety but he surprised me. He stepped forward rather than ran though I could see it took every ounce of courage he had. Then he started flapping his hands.

What the—?

I ignored exhaustion as I waded into the thick of things, swinging fists as fast as I could. If I was going to be a freak shifter, at least I should get something out of the mess. And initially it looked like I could. Weres were flying backwards like confetti at a wedding but we were seriously outmanned.

Four Weres were dog-piling on Stone. Mandy was still recovering from a broken arm
and her swings started flagging. Vaughn was sidestepping out of the way, which was the best thing she could be doing then. Looked like she might be heading for the kitchen. Good idea. Knives in kitchens when there wasn’t much else that would slow a rampaging Were.

Jaylene lunged toward Stone to save his ass. Which left me and Greek-god-named kid to keep the onslaught from getting to the backroom where I hoped like Hades that Kelly was getting Sabina to safety.
I just kept butting heads and tasting blood from a split lip or gash along my eye. Damn, it stung.

Then I noticed Hercules
. What was he doing? He waved his hand like an apprentice sorcerer, and a Were would freeze mid-attack.

“New weapon,” he huffed, between ducking a flying Were and wrist-zapping another.

“Cool!” Taking out a flash-frozen killer was a heck of a lot easier than stopping a full-fighting force Were. That’s where I started putting my attention. Grabbing an incapacitated Were and swinging him with all my might. If the house had anything less than stone walls, it’d have been in rubble by now.

I spotted
a frying pan whipping through the air. Just enough to connect with a head or exposed body part before it pulled back and whapped again.

Kelly. It had to be.

It took a long, drawn out few minutes before the tide of the fight changed, from us zero, to attackers scrambling for the gaping doorway. Those who could, grabbed their buddies and hustled outside, with Herc following them, yelling, “Take that. And that. And don’t come back!”

I didn’t know if I wanted to hug him or take him aside and teach him a few facts of life—Noziak style.

Instead I limped over to where Jaylene was pulling Stone to his feet, blood streaming down his face. Vaughn walked over to the frying plan suspended in air and murmured in a low voice, “It’s okay, Kelly. They’re gone now.”

Kels
winked back into existence, but with that scared look she got when she did. Only because turning invisible like she could meant she she’d be blinded for twice as much time when she reappeared.

Herc re-entered the room and set the door at an angle over the doorway. It wouldn’t stop anyone but
might not draw as much attention as a wide-open hole either. Mandy sank into the nearest chair as Jaylene shuffled to her side.

“Sabina?” I shouted, earning the sight of her poking her head around the corner.

“All clear?” she asked.

“For now.”

“Wow!” She summed things up succinctly as she stepped over broken furniture and tossed cushions.

I slipped into the only remai
ning chair near me, one with a big gash releasing stuffing in small clumps. It wasn’t home decorating I was thinking about though, as I gingerly touched a slash above my eye. One already healing though still tender.

“You brought them here.
” Mandy glared at me. “No one else knew about this place.”

“New
Girl did,” Jaylene said, her voice a cross between back-off and not-another fight.

“New
Girl?” The words escaped before I meant them to. In for a penny, in for a buck. “You mean you replaced me already?”

There’s a fine line between sounding whiny
, hurt, and pissed off and I was straddling it.

It was Vaughn who took the stuffing out of me. “She’s a shifter.
”

“And where the hell is she when we could have used her?” Mandy demanded, obviously scenting a new bone to chew on.

Vaughn glanced her way. “With Ling Mai.” Vaughn cut her glance at me. “Stone was tired of us getting hurt so easily. We needed some fresh bodies that could fight …” She glanced around the room, not needing to say more.

“Makes sense,” I mumbled, though I still
couldn’t process how easy everyone had moved along.

“Think the issue we need to be dealing with now is finding out who wants Alex so badly they’d attack us all to get her.”

I shook my head, the same question racing like a squirrel on crack around my head. Who? Why? Out loud I said, “We’ve got to figure out who or what Zaradian is.”

“I know,” a familiar voice spoke from the doorway, the cantilevered doors not masking him.

Bran.

The son of a bitch was back.