Secret Worlds (244 page)

“Well,” Luna’s mother says, gliding over me like a black storm cloud. “Now that I’ve managed to destroy the doppelganger who fully intended to destroy Luna, I believe I will be leaving before day breaks. I have a group of elders to address.” She smiles wickedly at me. “Damn, I wish I could have worn Jane to the meeting.”

As she glides toward the bolted door, she says, “It looks like Rogaire can clean up here without further assistance.”

“And who, per se, are you?” Vuur asks Luna’s mother. “But more importantly, what have all of you done with my Jane?”

“
Your
Jane?” we all say at the same time.

“Yes, I’ve grown rather fond of her. It’s a good thing I have such excellent sleuthing skills and was able to find Jane on her street corner. It seems you owe me, wendigo.”

I’m nose to nose with the shifter again. “For what?”

“For not leaving your doppelganger in Purgatory and instead taking her to Michigan to find you.”

“He’s right,” Luna says through Gracie’s lips. “If he didn’t take Jane and me with him, I might not have found you. He might not have fallen in love with Jane, and she might be dead right now. Heck, I might be dead by now. This could have turned out a whole lot different if Vuur had just started looking for you again.”

“He almost killed me,” I growl.

“I do believe the strength in that sentence is the word almost, wendigo,” Vuur says. “Your breath is fetid, your skin is oily, and your weight is making the dragon in me stir. Do we wish to go there?”

My chest rumbles.

Luna puts her arm over my hairy shoulder and plays with my white mane. “Can we leave now?”

“Where is Jane?” Vuur asks.

“Why don’t you both go set Jane free?
We’ve
—let’s not forget my part in all of this—created enough drama in the human world for one day,” Luna’s mother says as she seeps through the door frame. “I’ll be watching all of you,” her voice echo’s down the hall over the sound of approaching sirens.

“How long will you keep Gracie?” I ask.

“Until I shed her,” she answers. “She’ll be home in a few days.”

“I think it’s a good idea to hang onto her until then,” I tease. “She tempers the monster inside me and there’s the necromancer-witchy thing. She may turn out to be helpful.”

“What if I don’t want to temper your bad side?”

“But you never know when summoning a ghost can come in handy,” I say.

“Good thing I know where Gracie lives,” she playfully says. “I mean, in case we lose her or something.”

“I thought you said you’re strictly catch and release.”

“That was yesterday,” she says, a taunting grin on her face, eyes making quick movements toward the kitchen.

“Great to know. There’s two previous ladies I wouldn’t mind revisiting,” I say and run an index finger down her jaw and over the corner of her lip.

Gracie wiggles nervously, gently wraps her fingers around my promiscuous one, and pulls my hand to her lap. I give her gesture a friendly pat. We sit on her terribly uncomfortable sofa in the middle of way too many scents wafting off the candles in the room, and exchange a mild electric current flowing between us.

She’s still wearing the halter top, jeans, and strappy sandals I’m sure Gracie felt was risqué enough advertisement for a corner on OBT. The outside of my lips quiver a grin and I mentally laugh at the thought of her trying to hook in the outfit. It shows plenty of body for me, but on the street … not so much.

My mind wanders to the featherbed upstairs, and the open French windows drawing the night inside.

Gracie lifts her lids and stares at me through Luna’s eyes, speckled with darting red flecks. In a quick fluid movement, I grip her hands, lean my upper arm into her chest just under the ribcage, and roll her over my shoulders and around my neck.

“Wave bye-bye to Nan and her friends,” I tell her and then even out her weight on my shoulders.

I chuckle when her fingers wiggle goodbye over the edge of my clutched palm, as I take on the stairs two at a time.

A herd of ghosts huddle by Nan as she covers the eyes of two young girls. They are back out of the photograph on the kitchen wall. Nan’s smile spreads across her face. The ghosts’ howls and cackles rise above the giggles of the girl’s tethered to Nan’s hands, as we climb the stairs.

Gaire shoulders Gracie’s bedroom door open, and then shuts it with his booted foot. Gently, he slides me to the floor. “Am I on top, or you?”

I laugh. I can’t help it.

Over a grin that begs to be kissed, he teases, “Hey, I ran the whole show the first time and it didn’t go very well.”

I draw my lips into a pucker and shake my head. “Nah-ah, if I remember correctly,
I tried
to seduce
you
the first time. You pushed me away.”

Gaire grits his teeth, eyes stormy.

“Hey, I’m down with a little rough.”

“After the mind-fuck downstairs, you deserve rough,” he says and lifts me onto the feather bed. “But I’ll save that for another Jane, sometime down the road. Tonight it’s all about your Gracie side.”

On my knees at the edge of the bed, I pull the leather tie at my back and leave the one around my neck secured. The moon is full and it softly lights the room. A gentle breeze from the open windows flutter my halter hanging mid-chest and to my navel.

Gaire moves closer and reaches out. I shake my head, and his hand falls to his hip.

Unzipping my jeans and kicking off my sandals, I squirm out of my pants and kneel before him in my halter and white cotton hipsters. When I reach out for his hand, he smiles and gives it to me.

As Gracie tilts her head and looks up into his eyes, I place his hand into her panties.

“I want you inside of me,” I whisper as his fingers slide into moist warm flesh.

“You’re so wet for me.” His whisper is deep and throaty. “I want to taste you first.”

His words are tempered by a throaty growl.

I smile wickedly and pull his fingers out of Gracie’s panties and up to his mouth.

“Bad girl,” he says and slides his tongue over them, nostrils flaring.

“Are you ready for rough now?” My grin moves up to my provocative red eyes.

“No, how about this time I please you first.” He pushes me onto the bed, and rips my panties down my legs and over my feet. Gaire kneels between my legs, his fingers running up the insides of my thighs. “Then it will be all about rough,” he says as his face nuzzles into the black curls between my legs. His tongue flicks over my clitoris, and nibbles.

I suck in a breath between my teeth, and let it out in short whimpering pants.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m floating beside the bed, a cloud of sooty smoke, wicked red eyes, and a toothy-sharp smile. Gaire looks pretty peculiar, with his wolf-like face, set of manic eyes, and a protruding jaw lying on a lacy sage striped pillow. His body, skinny and alien looking, is curled in a fetal position on top of a flowery peach comforter.

“We need a purpose,” I say. “Not a witch. Everyone needs a purpose in life. Before Gracie, our purpose was to find love, someone to share our lives with. Now...”

“A purpose?” he asks. His voice is heavy and sandy. “We have a purpose, Luna. We need to stay alive. There’s still a price on my head, and more than one bounty hunter out there. Not to mention the cool and collected assassin I happened to smite twice, and the hotwired hooker who accompanies him. She looked pretty pissed at you. What if she talks Vuur out of his promise?”

“Jane wouldn’t do that,” I taunt.

“Let’s not forget my father. He’ll kill me the moment he lays eyes on me. Until then, he is willing to pay anyone who gets there before him.

“And you’re still two years from being cut loose. You need to keep up appearances, literally. Your elders, and my breed, believe a wendigo feeding off the human flesh a doppelganger wears is what pushes us above ground for more. You make one more wrong move, and you’ll have a price on your head. I’m sure as hell not going to let that happen. Don’t you think that alone is purpose enough?”

“As far as I’m concerned they would have to prove that. Neither you nor I have done anything to prove their ancient beliefs. And to answer your question, no, nothing you have stated is a purpose. All of it is survival. You’ve lived so long in survival mode you’ve confused it with resolution. A purpose would be to make a difference, make changes in the way others think Down Under, especially about my breed and yours.”

“No creature has ever been able to change what is Down Under. It would be useless to try.” He raises his hand to keep me from voicing a rebuttal.

“We don’t need to charge out of here on a mission to change the world, Luna. That’s a bit daunting.”

“Well,” I say, “how about we start with your father and my elders?”

“You’ll never change what my father thinks of me.”

“Your mother would be a good place to start. He took her to his bed. There has to be a reason he did.”

“That was a weakness.”

“Yes and therefore springs a hope,” I tell him using the voice Gracie gifted me, but I feel the Jane in me when I say, “And the doppelganger we killed? He raped and murdered innocent humans, making authorities believe the serial killer was a human. This kind of behavior puts my race in more jeopardy than I do when I double up. That doppelganger bent ancient rules to feed his perversions. And others have done so for several hundred years, damning a race that doesn’t even know we exist. Righting that is a purpose.”

My body roils as I lay beside the wendigo on Gracie’s bed.

“Truth be told, I’d like nothing better than to be able to enjoy the best of both worlds with you,” he says, and covers a yawn with his long stick-like fingers. “So I get it. That will never be possible if there’s not a better world below the sewer drain. But I’m afraid trying to reason with my father and your elders will be impossible.”

“Exactly.” I’m smiling now, although it must look garishly revolting. “In which case, we move on to purpose B.”

Gaire’s left eyebrow raises. A smile tickles the underside of one cheek. “Having sex with every human above the sewer drain, one night at a time, while husbands all over the world think their wife is dreaming in bed beside them?”

“Well, sure, that,” I say with a giggle, “and kickin’ us some Down Under ass, until somebody
wants
to listen.”

“Going rogue?”

“Going rogue,” I answer.

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Aether - The invisible substance that connects the afterworlds and earth. It is both nothing and everything.

Aetherwalking - A method of traveling through the aether to access the afterworlds or different places on earth. Some Mytheans have this power and can bring another person with them.

Afterworld - A heaven or hell created by mortal belief. Mortals can access them only through death. Some Mytheans can aetherwalk to them.

Immortal University - An organization created thousands of years ago to protect Mytheans and keep them secret from mortals. It was initially founded as a true university, hence the name, but over time it morphed into an institution with greater power and responsibility. The university’s primary goal is to maintain the secrecy of Mytheans and to keep the gods from warring to obtain more followers. They do this primarily through diplomacy. The university also provides services to Mytheans that they can’t get elsewhere, lest mortals figure out that their clients never die. Things like education, health services, and banking.

Mortals - Humans. They are unaware of the existence of Mytheans or that all heavens and hells truly exist. They are immortal in the sense that their soul will pass on to whatever afterworld they believe in.

Mythean - Supernatural individuals created by mortal belief. They are gods and goddesses, demons and monsters, witches and other supernatural creatures. They are immortal in the sense that if they live on earth, only beheading or grievous injury from magic can kill them. If they are killed their soul will pass on to an afterworld. Secrecy from mortals is one of their highest priorities. Some Mytheans, particularly species of demons and some gods, are trapped in their afterworlds. Others have access to both earth and the afterworlds.

Mythean Guardians - Powerful mortals made immortal, or other supernatural beings who serve at the Praesidium. They protect those mortals and Mytheans who are important to the fate of humanity.

Praesidium - The protection division of the Immortal University. Mythean Guardians work here. Their job is to protect those important to humanity and maintain law and order by keeping Mytheans secret from humans and keeping the gods from warring.

Soulceresses - Mytheans who fuel their power by draining the immortal power of other Mytheans’ souls. When fueled by the power of others, they can manifest their magic with a thought. They are hated by other Mytheans because of this. They also have the ability to see the evil in a person’s soul.