“Yeah, this is it.”
We parked across the street and surveyed the building for a few minutes. I didn’t see Jez’s Jeep anywhere.
“Alright, let’s go find our leopard.” Kale reached for the door handle, and I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Remember, this place is primarily human. We have to blend in. No vamping out.”
My warning was met with an eye roll. Kale shoved the car door open and got out. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m the only one with control issues.”
He slammed the door before I could snark back at him. I followed, pausing to ensure my dagger was hidden by my jacket. Then we crossed the street and slipped inside the busy nightclub. Kale’s comment ate at me. I had lost control in The Spirit Room the last time I’d come here. Maybe I was the weaker link here.
The club was dimly lit and smelled mostly like the fog from a fog machine. Waitresses hurried about with trays piled with drinks while a live band rocked the stage. The place was packed.
I scanned the busy bar for Jez. “Do you see her?” I shouted over the music.
Kale shook his head, his gaze on a group of women clustered around a table. I recognized them as the ladies from Crimson Sin, the werewolf led band that regularly played The Wicked Kiss.
“Let’s ask the werewolf. She’s the only Were I see, other than you.” Kale leaned in close to be heard. His sudden nearness sent a small adrenaline shot through me.
“You go ahead,” I said. “I’m going to check the ladies room and take a look around.”
I didn’t wait for a reply. Putting distance between us before he picked up on my nerves was essential. I couldn’t help but be jumpy around him. After all, he had tried to kill me.
Kale approached the Crimson Sin girls while I ducked into the ladies room. As I’d suspected, there was no sign of Jez.
When I emerged, I almost collided with Gabriel. The tall, lanky Goth kid held his hands up to avoid touching me. His eyes were wide with surprise, but the expression quickly faded, replaced with one of wary scrutiny.
“Geez, Gabriel, why don’t you just wear gloves? Wouldn’t that make your life easier?”
“What are you doing here, Alexa?” He was uneasy, holding himself as if he were about to run.
“Settle down.” I took a moment to enjoy his discomfort. “I’m not here for you. I’m looking for my friend, Jez. The leopard. Have you seen her?”
Gabriel was the enemy. He couldn’t be trusted. I had tried to make him see that Shya had nobody’s best interests in mind but his own. Gabriel had chosen to ignore my warning and aligned himself with the demon. Since he was a witch with a shitload of power, that concerned me.
He was also a precognitive clairvoyant. With just a touch he could see things nobody should be able to see. After touching my hand once when doing a spell, he had seen me as a vampire. It was something he refused to talk about.
“No, sorry. I wish I could help.” He was lying. For a guy with so much power, he was forgetting the werewolf rules.
I moved fast, slamming him against the wall before he could work some spell on me. With my hand on his throat, I squeezed.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Gabriel. I can smell the stink of it all over you. Tell me where Jez is, or I’ll send you back to Shya with pieces missing.” The horror that spread across his face seemed to be from my touch more than my threat. Good. Whatever he was seeing about me, I hoped it scared the shit out of him.
He grunted and struggled to speak. His garbled noise was impossible to decipher. I eased off but tapped my power in case I needed to blast him. “Upstairs. Staff door near the fire exit,” he choked out.
Kale appeared wearing an amused grin. “Careful now, Alexa. Shya won’t be too happy if you kill his witch.” Knowing Shya, he had probably marked his prodigy. He would know if I hurt Gabriel.
“If I kill him?” I questioned. “Or if
we
kill him?” I’d like to think I was joking, but a vicious smile tugged at my lips. Gabriel had been someone I wanted to help. Then he joined the dark side and became my enemy. Bad choice.
“Seriously?” Kale asked, perking up in interest. “I do love tag teaming with you.”
“You can’t do shit to me,” Gabriel sneered. “It would break Arys’s deal with Shya. Do you really want to bring hell on your dark half?”
The kid had balls. Unfortunately, he was also right. Arys had made a deal with Shya to save my life. In exchange, Arys had promised to turn Gabriel. Shya wanted his black magic prodigy to be a vampire from our bloodline. I would do everything I could to keep that from happening. But killing Gabriel wasn’t the way.
“I don’t know, Gabriel,” I said, tapping clawed fingertips on the wall beside his head. “You tell me. You’re the one who can see shit that hasn’t happened yet. How bad can it be?”
“That’s right. I see many things. For a woman who has such little time left with a heartbeat, you seem to be wasting a lot of it on me.” Gabriel’s fear had faded. Now he was ready to fight.
I released him and stepped back, watching as he shoved past Kale and disappeared into the throng. There was no sense letting him get to me. Easier said than done.
Kale spied my crestfallen face. “Hey, don’t listen to the kid. He’s on puppet strings held by a demon. You can’t trust anything he says.”
Having Kale feel bad for me didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. I shrugged. “Forget it. Let’s go get Jez.”
Finding the fire exit at the back of the building was easy enough. Right beside it was a staff door that opened into a staircase. We followed the stairs up to a small second floor that was pretty much just an attic. It appeared to be a backstage area for the musicians. Guitars and amps lined the wall. A drum set sat in the corner. A large sectional couch took up another corner. It was occupied by two guys rolling a joint on the coffee table.
They both looked up at our approach. One of them went right back to busting up his weed, ignoring us completely. The second, a young guy with a bleached blond Mohawk watched us with curiosity in his bloodshot eyes.
“We’re looking for a friend,” I said. “Her name is Jez. She’s tall, feisty, long golden hair. Have you seen her?”
I barely finished speaking when I sensed her. Kale was already striding across the room to a closed door on the opposite side. Muffled voices could be heard from inside along with the sound of an acoustic guitar.
Kale burst through the door with me hot on his heels. The people inside barely looked up. They were too immersed in the party going on. This second room was smaller with a large mirror on one side and vanity space for rockers to get ready before a show. About a dozen people were crammed onto the one small couch and two easy chairs in the center. Others sat on the floor, passing a joint.
Jez was squeezed in on the couch. With a rolled up twenty in hand, she leaned over a tray of powder cut into thin white lines.
My jaw dropped. I blinked a few times, unable to believe what I was seeing. Kale didn’t share my hesitation. He surged forward, shoving through anyone in the way. He grabbed her arm, almost upsetting the tray, which was saved by the person next to her. Kale literally dragged her off the couch.
She was a mess. Her hair was unkempt, and makeup smears lined her red-rimmed eyes. She looked at me as if she couldn’t decide if I was real or not. Then her gaze traveled over Kale, and she swore.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?” She stumbled along beside Kale, trying to pull away but too fucked up to succeed.
“What does it look like? Dragging your drugged-up ass out of here.” I was fuming, but I was also scared. Never had I seen Jez in such rough shape.
“I’m not ready to leave.” She slapped at Kale, but it was a futile attempt. “Just go home and leave me alone. Please.”
“We’re not leaving without you.” Kale’s tone was hard, but his eyes gleamed with a softness I only saw when he looked at Jez. He was worried too.
Jez struggled with Kale as he dragged her from the room. Just the one person who was not entirely human bothered to get involved.
“What’s going on here?” The guy sauntered over to me with a cocky sneer. He smelled human, but something about his energy convinced me there was more to him. It was vague though, hard to place. Definitely something I’d never encountered before. Whatever it was, it felt dark.
“Save it,” I snapped. “I don’t know who you are; I don’t really care. Jez is my friend, and she’s leaving here with me. Don’t get involved.”
“Or what?” He challenged. “I’m Arrow, by the way. Jez is a friend of mine too. If she doesn’t want to go with you, she doesn’t have to.”
“A friend?” I scoffed. “Really? What’s her last name?”
Arrow smiled and shook his head. There was something serpentine in his dark-hazel eyes. Chains hung from his tight black leather pants. He wore a t-shirt with an upside down pentagram and a knit hat with a Dead Kennedys patch. He had about as much eyeliner smeared around his eyes as Jez did, but I think his was on purpose. With long ebony hair that fell almost to his shoulders, Arrow was sexy in a slimy rocker guy kind of way.
He got up in my face, boldly pressing in close. He spoke low, so he wouldn’t be overheard. “You’re not welcome here, vampire bitch. So why don’t you take off and stop crashing our party?”
A few of the others present watched us with mild interest while the rest continued to snort coke and God only knows what else. I glanced at Kale who stood in the doorway with Jez tightly in his grasp. Kale looked at Arrow, then me and nodded.
I grinned into Arrow’s smug face. “I don’t know what you are, but I know you’ve got a heartbeat, and I’m guessing you bleed too. We are leaving. With Jez. Come at me again, and I’ll tear your fucking throat open.”
Exposing myself to everyone as something other than human wasn’t my intent. So instead of a grand display of power, I opted for something more subtle. A push of force strong enough to crush the air from Arrow’s lungs and double him over without laying him out flat. Then I shoved him aside and followed my friends out.
Arrow gasped and coughed, clutching his chest. But he didn’t make the mistake of trying anything else. When I looked back he was watching us go, smiling through the pain. He was definitely more than human.
Jez was unsteady on her feet. Slurring her words, she mumbled a series of nonsensical phrases. Kale kept her up and moving until we reached the bottom of the stairs where she collapsed.
“Oh my God,” I cried as panic seized me. “Is she going to be ok?”
We couldn’t take her to a hospital. Human doctors simply could not have access to a shifter. My thoughts strayed briefly to Fox, a wolf with medical knowledge who made himself accessible to the Stony pack. I didn’t want to call him unless it was life or death. It was safer for him if he wasn’t involved with us at all.
Kale gathered Jez’s limp form into his arms. “Stay calm, Alexa. Her heartbeat is fast but steady. I think she’ll be ok. Her blood reeks of drugs and alcohol. We need to get her awake and talking. Let’s get her out of here.”
Kale carried Jez through the club and back to the front door. I followed, trying to force myself to breathe. Terror wrapped its cold hands around me and squeezed.
Chapter Eight
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked, skeptical when we pulled into Kale’s driveway with a screech of tires.
“Of course. She’ll be safe here.”
Together Kale and I managed to wrangle Jez out of the backseat where she’d been lying in a haphazard heap. Kale tossed me his keys before scooping Jez up and nudging the car shut with a foot. I ran ahead to unlock the front door. I wasn’t convinced that either Jez or I were safe alone there with Kale. Stepping inside his house felt weird, like walking into a lion’s den of my own free will.
After Kale got Jez inside, I swung the door shut and ran around trying to be useful. A quick search in the cupboards produced coffee and sugar. While the coffee brewed, I grabbed a glass of water and a towel.
Kale was around the corner from the kitchen, in the living room. Jez was sprawled on the couch, and he lightly slapped her face, trying to elicit a response.
“I’m surprised you have coffee,” I commented, gazing about the room. It looked like something out of a magazine with matching couches and a coffee table set with mass-produced artwork on the walls. His house didn’t look or feel lived in.
I knelt beside the couch, dampened the towel, and pressed it to Jez’s face. Her breathing was haggard, and her skin was pale.
“I keep it around for the cleaning ladies that come in once a month along with a few other things. It’s a piss poor attempt at maintaining a human appearance, but it works.”
Kale leaned in close as we both peered at Jez in worried silence. His proximity forced me to breathe his scent of leather and cologne. A flood of memories accompanied that aroma. No good.
“I’m worried about her,” I whispered, gazing down at Jez’s makeup-smeared face. “I knew she was upset about losing Zoey, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”
“She’s good at hiding her emotions. She can’t hide anymore. We’ll help her get through this.” Kale sounded so calm, so sure. He almost made me believe it.
I smoothed Jez’s hair back from her face before giving her a shake. Waking her up became more crucial with each moment she was unconscious. I needed her to talk, to ease my fears. I said a silent prayer. If Jez partied her way into an early grave, I would never forgive myself. It was because of me that Zoey had died. Lilah had been targeting my wolves. Zoey had been mine to protect after an unspoken promise I’d made her father.
“This is all my fault,” I said.
“Don’t start that,” Kale warned. “You didn’t kill Zoey, and you didn’t do anything to convince Jez to snort that shit up her nose.”
I pulled back one of Jez’s eyelids to find her eye rolled back; her pupil, dilated and unresponsive. Slapping her face and applying a cool compress was not helping. “This isn’t working. We need to do something.” My voice was high with panic; my pulse pounded with adrenaline. I couldn’t just sit there and watch her fade away.
Kale studied Jez, likely listening to the strange pace of her heart. I could hear it too. “Why don’t you try that little healing trick you and Arys seem to be able to do?” Kale suggested. He was stone cold serious. “It might help her body regain normal function while she works that shit out of her system.”