“I did.” The words slipped out of me, soft and reluctant. “I went to follow her outside, telling TJ the girl shouldn’t leave. But she said it wasn’t up to us. I could almost see the death on her. Once I got outside, I thought I could stop it…but we were too late.” I shrugged and tried to brush it off. “After that, TJ had wards put up around the place. You know, you helped make them. But that’s what brought it on. If people want in here, they have to really want it. It’s the hardest on strangers. People she knows can come and go almost easily, but if you don’t know TJ, you’re shit out of luck.”
“Like Cari’s family.” She nodded and went silent. After a few moments, she said, “It’s your instincts.”
I’d spent those moments tending to my whiskey, and I’d tended it well. So well that I needed a refill. But before I caught Mac’s eyes—he handled the night shift—I glanced at Colleen. “What do you mean?”
“It’s part of
you
, I think.” Something burned in her eyes. “It’s what you are. You’re supposed to be acting. You are guided by those instincts, Kit. I’ve seen it a hundred times. And I—”
She stopped, frowning. Then she groaned and looked around. “Why is he…”
The wards on the door sparked, hard and bright green.
“Hell.”
I scowled and looked up just in time to see a familiar man saunter through the door. He passed through the wards like they were made of gossamer and fluff. That meant only one thing—he was either stronger than the wards, or he’d helped craft them.
Considering how strong he’d felt, I figure I knew which it was.
That odd, itching sensation I’d felt all day started to get stronger as he shifted his gaze to me. Those startling green eyes focused on mine and he grinned.
“Well, well, well. Just who I was looking for. Got a minute, Kitty-kitty?” Justin asked.
I almost fell off my stool. “Kitty-kitty?”
He smiled, but it was a cold smile, sharp enough to cut. He came closer and as he did, the currents of air moved and I caught it, the scent of blood. “I need to talk to you.”
Behind me, I heard the door open, heard the familiar sound of TJ’s chair. “Back off, Justin. Last time you two talked, there was trouble.”
“There’s still trouble,” he said, not taking his eyes off me.
My heart had started to pump, slow and heavy against my ribs. And that weird sensing of
waiting
had sharpened down, clarified.
This
, a voice whispered in my ear.
It’s this. It’s him
.
Part of me wanted to scream
what, what, what
?
But I’d have that answer soon enough.
“Justin, if you don’t get out of my bar, I’ll have you dragged out by your—”
“TJ.” I didn’t look at her, didn’t take my eyes off Justin’s face. “I’ll talk to him.”
I don’t know who was more surprised. Her or me.
All I knew was that some knot inside me relaxed.
This…it’s this
.
That sense of
waiting
shifted and transformed.
Get ready. Get ready
.
I’d felt it before. The day I went hunting…for a scared, foolish girl who’d almost gotten herself killed.
We ended up in TJ’s office. It was the only place we were guaranteed privacy, other than my bedroom upstairs and I was definitely
not
inviting him up there.
There was a condition, of course. There were
always
conditions. Especially with TJ. If we used her office, that meant she got to come along for the ride. She’d wheeled herself inside, along with Colleen. I didn’t bother arguing, although Justin looked like he wanted to. There wasn’t much point. Unless he knew how to circumvent TJ’s security system, she’d have a birds-eye view of what was going on in here, anyway.
Once the door shut, I looked at him. “You smell like blood.”
“So do you.” He lifted a brow. “I wouldn’t have figured you for having that sensitive of a nose.”
“Why not? You do.”
“Hmmm. But I’m a witch. It comes in useful.”
Angling my head, I studied Colleen. “You smell it?”
“No. Thank God.” Then she shrugged. “But Justin is a different kind of witch.”
A different kind of witch. There were different kinds of witches? I hadn’t known that. Running my tongue across the inside of my lip, I pondered that. Through my lashes, I studied him, that pretty face, the dreads…and the weapons. Colleen wouldn’t touch a weapon if she had to. That sort of baffled me, but to each their own.
They felt different, but nobody felt the same. I’d learned that much in the past few years. The air around him snapped bright, hard, while the energy around Colleen was something gentle, soft. She felt like a spring rain against my senses, sweet and gentle and renewing.
He felt like a fighting fury, but a focused one.
“So what kind of witch are you, then?” I asked him.
“Does that matter?” He continued to watch me.
“It does to me.” I flashed him a sunny smile.
“Justin, stop playing games,” Colleen said tiredly as she moved over to an empty seat. “Justin’s freelance—he’s not affiliated with any of the Houses. I’ve explained about those. But he’s…well, he’s also a warrior. That makes him different, too.”
Warrior—
Useless. You shame us. A weakling among warriors
…
I jerked my mind back from the traps of the past. “So you can fight.” Rolling my eyes, I leaned my hips against the surface of TJ’s desk and waited. There had to be more to it than that.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” TJ said, speaking for the first time since we’d come into the office. Her voice was gravelly, rough. “Witches, as a whole, are pacifists. Not by choice. It’s a racial thing, bred into them. They’d die before lifting a hand to defend themselves. They
can’t
. It’s not in them.”
I opened my mouth. Shut it. After two more tries, I managed to say, “Then how do any of them
survive
?”
“Because of people like me,” Justin said, and his green eyes glowed. “I was warrior born. Not only
can
I fight, but I
like
to fight and I’m good at it. I learned offensive arts from the cradle up and a lot of it was instinctive. I just needed guidance. That’s how the warriors are. Without us, they die.”
“And without
us
…” Colleen interjected, shooting Justin a narrow look. “The warriors aren’t grounded. They lose focus and go on rampages. A witch-born warrior needs a focus. A job. A…mission, if you like. Justin is an independent, so that complicates things for him.”
“You don’t belong to a House, so you don’t have anybody to fight for.”
He shrugged. “In a nutshell. My mother was human. Dad was a witch with Red Branch—”
“Crazy sons of bitches,” TJ muttered.
Justin ignored her. “But he broke away from them when they refused to acknowledge my mother as his wife. They went off on their own. I was born. Things were okay the first few years, but then they were killed. I…”
His voice trailed off and he stared at the wall. Then he shook his head. “Anyway, I didn’t want a House. Never saw the point in them. Bigoted, narrow-minded asses, most of them.”
“You never gave the Road a chance,” Colleen said quietly.
“The Road wouldn’t want me.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m good at what I do.”
“And that is…?”
He flashed me a grin and this one was a little bit wild. “I’m a jack of all trades, darling Kit. Investigator, bounty hunter, bodyguard…among other things. Which leads me to why I’m here.”
I lifted a brow. The man had a flair for drama, I decided.
He paced across the floor, stopping about three feet away. “You showered, so it’s faint. But you bloodied somebody. I can smell it. I wouldn’t connect it to him if I hadn’t had his blood all over me earlier. But there it is—I tracked it here.”
“Bullshit,” I muttered. “You can’t track by scent.”
“It’s not scent,” Colleen said as he opened his eyes and just watched me. “He can track by violence, by the feel of a person’s magic.”
“Exactly.” His smile took on that hard edge again. “And he had
your
magic all over him. I’d never felt it before until I met you. I’d know it anywhere.”
“So this is about the wolf who got in my face earlier.”
“No. Although judging by the look on TJ’s face, I’m going to assume you all didn’t have a nice, happy little chat.”
“Get on with it,” I said. My hands were sweating, my heart racing.
He reached into his pocket. “I was tracking him anyway. Needed information. I latched on him easy once I caught his bloodscent…and your magic. Followed him home.” He had a piece of paper in his hand now. “We had a discussion. It ended badly. He’s kind of dead now.”
My jaw dropped, but before I could even process that, he held out the paper he held. Automatically, I took it and looked down.
Then, I looked harder.
It was…me.
“What is this?” I asked, my voice shaking minutely.
“You tell me. I’ve been hunting for a friend of his for nearly a week. I finally track Rogers to his hidey hole and the place smells like my quarry, but I can’t find him. Missed him by hours. But I did find this…a picture of you. So you tell me…what is this?”
Justin wouldn’t go into the rest of his case while people listened.
TJ objected.
Colleen gave me a worried stare.
But every time I thought about turning away and just leaving, I had a weird little twist in my gut and that voice shrieked,
no, no, no…this is it.
Whatever this was, I needed to hear it. And I was starting to realize that I also needed to help, if I could.
So I left. With a green-eyed witch by the name of Justin. He’d come on a motorcycle. I didn’t have a car, and my driving skills were…questionable at best. TJ might let me borrow one, but if I wrecked it—and that wasn’t just possible, it was highly likely—I’d be working doubles for as long as it took to pay her back.
The idea wasn’t appealing. But then again, I wasn’t too sure about riding with him, either. As he threw a leg over the shiny chrome and black beast, I just stood there and stared.
A knot lodged in my throat. If I got on that thing, I’d have to touch him. He’d be touching me.
“You coming or not? We can’t talk about this here.” He paused and then said the worst possible thing. “You can’t
help
from here.”
Jerking my chin up, I met his gaze mutinously. “What makes you think I
want
to? Why should I care about what you have going on?”
A soft laugh escaped him as he stared off into the night. The muted glow from the murky streetlights overhead did little to illuminate his features but I saw him just fine. He had the face of an angel—a fallen one, yeah, but he was still a work of art. Just then, he was somber, serious. “Kit, you’ve got it written all over your face. You can’t help yourself.” Then he looked back at me. “Not any more than I can. It’s what we do. And…you’ll care once I tell you what’s going on. Trust me.”
I hesitated, still. I didn’t like it when people touched me. Not even Colleen or TJ. I’d just now managed to hold still when Goliath patted me on the back with one of his massive hands. Now I’d have to get on the bike…
“Who hurt you?”
I flinched at his gentle, soft question.
Then I strode toward the bike and threw my leg over. “What in the fuck makes you think
anybody
hurt me?” I demanded.
He didn’t answer.
That was fine.
I’d have a hard time smacking him down anyway. I had to deal with the knot in my throat first.
We rode on the bike for nearly an hour. For the first twenty or thirty minutes, I sat rigid as a piece of steel, keeping as much distance between us as I could.
Justin didn’t say anything, kept his hands on the handlebars of that sleek, shiny bike and the roiling energy of his magic had been pulled in until it was just the barest brush on my skin.
It made it easier to relax—a little—and I let myself start to look around. He hadn’t told me that we’d be leaving Wolf Haven, driving to some point north of the place where I’d found some sort of refuge several years back. At first, I’d thought we were going to East Orlando and my heart had all but jumped into my throat, tension once more tightening my muscles as I remembered my last trip into East Orlando.
I wasn’t ready to go back there.
But then he’d headed off the highway, taking another road, and then another until we were all but lost in the Florida countryside. We probably weren’t more than an hour or so from Orlando—the so-called Theme Park Capitol of the World. The human tourists who came looking for thrills wouldn’t guess how close they were to absolutely nothing. Or maybe they would. After all, half of them went looking for a different kind of thrill.
They went to Orlando, planning a little side trip into East Orlando, hoping to catch a glimpse of a werewolf, maybe one of the werecats. They might venture into one of the charm shops the witches ran and ask for a spell. The most they’d get was a bracelet that would
maybe
offer some luck to the owner, or memory stone that would help a person remember things they’d forgotten—if the owner was lucky.
They went looking for the newest kind of thrill, only we weren’t new at all. We were older than old. The non-human races had always been here. Witches, weres, vampires…my kind. We’d been living here among humans since the dawn of time. If you asked a vampire, they’d say they were actually the first to walk the earth, but most of the vampires I’d come across were pretentious sons of bitches anyway. Of course they were going to make that kind of claim.
Anyway, the other big thrill in Orlando had nothing to do with the big-eared mouse and everything to do with the big-toothed shapeshifters and other assorted NHs that lived just a few short miles away over in East Orlando. Once, Orlando and East Orlando had actually been one sprawling metropolis, but then the war happened.
Decades ago, we’d been forced out of our dark, disturbing little closets—thanks to some troubling footage of werewolves battling it out on video. There had been a few before that, but nothing conclusive. This, though, had been the result of a months-long investigation by a rather large, very well-funded paranormal investigation group.