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Chapter Thirty Six

Rafe got off the phone and decided to call it a night. He had been training the whole day long with his pupils then kept on going by himself long after the gym was closed, only stopping when Archie called.

He had found a buyer for the white bullets.

The deal was going down tomorrow night at the Dungeon, their usual fighting spot. With the money they made from the deal, he’d be able to pay all his debts and of his family’s. He’d be able to pay his gym outright, finally.
That
thought had certainly lifted Rafe’s spirits, but didn’t manage to get Yara out of his mind.

“Damn the Soartas!” He stripped off his training gear and jumped in the shower. Cold water cascaded down his back, undoing the knots in his tight muscles. It had been three days since their little encounter at the party, and his massive boner wouldn’t go away. She had intrigued him in London, and again in Brazil, making him almost blow his cover to save her from the witches. But that had been nothing compared to how she had fucked with his mind at the party. He had followed her in, had tracked her inside, always at a distance, never too close for comfort. But then, she spotted him. And that was it. His sanity deserted him, his plan was completely forgotten. He wanted her, he needed to have her. And when Phillip showed up something snapped inside him. The draco had been much too interested in Yara for Rafe’s liking. He had told himself he had done what he did because he knew Phillip had an agenda and couldn’t be looking for just a good fuck. He had sent Rafe after Yara all the way to Brazil, for Hiad’s sake. There was no way his presence at the party had been just a coincidence. Something was going down, and Yara was in the middle of it all.

Yara … that Brazilian witch was going to be his downfall, of that he was certain. It had been a long time since he had been so obsessed with a chick like that. Legend had it that wolves could smell their soul mates from afar, but that was bullshit. They could smell
anything
from afar and there was no such thing as a soul mate. There were dick mates definitely, and his had found a few over the years, but one that reached inside and spoke to his inmã? Nah, never.

He shook his head under the jet of water. Yara’s scent had almost proved him wrong, actually. Her unique smell of leaves after the rain was simply addictive.
Yeah, for sure it was her
smell
that got me hooked.
Rafe chuckled at his own blindness. She was everything he liked in a woman. Feisty, smart, sharp as a tack, and as hot as the fires of Hiad. Tall with smooth olive skin, lean muscles, long juicy legs and an ass to die for, she was every man’s wet dream. Her brown eyes exuded wickedness; and her lips… oh those lips, they were Apa Sâmbetei on earth.

His cock jerked upward as memories of their moments together flooded his mind. It had been so quick but so intense. Not even the cold shower was managing to cool down his hunger for her. He imagined her being in that same shower with him, bare naked, beautiful, wet and ready. She would try to take the lead, for sure, and he would let her think she did, for a while. There was nothing hotter than a female alpha. She would force him against the wall, like she did at the party.

Rafe closed his eyes and rested against the cold tiled wall.

Then she would memorize his body with her hands, leaving a path of heat in their wake. He would quiver under her touch but he wouldn’t let her know how much he wanted her, not just yet, anyway. She would take that as an affront and would try to make him surrender, make him beg. She would go down on her knees and take him in her mouth. Slow and deep.

Rafe’s hand roamed down his navel and grazed over his stiff shaft. It jumped in response, wanting more, dripping with need. He let out a long moan, imagining that Yara’s juicy lips were enveloping him not his callused hand.
Fuck, she was good.

The clatter of glass shattering against concrete broke the spell. Rafe jolted upright, freezing in place.

Someone had just broken into his gym.

He turned the water off and focused his wolf hearing. After a few seconds of nothing, he stepped out of the shower, pulled his training shorts back on and opened the door leading to his office. Silently, he crossed the room and went into the main training area. A tall boxing ring sat in the middle of the warehouse, surrounded by a number of work-out equipment.

“Nice stuff you’ve got here, wolf,” an irritatingly posh British accent echoed in the darkness.

Fucking, draco. “What are you doing here, Phillip?”

“I came to collect my dues,” Phillip replied, emerging from behind one of the workout machine. The light from the crescent moon cast a shadow over his deceivingly angel’s face.

“Your dues?” Rafe replied sharply. “I went to Brazil and I reported back to you on my findings, didn’t I?”

“And then you decided to jump in and steal my pussy at the party,” Phillip said.

His pussy.
Rafe clutched his jaw tight and forced his fists to relax. “What can I say, my wolf took over,” he said nonchalant, “he couldn’t resist such a delicious meal.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Phillip replied sarcastically. “You came between me and my bloody target and now you’re in deep shit, wolf. Balaur
is very disappointed with your insubordination.”

“Insubordination?” Rafe growled. “I don’t work for your master, draco, you forget that
you
are his slave, not me.”

“And you forget your debt, mate,” Phillip replied, all hint of sarcasm gone.  “Balaur owns your dick and your ass, little wolfie. He owns everything in here, because you failed to pay him, and time is running out.”

Rafe was this close to lose his temper and ripping that fucking draco’s head off. “You know what? I’m tired of you showing up in here, barking around like you were boss. Tell your master to come and talk to me himself and stop wasting my time, altar boy.”

Rafe turned around and started making his way back to his office. It was either that or he’d make a meal out of the S.O.B. right there and then. A blast of fire lit up the room as if it were Christmas time.

“Fuck!” Rafe spun around to find a fourth of his machines on fire. Phillip has blasted his entire heavy weights section. Rafe leaped in the air toward the extinguisher but met a whole lot of nothing.

“Looking for this?” the British scumbag asked, wiggling Rafe’s salvation in front of him.

“You asshole!” Rafe lunged at the draco but another gush of blazing heat stopped him in his tracks. And just like that, another section of his precious gym melted away, gone. His metal and iron machines, purchased after so much sweat and tears, were no match to dragon fire.

“Put it out, draco, before I rip your throat out,” Rafe shouted.

“Only if you agree to the new terms.”

“What the fuck do you want now?”

“I want you to kill the witch."

Rafe froze in place. “No. Fucking. Way.”

Phillip lifted his eyebrows at him in mock surprise, then opened his mouth and expelled a thunderous blaze straight at Rafe.

He leaped out of the way, missing the blaze by a nanosecond, but his ring wasn’t so lucky. The center piece of his training arena was turned into dust almost instantly.

“You fucker!”

“She’ll be at the Dungeon tomorrow night,” Phillip relayed.

At the Dungeon? On Friday night?

“Be there and make sure she never leaves that place alive. If you refuse, wolf, you better say goodbye to your little gym here. Or whatever is left of it.”

Rafe knew he had no other choice but to agree to Phillip’s stupid conditions. He cursed the day he took Balaur’s offer and went into debt with the dragon lord. He should have known better.

“Fine,” Rafe growled. “I’ll do it.”

“Atta boy,” the sleazy bastard replied. “You must kill her before the final fight is over.” And without another word, he jumped out of the broken window, leaving Rafe to his burning gym.

**********

Rafe didn’t waste any time. He put out the fire as quickly as he could and darted out the window after Phillip. There was no way he would show up at that fighting joint tomorrow in the dark. He had to find out why Balaur wanted Yara dead.

He leaped forward and landed smoothly on the roof across the road. Perching over the edge, he scanned the streets below and spotted the blond fucker getting into his car. Bingo. As he calculated, Phillip hadn’t been foolish enough to flap his leathery wings in the middle of New Jersey. He knew it better than to go against one of the main rules in their supernatural community – inconspicuousness – but the same rule didn’t apply to wolves. The ‘hood would go into a communal frenzy if they saw a dragon flying above their heads, but not many humans would stop to notice a white wolf running around.

Rafe ran across the roof and jumped, shifting mid-air. From roof to roof, he followed Phillip’s car until it crossed the border with Teterboro and parked at an alleyway. He quickly found a spot just above where the scumbag was, and waited.

Not long afterward, a scrawny looking guy wearing a hoodie and jeans came out of the shadows.

“Why are you late?” the guy said, scanning the area, as if afraid of getting caught out red handed or something. “My uncle will notice I’m gone.”

“Whatever,” Phillip replied stepping out. “What have you got for me?”

The guy pulled his hoodie down revealing a mother of all hair-dos. He looked like freakin’ Elvis, for Hiad’s sake!

“Here. I got a sample for Balaur,” Elvis Boy whispered, and retrieved a flask from his jacket.

“Sample of what?” Phillip asked, already grabbing the bottle and opening it.

A foul smell of rotten cabbage reached Rafe’s muzzle. Phillip winced then closed the flask again. “Fucking Soartas, what the fuck is this, Remi?”

“It’s the potion Yara made for Zoricah,” the guy replied. “This is what’s helping the queen get strong.”

The queen was sick?

Phillip cursed again, covering his nose. “And is this the only flask?”

“No, there’s an entire fridge full of these. The witch has made enough to last them days.”

“Where’s the recipe then?”

Remi shrugged. “Dunno.”

Phillip stared at the guy as if expecting a different answer, when it didn’t come, he flipped. “And what the fuck am I supposed to do with just a sample, you moron?” he bellowed and threw the bottle at Remi’s face. “You’re a bloody waste of space, you know that?”

Remi lifted his hands to protect his hair from the flying flask, then flashed his fangs at Phillip.

Hmm, a vamp. Probably one of Tardieh’s household hands.

“Don’t talk to me like that, draco! You need me, your master needs me.”

“Do we really?”

“Yes, I’m your only eyes and ears at Tardieh’s mansion, you … you should thank me for telling you what I know!”

Phillip stared at Remi for a moment, as if contemplating the best way to kill the vampire. But he didn’t, instead he said, “Well, isn’t this great timing? Balaur wants to see you, so you’ll have the opportunity to tell him that yourself.”

The vamp trembled and tried to backpedal but Phillip was on to him. He grabbed the scrawny vampire by the collar and growled on his face, “Get in the fucking car.” Then, he helped Remi do just that with a hard shove, and drove away.

Rafe climbed down from the roof and closed in on the forgotten bottle by the sidewalk. He nudged at it with his muzzle and sniffed the air. The foul smell made him gag straight away. Even with a closed lid, the thing stank like farmer’s clothes at the end of a hard day. Freaking Hiad, what was in it? He rested on his hind legs and contemplated what he’d heard. The queen was sick. By Apa Dobrý, the queen was sick! And that was huge! Her mating to Tardieh had shaken the supernatural community – some had shown their approval and were looking forward to a new era of solidarity and peace, but others were quite ready to make sure their union didn’t last. Rafe was certain Balaur and Phillip were the latter.

He picked up the flask off the ground with his mouth, careful not to pierce the plastic encasing with his sharp teeth, and darted back to his gym. A plan formed in his mind. It was time to get off this train before it derailed on his furry ass.

Chapter Thirty Seven

Yara zipped up the duffle bag and exhaled a long breath. Friday night. In just a few hours she’d be either celebrating that they’d got the bullets or ruminating over another missed target. She didn’t usually lose any sleep over that sort of conundrum or a mission that had gone sour, but something was not right. The hairs on the back of her head were all up, her panther was fidgety and her heart was palpitating, and not in a good way. It felt as if the Soartas were trying to tell her something, as if whatever she chose at this moment, whatever path she took, her life would never be the same again.

She recalled the last time she felt this strongly about a decision. It had been decades ago, just before she chose to run away with Pedro and leave the witches for good to live a
normal
life in the human village. She remembered well how
that
turned out, didn’t she?

“Damn it”, she cursed softly.

“What is it?”

Yara looked up and saw Naiah by the door. Sam’s jeans and tee were slightly baggy on her, but she looked really good in modern clothes, quite at home.

“Are you OK?” her sister asked.

Yara nodded and lifted the bag over her shoulders. “Yeah, all good.” She moved toward the door but Naiah blocked her path.
She blocked her path.

“Yara,” she tried, “I was in the kitchen, preparing Z’s shake, when Dyam and Joel…” Her small voice trailed.

“What is it, Naiah? I have to go.”

“Well, they were chatting and I couldn’t help it but overhearing it.”

“And?”

“They said this mission of yours was quite
hairy
, and that there’s a chance it will get nasty.”

Yara took a deep breath. She wasn’t in the mood for what ifs. “Any mission can go wrong, Naiah. That’s the reality of our world, that’s the reality of this house.”

“But,” Naiah added, not budging out of Yara’s way. “Are you sure
you
need to go?”

Yara paused, and for the first time, she
saw
Naiah. Concern marred her sister’s delicate features. She was truly worried. Yara pursed her lips and considered procrastinating that moment, but she knew she couldn’t. She still had a minute or two before they had to leave.

She dropped the duffle bag back on the floor and motioned for Naiah to take a seat on the bed. She complied.

“Naiah, our missions are always dangerous, but I’m trained to do this. That’s my life, that’s what I do, so you don’t have to ...”

“I know, I know you’re good at what you do,” Naiah interrupted her, “but I have a bad feeling about this. A real bad feeling.”

Yara froze. She was feeling it, too. Crap. “What sort of bad feeling?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “Maybe it’s because so much has happened, and we hadn’t had time to chat much. I want to know where your house is, what you do for fun, what you girls do during the mating season, and now you have to go, and do this mission, and I’m just worried …”

Yara waited in silence as Naiah rambled on. Maybe that was exactly the cross-roads Yara needed to sort out before it was too late. Naiah. Her sister didn’t belong to this realm, she was too innocent, too naïve to survive without crashing and burning. The last thing Yara wanted was for her to get lovesick over some bastard who would promise her the world, then fuck her around for his own benefit. Like Pedro did to Yara. No, she wouldn’t let that happen to Naiah, she wouldn’t let any prick hurt her. But the problem was, at that moment, Yara was barely managing to take care of herself, with all the changes that were happening – with Z expecting a baby, and Sam having moved in with Hikuro all the way in freakin’ Japan, Yara felt like her grounds had been shaken. She was about to lose it at any moment, so how could she take care of Naiah the way her sister deserved it?

“Naiah,” Yara said looking down at the duvet. “I would’ve loved to be the one to show you the world, to take you to all the places in your bucket list, to watch you get drunk for the first time, to help you conquer this realm and love it as much as I do, but I can’t. It’s much too dangerous for you to stay here, and …”

“I can stay at your place,” Naiah drawled.

“I don’t have a place.”

A slight frown wrinkled her young forehead. “You don’t have a home?”

No, I don’t.
“Well,
this
is my home.”

“Here? At Tardieh’s and Z’s? How come?”

“It just is,” Yara replied, a little bit too rashly. “Look, the point is. This is no place for you, I can’t protect you, so you’re going back to the Mothers.”

“No!”

“Yes. Tomorrow,” Yara replied firmly. “I’ll ask Dyam to take us.”

“No, this is not fair!” Naiah shouted jumping off the bed. “I can’t go back. I don’t
want
to go back.”

“You must. It’s too dangerous here and you’re too young.”

“No, I’m not!” She crossed her arms over her chest and stomped her foot on the ground. “You didn’t think
you
were too young when you ran away with Pedro!”

“And look where that got me!” Yara retorted. “I was used and abused by a human male who left me with nothing but a curse to remind me of how stupid I was. Do you want that for yourself, Naiah? Do you want to be cast away and never be able to see your family again? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you stay.”

Naiah’s chin trembled as tears gathered in her brown eyes. “But it’s my life,” she said with a tiny voice.

Damn the Soartas! It killed Yara to see her little sister hurt like that, but better this than the alternative. She had to be firm so that Naiah wouldn’t suffer the same fate she did. Yara swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and said, “One day you’ll thank me for this.”

Naiah glared at her, pure hatred in her eyes. “Never! I’ll never forgive you for this!” she bellowed and stormed out of the room.

Yara sank on the bed. She was hurt as much as Naiah, but her sister
would
see reason, and even come to understand Yara’s decision one day. Well, at least, she hoped. She truly hoped.