Supernatural Seduction (Book 2 of the Coffin Girls Series) (2 page)

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“Sophie! Rose!” Niul’s called out, his strong
Irish accent distinguishable. They both turned towards the
direction of his voice and noticed his muscular stature moving
towards them from behind. He didn’t engage in any pleasantries.
“Come quickly,” he urged, his hands beckoning them. “Your sisters
are being attacked by the stuff that came out of the portal! They
need us!” He inclined his head in the direction where Anais and the
rest were situated.

“Sure,” replied Sophie, sending a glance and
a barely noticeable nod to Rose. Standing, from their crouching
position, they flanked Niul. Rose put her hand on his shoulders and
sent a blast of fire through her touch before both she and Sophie
leapt away from the inflamed Niul.

Niul momentarily burned—yellow and orange,
flames licking his muscular frame, as he stood, immobile. His
immobility stopped Rose and Sophie. Fire was supposed to burn,
hurt, and make you dance around while it did so, but the next
instant, the flames were extinguished, and Niul stood with eyes,
other than his own shooting promises of retribution at them.

“Now boo,” Miss Suzette’s voice boomed, “why
did you have to go and try to hurt that nice young man?” Sophie and
Rose did a double-take and noticed that ‘Niul’ no longer stood
where he had been only moments ago. Instead, Miss Suzette had taken
his place. Before they could react, an arm grabbed each of them,
holding onto them with deathly intent. The arm that gripped each of
them were the wide, mocha colored ones that belonged to their Cajun
adoptive mamma.

xxx

“The guys are here,” Anais sent a message to
Rose and Sophie. “But they’re fake. This must be the supes causing
the havoc.”

“We know,” replied Sophie, struggling against
the unnaturally strong grip ‘Miss Suzette’ had on her and Rose.

“Be careful,” Anais warned before signing
out. She looked at the creature that had dared to assume the
identity of her fiancé and had stupidly thought she wouldn’t know
the difference. Anais scoffed at the now bloody version of
'Conall'. And, with her fingers, she taunted him, inviting him to
attack. She was going to kill the fake fucker.

V and Marie made a grab for 'Sylvain' and
'Raulf', but the two took refuge in their powers. 'Sylvain'
unleashed the tight reigns on his powers and illuminated the entire
alley with the light coming from him. Unlike the Fae Princes’ light
though, where anything it touched thrived, whatever this light
touched began to decay. V did a quick inspection of herself, her
sisters, and caught Anais’ eye for a millisecond. Anais nodded at
V, in relief, before blocking a blow from 'Conall'.

“The light isn’t impacting us. We’re not
decaying,” V sent the message to Anais. “Must be because we’re
halfway dead, or undead anyway.” Anais acknowledged the observation
with a nod. Feeling more secure in the glaring light, V advanced
towards 'Sylvain', the faux Fae Prince.

Raulf leapt away from Marie’s extended arms
and shifted in mid-air, landing on the ground in front of her.
Marie was now face to face with a full-fanged, menacing alpha. His
canines were as long as the silver-coated dagger she'd grabbed off
the strap around her thighs. Good, thought Marie, I’ll be giving
you a taste of your own medicine.

'Conall', dead and bleeding, lay on the
ground by Anais’ feet. Anais wiped the splatters of blood from her
hands onto her pants, and prepared to help the others. Just as
quickly as he'd died, though, another 'Conall' materialized in
front of her. “What the fuck? Why won’t you just fucking die?”
Anais belted out in frustration.

“Now, now my love,” 'Conall' admonished, all
Irish charm. “Such language does not become you.” That just pissed
her off even more – Anais wanted to rip the wagging finger off the
fake fuck and stick it up his ass. No way would Conall ever
patronize her like that. Using her vamp-aided speed, she grabbed
her sword out of the dead 'Conall’s chest and swung it at the
other. “Just fucking die, already.” The other 'Conall' laughed at
her as his instantly manifested sword struck hers. Engaged in
battle, Anais focused on kicking some supernatural ass. The fucker
was hard to put down. For every blow she threw at him, he had a
defensive move.

Silver clashed against silver, legs moved,
bodies ducked, and fur flew, as the women battled things that
pretended to be their friends. The overgrown alley they’d arrived
in, had since turned into a supernatural battle field, sprayed with
blood, littered with rotting weeds and grass. Wild flowers that had
offered a burst of color to their dreary surroundings had since
been trampled or destroyed under the magickal trickery of the evil
the women fought against. The sounds accompanying the call of the
nocturnal birds and insects had given way to the grunt of shoves,
swipes, and stabs. It was incessant, continuous, and neither
indicative of victory nor defeat.

Realizing that this was getting them nowhere,
Anais feigned fatigue and deliberately slowed her movements. “Tired
love?” taunted fake-Conall. “I’d be happy to put you to rest.”

Biding her time, despite the urge to wipe the
leering cockiness from the bastard’s face, Anais ignored him and
continued the act of tiredness. She needed him to get cockier, to
slip up.

Next to them, Marie faced a pretense of the
man she thought of as a brother in all his magnificent ten foot
form of fangs and fur. The portrayal was accurate—the imposter had
matched 'Raulf’s’ fur to its unique baked-bread, brown tone, his
eyes to the warm chocolate she knew as well as anyone else’s. “You
know, cher,” Marie chided, “you didn’t quite get 'Raulf’s’ wolf
form right. You’re a little on the small side for an alpha.” Marie
tsked. “A bit lazy to do your research, were you?” That seemed to
piss the wolf-pretender off as he narrowed his eyes and launched at
her. Marie used an arm to block him off at the throat while his
enormous teeth snapped at her face. Any other creature, other than
a vampire, would have been wolf-bait by then.

“Ew,” Marie continued to taunt him, “not fond
of brushing your teeth, are you?”

The wolf continued to try and get an angle on
her, in order to rip her face off. Still mouthing off to him, she
used her other arm to grab the knife strapped to her hip, and
plunged it as hard and fast as she could, through fur, pelt, and
rib into his heart. He fell onto her, the hilt of the knife dug
into her breast. It was the blunt end of it, but it would bruise
like a bitch if she didn’t get him off her soon. Swearing, she took
a deep breath and threw the blood-matted furred fucker off her.

She went to help Anais, but Anais had swung
her sword at fake Conall’s neck and decapitated him, one sure way
to get rid of any supernatural being. “Go check on Rose and
Sophie,” Anais ordered. “I’ll help V.”

“No help needed,” V called out triumphantly,
standing over the body of a dead 'Sylvain', a silver dagger
protruding out of the chest, in the vicinity of his heart.

“Well then, ladies,” Anais said, well
satisfied, “let’s go check on the others.”

“You go check on the others,” V suggested.
“I’ll go have a look at that.” She nodded towards the portal that
still shimmered in the middle of the alley.

The sound of quick footsteps headed their
way, stopped them in their tracks. Braced for another fight, they
relaxed their grips on their weapons when Rose approached–a vibrant
mass of red hair flying as she ran, vamp fast.

“It’s not real,” Sophie sent a mental message
to them. “No,” she continued to explain in response to the sardonic
gazes they threw at her, “the fake guys are fake, too. They’re mind
tricks. The real supes are somewhere nearby watching us. This is
their game.”

“Prove you’re Sophie and Rose,” Anais
ordered.

Sophie nodded before she sent an array of
emotions and memories towards Anais. Anais glimpsed a part of
Sophie’s past – one that she’d rarely shared. Nodding in
acknowledgement, Anais shot Sophie a brief smile of relief, and
then faced Rose. Rose quirked a brow, and then made fire dance
around them all, illuminating them in perfect, concentric circles,
yet not touching them in the slightest, despite the intermittent
soars of the yellow flames. Rose then moved one hand over the
other, said a quick incantation under her breath, and produced a
perfect cocktail, or rather blood cocktail, in this instance. Rose
guarded her popular blood-cocktail mixes closely. The rest of them
sniffed and recognized the familiar odor of Rose’s legendary
‘vurricanes’ – a blood, hurricane cocktail mix. Despite the dreary
circumstances, Anais’ lips bowed, “good to know we’re together.
Sophie, are you still sensing the same emotions?”

Just as she asked that, the thud of multiple
feet hitting the ground had them all swirling around towards the
end of the alley with the portal uncomfortably behind them. They
were now faced with the entire bevy of girls they housed at their
school for witches and weres. Only these girls wore menacing grins
and carried a variety of weapons. It was a clever move by their
unknown enemies because it would be a psychological hardship to
have to kill the girls they’d saved and were protective of even if
they were fakes.

“Here we go again,” Marie muttered, rolling
her eyes. The ladies lined up, faced the images of their charges,
and prepared to battle, yet again.

Sophie had her emotional defenses down so she
could easily detect any feelings being omitted by the evil they
were fighting. It also meant that she was open to feeling anything
within her nearby environment, past or present. The sudden arrival
of the girls had caused a surge of trepidation within her sisters.
There was determination still to get rid of the evil once and for
all and irritation that it just wouldn’t let up. All of that had
her staggering out of the line they’d created to face their new
opponents and hitting the wall of the nearby building. Anais
flicked her eyes to Sophie out of concern. Sophie waved her away.
“It’s alright. I just need a moment.” Sophie detected Anais’ relief
and shift to determination as she again faced the approaching
girls. Knowing that she was close to her vampire sisters and that
her acutely sensitive hearing would pick up on an approaching
enemy, Sophie closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The act
offered no respite for her to gather herself as she was bombarded
by the emotions of their current enemy.

Sophie shot up from the wall. They were being
watched from close-by. Their unknown enemy was playing them like
plastic figurines in a little boy’s fort. “I can find the source,”
she sent out to her sisters.

“Then go,” Anais urged. “Take V with you.
We’ll hold them off.”

“No,” Sophie argued, “there are too many of
them. The source is singular. It is only one. I can feel it. I
think it confused me by adding feelings to its mind tricks. I’ll be
able to find it and end it. Don’t kill them off too quickly. Buy me
some time so that I can find it.” Anais nodded and stepped in front
of Sophie. The others were already engaged in fighting the teenage
girls. Sophie’s eyes widened despite the supernatural strength of
the Coffin Girls, the replicas of the young girls they were
fighting seemed to have assumed the girls’ powers, as well. Her
sisters were momentarily thrown off, complicating the battle by
giving the girls the upper-hand. They were used to thinking
protectively of the girls and it was easy to forget that they were
supes too with their own strengths and powers. Sophie thought
sardonically, that if they got out of this alive, they’d, at least,
never forget to underestimate their pupils again.

Forcing herself to block out the noise of the
ensuing fight, she focused inward, and picked out the thread of
emotion that seemed to be at the core of the surrounding chaos.
With a combination of enhanced sight and her empath abilities, she
followed the thread to the building she’d leaned against moments
ago, and up towards the fourth floor. She could make out the
silhouette of a motionless figure observing the fight scene below.
She also felt the prickle of eyes on her. Keeping her head low and
out of sight, she contemplated her next move. How the hell was she
to creep up on it without alerting it to her absence, from the
scene that it was surely watching?

“Fuck it!” Sophie thought. “I’ll put my big
girl thong on. I’m a frikkin’ vampire and a witch! I can move
faster than any other supe, so what’s a cowardly one that hides
away from the action to me? I’ll be destroying the fucker before it
knows what it hit it! “And, with that determination, Sophie glanced
up at the building, took a breath, and began scaling the wall.
Spotting the window nearest to where the bastard was watching them
from, she shook her head and decided against it. It’d expect
stealth and would meet her with more mind tricks. The way to get
this one was a head-on, surprise attack. So, she swung her boots at
the window. Glass shattered as she flew through it. It all happened
in nanoseconds. She had a moment to register that the supe was
tiny! Sophie, a petite blonde, towered over its hooded form as both
her feet were firmly planted on its chest. Weary of being mentally
manipulated, Sophie swiftly brought her sword down and decapitated
the creature. Once the head rolled away from her, she pulled in
oxygen with relief, and surveyed her surroundings. The space was
dark, desolate, and every surface was covered in grime, but
revealed no further threats. A frisson of a portal, the real one
the creature must have used, was fading as its body faded in death.
Sophie watched with perfect clarity as the head transformed from
that of a tiny man to a young woman, a beautiful woman with
features a bit too sharp, and a bit too ethereal. But it was her
aura that gave her away. A fae? Really?

She felt her sisters approaching. Turning
around to look at the rest of the Coffin Girls, she saw the shock
at the dead fae reflected on their faces. She also felt their pride
in her for stopping the creature, and Sophie lapped it up in quiet
satisfaction.