Three’s a Clan (Hart Clan Hybrids) Page 14

  My heart opened. My walls crumbled and I felt the mating pheromones take hold. I felt the warmth wrap around us. It was a cocoon of magic that was stronger than anything having to do with vampires or werewolves. They were mine, and I was theirs. It was always meant to be, and I didn’t want to fight it anymore.

  I felt the tears roll down the tip of my nose as I asked them both to, “Bite me.”

  Their pace stuttered, but they found it again quick. They didn’t ask if I was sure. They had to feel it as much as I did. Richard’s walls were as high as mine, but I saw inside his fortress in that moment when he kissed a tear from the tip of my nose.

  They spoke as one.

  “I claim you.”

  Then long canines sunk into both sides of my neck, and the most powerful orgasm in existence exploded inside me. The power burst out. I would never be whole again without them.

  I didn’t think I would ever want to be.

  There wasn’t a lot of talking as we walked the hundred or so feet back toward reality. I didn’t want to break the spell. My body was more alive than I could ever remember. The miasma hadn’t told me about the life cycle of a single tree since they claimed me. I wondered if I was just learning to control it. I wondered if mating marks were blooming on my neck. But mostly I wondered what the hell I was supposed to do now.

  The talisman Lily had split into two hung from Amber’s neck. The deep blue no longer held magic, but it held a story that Amber needed to keep. A bit of symbolism, and a bit of her mother, made that an heirloom that would never see an auction block.

  “Still not calling you Mom, Barbie, but I guess I could have a lot worse for an in-law. And to know this is what my mom wanted…well, it makes it easier.”

  Jake rubbed her shoulder, and she leaned into him.

  “What are you talking about?” Richard’s hand tensed in mine.

  Trevor’s hand eased from my grip as he went to face the man who, in a weird way, was just as much his mate as I was—just without the whole mansex part. Although that would be really hot to watch.

  “The pouches contained pieces of a talisman. You and I were the ones Lily had hoped would put it together. She wanted exactly what has happened to happen. She wanted us to find the love we were meant to have. It was her final wish.”

  Then no one was holding my hand. The connection we had dimmed. The miasma flared to life. I began to lay out plans for escape. It began to document my matemarks. I glanced at Amber’s neck, and Mary’s. I desperately wanted a mirror. Did my neck look like theirs? I could feel the marks. It was a warmth that danced over my skin. How could I be mated? I knew there were werewolves. I didn’t know that they could be mates. Or I should say the miasma didn’t know.

  The ripple inside my brain let me know that it was amassing more information. This thing was a pain. The way to dim the noise seemed to be the touch of my men. They didn’t look too happy to be my men right now. They looked like they did yesterday. Like they wanted to beat each other.

  “Don’t look like that. I am telling you, that Lily wanted what just happened to happen. She showed us a vision of what was going on while we were…wherever the hell we were.”

  “We were dream walking, Doc.” Amber turned to glare at Mary. “It’s not as unusual as you might think.”

  Yeah. Amber’s astral self was making some serious rounds lately. She looked annoyed but she still held her body steel rod straight. Only looking close did I notice the small details. Maybe the miasma was what noticed. Her eyes had a slight discoloration underneath that relayed a lack of restful sleep. Those same starburst orbs didn’t hold my line of sight or anyone else’s for longer than a moment. She looked away. She was more than a werewolf mate to an Alpha. She was more than a Matheo’s bride. She led the Clan.

  Who knew that we’d finally get a group of supernatural beings led by a woman. I couldn’t believe it was a smart-ass were turned hybrid to do it.

  Despite how it was wearing on her, I couldn’t think of another woman who would be better for the job. If she ever got a chance to handle her own dealings. We needed to get back on track. Harvesters. Murderous Matheo. Knocked up werewolves pregnant with hybrid babies. I was about to go over the plan again when the miasma started going nuts.

  The logistics of how we needed to move dropped into place. It became so obvious it was painful. The Matheo had to be taken down. He held leadership and power. The vampires in his Family were numerous. Not all of us lived in the mansion. Then there were his hybrids that were somewhere cloaked in some kind of magic.

  Matheo Meyers wanted to tear apart the only people I had seen as more than background noise in centuries. All of them were important. Amber was the leader. Mary was the visionary. Jake was the backbone. Craig was the one who would run the front lines. Even Trevor and Richard would be necessary to transition the world around here when it fell apart.

  There would be unknown numbers of hybrids that needed a place to land. Not every Pack or Family would welcome them. My men would. My men. I wanted both of them. They had so much to offer. I didn’t fit in anywhere in that picture other than a perceived threat to those we rescued. I couldn’t think about this much, or I might trigger some kind of knowledge in my father’s head.

  We had to go now. Not much time. We go in hot.

  “I know you’ve got the witch stashed somewhere.” I wrapped my arms around myself. I needed to rebuild some serious walls, but I needed to know Kari would be okay first. Mary thought she needed the chick to do her witchy thing. “Will she be all right if we go now?”

  Mary chewed her cheek while she considered.

  “My mom said she was giving Kari strength. And I told Steven and Matthew not to leave the cabin and to take care of her. I think this is the best possible time to go.” Amber pulled her shoulders back.

  A distraction. They were throwing together a plan. But the only people I wanted to fight for, that I would fight beside with more passion than I could ever remember feeling course through my body, were the ones I couldn’t keep.

  I had to leave them. Trevor was on one side of me. Richard on the other. They would work together when I was gone. They would be needed by all those hybrids. After this was over, I would leave. Then they would smile at each other again.

  The matemarks I could feel forming laughed at me from my neck. They knew I would never find this again, but what the Paulson leaders needed to do here was more important than my need to be loved. I began building walls around myself. My emotions needed to be locked away. I was mated. They needed to sever the ties. I had to start carving out that piece of me that loved and leave more room for the pain that would come out of this.

  My emotions had never come into consideration before. Time to put them back in that locked box where I would keep my love for my men. I wrapped the perfect joining we had in the woods up inside my soul. It would keep me warm during the nights when I let the cracks in my walls get the better of me.

  It was there again. The Matheo was summoning me. He was pissed. We couldn’t send messages, but I could sense his anger. Then the tie snapped. I was almost breathless at the release. He cut it. I was glad. I only wished it had been before he’d felt my intent. The plan was to kill him. Experiencing his death with him was not something I was keen on trying out, but I’d given him the heads up we were coming. “He knows,” I breathed.

  “He will be expecting us.” Jake’s voice was strong. “Me mostly. He knows that I will do what needs to be done for my mate.”

  “We go in aggressive.” Craig was determined. “We fight the front lines. He will have guards.”

  And as always, Alpha was leading. “The Pack will back us. I’ve already called them. Cell phones are so much more convenient than a howl sometimes.”

  “Lily’s gone. She was helping funnel energy through Kari. Kari was distributing it to the others. She’s been out of that hellhole for a while. Thos
e women need help.” Even Trevor could focus. “Hours. We only have hours.”

  I didn’t care who was talking. It didn’t matter. A big ol’ death bullseye was on my back as plainly as it was on the Hart Clan. I was officially a traitor. I would miss everyone when this was over. When the pain from that thought was secure behind my walls again, Jake’s voice was the one I focused on.

  “We are in agreement on a plan then?” He waited for everyone to nod before he continued. “I have to admit, I would rather be the one to take his life, but this makes more sense. He won’t see this coming. Amber, are you sure you won’t sit this one out? Our baby—”

  “Our baby needs to be born in a home. Not whatever van we are slumming across the country in. I have more motivation to stay alive than any of you.”

  The miasma played back the moment we all stood listening to the baby inside Amber. It was a sound that the man who raised me was trying to destroy. I felt the remnants of the circle I’d accidentally called. Mary and Amber were stuck with me too if I didn’t go. The magic was powerful. As I worked to disconnect, the animals in the woods quieted, the breeze slowed. Every branch on the trees seemed to freeze. This was important on a level so primal, we were influencing nature. But then again, that was what witches did, wasn’t it?

  Because as the house I grew up in loomed over the horizon and our group split into males and females, I realized that was exactly what I was. I was part witch. I was a hybrid too. So why was it my father had deemed Amber the only one who wasn’t acceptable? Seemed my father was dipping his stake in the heart of plenty of other magical creatures. My duality just didn’t come with a lot of extra body hair.

  Amber had come to our home seeking entrance into our Family, so this whole war was about more than her not wanting to join us. He objected. Why? Because she wasn’t his? Because she couldn’t be compelled? My father had been controlling us all for so long. Now he found someone who was different. Amber was a force of nature. Hell, she was the stars.

  We had already separated from the men and were working our way around to the gardens when the miasma put it all together.

  “He doesn’t want to bow to you.”

  “Barbie has lost it, Mary.” Amber gave me a punch to the arm and pushed by me. “Get your shit together. We have women inside that we have to keep from bleeding to death.”

  “No, it’s important. Listen.” I hauled them both back. I was so glad Mary had turned because I was not able to be human gentle right now. I was pissed. “He knows about the prophecy. He knows. I am obviously half witch, or I couldn’t have called the circle. He was once mated with a witch. He had to have heard about the prophecy. If not from her, it could have been any of the witches he harvested. One of the women he killed. If I knew that someone would overtake him and destroy him, I would spit it in his face when I was on my way out. Wouldn’t you?”

  Amber looked at me and then kept walking. “It doesn’t change what we are going to do. Why does it matter?”

  “No Amber, Shelly’s right. We can use this. He doesn’t know we understand his motive. It’s a way to catch him off balance. And I really would like to say a few things to him before he loses his head.” Mary looked pretty damn bloodthirsty. Mary had been robbed of her magical upbringing by a life in the social service system. Now that she found out her heritage, she was forced to learn from strangers. And no one was stranger than the chick she finally connected with. Then said chick gets stolen and was being used as an all you can eat buffet. Girl had a right to be pissed. I just hoped she kept her head-popping voodoo under control and aimed in the right direction.

  I doubted she had much practice since we were in Chicago. But if she did, I was bummed I would have missed it.

  “I may be new to this whole vampire world, but I am not an idiot. I figured this out already, Shelly.” She looked sad. “My father-in-law didn’t want me in the Family, because he couldn’t control me. Can’t be compelled and all that. Must be a product of witch blood in the hybrid mix, since we are all immune. Right?”

  The miasma grabbed that little nugget of information and scolded me for not realizing it first.

  “Then when I turned, Jake told me I opened my eyes for a moment while we were still at the apartment brawl that never was. He saw my eyes. Then I wasn’t just banned, I became hunted. All because of power. Power that I apparently am supposed to wield. The fact that I have to do it while my ankles are swelling just sucks.”

  “That’s why you have it.” The words were out of me before I could react to her frustration. I wasn’t arguing or trying to bolster her. I was just stating the facts. She looked at her feet. “Not because of your ankles, you moron. Your humility. That’s why you are the one to lead us. You don’t want power for the sake of having power. You don’t want to rule over people. You value life in all forms and you will take everyone into consideration. Not just your race. Races, as the case may be. Your strength, and power, and humility, those make not just a good person, but a leader. Jake couldn’t handle both sides of leadership without you. But there is a part of me that wonders if women were allowed to take leadership before now if you would have been able to handle it. Because where Jake fell apart, something tells me you would have held strong. It might have been hell, but I’d put money on you handling it.”

  Amber paused, but before the conversation could continue, it all began.

  Some days I spent every waking moment cursing the miasma that had melted into my skull. This was not one of those days. The logical thought process allowed me to take a step back and see what needed to be done. I wasn’t letting the emotional beating that would occur affect me.

  The sounds of wolf howls and bones snapping just on the other side of where I’d spent the last few decades were more facts falling into place. I could distinguish voices. I knew everyone was out of the house. Almost everyone. One guess who didn’t put himself out on the front lines. Dear old dad wasn’t one of the battle cries in the courtyard.

  I was no longer just aware of human and supernatural life around me. I could feel the gardens in a new way. I could feel the life from the flowers and the power of the magical plants that I just realized were planted around us for a reason. We had a garden that was full of power just waiting to be tapped. And there was no one in the house who knew how to use it.

  Under the house was a different story.

  Mary was leading us this time. And she took us to the place I’d only found after they had carved away the ivy surrounding it. The entrance to hell.

  Unfortunately, I could feel something else nagging at the edge of my consciousness. Another thread, another two threads, and I just couldn’t seem to shake them. I tried to build the wall higher. I tried to keep them away from my brain, away from my heart. All I succeeded in doing was tugging on those threads. My allies couldn’t be distracted right now. I had to stop this. So I opened my mouth and said the first distracting thing that came to me.

  “I wonder how their blood tastes.”

  Mary turned around from her spot in the lead and glared wooden stakes at me. Amber snorted.

  Mary came at me with just words instead of burrowing into my brain. “Are you planning on going into a lustful blood rage and killing everyone? Will you be able to control yourself? Because if you can’t, you need to get the fuck out of here.”

  If you asked me, our little witchy wolf was the one bordering on control’s edge. My miasma activated and started to bring up images again, but I wasn’t the one pulling up the files. I waved my hands around my head as I felt her remind me what she was capable of.

  “Mary, relax.” Amber stepped between us. “Stop the head stuff. If vampires turned crazy at the sight of blood, they wouldn’t have remained in secrecy for so long. Shelly is just trying to separate herself so she can leave with a clear conscience. She doesn’t understand the whole mating thing yet.” Amber barely glanced at me before she pushed open the door that
had been hidden behind ivy. “Shelly, they won’t chase you. But leaving would make you an idiot. I know that superbrain of yours makes you one of the smartest beings in existence. But don’t ignore your instinct to listen to your intelligence. None of this matters if we don’t do what needs to be done. So all the life-changing mate crap aside, can you pull the trigger?”

  She was asking if I could kill my father. I caught a harsh whiff of the stale blood and urine inside. I didn’t need to bow to any man, and I was damn sure going to help take out the one that did this. “Like I need a gun, but yeah…I can do this.”

  Then we were inside.

  The halls were wider than I expected. Easily wide enough for three larger than average bodies to walk side by side. I guess that meant it was wide enough for two larger beings to restrain another smaller being and wrestle her into this place. It reeked of blood. Urine and feces were a subtle fragrant backdrop. This was a place of pain and death. I was engulfed by the horrible smell, but that wasn’t what caused my knees to lock and the soles of my puma sneakers to melt to the floor. I felt the blood that I had consumed begin to light up.

  Electricity began to run through my veins. This had never happened before. The women down here were being used in our blood storage. As I got closer to them, my body felt like it was a disco ball in a gay bar.

  I had drunk from all of them. My body might have used the nourishment days, weeks, years ago, but something in me retained part of their memory inside. The miasma quieted and something far more primal began to take over.

  “I feel them.”

  Mary didn’t know how to take me, but she considered what I meant.

  “You drank from them.” She offered. “You are at least part witch. It could be parallel to a blood bond. I saw the coven do something similar when one of their sisters was about to go on a trip. It gives you a connection stronger than that which is normally bound in a circle. You can sense them from farther away. Maybe you being close to them is bringing about that connection. Can you tell how many are down here?”