eyes.
Finally he said, “Gotta at least tell Rift. Gwen will need to check you over.” Although they were all alphas, Rifter was their king, and they owed him that respect.
“I’m fine. Really. Cover for me, Vice. A couple of hours and then I’ll tell them. I want to shower. Clean the hell up.”
How could he turn Rogue down after what he’d been through? And of course, that was what Rogue was counting on. “Yeah, all right—coupla hours but that’s all. And don’t tell Rifter—no need for him to have my head again.”
“Deal.” Rogue hugged him again and man, it was good to have Jinx’s other half back. Although Vice hated to leave him, he did so out of respect, and closed the door and went downstairs.
He rounded the corner to the kitchen and found Rifter and Stray standing there.
“Hey,” Vice said in what he hoped was a normal voice. Then again, he’d never been normal, and Stray and Rifter had apparently been trying to fuck themselves to death with their mates, so the last thing they cared about was how Vice sounded. And by the looks on their faces, they weren’t angry at all. “I was just out running and —”
“Kate’s got the wolf—the glyph,” Stray interrupted him. “It’s my Brother Wolf—smaller, but it’s there.”
“So she’ll run with us under the blue moon,” Rifter said with a great deal of satisfaction. “It’s a good day.”
Indeed it was.
When the dust had settled and the Dire ghost army was put down, they had all been relieved. Leo Shimmin, newest head of the weretrappers, was taken down, and so was the biggest facility where the trappers experimented, along with the castle where Seb was kept.
Seb had disappeared. Vice had blown the place sky high and Jinx had done some binding spells with Kate’s help.
For now the trappers were in a state of disarray—in New York, at least. In other parts of the country they were gearing up, and that’s where Liam came in.
The young wolf was King of the Manhattan pack. After Linus, his father, had been killed by the trappers and the rogue Weres working for them, Liam had lain low and gained support. He’d taken Cyd and Cain as part of his pack, would take them to Manhattan with him. Those two Weres that Jinx had taken in as moon-crazed and newly shifted teenagers were a far cry from the twenty-one-year-old alpha and omega.
Liam would step up his game now, since the king of the Manhattan pack was also the king of all Weres. He would have to guide them through the upcoming assaults the trappers would no doubt try in order to get some power back.
“For the first time in a while, things are looking up,” Rifter said. “Once Rogue wakes up, we’ll have more reason to celebrate.”
Vice nodded with a smile as was expected of him, but his mind kept wandering back to the damned oak tree. When Eydis spoke to Stray days earlier, she told him that Kate could only mate with a Dire under one condition: A life for a life, and the Elders didn’t just forget about shit like that. Someone was going to pay—or else someone already had.
And now, the mating had been allowed. Vice thought about the tree and the life for a life thing and shook his head. No way.
Chapter 2
Jinx was on the highway going much faster than necessary when Vice rang him up and started talking as soon as Jinx answered.
“Listen, two things—Kate’s got Stray’s glyph on her back. And Rogue’s awake.”
Jinx gripped the wheel tightly at the last sentence and lost his breath for a moment, until Vice prodded, “Dude, you with me?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“He’s gonna be fucked up for a while. Just gotta deal with it,” Vice offered. “If I hadn’t seen him, he wouldn’t have called for me. He just wants a few hours.”
Jinx could understand that—really, he could. But his fucking twin . . . it was like not calling himself. “So, about Kate’s glyph . . .”
“Guess the Elders approved the mating.”
“When have the Elders helped us, besides Gwen?” Jinx demanded.
“Kate’s still here,” Vice pointed out.
“The Elders didn’t come down and allow it. It’s a trap.”
“But they didn’t stop it—and they gave her Stray’s wolf.”
“I don’t trust it. They screw us for centuries and now they’re nice to us?” Jinx shook his head. “Look, they were Dires just like us, with abilities and everything. You’d think that would make them less dick-like.”
“What do you want me to say? Most people in power are pricks.”
“Right. So the Elders can go fuck themselves.” And that’s why Jinx planned on handling the shit that had come out of purgatory that needed to be put down, since he’d been the one to open purgatory in the first place. That was his ability, the one he was born with—he could see ghosts. Rogue, his twin, could see spirits. But those stuck in purgatory were somewhere between the two—crossed over to a certain point, but not all the way there. Jinx would lead them back into hell. And if Rogue got off his ass and decided to help, that would be great too, but Jinx wasn’t holding his breath.
Vice changed the subject quickly. “Liam’s going to fight tonight. Twins too. You’ll be there?”
“I can’t. I’ve got to hunt. Business as usual.” Although it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
The Dire ghost army had actually been laid to rest because they’d been killed honorably in battle, so Jinx didn’t need to worry about sending them anywhere. They were finally at peace, even though they’d died at the hands of their sons. And the Dires took pride in the fact that they’d fought and won. They’d used their warrior ways.
But Jinx and Rifter were still at odds, meaning Jinx wasn’t invited back to the mansion to live. And that was fine by him. “Keep me updated.”
“Will do. You know where to find us if you change your mind.”
Jinx hung up and glanced at the vampire sitting next to him in the truck, the one he currently shared the penthouse with in a Dire-owned apartment building because neither supernatural being would give an inch.
“Shouldn’t you go with Vice?” Jez asked.
“He doesn’t need my help.”
“You can’t still be worried about this ‘Jinx is evil’ shit.”
“How do you know the evil from purgatory didn’t hang around me? Vice is really goddamned susceptible to being possessed without warning,” Jinx told him. “If he got too close to what we’re dealing with . . .”
“I get it,” Jez said. Jinx was pretty sure Vice did as well, but the wolf wasn’t any less pissed at him. “Rogue’s awake?”
“Awake and not wanting to see anyone for a couple of hours. Fucking diva,” Jinx muttered as they pulled up to the gated brick building after their four-hour drive and got a visitor’s pass for the car. “Let’s just do this job and I’ll deal with my twin later.”
When Marley, a human ghost hunter Jinx had met months earlier on another job, had called him last night and told him that she’d gone to the facility to find a ghost and ended up running from a monstrous being instead, Jinx knew right away what was hiding inside that building.
A psych facility was the perfect spot for a monster from purgatory to hide—and by monster, he knew it could be a lesser demon or something worse. If people paid more attention to those who claimed to see monsters instead of drugging them, the world would be a better place.
“Goddamned humans, always screwing themselves over,” he groused.
“Your human friend gave you the lead,” Jez reminded him.
