A Cursed Embrace

Tahoe’s magic. The air stirred as if charged, blowing my long mane upward until it fell in a cascade of flowing locks against my shoulders. Flashes of blue light similar to fireflies appeared from the direction of the lake. They swirled as if following the coils of an elongated Slinky and ebbed into Misha’s chest. He shook his head, his jaw clenched. “I sense the dark ones. . . . However, what hovers is a different entity.”

Misha’s words verified what we already believed, the demon children and the creature who’d taken the couple were different beings. In a way that was a good thing. But still not knowing what “it” was made it difficult to hunt and ultimately destroy. Aric pulled me closer to him. It would have comforted me if it hadn’t been for the stiffness in his voice. “Is it a demon or not?”

Misha’s gray eyes clouded until a silver film encased his scleras. “Demon’s kin,” he whispered in a sinister voice that erased the traces of his Russian accent.

My husky voice cracked. “Misha?” Something stood in front of me. And it was no longer my guardian angel master vampire. Bren threw his bag of chips on the ground and roared along with Aric. My claws and my fangs shot out, and every nerve in my body shrieked a warning. Misha stumbled forward, grimacing as if in pain before his knees gave out.

Instincts had me reaching for Misha. Aric yanked me behind him at almost the same moment the good Catholics surrounded their master.

“Soon,” an inhuman voice whispered in my ear.

My head jerked in all directions, searching for who’d spoken. I’m not sure what my expression held, but it was one that whitened Danny’s face and made him fall backward. Poor guy, I’d forgotten he’d hid behind me. I hauled him upright as I scanned the area. No one appeared, and my tigress couldn’t sense anything— anything. When I looked to the others, all sights were locked on Misha.

Agnes Concepcion bared her fangs. “What did you do to our master, mutt?”

Aric’s keen sight swept from the schoolgirls to Misha. “Nothing,” he answered. The absence of the evil kept his deep tenor voice casual. “If I had, he’d be bleeding and missing a head.”

Misha righted himself, pride forcing him to tear from his family’s hold. They fell to their knees, heads bowed. His irises had resumed their normal cold gray tone, but his anger blistered worse than when he’d seen me holding Aric. “Did you hear that?” he asked me.

I nodded slowly, fear and hatred causing my bones to stiffen. That voice sounded neither human nor animal, more otherwordly—deep and distorted as if the one who spoke gargled shards of glass. “It said, ‘Soon.’”

Aric whirled me around to face him, his anger suddenly returning. “What did?”

“I don’t know.” I let out a long breath, still shaken. “I guess whatever inhabited Misha.”

Aric’s phone rang, and rang. He didn’t release me until the second set of rings. He watched me as he reached in his pocket for his phone. “It’s Aric.”

Someone, raging with fury, bellowed on the other end, “You fought demon children, and yet you failed to report the matter directly to your Elders!”

Aric stormed toward the driveway, meeting his caller with equal fury. “Gemini is my Beta. As his Alpha I put him in charge of reporting off to you—”

“Is it because you’re with her? Is she with you?”

Aric’s spine stiffened so hard I feared it would snap. “Celia is none of your damn business, Anara.”

Apparently this Anara guy thought I very much was. He growled something on the other end. I didn’t understand it, but Bren did. “Asshole,” he muttered, coming to stand by me.

“Don’t you ever talk about her like that again!” Aric hollered. The cold menace Aric expelled made me shiver. Had he just threatened his Elder because of me? He disconnected, panting so hard I feared his wolf would unleash and take his rage out on the vampires. I rushed to him only to have Misha block my path.

“Forget the wolves, Celia, and heed my warning. Whatever this creature is, it now recognizes who you are. I heard him speak to you. He wants you, and he will come for you.”

CHAPTER 8

Aric and I spread out on the couch, his arm draped around me holding me close. Danny sat on the floor, carefully turning the pages of a leather-bound text two days shy of completely disintegrating. Bren lay back in our recliner sipping a beer and watching, of all things, the Angels play. Irony never seemed to be lost in the Wird household.

Vampires, furious Elders, and demonic possession had a funny way of interrupting dinner plans. Aric and I never made it out. Instead we waited for the others to return and collectively devoured all the leftover lasagna, fried chicken, and pot roast. Taking on evil worked up quite the appetite.

My sisters huddled out on the deck with their wolves, speaking in hushed voices and drinking hot chocolate. Their conversation lacked the usual lighthearted humor and laughter. And while the wolves hadn’t commented directly, I had the impression their link to Aric alerted them of the unrest within their pack.

I cuddled closer against Aric. He hadn’t discussed his Elder’s call with me, but I guess he didn’t have to. Anara didn’t want Aric with me. And that’s all there was to it. Whether Aric would defy his pack remained to be seen. For the moment, I thanked God for his company and the comforting warmth that accompanied our closeness.

Bren took a long swill of his beer. He seemed engrossed in the game, but I knew better. Sports always brought the crazed fan lurking beside his wolf. If he wasn’t commenting, screaming at our tiny TV, or accusing the umpire of being a shithead, his head wasn’t in the game.

The others had ventured outside shortly after cleanup. After my demon child encounter, I craved the warm glow and security of the house. Aric stayed with me, but neither of us had spoken much.

“Bren and Danny have a key to your place?” Aric asked, breaking the silence.

The question caught me off guard. And at first I meant to respond with an “Of course. Why wouldn’t they?” except the subtle bitter scent of jealousy that wafted into my nose null-and-voided my response. “Aric . . .”

Bren turned his head, his scruffy brown beard brightening his jovial grin. “Celia and I are very close.” He danced his brows. “Very close—shit!”

The plastic tumbler I nailed him with bounced off his head and rolled across our dark wooden floors. He was lucky I’d finished my water. “Stop trying to cause trouble.” I rubbed my forehead when I caught a whiff of Aric’s rising jealousy. “Danny and Bren are our very dear friends. Danny keeps a copy of the key.” My eyes narrowed at Bren. “Otherwise Bren would eat all our food.”

“Hey, that just happened one time. Besides, you needed to go grocery shopping.”

Bren knew two ways to deal with stress. Either kill whatever bugged him or have fun at someone else’s expense. Bren, by far, was the annoying big brother we never had. But we loved him despite his faults and he loved us right back.

Aric’s frigid glare in Bren’s direction told me he suspected Bren and I had shared more than friendship. In all actuality, it was Danny and me who had once been involved. He was the first and only male I’d had sex with. Granted, we were seventeen, and neither of us knew what we were doing. But his caring nature and his kind soul kept our friendship going long after the physical intimacy ended.

Danny glanced up from the frail and stained pages. His black frames slid down his nose, and his unruly curly hair stuck out in too many directions to count. “Um, Shayna called us after you and Aric left them. She thought maybe I could dig something up in one of my texts, so I came right over.” He pushed his glasses up, but they slipped back down anyway. “Misha and his family arrived shortly after us, looking for you, Celia. He said he could feel your unrest, but didn’t say much more. I didn’t know much, either, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have told him —you know, unless he used hypnosis or torture or something.”

I wouldn’t have put it past Misha to use his vamp mojo to extract information. He wouldn’t, however, hurt Danny. No decent soul would. Torturing Danny was the equivalent of snapping a kitten’s neck. As it was, his stick- thin limbs barely held the oversize book. And yet despite what I believed about Misha, Aric thought the exact opposite, and always would. “I wouldn’t let that prick hurt you, Dan,” Aric assured him.