8. Carissa
CHAPTER EIGHT
CARISSA
T he street party’s music followed me into Spines & Spirits, muffled but still audible through the old walls. I ran my fingers along a shelf as I walked, overwhelmed by the support Torain had rallied. No more faceless corporate vendors or distant suppliers. These were people who knew the store and cared about its survival.
People who remembered little Carrie Morton, and were willing to lend a helping hand.
I shook my head, smiling. For once, the nickname didn’t sting. Maybe because Torain had orchestrated all this while respecting my preference for Carissa.
My throat tightened. How many times had I heard “I’ll see what I can do” or “We’ll figure something out” over the years? Pretty words that dissolved into disappointment. But Torain... he just showed up. Day after day. Solution after solution. Just steady reliability when I needed it most.
Movement caught my eye. A shadow passing across the upstairs windows.
I frowned. Everyone should be at the party. Even Molly had thrown herself into helping, though I suspected that had more to do with eyefucking Vanin than actual dedication to saving the store.
The office door stood open when I reached the top of the stairs. Papers littered Mags’s desk, drawers hanging open like hungry mouths. My heart rate kicked up. Someone had been searching for something.
“Hello?” I stepped closer, cataloging the mess. “Is someone?—”
Tate sat up from behind the desk.
I stumbled back, but two massive forms blocked the doorway. Fae males, by the look of their ears. Their clouded eyes were strangely unfocused and fixed on some middle distance.
“Miss Morton!” Tate’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Perfect timing. I was hoping we could have a drink. Business owner to business owner.”
A hand clamped around my upper arm. One of the fae shoved me forward, forcing me into the visitor’s chair. I struggled, but his grip was iron.
“Now, now.” Tate tsked. “Let’s be civilized about this. I’ve been working too long to let you ruin everything.”
“Working on what?” I demanded, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “Breaking and entering?”
He laughed, the sound like oil sliding across water. “Oh, this?” He gestured to the ransacked office. “Just making sure your dear aunt didn’t leave any... inconvenient paperwork lying around. She had such a bad habit of that near the end.”
The way he said it made my skin crawl. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing she didn’t agree to.” He pulled a crystal decanter from Mags’s bottom drawer. “We shared many pleasant evenings discussing the future of this property. My special vintage was quite persuasive.”
The fae’s clouded eyes caught my attention again. Empty. Vacant. Like they weren’t quite there.
Cold realization hit. “You drugged her.” The words tasted like ash. “Was she the only one? Or have you been drugging everyone ‘sharing a drink’ with you?”
“Such an ugly word.” Tate poured amber liquid into two glasses. “I prefer to think of it as encouraging cooperation. A little drink here, a signature there. Soon she was practically begging to switch vendors.” His smile turned cruel. “The preliminary sale contract was just the beginning.”
One of the fae males shifted restlessly by the door. My muscles tensed as I tracked his movement. If I could just?—
“Everything was proceeding perfectly.” Tate continued, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Then that idiot mayor’s office denied my permits. Something about insufficient parking for luxury condos.” He sneered. “So I decided to take the whole block.”
The casual way he spoke about destroying people’s livelihoods made my stomach turn. But worse was the hard glint in his eyes as he continued.
“Though I must admit, your aunt proved... surprisingly resistant near the end. Started talking about changing her will, leaving everything to her dear niece.” He sighed theatrically. “Tragic how stress can affect the elderly heart, isn’t it?”
The pieces clicked into horrible place. The switched vendors and Mags’s erratic behavior.
My aunt hadn’t died of natural causes. She’d been murdered. By this monster sitting across from me, watching my reaction with predatory satisfaction.
Rage burned through my veins, but I forced it down. I couldn’t let him see how badly his revelation had shaken me. Not when I needed every advantage to get out of here alive.
The heavy ledger sat on the corner of the desk. One good swing…
“Then you showed up.” Tate raised his glass in a mock toast. “The prodigal niece, come to ruin all my careful planning. Tell me, does your orc know what you really came here to do? That you planned to sell and run back to Seattle?”
“You’re insane.” I kept my voice steady, buying time as the remaining fae guard shifted his weight. “The police?—”
“Will what? Believe the outsider over a respected local businessman?” Tate chuckled. “Especially once you sign everything over. Which you will.”
The guard near the door swayed slightly. Now.
I snatched the ledger and hurled it at his head. He stumbled, caught off guard by the projectile. I bolted past him, nearly falling as I rounded the corner and raced for the stairs.
“Get her!” Tate’s roar followed me through the shelves.
I sprinted past History, past Biography, past rows of books I’d helped Mags organize that long-ago summer.
Heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs behind me. Closer. Ever closer.
My lungs burned as I neared the front door. The party’s music grew louder. If I could just make it outside?—
A foot caught my ankle. I crashed down, skull cracking against the ground. The world spun sickeningly as I was hauled upright.
“Now that,” Tate’s voice dripped with venom, “was extremely stupid.”
Blood trickled down my temple. I struggled weakly against the fae’s grip, but spots danced across my vision.
“I really hoped we would do this the hard way.” Tate pulled a flask from his jacket. The metal caught the dim light, gleaming like scales. “Thank you for obliging.”
My vision swam, but something seemed wrong with his face. His pupils... were they narrowing to slits? No. Had to be the concussion playing tricks.
“Torain will know something is wrong,” I managed.
“Oh, I’m counting on that brute charging in without a thought in his thick skull.” Tate’s smile stretched too wide as he unscrewed the cap. “And when he does...” Tate patted one of the fae’s massive biceps. “Well, let’s just say the town won’t look kindly on a monster attacking a respected businessman.”
Horror dawned as his plan clicked into place. “You’re going to kill him.”
“Eventually.” Tate grabbed my jaw, fingers digging into my cheeks. “But first, you’re going to sign everything over to me. Then you’ll tell everyone how the big, bad orc scared you into selling. How he threatened you. Attacked me when I tried to help.”
The flask moved toward my face.
Time slowed to a crawl as adrenaline flooded my system. I slammed my elbow into the fae guard’s sternum. His grip loosened just enough. I twisted free and bolted for the door, my heels clicking against hardwood as I ran.
The late afternoon sun blinded me as I burst through the door. My heart hammered against my ribs, vision still swimming from the blow to my head. Blood trickled down my temple as I stumbled into the crowded street.
“Someone grab that woman!” Tate’s voice carried over the crowd. “She’s stealing valuable documents!”
I tried to scream, to warn everyone, but my voice caught in my throat. The world whipped around as one of the fae guards grabbed my arm and dragged me to a halt.
Then a massive green blur slammed into him.
Torain.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh rang out as his fist connected with the fae’s jaw. The guard’s clouded eyes cleared for an instant before rolling back in his head.
The second guard lunged, but Torain was ready. He caught the fae’s wild swing and used the momentum to throw him into a vendor’s table. Glass shattered. Someone screamed.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Beverly demanded, stepping forward.
“Stay back!” I gasped out. “Tate, he—he killed Mags!”
The words hit like a bomb. The festive atmosphere evaporated as heads turned toward Tate. His perfect businessman facade cracked, rage twisting his features into something inhuman.
Because it was inhuman.
Scales rippled across his skin like oil on water. His expensive suit split at the seams as his body elongated, stretching and twisting until a massive serpentine body towered over the fleeing crowd.
Holy shit. The town’s biggest snake was literally a snake.
Tate’s serpentine body coiled, muscles bunching. His jaws unhinged, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth dripping with venom. I stumbled back, but my legs wouldn’t work right.
He struck like lightning.
But Torain was faster.
He caught Tate’s tail just before those jaws could close around me. With a roar that shook the windows, Torain yanked . Tate’s strike went wide, his huge head crashing through the bookstore’s front window instead of into me.
Glass rained down as the two clashed and grappled. Torain’s muscles strained as he tried to keep his grip on the thrashing serpent. But Tate was pure muscle, writhing and twisting with unnatural speed. His coils wrapped around my mate’s chest, squeezing. Torain’s face turned red as those massive loops tightened.
No. No no no. I couldn’t lose him. Not when I’d just found him.
“Hey!” The word tore from my throat before I could think better of it. “It’s me you want, not him!”
Tate’s massive head whipped toward me, jaws still dripping venom. His coils loosened just enough for Torain to drag in a ragged breath, and oh, fuck.
I scrambled backward, my heels catching on broken glass and splintered wood. The serpentine body unspooled from around my mate, moving faster than anything that size had any right to move.
My hip slammed into Chelle’s overturned booth. Her protective book covers lay scattered across the ground among tarot cards and crystals. My fingers closed around leather as Tate’s shadow fell over me, his head rearing back for the strike.
I threw my arms up, the book cover clutched between me and certain death.
Light exploded outward. The leather jerked in my grip like something alive. Where Tate’s massive form had loomed, now only empty air remained.
The cover thrashed in my hands. A muffled, inhuman shriek echoed from within.
I dropped the book as disgust and fear drove ten thousand trucks down my spine. It jerked and writhed as something inside fought to escape.
I brought my heel down on the cover. Again. And again.
The writhing finally stopped.
“What is going on here?”
Mayor Grace Weatherby’s voice cut through the chaos. She stood at the edge of the crowd, face pale as she took in the destruction. The shattered glass and overturned booths. Unconscious fae. The blood on my temple.
I met her eyes, still breathing hard. “Tate Gerrard has been drugging people to steal their property. Including my aunt.” The words burned in my throat. “He killed her when she tried to resist.”
Grace’s face drained of color. Her hand flew to her throat. “The bottle he sent for Christmas. He said it was a very fine vintage...”
“Yeah,” Torain grunted as he stepped beside me. “Might want to pour that one down the drain.”
I spun around, heart in my throat. Relief swelled through me as I saw Torain standing tall and whole. Bruises blossomed along his exposed forearms and dark stains marred his clothes, but he’d survived.
We’d survived.
I flung my arms around his neck, clinging tightly as the weight of everything settled heavily around me.
“Sugar.” His fingers ghosted over the cut on my temple. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.” I pulled back enough to examine his injuries. “Are you okay? When he started squeezing?—”
“I’m fine.” He caught my hands, stilling their frantic movement. “Takes more than an oversized garden snake to keep me from my mate.”
His arms tightened around me as the block party descended into chaos and cleanup. Grace barked orders into her phone about securing the scene. Vanin grumbled about everyone needing a drink after all the excitement. Beverly’s voice rose above the din, directing people to right overturned tables and bring brooms for the glass.
But all I could focus on was Torain’s heartbeat under my ear. Strong. Steady. Here.