13. Helene
Helene
My chest caves in like someone sent a molten boulder, curveball style, into my organs. Breath stalls somewhere beneath the cage of my sternum, and my hands curl, reaching for Audra’s cold one.
The dark haired man clutches her on his lap. Dusky olive skin stretches across a tight jaw and bone-white fangs. Without the reflection of the sunglasses, his eyes are the rich brown, almost black, of burned-out stars.
A high collar, leather coat, and combat boots make sense. The gold cufflinks from centuries past do not.
He’s sin in silk, and when he speaks, his voice thrums, resonant in my flesh.
Too bad the panic attack yanks the floor right out from under me. I’d be able to appreciate that voice more sans anxiety.
My hot stalker fed Audra blood to bring her back to life.
As if that isn’t crazy enough, mid-fucking battle, the other sexy guy I’d been making out with morphed into a giant raven and went for the monster’s eyes with his talons.
Like I wouldn’t notice.
Like it’s totally natural for A—a troll to stroll down Hemlock, B—a dude to walk around with an entire arsenal strapped to his body and then have the audacity to turn into a bird, and C—vampires to exist.
In no particular order.
A panic attack is a small thing in the face of everything in a life turned upside down. At least not all of it is trying to kill me.
Fear and discomfort aside.
Forest stares at the crumbling corpse of the troll changing to ash on the wind. The traffic pileup will result in some pissed off people but it worked in our favor. No one saw what I did.
What I felt like I had to do.
And Audra hasn’t moved. Her throat bobs, swallowing blood down, and finally, hot vamp pulls his wrist free. The wound seals itself and smooth tawny skin stretches without a scar.
“Come. Let’s get her inside.”
Move, bitch. I scramble to my feet, and the adrenaline I’d used during the fight leaks away, leaving aches and pains.
“The bookstore is ruined.”
The words slur together, and I bite down on them to hold them steady. Instead, they batter against my clenched teeth, my lips trembling. My life is unraveling, one significant place at a time.
The vampire gathers Audra to his chest, keeping her comfortable and cradled. “Breathe, Helene.”
“I’m breathing!”
I’m going to stab him with the dagger. Or anyone who makes the mistake of getting in my way. Against reason and logic.
“Don’t make me drag you.” He steps over glass, grinding it to sand beneath his boot.
When I glance behind me, the troll is not ash, but snow. A drift of pure white beauty poofs into the air and is carried away.
“What in the blue hell...” My remark fades.
“You shouldn’t have looked.”
The vampire is spiteful enough to shrivel my tongue, like it’s part of a game I didn’t know we started playing. His black eyes pool with hunger, and he drags his claws through his short dark hair.
His face is a harsh stone carving, and for a tense second I’m almost ready to run. Or fall.
When he speaks again, the anguish in his voice is a slash of pain. “She’ll live. Let her rest. She drank adequate blood to heal.”
“She won’t turn? Or I don’t know. Becomes some kind of Renfield?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“But she drank your blood,” I reply.
He sets Audra gently on a settee, a fainting couch Barnes uses more than customers. They browse and don’t want to stay. Audra is impossibly small on the curved seat.
“As long as she's able to get the sleep she needs, she’ll recuperate.” At my expression, he hurries to add, “The wound will heal, not her immune disease.”
I know not to let myself be devastated. There was never any cure for Audra. Why would this make any difference?
My lip trembles, and I reach for her, for him. My hand brushes his forearm. “Thank you.”
The man doesn’t hiss. Nothing as stereotypical. There’s only a forced exhale as he takes a step away. “Careful. Before you bring us both to ruin again.”
I can’t get my pulse to straighten.
I’m not the only one crushed; he just hides it better. His features tear me into pieces, and panic floods into the emptiness.
I can’t do this, Mom.
Something is happening to me. The steady boat of life, where I care for Audra, care for myself, care for this insulated life of ours, has a crack in the bedrock.
Fumbling backward, I thump my fist to my chest to get my heart started again because for some reason, it stuttered out. Not a skipped beat but a full on company halt.
How am I going to explain the store, or what’s left of it, to Barnes?
How am I going to fix the way the last two days have fried my brain?
Trolls, and vampires. Men changing into ravens.
I’d grabbed a weapon from Forest and run into danger instead of away, like I’ve been trained. You always run. Mom made sure we knew how to pack on a whim.
You never run into trouble.
It just always finds you anyway. That's why we were always prepared.
I make it to the threshold and the broken skeleton of the door and drop to my knees, breath shallow and an unnatural sweat plastered over my skin. Oh, shit. Fuck me. My chest squeezes.
People can die from panic attacks, can’t they? They might turn into full blown cardiac episodes. What’s going to happen to Audra if I’m gone? There won’t be any poofing into snow for me.
Strong, cold hands wrap around my neck and drag me backward until I'm half crouched, half upright. Glass scrapes my legs, my palms, and then Forest deposits me on my ass and pushes my head toward my stomach.
“Inhale, little shieldmaiden. You did a brave thing today.”
I clench the knives tight enough to brand myself with the designs on their handles. My fists plant on the floor but my lungs are three sizes smaller than they used to be.
“Says the man who turns into a fucking bird.”
Breathe? No. I’m barely existing.
“And if one more person tells me to breathe...” I manage.
Forest slowly pries the blades from between my fingers. “You won’t need these anymore.”
I might, though, if another fantastic creature shows up, and I know where to find them.
He drives his attention out the door with one ear trained outside. Cold air blusters around us, and his expression hints at a threat that is far from over.
I’m going to puke. I’ve lost control, all sense of it. I’m going crazy. Numbness tingles up from my feet to the sides of my neck and the tips of my ears.
How long do these things usually take before they subside?
Tires squeal from the road and something soft thuds from outside the store. “What the fuck? Why is there a fucking snowdrift in the middle of the street? You’ve got to be kidding me!” A man with the Boston accent punches out his vowels.
Do I take personal responsibility for the state of his front bumper? Or the rest of the vehicles piling up behind him.
The traffic has started moving again.
I groan, and Forest uses his hold on my neck to lift my head. Another squeeze brings me up to my feet.
“Let’s get you warm,” he offers. “You’re shaking.”
I’m freaking out, there’s a difference.
Impulsive behavior gets you hurt. Recklessness ruins lives, and I've never been this reckless before. Never so daring.
I'll never let anyone push you down again, kid. I promise. No more crying. Skinned knees heal. So do broken hearts.
My knuckles crack, and for an instant, the three soft lines on my wrist seem to pulse.
Is that why Mom insisted? Every time we settled, a new state, a new shithole apartment, we trained.
The familiar scent of the bookstore has been permeated with the distinctive metallic reek of cold. Or maybe I’m imagining phantom scents now, too. Those are linked to panic attacks or breaks from reality, I think.
This space is not mine. It’s been damaged.
And I should have paid more attention to her.
Or maybe I could have listened to her muttered rambles instead of brushing her off because I was too worried, too freaked, to give her my full focus.
And right in the middle of me trying to remember how to exist, a third set of footsteps thuds behind us.
“Ah. I've missed all the fun.”
That voice...
“Late again, as usual,” the hot vamp grinds out.
“I had other business. Unless you want to trade places?”
I crane my head toward the black-haired man from earlier. The lines of piercings along his ears glint in the flickering light from the chandelier valiantly struggling to maintain its connection to a power source.
And above the earrings, the tips of his ears are pointed. Pointed...how did I not see it before?
He catches my open-mouthed stare and winks. “Someone is in a mood,” he tells me in a conspiratorial whisper.
Forest hauls me into his arms and ignores my groan of protest. “You’ve missed everything. As usual."
“Bird brain remembers something?” He hikes a thumb at Forest. “I’m shooketh. So soon into the cycle, too.”
Hot vamp curls his claws into his palms, clenching and unclenching his fingers. Forest goes still behind me; he might have frozen.
“What did you say?” he mutters.
“I said, you know me. I’m a lover, not a fighter. I can’t spread my talents too thin. Besides, you had it handled.”
“You’re a master at running your mouth, Wren.” Hot vamp replies, nudging a maple wood credenza laden with mason jars of dried flowers with his boot. “Is that not enough?”
A tremor shakes me from chattering teeth to locked knees and Forest immediately rights me.
“My mouth is one of my greatest skills.” Another wink toward me. “You’ll remember.”
“Wait. Wait!” I slap against his hold, but I’m ineffective. The same way a gnat is ineffective when it crashes into a semi-truck barrel-assing along a highway. “You all know each other.”
It’s not a question.
“And by all means, make yourself at home, Nicholas.” The black haired man—Wren—chuckles. “You keep destroying furniture like you own the place. This is history.”
“History? This is trash salvaged from a streetcorner. There is only one thing of worth in this hovel.”
His gaze flicks to me and skitters past in the next beat.
“It figures. He has no appreciation for culture. I quite liked the credenza. Not garbage.” Wren glances at Forest and sniffs. “As if you would appreciate it, either.”
Forest keeps one hand on my bicep and rounds to the side. “I know you?”
Wren grins, showing lines of straight teeth with somehow more bite than a hungry piranha. “Right. They’re not all back yet. Poor baby.” He pats his pockets. “I know I have the note here somewhere? I’ll let you read it for yourself so we can spare the lengthy catch up.”
A throaty grunt sounds from the settee.
I jerk away from Forest, coming out of my skin. Audra hunches in on herself with a shiver.
Hot vamp, or Nicholas I guess, gathers her in his arms and is already striding toward the off-kilter door of the office at the rear of the building.
Tremors from the fight must have rattled the old foundation. Unsurprisingly, he balances Audra and wrenches it open with a squeal of protesting hinges.
Forest shakes his head and pulls me along with a grumble.
My tongue knots, working from one side of my mouth to the other. This is no coincidence. Somehow the oddity of the two attacks—monster attacks—coincide with these three strangers who aren’t strangers at all.
But why? How do I fit in?
And how do I get off the ride?
Nicholas has already made himself comfortable in the office. Barnes, rather than a typical rolling chair, prefers a wingback with a floral print like he channeled his inner Dame from Downton Abbey.
Nicholas kicks the chair aside to make more room and rests Audra on its sagging cushions. He shrugs out of his jacket, using it to prop behind her head.
The man has muscles to spare. Tall and angular, his arms bulge against his shirt and when he pushes up his sleeves—
Forearms shouldn’t be sexy.
Veins like his should definitely not be sexy.
“What a gentleman,” Wren purrs. He chuckles and leans into the door. “Even in the direst of times, that old school Cult charm is hard to resist.”
“Shut the hell up.” Nicholas grumbles darkly, shooting Wren a heavy look.
A confused Forest stays at my side, and I lean into his warmth like he’s the safest of the three. Which is not exactly valid considering we’re speckled in troll blood like confetti.
“You guys talk like you know each other,” I repeat. I push a hand against my throbbing temple. “Someone explain it to me.”
Wren sniffs, smiles, earrings glinting on his pointed ears. “We know you too, monster.”
“No, you don’t,” I reply. “I’ve never met you before in my life. But I know I’m stuck inside some True Blood bullshit, and one of you better start talking.”
Nicholas ignores me and pushes two fingers against the side of Audra’s neck. “Strong.”
“You had your doubts?” Wren crosses his arms.
“Double checking,” Nicholas clarifies.
He slides claws up to her chin, and I don’t think. I’m there in a heartbeat to slap the vampire’s hand away.
“Don’t,” I warn when he looks ready to argue. “Don’t touch her.”
His gaze goes thunderous. “I saved her life.”
Panic shifts to fury. The slow trickle becomes a stream and burns away everything else that has no place in this moment. The air in the room tightens. The heat thaws whatever chill was left over from the fight.
I stare Nicholas down with fists clenched and my arms vibrating. “Whoever you are, whoever all of you are, no more nicknames. No more talking in circles.”
Wren lifts his hands in a long fingered shield in front of his face.
“No more playing games. No more making out with me against the bookshelves.”
That one is for Forest. The others swivel to glare at him in a slow unified motion, and although he gives nothing away, something in his demeanor hardens. Not his eyes, though. Those are liquid.
“I want answers. I want them now.”
“Or else? Helene.” Wren is the master of the velvet talk.
It’s immediately clear. Fire is a turn on. The madder I get at him, well, the harder he’ll hit back with subtlety until I’m tangled.
I snort, staring at the ground. Whatever had happened in life to bring me here, there’s no way to sidestep it now. I’m here. This is happening.
You make the best of the bad things, dove. Mom’s voice is silken and soft in my head the way only a memory can accomplish. The only thing you can do to make it better is to keep your joy.
Where was hers in the end?
When I lift my gaze from the floor, all three men crowd closer. “Gentlemen, stop wasting my time. Talk.
Whatever else is going on, whatever else I know, I understand one simple fact—we’re running out of the stuff.
Every second counts.