Chapter 14
I’d told someone a secret of mine that I had never told another soul.
That someone—was Harkin. My blood simmered.
I trusted him with it. That could be the most jarring of all.
If I were being honest with myself, I might have trusted him with it a long time ago, but never had the chance to say anything.
It was almost as much of a solace to get it off my shoulders as it was discerning.
I was a shifter. Not any longer. I’d accepted my vampirism and owned it to the best of my ability.
Stewing on how much I missed being able to shift would only tug on my fangs. Something no longer possible.
Harkin summoned Phelan and the lady wolf he called Kaida. Mounted on three steel horses, we trekked to a log cabin. I drank both blood bags on the way there, my fangs stinging into my gums. We followed Harkin like three lethal shadows.
He paused at the entrance, turning to face us. “Phelan, Kaida, I’ll keep an eye on her at all times, but I am countin’ on you two to stay by her side. If one of you has to take a piss, the other one stays put until the other’s back. Understood?”
Kaida, a female wolf with bone-straight, jet-black hair down to her hips and light purple eyes that reminded me of a phoenix, elbowed Phelan in the gut. “That’ll be you using the bathroom every twenty minutes.”
Phelan snarled and rubbed his side. “I have a condition.”
“Understood?” Harkin barked.
He wasn’t fucking around tonight.
“Yes, Alpha,” they said.
When Harkin’s steely gaze landed on me, softening, I almost melted into the deck. He grabbed my shoulder just as he’d done when I confessed to him. “It’ll only be about an hour.”
After that, we’ll finish that conversation. He didn’t have to say it.
“Go be alpha, Harkin. I’m a vampire, not tissue paper. Go.” I pointed at the door.
Phelan stepped beside me. “You two certainly look like you’re getting cozy.”
“Can it, Phelan, or I’ll beat the piss out of you.” Smirking at Harkin’s right-hand wolf, I proceeded inside.
Kaida cackled behind me. “Fangs or not, I like her.”
There was a long table raised on a platform at the front of the space with three older-looking men and one older woman. Four round tables were on the floor in front, Harkin sitting at one with the other wolf pack leader from Rusty Claw.
Kaida poked my elbow and gestured toward several empty wooden chairs in a back corner.
The frequent shoving into corners lately irritated me a bit.
A younger me, the version who’d accepted herself as a vampire, would have been the life of the party.
Corners were meant for recluses and those who wished to keep hidden. I demanded to be known.
Kaida propped her elbow on her knee and rested her chin on her fist, staring at me.
I gave her thirty seconds to ask me what she wanted to ask, and when she didn’t, I leaned forward. “Something on your mind?”
“Is it rude to ask a vampire when they were born?” Those amethyst eyes glistened with intrigue.
“That depends on which birth you mean.”
Kaida snorted. “Good point. Okay. When’d you get the fangs?”
My stomach gurgled. “Nineteen thirty-two.”
“Moons above,” Kaida yelled.
Harkin snapped a glare at her from the front table.
Kaida playfully put a shooshing finger over her lips.
I decided I liked Kaida. She and I were kindred spirits.
Moving closer to her, I pressed my forearms to my thighs. “Is it rude to ask you what I smell like?”
“Depends on which scent you mean.” Kaida grinned wickedly, sticking her tongue out between her pearly-white teeth.
“Good one.” With my hands hanging between my legs, I rubbed my fingertips together. “You don’t feel a compulsion to lick me or something, do you?”
The question sounded even more stupid out loud. Good gods.
Kaida squinted one eye before sticking out her bottom lip. “Sorry, I prefer blondes. Don’t get me wrong, though, you’re gorgeous, just not my pint of whiskey, understand?”
I really liked her.
“All the information I needed.” I sat back, turning my attention to Harkin. The back of his head was what I should’ve seen. Instead, he looked right at me. He grinned before turning back around.
“While we’re on that note,” Kaida continued. “I don’t have to worry about you getting the inexplicable urge to drink my blood, do I?”
I snickered. “That’s only baby vamps. I’ve quite mastered the art of controlling my urges.”
“All your urges?” Kaida flashed her canines as she tossed a glance at Harkin.
Heat thrummed through my blood. “Most of my urges.”
Kaida cackled.
Thirty minutes passed and the council was still “counciling”. Kaida had gone rather quiet, busying herself instead with a game on her phone. Phelan, on my right, sat with his hands fidgeting between his legs, his one knee bouncing so much it might have taken flight.
“Fuck,” Phelan blurted, pushing to his feet. “I gotta piss.” As he headed for the exit, he pointed a stern finger at Kaida. “Not a word, Kaida.”
Kaida kissed her hand and waved it at Phelan. “See how I got him to last another ten minutes out of spite?”
“Naughty.”
Kaida draped an arm over the chair’s back. “Eh, he’s like my little brother. We crack on each other a lot, but we’ve got the other’s back.”
“Is that the same for the entire pack?” I slipped my hands under my ass.
“You mean treating each other like family?”
I nodded.
Kaida blanched a bit as if blindsided by my question, as if this should have been common knowledge.
“Absolutely. Harkin is like a stern stepdad that, despite his tough love, never forgets to send you a birthday card with a little cash. Get what I mean? Not to mention how he goes out of his way when the pack’s funds are running low. ”
My gaze swung to Harkin. He stood addressing the council now, gesturing so much with his hands that it appeared he had no idea what to do with them.
No, I didn’t understand what she meant because I didn’t want Harkin to be my stepdad.
Though he’d make a pretty hot one. My thoughts trailed into what he’d look like with sprigs of grey in his hair and beard.
“How often do funds run low?” Concern wrinkled my brow.
Kaida hitched her boot to her seat, fiddling with the laces. “About this time every year, ever since we lost our contract with the mercenary guild.”
Huh. That was why Harkin took the maintenance job. To fund his pack.
“Gotta admit. This is weird,” Kaida said, drawing my attention back to her.
“What is?”
Kaida observed the tips of her hair as if she were checking for non-existent split ends. “A civil conversation with a vamp. I forgot you were one for a moment there.”
The animosity forged between vampires and wolves grew more archaic with each passing day.
“Until you get that whiff of iron?” I mused, grinning with a bit of fang.
Kaida tilted her head, her nose twitching as she unabashedly took in the air between us. “Yes, but not as much as a normal vamp. Your odor is distinct.”
Dryness coated my throat despite the two bags of blood I had.
I tugged my antler charm. I’d been around shifters my entire vampiric life.
Despite what my previous species was, they never claimed I smelled any different until recently.
Now they were trying to lick and bite me? What the fuck was going on?
“Aurora, move,” Kaida shouted, extending her claws.
As I tracked her gaze, I ducked and flash-sped forward.
A male wolf had been seconds away from trying to bite me, his canines bared.
Kaida punched him in the throat, sending him toppling to his knees, gagging and grabbing his neck.
Another lunged from my left. I picked up my chair and hurled it at him, unsheathing my fangs.
The council members furiously stood at the table, pointing and shouting. Harkin already prowled toward me.
“What is the meaning of this?” A male councilman shouted, beating a gavel.
He and I had the same question.
They kept coming one after another. I flash-sped from one, slammed my boot into another, leaned my neck away from one that’d gotten way too close.
Their eyes when they’d come for me were all dilated pupils and very little wolf.
Harkin threw wolves left to right like they were sacks of grain.
The shifters were fast, but young, and I out-sped them.
“Alpha, get her out of here.” Kaida cracked her knuckles. “I got these assholes.”
Note to self: send Kaida a beef jerky basket.
“I demand order at once,” Mr. Gavel said, trying to diffuse the chaos.
Good luck, buddy.
Harkin stalked toward me, pointing at the exit. I shook my head, grabbing a shifter by the jacket who lunged from my right and tossing him to the other side of the room.
“What are you doing?” He asked, a snarl in his tone.
“Before we leave, why don’t we grab one of these guys? Interrogate him somewhere?” I flashed closer to Harkin, resting a hand on his forearm.
Harkin’s eyes glinted, staring for a beat where we touched. “These aren’t members of my pack.”
Kaida, soon followed by Phelan once he returned from another trip to the little pup’s room, was fending off people around us.
“So what? You got agreements from the pack leaders. It’s not like we’re going to torture them.”
Harkin ran a hand through his hair. “It isn’t as if they’re just going to talk.”
I pulled him closer. “So, you rough them up a little. That isn’t torture. It’s pack business.
Harkin’s ears perked up, his eyes flashing with his wolf’s glow. It was an admiring stare that had me preening on the inside.
“I promise I’ll keep my fangs sheathed and my mouth shut. Let you handle it,” I added.
Harkin’s gaze narrowed. “You be quiet? Why don’t I believe you?”
Biting back a smile, I gave a firm nod. “I promise I’ll try to keep quiet.”
Harkin smirked. “Fine.” He thrust his arm out to his side, a male shifter colliding into it with his throat. Harkin hoisted him up by the back of his jacket and shoved him toward the door.
“Harkin, I have not adjourned this meeting,” the gavel man yelled, still beating it against the table.