C3 Chapter 3

I don’t have time to react or respond before Zev the wolf ducks his head between my legs and hoists me onto his back. I clutch his fur, holding on for dear life as we bound into the woods.

“What about AJ?” I cry out, remembering that she was here before Darius and I had our alone time.

“She left before they arrived,” Rune answers, annoyingly light on the details as we charge further and further from the bar. I can see smoke billowing out of the windows, but no visible flame.

“Who are they?” It’s frustrating to have to ask this question, but I get that neither Rune nor Zev feels like talking right now.

“They’re fae,” Rune answers through pursed lips, clearly not happy with the acts of his kin.

As we near the woods’ edge, I roll off of Zev, my fall broken by a patch of leaves and snow. The werewolf and the fae have to stop and turn back to me.

“Bernie, we must hurry,” Rune pleads with me. “We’re outnumbered and can’t allow them near you or the child.”

“And I can’t survive more than half a day without Darius sucking my blood,” I fire back. “So we’re not going to just watch one of our own die before this stupid quest even starts.”

It’s weird saying one of our own, especially referring to this group that doesn’t have two members of the same species. But here we are, bound by incomprehensible trials and near-death experiences, and about to go through a few more. If Darius isn’t one of our own, who is?

Rune doesn’t move right away, weighing my words. Zev, however, morphs from wolf to human, transitioning Rain from his jaws to his arms as he rises. It shouldn’t be sexy, but so help me Jesus it is.

“She’s right,” Zev says, a few burn marks on his naked body. “We’re out and we’ve regrouped. On top of that, we’ve got a secret weapon.”

He looks me dead in the eye, and I understand what he’s asking. The trouble is, I have no idea how to do it.

“What should I do? I don’t have any control, I don’t know--”

He raises a hand to my lips, stopping my panic from escalating any further.

“I’ve seen what magic can do when your heart’s behind it,” Zev says. “Darius needs you. Let’s go.”

He puts an arm around me and we turn back toward Morgan’s, a knot forming in my stomach as I consider the task before me. I’m not ready for this. I can’t face off against a magical being, let alone match any power that’s too great for my three princes. This is too much. I’m about to turn back to Zev and Rune and tell them I need help, that I need Darius...

But that’s just it.

I need Darius.

And if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t just need him. I want him. I crave him. He may not know if he has a soul, but I know he does, and ours are inextricably bound. I will not leave him.

Darius.

The knot in my stomach doubles in size, but now it feels like a raging fire and not a fit of nerves.

An intense tingling spreads through my body, igniting every inch of my flesh and blood as it works toward my fingers. I have the same sensations I did the night I killed my mother--nothing makes sense, I know not what I do, but I’m acting on impulses that can’t be denied.

I feel Zev fall away from me as trails of white-hot light shoot out of my fingertips. An ear-piercing cry erupts from my lungs and through my mouth, a sound so loud and shrill I can’t believe it came from a human.

The light blasts into the bar, shaking the foundation and making me worry for a moment I’ve done more harm than good. I hold the scream and the magic outpouring as long as I can, until my head grows faint and my knees buckle beneath me. I hit the ground in a heap, spent from my unbridled outburst.

Zev and Rune are immediately beside me, each with a hand under my arms and helping me stand.

“Are you alright?” Rune asks.

I nod slowly, trying to control my breathing and settle my heart rate.

While the fae and the werewolf have their focus on me, my eyes catch some movement at the back door of the bar.

Through the smoke and ash, I see a sexy, disheveled, smoldering vampire walking my way.

Darius... I speak in my mind.

Thank you, he whispers back.

Zev catches my gaze and looks up. You’d have to be paying close attention to notice, but the slightest hint of a smile crosses his face.

“Look who’s still immortal,” the werewolf says.

Rune speaks a little less playfully. “The others?”

“Dead,” Darius responds. “They can swap bar stories with the ghost now.”

Rune breathes a sigh of relief. Whatever his feelings about Darius and his fellow fae, it’s clear he has no trouble choosing a side in this fight.

I look past the vampire and see that, somehow, my bar is still standing. Smoke drifts out of the windows, but it’s not billowing like before. Darius reads my face and addresses my obvious concern.

“Morgan’s is fine,” he says. “Your spell put out the fire... or rather, sent it after the fae. Once we clean out the bodies and replace a few floorboards, it will look just as it did.”

It feels silly to care so much about a building when death seems to be nipping at our heels, but Morgan’s is like a family member. It is a family member.

“Is it safe to stay here tonight?” I ask.

Darius shakes his head. “We need to leave immediately. There will be more attacks, and we’ve nowhere to hide in Rowley.” He looks at me lovingly with his dark eyes. “It’s not fair to ask you to save my life a third time.”

Compliments from such a powerful man carry a little extra weight, and I want to bask in this one for as long as I can.

Unfortunately, he’s right. We need to leave yesterday.

“Are we safe to go back inside?” I ask the group, thinking about all the baby gear I don’t currently have with me.

“Every second is precious,” Zev says, sniffing the passing breeze for signs of assassins. “But we can gather things before we set off.”

Without so much as a glance at any of us, Rune starts walking toward the bar. “I’ll clear the fallen,” he says, his voice ice cold. We all watch him go; Darius might have been closest to death, but these events have been just as traumatic for Rune.

“Okay,” I say, turning back to Zev, who’s holding Rain. I inch closer, peering at her small face, making sure she’s unharmed. Making sure not to touch her. “I need to grab my phone to text AJ and throw some stuff for Rain in her diaper bag, then we’ll head to the airport.”

We head out about 10 PM and the roads between Rowley and Boston are mostly empty. We’re in the airport parking lot in less than half an hour, giving us just enough time in the car for everyone to agree that the fae went after Darius first, and he’d be dead if not for my newfound powers.

After texting AJ a long, final plea to stay the hell away from Morgan’s, I get a chance to reflect on what happened. These magical bursts are still new to me; I’ve only focused on how to keep my powers from consuming me, not about what they can actually do. Tonight, for the first time, someone told me to use my magic... and I did.

It’s thrilling. And a little scary. Given I nearly ignited my daughter with those same powers.

As I get out of the car and grab the diaper bag, I look up and catch Darius’ eye. There’s a hard look to his gaze that softens when it lands on me, and I shiver with delight at the effect I have on the vampire, and the effect he has on me. It’s intoxicating.

“Bernie,” Rune says, breaking me out of my trance as he carries Rain in her car seat. “You’ll have to take the lead on this. I have no experience with your aero ports.”

Rune’s pronunciation of airports reminds me that while these guys might pass for normal humans, they actually hail from entirely different worlds. I’ll need to remember that as we embrace the exciting adventure of international travel together.

“Right. It’s easy, you just follow me and... “ I stop explaining when it dawns on me I haven’t thought any of this through. “Who here has money?”

Rune pulls a small bag of coins from his cloak. Zev just shrugs. Darius takes a long gold chain from his pocket, something I keep expecting to have a watch on the other end, but it doesn’t.

“Okay, put your non-money away,” I say, confident we won’t be able to pay for tickets in pure gold. “I’m going to use credit cards, probably five or six of them, so just don’t try to help.”

We cross the bridge from the parking structure to the terminals and walk through the sliding glass doors.

Heading toward the ticketing counter, I realize how little Earth stuff I’ve done with these three. I smile to myself, thinking there’s no place like an airport--or should I say aero port-- to show some paranormals a good time.

“Hi there, where are we going today?” a friendly young clerk asks as we approach.

“Um, Budapest. One way.” I almost laugh when I say the words, the absurdity of everything hitting me hard now that I’m out of my magical bar and in the real world. Just buying four one-way tickets to Budapest on a whim. No biggie.

“Alright,” the attendant says as he starts typing away. I steal a glance behind me, enjoying the sight of the Sexies trying to act normal and failing miserably. No one can look this good and hope to blend in.

“We’ve actually got seats on a flight leaving in just under an hour,” the clerk says. “Will that work or do you need more ti--”

“We’ll leave now,” Darius cuts in, unable to control his take-charge instincts.

No talking from you, I scold him in my thoughts.

“The soonest flight would be wonderful,” I say to the clerk with a smile.

Why is this taking so long? Darius asks my mind.

It’s been ten seconds, I think back.

Exactly.

God give me the patience to endure a twelve-hour flight with these men.

With our boarding passes in hand, we head from the ticketing area to the security checkpoint, and I’m overrun with fear about the photo ID situation. Do fae have driver’s licenses? I’m pretty sure werewolves don’t. Is Darius going to show a centuries-old birth certificate? Why the hell did I think we’d be able to board a flight?

Naturally, my worries subside as soon as we get to the front of the line and I hear Darius speak to the TSA agent.

“We are allowed to pass without showing you documentation. It’s of no concern to you and you’ll go about your business.”

With a blank look on her face, the middle-aged woman at her tiny kiosk just waves us through. TSA Pre-Check has nothing on vampire mind control.

Passing through security takes a little more finesse. I have to tell the Sexies to take their shoes off four times before they acquiesce, and Rune gets some very suspicious looks when he loudly asks how he could possibly hide a bomb in the sole of his boot. I’m seriously regretting not discussing airport etiquette on the drive over.

“What’s a belt?” I hear Zev ask the young female agent ushering travelers past the bag scanner.

“The hell you mean, ‘what’s a belt’?” she rightly fires back. “Put it through the loops, hold your damn pants up.”

Zev looks confused, maybe even a little angry. Like the woman is toying with him. “Then how does it come off?”

“He’s not from... here,” I interrupt from the next row, hoping I can end this conversation before the woman gets growled at. “Zev, you don’t have a belt, just walk through the thing!”

He might know a lot about earthly designs and have no trouble ripping through clothes, but now it’s clear that werewolves can’t handle belts.

“Just put it in the bin, sir.”

Another TSA agent sounding more perturbed than usual alerts me to Darius refusing to put down his coat. It looks like she got as far as making him take it off, but parting with it makes Darius a little too uncomfortable.

Darius, I say in my mind. How many knives are in your coat?

Why?

The response has me thinking the number is somewhere between four and ten.

Tell Rune to create an illusion, you can’t take those on the plane. My spoken thoughts are hasty, and I wonder if he can still hear them clearly.

Why can’t I take them on the--

“Just do it!” I say out loud, then immediately hold my phone up to my ear so it looks like I was yelling at someone on the phone. Sort of.

I look over in time to see Rune nod at Darius and then casually wave towards the conveyor belt. Once Darius’ jacket passes through without any alarms sounding, I go back to my shoes.

With the biggest hurdles cleared, I do take a modest amount of pleasure in watching each prince walk through the metal detector and then stand still while a tired old man with no patience for bullshit runs his wand over their pockets. Rune has to go through the X-ray thingy three times before finally getting his pockets completely empty. One of the agents is about to confiscate some of his small containers when Darius steps in and forcefully changes the man’s mind.

Shoes on and bags scanned, we head toward the boarding area.

“People live here?” Rune asks as we pass a couple of young travelers sleeping with their heads on their bags.

“No, probably just a long layover, waiting to board their next flight,” I say.

“Why did they fly to the wrong destination?” Zev asks, but we thankfully arrive at our gate before I’m forced to answer.

I have my three handsome companions go ahead of me, and I feel like a mother escorting her children onto a plane for the first time. I snicker at the thought of putting them all on little child leashes. What a sight that would be. All the adrenaline from blasting magic out of my fingertips an hour ago has been replaced by a dull sense of responsibility.

When we finally get to the jetway and head for the airplane doors, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ll be able to sit back and rest for at least a few hours.

Naturally, no sooner has that thought passed through my head than Rain starts to cry. Poor little girl. She should be asleep in her crib and instead I’m hauling her across the globe on a mission I don’t even understand.

The flight’s about three-quarters full, which is nice for us late arrivals. We can get our bags into overhead compartments and find our seats without stepping over too many people. We get a mix of looks from the other passengers; some are annoyed to see a baby joining them for a red eye, others can’t take their eyes off the strapping men moving down the aisle.

When we get to our seats, I sit between Rune and Darius, and Zev takes the row behind us, keeping Rain with him as he preps her bottle

Let me know when you need a release, Darius whispers into my head. Instantly I’m imagining my last near release in all its glorious detail, despite knowing the vampire is talking about taking some of my magic blood.

But he looks at me and smirks. Of either kind, he adds, clearly picking up on my thoughts.

Heat pools in my belly at the thought of what that might be like and, despite the circumstances, I feel a burning need filling me. One glance at Darius’ lap proves he feels it too. I smile. I will, thank you. Ever thought about joining the mile-high club?

The what?

Nevermind.

I turn my attention back to my baby, happily sucking down her bottle while a werewolf cuddles her. I hate that I can’t hold her, that the thought of cradling her in my arms fills me with fear. I try to push those feelings aside, finding a tiny bit of comfort in knowing how well my co-travelers will care for her while I try to fix my broken, magical self.

Without a baby to occupy my energy, my thoughts return to Darius, and how fun it would be to have a stealthy fling while we’re in the air. The plane is dark, passengers are mostly sleeping. We could slip into the lavatory and then he could slip into...

The direction of my thoughts become too distracting, and when Darius takes my hand, gripping it firmly, his eyes dilating with need, I realize I’ve gotten him all hot and bothered too. To redirect both of our minds, I turn to Rune, wanting to ask a question I didn’t get a chance to earlier.

“Why do you think the fae came after us first? I thought it was a council from all three realms.”

Rune doesn’t look at me right away, and it’s clear these thoughts were already swirling inside his head. Finally, he speaks, though he still does not look me in the eye.

“It suggests, to me, that there was never any intention to discuss or negotiate a safe passage for you and the child.”

“What do you mean?”

“A group of fae might be seen as a diplomatic envoy,” he explains, “as we’re largely viewed as the more trustworthy of the races. But those who attacked us went directly after Darius, not so much as speaking a word before blasting everyone with fire.”

There’s anger in his voice. Perhaps a sense of betrayal. It’s funny, because these princes who have bound themselves in the common interest of my protection, they are surely viewed as traitors by their kinfolk. And yet that seems to be exactly how Rune feels about the fae sent after us this evening.

“Why would they go after him and not all three of you?” I ask. “Or just come directly for the baby? Or me?”

“It’s a coordinated attack,” he answers matter-of-factly. “They intend to weaken us systematically until no one can protect Rain. Which is why...”

Rune looks worried, which makes me insanely nervous. He kept me calm when someone stole my baby in the middle of a storm, when things, at least to me, seemed much more dire than they are right now. Now he’s struggling to finish a sentence.

“Which is why, once you are settled, and protected, and in control of your powers... Zev, Darius and I must return to our realms.”

A tiny, shrinking sliver of myself has always known the day would come. Even as our bonds grew stronger and our love grew deeper, I knew my princes wouldn’t just keep tending bar in a small town in Massachusetts. Still, the fae’s words worm into the deepest part of my heart and plant a dark seed full of pain.

“But... I don’t know if I can do this, if I can do anything without you three,” I say, sounding exactly as needy as I feel.

Rune takes and gently kisses the top of my hand. “I don’t think any of us are prepared to go on with a life that doesn’t have you in it. Sadly, that’s the exact reason we need to return. To put an end to this madness and stop the senseless onslaught.”

“How would you do that? How could any of you get your kingdoms to stand down?”

He gives a thoughtful shrug. “We can’t say with any certainty. Zev might have the easiest route, with the way wolf kingdoms establish hierarchy. Darius would need to convince a council of ancients who have never changed their mind about anything. I’d have to prove to my mother that the child is nothing without her bond to you.” He looks at me, tenderness is his bright eyes. “None of it would be easy. Any success would be worth it.”

I glance at Darius, who’s mental presence caresses my worried mind. Do not fear. We are oath-bound to protect you always. And if we have to bring down our kingdom’s from within to do so, we will. But we will find our way back to you. I will find you always.

Tears burn my eyes and clog my throat, but I refuse to let them fall. Instead, I twist in my seat to face Zev, who has remained quiet during this. His path may be the simplest, but Rune hinted at something that sounded much harder.

With the werewolf, I say nothing. I just dive into his forest green eyes, getting lost in them until the bittersweet bliss of his presence eases my heart. And I know there will be an unquenchable hurt inside me every day that I am apart from these men.

He leans forward so that we are forehead to forehead. “This war must end. For everyone’s sake.” With his free hand he cups my face, pulling away to make eye contact with me. “But we won’t leave until you are safe.”

That actually brings me a perverse kind of comfort. Since I seem to never be safe anymore, the chances of them being allowed to leave are slim.

Still, I know they’re right. Eventually, they will have to face their families. I only wish I could protect them from the pain that will come.

As the plane starts to accelerate down the runway, I reach my hand into my pocket, gripping the fallen star tightly and sending some of my anxieties into its magical form. My nerves have nothing to do with flying and everything to do with where I’m flying to. What I’m flying to. And what I might lose when I finally gain what I’m so desperately seeking. Control.

I’m a witch.

I say that to myself probably twenty times each day, and every time it feels a little more real. Tonight it’s stronger than ever before. I’m ready to take these powers, and then I’m ready to take on whatever comes my way. But first, I really have to pee.

I wait for the plane to get some altitude and then stand. I feel Darius’ eyes on me as I scoot into the aisle, and I may or may not take a little extra time stepping over and straddling him as I go. It’s possible I push my breasts against his face briefly as well, but that’s only because the seating is so cramped.

In the row behind us, Zev has his eyes closed and is gripping the armrests fiercely, Rain strapped into her car seat next to him. I hope this is the last airplane experience we force on the poor wolf.

The bathrooms are empty since I’m technically still supposed to be seated, but that stuff is just a suggestion. I’ve been holding in a pee for the last five hours and don’t give a shit about turbulence right now.

I’m just finishing up my business when there’s a knock at the door. It’s pretty ridiculous, because I know there’s an empty bathroom a few feet away.

“Yeah, I’m in here,” I say.

Instead of a response, I see the small lock on the door start to slide from occupied to vacant. Not exactly what a girl wants to see when she’s plunked down on the toilet.

“Hey, I said I’m in--”

I know you are.

I stop talking and my fear turns to excitement as Darius speaks into my mind. I scoot my feet back to make room for the door to fold in, and he quietly and quickly steps inside the cramped stall.

My eyes trail down to see that his pants are already unbuttoned and he’s wasting no time pushing them down.

I stand, stepping out of my panties instead of pulling them back up, and bring his face to mine while his hand slides between my thighs.

I’d like to finish what we started, he says.

So would I, I answer.

Jesus Lord God, so would I.