Kalina ~ Book Four

Not another word escaped Sylvie and Frasers parted lips as her mates pulled up at the steps and climbed out, all trying not to stare too hard at her.

Rosie, Seone, Ren and his mate, a gorgeous, curvy brunette with kind blue eyes, clambered past Sylvie and towards the second car. By the looks on Seone’s face, she didn’t find her mate, and Sylvie frowned. She’d have to do something to find them. It was so unfair.

“Next time we return, we’ll have something for you,” Rowan told Fraser. “An artefact for your turned shifters.”

Fraser cleared his throat, keeping his expression neutral and gaze far away from Sylvie. “It’s real then.”

“As real as Vampires.”

“So that’s the price?”

“If it comes to that?”

Sylvie blinked. The conversation suddenly became undecipherable. What about Vampires? Was that what Elias and Rowan were talking about all the time? She cut her gaze to Elias, and he inclined his head slightly, nodding.

“Kalina. Get in the car. We’re going home.”

A ‘but’ sat on the edge of her lip, but she thought better of it, not sparing Fraser a glance before dashing over to Elias’ car and climbing in the back seat. Rowan said a few more words to Fraser as she studied her fingernails and focused on calming her irregular heart.

What exactly did he ‘get’?

Now, she wouldn’t have a chance to ask, at least not until the next time. If there was a next time. He must have realised she was more than Fae, her vampire compulsion obvious. She didn’t know why she used it and stepped in on his behalf the way she did. He could handle himself, but something switched in her from the officer’s words.

A raging, primal fury.

There was a hidden message beneath those words, and Sylvie wanted to find out what. In any case, he had lost someone, and it was a pain she knew well. Natalie. Elias. It was a grief she would never wish on anyone. His underlying sadness made sense now, and Sylvie ached.

Her mates climbed in the car, keeping quiet as Elias drove them out of pack territory. Kian rested in the back seat with his thin lids closed beside her, and she swallowed her fear. He was overdoing it with the wards, even with the extra power from Elias.

“What happened, Sylvie?” Rowan asked the second they left the border gates.

“Some cop showed up, said some fucked shit, so I compelled him.”

“So Fraser knows what you are now?”

“What- yes, but not who. I have a feeling he doesn’t know that much about supernatural lore.”

“Why’s that?” Elias asked.

“He called me a fairy.”

Kian chuckled and rubbed his cheek. “I think you’re right, princess.”

“I always am,” she said with a smile. Fairy was something of an insult. A human creation that was interchangeable with the more appropriate Fae or, even better, Seelie, Dryad, Ice Sprite, Sunling, et cetera. It was always better to be as specific as possible.

“If he’s ignorant about the lore, then that will work in our favour. The less he knows about the Fates, the better,” Kian said.

Sylvie nodded. “One of the shifters in his pack said the others prefer not to talk about the shifter history. Maybe they just don’t know it very well. Especially if they’re more turned than born shifters.”

Rowan turned to face her and stroked her cheek. “It’s likely. His grandfather was a monster and died in Beihllua right before the division, and his father was just a boy then. Everyone that lives here was born in the earth realm.”

When he saw her brows rise, he smoothed them with his thumb. “The lions and wolves were never allies, beautiful. At least, they weren’t. But I figured we could change that.”

She took his hand and kissed his palm. “But why now? What was that about the Vampires?”

Elias sighed, and when Rowan glanced at him, they shared a look.

“Excuse me?” she hissed. “I didn’t realise we now kept secrets from each other.”

“It’s no secret the Vampires cannot be trusted anymore, Kitten. Not with your secret and not with your safety. I kept it from you because it was not worth hurting you anymore, but they have attempted to enter pack borders.”

Rowan hummed in confirmation, his expression hardening. “We scent them most months. Kian’s been stretching the wards further because we caught one.”

Sylvie shuddered as the memory played behind his eyes.

“He had photos of you in our room.”

“Fuck,” she breathed.

“Alone, we would face some casualties. With the children, I couldn’t risk it. But with Fraser as an ally, we would be at least six hundred strong. Double the threat of the vampires. I’m sorry for hiding it from you, Sylvie. I shouldn’t have.”

She gazed out the window into the dark and gritted her teeth. Fucking Vampires. She promised to stay out of their way, but it wasn’t enough. Magnus didn’t have it handled after all. Some General he was.

“I get it.”

She’d do anything to protect the children; winning Fraser over was not a steep price. If only she had known the vampire’s hatred ran deeper than words but that actions with real consequences were knocking on her door. Literally. She might’ve made a different choice.

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the window’s cool glass. Sighing, she said. “I held his hand.”

“We know.”

Her lashes fluttered open to Kian’s knowing smile. “His scent is on you there.”

She scoffed and thumbed the offending hand, tracing her lifeline. It was fractured in many places. Amira said it was interesting but never more than that. Sylvie always wondered if interesting was just a euphemism for bad.

“I think his mate died, too.”

Her marks burned as everyone pitched into solemn silence. There was nothing as painful in all their years than the days when Elias was gone.

“Badly,” she finished in a whisper. Rowan sighed and leaned back into his chair, running a hand through his hair. “After we finish that last ward, we’ll invite him to dinner. With Claudine and her mate and anyone else that wants to come.”

“I think they’d like that.”

The drive seemed to take forever, and Sylvie leaned onto Kian’s warm side, closing her eyes. She drifted in and out of sleep, forcing her lids open at any hint of a dream, and when the car spun, throwing her against the door, then the roof, then Kian, she couldn’t tell if it were reality or another dream.

Until the pain hit. Her ribs ached, and she grabbed the door handle as her mates’ voices filled her ears.

“Grab her.”

“-spike strips on the fucking road.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

Glass pebbles littered her hair and legs as she blinked at the carnage around her. The car landed on its wheels at a slight angle, making Sylvie’s stomach flip with nausea. “What the hell happened?”

Cold air billowed across Sylvie as Kian wrapped a steel arm around her midriff and chanted a quick ward.

“We rolled.”

He pulled out a box from under the driver seat, handing a tranq gun to Sylvie and a long knife to strap to her thigh.

Rowan growled, his beast right on the surface. “I can smell death. Blood.”

“They anticipated our movements.”

A bolt of panic flooded Sylvie, and she twisted in Kian’s grip, peering out the gaping back window. The road was dark.

“Where’s Rosie?” Her voice rose in panic, but Kian’s energy calmed her.

“They stopped at a hotel in the last town.”

“I’ve mindlinked her,” Rowan grunted, turning his golden gaze out the window. “They’re safe.”

“Well, what are we gonna do?”

Elias disappeared from the driver’s seat and wrenched the door off its hinges. Rowan followed and darted to the trunk while Sylvie looked up at the red rings of her mate’s eyes. “First, we get the fuck out of this car.”

He lifted her carefully, avoiding the glass and brushing it from her hair. Kian climbed out next and squinted in the darkness.

“Six,” he said coldly.

Sylvie squeezed the cool metal in her hand and stuck it in the fabric belt of her sundress before rounding the car to join Rowan.

“Are there tranq clips in there?”

“Here,” he handed her the clear clip, and she pocketed it. Perks of a dress with pockets. She could tell by the tension in his shoulders he’d prefer her to shoot to kill, but he didn’t say a word.

They were out in the open, a thicket about one hundred paces ahead. Her night vision was weaker from that distance, but the cold silhouettes of six unmoving and crouched people were clear.

She stepped towards the thicket, Elias and Kian falling into step beside her. Rowan took her flank.

“I see you,” she crooned, letting every ounce of vampiric power seep into her tone. It had taken years to tap into. Her dryad heritage, like second nature, had squashed the vampire in her until one day during training, she had found it: the compulsion, the speed, the rage.

Elias called it Vīs.

The crouched figures rose in synchronicity, and Sylvie clenched her jaw, silently asking Kian to send her calm energy. Flashes of the Hybrid’s identical movements still flooded her sometimes, and these assholes were triggering the shit out of her.

Kian’s energy steadied her heart and cleared her head as they continued walking. The tranq, heavy in her hands, clicked as she flicked off the safety. One shot could take down six humans. These weren’t humans.

“Come out,” she rasped.

They sidestepped to the right altogether and advanced one step.

“Into the light.” It wasn’t much, the sliver of the moon barely illuminating the road only a foot to their side, but it was better than the thicket they were hiding in.

They stepped out, their bodies tall and still.

Elias placed himself slightly ahead of her and twirled the wooden stake in his hand.

“Who do you serve?”

“Ourselves,” one of them answered. Sylvie half expected them all to speak at the same time, too, then she would’ve been really creeped out.

“What do you want?” she said.

They shifted, lowering their stances like coiled springs ready to explode, and Sylvie raised her gun.

“What is rightfully ours,” they hissed, closing the gap in seconds. Sylvie lined up a shot and hit four of the six Vampires. None dropped.

“Fuck.”

She jumped to the side as a vampire was about to claw her throat out and twisted, unloading her clip into its back. After six tranq darts, it finally went down, twitching, not rising again.

Rowan shifted, ripping one to shreds; Elias staked two, and Kian chopped another’s head off. The last Vamp lunged for her on the ground, and she rolled, jumping to her feet and kicking it in the back of the knee. The hit destroyed his kneecap, and he fell, giving Sylvie a chance to pull her knife free and slice it across the back of his ankles an inch deep. The vampire screamed in agony, spinning onto his back and swiping at her with flaming eyes.

“What do you want?”

“What you’ve stolen from us,” he hissed.

Sylvie hissed right back, stomping on his shattered knee. “I haven’t stolen anything, you idiot. Now you’ll have Magnus to answer to.” Before he could retort, she shot him five times in the torso. He spasmed and foamed at the mouth, his eyes staying open as he fell unconscious. At least she thought he was unconscious.

She handed the tranq off to Kian and shook her hand a few times. “I fucking hate guns.”