Slay My Soul

We are gathered in the lounge waiting for Dev to spill the beans on the blood test results. We'd forgotten about them up till now, with Eve being attacked by Belestine. Eve is tucked into my side with a death grip on Darius' hand. She is quiet and withdrawn and has yet to tell us what happened, but I can see her working through it in her head. She will no doubt tell us once she has worked out how she wants to deal with it.

"So the reason for two wolves is because..." Dev pauses dramatically and opens an envelope. "Darius, you are all wolf plus a tiny amount of something else. Demon is the suspicion. Guess that explains why you're so big." He pulls another envelope from the pile and opens it. "Max, you are..." He scans the document and his jaw drops.

"What? Fuck man! Don't leave me hanging!" Max exclaims.

"You're like Eve - a chimera," Dev says, looking at Max with disbelief.

"Bullshit!" Max barks, snatching the form and scanning it. "Holy fuck!" He slumps back.

"I fucking knew there was a reason!" Dev crows. "That's why another mate had to come forward. You complete the damn circle. Like Adam and Eve or some shit."

"What about the rest of us?" Lysario asks. Dev hands out the envelopes. I look at mine and sure enough, there is another gene in mine, too. I glance at Lysario beside me. He has a bit of witch in him.

"Has everyone got a little extra something?" I ask. They all nod.

"I wonder if we can activate the genes like Eve did." Carino muses.

"Planning on playing for both sides now?" Acassus laughs. "That's what it takes to activate them, true mating." Carino scowls and goes back to thinking. "What do you have in you anyway?"

"Dark Fae." Carino growls. Acassus's eyes rake over Carino's body suggestively, then he shakes his head.

"Nope. Not attracted to you, sorry mate."

"You're not attracted to anyone, period. You have gone from man whore to only Eve. You don't even look at other girls. They are all invisible to you," Mikyda laughs.

"Ditto, dick head," Acassus snaps. "You are fooling no one." Mikyda scowls and looks away. I glance at Eve who seems oblivious to her surroundings.

"Amor?" I say gently, waving my cigarette pack in her line of sight. Her eyes flicker and focus before they trail up to look at me. She gives a small nod. "We will be back," I tell the guys. "We will just be on the back porch." Eve reluctantly lets go of Darius and lets me tug her to her feet. Her hand holds mine tightly and she plasters herself to my side. Eve is never clingy. Something is going on and I need to get her to tell me what it is.

I help her to sit on the step and take up my position behind her, as we normally do, but she still won't release my hand and I fumble out the smokes and lighter one-handed. Eve eventually shifts her death grip to my leg, looping her arm around it and hugging tight, while resting her head on my thigh. I throw my smoke butt away and start massaging her shoulders while she finishes her own. I wait for her knots to slowly release under my fingertips before I let myself speak.

"Penny for your thoughts?" I offer. She is silent for a moment and I begin to think she won't let me in on her inner turmoil. But then she opens her mouth and it pours out. How she saw Reece, not as a dream but actually there - and Belestine too. The web of lies the witch had tried to weave, as he claimed she was his. How she found her way back with Reece's help. The three things that were really fucking with her were; how easily Belestine had convinced her he was her mate, how easily she had forgotten us, and having to let Reece go - again. "But you sensed something was wrong fast, and now we know Reece's soul hasn't been destroyed. We already know Belestine's a prick, it's just another nail in his coffin. At the end of the day Amor, you chose life. You chose us. The two men who upset you earlier have been disposed of as well. They were the rats. Your Dad and Mikyda had a lot of fun with them."

"I love you Luka," Eve mumbles into my leg. I wrap my arms around her. Soothing her while my own mind races. Why was Belestine trying to convince Eve he was her mate? He is up to something, and it all points to something I fear. I am really hoping I am wrong about this. The witch traitors said Belestine would turn on the king and take the throne. Was he eyeing Eve up for his Queen?

"I love you too," I say hugging her tight. "Shall we go back to the others now?" She nods and I help her up. She still grabs my hand, as though still convinced I will poof out of existence at any moment. Now, with my own suspicions, I am feeling the same way toward Eve. No way was that prick getting his hooks in her again. I decide to distract her. "Did you hear what Dev said about the blood test results?" She looks at me confused. "Max is a chimera like you Amor, and the rest of us all have one other race in our blood too. I bet Reece was a chimera like you as well. It would explain how he could keep up with you in a fight." Her eyes look thoughtful and she looks at me, running her tongue over her bottom lip. "And no, we aren't activating our dormant genes. Already had that discussion. The guys don't want to jump teams." She pouts and sighs, then clearly has an epiphany.

"I activated Carino's, maybe I could help activate the rest?" Huh, I forgot that. We were all so quick to look at each other that we forgot our actual mate. We are idiots. My phone rings in my pocket and it's my contact at the castle.

"What can I help you with Langdon?" I ask.

"There is a massive supply run coming in that you could intercept. Interested?" I look at Eve, who I know hears every word with her wolf hearing. She nods. "It's set to go past Fort Leonard around two in the a.m tonight. Seven unmarked white trucks." The phone goes dead.

Eve grabs my phone and hits google maps, looking at the different roads around the fort.

"You reckon they will go direct through highway forty-four?" I ask.

"Yeah, but we need to get teams on some of the side roads as lookouts, just in case. We don't want to take them out at the fort either. The human military is still active there. Best to get to them beforehand, or after. I'm guessing they will go Springfield and Branson route to get to Arkansas. There's a good chunk of the highway here with plenty of trees for cover. We can fake a crash to block the road, knock out the drivers, check the cargo is safe, and then take off with it all."

"Perfect. Let's tell the guys and round up some teams," I say, excitement humming in my veins. Not only will we deprive the enemy of much-needed supplies (especially now that the rest of us aren't exporting our goods to them) but we'll piss them off too. It will also bring much-needed supplies to our own stocks. Two birds, one stone.

Eve ensures we have more than enough mixed-race teams to cover every route. Garret's declared we are all going as Eve's team, but Eve is quick to veto that, saying that if it's a trap she does not plan on handing us all over on a silver platter. So Garret and I get to go with Eve and the rest of our pissed-off circle is spread through the other teams.

"I call bull shit!" Acassus snarks, as he is dragged through a portal by Mikyda to join their team.

"I second that!" Darius growls, stomping after Ly through their team's portal. I laugh as Eve blows Darius a kiss while flipping the bird to Acassus. Garret takes Eve's hand as we head off with our own team. I am relieved to see the highway empty as we peer through the trees. We just need to find two cars to hijack for our crash. We have an hour, plenty of time.

Kitten, fuck, they are coming! Eve's eyes dart to mine.

"Fuck they're early." I seethe.

"Shit!" Garret swears. Eve's eyes swivel to the starry sky above as she curses the Fates to hell. In a flash, she proceeds to rip at her clothing and tear at her skin.

"Angel! What the fuck!" Garret says, grabbing at her arms to stop her.

"Stay here," she hisses, wrenching free. She sprints out to the road, screaming into the oncoming truck lights before either of us can stop her. The sound of truck tires screech in our ears and a truck door opens as the truck behind also begins to apply its brakes.

"Miss! Are you okay? What happened?" A panicked voice calls out.

"Please?" Eve sobs. "I need help, he's going to kill me!"

"Hey now Miss, it's gonna be alright. He won't lay a hand on you. Hop up in the truck and I'll drop you at the nearest police station or hospital if you like."

"Thank you!" Eve whimpers. Garret clenches his fists as Eve throws herself at the stranger and hugs him.

"Just follow me," the driver yells at the truck behind his own. "Just going to make a little detour for this fine young lady." Eve doesn't see his eyebrows wag or his sinister grin, as she clambers into his truck, but we do. Thank fuck he is human or we may have had to worry. But Eve will own his ass.

Follow those trucks! I growl through our circle's link. Eve's in the front truck. Wait for her signal, but each team keeps pace with the trucks. Take one each.

The lead truck pulls off to a rest stop surrounded by trees. Isolated and dark. Maybe Eve has asked to use the restroom to clean up? The other trucks follow after it. The sound of doors opening and then slamming echoes in the still air, followed by the sounds of men laughing and making crude comments as they approach the first truck. These men are amped up and excited. My fangs lengthen. They think they can have our Eve. Use her body. Garret clenches his fists and looks at me. I nod in agreement.

There will be no survivors.

One of the truck drivers pulls on the driver's door of the first truck and screams, diving away as body parts fall out of the open door. Eve pushes the rest of the carnage out as she scoots across the seat and jumps down onto the gravel. The body parts squelch under her feet as she lands, her body dripping blood as she sucks her bloody fingers. She smiles coyly at the six men standing there in shock.

"Say, do any of you boys have a wet wipe? I think I may have a spot of blood on me."