AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We follow him into the living room, all of us too uneasy to take seats. “What news have you got for us, Thomas?” says Max, cutting the bullshit.
Thomas swivels his head, passing his gaze between the four of us. Once he’s read the room and found no quarter for his cheery facade, he lets his features sag into an appropriately dour expression. After relaying a brief report on Enforcer actions in the last town, he retrieves from his pocket a white envelope. “I have here four tickets to the hottest ball in town.”
I look across at Max, then Braxton. Both twins wear an identical expression of bemusement. It’s one of those moments where their relationship sticks out like a sore thumb, if I ever had any doubts. Orson looks almost delighted, as though this sudden turn means an escape from our duty into a frilly social engagement. For his part, Trouble looks merely hungry and curious when he might be served dinner, yet he’s still behaving as the good boy he is.
Max snatches the envelope from Thomas’s hand and fishes out several black tickets featuring silver embossed letters. “What is this?” he asks.
“Quite literally your ticket into the lion’s den,” says Thomas. “I assume this is the little party the Blood Mage you’ve been tracking referenced in his, erm, message.” I recall the note stabbed into the corpse of a gruesomely murdered Blood Pack member, Simon’s sickeningly gleeful invitation to a slaughter. “Next door they’re hosting a party. All the well-to-do magical inhabitants of North Rapids and the broader Royal Creek area received those.” With his broad reach, he taps his index to the four strips of black cardstock fanned like a poker hand in Max’s grip. “We’ve got a few supernatural allies in the region who passed theirs off to us.”
“We’re going to just…walk right in there?” I ask, shocked.
I’d pictured so many different ways this would go. None of them involved being invited right in. It sounded better. Easier. So why do I still feel so uneasy?
Thomas rises from the couch with an exaggerated grunt, like an old man struggling out of his recliner. Then he turns to me and replies, “Yep, you’ll walk right in. Nice, huh?” He walks halfway to the door, pauses, then whirls back. The angle of his face suggests guilt as he says, “The Enforcers have been given the order to stand down until you’re through with your part.” He sighs through flared nostrils, then adds, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but, well, dammit, Max, you’ve been a helluva agent. Word is we’re cleanup detail.” He bows his head, then ducks out.
Been a helluva agent. Past tense. That sticks with me. Like Thomas thought he was already speaking with ghosts.
“Cleanup detail?” Orson questions.
Staring at the tickets in Max’s hand, or perhaps through them into a hopeless future, he explains, “They’ll sweep up the bodies when the killing’s through.”
Tension sings between us as his words sink in.
I force a smile. “A lot of people have counted me out, and I’ve proved them wrong.”
Braxton smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Me too.”
Orson and Max exchange a look, and Max says, “Enforcers are dumbasses.”
And we all laugh, even if deep down we’re terrified.
TEN
Asha
I pinch the gauzy fabric of the dress’s skirt with both hands, holding it out to the sides, and think to myself, There are worse outfits to die in. After Thomas stopped by, another pair of Enforcers dropped off our outfits for tomorrow night’s ball. Tuxedos for the gentlemen, a blue gown for the lady. They dangle from hangers in the closet, pretty and pristine. That won’t last.
It’s almost funny that the Enforcers thought enough to make sure we were properly dressed. I guess they’re not willing to lend manpower to our mission, but pretty dresses are okay. I wish I could kick whoever was in charge.
Max steps out of the bathroom in a puff of steam that curls away from his sheened physique. He’s the last of us to shower, meaning it’s almost time to turn in. It’s our last night before the big event, and I can sense our nerves twisted up in knots. I don’t know how easily sleep will come tonight, but I know we need it.
At the foot of the bed, Trouble’s already found his way into dreamland. Lucky hound.
Orson works at the vanity, tapping away on his keyboard, trying to extract the most accurate count of enemy combatants occupying the compound as more come and others leave. I come up behind him, dangle my arms over his shoulders, then slouch forward to reach my hands down his delectable front. He’s shirtless, his skin still warm and wet from his shower. My fingertips outline each of his pronounced abdominal muscles.
“That feels nice,” he says.
“For the both of us.”
And it does. I never thought I was a woman who loved muscles until these men. Now? I just can’t get enough of them. And knowing they’re my mates makes it all the better.
My mates. Me. I have mates.
I consider doing more to Orson. My mind wanders over the possibility of letting my hand slip further down his stomach and into his pants, but the screen distracts me. All the purple outlines of Blood Mages, several dozen of them, make me start to feel anxious. Fear creeps in, crowding out my libido. There’s so many of them, and my men are going to face them just for me.
There’s some whisper in the back of my mind that says that when it comes to this mission, I only care about rescuing my people, who are likely still prisoners to the Blood Mages. But after seeing the death and destruction that the mages, and my people, are capable of, I also want to protect the world from that.
This mission is a way to make sure that the Blood Mages can never experiment on anyone ever again. They’ll never come into someone’s happy home and torch it. This mission should be the last thing I have to do to be free from an enemy that I fear, and to save the last of my people. It’s a lot, but I think some part of me always thought a day like this would come.
