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Again, where was he?
He heard footsteps. His adrenaline kicked in, but he couldn’t exactly move.
A tall, African-American man appeared in the doorway and the moment he met Braden’s gaze, his brows rose. “You’re awake.”
“Who the hell are you?”
~ ~ ~
Maeve rubbed the back of her neck. Again.
She was in her workroom modifying an infusion spell designed to aid Braden’s healing. He’d been in her bed for four days and still wasn’t awake.
Her cell rang. It lay near h
er on the wooden work table she used to create her potions, pastes and infusions.
Alfonso.
She’d call him right back after she was done.
Sheba sat at the end of the table supervising her work, her cat’s eyes intent on the process.
Maeve had the healing concoction warming above a tealight so she could catch all the fragrances and their properties. She added a pinch of dried hyacinth to the lavender-marigold blend. She stirred the little black kettle that contained a cup of purified water. She was very witch in this moment, even hunched over.
She hadn’t understood the witch’s bent-over posture before. Now she did. Keeping her head positioned parallel to the table allowed her a full blast of the infusion.
Her nostrils flared and each floral fragrance sent spirals of sensation into her brain.
She closed her eyes to experience each one.
The lavender had definitely improved the infusion. She was much closer now to the balance she required.
In fact, she knew she’d reached the right level of floral healing elements.
The next step, however, made her heart pause and even skip a couple of beats. She had a terrible secret, one that made her feel like a traitor to both human and alter-kind alike. She often used a few grains of the drug, emerald flame, in the products she created.
The amount was infinitesimal, yet the difference was profound in terms of results.
Despite the amazing effects just a touch of the flame drug could create, Maeve always felt guilty using the illegal substance. Flame drugs had landed her here.
The drugs had been the method by which the alter serums had been introduced into human society. Originally designed to be a synthetic competitor for cocaine and heroin, the flame drugs had quickly garnered a third of all drug-trafficking in the U.S.
Thirty years ago, the original creators of the drug had accidentally developed serums that changed the human genome and the five alter species became known to the world: Vampire, witch, wolf-shifter, fae, and dead-talkers.
Worse, once infected with a serum and transformed, every person was immediately quarantined in lands set aside throughout the U.S. to keep the populations separate. The early alter-species had been notoriously violent.
Phoenix had fifteen square miles in the north heartland of the metropolitan area designated for alter creatures like herself. Thick walls and a serious Border Patrol kept the inmates quarantined in the prison-like setting of Five Bridges. Each bridge separated one warring territory from another, while a central no man’s land, the infamous Graveyard, made all kinds of traffic and exchange possible.
Humans were allowed into Five Bridges every night and on the weekends, they arrived by the thousands in search of drugs and to take advantage of hundreds of sex clubs.
Alters were only, and very rarely, permitted to leave the territories with Tribunal passports. The Trib governed Five Bridges.
She hated this world into which she’d landed all because she’d eaten a tainted piece of peach pie. Someone had dosed the pie with the witch serum. She’d had the pie. Her husband, Frank, had chosen pecan.
Now she was an alter witch, eighteen-months-old, who had to make a good living to keep her rescue facility running smoothly. So, a touch of flame it was.
Her witch workshop, though more accurately called a spellroom, was down a second staircase of spiraling stone steps deep underground. Only with this space, she’d left the jagged rock walls and ceiling exposed. She wanted the connection to the earth. Sometimes, she even slept down here.
