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I suck in a breath, trying to shake the fear of whatever is so elusive in my thoughts. “A car sounds good, but I’m going with you. Whatever this is, it will pass, Calabrea.”
He gives me a doubtful look, and I avert my eyes. The savagery of her fangs, red eyes, and that low guttural growl haunt me. The fact that she could have ripped me apart stillswirls in my mind. There’s something on the periphery of the visions that I can’t quite make out, but that looms heavy in my conscious as well.
Calabrea’s cape surrounds us, wrapping me in its darkness, warmth, and it's protection as he transports us into the night. By the time we arrive at his estate, I've managed to shake the majority of whatever settled over me off.
Calabrea uses his fingerprint to unlock the heavy looking steel door. He steps aside, allowing me to go inside the oversized garage before him, and then guides me down a row of the most magnificent cars I’ve ever seen.
I take them all in, many sports cars of all different models and makes and in multiple bright colors. “I've never seen such nice cars, and so many, all in one place," I tell him, walking toward a bright red Maserati that looks like it just rolled off the assembly line that’s sitting next to a sleek black Ferrari. "Wanna take her out for a drive?"
My eyes widen. "We can, but I don't want to drive it right now. I’m still feeling a little off, but very honored that you made the offer kind, sir."
He smirks. "A rain check then.” He opens the passenger side of the Maserati, and I slide into the smooth leather bucket seat before he closes the door and walks around to the other side. He gets behind the wheel and pulls out, then turns the car almost one eighty as we make our way down the long drive toward the guard station and out to the main highway.
The highway is dark and heavily wooded on both sides. “The barkeeper thinks he overheard the shifters talking. He thinks they may be hiding out in an old, abandoned estate a couple miles from the bar. It’s also not far from the witch’s hill which would make sense given what Matilda told us. It shouldn’t take long to get there.”
I watch for signs of buildings or crossroads, but the road is open and windy, heading into the lower valley with no one on the road but us. “It would explain their ability to watch the witches and also maybe how they were able to recruit so many witches to their cause. Maybe they were watching their patterns and knew the young ones took a Saturday shopping trip each week?”
He takes a long corner, hugging the road as we come upon another bend. “Perhaps. Let’s take the car a way and then as long as you’re feeling up to it we’ll walk in the rest of the way. Isala has been elusive. She knows that her reign over the underground traitors is going to come to a quick end when Overmaster Descallia gets his hands on her.
“It makes me wonder how Overmaster Descallia will handle her. Kill her quickly, or slowly, while driving a stake through her heart. And how will Calabrea deal with his possessive blonde?” I glance at him, serious as he keeps his eyes straight on the road in front of us. “Who’s the blonde? I take it an ex-girlfriend?”
He scoffs. “Hardly. We spent a couple nights together a long time ago. She’s been trying to get her hooks into me ever since. I take comfort in the fact that I’m not alone. Sierra roams all the places she thinks anyone with power and prestige will be. She likes power and wants status in the underworld.”
My mind swirls with all the stories I’ve heard over the years. All one-sided. Where have I heard that story before, time and time again, until I half started believing it myself. At least until I walked into our bedroom and couldn’t deny the rumors anymore.
“I see.”
“She’s nothing, Tansia. Believe me. If there were someone else, I would have told you.”
I nod because the feeling of Deja vu is just too hard to dismiss. He parks the car and walks around the valley with the witch’s hill looming in the distance before us. Calabrea pushesbrush out of our way as we go through it and toward an old whitish color home in the distance.
The lights are on, but the wrought iron fence must be twenty feet tall, a stark warning that no one within these walls of steel want company. He puts a finger to his lips as my eyes adjust to the night, taking my hand as we inch closer to what I see now is a rather dilapidated old-style home, with a sunken porch, cracked pillars, and crumbling paint.
Calabrea pulls me to him, and the warmth of his body cradles me, easing the tension of the night as his cape folds around me, caressing my skin with its smoothness. "Close your eyes, love."
When his cape lifts and my eyes open, we're behind a large tree adjacent to one of the windows on the side of the house. Or old and dilapidated where no one would think to find them there. We stay close to the building within the safety of the overgrown bushes against the house.
A shadow walks by, and he keeps me tucked into the protection of his body as if I’m a fragile porcelain doll unable to take care of herself until the wolf guard passes. “Shh... I want you to stay here while I go in and check things out,” he says before disappearing behind a bush and out of my sight.
Who can blame him for thinking that he needs to protect me with the way I reacted to the blonde bitch in the bathroom? It’s not like I showed him, or her, my best moves. No, I shut down like a scared little idiot. The fight swirls around in my mind again, and every single time it’s that growl that sends a streak of fear racing straight down the length of my spine, throwing me off my game.
A twig snaps, and a scream escapes my lungs as a yellow-eyed shifter paws the dirt in front of me, mouth foaming and teeth bared, ready to tear me to pieces.
Chapter
Thirteen
I’ve barely had a chance to peek into the great room of the old, abandoned mansion, when the sense that something is very wrong permeates my very core. The sound of Tansia's scream causes my chest to tighten with unprecedented fear, solidifying exactly what she’s come to mean to me in such a short matter of time.
I transport back outside behind the mangy shifter who has Tansia backed against the tree. My hand already on my dagger wields it through the air with precision aim. It lands the blade into the intercostal space right below the back of his skull, silencing any cry or warning to others he could possibly make.
Tansia stands before me, bold and strong. She pushes the dead wolf away from her body, and he slides to the ground by her feet.
My eyes widen with surprise at the dagger in his chest. The blade is pierced right into his heart, the stab wound leaking blood into a wide pool on the ground around him. Tansia leans down and pulls the jewel ended dagger from his chest, wipes the blade on the grass, and then inserts it back into her chest holster.
Her eyes shine bright, clearly as proud of herself as I am of her. I pull her toward me and kiss her soundly on the lips. “You did well, love. He didn’t hurt you?”
Tansia smiles and shakes her head. “He frightened me, but that’s because I need to get used to the underworld. I really do know how to defend myself, but you were right; it’s not like fighting in the gym without the sounds and sights of the enemy’s breath, eyes, and sounds.
