Returned Read online

  “What are you two doing here?” Alex asked. Leila had to have told them where he’d be—but why?

  The betrayal stung, but scheming wasn’t Leila’s shtick. She had a reason for involving these two, and since Alex’s phone was probably buried somewhere below City Park, he couldn’t simply call and ask her. For now, he’d have to wait and see how her plan played out.

  “A meddling werewitch—witchwere?” Sophia glanced at Heath, who rolled his eyes. She shrugged. “A meddling Briony informed us about the humans who threatened our banshees, and that you might like backup.” Her eyes widening in false surprise, Sebastian’s twin sister raised a finger. Was that smoke rising from her hand?

  “Oh and Briony also assured us that you were willing to rejoin the pack against the warlocks. Is that true?” To someone none the wiser, Sophia appeared to be a redhead with a slight build, physically weaker than most women.

  Only a fool would believe such about Sophia Anderson-Frazier, which was why Alex had to be very, very careful in his response. There wasn’t as strong a spell on him as the two fledglings in order to keep his secrecy about float business, but words had a way of reverberating through space until they hit the wrong person and created a catastrophe.

  “If it were true, I couldn’t say as much,” he said honestly. It would be damned stupid for him to proclaim, “Yeah, I’m totally going to leave the float for the pack. Screw those guys!”

  More than anything, it could mean death for all of the New Orleans packmates, whom he considered family despite his own actions.

  Chapter 8

  ALEX met both Head Soldiers’ gazes. “That is the most I can safely tell you.”

  Understanding lit Sophia’s eyes, and Heath, who still stood next to his motorcycle, nodded.

  Thump.

  At the sound, Heath drew his gun from his pocket, a rifle currently the size of a quarter, while Sophia picked up her lighter and drew a wall of flame around the three of them. Within a second, Heath’s gun expanded to become three feet long.

  Alex did nothing; this was no threat.

  Leila landed on the hard cement of the sidewalk in front of the yellow house directly next door to the one Alex was planning to break into. Her injured leg was stretched out in front of her. Judging from the black leggings and tank top she wore, Wish must have brought her a change of clothes. Alex figured the haint had been just as oblivious to this aspect of her plan as he had—as protective as Wish was of Leila, he doubted the haint would have left her if he knew.

  There was no way Alex would have. His eyes narrowed, but he felt no anger. He was scared. Tension crept up his body, attempting to freeze him in place. Leila had knowingly put herself in the middle of a dangerous situation. His heart beat against his chest hard, once, twice, before he felt certain his expression neutralized. Alex’s abject fear for her safety would do Leila no good now.

  Wish also hadn’t supplied the weapons he noticed strapped underneath her tight-fitting clothes. She’d been discreet in her placements. If she’d worn something slightly baggier, which would’ve been a crying shame, there wouldn’t have been a bulge from a single blade. The heat rising in his blood at the sight of her like this—fierce, determined, and decked out like a warrior—instantly suppressed his dawning sigh of defeat. He wanted to growl in frustration. This was not the time to imagine her with her leggings peeled of, pooling around her small feet. A fleck of color, or maybe movement, appeared in his line of sight.

  He could almost make out a fluffy gray tail swishing around Leila’s ankles, and suspected Gris-Gris allowed him to see precisely as much as it intended to.

  “You are not supposed to be here!”

  “Raphael’s going to have my head over this one. Baby, we should have made those wills after all.”

  Sophia and Heath spoke at the same time, the former practically shouting while the latter seemed resigned to his fate. Leila scowled at them both and did something Alex wasn’t sure he’d ever see her do.

  She stood, brushed dirt and gravel off her clothes, and yelled right back.

  “I’m going to count the times, that I know of, where you’ve left me behind to fight some battle. One, two—” she held up her fingers as she spoke. Alex wasn’t sure she needed to keep track visually. Her angry words were enough to keep the two weres’ rapt attention.

  He smiled, pride warming the area around his heart, which still beat too rapidly to be healthy.

  “Six times. Six. And those are the ones I know about because, believe me, being deaf doesn’t mean I can’t tell when you or Raphael or whoever is talking about some super-secret something that can’t touch my delicate ears.” Turning, she faced a nearby sad-looking tree where it stood in a three-by-three-foot yard surrounded by rocks and more cement.

  “I can be an asset, dammit!” With the last word, a little of the banshee in her came out. It wasn’t enough to cause him discomfort, just like standing ten feet away from a large fire was a sufficient warning without necessarily causing a burn.

  The tree was directly in the line of fire that was her voice. It died before them, sap oozing from cracks in the bark like blood, shriveling and twisting until it curved downward in a defeated bow toward Leila.

  She went to Alex’s side and took his hand. On a certain level, he wanted to tug her aside and force Gris-Gris to bring her back to his place. He didn’t want her to be at risk, and this place, here, was exactly where the people who truly wanted to take her life could be found.

  But he couldn’t tell her this wasn’t her battle. He understood her need for revenge, even if it got in the way of his plans.

  So he backed down before attempting to fight her.

  “If you want the first shot at the people who killed you and your parents,” Alex said, shooting the couple whose jaws lay on the ground a look promising retribution if they contradicted him, “then you’ve got it.”

  Tucking a piece of silvery hair that had pulled loose of her ponytail, careful not to mess up her cochlear implants’ magnet clipped a few inches from her rubber band, he leaned down to stage-whisper in her ear.

  “We know you’re an asset, but it’s just because you have all of my favorite knives and guns at your disposal.”

  Heath barked out a laugh, and Leila threw a small dagger at him. To her credit, it would’ve hit him in the arm had Sophia not caught the blade.

  “Finders keepers,” she said, grinning. “Welcome to the team.” Sophia pocketed the weapon and started to play with her lighter again, braiding flames that stretched in the direction of the blue, frilly house. “Speaking of teamwork, do you have a strategy here, Alex? ’Cause we were going to either fight you and kill all of the humans who threatened the banshee sisters, or only eliminate the bad humans. That’s about as detailed as our scheme got.”

  At Sophia’s words, Leila paled. Releasing her hand, Alex wrapped a secure arm around her shoulders. She was tough, but hearing about others’ impending deaths wasn’t a norm for her.

  “We will not kill them all right away.” He jerked his head at the house. “We can’t stop until we know who, exactly, is set to hurt Leila and Mary. There will be no killing until we have that list of humans.” His voice turned to a growl. “When we know every man and woman who’s after them has been taken care of will either of them be truly safe.”

  Bringing in water from somewhere Alex couldn’t see, Heath flung a series of thick droplets into Sophia’s fire, making her hiss and causing the flames to smoke.

  “You’re telling us not to kill the humans.” Heath sounded displeased. “Right when I can kill in self-defense again too.” He let the water drop to the ground, making soft pattering noises against the concrete. “Damn.”

  Convicts in a clan prohibitum weren’t allowed to kill humans for any reason, or else face execution themselves. Heath, and everyone else in the pack excepting Alex, had been officially freed.

  “But he doesn’t tell us what to do.” Sophia flounced down t
he sidewalk in the direction of the house, apparently deciding to lead the way with a ball of flames the size of a baseball preceding her. “I’ll keep your suggestions in mind, Alex!” she called over her shoulder.

  Growling at Heath’s laughter, Alex hastily followed the demented redhead. He let go of Leila so he could have a weapon in each hand—a knife in one, and his talisman in the other—but he sent her a look, lowering all of his defenses so she could see exactly how he felt. For her, he beared the way his body burned for her, as well as the stark terror ravaging him. All of it born from his desire for her body, her safety.

  She was his. It was that simple.

  A pretty, pale pink blush rose to her cheeks and an answering smile lit her eyes despite the grimly determined set of her mouth. She, too, held blades in each of her hands. Alex felt a presence bringing up the rear even though he and Leila, with her slightly in front of him, were the last ones in their group. There was no one to be seen, so he guessed Gris-Gris lurked nearby, a fallback in case they needed bailing out.

  Against humans, he seriously hoped it didn’t come to that.

  Before entering the house, Alex turned to see if any humans were staring out their windows, their jaws low from the sight of a small, redheaded woman playing with fire like a woman straight out of a horror show carnival. Luckily, there were no signs of curious onlookers.

  The front door was locked. Heath took Sophia inside using his air abilities and came back for both Leila and him. This way, no alarms were tripped and they left no obvious signs of breaking and entering. It had become damned useful to have more and more packmates who could use air as a quick means of travel, especially since it meant Alex didn’t have to waste his energy to accomplish the like.

  Inside, the house appeared exactly as any normal home would. It wasn’t strangely pristine like the senator’s Mississippi estate, and there weren’t high-tech gadgets beeping and blinking on the walls. Instead, there were dozens of framed pictures covering the hall next to the foyer.

  The coloring of the photographs showed they were older, faded like some of the pictures Sebastian had of Full Moon Brewery in the seventies. A family of blonds and redheads who looked like they could be related to Leila and Mary were depicted at the beach, in New York City, and with Mardi Gras beads wrapped around their necks. Two daughters clung to their parents in every shot, while the parents smiled as if they had no cares in the world.

  “There are no photographs taken past the early eighties,” Sophia commented in a quiet voice, holding her finger close to a picture of a baby sleeping, his chubby arms clenched tight around a soft pink blanket. “Why?”

  “Because they’re all dead now,” Leila murmured. She nodded to a close-up shot of the mother and father, the woman crinkling her nose happily. “This woman could pass for my mother’s twin. If they aren’t sisters, then I’m not a banshee.”

  Footsteps sounded upstairs, pulling them out of the almost hypnotic draw of the photographs.

  Alex couldn’t smell anyone downstairs. His nose told him people had been in this house regularly since the time after the pictures stopped. No creatures had entered the house recently enough for him to scent them, only humans.

  Leila was probably right—those were her aunt, uncle and cousins, and all of the women were banshees. His claws pulled free on their own accord, biting into the flesh of his hands. They’re all dead. He glanced back to see if Leila was okay, but her expression was a neutral mask. The sign of her upset was the white of her knuckles against the daggers she clutched so tightly.

  “Found the stairs,” Heath called softly enough that Leila probably didn’t hear him. Even so, she didn’t hesitate to follow when Alex and Sophia immediately turned in the direction of Heath’s voice, walking through a small kitchen and sitting room with only a slight limp. Alex’s chest puffed out in pride.

  Good, strong warriors would have cowered or run over less, and here Leila was, ready to face her enemies without batting an eye.

  She truly amazed him.

  The kitchen was clean, the smell of food, soap, and water apparent, while the spacious sitting room was visibly unused. Dust covered every furnishing, and the space had been picked clean of any electronic entertainment systems a long time ago. More pictures, however, had been left behind, the eyes of the dead watching them as they met Heath by the staircase.

  Here, the rumblings from upstairs became even clearer; although, with too many conversations occurring in such close vicinity, Alex couldn’t make out what the humans were discussing. Beside him, clutching his arm without losing grip on her blade, Leila shook her head, telling him she couldn’t understand anything either.

  “Just incapacitate,” Alex whispered, hoping Heath and Sophia listened. As a group they rushed up the stairs, Leila even more silent than the soldiers. Still, Alex felt someone, something, following suit, but brushed off the irksome sensation of being watched by someone he couldn’t see.

  Dealing with warlocks had taught him about going with his gut, and now it told him the true danger was in front of him, not standing at his back.

  Heath met the first human, who had a gun drawn fast enough to tell Alex how trained they were. Dark gray carpeting softened the thunk made by the gun tumbling to the floor, but the crack of Heath hitting the man’s head against the wall—not to mention the fracturing of the wall itself—was loud enough to draw attention.

  One of the four doors branching off the short hallway flew open, each spilling three to four humans, while the door on the far right side slammed shut and locked with an audible click.

  That was where they would go.

  First, they had to even out the odds against them. For four creatures, there were eleven humans, angry and armed to the teeth. There was no fear in any of their eyes, and all of them moved with muscles competent for combat. Damn, damn, damn.

  Allowing Leila up here had been a mistake.

  More than one popping noise sounded from guns tipped with long silencers, but judging from the lack of pained gasps or groans, the shots resulted in nothing more than property damage. He fought two men, keeping one eye on Leila, who stood the closest to the stairwell as a tough-looking woman tried to back her into a wall. He was surprised at how well Leila held her own because, unlike everyone else in this house, she had no experience fighting.

  Dance, it seemed, would serve well enough for now.

  Another pop went off, and with a curse and a fist to the side of the man who’d pulled the trigger’s head, he realized the bullet had hit him square in his shoulder. There would be no lasting damage, but until Aiyanna could get ahold of it, the wound would smart like a bitch. Unwilling to use his left arm for the moment, he kicked the other man he’d been fighting dead in the chest, knocking him against the wall and rendering him unconscious. A glance over his shoulder told him the bullet had gone all the way through, but it had been a hollow point, causing it to expand once it hit him and leave a much worse exit wound than entrance wound.

  He allowed himself another four-letter expletive and confiscated the offending weapon. No one needed to be shot like this. If he had to kill a human here, it would be with his hands, not something created to make pain worse.

  Quickly, he pinched the nerve of one of three attacking Heath, making the man to fall to the floor and trip a woman, who Heath easily hit hard enough for her, too, to lose consciousness. It didn’t take long to deal with the rest of the humans. Sophia used the butt of a gun she picked up to take out three men at once, and Leila threw a punch to her attacker’s stomach that gave her access to the woman’s face.

  The human went down, and Leila raised a bruised fist in triumph.

  “Why didn’t you use your voice, dummy?” Sophia asked, nodding as if impressed over Leila’s work.

  Leila shrugged. “Alex said not to kill them, and I knew it was a lot more likely that they survive if I use physical instead of banshee forces.”

  “That’s the tricky part about facing
humans,” Alex said, pausing to give her a quick kiss. “They’re so much weaker than we are that you have to be careful or else they’ll end up dead before you can say, oops.”

  “Exactly.” Heath’s eyes darkened, going from olive green to the color of shadows. “It’s why the Elders made it punishable by death for us to kill a human—they thought we would without meaning to, anyway.”

  “You showed those asshats anyway, hot stuff,” Sophia told him in a soothing voice.

  Alex had never thought about it that way, but he saw Heath’s point. How the pack was now free, none of them having been executed, was a miracle.

  More likely, it wasn’t a coincidence at all, but that wasn’t his concern now. Warlocks made werewolves seem completely rational in comparison; Heath, Sophia, and Raphael could deal with the Elders.

  No one had to say where they were headed next. Everyone’s curiosity over what was hidden in the last room was palpable; the anticipation practically forced the air to press them in that direction. Leila’s mouth was a line, her shoulders back and chin lifted in a rigid posture undoubtedly learned over the years she’d danced. Sophia and Heath, however, were grinning evilly.

  Unwilling to put anyone else at risk, Alex reached the door first. Knowing it was locked, he tightened his hand around one of the talismans in his pocket and drew Leila behind him, backing them both against the wall. Heath did the same on the other side of the door, earning himself a growl from Sophia.

  His hand burned, and energy shot through the talisman into the doorknob, which rolled to the floor, loosening the door on its hinges. One last burst of power threw it open, but not before two shots pierced the wood of the door. Six more shots hit the far wall, all the same type of bullet that had hit him. Waiting until either the bullets were out or the human had to reload, he met Heath’s gaze and nodded, tightly gripping Leila behind him, once the silence came.