Content Warnings and Possible Triggers:

    Discord's Nightmare is rated M for Mature and contains violence, drinking, smoking, drugs, gore, vulgar language, nudity, sex, rekindled romance, polyamory, pansexual main character, and talk of past traumas including sexual abuse, spousal abuse, drugs, and more.

This Book blog contains EXPLCIT Content!

If you are not at least 18 years old please do not read. For those above 18, I have taken out or changed some words they have [brackets] or *asterisms* for letters removed,
but you get the gist.

Prologue:

~ September 1721, A.D. Jamaica ~

      Rowing into Kingston in the middle of the night without a lantern is not recommended to anyone without the heightened senses of an immortal and a good sense of direction. I had both. I can see for nearly a league, hear for nearly twice that, and smell trails that were near on three months old in lightly trafficked areas. This was a suicide run. For her, I would travel into Valkarah[1] itself if I had to.

      As I rowed my way around the edge of the Palisadoes into the mouth of the harbour, I caught sight of the gibbet where a few bodies still hung and wondered if one of them was Jack. I pushed that from my mind and focused on the mission.

      I stole this boat, that was no more than a dinghy, from the Royal Fortune, or the latest Royal Fortune. Black Bart had a habit of naming his command vessel the same name. I suspect it was to confuse his enemies or he just liked the name. Bart did not want me coming to her rescue, but he had sailed close enough that I could get here on my own. His parting words still rang in my ears.

      “If you want to risk it, you are on your own. I will remain here for the night. I will not delay my travels in the morning…” It was unlike him to say anything at all. He cared about her, as much as one of their kind cares for another. It mattered not to me. She saved my life not once, but twice. I owed her.

      Our last shootout in Jamaica, was at Port Royal nearly thirty years ago in June of sixteen ninety-two the day half of it fell into the sea, which was partly our fault and not the first time we had caused a natural disaster. I pushed that aside as I rowed further on away from the ports to the open land that lay between me and Spanish Town where the prison was, or at least that is where it was last time I was here.

      My plan was to run to the prison in my shifted form. They would never expect a beast, though there were several legends of roaming wild boars. I would find her, spring her, and return to the boat where we would row back to the Fortune. There was just one problem. If the rumours were true and it was more than a ruse to stay her execution, she was pregnant and due to be executed the day after she gave birth.

      It had been near on nine months since the execution of Rackham. If she was burdened, that would make this harder, but not impossible. When the water grew too shallow to row, I jumped out and dragged the boat onto the beach. I put it near where the tide would come in and tied it to a nearby tree. I removed my bandolier, brace of flint lock pistols, my cutlass, and my clothes. I left them at the bottom of the boat, rolled my shoulders, and from one step to the next I shyfted into my bestial form, going from two legs to four.

      I ran through the trees and brush of the wilds of Jamaica toward the church, cemetery, and prison. It was not even an hour for me in this form, but it would be nearly three back if she were weakened or near delivery. I came to a stop near the two-story brick wall of the prison and sniffed the air for cedar wood, amber, and the dragon’s ambrosia she loved to drink.

      It was not her scent that attracted me though. Her aura pulsed, ebbing, and flowing like the tide. I moved to the ground below her window and chuffed loudly, hoping she would hear it. I do not know why I did it, but something whispered that would be enough. There was a clatter of a bottle then a swathe of dark curls poked out from the bars.

      “Maolanaithe! By the Maker’s might, what are you doing?” she called, using my birth name, and her sweet voice stirred something low in me. I stayed in my bestial form, looking up at her knowing that she could see my face and more importantly hear my thoughts as if I spoke to her. “Do not give me that. What life debt is worth coming to rescue a woman about to be hanged for piracy? You and Rackham… Why does everyone think I need saving?”

      I started to think something back to her about how unlike her former husband I was, and that she was still here nearly nine months after being tried, but she ducked back between the bars. There was only the sound of shuffling feet for a few moments. I waited, wondering how I could get to her, and convince her to come with me without causing a quake and sending the entire south end of the island into the sea this time.

      At that thought, the shuffling stopped and there was a mighty groan of metal. I stepped back enough to see the entire window as she bowed the bars. When she stuck her legs through, I shifted back into a man and opened my arms for her.

      A shout sounded from inside the prison on her level as someone saw her, and she turned back to blow a kiss before she jumped. I caught her, and she wrapped an arm around my shoulders helping me adjust to the weight of her. It was not significantly more than I remembered, but there was enough to prove the rumours.

      “Thanks for the assist. Let’s try not to make a habit of you rescuing me. I am your Guardian Angel, remember?” She kissed my cheek before I set her down.

      “I thought it should be my turn this once,” I said before I shifted back into bestial form, and she looked at me for a moment then rolled her eyes and climbed on.

      “I hope you know I do not like doing this, and you dare not think anything about my weight,” she said sounding much more like a mortal than she ever had before. I tossed a look at her over my shoulder, but someone shouted at us in Spanish as they looked out from the window she’d escaped through. The moment they locked eyes with me they fainted, and I took off toward the beach with her hands in my dark fur.

      No one would believe the pirate queen escaped on the back of a beast. We were nearing the halfway mark when her fists clenched, and I slowed.

      “Do not stop. We do not have time,” she said, leaning toward my spine as much as the babe would allow. “Faster if you can, he will not wait much longer.”

      I obeyed, even as she whimpered, but she was right. We did not have time to stop. The moon was nearing the crest and if we did not make it to the beach soon, we would never make it to The Fortune by daybreak.

      As luck would have it, we cleared the trees onto the beach as the tide was nearly in. She slid off, at the side of the boat, but stopped, and grabbed my pelt as she cried out.

      “Damn Rackham males, and their ill timing,” she groaned, and I licked the sweat from her face. “Maolanaithe, you…” She bit her lip then to keep from crying out and my eyes glowed green against her skin. “Calm, Mairtin. We cannot have them finding us now. I will not have three in my charge die to save me.”

      The last came from her mind not her lips and my gut said I was not meant to hear it. The fact that she had called me by my new name also struck me, but I was too worried to comment. When her pain eased, she moved her hand from my pelt to the side of the boat and leaned over it, breathing as if she was the one to run the whole way. I shifted back to my mortal guise and set my hand to her back.

      “What can I do?” I asked as her head shot up. Her eyes glowed violet, and she looked back the way we came.

      “Fuck. They loosed the Hell hound. We have to go, now! Get in,” she said, as she started to lift herself in but stopped with one leg over the side and groaned. “For Fuck’s sake. Jack, stay in there until we are out at sea.”

      “Áine[2], what Hell hound? Why would a mortal prison have a Hell hound?” I asked, watching her face. She met my eyes, and in them, I saw the answer. They found out she was immortal, and the Hell hound was going to take her once the babe was born.

      “Why do you think I was still there? I could not outrun a Hell hound, not while burdened,” she groaned through clenched teeth and instead of stepping into it, she rolled over the side of the boat and lay in the bottom propped against the far seat. “Get in, and I’ll open my wings. We can use them to catch the wind and you can move the oars to guide it.”

      “Can you do that while labouring?” I asked, astounded by her sheer will if she could. She glared at me, and I fought not to cringe as pain stabbed my head before she looked back to the trees.

      “If you do not hurry, we shall never know,” she said, eyes flashing again as her large leathery wings burst from her back. The yellow membrane gleamed in the moonlight, and I was about to cut the rope when a massive black shape burst from the trees.

      “Maolanaithe, I heard rumour that you were away from the mighty court of Lucifer, but I did not think it true that you had become a petty pirate,” a deep voice came from the creature’s maw. Áine grabbed my arm and shook her head.

      “He is taunting you. Get in, Maolanaithe. Now!” she shouted. Instead, I pulled away from her, grabbed my cutlass, the only silver thing that would hurt the bastard, and ran at him. “Maolanaithe!”

      The creature charged, but it was no match for me. I got in under it as it lunged and managed to shove the blade up into his throat then slice him clean down the middle before throwing him into the sea. I turned back to find the line cut and the boat drifting away. I put the sword in my mouth and waded through the water, running to reach it.

      “That was reckless,” she called to me as I jumped for the bow. I would have made it too, had the boat not bucked on a wave and caught me halfway over. The sword bit into my cheeks and I cursed, dropping it to the bottom of the boat as I hauled myself in.

      “Maolanaithe,” she groaned and reached her hand to me. I went to her, not caring about the pain, and grabbed her hand. She squeezed and red, white, and bright blue energy buzzed around my face. “You need to pay more attention when handling your weapon. You were taught better than that.”

      I did not speak, thinking it unwise as she just might mend my entire mouth closed instead of just the edges. The healing stopped before it could finish, and she squeezed my hand.

      “Jack is coming. He has given his mother hell, and he is not even out,” she groaned through the pain. She lifted her legs and set her feet to the other seat. “Damn it, Maolanaithe, I wish this was not the first time you saw me this—”

      “I watched you dance naked in Pompei,” I reminded her, and she grinned up at me. We had nearly known each other that night, but we were found out, then there was the eruption.

      “You are right,” she chuckled at the memory then set her elbows on the seat behind her, letting go of my hand. “He will come on the next wave. I need you to catch him.”

      I carefully moved between her upraised legs and noticed her wings move ever so slightly guiding us on a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere. I crouched and grabbed my shirt from the boards just in time for her to groan. I reached my hands under her, and the babe emerged with a rush of blood and fluids. I pulled him to my naked chest and smiled as he loosed a mighty cry.

      “Jack is here, Áine. Whole and perfect,” I said, as she grinned up at me.

      “Now that he’s here, you need to dress,” she noted, as I handed Jack to her. “Where is Bart’s ship?”

      “Around the West end, in his favourite spot,” I said as her wings retracted. Her eyes flashed and we disappeared from one spot in the ocean to another with the Royal Fortune in the distance. It was calm and all the lanterns were doused, save for one in the window of Robert’s cabin. He waited up to see if I would succeed.

      “Come here and let me finish healing your wounds,” she said, reaching for my face. I moved to her side, and she set one hand on my face as the embarrassment of it settled in now that we were all safe.

      “We will never speak of this again,” I said, and she smirked.

[1] Demoki: Hell (literally the innermost circle)

[2]Irish: radiance

Warning:

This next chapter contains EXPLCIT Content!

If you are not at least 18 years old please do not read. Some words have been *redacted* for the sake of some PG-rating, but this is not for the YA readers.

Thank you!

Chapter One:

~ Nearly five thousand years before ~

      “You cannot hide forever, Aeshma!” Ornias shouted after me, as I ran through the forest away from his fortress. I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. I had to keep going, had to get away, had to escape him.

      I would not stay there bound to his fantasies and lust fuelled lifestyle. Yes, we were soulmates, but I was pregnant now, and I refused to let our child grow up influenced by his father’s cruelty and corruption. The cry of a dragon broke the too quiet stillness, and I ducked behind a tree with an internal curse. How had he found me so fast?

      “Aeshma!” he screeched my name as he flew overhead. I shoved my powers down and cloaked my metaphysical signature. He flapped once and hovered directly over me. I stayed deathly still. “You will not hide from me. There is no place that you can run where I will not follow. I claimed you!”

      I bit my lip to stop the argument that threatened to give me away. Yes, he claimed me, but the Maker had ordained it to keep him from corruption. His fall was gradual, but after I caught him in bed with the Temptress, I knew he was corrupted, and I would not stay with a Fœmoræ.[1]

      If we weren’t soulmates, I would have run for the highlands and never looked back. Soulmates were complicated. I had tried for weeks to escape, to run, but every time he would catch me, and the punishment would be worse. Then the Maker blessed us with a child, enhancing and changing my power so I could fight Ornias’s pull on me.

      Now, with the baby inside me, and my sister, Asariel calling for me, I found the will to escape him. Asariel’s presence had pulled at my mind for the last two weeks begging me for help. Ornias refused to let me leave, but when my second sister, Jennielle’s call joined Asariel’s, the same day I felt the babe, I could no longer stay. I had to leave, no matter what he would do to me when he caught me.

      A thud shook the ground, and I grabbed the tree as my feet slipped on the dewy grass. I held my breath and waited to see if he had caught me. I would not move until he proved it. He was the only being that ever truly scared me, the only one that got under my skin, which said more about him than I would ever admit. I had battled, drank with, and fucked Norseman rougher looking and larger than him in both height and muscle, but this Fœmoræ was the first to truly scare me.

      “You can mask your power, hold your breath, and try to cloak, but I still hear your heartbeat,” he growled the last word, breath hot on my right shoulder. I dropped as his arm swung around the tree. Red scales gleamed in the light as his black talons sunk into the bark above my head. “Focáil[2]!”

      I jumped up and opened my wings. Their yellow membrane glittered in the sunlight as I launched myself through a break in the trees. I flew as fast and as hard as I could away from him. Another roar tore the air, but he was at least a league behind me. We were almost free.

      The whizz of something flew passed my ear and a sharp pain pierced my right wing a moment later. I cried out and glanced at my wing with a curse on my lips. There was an arrow lodged in my left wing and a tear in the right. Only black iron would hurt this badly. Damn him! It would heal almost human slow.

      Hellfire and Brimstone, this day was going from bad to worse. The wounds forced me to land, and I yanked the second arrow from the flesh of the muscle at my shoulder.

      Who shot me? It was impossible for Ornias to fire an arrow in his dragon form, or even his half dragon form for that matter. Brush crashed behind me, and I swung around. Grækrœ[3], the Mort who served him stopped with a crossbow to his shoulder ready to shoot me again. My wings returned to the tattoo like marking on my back, and I stared at his cold, dead, brown eyes.

      “Please, stop. Let me leave,” I pleaded, setting a hand to my slightly distended abdomen over the babe. “Let us leave… please.”

      Something passed through his eyes, and he dropped the crossbow from his shoulder. He dipped his head, and I stared at him for a moment. I was shocked that worked, and I questioned the ease of it for a second before I darted off through the trees.

      When I was far enough away to teleport without Ornias following, I reached out to Jennielle, but something was blocking me from her, so I teleported to Asariel instead. I landed on a bed strewn with empty glass bottles and a dish of ashes. As I sat up, I pushed one of the bottles off the bed and it clattered to the floor.

      I leaned over the bowl of ashes and sniffed then pulled back as the sweet smell stung my nose and my eyes watered. Salventra and Phobos. Relaxing, power dampening, and mind numbing preter herbs.

      What the—? The sound of heaving pulled me from the thought before it could fully form. I slid off the bed and paused with my clawed, scaled dragon’s foot on the broken glass. I lifted my foot and shifted into mortal form as I opened my Angelic sight. The room was still dim, but I could see a shattered bottle and splotches of red liquid. The bottle hadn’t been empty. Where was she?

      “Asariel?” I tentatively called and the retching paused. Fumbling footsteps approached a sliding wooden door to my left. I looked up as she clumsily pushed it open, and her green eyes stared at me, but she wasn’t seeing me. My eyes went wide as they searched her body. It was covered with cuts, dried blood, and bruises.

      “She wasn’t hurt when I found her, was she?” I thought and realizing this was a memory ejected me from the recognitive vision.

⁂

~ Present Day ~

      I sat bolt upright and looked around the nearly empty room. The bed moved beside me, and I backpedalled, landing unceremoniously sprawled on the floor as I untangled from the duvet. I cursed under my breath as my body protested. A deep, rumbling moan came from the bed, and I slowly rose to my knees, peering over the side of the bed at the other occupant as I reached for my glasses that sat on the bedside table.

      When I slipped them on, I inspected the body structure. It was too bulky and square to be female, though the last thing I remember was going to see one of my sisters. He was also large enough to make me look small, which wasn’t easy because I was six-three and had more muscle mass than the average male walking the streets. Surprisingly though, he was clothed or at least he was wearing a tight shirt.

      It wasn’t like me to sleep in the same bed as someone and not have sex with them. That was more because I didn’t trust anyone to sleep in bed with me except the five people that I had sex with semi-regularly.

      Maybe we’d only partially undressed…? I couldn’t be sure because his lower body was still covered by the duvet that I’d been tangled in. My fall uncovered his torso, but the duvet was tucked between his muscular legs, and I couldn’t see anything else through my bleary eyes. When I thought he’d drifted back to sleep, I heaved a sigh and sat back on my calves as I pushed my hip length crimson curls over my shoulders.

      “Áine, did you fall out of bed?” a deep, all too familiar voice rumbled. I looked back up as he rolled over, and my eyes went wide. No, I had to be dreaming. It couldn’t be Max.

      Max was my ‘one that got away.’ Last time we were together, he left me a heart wrenching Dear Jane note and vanished. That was twenty years ago and seeing his scarred face still stung. I slowly stood, using the nightstand for support, and cleared my throat.

      “Yes, I did… Now explain to me what you are doing in my bed,” I said. He lifted his head slowly, eyes, searching me as if I had a brain injury. I stared at his chartreuse eyes which were halfway between the green of his father’s eyes and the orange of his mother’s, both of whom I knew and spoke with recently, but they didn’t know he was alive. He tilted his head, staring at me from under thick blonde lashes as strands of his shoulder length blonde hair fell free from a sleep tossed bun.

      “Did you hit your head when you fell off the bed?” he asked, as I combed my hands through my curls and cringed. My head was a bit sore. “Anne, you look pale… I mean, paler than normal, and a bit green. Come back to bed, and I’ll rub your back.”

      I looked at my face in the mirror on the back of the door to check. He was right. I was ghostly white save for my many freckles and the green tinge. My stomach did feel a bit off… He pulled his shirt up over his head and my mouth watered as my eyes slid to his reflection before something glinted in the light.

      I whipped my head around and stared at the hoop in his left n*****. That wasn’t there the last time I saw him shirtless. What was my mind trying to tell me? Was this a vision?

“Anne,” he said, throwing back the covers to come to me. He was nude now, and when I saw his already hard c***, I backed up, ignoring the primal part of me that begged me to fuck him. I wanted him, craved him, but he wasn’t mine anymore.

      “What harm can sex in a dream do?” My subconscious reasoned with me, but it didn’t sound quite right. I took a trepidatious step toward him, and he held out one hand beckoning me to join him.

      I was suddenly on his lap, naked and ready for him. That wasn’t normal even for my sex dreams. It was like I’d lost time, but I was too wrapped up in Max to think about it. I always got this way around him. I rocked my hips, stroking him with my dripping wet p****.

      “You don’t have to worry. Here, we can be together forever,” he purred before capturing my lips with his, but his kiss tasted wrong. This wasn’t Max, and it certainly wasn’t a dream of my own making.

      I shoved him down to the bed and teleported across the room, glaring at the imposter. There was only one Angel that could crawl inside my head and manipulate my dreams without my permission while I was in one of my warded apartments.

      “Morpheus, by the realms! I’ve told you not to mess with my dreams, especially not parading as my old flame,” I shouted. I was ejected from that dream into reality, or what I hoped was reality. When someone messed with my head, I could never know for sure.

⁂

      I sat up, chest heaving, and looked around the room. It was the living room in one of my twenty-four apartments. It was days like this that I wished I had decorated each one differently, but I had an eclectic aesthetic, and it took so long to pick everything out that it was easier to order multiple of the same thing than spend the time to pick out new pieces for each apartment.

      I shoved that thought aside and focused on the facts: I’d fallen asleep on the pull-out bed of the sofa. Sure, it was comfy, but it wasn’t as comfy as the memory foam mattress in the bedroom. My body told me that as I looked down at my fluffy robe. I usually slept in the nude unless I was too tired or had company. What happened last night?

      “You’re a kill joy,” Morpheus called from the kitchenette behind the couch. I growled, threw off the duvet, and stood, tossing it to the bowl-shaped chair in the corner.

      “I told you not to do that,” I growled. I looked at the square Angelic brand smartwatch on my wrist and groaned. It was barely seven a.m. I combed my fingers through my curls and secured the robe before I turned around. I glared at the tall, dark-skinned angel with white, blonde hair who reminded me of his son and our sister, Aeronwen’s soulmate Bríon, who’d died over seven thousand years ago.

      “I’m sorry, but your sex dreams are far too tempting to ignore… I couldn’t help fuelling it,” he half whined, half purred as he sat back. I stopped in the archway where I was close enough to see him without my glasses. He was nude, and fully erect. He wasn’t just in my dreams; he’d been using them as his own personal [corn]… again.

      “Morph, how many times do we have to have this conversation?” I asked, and he smirked making things low in my body tighten.

      “Just once more, Dis,” he said, using the nickname he always did when I shortened his name. I tossed my red, white, and electric blue hair over my shoulders and put on my best seductive smirk. Morpheus was one of the five preters I had sex with, and this was the norm for him. He was drawn to some pheromone or other that I let off in my dreams. I still didn’t quite know how that worked, but I shoved it aside too, pulling the tie to my robe.

      “If you want someone naked and riding you, all you have to do is ask,” I said, dropping the robe. His eyes bugged and slid from my face to my H-cup breasts. It was the only thing I enjoyed about them being so large. Men and women alike would stare at them and miss little details, like a gun at my side or a knife disguised as a necklace in my cleavage.

      “You’re serious?” he asked, c*** twitching. Something about that seemed wrong, but at this point, I was too horny to care. I caressed down the centre of my torso over the black widow spider tattoo on my ribs toward the tribal design around my belly button as I stepped into the kitchen and offered my best seductive smirk.

      “Why would I tease? I’m sexually frustrated, aroused, and need release,” I said, sashaying to him. I set my hand on his bare shoulder, and he slowly looked up my body to my face. The lust was clear in his sky-blue eyes, but there was something else too, something that tasted like sweets and fine nectar on my tongue. That wasn’t like him, but I wanted to taste it.

      “You’re not teasing me,” he said as if in a trance. I shook my head as I straddled him and the chair. His breath caught as I captured his lips with mine. Our powers danced as I ate at his mouth draining his energy to make up for my lack of sleep. When I pulled back, he gasped a well meant, “Fuck—”

      “Soon,” I purred. I lowered myself onto his lap, rocked my hips over his, and coated his c*** with my dripping p****. On the fifth stroke, I took his c*** deep into my body without pausing my rhythm and he inhaled sharply. I grinned as more energy poured into me, my skin warmed, and power burned in my chest. “This is what you wanted… Right, Morpheus?”

      He nodded, not catching that I knew he wasn’t the Angel of Dreams. I just didn’t know who he was yet. His power tasted and felt familiar, but it was too tainted to tell me who it was. He wrapped his arms around me and latched onto my left n*****. I moaned at the ceiling as patches of purple scales slid out onto my skin. I threw my head back and rode him faster, harder, release so close that my entire body burned with it.

      He flicked my n***** with his tongue and sucked it between his teeth. I careened over the edge of bliss. My fingernails grew to claws, and I dug them into his shoulders as scales covered my hands. He pulled back, taking my n***** with him until it was pulled taught, on the edge of pain.

      He looked up at me, and I gasped as I saw his eye colour. They were no longer blue, but the pink-orange fade of sunsets and sunrises. My fight or flight instinct snapped me out of the afterglow of orgasm as I remembered Lucifer’s phone call yesterday afternoon. This wasn’t Morpheus; This was Ornias, the Fœmoræ I’d run from in the first dream, and I had just fucked him… again.

      “Ornias, let go of me,” I demanded. He did, but the pain and anger in his face said that was the last thing he wanted to do. I hadn’t given him a choice. I used his Angelic name, so he couldn’t refuse. It was a fail safe for Angels on the edge of corrupting but was abused and overused, so we’d stopped using our Angelic names until they were all but forgotten. I stood and backed up until I bumped into the counter. I grabbed onto the lip of the sink behind me and stared as he shifted into his true form.

      Gone was the dark skin and white hair of the Angel I’d willingly bed. In his place was the olive-skinned Fœmoræ with long, luscious black curls and a manscaped beard that was downy soft. This was my soulmate. The one I’d been running from for so long… Would it be so wrong to give in to him?

      I shoved that last thought away as he stood, his c*** soaked in my juices. It was still hard and throbbing. By the looks of it, he’d been mere seconds from true release. Thank the Maker I had noticed in time. I did not need a third child from his loins.

      The first was an unforeseen blessing that helped me escape him, the second was a mistake when I got black out drunk the night after Max left me the first time, about twenty-six years ago. Ornias always seemed to find me at my most vulnerable. It was the reason I no longer drank myself into oblivion.

      Again, I tried to remember what happened last night. I’d come to see Ronnie and Lucifer. To help them find him and make him pay for what he’d done to Ronnie’s daughter, Badb.

      “You certainly seem to have missed me, Esca Fraskæ[4],” he said, closing the distance between us. That was his favourite nickname for me and once, I’d enjoyed it, but now… Anger burned like fire in my chest. The Majora’s Mask tattoo on my sternum glowed as if someone held a flashlight to my skin. His eyes drifted to it, and he froze a step away.

      I had to hand it to him, he’d gotten smarter over the years. Not too long ago, he would’ve closed the gap, and let me attack him. I narrowed my eyes and let my Angelic scales slide out from under my skin again, covering me from head to now clawed foot as I grew to my seven-foot-five form, towering over him.

      “Don’t even think about taking that step. I don’t care what we were just doing. You manipulated me, lied to me, and essentially r**** me. Just like every other fucking time you’ve caught me, plus you nearly killed Badb yesterday,” I growled through my dragon’s muzzle. The sheer force of my voice sent him flying backward.

      He knocked the table over, and gracefully turned it into a backwards roll. He landed on his feet crouched, his arms raised to guard himself, and a shield of kinetic energy rose between us for good measure. He opened his mouth to speak and defend himself, but I heard his thoughts before he could take a breath.

     “We’re soulmates, Aesh. I will always be drawn to you.”

     I shoved him against the wall with a burst of telekinesis as my eyes glowed enough to throw red, blue, and white light around the room in front of me. I pinned him to the wall and glared into his eyes.

      “We may have been soulmates, but we are not a couple. We were joined to keep you from corrupting, but that didn’t work. Instead, you manipulated me into thinking that you were on the straight and narrow. I had to find out from one of the girls you were whoring around with that you were sleeping with that Scubaid[5]. Even then I didn’t believe it, but then I saw you together and you helped her take me.” Tears burned my eyes and choked the rest. I’d been hunting the Scubaid for thousands of years after finding out that she was no longer an Angeles[6]. I shoved that aside and blinked back the tears. “I don’t want to ever see your face again; you sack of Dragon shit. Get out of my house and if I see you again, come death or insanity, I will gut you!”

      I teleported him from my kitchen to the Himalayas and dropped his naked ass in the snow. That would cool him down.

      How had he even gotten inside? I warded all my apartments against that Nev’ca Ak'Nævêh[7]. I shifted back to my mortal form, summoned my glasses to my face, and stepped to the door. I inspected the jamb for the runes and symbols that were nearly invisible to anyone who didn’t know where to look. They’d been smudged. Someone had been in my apartment.

      I touched the mark and saw two hazy figures, but the more I tried to see, the less I saw. Even without the wards, the apartment was always locked and the only people with a key were family. They’d have known not to touch the ward or to redraw it if they smudged it this badly.

      It was probably me, coming in late last night. I usually double checked it before I went to sleep. Had I brought someone home with me or were the intruders already gone? I summoned the plush robe to my body and tied it tight at my natural waist emphasizing my hourglass shape before I stalked to the bedroom. The door was shut, and I paused with my fist up to knock. I tried for a solid ten minutes to retrace my steps, but I couldn’t think. Had I met Ronnie last night or not?

      I came to New Orleans to find Jack, and because of Ronnie’s call… Jack was the main priority though. He was my current problematic middle child, even though he was the oldest one alive. Neither of his brothers had heard from him in weeks, and he was constantly bothering one of them.

      Nicholas, Ornias’ son and the second oldest, said that Jack’s last known location was in the south-eastern United States. I knew he was here, but his brothers didn’t know that he had a sort of home base in New Orleans. What had I done last night that I couldn’t remember if I met with Ronnie or not?

      I looked at my smart watch and sighed. I was in the right time zone, and one thing was clear about the individual I brought home: They were a sound sleeper, which eliminated my youngest son, Xedrix who slept like his father and woke at the drop of a feather. I set my hand to the doorknob and took a deep breath, readying the speech I kept for random preters I accidentally brought home who’d been too drunk to sleep with.

[1]Demoki: Corrupted Angel

[2] Old Irish: Fuck

[3] Demoki for “Until Now,” also the name of the most trusted servant of the dragon.

[4] Demoki: Sweet flower

[5] Irish: n. Vulgar, Bitch.

[6] Demoki: A pure Angel

[7] Demoki: Fucking Attacker, Abuser, Rapist.

Chapter 2:

      “You don’t have to stand at the door, Kita[1],” A sultry, alto voice called from the other side. I paused at the word for sister in Demoki, the Angelic Language, and blinked a couple times. Was that Ronnie or were my ears playing tricks on me?

      I twisted the knob and pushed it open. Sprawled across my bed like a goddess on a fainting couch was my sister, Aeronwen, aka Ronnie. Her nearly silver skin shimmered where the sunlight from the French doors touched it. Her regal, oval face held almost feline features with large eyes, wider than average lips, and high cheekbones. 

      “Judging by the look on your face, you don’t remember going out for drinks last night,” she said, her purring voice stirring things low in my body as it usually did which brought with it memories of sex with her. “After I touched up your tattoo, we got a bit too noisy for the Emporium, so you teleported us here because we needed privacy, and my house is a bit crowded since Matt, Odin, and now Lucifer are staying there.

      “After some mind-blowing sex, thank you for that by the way, we went to the pub around the corner for dinner and drinks, and I got plastered. You insisted that I stay in your bed because it was closer to the bathroom, should I need to vomit,” she explained in detail. As she said it, the night returned in flashes.

      I walked into the room and sat on the bed beside her deathly pale body as I cursed myself. One of the reasons I came here was to hunt Ornias, whom I just sent to the Himalayas because I couldn’t deal with him right now. I should’ve flayed him for nearly killing my niece, and Ronnie’s eldest daughter. I flopped back and groaned a sigh as she combed out the length of her silver hair, that was streaked with orange. I smiled, glad that she’d decided to keep the highlights that one of her poly partners suggested. They looked amazing and brought out her eyes. I shoved that aside and sighed.

      “No, I didn’t remember… Until you said it. Did I tell you why I was coming to New Orleans in a couple weeks?” I asked, praying that I hadn’t mentioned Jack or Nick. A smirk pulled her dark lips up on the left, and she started combing her long, delicate fingers through my curls.

      “You were coming to get your chest piece touched up,” she said, moving her hand to trace the heart shape of Majora’s Mask from the Legend of Zelda Game of the same name. It was the centre of the tattoo over my sternum that was a tribute to the franchise as a whole with Master Sword, Fairies, and a banner that read “what good are weapons without the courage to use them.” She looked up into my eyes and her aura burned with curiosity. “But you didn’t mention any other reason. I figured it had something to do with the murders since that’s why Matt is in town still.” My stomach turned to lead at the thought of murders when I didn’t know where one of my sons was. I looked up into her pumpkin orange eyes and her fingers stopped on the body of the spider on my ribs. “You hadn’t heard about the murders—”

      “No, I haven’t the foggiest. I’m here looking after a friend,” I half-lied. Her nose scrunched as if she smelled the lie, but she didn’t ask. She had her own secrets, and we mutually refused to pry. That was one reason we still had a decent relationship.

      “You might want to check with Lou. I have a feeling your friend got caught up in his investigation,” she said. I sighed and glared at the ceiling.

      “It’s something he would do. He has the same Darwinian lack of self-preservation as his father,” I muttered. She chuckled, and I slid my eyes to hers again as she sat up. “Devil may care runs in his family.”

      “With you as his friend, I’d agree,” she said, assuming he was one of my lovers and not my son. I didn’t correct her, but I worked hard to hide a shudder of disgust. None of my Angelic siblings knew that I had a child, let alone four boys that were all old enough to have families of their own, though only three were still among the living. I shoved the thoughts of my eldest down before the wounds could reopen and turned to her.

      “You’re right about that,” I said, sitting up and sighing. “Are you going to make me see Lou before telling me about the case?”

      “It’s an ongoing investigation…” she began, but trailed off as I raised my eyebrows and relaxed my eyes. “But as I’m not an Agent of the Preternatural and Mythical Creatures Agency, I’m not bound by their rules—”

      “Spit it out, Ron. I need to know what to wear,” I said. I stood and stepped to the bifold closet doors. I pulled them open and looked at the clothing that was made up of mostly leather and lace with a few denim and cotton pieces sprinkled in.

      Unlike my apartments, which were decorated the exact same, my closet was enchanted for lack of a better term. When I opened the closet door at any of my twenty-four apartments or my two houses, it was the same closet, and the others would appear empty. Ronnie sighed and slid to the side of the bed.

      “The MO is similar to Vretil’s near the end of his reign, but nowhere near as dignified. Someone is trying to call attention to themselves in the worst way possible,” Ronnie said as I flipped through the slinky dresses moving toward the tank tops. “They’re sporadic, unplanned, and the only thing that connects them is a calling card.”

      I turned with a pair of leather pants in one hand and a black tank top in the other. On the top were skeletal hands flipping the bird with the words “No Bra Club” between the raised fingers and scooped neckline. She looked at the shirt, then at my chest and shrugged. She didn’t say anything. She simply waited to see if I was paying attention.

      “So, you have a disorganized killer, trying to gain the attention of the Triumvirate of Evil,” I summarized. She summoned her laptop to her lap and started typing.

      I held the outfit to my body and exchanged the robe for the clothes with my powers. When I pulled the hangers away, the robe was on the tank tops hanger. I hung it in the closet then tied the tank top up to show off my toned abs, which had the added benefit of displaying the tribal tattoo around my bellybutton and my piercing. I grabbed a leather jacket from the hooks in the back of the closet and shrugged it on as another thought crossed my mind.

      “Or Someone is killing to create fear and kick off their reign as the third member,” I theorized. She looked up from the computer and swivelled the screen around so I could see the bloodied card that looked like the Major Arcana Tarot card, the Magician. I took a step toward her and looked closer.

      The masculine figure stood with one hand up, the other down. In the upraised hand was a bloody knife. His flowing white robes were splattered with blood, his long reddish-brown hair blew as if by a slight breeze, and his ruddy complexion looked eerily like another Demokæ I knew. Raphael was constantly toeing the line between the Agency and the Underworld. I heard rumours that he crossed said line, but was this his handiwork or merely a coincidence?

      “You have that look in your eye, Neamhréir[2]. What do you see?” Ronnie asked calling me by my Irish name.

      “Either I’m still exhausted or someone used Raphael as the inspiration for that picture,” I said. She flipped the screen around and tilted her head. Her eyes went wide when she realized that I wasn’t kidding. She summoned a phone to her hand, and I added, “You hadn’t thought of that, had you?”

      She held up her index finger, and I rolled my eyes. I walked back through the living room to the kitchenette thinking about last night.

      Why hadn’t I redrawn the smudged ward? I don’t get black out drunk, so what affected me enough that I didn’t think about it? Was it Ornias working his Metakinetic asshattery again? Had he slipped in while we’d been too wrapped up in each other to notice or had he followed us back from the pub?

      “I may have something… Do you know where Raphael is?” Ronnie asked into the phone as I opened the fridge. The only thing in it was a bottle of Jack’s favourite Euphoria.

Shit, why was he crashing here? I grabbed the bottle and opened it with one claw not bothering with the opener under the edge of the counter to the right of the fridge. Ronnie walked out of my room as I tipped the bottle back.

      “She’s here. Want me to put her on?” she asked, and I groaned. I didn’t want to get involved in a case. I didn’t have time. I needed to find Jack before he ended up a victim of Ornias and get to Paris for the birth of my third grandbaby. She held the phone to me, and I groaned louder so that whoever was on the other end would hear me. I took it, saw Lucifer’s number, and set it to my ear.

      “Lucy, it’s so not nice to speak with you. How’s the fam?” I asked, distracting him as I leaned back against the counter. If I kept him talking about other things, he wouldn’t ask and that was usually easy. I knocked the bottle back as he chuckled.

      “About the same. Kalista’s recovering and overworking herself. Anna did very well with the birth and the twin boys are growing and thriving. But this isn’t about them,” he said, and I wasn’t going to let him rope me into this case so easily.

      “How are Garret and Lovey?” I asked. He sighed, and I saw him with my third eye. He set a hand to his forehead, rubbed his temples, and leaned back in an office chair that was nowhere near as nice as his, which made sense given he was here in New Orleans.

      “Garret is doing well, and Lovette is recovering from just having their twins. She’s getting anxious about Leighla and Remiel though,” he said, and I heard the weary tone to his voice. Leighla was in his triumvirate of Light, and she was taken six months ago. I tuned him out to think about what I’d learned about that particular incident and the rest of the abductions.

      Leighla had been snatched just before Vretil came out of hiding. I figured it was because she’d threatened to expose him or so I’d heard through Jael, our niece, and his daughter. Then I heard about Remiel, Lovette’s father disappearing the same day. It raised the number of abducted Angels to six. That changed my hypothesis.

      Their disappearance confirmed that the abductions were all by the same individual, which Leighla discovered just before they were taken. She’d taken voice memos, but no one knew where her phone was, so they still weren’t sure who it was. They’d also been distracted by the information Leighla gave Michael about the resurrected serial killer, aka Vretil. The Director, Lucifer’s heir, and his archnemesis, took care of Vretil quick enough, but no one had a lead on the missing Angels, or they didn’t last I heard. Maybe that was a better way to distract Lucifer…

      “Still no leads on the Abducted Angels?” I half-asked, half-said. His chair snapped to attention as he sat up, and I set the mostly empty bottle on the counter. “I take that as a no, and these murders are yet another distraction.”

      He slammed his fist on the desk, and I hung up. I tossed the phone at Ronnie and teleported to him. Most Angels would have run when Lucifer was like this. I always ended up nearby when it happened, or perhaps it was because I was nearby that he became this volatile.

      I did have an unsettling, aggravating aura about me, or so everyone said. I chalked that up to the soulmate insanity that had been eating me since I ran away from Ornias.

      I found myself in an office, but not Lucifer’s. He wouldn’t want to expend the energy to flit back and forth from Los Angeles to New Orleans. This one was nowhere near as grand as his office back home, either of them, but it wasn’t Ronnie’s home office either.

      “Let me help you find them,” I offered, setting my hands on the desk. He jumped a bit and stared up at my crimson eyes that matched his.

      “No, I can’t do that. I can’t throw another Angel at this,” he said. There was something in his eyes that I recognized. Guilt. He blamed himself for Leighla and Remiel being taken. As much as he’d put on a show of being strong and unshaken, losing Leighla hurt, and being this close, I could see why. Their triumvirate bond was whole again, but this threatened it.

      “Lou, I—” I started to argue, and he shook his head.

      “No, and that’s final. Kalista already has someone else looking into it,” he said, and I raised my eyebrows. “No, she’s not doing it herself, thank the Maker. Though she has been reading over Remiel, Leighla, and Matt’s notes.”

      Again, there was a tone in his voice, and a haunted look in his eyes. Even having Matt, our brother and an Angel of Justice on this case was worrying him and there was something more than just work bothering him. I peeked over the metaphysical wall I kept between us just enough so that I could see his thoughts then dropped back down before I saw too much. It wasn’t just about Leighla’s capture. He felt guilty for not treating her like he should.

      “Did Leighla ever meet your family?” I asked. He stiffened and didn’t meet my eyes. “That’s not your fault. Not all of it at least—”

      “It is my fault. There is nothing you can say and no argument I can give to prove that it’s not,” he said. I walked around the desk and sat to his right, forcing him to turn and look up at me.

      “Let’s say that it is your fault, that you helping and healing your relationship is why she was taken,” I began, and he tilted his head up and to the right. “Even if that is the case, you didn’t know who it was…”

      He looked away from me and my spine stiffened. Oh, Hell no! No! If he knew, he would send his best to go get them back. Wouldn’t he? He had no reason not to.

      “You don’t know, do you?” I asked and again he refused to look at me. “Lucifer, don’t make me use your Angelic name and pry it from your lips.”

      “I have a lead on who, but only because of Matt’s latest work, and he won’t tell me because he’s reporting to Kalista. Besides, every time we get close someone goes missing or winds up dead,” he said, throwing his hands up. I crossed my arms under my chest, since over them was near impossible without spilling them out the top of the tank top, but he didn’t bother looking at the mounds of my breasts that peaked out the neckline. He was more worried than I thought.

      “Every time you get close, something like these murders pop ups to distract you,” I clarified, and he nodded. “Then let me help Matt on this case. Let me find them.”

      “No, I will not risk you,” he said, and I threw my hands up.

      “This is ridiculous. Why am I arguing with you when Kalista is in charge of that case?” I asked, summoning my phone. He snatched it from my hand, and I summoned it back. He stood to take it again, and I teleported to the other side of the desk.

      “Hasn’t anyone told you not to take things that aren’t yours?” I asked and his nostrils flared before he composed himself and I added, “Tell me who you think it is, or I’ll call Kalista.”

      “Kalista doesn’t know yet,” he said, and I scoffed. “She’s had visions of torture, but she doesn’t know who the torturer is. She’s also flying here with some of her kids right now.”

      “Matt can’t be the only one who knows,” I said, and he sighed, shoulders drooping. “Lou, let me help you.”

      “You can help me by working on the murder case while I work on the case with Matt,” he began and I started to argue, but he talked over me, “Too many people know me and my affiliations. They refuse to talk to agents or anyone who will report back to me, but you’re unaffiliated with a long history of not telling me things.”

      He paused and I slipped the phone into the pocket on my bicep. I crossed my arms under my breasts again and waited for the rest.

      “I need someone to go to The Crimson Claw, which is—”

      “A Bar in the Quarter,” I cut him off, and he nodded once still staring distantly. “I know where it is.”

      “I didn’t want to assume,” he said as a smirk lifted the right side of his mouth and he sat, turning to his computer. “I need you to talk to the owner. She refuses to talk to an Agent since the last time one was there her business was trashed…”

      The memory of that almost made me smile, but I hid it behind my usually neutral expression. I was the one who trashed her business while chasing off the last Agent who stopped in a few months back, though I did repair the damage before I left. They hadn’t wanted to go, so I used persuasion of the violent kind. Come to think of it, I hadn’t been back to New Orleans since then. He looked up from his computer, and I tuned back in.

      “She needs someone that she can relate to—”

      “And you picked moi?” I said, setting one hand to my chest. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. If you want a negotiator, call Jethro.”

      “She won’t talk to him, because he’s on the Council of Justice,” he reminded me. That wasn’t the only reason, but I’d lean into it to keep him talking.

      “He was also on the Council of Spirit and the Council of Fire before that. Why choose me?” I asked. I set my hands on the desk again and a folder appeared between them. I flipped it open and looked at the face of the woman in the attached picture. It was a shoulders up shot from her Preternatural ID. It didn’t do her justice.

      She was a tall, leggy blonde with green eyes the colour of summer clovers and slim features that held hidden strength. Her real name was Cassandra, but she went by Sandra, and she was like a daughter to me.

      I fought to keep a smile from my lips as I thought of her. I didn’t realize how much I missed her. I looked over what they had on the blonde Animorphis, so I could tell her if she asked, and to make it seem like I hadn’t known her before I looked back at Lucifer.

      “Sandra Dexter… Have you tried sending a big, strong man? I heard she likes those,” I joked, and he rolled his eyes. Oh, someone hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. With growing preter twins in the house it was a miracle he was even this coherent.

      “Sandra is not the type of girl to turn into a puddle over a mountain of muscle,” he dismissed the idea, but there was only one way he knew that. I let my smile slide up on the right side.

      “Which hunk of muscle did you throw at her, hmm?” I asked, and his eyes flicked from his computer screen to me clearly annoyed that it hadn’t worked. “No judgement here. I’ll check her out if I can find the time, but I have personal reasons for being in town.”

      “So, I heard,” he said, turning to face me. He leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach as his eyes went to my breasts and the touched-up tattoo that dipped between them. Sure, now he was interested in them and probably what I had to say. He cleared his throat to ask, but I got straight to the point before he could get distracted.

      “You already know I’m here for the Shki[3], but I’m also looking for a friend, Jack Danaghe. You might know him. Lesser preter, gets into trouble a lot, wrong place at the wrong time, due largely in part to having no sense of self-preservation,” I listed. I stopped when laughter lightened his features, making him look a decade younger.

      “Jackie got in trouble again,” he said, and I sighed.

      “He always does…” I mumbled, removing my glasses, and pinching the bridge of my nose to relieve the small headache that started between my eyes whenever I talked about my problematic child.

      “Did you pull the short straw, or lose a bet? I was expecting Nick or Dex to come sniff him out,” he said. I forced down the mama bear instinct that bristled whenever my kids were mentioned so close together. No one who knew them would peg the tall, bean pole Jack Danaghe and the broad, built Nickolas Ivanov for brothers, but Nick was always there to bail his older brother out of trouble… Just like I did with my siblings.

      “You know that Dex and I have history. He’s busy with other things, and called in a favour,” I lied. Lucifer shrugged and was none the wiser. I’d been lying to him for centuries about a lot of things, including my identity, but he hadn’t noticed. For an Angel of Truth, he sucked at more than just seeing it.

      He thought my Discord appearance was one of Chaos, our sister’s, alter egos. I let him keep said delusion even though I was taller, more volatile, and had a much larger rack, more curves… As she says, ‘I’m Chaos to the nth degree.’ But there was no harm in building her reputation while I faded into the background when I wasn’t needed, and I regularly apologized to her for Lucifer’s badgering.

      “Unfortunately, I can’t help you. Jackie is wanted in connection to a few of the murders, including the last one, which happened behind the Crimson Claw. Sandra and Jack were seen together not long before the murder, and we still need to question him,” he said. I hid an eye roll behind my swathe of long sideswept bangs.

      If Jack was avoiding someone from the agency, Sandra would be the first person he’d run to. The idiot was always endangering those he loved, just like his namesake. He helped Sandra start the Claw…

      Then a thought hit me: With the Agency looking for him, he might’ve crashed at my apartment to keep her and their found family out of it. There was only one way to know for sure. I had to ask Sandra if she had seen him since the last murder.

      “I’ll talk to her,” I said. I stood, taking the file and was moments from teleporting home when another thought passed through my mind. “Lou, Jack isn’t capable of killing like this—”

      “That remains to be seen,” he said turning back to the computer. I stepped forward, and he looked up at me. “Some of his DNA was found at a few of the scenes. We just need to ask him where he was at the time of those murders.”

      I nodded and teleported back to my apartment into the bowl-shaped chair where I’d thrown the duvet earlier, but it wasn’t there. Ronnie was sitting on the sofa, which she’d folded back up and the duvet was folded across the top of it. On the coffee table between us was an open pizza box.

      “How’d it go?” she asked as I grabbed a slice.

      “Lou’s a stubborn ass,” I said, and we chorused, “Per the usual.”

      We ate in silence for a minute before she finished her first slice and grabbed another.

      “Did he have any news about your friend?” she asked, and I nodded curtly.

      “He’s one of the suspects. Damn idiot,” I grumbled, and she lifted one of her silver eyebrows. “There’s someone that might know where he is, but she’s not talking to anyone affiliated with the Agency.”

      “So, Lou asked you to talk to her?” she deduced, and I nodded. “Are you going to?”

      “Don’t have much choice.” I finished my first slice. I grabbed another, and she pulled a bottle of Euphoria from under the table. She handed it to me, and I dipped my head. 

      “Do you know how to contact them?” I looked at my watch.

      “I’ll wait until later. The Crimson Claw opens at Three,” I said, and she choked on her drink. I lifted my right eyebrow, raising the hoop in it and smirked. “Breathe air, drink Euphoria.”

“Yeah, I’ll try to remember that next time,” she coughed as I ate. When she’d cleared her airways, she locked eyes with me. “Your friends with Jack Danaghe? You know who his father was…”

      I rolled my eyes. Of course, I knew. Part of me wanted to snark back and ask if she knew who his mother was. She obviously didn’t, or she was doing her best to make me come out and say it. I wouldn’t. I prepared a bunch of responses in advance for times such as this.

      “Yes, I know who his father was. We’re not that kind of friends. Damn, Ronnie that’s just wrong on so many levels. I would never sleep with a guy then bed his son,” I said, taking another drink. She scoffed and I slowly lowered the bottle, swallowing. “Name one-”

      “Lucifer and Beelzebub,” she said, and I scoffed.

      “That doesn’t count! Zeb is sex on legs, and I was drunk on his pheromones and Chaos’s brew when that happened,” I defended myself, knowing that wasn’t the full truth.  

      “She calls it Chaos Theory now,” Ronnie changed the subject, and I let it drop. We had all morning to talk. I wasn’t going to focus on Jack or Beelzebub, even if my mind strayed to the tall, curly haired King of the Sex Demons, and the true reason I slept with him.

He’d reminded me of a young Ornias, but unlike that Shki, he was kind and didn’t want to own or control me. He only wanted to pleasure me, to taste me, and to enjoy my company. I let the memories go and distracted Ronnie by asking after Badb.

[1] Demoki: Sister

[2] Irish: Discord between entities.

[3] Demoki: Snake or Deceiver, used like son of a Bitch.

Chapter 3

      Ronnie and I spent the morning and the early afternoon talking about her family, the cases, and everything that led up to her home being the headquarters for all this madness. Two-thirty rolled around, and she excused herself to get to her first appointment at her Tattoo Emporium. We parted ways on the street out front, and I walked toward the bar.

      That word didn’t do the Crimson Claw justice. It was an underground preter hangout that happened to have a bar. If you knew the right person, there were also other not so legal activities you could participate in, for a price.

      As I rounded the corner, someone whistled. I looked up and grinned. Sandra was leaning over the railing of a fire escape as she smoked a cigar. Her blonde hair blew in a slight breeze and her green eyes sparkled as they roved me.

      “Look what the Polar Bear dragged out of the Tundra,” she called, and I teleported to her. She hugged me and pecked my cheek, pausing with her lips near my ear. “If you’re looking for Jackie, I don’t know where he is.”

      “Charming as ever, Sandra,” I said, pecking her cheek then whispering. “Nicky and Trix don’t know where he is either. They haven’t heard from him in weeks.”

      Sandra pulled back with slightly wide eyes then looked around before taking my hand and stepping through the open window behind her. Inside, it was like any other apartment on Bourbon Street: small, crowded, and white plaster but that was only a façade. She opened the door into a long, elaborate hall, and waited until the door was closed to say more.

      “He’s been here. I don’t know what he’s been up to, but he usually comes by once a night. Until two weeks ago when one of the girls was killed in the back alley. There’s been too many of Lou’s men around since then. He knew they’d look for him here and would ask me about him,” she said, leading me down the too quiet hall. “I’m worried about him, Ma.”

      “I’m here. You don’t have to worry anymore. I’ll find him and pull his ass out of whatever trouble he’s gotten into this time,” I said. She turned to me at a stairwell that led to the bar, and I set a hand on her shoulder. “I promise, I’ll bring him back alive.”

      “I know you will. I’m just scared. He’s been calling me at night to check in, but last night he didn’t. I wanted to call you or Nick, but with Vixen so close to delivering, I didn’t want to bother them, and I know you’re her doula this time,” she said. I squeezed her shoulder and offered a reassuring smile.

      “I know. You’re like me. You like to handle things yourself and don’t want to be a burden, but you’re not a burden to me, Sandra,” I said. She nodded and set her hand over mine on her shoulder.

      “If he didn’t show or call tonight, I was going to call you. Honest,” she said with tears in her voice. I pulled her in and gave her the long, tight hug she needed. Her body relaxed little by little, but I hung on until all the negative energy buzzing around her aura dissipated. When I loosened my hold and stepped back, she took a deep breath. “Thank you, Ma. You always give the best hugs.”

      “You’re welcome, Hun, but don’t ever think twice about calling me, even if you just need a hug from this mama bear. I can pop in and give you one anytime,” I said, taking her hand. I gave it a squeeze and her eyes watered. “You’ve been part of my den since the day Jack introduced us, and I don’t say that lightly.”

      She threw her arms around me again and, in that moment, I felt the joy and the need she had for a mother right now. Again, I wondered where her family was. Jack hadn’t told me much about her past, but the past didn’t matter much to Jack. The present and the future were his focus. I always wondered about her family, but I never asked, and she’d never brought them up. She squeezed me, and I rubbed her back.

      “Thank you… thank you so much,” she whispered into my hair.

      “You’re welcome, Arkæus[1]. Let’s go downstairs away from listening ears,” I said, feeling some of the girls staring at us, wondering why their fearless leader was being so emotional. She wiped her tears, using me as a shield from their worried eyes, and quickly led me downstairs. She unlocked the deadbolt on the door at the end of the bar. She pushed it open and ushered me in.

      It was dark in the room that was three times longer than it was wide. No lights were on, not even the neon signs which depicted women in various pinup poses.

      “You smell like Queenie. What did she tell you?” she asked, referring to Ronnie by a nickname she’d given her. She had one of the most powerful senses of smell I’d ever come across, except for Max… Again, he came to mind. She flipped a light switch under the edge of the bar and the neon lights brightened the room as I tried to get him from my mind.

      Four booths lined the wall opposite the bar on the other side of the three wooden pillars holding up a beam that ran down the centre of the room. In between the pillars were five tables with four chairs turned upside down on each. At the far end was a tunnel with thirteen steps up to the street. Upside down on top of the bar were thirteen stools, but she ignored it all and turned to me, waiting for an answer.

      “She said that there’s a serial killer on the loose. Lou said that Jack is a suspect, and they want to question him. I’ve also seen one of the cards,” I filled her in on the necessary details, leaving Ornias out of it. Her eyes widened at the last, and I pulled the stools down, one eyebrow rising in question. She held my gaze for a moment before she shook her head and grabbed a towel to buss the bar that didn’t need it.

      “The cards are just a distraction,” she said, her left eye twitching. She grabbed a square bottle from the shelf and set it in front of me. “It’s Chaos Theory. Jack bought a case off Ronnie last month.”

      “What did Jackie find out?” I asked, grabbing the bottle as I moved to take the chairs down. She prepped drinks for her crew, and I watched her, waiting for the rest.

      “They’re keeping the Agency from pursuing the real threat. The Illusionist is the third member of the triumvirate now, and he hands out those cards. The Underworld rumour mill says that he gives them to those he deems worthy, and when they’re out of favour, the cards change…” she said, setting the towel over her shoulder. When I finished with the chairs, I swished the amber liquid around the bottle before I twisted the top off. I took a swig and sat on one of the stools.

      “Jackie got his hands on one, didn’t he?” I asked. Her back tensed, but she gave a small nod. “That boy has no sense. He needs to learn to leave well enough alone.”

      “He’s too much like you, Ma,” she said, and I thought about that for a minute. Damn, if she wasn’t right. When I found out something like that, I always meddled. It was part of my nature. I couldn’t leave anything alone. Why couldn’t my boys inherit any of my better traits?

      “What did he want with one?” I asked. She stopped polishing the bar but didn’t look at me.

      “He was a mover for some of the local Underworld boys,” she said, voice low, and I set down the bottle ready to rant, but she hurried to clarify, “Not like that. They wanted things moved, and he found a way. He didn’t handle any merchandise, just told them how. It was strictly intel, nothin’ hands on. First, it was only once every couple years, if someone needed it—”

      “And now it’s a regular gig,” I said more than asked. She nodded, and I cursed. “Jackie, you son of an egotistical, arrogant, money hungry bastard.”

      She didn’t argue or defend him. She agreed with me and knew more about his hairbrained schemes than I ever wanted to. His schemes were never for the same reasons as his namesake Calico Jack’s. My Jack only took odd jobs for the Underworld to make a better life for his found family here at the Crimson Claw. They were his crew, and damned if I didn’t understand his reasoning.

      “Who’s he trying to rescue this time?” I asked, knowing that it was always about someone else. He lived to rescue people. Addicts, those in financial hardships, and those who’d been taken by the Underworld. If I knew who it was, I could get them out and he’d come too. She looked down, and I tilted my head. “Arkæus?”

      “I’m pregnant,” she confessed, setting both hands on the bar just out of arm’s reach. My eyes went wide, but I quickly hid both my excitement and fear behind my neutral mask. They’d been together since the turn of the early twentieth century. After so long with no children, I never thought they’d slip up. She slowly looked up at me, and I offered an unassuming smirk.

      “Should I say congratulations or let you vent about the possible complication of having a child when you’re in the business of rescuing people?” I asked, phrasing it as delicately as I could. She sighed, her shoulders sagged, and she fingered the compass locket she wore. She’d worn it every day since I gave it to her a hundred years ago.

      The locket was given to me by Calico Jack. I passed it on to her when I realized what she meant to my Jackie. To my knowledge, they’d never officially married, but I knew they weren’t likely to split after so long. They didn’t need a piece of paper to make it binding. She tucked one of her long blonde curls behind her slightly pointed ears and sighed.

      “At first, I was terrified. It’s taken a couple months, but I’m happier now… or I was,” she said, popping the locket open. The waterline of her green eyes glittered in the neon lights as she looked at the picture inside, and I took her hand. “Then Jack had to go and try for a nest egg.”

      I squeezed her hand as the first of the tears fell. She looked from the locket to me.

      “I can’t imagine how you must have felt when you found out about Jackie,” she said, putting a hand on her stomach over the baby bump that was starting to make an appearance. “Did his father even know?”

      “Not until the night we were boarded,” I said as tears burned my eyes at the memory. The smell of gunpowder and rum filled my nostrils as I remembered telling John Rackham about our son. “I told him after we captured that ship. He was so happy… Damn him, he was elated. He talked about retiring to Africa before Barnet could catch us.”

      My voice broke as thoughts of Barnet, one of Ornias aliases. One he’d made specifically to hunt me. He was the reason John wasn’t a better pirate. She squeezed my hand, and I shoved the memories down with the rest. I squeezed her hand back and brushed away a single tear before it could slide down my cheek.

      “I won’t let him do what his father did,” I said, cursing John again for giving himself up like that. She blinked at me, and I sighed. “The stories say that when Barnet found us, John was too drunk to fight. He was drunk, but he was never too drunk to fight and honestly, he fought better when he was drunk off his ass. He refused to fight. Mary and I were the only ones who fought because the rest of the crew listened to him, the idiots. We might have won if he hadn’t stopped me from using my abilities.”

      Dark mist swirled around my free hand as my blood boiled and my chest glowed under my tank top. I clenched my fist and both my fire, and the darkness vanished.

      “I would have killed them, but he had to go all noble and get little Jackie and I out by sacrificing himself. The bastard didn’t know that Barnet wasn’t going to spare us,” I said, taking a long drink. She scoffed and shook her head as I dropped the bottle again.

      “A big heart, no sense of self-preservation, and no mind for strategy. Like father, like son.” Sandra rolled her eyes. I nodded and lifted my bottle to her.

      “I’ll drink to that.”

⁂

      Ten minutes later, I unlocked the doors and set a wall of power over the entrance. It was a simple ward that would tell me who entered and what brand of preter they were. I sat in the farthest booth from the stairwell and watched it in case Lucifer sent someone else, or Ornias came looking for me. He knew my haunts from the last time he tracked me. If he wanted more than a booty call, he’d come here, and I’d kill him.

      I sat facing the door with one leg on the table, sipping at the bottle of Chaos Theory. I watched everyone come and go, judging their aura, and looking into their soul. Prosokinesis was one of my unique gifts. I could see into someone’s innermost being without looking in their eyes or expending much energy. It was one of my many abilities tied to both my aspects of Life and Death.

      It made tracking targets easier, but it made relationships harder. That was the sole reason I erected metaphysical walls around those I loved. Keeping the wall between Ornias and I was why I hadn’t seen his corruption coming. Removing one such wall was what ruined my relationship with Max.

      In a moment of weakness, when Max stopped talking to me, I opened a door in that wall and was hit with cold, hard truth. While I was away on a mission, he’d gotten bitter and fallen for someone else.

      I don’t know what I expected after being unreachable for six months even though we’d been apart for longer than that before. He’d been mad at me for going on said mission, and for remaining silent like I told him I would. So, he found a bartender and poured his heart out to her.

      He fell for her, and she for him. He’d slept with her the night before I returned. I should’ve stayed in Paris and called him first. Walking in on them at her bar was the worst pain I’d ever endured. Even after their relationship had ended, or how we’d nearly made up twenty years ago, that hurt still stung because it reminded me of walking in on Ornias and the Scubaid.

      I tipped the bottle back and drank the last mouthful, trying to wash away the memories. I looked into the empty bottle and sighed. I needed another drink if I wanted to look casual. I walked to the bar and a familiar power touched the ward. I stumbled as I reached the bar and shook my head.

      No, my mind was playing tricks on me. Max couldn’t be here. He hadn’t left the west coast in twenty years. It was just residual energy from the memory. There was no reason for him to be here, especially not now. The door opened, and I paid no attention to the newcomer as Sandra drifted over to take my order.

      “What can I get you, Red?” she asked. I set the empty bottle on the bar and opened my mouth to ask for my usual mix, but a looming, mountainous shadow entered my peripheral vision. I turned and instantly salivated. My mind was continuing its games, it couldn’t be him, but what if…

      “Am I seeing things, or is there a mountain of a preter prowling by the tunnel?” I asked, pointing to him. The tall, blonde hound whose biceps were three times the size of mine stood at the bottom of the stairs. If he were any taller, he’d have hit his head on the seven and a half foot ceiling. She looked at him and nodded as her eyes roved him.

      “If he’s your type, you should bed him. You might get more information from him than from the rest of the riffraff,” she said. Half of me wanted to tell her that I had bedded him many times, the other half didn’t want her to know about the failed relationship. She took my silence for hesitant trepidation and decided to add a bit more to sweeten the pot.

      “He’s a member of Lou’s newest squad…” ‘He’s the one who’s been prowling for Jack,’ she telepathically added. I was surprised that Max hadn’t found him yet or maybe he only told Lucifer he hadn’t out of respect for me. After all, he was there the day Jack was born and had been watching out for him, when he could. Though, I don’t know if he continued to do so while he was mad at me. He was also the best tracker I knew. He could sniff out a trail that was months old, so why hadn’t he found Jack?

      I looked from her to him as his cybernetic eyes scanned the bar. Those were new, and they hadn’t been there in my dream this morning. Had Lucifer conned him into testing out the cybernetic implants he’d been working on when I refused, or was he further injured on a mission for the dumbass?

      “I just might,” I tapped the bottle with one knuckle and pushed off the bar. “Fill her up with my mix, and I’ll take care of him.”

      My eyes roved the almost seven-foot-tall mountain of muscle as I sauntered toward him. When I met his eyes, they turned from cybernetic green to chartreuse, reminding me of my dream again.

      My dreams always warned me of things like this. Ornias simply took over when it moved to sex and passion, since he was an Angel of Pleasure… or he had been. My powers were warning me that Max was in town. My subconscious was trying to tell me that I still craved him. I hadn’t listened. I was too preoccupied with the monster in my kitchen to entertain that possibility.

      I tuned out my internal monologue that berated me for missing it as I stood a foot in front of him. A seductive smirk turned my lips as I looked up at him and his smirk mirrored it, though it was skewed because of the scars on either side of his mouth. Even after nearly three hundred years, they were still there.

      “Have we met before?” Max asked, quoting Thomas O’Malley from the Disney movie the Aristocats. The deep bass of his voice rumbled through me and sent a shiver down my spine.

      In that moment, I decided to let my body have what it wanted. I set my hands on the shoulders of his leather jacket, grabbed the straps, and jumped into his arms. He caught me just like old times, and I stared down at his eyes from inches away.

      “If we haven’t, let’s skip the pleasantries and head straight to the bedroom,” I whispered, breath hot against his lips as his hands cupped and groped my ass. “Kiss me.”

      “You don’t have to tell me twice,” he growled low and captured my lips with his. I lost myself to the familiar feel of his lips on mine, of his tongue as it licked my lips then slid past my fangs into my mouth, and the way his muscular body felt in the vice grip of my legs.

      A few minutes later, the bar erupted with cheers and whistles reminding me that we weren’t alone. I pulled back with a gasp, and he walked to the bar, carrying me as if I weighed nothing.

      “If you want a room, they’re through the door,” Sandra told him. He looked from her to me, and I nodded, not letting the warning flags in my brain get in the way of my need for him. He kept his hold on my ass until he got to the end of the bar. He stopped only to grab the bottle from Sandra and duck under the doorframe into the stairwell.

[1] Demoki: Bear Cub

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