Chapter Five
Normal. For the last thirty minutes the world around Katy settled into a nice normal rhythm. No fantastical conversation about companion animals or shifting. No growling, hissing or flame throwing like she’d watched take place in the giant gorge outside Priest’s home. Certainly no mammoth panthers flashing in and out of existence in the space of seconds. Just regular people eating dinner like normal people. Even the simple tacos Jade and Tate had whipped up while she’d stood rooted in terror by the kitchen’s wide window were beautifully ordinary. Exactly the balance she’d craved since finding her parents dead.
And here she was eager to push things back off-center again.
Because you want justice.
Katy tightened her grip on her fork and pushed a bite of taco salad around on her plate. Her cheeks heated and the cold fury she’d kept buried deep shoved harder against her control. She couldn’t lose sight of her goals. What had been done to her parents was an abomination. Pure evil. She owed it to her parents to find their killer and make sure he paid for what he’d done. Only she’d do it the right way. Not give way to the dark need that pushed her to pay Draven back with the same cruelty he’d dealt the people she loved.
Across the large trestle-style table, Alek handed off the bowl full of seasoned ground beef to Tate beside him. The last streaks of sunshine danced through the softly swaying treetops outside the large window, lending a semblance of peace to her rioting thoughts.
Something had happened outside between Priest and Alek. Something deeper than just two men beating their chests and acting like idiots. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure it out. But Alek was different. Calmer than she’d seen him in weeks and deferring to Priest like he’d been his wingman for years.
Very weird.
Not that everything else in her life these days wasn’t beyond the realm of belief.
She stole a peek at Priest beside her. As it had when he’d helped her from the Jeep, the slow, pulsing warmth blossomed low in her belly, and her heartbeat fluttered in an unsteady, but eager rhythm. It didn’t make sense. She’d known him only hours, but just looking at him stirred her in an inexplicable way. Never mind the breath-stealing response when he actually touched her.
His gaze slid to her plate and her barely touched salad. He’d done that a few times since they’d settled in. Both times he’d followed up the cursory study by frowning and handing her another food option off the table. This time he stood, prowled to the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door. He rummaged around inside and pulled out a medium plastic tub. The last thing she expected was for him to jump into the conversational lull he’d created by leaving the table, but he pulled down a clean plate from the cabinets and focused on Naomi. “You said you had a vision after you found your son. Tell me about it.”
Katy straightened in her seat, the impatient part of her eager for any kind of information that might lead to action instead of more waiting.
Priest’s gaze cut to her, considering, before he went back to laying out whatever was in the tub on a plate.
“There were two, actually,” Naomi said. “One the morning it happened alerting me to trouble, and another when I saw Draven’s talisman.”
“You saw him?”
Naomi shook her head, eyes aimed to the table but unfocused. “I saw the marks of primos from our past. I felt the chill of Draven’s magic, and I saw a jaguar stalking through the dark.”
Priest put the lid on the plastic tub and put it back in the fridge. “You’re sure it wasn’t a memory?”
“No. It was the present. Our old world had a different feel to it. Today’s world is more electric and connected. The darkness was thick, but there were newer buildings in the distance. Someone was being chased. And there were screams. A man and a woman.”
Priest moved her taco salad out from in front of her and slid a plateful of fresh fruit in its place. For late March, the quality of what he’d selected was impeccable—plump strawberries, blueberries and blackberries mingled with cantaloupe and watermelon.
Such a simple gesture. Uncomplicated and done without any fanfare, but deeply thoughtful.
He eased his big body into his seat with a grace that echoed the panther she’d glimpsed, braced his elbows on the table and shared a tense look with Jade across the table.
Something in the unspoken message that moved between them prodded Katy’s instincts. Spurred her to do something. “What’s that look mean? What do you know that we don’t?”
Priest paused long enough to cast a pointed look at the fruit and cocked an eyebrow. A tit-for-tat nudge if she’d ever seen one.
Barely fighting back one of the scoffs her father had always called uncouth, she snatched a blueberry and popped it in her mouth.
Priest’s mouth twitched as though he wanted to smile, but his eyes countered what he’d kept in check, a healthy amount of mirth shining behind the odd gray color. “Jade had a vision around the same time your parents were murdered. It was her first after earning her gifts.”
“What’d she see?” Alek said.
Jade ducked her head and focused on what was left of her taco. Considering how outgoing she’d been throughout the day, seeing her so uncertain and vulnerable rubbed Katy all wrong. “Someone hunting. Lots of blood, but no details. It only lasted a minute. Maybe less.”
“A new seer’s early visions are always brief,” Naomi said. “Especially an uncomfortable one. They’ll get stronger. Longer. And you’ll learn to disconnect from the emotion as you grow.” She turned her focus to Priest. “But the feelings she felt confirm my belief. Draven is hunting our primos.”
Everyone at the table grew silent.
Elbows still planted on the table, Priest laced his fingers and rested them against his mouth. Thoughtful and distant.
“You don’t believe her?” Katy said.
Priest’s gaze slid to her and this time his mouth crooked in a semi-wry smile. “Your grandmother is one of the strongest seers I know. I wouldn’t question her judgment.”
“Then what are you thinking?”
His expression sobered and the gray in his eyes seemed to shift and swirl like an early morning fog. Only that couldn’t be right. Eye color might change based on lighting or other environment elements, but to actually move?
Then again, she’d watched her grandmother shift into a hawk and witnessed the biggest panther in history pin her brother on his back—even if it had only been for a handful of seconds. So, what did she know?
“The same day Jade had her vision,” he said, “I was pulled into a soul quest. It was fast. No warning. But when I got to the Otherworld there was no one there. At least, not that I could see or feel. I was just about to return when a scream sounded from somewhere out of sight. The next thing I knew I was here.”
Jade shifted in her chair, the creak of the wood overloud in the room’s otherwise quiet. “My vision happened at the same time.”
“Maybe what you heard was my parents,” Alek said.
Priest considered the suggestion for a moment then shook his head. “Your mother wasn’t Volán and your father refused his quest. There aren’t any second chances with the Keeper. Refuse her once and you’ll never go back.”
Done with the overloaded plate of food he’d taken on, Tate tossed his paper napkin to the table and reclined against his seat back. “I don’t understand. If Draven’s hunting primos, why wouldn’t he go for the sorcerer line first? Outside of Priest, they’d hold the most power.”
“A better question is why aren’t you hunting the primo lines?” Alek said to Priest. “If they’re so important, then shouldn’t you be doing the same thing?”
Not the least bit ruffled, Priest met her brother’s stare head-on. “I had no need. I thought my brother was dead, and I’m called to the Otherworld when anyone answers their soul quest.” He shifted his attention to Tate. “As to why he started with the warrior line instead of the sorcerer line, it could simply be the only lead he had.”
Sighing, Naomi leaned into the table and cupped the mug of herbal tea she’d made shortly after Priest and Alek had finished their he-man one-on-one. She’d tried to foist the allegedly calming concoction on Katy, but the lavender and chamomile combo was no match for a decent cup of coffee. “I’ve only kept in touch with a few other families since our clan broke apart, but I’ve heard many changed their last names to better disappear.”
“But yours didn’t?” Jade asked.
Naomi shook her head. “We believed Draven was dead. My son just wanted as far from his heritage as he could get. To forget the things he’d seen that night.”
Katy couldn’t blame her father. She’d only seen glimpses of the power her race was apparently capable of. None of it ugly, but all of it shocking. If that night was on par with the carnage she’d found at her parents’ house, she’d have distanced her family from all of it, too. “So, you think Draven tracked us by name?”
“Or through his gifts,” Naomi said.
As he had with all his other questions the last half hour, Alek turned to Priest for answers. “What house is he?”
“Sorcerer.”
One word, but the ominous undertone behind it stirred more than Katy cared to process. A flight instinct her father had no doubt wrestled his whole life combating with a white-hot need for vengeance. “The most powerful house. And now he’s looking for me and Alek, right?”
“He won’t touch you.” Priest’s gaze bore into hers, the strength behind it instantly seizing her chaotic thoughts and anchoring her on solid emotional ground. “My brother is powerful, but there is absolutely no gift I won’t use—no advantage I won’t leverage—to keep you safe. He will not beat me. Not if you’re at stake.”
The same electric surge she’d felt the two times he’d touched her reignited. A pull that seemed rooted in the center of her chest and urged her forward, all the while nudging a dormant part of herself to life.
And why such importance on her? Why not Jade or Tate? Or even Alek, for that matter. He was the fighter in her family. If this Keeper person was going to put a primo label on anyone, it sure wouldn’t be her.
As soon as the questions surfaced in her head, she tamped them down. Emotions and physical responses weren’t important. All that mattered was finding the person who’d wrecked her family and the reality that went with it. “So, outside of records and technology, how would he trace us?”
Priest studied her, the intensity of his scrutiny so deep it felt as if he’d stripped away her flesh and peered straight to her soul. “If he had something of your line—something of significant meaning or filled with emotion—he could use it. But only if the person had accepted their gifts.” His gaze dropped to the mostly untouched plate in front of her and he nudged it an inch closer. “Since your father never accepted his, he’d have had to use traditional means.”
Katy ignored the fruit, her stomach churning too much to even consider adding food to the mix. “He’s your brother. If he has something of yours, what’s to stop him from finding you?”
“Priest marked us,” Jade said, cutting through the thick connection between her and Priest. Not the least bit concerned with the mixed genders gathered round the table, she twisted in her seat and pulled her tank top up and over her head.
Alek coughed as though he’d nearly swallowed his tongue and all but gaped at Jade’s now exposed back across the table.
Tate and Naomi chuckled, but it was Priest who spoke. “Another lesson about our race—modesty doesn’t carry the same weight it does with the singura.”
Scoffing, Tate stood, plucked his and Naomi’s plate off the table, and sauntered to the kitchen. “And if you do have any, you learn quick to get over it the first time you shift back to human form in front of other people and forget your clothes.”
“Sorry.” Jade peeked over her shoulder, but the mischievous grin on her face said she really wasn’t. “You have to admit, the marks are pretty awesome. I just got mine today.”
Awesome was an understatement. Done in red, black and every shade of gray imaginable, they exuded power, yet held a feminine grace that matched Jade’s personality.
“Tate has them, too?” Katy said.
“Hell, yeah,” Tate answered before Jade could so much as nod. Rounding the kitchen counter that separated the dining nook from the kitchen, Tate peeled his T-shirt off and bared his heavily muscled torso. She’d barely had a chance to appreciate the artwork dipping over his shoulders in a half-arc along his collarbone before he turned and displayed his back.
“Whoa.” Gone was Alek’s awkward response to Jade’s bold behavior, replaced with pure appreciation.
Like Jade’s, the design exuded tremendous strength. But where Jade’s featured soft feminine lines, Tate’s was pure male. A mix of Nordic and tribal influence. The detail was so impressive anyone who saw it would be tempted to touch and trace each bold line. She forced her gaze away from the beautiful work and found Priest’s attention rooted on her. “You did that?”
His lips didn’t move, but something in his expression shifted. Something important she couldn’t quite categorize.
“Everything Priest does is awesome.” Tate turned, jabbed his arms back into his shirtsleeves and pulled his T-shirt over his head. “You wouldn’t believe how much people pay for his ink. And that’s without the extra mojo added to it.”
“That’s why I couldn’t find you before the Keeper gave me direction,” Naomi said. “You put protection spells in the marks.”
Priest nodded. “And a locator so I can find them if they ever need me.”
“Well, your brother can’t find us yet outside traditional means,” Katy said, “but shouldn’t you at least start looking for the others and beat him to the punch? Maybe see if you can find someone still around from Nanna’s generation?”
“We’d need a sorcerer to help us,” Naomi said. “Do we have any?”
“None,” Priest said. “I thought the house was dormant until I learned Draven was alive.”
The heaviness in his answer drew Katy on a visceral level, a foreign impulse to soothe and comfort him pushing against her tight control. To wipe away the thick regret in his voice with a soft touch. Which was absolutely insane. She barely knew this man. Had zero obligation to him or his troubles except where it aided in finding her parents’ killer.
Undaunted, Naomi crossed her arms on the table and narrowed her gaze. “Jade and I could see if our visions bring us anything. We wouldn’t be able to pinpoint as clearly as a sorcerer could, but if there are other seers nearby, we could pool our strength and perhaps narrow the area to search. Surely we have active seers in the clan?”
“Some from the new generation and the old,” Priest said. “Tate’s and Jade’s parents got word out to a handful of families when we settled here. The news hasn’t traveled as far as we’d like for it to, but most of those who’ve heard relocated with us.”
Jade grinned and waggled her eyebrows at Katy. “It’s a hoot. Lots of the elders have built a reputation with the people in Eureka Springs. They’re known as people who’ve gone off the grid and everyone thinks they live without electricity or running water.”
“Do they?” Katy asked, the scientist in her rising up in interest.
Tate scoffed. “They’re elders. Not stupid. They like their hot water and internet as much as everyone else, but the rumors help keep people away so they can shift whenever they want. In the time since Jade and I were born, we’ve taken up Ozark land from the Ouachita Forest to just south of Springfield.”
“But none of them are from primo lines?” Alek asked.
Priest shook his head. “We’ve got twenty families at most and only eight of those in your generation.”
“Do you have anything from the primo lines?” Naomi said. “Something Jade and I could use to help narrow our focus on each family?”
“We’ve got the primo medallions,” Jade said. “My mom saved them.”
Naomi brightened. “Those are perfect. The more power and history, the better.”
Katy straightened in her chair, all the information shared throughout their meal and opportunity clicking together at once. “Wait a minute. If Draven is the problem then why wouldn’t we just go straight for him?” She locked gazes with Priest. “If we stop him, then everyone else is safe.”
“If my brother gets control of our primos, no one is safe. Not our clan and not the singura.”
“But you’re high priest and Draven already has his gifts. You can do everything the other houses can do and you don’t have to worry about ticking off this Keeper person.”
Priest waited, patiently listening.
Seriously? He didn’t see it? It was easy. Assuming he could really do all the stuff everyone claimed he could. “So, we’ve got his charm. You use it, find him, and we bring him to justice.”
In the silence that settled around them, Katy wasn’t sure if she’d hit the idea lottery, or inadvertently stepped on the mother of all land mines, but the tension and awareness in the room grew supercharged in a second.
When Priest finally answered, his voice seemed not just to register in her ears, but as an echoed thought as well. “What does that justice look like for you, Kateri?”
Brutal.
Bloody.
Painful.
She shoved the raw, uncensored thoughts and the cold fury that went with them into the dark well she’d built to keep her life in check. Balanced and responsible. “We find him and have him arrested. He can stand trial and be judged like everyone else.”
“And do you think a singura jail could contain my brother?”
No. Absolutely not. And the fact that her anger had blinded her to such a harsh truth made her cheeks burn with embarrassment.
But it’s not what you really wanted anyway. You want him to pay. To experience every pain your mother and father felt.
Not waiting for her to answer, Priest kept going. “This will end with my brother’s death and it will come by my hand.”
“But she has a point,” Alek said. “If you can use the same skill as a sorcerer to track him, then why not use the charm and short-circuit any need to find the primos? You find him and we deal with him ourselves.”
Priest shared a look with Naomi, a question unspoken.
“You should tell them,” she answered. “They need to know the truth. All of it.”
He sighed and clasped his hands in front of him on the table, his thick biceps clenching as though it took every ounce of control to hold himself in place. His gaze stayed rooted on the table, though his eyes were distant. “I learned of my brother’s plans to steal each primo’s magic too late. My only recourse the night he acted was to strip from him the magic he’d stolen.” He paused and lifted his head, meeting Katy’s stare head-on. “With it came his darkness. It’s in me. It took nearly twenty years after his attack for me to find balance and keep it contained. I don’t dare touch anything of his. Not without risking letting it loose again.”
“He could have bespelled it, too,” Naomi added. “If Draven is smart enough to find my son, he has to know I’m alive and that the first place I would come would be to Eerikki. It’s why I wouldn’t let either of you touch it when we found it beside your father’s body.”
Still watching Katy, Priest lowered his voice, the softness behind it that of a man trying desperately to pull a punch he sensed would hurt. “You want retribution. It moves inside you the same as his darkness does in me, even though you hide it. But finding the primo families first is the wiser course. Draven will come for me eventually and, when he does, I’ll deliver your vengeance. Gladly. Both for what he’s done to you and your brother, and how our clan has suffered.”
Vengeance.
The word resonated through her, carried on the deep rumble of his voice and strangely placating the incessant need that had prodded and driven her for weeks. How he saw what she’d fought so hard to contain, she had no clue. It terrified her. Made her want to put as much distance as possible between them.
But it also comforted. Offered an ally and acceptance free of judgment.
He pushed away from the table and stood, the legs of his chair grating against the stone floors that so perfectly fit his home’s wilderness lodge design. “I have a client who’ll take most of the day tomorrow, but most of our local families will be here on Saturday for training. I’ll reach out to the seers in our clan, make sure they’re joining us.”
Standing as well, she blocked him from wherever he was headed. He couldn’t just up and leave, expecting her to bide her time until he was ready. “Why waste a day? Let’s start tomorrow.” Well, maybe she wouldn’t. Without any powers of her own, the best she could do was leverage her technical contacts from college, but she’d be on that first thing for sure.
He scanned her head to toe and his lips curled in the barest grin. “Tomorrow won’t be wasted, kitten. You’ll need it to rest and get ready for Saturday.”
“Why?” A quick check of those still seated around the table showed Alek didn’t have a clue what he meant either. Naomi, Jade and Tate, however, either kept carefully blank stares, or outright avoided her gaze. “What’s so important I need a day to gear up for it?”
“For starters, you’ve had a long trip here and need time to unwind. To settle yourself in my home.” He cupped her shoulder, the contact so careful and tender it seemed as if he barely trusted himself to allow the connection. “But more than that, on Saturday you start your training.”
Training? Like exercise and fighting the way Alek did every day? Or Volán 101 and all the undoubtedly weird stuff that went with it?
Before she could so much as open her mouth and clarify, he turned her and guided her from the kitchen. “Tate, you and Alek handle clean up. Jade, take care of Naomi and make sure she has whatever she needs. I’ll take care of Kateri.”
A command.
The same authority he’d exerted since he’d prowled into the pub and issued his plans for getting them all safely home. Though, oddly, she didn’t bristle at it. Nor did anyone else. The authority simply surrounded him. Created a natural order with those he came into contact with. No different than a predator stalking among less capable beasts.
Well, except for Alek. And Priest had handled that, too. Establishing a hierarchical order in a way that seemed to have helped her brother level out.
Too distracted by her thoughts, she let him guide her from the room, obediently putting one foot in front of the other as if some unknown part of her had already high-fived his plans even while another part insisted she dig in her heels and interrogate him for the rest of the night.
His footsteps were eerily silent beside hers, his power a tangible presence between them as he guided her through his home toward the open staircase at its center. The lodge feel suited him. Contemporary in its lines, but grounded in openness and nature. Exactly the kind of place she’d want for herself someday—isolated from the world’s chaotic hubbub with plants, trees, rocks and water featured in every view.
She was just tired. That was all. He’d been right about the trip here taking its toll, and everyone else seemed comfortable in following his guidance, so maybe she’d be wise to give herself the reprieve. Feed her curiosity with simple things like wandering outdoors.
Or finding out what she could about the man shadowing her every step.
Reaching the top of the staircase where a catwalk branched left or right, she hesitated.
Priest motioned her to the right. “My room’s on this side. Everyone else is to the left, so you’ll have privacy and quiet.”
“You really don’t have to do this. I don’t mind sharing with Jade and Nanna.”
He inched closer, not quite touching her, but near enough his heat caressed her skin. When he spoke, his voice rumbled with the depth of a storm’s distant thunder. “I want you where you belong.”
Wanted.
Needed.
Possessed.
The thoughts coalesced all at once and sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. She shouldn’t like the idea. Didn’t want to. And yet she ached to touch him. “I’m not sure how to take that,” she managed barely above a whisper.
“Take it to mean I want you comfortable and protected. The rest we’ll figure out together.” Not taking his eyes off her, he lifted his chin toward the hallway beyond. “Go, I’ll show you where everything is.”
Giving her space, he did just that in short order. Like everything else in his home, the design was simple yet spacious and tastefully done. Rich chocolates, grays and taupes offset nature’s hues outside the many windows. Even the master bath had ample natural lighting, the wide glass integrated in such a way it afforded privacy even as it made her feel the walls didn’t exist.
Exiting the bath, she paused beside the sliding glass door that led to a private deck outside his bedroom. Above the night-shadowed treetops, stars nestled against a blue-black sky, but for once her focus wasn’t on the scenery. It was on the man reflected in the glass. In the way he moved and the effortless strength as he hefted her suitcase onto the foot of his king-size bed.
“You can open it if you like,” he said as he faced her.
She froze, meeting his gaze in the reflection for at least two heartbeats before she faced him. “How did you know I like the windows open?”
He smiled, a wolfish one that said he was more than a little pleased he’d struck a chord. “I didn’t. I only guess because you seemed to enjoy the drive here in your brother’s Jeep. That and you’re Volán. Most of us are drawn to nature.”
He prowled forward, stopping only inches away from her and reaching to the door’s handle behind her. The glass whooshed open, and the cool night air swept in, laden with quiet chirps and leaves rustling on a slight wind.
Still, she didn’t move. Just stared up at him as he studied her. At five foot five, she wasn’t exactly short, but between the near foot he had on her height-wise and the breadth of his muscled torso, she felt positively tiny.
His gaze roved her face, focused on her lips, then traveled lower to her neck. His fingertips whispered along her collarbone, slipping beneath the leather cords that held the charms her grandmother had insisted she wear after her parents’ death. He pulled the charms from beneath her shirt, letting them rest between her breasts. “Do you know what these mean?”
Right now she barely knew her name and was doing good to keep her breaths steady and even. “Not really.” She’d done good in those first few days just to keep from losing her mind, let alone ask questions about what she’d always viewed as Nanna’s superstitions.
He lightly touched one of the three and her heart kicked as though the connection was skin to skin. “The armadillo is for protection. A shield to hide you from harm.” He moved to the next and her pulse accelerated another notch. “The turtle is a protector, too, but more nurturing. A connection to the Earth’s energy.”
She swallowed as much as her parched mouth would allow, everything inside her poised and eager for his next touch. “What’s the bird mean?”
His mouth curled in a crooked smile. “Not just a bird. A raven. To give you courage and insight when you need it.” The smile slipped and he rubbed the talisman between his finger and thumb. When he let the charm slip free and straightened, she nearly wept at the loss. As if gravity had suddenly lightened and left her floundering for purchase.
Rather than step away, he reached both hands behind his neck. A second later, he lifted a necklace free. The black leather was nicer than those she wore, pliant, well-worn and shorter in length. Hanging from it was a beautiful medallion—a four-pointed star with a creature etched at its center.
He leaned close before she could study the animal and wrapped the soft leather around her neck. The talisman lay heavy at the hollow of her throat, the heat from his body still present in the smooth metal.
She rubbed her fingers over the top of it, exploring the fine details. “What’s this one?”
His gaze fixated on the simple gesture and the gray in his eyes darkened to that of an impending storm. Only when she dropped her hand did he lift his focus to her face. “Mine.”
He stepped away, his breath coming heavier as it had when they’d first met. Like then, she had the sensation that it wasn’t just the two of them in the room anymore. As odd as the sensation was, she didn’t mind it. If anything, it tempted her to go to him. To comfort him the same as he’d done for her.
Before she could, he turned and strode to the door, pausing only long enough to cast her one last look. “Sleep well, mihara.”