Chapter 2

 

Leira hated it when Quinn called a meeting. She’d managed to avoid them for the last couple of years by handing over a lame excuse. This time that hadn’t worked; she’d tried. She got out of her car and locked the door. Her sister, Saba, was already here. Saba loved this stuff. The discussion and the Albah politics and the catching up with other Albah from around the globe. It was all very hush-hush. There should be a secret handshake at the door.

There wouldn’t be.

She was still annoyed at Saba for treating her like a baby and not telling her the truth about the recently dusted Albanex. There had been a real undead vampire running around the city and no one had told her. The reason had been to keep her safe, so the Albanex wouldn’t know she existed. But she wasn’t a child, and she should’ve been told. Attending meetings was one way of proving she was adult enough to be told next time there was a vampire in town. She had to take an interest in the Albah world and not just their history in her studies.

Dale, the human cop, would be here tonight. He was being let in on secret Albah business because he was dating Saba. She caught herself. That judgment was a little harsh. He’d discovered too much about the Albah while hunting down a serial killer—who had just happened to be an Albanex—and falling for Saba. She could only imagine how thrilled Quinn Ryder must have been about the Albanex hunting on his doorstep, and that a human cop was on the case instead of him.

Quinn was a cop and the leader of the scattered Albah.

She knocked and wished that she’d had a pressing reason not to come. She hadn’t come up with one yet that would satisfy Quinn. He’d sent her a text and told her to be there—no excuses. So she’d been caught between wanting to dodge Albah gatherings, with good reason, or being treated like a child again. And here she was.

She knocked again. There were people in there talking.

Leira wiped her hands on her pants. What if he was there?

Years ago Saba had read Leira’s future in the bowls of ink that she loved for scrying. Leira had held on to that potential, occasionally checking to make sure that she was still on track. She would meet the love of her life on a train. More importantly, he’d be Albah.

Her sister and her mother might be happy with a human, but she wanted more than that. Not that she could tell her friends that she was waiting for a mystery man on a train because a psychic had told her it would happen. While humans might like the idea of psychics, they didn’t actually believe in magic. Leira was tired of hiding part of who she was.

The door opened. “Sorry, we were trying to get the computers set up for the conference calls.” Saba smiled.

Leira didn’t. She’d still done her shifts at her sister’s new age shop in Fremantle, but she hadn’t been gracious about it. Her sister wouldn’t fire her because then Saba would have to answer to their mother. At some point Leira would have to forgive her overly protective older sister.

But not today.

“How many are planning to call in?” What if he was on one of those screens? When she finished her degree, she was going to take a year off and travel—by train. She was getting rather tired of waiting for destiny to come to her.

“All of them.”

“What, every Albah around the world?” It wasn’t as though there were thousands of them. During the middle ages, witch hunts had decimated their numbers. And Guardians of Adam had taken another stab during the 1800s. History and witch hunts were her specialty. Trouble was, some of what she knew she couldn’t put in her essays because it was Albah history, and for the last couple of centuries the Albah had been busy pretending they didn’t exist so humans would forget all about them.

She was pretty sure that if she ceased to exist, no one would really notice, except her sister.

“A representative from all the families. Quinn hasn’t called a meeting like this in twenty-four years.”

It took Leira a moment to do the math; she hadn’t even been born yet. But she caught what Saba was getting at. Twenty-four years ago, there had been a spate of accidents around the world that had resulted in the death of six Albah, including Quinn’s wife and nearly his two youngest boys. There was no proof that it had been the work of the Guardians of Adam, but some Albah were sure it was.

The Guardians were doing a pretty good job of pretending that they didn’t exist too. Or maybe the Albah were still jumping at shadows and the hunters were gone and they could live in peace. The older the Albah, the more paranoid they were.

“I am so thrilled to be here.” She brushed past her sister and into the house.

Saba grabbed her arm. “If it’s meant to be, it won’t matter where you meet him.”

Leira glared at her sister. “You know that’s bullshit. This could upset everything.”

“A new path will form.”

“Or not.”

Saba sighed and released her. “Can you at least pretend that you are happy to see some other Albah? It’s like Christmas with extended family.” Saba seemed genuinely happy.

Leira raised a ghost of a smile. Extended family that she didn’t really know and didn’t really care about. She barely knew Quinn. He was like the uncle she heard stories about, but had only met a couple of times her entire life. Mostly because she had grown up traveling with her mother before Saba set up shop and Leira had been given the opportunity to go to high school and be normal. Normalish.

The man in question, Quinn, came in the hallway. He nodded at her. “Glad you could make it this time.”

Quinn looked more old punk, with his short, white, spikey hair than king of the Albah. Not that anyone ever called him that. She wasn’t a kid anymore, so she should probably give him a little more respect.

Hard to respect the man when her mother and him had hooked up years ago and she had a half-brother who she only knew about because he was on some American soap opera. He managed to live in the open. Yeah, but Finley probably wasn’t accidentally starting fires with his magic. She wasn’t even sure what element his magic was connected to.

Meanwhile she was still grabbling with the finer points of working with fire. And by finer points, she meant anything more complicated than lighting a candle. Leira widened her smile. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

She’d contemplated giving her own tire a puncture.

Quinn studied her. “How’s the magic going?”

“Great…just great.” Leira nodded and glanced at Saba, then looked away just as fast. She was so used to having her sister bail her out. “So, will there be any other fire-using women calling in?”

Quinn paused for a moment. “Fire is a rare element in women. I don’t think there is one alive at the moment besides you.”

Yay. She’d suspected that. Otherwise Saba would’ve had her chatting away to some fire user years ago. Instead Saba had done her best to help her.

Some of the elements were rare. Saba and Quinn both had the power of air. Really common. Water was the next most common, then earth, like her mother—though male earth users were rare. Somehow she’d ended up being the odd one out.

A look passed between Quinn and Saba. Quinn nodded. Saba sighed.

Was that good news or bad news? Why did she care? It would only be Albah news and would be discussed in depth tonight.

She planned on sitting on a sofa at the back and painting her nails. She’d brought three different colors for the occasion. Gold, red, and black. Tomorrow night she was going out with her friends. Just because she was waiting to run into an Albah man on a train did not mean she was on a shelf getting dusty.

Humans could be fun for short-term flings where they didn’t need to know much about her. She didn’t like lying; it was bad enough she couldn’t share such a big part of her life with her friends. There was a distance she was sure they could feel. She could feel it. But talking about magic was a sure way of getting funny looks or unwanted attention.

They moved out of the hallway and into the lounge room. There were three laptops set up on the coffee table. Dale had just put pens and paper on the table next to a file.

“Leira.” He gave her a nod and a smile.

Yeah, she wasn’t talking to him either. He was a cop. He should’ve told her there was a vampire serial killer running around and to be careful when she went clubbing. Not that she frequented the dives that the killer had hunted at, or that she and Dale had managed more than a few sentences even when she had been talking to him. Would he be sitting up front or off to the side? She was betting off screen, given that the other Albah would spot his ears and demand to know why a human was here.

Quinn was quite happy to break the rules when it suited him.

Another blond man—obviously Albah—walked into the lounge room. Her heart stopped for a moment, but as soon as he looked at her she knew it wasn’t him.

“Kirin, Leira. You would’ve met when you were babies.”

“Hi.” He put out his hand. Solid and strong, rough with calluses. In that one touch she knew his magic was earth.

“Hi.” Not a spark, not a thing between them. Relief and disappointment washed through her, but she managed to keep a smile attached to her face.

Dale was starting to look like the odd one out with his green eyes and dark hair. In a room full of Albah, anything darker than ice blond stood out. If people asked if she had Nordic ancestry she usually shrugged and said probably. The truth was too weird for humans. Dale’s hair and eyes were the wrong color to be Albah and his ears lacked the distinctive fold at the top. That was the reason the Albah didn’t gather in large groups, they looked too similar and it drew attention.

One of the laptops started pinging.

Quinn sat down on the sofa and answered the call. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and couldn’t have looked less like a leader if he’d been trying. The Ryder family had ruled the Albah for centuries. Protecting, fighting, and doing what needed to be done.

Leira sat off to the side with Dale. She had nothing to add to the meeting. No, but one day she would. She’d be expected to help keep the Albah together. She glanced at Dale and wondered if he knew what Saba had given up to be with him. It took Albah parents to have an Albah son. Saba would only have Albah daughters.

As much as Leira didn’t like the way the Albah hid, she also knew that if they didn’t make changes soon, there would be no Albah men and gradually the bloodlines would weaken and then they would cease to exist. Not even history would remember them.

That was why the Guardians of Adam targeted the men.

She listened to the voices through the laptops. Mostly women. How skewed were the numbers? Her mother had gotten with Quinn to make sure she did the right thing by her people and to have a son before making her own life.

Quinn had gone on to marry another Albah woman to do his bit to keep the bloodlines alive. More people needed to do the same, but it was the kind of thing that couldn’t be put into Albah law. It had been talked about, Saba had told her that, and it was a sore point for many. Leira didn’t care about kids. That was so far in her future. She cared about being able to share her magic with someone.

Quinn got a text message and gave Dale a pointed look.

What was going on?

Dale got up and left without a word. Now she was interested.

Twenty minutes later her curiosity got answered when Dale returned with another Albah man. Before the new arrival had even noticed her, she knew. It was him. The man she was supposed to meet on a train. He looked like any other Albah man, blond hair and blue eyes, but there was a set to his lips and a look in his eyes that she recognized in a blink. There was also the tug in her belly and a shimmer of awareness, which was quickly followed by rising panic.

This was all wrong.

Her future was changing, going up in flames.

Then the crisps in the bowl next to her caught fire.