Published: March 1, 2020

9

GARRICK

The shattering of wood and a yell like someone’s soul
had been caught in the splinters of the mage’s front steps rocketed from the
front of the house.

The woman called Marnie snapped back into the eating
room. Fear coated her scent. It had been similar to what he’d smelled from
Kayla in the truck, darkening her natural perfume into something sour. He didn’t
like the scent of mage fear, he realized as he looked around the room of mages.
But it was Kayla’s his vampire singled out at as needing protecting.

The mage made a sweeping motion with arms that carried a
sturdiness to them. She wanted them to follow.

“Come on,” her voice hushed as she tiptoed from the
doorway and into another room.

Kayla’s father moved first, ushering Kayla close to him
with a protective arm over her shoulder.

Cha! So much for his protection now. Just a moment ago the
mage they followed was ready to strike her down and he planned to do nothing to
stop it. The aged human had no right in calling himself a protector of her.

His vampire wanted to snatch the man’s worthless arm away from Kayla and he nearly let him but stopped. These were her people. It was mage business and he didn’t belong in it. He shouldn’t interject himself into their quarrels. He’d seen the two of them fight in the alley. One moment they were at each other, the next their kinship had returned. He’d be better off steering clear of that complication and focusing on where he belonged.

His place was at his King’s side. He was a legion who should
have been journeying back to his home realm with his Captain to continue his life
in his King’s guard, not sneaking through a house to escape an unknown foe.

Meddling in the affairs of this realm brought him nothing
but danger on this night. It was clear from Kayla’s abduction and the subsequent
ambush on her house, her father had dealings with the owners of the auction
house. Garrick wasn’t sure what ill business he had with the traders, but he’d
have no part in it. Once the threat of danger was gone, he’d find his way back
to his old life where he belonged.

The last thing he wanted was to incur the ire of the trading
house. The owners were known for their ruthlessness. One toe out of line spelled
a demise of the worst kind.

Like taking a bounty that was not really his.

If he could negotiate for forgiveness, his reputation
wouldn’t be too badly damaged. Forgiveness was sure to come with a hefty price.
By the gods, he hoped the price wouldn’t include his life.

He could always lay low for the next century until his transgressions would be forgotten. Time had a funny way of killing off those with grudges. But he was no coward. He’d face this head-on and fight to the death if he must.

The mage brought them through several rooms, each one deeper
into the house than the last, before stopping at a patterned wall lined flanked
by cases of books.

“In here,” she pressed her hands on the wall. The red
mist emanating from her fingertips seemed to soak into the pattern before the
entire wall disappeared, leaving a staircase to a lower level.

The air was musty down there.

“Go on,” she motioned toward Kayla and her father, before
snagging his shirt collar. “Not you, vampire. You stay with me.”

Part way down the stairs, Kayla stopped the turned to him.
But her father was already dragging her down.

“Your friend will be fine, young one,” the mage
waved her father to go. He pulled her down the stairs.

“He cannot be harmed while he’s in the house,” her father said quickly when she resisted.

With an unsure glint in her green eyes, she stalled
giving a look of concern.

He gave Kayla a curt nod to ease her and followed behind
the Mage. Before they’d left the room, the wall was magically back into place
without a sound.

A hollowness formed in his upper chest the further he traveled
away from Kayla. It was a false feeling, he reminded himself. His pleasure
venom was coursing through her. Ever since he’d put his fangs into her, an indescribable
need to protect and claim her made him irrational.

So much so, he faced a house full of shifters to protect
her, leaving him with her unclaimed and wounds that were slow to heal.

While the mage’s back was turned, he rubbed at the wound
the wolf shifter left behind after he’d bit into him. The skin on the surface was
blemish-free, but the wound underneath still felt fresh and hurt like he’d been
bludgeoned with fire oil.

It could have been a lot worse.

Thanks be to the gods that he made it out alive despite the
force of the pleasure venom. It would clear from his system in three days’ time
once he left her side.

The mage twisted back through the same halls they’d been
through. It did not make sense that they were confronting a foe they were just
fleeing.

“Why are we returning?”

“You may have Donovan’s daughter convinced you’re some
sort of knight, but I’ve been around your kind for a long time, vampire. I know
better.”

He straightened, fighting the agitation rising in his shoulders
that she’d questioned his honor. “I am no knight. I am a warrior. But I wish to
cause you no harm.”

“So, you’ve said.” She scurried through the halls like a
mouse running from a predator. Which was not off base. Vampires were natural
hunters, but he wasn’t sure this particular mouse wasn’t fleeing from a cat and
into the mouth of a lion.

The continuous breaking of the floorboards behind her
front door stopped when she raised her arms as she entered the hallway. So, she
controlled the creaking woods in the front.

The mage put her hand on the front door handle and instantly
every dimmed light in her house went dark.

The door was only opened a sliver, but her demeanor was
the same when he’d been on the other side of the threshold. Complete with what
he could only assume was a magic smoking stick. She hadn’t pulled it from
anywhere yet it was between her fore and middle fingers as she pressed it to her
mouth and inhaled.

“I have no vacancies,” her voice was low but every word
rang with perfect clarity, a puff of smoke billowed above her head as she spoke.

Whoever was on the opposite side of the door snarled and
moved, but it sounded like the wood planks refused to let him go. “Get my feet
out of this damned thing.”

Garrick couldn’t see him but knew from the raucous, he must have been buried to the shins in the mage’s front porch.

Cha, he’d give five chelets to see it firsthand.

“It isn’t my power that compels it.”

“Don’t play with me, witch. Get me out of this thing.”

“That power is out of my reach,” the mage said again,
her voice smooth like the silk robes she wore.

“Fine. Who stepped through these doors tonight?”

The mage pulled the colorful silks draped down her body
around her as she tucked a fist under her smoking arm.

“What’s it to you?” she said before pulling the smoking
stick from her mouth, plucking off the ashes on the porch in front of her.

“We’re looking for three fugitives of your kind for
breaking vampire law.”

“Then what do I owe the privilege?”

“Don’t think you can fool me. I know you’ve harbored in
the past. Just because I haven’t been able to catch you, doesn’t mean you’re
not guilty.”

“It seems like I’m guilty of being a mage in a vampire
town. Well, I’m sorry you made the trip. I haven’t seen any fugitives and for
the record, I don’t harbor any, it’s against the treaty.”

“Who did you let through these doors tonight? We have spies
who watch this house. They saw someone come in here not an hour ago.”

“Don’t you know?” she looked at him over her shoulder. “He’s
a friend of yours.”

Garrick gave the mage a blank look. He had no friends
here. His only friend was his Captain and at this hour, his best hope had him
in the safety of the hotel they stayed.

“What friend?”

The mage pulled the door open a fraction more. He met
eye to eye with a vampire whose fangs were the only sign of his genealogy. While
Garrick’s had been pooled to black, the vampire in front of him seemed to lack
that ability. Garrick offered a salute that was traditional of vampires of this
realm out of courtesy—a sign that there may be peace between them.

The vampire in front of him didn’t return the gesture. Apparently, there would be no peace.

A coldness filled the hallway as they stared at each
other. There was nothing about the vampire’s porcelain smooth complexion that
was off-putting but the arrogance in his demeanor was.

“He is no friend of mine,” the vampire spat.

At least in that, they could agree.

It had been many years since he’d come into contact with
a vampire of the human realm. They had no use of blood auctions and therefore the
opportunity to cross paths was a rarity. So few of them remained on this side
of the portal, they’d taken to living in small covens near cities that made for
a premiere target for their hunting grounds.

If Asher took issue with him drinking from the source,
he would be horrified by what vampire kind had devolved into in the human
realm. They hunted humans for sport as soon as sunfall hit and the skies darkened
with night.

“Did he check-in?”

“No, he was a walk-in.”

“Enough with the games, witch,” he roared. “You know the rules. Any new vampire that comes to town has to check-in. Clint doesn’t like unknown vampires roaming his streets without checking in.”

“I thought Clint was the one who sent him.”

“Is that what he said?” The vampire’s eyes cut to him.

“When has a vampire ever answered to a mage?”

The vampire on the porch was silent. If he had to guess
from his silence, never.

“You talk for yourself vampire?”

“I do.”

“Who are you?”

“I am called—”

“His name is Garrick.”

“You dare speak over a vampire, witch?”

A bubble of fear burst from the mage before she shifted her weight and put the smoking stick to her mouth and inhaled again. “It’s a long name.”

“You will not speak over a vampire again,” the vampire
warned. The hatred in the vampire’s eyes made anger crawl up Garrick’s spine.
The vampire didn’t care about pleasantries or servility. He’d only cared about
power. Specifically, his over the mage.

“Well, I don’t have all night for everyone to spout
their long names. I’d rather get some sleep tonight before the sun wakes the
rest of the world. Don’t you all have to scurry back to your holes?”

“You dare talk to me that way?” The vampire swiped at the mage. A modicum of red covered the front of her as she moved back into the house.

The vampire’s hand met air, but the moment it crossed
the threshold, it burst into flames. These were no slow embers. Every bit of it
engulfed like a fireball. In a shout of pain, he pulled it back to his chest
but the damage had been done. His flesh had been burned to the bone. What remained
of his hand stretched out before his eyes as he examined it.

“You should know, vampire. Only the pure of heart can
enter my house.”

The fear that’d been running off of her like river water
extinguished the moment she realized the vampire on the porch couldn’t come
into the house without being burned. Her enemies were corralled outside of the
house and that made her safe inside.

He glared at her and bared his fangs. “You won’t be
holed in this house forever. One day, witch, you will have to come outside and
no magic porch is going to save you.”

“You’d break treaty laws for your pride?”

“How long do you think you can hide behind that treaty?”

“For as long as the blood oath stands.”

“Mark my words, you will pay for this. Wait until Clint
gets word of this.”

He had no allegiance to the mage in front of him. But the
vampire’s arrogance was grating on its own. Did he treat all mages like this?
What about his Kayla? He’d never let the lesser vampire act this way with her.

He inwardly shook himself, clearing his thoughts of the
girl his pleasure venom made him ache for. He needed to think of her less.

“I don’t want any trouble here. Tell Clint that I’m sorry,
you had to make the trip,” Marnie changed the subject abruptly, her tone taking
on a more cheerful one like she was escorting guests to the door after a
pleasant meal. “As you can see, I’m not harboring anyone. My only guest is a vampire
just passing through.”

The vampire’s teeth snapped together with a loud pop,
but the porch that encased his feet started to shift backward like a conveyor belt
was pushing to the stairs. It stilled and rose until his shoes were no longer
covered with wood.

A low rumble escaped his chest before he looked back at
him.

“You have 24 hours. Check-in or be gone before nightfall.”

Garrick clenched his teeth but didn’t speak. He didn’t
take orders from a lesser vampire.

“Don’t think this is over, witch.”

“You have a nice night, Mac,” she said. With that, her
porch threw him off.

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