Page 18

Nicolette stared into the darkness at the far corner of her backyard as she held her cell phone to her ear and did her best to calm her overactive imagination. In the other hand, she held a spoon as if it was a dagger. She’d been feeling sorry for herself, thinking about Garth—again—and eating her way through a pint of mint chocolate chip soy ice cream when she’d heard something out back.

The ice cream had reminded her of Garth, and that had only made her cry more

When she’d heard whispering out back, she’d hoped it was Garth. Now that she was standing outside, in the dark, the idea of running out to see seemed less than smart. Especially since an immense feeling of dread and danger had settled over her. It was so overpowering that she couldn’t shake it.

Since Clara was currently on the other end of the phone, on her way home from the airport after being gone a week, and not there to be a witness should something go wrong, Nicolette knew she should head inside.

She didn’t.

“Tell me again what you think you heard?”

asked Clara, worry in her voice. “Is it the crazy guy you had sex with?”

Nicolette grunted. “Stop. I told you already he wasn’t crazy.”

“Sure. So he ejaculated, pulled out super-fast, and then ran away naked because he’s sane?”

asked Clara. “Yep. Sounds totally non-crazy to me. Doesn’t every guy do that after he finishes? Wait, some do. Never mind. Totally sane. What was I thinking?”

“You’re being difficult for no reason,”

said Nicolette.

“Nah, my reason is to keep you talking so I know you haven’t become the victim of a serial killer or something.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

“My pleasure. Let’s talk about the hot Viking-Cake Dude again. I’m still stunned you brought a guy you’d just met home with you. Finding out you really did bang his brains out really makes me wonder if I know you at all.”

Nicolette nodded. “Made me wonder if I knew myself. But really, he’s not crazy. Please stop calling him that.”

“Fine. The Viking who ran off naked into the night is not crazy. I totally stand corrected.”

Nicolette laughed. “Well, he did say something weird before we got busy. But no weirder than the stuff you ramble on about. You know, shifters and stuff,”

said Nicolette.

Clara sucked in a huge breath. “We’ve talked and video conferenced nightly for the past week, and you never once thought to bring up the fact he talked about shifters?”

“Didn’t seem as important as the fact I did indeed bang his brains out. Oh, and did I tell you Cody knows him?”

Nicolette could still vividly remember what it was like having Garth in her. He’d made her feel things she never had before. When she’d gone in search of him, he’d been nowhere to be found. It had been then she’d realized she’d never gotten his last name, let alone his phone number.

She’d had a couple of nights with Garth. Granted, it was the best sex of her life, but a two-night stand all the same. Saying it out loud made it feel cheap when it had been anything but. Sure, it had ended with him rushing off into the night and leaving his clothes behind, but still.

No matter how that’s spun, it’s crazy.

“Tell me again what you heard outside,”

said Clara.

“I’m not sure. I was in the kitchen and I heard something that sounded like men whispering. Super soft. But whispering all the same.”

Clara was quiet a second. “And you think they were doing it outside of the kitchen window?”

“No. I know they weren’t there. I’d have seen them. It sounded like it was coming from the back corner outside. You know, the one where the overhead lights keep burning out?”

Nicolette stared at that very spot from her position near the backdoor.

“Let me get this straight. You thought you heard men whispering out back, at night, in the dark, and you then went out to check?”

asked Clara, her voice rising slightly.

Nicolette’s cheeks heated. “Erm, yes.”

“Dumbass,”

snapped Clara.

Nicolette smiled. “Thanks.”

Leaning slightly, Nicolette peered into the darkness more, hoping to be able to make out the shape of something, if something was indeed there. In the back of her mind, she thought about calling the police, but she wasn’t sure what she’d tell them. That she’d thought she’d heard a strange noise and had a bad vibe? Somehow, she seriously doubted they’d see that as an emergency. They’d respond and then look at her like she was nuts.

Besides, they were no doubt responding to actual emergencies. Ones she didn’t want to take them away from for any reason.

“Call the police,”

said Clara, as if reading Nicolette’s mind. “If your gut is saying something is off, that means aliens are about to abduct you or something. We both know your gut feelings are never wrong.”

“I’m fine. No one is here.”

The words didn’t sit right with her, and she tensed. “Well, I’m fairly positive no one is here.”

“I’d like to go back to my first thought on the matter, which was…dumbass.”

Nicolette didn’t respond. She stared into the backyard instead.

“I need you to grunt or something if you’re alive,”

said Clara. “The dead air is making me think you’re currently being hacked into tiny bits by some creeper dude.”

“Nice picture you painted there for me,”

returned Nicolette as she clutched the spoon tighter, a deep sense of foreboding settling over her. Everything in her was screaming at her to run into the house, bolt the door, and call her uncle at once. To hell with the fact it wasn’t their normal call time. Her gut said that the devil himself was staring back at her from the darkened corner of the back courtyard.

Since that was ridiculous, she laughed it off, nervously. Butterflies skittered about in her stomach and she found herself unable to move. The fear she was trying so hard to deny left her paralyzed. A prisoner in her own back sanctuary.

“I’m acting like a crazy person and letting my uncle’s and your eccentrics rub off on me. The two of you are always going on and on about spooky stuff. No surprise I’d get myself worked up over nothing,”

stressed Nicolette.

“It’s nothing until you’re nose-to-nose with Dracula. Then it’s something.”

Clara laughed softly. “Speaking of Dracula, your uncle may be eccentric, but he is hot in ways that should be outlawed. I mean, how can a man be that hot and have a voice like he does?”

“Gagging a little here now, thanks,”

said Nicolette. Sure, her uncle was passable, but he was her uncle. Eww. “And what do you mean speaking of Dracula?”

“Gag all you want. Doesn’t take away from him being a total hottie,”

supplied Clara, ignoring the Dracula question.

For a half second, Nicolette considered hanging up on Clara and phoning her uncle to tell him she had a hinky vibe, one that left the hair on the back of her neck rising. He’d send in the cavalry. People she knew he paid to keep tabs on her. Eccentric men with too much money who pretty much did as they pleased. Men who were walking weapons, just like her uncle. She knew he did something with the government that was top secret. She also knew he was a total badass when called for.

“Seriously, he’s not hot. He’s my uncle. The guy who raised me.”

“And super-hot. Deny it all you want. I’ll state the truth for womankind. The man is sexy, sexy, sexy. And that accent. Wow. Panty melting.”

“Yuck. I am never inviting him over for dinner with us again now. I’ll know you’re getting off on his accent.”

Clara snorted. “Oh, hell yeah I do. If he wasn’t related to you, you’d think he was hot too. And I’m not sure why you invite him over and have me cook. He doesn’t actually eat anything I make. I’m pretty sure he hates my cooking.”

“He does not hate your cooking. He’s just a picky eater.”

“So picky he travels with his own wine,”

supplied Clara. “He’s lucky he’s so hot or else I’d just think he was a rich douchebag. Gah. Is it me or is it extra sticky out today? I just caught sight of my hair in the rearview mirror and it’s looking frizzy. Are you still alive? If you get dead, I’m going to get mad.”

With a groan and a slight eye roll, Nicolette continued to look around. “If I’m dead, you won’t be the only one worked up.”

“Technically, I will be. You’ll be too dead to weigh in on the matter,”

returned Clara with a snort. “Tell me you’re in the house now and not out back thinking you’re invincible.”

Nicolette bit her lower lip. “Erm, yes. I’m totally inside.”

“You’re a horrible liar,”

remarked Clara. “Which side of the road do I need to park on? I don’t want problems again with the street sweeper and tickets. The last guy I ended up baking cookies for just to get out of being towed.”

It didn’t matter how long they’d lived in the neighborhood, Clara couldn’t seem to keep track of the parking schedule. She also accumulated parking tickets all around the city, making her a prime candidate for a boot or a tow. “Either side. They won’t clean the streets again here until Tuesday.”

“Oh, right,”

said Clara flippantly. “Still alive? No one in a hockey mask has leaped out and chopped you up with a butcher knife, have they?”

“If your goal is to freak me out more, you’re doing a really great job,”

stressed Nicolette.

“This is all because I had you watch that scary movie, isn’t it? I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“Yes. Because you put on a movie about vampires and werewolves, I now totally believe one is in our backyard,”

said Nicolette drolly.

Her best friend had an obsession with the weird and macabre. You wouldn’t have guessed it looking at Clara. She seemed so put together, but the girl had a secret monster movie fetish. Not to mention, Clara was positive said monsters were real. Nicolette had learned to roll with it long ago.

“See. Told ya you were freaking out because of the scary movie I made you watch,”

returned Clara in a cheeky manner.

A chortle broke free from Nicolette. “If only I had some big strong man close by to both hold me while I shield my eyes from the scariness and to swoop in and fight the demons away for me.”

“Okay, now you’re just being a brat and mocking my likes and dislikes.”

“It’s what best friends do,”

reminded Nicolette.

“Oh, right. Carry on.”

Clara cursed under her breath and then honked her horn, giving someone a piece of her mind in the process. What fell from the woman’s mouth was as foul as it was poetic. The girl had a gift. A true gift. Sadly, whatever was happening was more than likely a result of Clara’s poor driving techniques. When gifts were being handed out, the people in charge skipped over her in the driving department. She was an absolute nightmare on the roads.

Nicolette ran her hand over the back of her neck, trying to brush away the feeling of unease that had settled over her. It didn’t work. She felt a little better knowing there was a secondhand witness should she meet her demise, not that Clara was paying attention or anything. No. She was still yelling about another driver.

“Jerk, that was going to be my parking spot!”

Nicolette pulled the phone from her ear slightly, tipping her head and concentrating on the darkness. She held her breath and listened. There was nothing. No sound at all. That worried her. There should be something. The normal sounds of the night.

Nope.

Not a peep.

Worry trickled through her.

“I swear the weather is affecting people,”

said Clara. “They’re crazier than normal. Some fool just stepped out in front of me. Like he has a death wish or something.”

“Tell me you didn’t hit a pedestrian again.”

The air was thick with humidity; the temperature was on the cooler side for the time of year. A cold front was pushing through ahead of a line of severe weather. The radio and television had been abuzz about it all, wanting everyone aware of the expected rainfall and chance of heavy storms.

Clara groaned. “You cannot blame me for that other guy. He ran into my car. Not the other way around. Let that be a lesson. Running and checking your fancy smartwatch at the same time is actually very dangerous. You’d think there would be a warning on the watch. I mean, come on, they put a warning on hemorrhoid cream. Who ate that to start with? Someone had to, right?”

Nicolette ignored Clara’s ramblings as she continued to watch the darkness. As the feeling of being watched intensified, she lifted the spoon, though she wasn’t sure why.

“Go inside and wait for me so I worry less,”

said Clara.

Nicolette strained to see into the darkened area but couldn’t. “Okay. I’m back in. All is well. I lived.”

The lie fell from her lips with ease.

“Bullshit,”

snapped Clara. “You’re still standing out there, looking around. I know you. You have some freakish Nancy Drew complex. You can’t leave well enough alone. It’s against your very nature.”

Clara wasn’t wrong.

Nicolette took one small step backwards as she considered giving up and heading back inside.

Something that sounded like someone taking a deep breath reached her. As it did, her blood ran cold.

Was the weather getting to her too? Was it making her imagination run wild? Or was someone standing in the darkness, watching her, breathing heavy.

Her lip curled at the idea of such a thing. “I really hope no one is back here being a perv.”

Clara grunted. “You better hope no one is back there at all. Perv or not. No one should be back there. For crying out loud, the entire back area is surrounded by six-foot brick walls. There is no way in and out other than the house. Well, someone could climb over the wall I guess.”

Nicolette swallowed hard. “Yep. Still not helping.”

“I found a parking spot. I’ll be there in a second.”

Clara snarled. “Dammit. That one lady with the red car is hogging more space than she needs. Would it be wrong for me to bump her car with mine just enough to push it backwards?”

“Yes. It would be wrong.”

“You used to be fun until you started adulting,”

said Clara with a slight laugh.

Nicolette didn’t budge from her spot, her attention still locked on the back of the yard. It was freakishly dark. They had back lights, but they never seemed to work very long. They would make sure new bulbs were in the fixtures often, but they’d either burn out quickly or simply go missing. Why anyone would bother to steal the lightbulbs and nothing else was beyond her. Not only that, whoever took the bulbs had to scale over the brick walls. That was a lot of effort for something they could pick up for a few bucks at the store.

“Nicolette, breathe heavy or something so I know you’re alive and well,”

said Clara, startling Nicolette.

“I’m alive, and I’m not going to pant in your ear. That will just turn you on,”

she joked. “I heard all about your fetish for accents. I don’t want to find out you have one for heavy breathing too.”

Clara laughed. “You’re not my type.”

“Everyone is your type.”

Her friend’s laughter echoed through the phone and from the house. Nicolette turned to see Clara moving through the kitchen, her phone still to her ear. Clara’s long hair was piled high on her head in a twist of some sort. She wore an A-line blue skirt with a white blouse. Her heels matched her skirt.

The women shared a look and hung up the call.

Clara eyed the spoon Nicolette was holding. “What do you plan to do with that?”

“It was all I had on hand,”

confessed Nicolette. “It was this or the pint of ice cream that I was making my bitch inside, that I needed the spoon for to start with.”

Clara snorted. “I can’t believe I’m going to talk anyone out of eating junk food, but how about I make us some grilled chicken and veggies for dinner and you stop obsessing over the nothingness that is out here? Then you can tell me all about the Viking-Cupcake Dude.”

“I really hate that your job has you traveling so much lately. What is so important that they need you flying all over the place?”

asked Nicolette.

Clara’s gaze flickered a moment, but she pressed a smile to her face. “We’re training on new systems. Total waste of time but it’s mandatory. Let’s talk about you. How was the celebration? Were the kids okay without the cupcakes?”

“Actually, they did end up with cupcakes after all. We had fun and sang songs. It worked out in the end.”

Clara touched Nicolette’s shoulder. “Okay, enough lurking out here. Let’s go on in and I’ll get some food started for us.”

Nicolette turned slightly to follow Clara back into the house when she heard something shuffle towards the back of the courtyard.

She froze.

So did Clara.

Neither woman said a word as they glanced over their shoulders and into the darkness.

Nicolette’s cell phone rang, and both women jolted and screamed at the same time. They grabbed ahold of one another and shared a look that said the phone had just scared the shit out of them.

With a shaky laugh, Nicolette answered her phone. “Hello?”

“Nicolette, are you well?”

asked an accented, male voice she knew well.

Nerves got the best of her and she giggled again. “Hi, Uncle Landros. Oddly enough, we were just talking about you.”

A seductive smile spread across Clara’s face. “Oh. Tell the stud muffin I said hi.”

Covering the phone with her hand, she gave her best friend a stern look. “I am not telling him anything and he’s not a stud muffin. He’s my uncle.”

“Yeah. An uncle who doesn’t look a day over thirty, with muscles to die for, who wears leather pants that look painted on, and who looks to be hung like a—”

Nicolette gagged. “Stop!”

“Stop what?”

asked Landros, a hint of amusement in his voice saying he’d more than heard Clara’s outburst.

Heat rushed up Nicolette’s chest to her cheeks. She was thankful she wasn’t looking her uncle in the face or she’d have ducked and hid. Talking about sexy men or sex, in general, wasn’t something she and Landros did. No. He called once every two weeks to check on her. They spoke for an hour and then they hung up. It had been that way since she’d graduated from college.”

The fact Landros was calling before their slotted time was worrisome. “Is everything okay?”

“That was my question to you,” he said.

“Everything here is—”

Nicolette’s words were cut short by Clara’s bloodcurdling scream.

Spinning around, Nicolette found herself standing in front of two men. Both were huge, and both looked dangerous. One was a man she knew well.

He had Clara by the arm.

Why in the world was he holding Clara like that and why had he suddenly shown up out of the blue after a week, looking scary as hell?

“Garth?”

she asked, her jaw dropping open.

Clara yelped. “Viking-Cupcake Dude?”

As Nicolette noticed the scar above the man’s right eye, clearly visible at this distance, she stilled. This man looked like Garth, but he didn’t feel like him at all. In fact, he felt downright deadly.

It hit her then. This guy wasn’t Garth. That meant it was Garth’s brother. The one he’d made what she’d thought was a joke about trying to kill. From the evil expression on the man’s face, Nicolette had to wonder if maybe Garth wasn’t kidding about having to kill his brother.

“Nicolette, finally we meet in person,”

he said, grinning. “I’ve spent years watching you. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been in your room, watching you sleep, watching you shower. You’re a heavy sleeper.”

Clara gasped. “You’re how the window and door are getting open.”

He winked.

Nicolette blinked several times, her mind slow to process everything that was happening. She shook her head. “No one can get in and out of the bedroom window without falling to their death. Well, unless they’re one of those vampires Clara likes so much.”

Clara’s face paled.

The man holding her winked again and his green eyes flashed to amber. When he smiled, he had a row of teeth that looked like they belonged in a large dog. Not a man.

Inwardly, Nicolette was screaming. Outwardly, she was paralyzed with fear.

Clara swallowed hard. “They aren’t vampires. They’re shifters. If I’m right, they’re wolf-shifters.”

The man holding her, who looked just like Garth, jerked on Clara. “Good girl. Did they teach you that when they recruited you for the Para-Regs?”

Para-Regs?

What in the hell was the Para-Regs?

Clara was calm despite being held by a man who wasn’t a man at all. He was something that had walked right off the screen of a scary movie.

Shifter? Had Nicolette not been looking at it with her own eyes, she’d have never believed it.

As she thought about it more, she gasped. “Ohmygod, Garth is a shifter too?”

Clara looked tired by her remark.

“Holy shit, he really can turn into a wolf!”

The man laughed, and his mouth returned to normal. “Yes. My little brother is as I am. I had planned to amuse myself at your expense and pretend to be him while I fucked you, but the Outcasts managed to interrupt.”

Nicolette’s nostrils flared. “He doesn’t radiate evil, so I’d say he’s nothing like you, and I’d have figured out quickly you aren’t him. Now that I’m looking right at you, all I see are differences.”

That pissed the guy off. He snarled and tightened his hold on Clara.

Nicolette put her hands up and realized she was still holding her phone. She also realized that her uncle was hearing everything that was happening. “Nice puppy-shifter guy. No going to extremes. You’re in charge here. We get that. What’s your name? I’m guessing you don’t want us calling you ‘Garth’s brother’ all night. And for the record, when he said you were close in age, he left off the bit about you sharing a womb.”

He locked gazes with her. “Grid.”

She nodded and did her best to remain levelheaded despite the fact she wanted to throw her hands in the air and flail around the courtyard as she shouted that shifters were apparently real. She no longer wanted to put in an order for two dozen.

Clara looked at the phone. “Landros, there are two of them!”

Grid reached out quickly and snatched the phone from her hand. “Landros, long time no talk. Tell me what you’ve been up to lately? Drain anyone dry recently? Lie to any men you call friends as of late? Do they know the truth yet? That you stole her away from under their noses? That you kept her from them all these years? Oh, wait, I know the answer to all of those questions already. And shame on you for not doing a better job hiding her from us. We’re taking her home—and I have a nice welcome surprise in store for her.”

Something deep within Nicolette snapped. One second, she was standing there, totally dumbfounded and paralyzed by fear, and the next, she was jabbing out fast with the spoon, going for the eye of the man next to Grid.

Much to her shock, her aim was true. She nailed the man directly in the eye.

The man reared back and, in the process, knocked into Grid. That left Grid releasing Clara.

Nicolette grabbed for Clara just as she spun around and kneed Grid as hard as she could in the groin. “Asshole!”

Grid doubled over.

Clara seized Nicolette’s hand, jerked her in the direction of the brick wall, and ran full force at it. “Jump!”

“What?”

Nicolette asked, positive that shock had caused her to hear that wrong.

“Jump!”

yelled Clara.

Nicolette did.

In one giant leap, she and Clara cleared the wall and landed, hand in hand, crouched in the neighbor’s yard. It was something she’d seen in superhero movies. Not something she thought she or her best friend could ever do. Yet they had. There was no time to soak in how that had worked or what had made them able to jump so high.

Clara stared at her with wide eyes. “Holy shit! The spoon worked!”

“Right?”

Nicolette was operating on pure adrenaline. “I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. Why did I do it?”

“Because the pint of pity ice cream was out of reach,”

replied Clara, as if this type of thing happened to her daily.

Nicolette took a deep breath. “Shifters are real.”

“Yep,”

said Clara before swallowing hard. “Want your mind totally blown? Vampires are real too. Your uncle is one. And before you freak, know that you and I aren’t human. We were cooked up in a lab. Run now. Freak out about it all later.”