Page 8 of Blood and Magic (RBMC: Helena, MT #2)

Vermillion

“Y ou okay, brother?” Moose asked from across the table, taking a sip of his beer.

I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat, realizing I’d been caught staring at Maeve. Again .

“Fine.” The word came out more in a growl than a reassuring tone.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Yeah?” I gulped my beer. “What do I look like?”

“You look like you’re about to tear into a Vanderbilt aorta.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the sisters dancing at the center of the party: Guin, Avalon, Sol…and Maeve.

Yes, crowed my inner wolf. Bite her. Rip into her throat. Consume her.

I shook off the voice and ignored the delicious aroma of her skin wafting over the dance floor, drifting toward me, reeling me in the more she sweated and laughed.

Back when I’d lived here, Guin and I had…

something. It barely counted as a fling, but it was more than friendship.

When she went through her transition, those agonizing few days when shifter magic took hold inside a human, I’d been the one to help her through it.

But we weren’t meant to be, and I’d made my peace with that.

I would have been okay if the only Vanderbilt I ever interacted with was Sol… but today I saw her.

Maeve had been a child following her sister around in my ranch-hand days.

She wasn’t a child anymore.

“Maybe I am,” I murmured.

“Well, save it until after I leave, yeah?” Moose pulled his long hair back and twisted it into a bun at the base of his head with a bright pink scrunchie. “I don’t want to have to whoop your ass on Orion’s big day.”

As sergeant at arms, it was Moose’s responsibility to keep us all in line. If a Bastard started acting up, he and his inner wolf would smack us around until we fell in line. Moral and upstanding, Moose was easily the best of us.

“I’ve got no problems with the Vanderbilts.

” Not anymore. It was only their piece of shit father that had done any real damage to us, and that motherfucker was cold in the ground.

Did the children inherit the sins of the father?

I’d liked Guin when we were in our twenties, and I liked Sol now.

If Orion and Kodiak believed we could heal the rift between our families, then I wanted to believe it, too.

“Really?” Moose whistled. “Then what’s with the scowl?”

“Just ready to get out of here, I guess.” The lie rolled off my tongue as easy as Sunday morning, but I doubted he believed it.

Everyone saw the stare-down between Maeve and me earlier today.

I had no good explanations for it. She met my gaze, and I wanted to rip her to pieces, to hold her down and take, take, take.

Touching her felt like sticking my hand in an electrical storm, like trying to grab a downed power line.

It shocked me awake in the worst way, and I didn’t like that shit one fucking bit.

“They already cut the cake,” Moose said. “You can leave anytime you want.”

I snorted and returned to watching Maeve dance, giggling and twirling her sisters around on the floor.

She was beautiful. Her long, dark hair fell in soft waves to the center of her back, and her bright blue eyes mesmerized me the minute I’d connected with them, seemingly more intense now that she was a grown woman.

She had an identical twin, and Avalon was gorgeous, too, but something about her specifically appealed to me.

I shifted in my seat again and took another drink of beer. Moose was right. I could leave. I probably should leave. But now that I was near her, I didn’t want to be away from her, and that pissed me off even more.

Even before I died, I didn’t have much experience with females.

I used to wonder if it was because Guin was my mate and she’d rejected me.

But that didn’t make a ton of sense. How would I have been able to walk away from her?

Wouldn’t I have felt a bigger loss? The more time passed, the more I realized she and I weren’t meant to be, and sleeping around wasn’t my thing.

Since being reborn, I said I didn’t trust myself to be around anyone, but the truth was, no one had ever held much appeal.

I’d gone out of my way to drink the finest whiskey and smoke the rarest bud. I’d done it all in a foolish attempt to feel a semblance of what I had before those fucking vampires tore out my throat, only to lock gazes with a Vanderbilt and have my heart damn near skip a beat.

What is it about her?

I didn’t want to know.

Not only was she Guin’s younger sister, but now she was also in-laws with Orion. He’d be almost as territorial over her as he was his mate, and I had no desire to dance with the second.

“Woo!” Lycan said, plopping down into the spot next to me before taking a deep drink out of his flask. “That Guin’s a lot of fun. I might try to ruffle up her hackles, if you know what I’m saying.”

Moose rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Good luck with that.”

“Don’t need it, brother. But thank you all the same.” Lycan tilted his head back and let out a howl.

“You go sniffing around Guin Vanderbilt, and you’ll have to answer to Kodiak,” Moose explained. “The alpha’s been…uh… protective of her.”

Lycan pursed his lips and leaned forward. “Protective how?”

“She gives her updates to him directly,” Moose said. “Anyone goes near her, and he has to know the reason why.”

“You think he’s into her?” Lycan grinned, seemingly happy our lonely alpha might have a lover.

The sarge shook his head. “I doubt Kodiak’s into anyone, but that doesn’t mean he wants you sinking your claws where they don’t belong.”

Lycan scoffed and rolled his eyes. I couldn’t blame Kodiak for that. Lycan got around more than my brother, and that was saying something. He would fuck anyone with a pulse. Males, females, enbies, it didn’t matter to him. If they were into it, so was he.

“What about the twins?” Lycan put his elbows on the table and twisted to face Moose and me. “Ava seems like she’s wound tight. I bet I could?—”

“How about you keep your hands to yourself for once in your fucking life?” I snapped, the words tumbling out of me before I could stop them. An image of Lycan rucking up Maeve’s dress went through my head, and I wanted to rip his tongue out for even suggesting it.

“Temper, temper,” Lycan said before slinging back another sip of whiskey. “I was just asking. Seeing as things worked out so well for Sol when she went through her transition, it’s only a matter of time?—”

“They’re latent,” I interrupted again. “It would have hit them by now if they weren’t.”

The longer Maeve went without transitioning, the more that meant she never would.

“You know I have a seventh sense about these things,” Lycan said, his shit-eating grin so smug that I wanted to knock his teeth out. “I guessed it about Sol the first time I met her. I’m telling you…” He pointed at Maeve and Avalon. “Those two are ticking time bombs.”

I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders to relieve the tension.

Moose raised an eyebrow and glanced between me and our drunk road captain. “How certain are you?”

Lycan shrugged. “Eighty…no, ninety percent.”

I tried to pretend the thought of Maeve going through the change didn’t delight my wolf.

Take her. Help her. It should be me.

The Bastard smiled again. “I can smell it on her. Maeve’s going first. Then Ava. Probably around the time we’re in Paris together.” He snorted and laughed. “Maybe I’ll take her to the Eiffel Tower, you know what I’m saying?”

“Don’t be a prick,” I said, rolling my eyes. Not that his sexual preferences were off-putting, but the casual way he talked about them infuriated me.

Lycan ignored me. “And probably that younger one, too. Galahad.”

“And the older brother?” Moose asked.

Lycan tilted his head from side to side and frowned. “Now, he’s latent. One hundred percent.”

In our world, the shifter gene was dominant.

Even if a human mated with a shifter, the children would most likely change.

But every so often, the genes mutated and produced offspring who should have had the magic but didn’t transition.

We called them latent, but that didn’t mean they were less than us, though some bigoted assholes in the pack would suggest otherwise.

They were just as crucial to our healthy ecosystem, and Kodiak ensured everyone knew it.

He wouldn’t allow any talk of pure-breed or half-breed or latent. Everyone was pack, end of story.

“I think you’re cut off, brother,” Moose said, reaching for Lycan’s flask. The blond pulled away and shoved Moose back.

“Bet me,” he said.

“What? No.” Moose laughed and went for the whiskey again.

“Go on, bet me.” Lycan giggled and pushed to his feet. “Five hundred bucks and three perimeter rotations says that Maeve Vanderbilt transitions within a month, and an extra grand if Avalon goes after her.”

“Fuck off, Lycan,” Moose said.

“It’s fucked-up to bet about someone going through the change,” I added.

“Not to mention bad luck.” Moose shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Where’s Poe, huh?” I glanced around. “Shouldn’t you be trying to swallow his tongue by now?”

Poe was one of the newer members of our pack, and up until recently, Lycan’s boyfriend…er, fuck buddy? I didn’t know what they called themselves, only that they could regularly be found occupying each other’s beds.

Lycan’s features dropped, and he cleared his throat. “Poe and I…we’re taking a break.”

He said the B-word in the same tone he’d use to call someone a piece of shit.

“Uh-oh,” Moose said. “Trouble in paradise?”

Lycan didn’t answer, just tipped the flask over his lips for another huge gulp before screwing the lid back on and handing it over to Moose.

“I think you’re right, brother,” he said. “I’m toast, and I’m heading home.”

“Hey, you alright?” Moose stood, holding out a hand to help him.

Lycan shook him off. “Just fine. Besides, we’ve got the prospects driving us home, right? I’ll see you both when I get back from France.”

He sauntered to the perimeter and sulked off into the night, his once playful aura now reduced to a dark, gloomy cloud at merely the mention of his former flame.

Whatever happened there wasn’t my business, but I did believe him when he said he had a knack for calling when someone might be about to transition.

He’d been right about Sol; even Orion could admit that.

Is he right about Maeve?

I looked at her again, now slow dancing with some human jackass closer to her age.

She laughed at whatever he said, and I swallowed down my completely inappropriate jealousy.

I barely knew her. I had no reason to get to know her.

And even if my history with her sister wasn’t complicated, she was off-limits for a thousand different reasons.

“If Lycan’s right, we need to have someone keep watch,” Moose said.

“I’ll be here with four other pack members,” I said. “If she goes through it—” I’d been about to say someone would tell us, someone would help her. But that didn’t sit right in my gut for reasons I didn’t want to consider.

“You?” Moose raised his eyebrows and sipped his beer.

“Yeah, me,” I growled. “But don’t worry. I won’t touch her. I’ll send Columba or Aquila in there instead.”

I tried to imagine anyone else in the pack giving her their magic, and I fisted my beer bottle so tight, I thought I might crack it.

“That isn’t what I’m worried about,” Moose said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled and stood, deciding that enough was enough for one night. When I passed the dance floor, headed toward the ranch-hands’ building on the other side of the farm, I ignored the way Maeve’s eyes tracked me, telling myself it had nothing to do with me.

We were nothing. That immense pull I felt toward her was nothing.

All of this. All of life. All of it.

Nothing.