Page 12 of Fighting Fate (Monsters of London #4)

Vince

Kieran takes me to some little café I’ve never heard of and one I wouldn’t expect to be open so late. It’s already seven, and I stare up at the ornate sign proclaiming the café’s name before I give Kieran a questioning look.

“Hallowed Grounds?”

Kieran shrugs. “It’s our go-to place. Come on.”

For being their go-to place, it’s absolutely empty when we walk inside. Well, aside from the man behind the counter, who’s impossibly good-looking. He’s got sharp, angular features, and his dark hair falls to his waist in one sleek wave.

He gives Kieran a humourless smile. “You are here late.”

“You close at ten.”

“Not tonight, it seems.”

“Vince, this is Lark. Lark, Vince.” Kieran looks at me. “What do you want to drink?”

“Uh. Just a latte, please.”

Kieran opens his mouth, presumably to give Lark his order, but the man turns away. I glance at Kieran in surprise, but he just huffs a laugh in response.

“You know Drew will be here to open up if we keep you up too late.”

“You are lucky your brother is so conscientious.”

“Your brother? Drew?”

Kieran nods. “Yeah. He came to London not long after I left for a little bit. He works here now.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

We’re silent until Lark’s finished making our drinks—apparently, he knows Kieran’s order. Kieran pays and then leads us over to a sofa in the corner. He takes one end, and I take the other, leaning back against the cushions.

I sip my coffee before I speak. Fuck. Lark might have absolutely negative customer service skills, but he’s an incredible barista.

“What’s going on, then?” I ask.

Kieran takes a determined sip of his own drink, then sets it down on the low table next to us.

“What I’m going to tell you… It’s going to sound weird. Too weird, maybe. And if there’s a chance you don’t want to know it all, I need you to tell me, okay?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I know I shouldn’t have cut you out the way I did. But you didn’t know about any of this, and I figured that might keep you safe. Carey said—”

He cuts himself off and I scowl.

“Carey knows? Whatever’s been going on, she knows?”

“Yeah. It was kind of difficult to hide from her, after—” Kieran sighs, stops, starts again. “What do you remember about that night we all went to Bite?”

Dax.

I swallow hard, pushing the memory of him firmly away. I locked it into a little box six months ago, and that’s where it has to remain.

“I dunno. I—We were dancing. I hooked up with that guy. I left with him. That’s it.”

Kieran nods. “Okay. Yeah, okay. That’s a good place to start.”

I don’t know how much time passes as he spins me a story I barely believe. About Carey being attacked. About vampires and werewolves and magic. About his brother coming to London and being stalked and Kieran having to fight …

And then the monster. Coming for all of them, all of us.

By the time he’s finished, my coffee is cold. I feel vaguely bad about that.

Among everything else I’m feeling. Namely, disbelief.

“Kieran, you can’t expect me to believe—”

“It’s the truth,” he says quickly. “I know it must sound unbelievable to you. But it’s true.”

“It is that,” Lark says, and my head shoots up in surprise. I didn’t hear him come closer. He sets another hot drink in front of me. It’s not coffee. “I thought the caffeine might be too much for your human sensibilities.”

“My… what?”

Lark smiles, and for a second—just one—his face changes . His dark eyes are suddenly larger, black from corner to corner, teeth too sharp, just like his cheekbones. The tips of his ears point through his hair.

I jerk back with a startled cry.

Kieran groans. “Yeah, that’s helpful.”

Lark’s face returns to normal. He takes a step back. “It seems more efficient than speech.”

It’s definitely… something.

And some of what Kieran told me… Some of it rings true. He won’t tell me why Carey knows, aside from the fact she was attacked, but I remember seeing the mark on her neck.

She told me it was a love bite, but it didn’t look like one. Not really.

“Okay, say that I believe you.”

“You should.”

I shoot Kieran a glare.

“ Say that I do. Why are you telling me?”

Kieran leans forward, clasping his hands together in his lap. I take a sip of the drink Lark brought. It’s chai, so unless he used decaf tea, he was lying about the caffeine.

“Since the attack, we’ve been rebuilding. The Hunters’ Council is holding their elections soon. And I’ve been working with Deacon and the other alphas to help make the packs more cohesive.”

“Right?” I think I understand.

“Some of them are scared. Like, not deep down, but day-to-day, there’s a level of… anxiety, I guess, that a lot of them have never experienced.”

“They didn’t expect to be attacked?”

“No one thought it was possible. Having alliances like we have here makes us strong. No one thought one vampire might be stronger.”

“But he wasn’t. You beat him.”

Kieran sighs. “I know, but most of what the wolves and vampires here have worried about for the past century or so is the prospect of being discovered, not being killed. You saw Silas and Enza today. They need to be able to protect themselves.”

“And they can’t do that with the… you know. Magic and teeth and claws and whatever?”

Over by the counter, Lark makes a sound. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a muffled laugh.

“Yes.” Kieran bites back his own smile. “But they can’t just rely on that all the time. Especially the mages. I want them to trust that they can protect themselves—or at least get away from danger.”

“You could teach them, then.”

“Yeah, I tried.” Kieran grimaces. “Apparently, Drew’s and my education focused more on the offensive than the defensive. Well, that and I don’t think they want to get on my bad side. Not that I’d do anything, but—”

I wave him off. I’ve seen him teach, after all, and he’s good at it. But he’s also just told me that he fought off a werewolf with his bare hands, and if that’s true… Yeah, I’d probably be intimidated, too.

“What do you have in mind?” I ask, and Kieran grins.

Yeah, he knows. He’s already won.

I’m not sure I’ve wrapped my head around everything yet, of course. He’s just dumped a lot of info into my lap, and I’m sure I’ll go to bed tonight and think I’ve dreamt the whole thing up.

Only, I’ve never known Kieran to be a liar. To keep things to himself, sure. He’s probably the most private person I’ve ever met.

But to outright lie?

“We’d work around your schedule as much as possible, of course, but we need classes in the daytime and at night. Even though they’ve got an advantage, there are plenty of vampires who don’t know how to fight either, especially the younger ones.”

“Okay.” It sounds like a hell of a commitment and Kieran’s eyes widen as though he realises something.

“We’ll pay you. Obviously. Let me know how much, and I’ll take it to Deacon. Technically, my pack is hiring you, I think, because you’re—” He cuts himself off, smiles. “But yeah, he said he’ll pay because it’ll be for all of us. And don’t try giving me mate’s rates, either. I know how much you should be charging, so I can bump it up if I think you’re lowballing.”

I laugh. Maybe there’s a hysterical edge to it; Kieran’s eyebrows certainly go up. He waits, though, until I’ve got myself together again.

“So you want me to run self-defence classes for vampires, werewolves, and mages… And you’ll pay me for them?”

Kieran frowns. “Of course.”

“There aren’t any other werewolves or… whatever, who can do it?”

“None who I know,” Kieran says, and his eyes meet mine. “None who I trust. But I think you being human will help, too. The mages won’t feel as though you have some unfair advantage. They’ll all listen to you.”

I nod and take another sip of my drink. Lark is watching us now, though when my eyes flick his way, he pretends he isn’t.

“Yeah, okay,” I say after a long moment. “I can send you my rota at the gym, and if need be, I can move those shifts around. The only thing I won’t move is the class I run tonight.”

It’s a community class, one I set up after a couple of guys were attacked nearby. Mostly women attend, of course, but it’s low-cost—often free—and I don’t want to take that away from anyone.

“I can work with that,” Kieran says, nodding.

“And I’ll need some volunteers to help. Depending on the class sizes, but I don’t know, either, how strong werewolves and vampires and whatever the fuck else are. If I’m training people to defend themselves against other species, then they need some experience.”

Kieran stares into the middle distance for a moment before he nods again. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I think it might help with some of the packs who don’t… like me that much.”

“They don’t like you ?” I smirk at him. “Whyever not?”

“Arsehole.”

I finish my drink. No doubt I’ll crash and freak out about all of this tomorrow, but for now there’s a familiar fizzle of excitement in my stomach, the beginning of a new venture.

“So,” I say, leaning in, ready for gossip, “tell me all about Lucien.”