A Muse for Mishka (Wiccan-Were-Bear #12) (2 page)

“Costume party, according to the
instructions. We should dress like our favorite saint or sinner,”
Bridge said, reading over her shoulder.

“Ugh,” Tamar said.

“Oh get into the spirit of things. It’ll be
fun. We’ll get costumes when we get to town on Saturday. That’s an
order.”

Wyst gave her a salute with his middle
finger.

Chuckling, she followed them to the RV that
they’d been calling home for the past two years as they traveled.
She opened the passenger door and settled onto the comfortable
seat.

“I’ll just point out that I called shotgun,”
Wyst said as he settled on the couch behind the driver’s seat.

“It didn’t count,” she said.

Tamar sagged heavily behind the wheel and
started the engine. As the vehicle rumbled to life, she waved to
Bridge, who was driving the cargo van.

“How can you say it didn’t count? Shotgun is
shotgun, period.”

She looked over her shoulder with a grin.
“You called shotgun before we walked out of the club. You have to
be in view of said vehicle in order for shotgun to count.”

“You just made that up.”

“Nope. It’s in the official shotgun
handbook.”

He snorted. “Fine. Then I won’t make you tea
to soothe your throat.”

“Aw. You know you will. I’ll ask you nicely,
you’ll say no, and Bridge will get involved and threaten to rip
your arm off and beat you to death with it.
Then
you’ll make
me tea anyway. Why not just skip the middle part and do what I want
right now?”

Wyst, a falcon shifter with silky black wings
and pale amber eyes, gave her a disgruntled look and got up,
heading for the kitchen.

Bridge kept his voice low when he said, “I
wouldn’t really kill him for not making you tea. Now, the way he
hogs the remote? Definitely.”

She laughed. “I would, too.”

“Your majesty,” Wyst said as he put a mug of
tea in front of her.

“You can just call me princess. It’s
easier.”

He snorted. “For the record, I call shotgun
on the next leg of the journey. The passenger seat is the comfiest
one in the place.”

“Fine, fine. I promise to sit on the couch
next time. Baby.”

Wyst grunted as he settled down on the couch.
“I’m holding you to it, Harm.”

She clicked her tongue at him with a laugh
and blew on the steam before taking a sip. Her throat always
bothered her after singing. The more sets they did at a club, the
more abused her throat felt. Thankfully, she healed quickly, but
she still suffered discomfort for a while.

“Maybe after we sing at the Cleveland club,
we can go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Wyst said.

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, pressing the
button on the side of the chair to make it recline. “Wake me when
we hit Columbus.”

* * *

Harmony could just make out the dark blond
hair as the man moved ahead of her in a club. She’d never been this
close to him in her dreams before. Strobe lights flashed around her
as she wove through a faceless crowd. Music pulsed, with bass beats
throbbing, as she tried to get closer to her truemate. No matter
how much she pushed or how fast she moved, she couldn’t get any
closer to him.

He turned suddenly, fangs flashing and golden
eyes glittering, and then he disappeared.

Harmony sat up with a jolt, with goose bumps
covering her skin, and her breath caught in her throat. She fell
back against the seat, pressing her palms to her eyes and taking a
few steadying breaths.

“Bad?” Tamar whispered.

“Not really. I saw him – the golden eyes, the
fangs, the hair – but I was so close to him this time.” She inhaled
and exhaled several times and then cracked her knuckles. “I think
it’s a good sign.”

“Columbus?” he asked.

“Maybe. Or Cleveland. I wish the visions were
clearer.”

“You’ll find your truemate when the time is
right.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll just be glad we can stop
traveling. I’m so sick of being on the road.”

Wyst snored loudly, breaking up the moment of
silence, and she chuckled.

“I could do without needing to wear ear plugs
at night, too.”

“You and me both.”

Chapter
3

Mishka looked at himself critically in the
mirror. Fang 21’s annual Saints and Sinners party had always been a
big draw for the club. The last few years he hadn’t been as
interested in the party, and although he had told the
family
that it was because he’d grown tired of the spectacle of it all,
the truth was that it reminded him too much of his former lover,
Elizabeth. When the Wiccan had dumped all her lovers prior to
performing a collaring ceremony with a shifter bear den, Mishka
hadn’t really known what to do with himself. He’d never been set
aside by a lover before. Sure, in his five hundred years, he’d said
goodbye to numerous lovers, but no one had ever said goodbye to
him.

He’d almost canceled the party this year, but
Arissa was excited to be handling the party planning, and he hadn’t
wanted to disappoint her. As the coven’s personal Wiccan, Arissa
kept the vampires and their mates safe. She was also a balm to
Brone, his one-thousand-year-old assassin who, before Arissa, had
been as likely to kill someone as to smile at him.

A month ago, Mishka had woken from a dream
about a woman with brown and blue hair. He’d only glimpsed her
briefly in the dream; a mist blocked him from seeing her entirely.
He didn’t normally dream, so remembering one so vividly had left
him to ponder its significance. The dream came again the next day,
and then the next, with the same woman too far away to touch but
close enough to see she had brilliant, robin’s egg blue eyes, and a
lush mouth made for kissing. He knew the woman must be
important.

A knock sounded on his chamber door, and he
called, “Enter.”

Cella, the only female in the
family
,
a woman he had turned three hundred years ago, strode in. Her tall
heels clicked on the black marble floor as she met him in front of
the mirror in his closet.

She wore white lingerie, with pink-tipped
feathered wings arching over her shoulders. “You look nice,” Cella
said. “I’m surprised your body didn’t reject you trying to be a
saint this year.”

He chuckled. His usual costume was a devil,
so trying to go in a saintly direction had been interesting. Cella
had chosen a Prince Charming costume for him. The tight-fitting
powder blue pants and matching jacket came complete with a sword in
a jeweled scabbard that hung from the belt. He completed the outfit
with black knee boots, and his slicked back, dark-blond hair was
tied into a low ponytail.

“What’s up with you?” Cella asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I think I’ve known you long enough to know
when you’re not quite here because you’re thinking of something
else,” she said, smiling at his reflection in the mirror.

“I’ve been dreaming of someone.”

She made a surprised noise. “Anyone you
know?”

“No. I don’t know why, but she’s been
appearing daily in my dreams, and I feel like this party tonight
might be where I see her. I…don’t know if I’m just being
ridiculously optimistic or if something might actually happen.”

“You’re not the optimistic sort,” she
said.

“You are,” he said, turning to face her. “You
hope to find your Prince Charming someday.”

“I’m not sure there is someone for everyone.
I’ve been unmated for three hundred years.”

“I’m over five hundred,” he reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s different for
males.”

“How so?” he asked with a snort.

“It just is.” Shaking her head so her curls
bounced, she said, “Never mind me. I hope you find your dream girl.
Besides, you’re Prince Charming. He
always
gets the
girl.”

* * *

An hour later as the first band of the
evening began to play, Mishka sat in the
family
room and
watched the strobe lights as they bounced off the gyrating bodies.
The guests in the club were dressed in various costumes depicting
different versions of saints and sinners, everything from sexy nuns
to princesses to barely clad devils and angels.

He took a drink of reheated blood from the
wine glass. When he pulled the glass away from his lips, he watched
as the blood slid back down slowly, coating the interior. In the
past he’d preferred to feed from a live donor. With a single phone
call, he could have a handful of females to choose from. The paid
food
were employees of the club. When they were working,
they wore white shirts and used red ribbons to mark where they
wanted to feed from – the neck or the wrist, or both. After his
affair with the witch had ended, he hadn’t wanted to feed from
brunettes. Ever. But as his daily dreams had spun through his
subconscious, he realized he’d outgrown the grief that the ended
relationship had caused him. He didn’t really care what color hair
the female in his dreams had; that she had chocolate brown tresses
with streaks of electric blue in them only heightened his desire to
meet her in person.

Rage and Vex, the only twin vampires that
Mishka had ever known, lounged on a couch across from him, their
gazes far off as if they weren’t seeing anything in front of them.
He cleared his throat, and Rage’s pale green gaze met Mishka’s.
“Something on your minds?”

Vex, identical in all ways to Rage except for
the bronze color of his eyes, glanced around the
family
room
and then said in a low voice, “We’re ready.”

“For?”

“To find our beloved.”

Mishka snorted. “If it was as easy as just
being
ready
, then we would all be cuddling up to our
beloveds right now.”

“No, we had a dream,” Rage said.

“You shared a dream together?”

They nodded. “We were in the woods. It was
hazy, but we’re pretty sure our mate is a wolf,” Vex said.

Mishka didn’t hide his surprise. He knew the
twins shared females often, but vampires were, by nature, solitary
creatures. Ménage relationships between vampires were unheard of.
It was one thing to play at a threesome, but it was an entirely
different situation to consider sharing a female for all
eternity.

“I’ve been having dreams too. How long have
yours been going on?”

“Every month for the last year, on the day of
the full moon,” Rage said. “They’re always the same – foggy woods,
full moon, female just out of reach.” He cracked his neck, and
Mishka wondered if Rage was walking a fine line between sanity and
losing it entirely.

Mishka could empathize.

“The wolves aren’t our biggest friends right
now,” Mishka said. Although the coven held an alliance with each
shifter group in Northern Ohio, the alliance was shaky at best. He
could call on the leaders of the shifters for help if he needed it,
but he doubted that any of them would reach out to him unless they
were out of options. Centuries ago, vampires kept shifters in what
were called “blood dungeons.” They were bred and bled until they
died. While the vampires had moved on – creating a synthetic blood
substitute called SyBl as well as using human volunteers – the
shifters had long memories and didn’t often choose to spend time
with vampires.

“We know,” Vex said, scrubbing his hand over
his face. “It’s been a fucking year. It’s too long.”

Mishka decided not to mention that he’d been
having dreams for a month. Considering they’d suffered for a year,
knowing their beloved was out there somewhere without them…he would
probably have gone on a killing spree.

“Ask Arissa.”

“Ask her what?”

“She’s still part of the coven. The wolf pack
has a
lygisa
, a Wiccan-wolf hybrid named Cinder. Arissa and
Cella are friends with her. Maybe one of them would be willing to
reach out to the pack on your behalf. But not tonight. The females
are already up to their eyeballs in the party. If you ask them for
a favor now, they might not react kindly.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Vex said. “I just can’t
stand thinking of another full moon going by and us not being with
her. Whoever she is.”

The blood in Mishka’s glass had cooled enough
to become unappealing. He set it down on a small table and stood as
the door opened. Temple, another
family
member, strode in.
He wore a red suit and blinking devil horns on his head.

“You look ridiculous,” Vex said.

Temple straightened the blood-red tie.
“You’re just jealous. Cella’s asking for you, Mishka. She said you
promised her a dance.”

He let out a sigh. “I suppose I did.”

Mishka, Vex, and Rage followed Temple out of
the room. Over the speaker system, the DJ announced the next
band.

“Did he really say their name is
Fluffy
Venom
?” Mishka asked.

“Yeah, it’s a trippy name, right? The leader
is gorgeous, and she sings like an angel. I was with Cella and
Arissa when they watched the band’s audition video,” Temple
said.

“They’re human?” he asked as he skirted
around the outside of the dance floor.

“Nope. The guys are different kinds of
shifters, and the girl is a muse.”

“Amuse what?”

“No,
a
muse. Like an inspirational
creature.”

Mishka hummed but said nothing as they moved
toward the stage. Temple was right about the lead singer; she was
beautiful. In fact…she looked very familiar.

At the first strains of music, the singer
tossed her dark hair over her shoulder, and he saw pale blue
highlights. Could it be?

She began to sing, and everything inside him
jolted in surprise. He would swear his heart was beating. He was in
the presence of his dream girl, his beloved mate. She locked her
gaze with his and froze, her words dying on her lips as an
awareness rocked through him. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and
she fell to the floor in a heap.