Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2) (20 page)

Chance drove his mental, but oh so talented tongue, inside my body and at the same time flicked the hard nub above where his invisible mouth feasted. The light I drained from Vance shot from me to Chance and we shared the bounty. We drank my vampire and Vance drank from me and I shattered with a nearly silent cry. I had no voice for more than one soft moan of pleasure.

From down the line, Chance gave a final long, liquid lick. I sensed his satisfaction, as he demanded again, T
ell me which you like more…his bite or mine?
 

With the energy I’d pulled from Vance, so much more powerful than a human, and that I had taken from Chance earlier, I rode on more power than I had ever taken at once. Using it, I snapped the connection that Chance had opened between us.

The aftershocks of the orgasm he had caused rocked me, and I wanted to weep. He
had
caused it. He had overridden the feelings Vance created and turned the experience into a feeding session. He had turned my intimate moment with another man into something between him and I. Although Vance’s arms held me and Vance’s lips continued to trace lazy patterns on my flesh, and Vance’s voice whispered in my ear, Chance had taken him nearly out of the equation.

I was truly becoming a monster. I had to be if I could out monster a vampire. I clung to Vance, and the last shred of my imagined humanity dried up and blew away in the cold night air. Even though I admitted I was not and had never been human, that did not mean I could not proceed as planned. If I was a monster, I would be the one I chose to be, not the one Chance wanted me to be. And I wanted Vance. I kissed him and slid my arm around his waist as we headed back to Brennan’s together. I had a Hammer to hunt, even if I hunted it on legs gone to rubber.

I entered the bar a new woman, so to speak. I walked to the back where everyone still sat and chatted with Amanda and her friend. Mia glanced up concerned and Avery’s eyes met mine with a hungry expression. The muse grinned at me and, out of the range of emotions, it struck me as the odd one.

I held Vance’s hand and leaned into him in the warm afterglow. Frank’s grin widened and I couldn’t resist asking, “What?”

“I thought I would tell you I like Chance. Really. He gets a bum rap, but he’s a kind soul.”

Although I had shut Chance out, I realized he had some sort of unbreakable connection in my mind somehow because I could almost see him smirk in my head. I glared at the muse. “Don’t you mean, Vance?”

Vance shifted his attention to the muse, too. “What brought Chance up?”

I sucked in a breath. Couldn’t help it. Guilty conscience.

Frank laughed merrily and everyone stared at him curiously. I had a pretty good idea why he was merry—although I couldn’t be sure he knew what I thought he knew. I did not want to know, but I was pretty darned annoyed. On the upside, no one was staring at me anymore.

“I just thought I should tell Janie that. I think sometimes she does not believe in him or herself so I thought I would mention that he has a good soul. I like him.”

Vance slid into the booth next to Mia. “I don’t like him at all.”

Frank laughed, smacking his leg in his mirth.

I did not laugh. Again, not amused by the same stuff a muse finds amusing. Altogether, I was not too impressed by the muse in general.

All of the sudden, Vance stood up as if he heard something that none of the rest of us could hear. I glanced at him and he ignored me.

“I’ll be right back.” He disappeared in one of those vampire moves too fast to track with the eye.

I shrugged it off to vampire business. Who knew what kind of vampire political issues might have arisen? He was after all the biggest dog in town. I didn’t think much of it and I took the seat he’d vacated.

Frank sat there, wrapped up in his own hilarity.

I glared at him. The theme song to
Gilligan’s Island
jingled over the hum of the bar, and I tugged my cell phone from my pocket. Odd Stuff’s phone number appeared on the screen. “Hey, Sven, what goes?”

“Your mom stopped by the store.”

My eyebrows rose. The muse smacked the table and laughed so hard, I wondered if he was going to have to use the bathroom.

“She says she wants to talk to you and Avery when you get in. Since I was going to go out for a while, do you want me to leave her here with Vickie and you can catch her when you get home?”

I passed along the message to Mia and she shrugged.

“Can I talk to her?”

He put my mom on.

“Janie?”

“We won’t be back for a while, Mom. Are you sure you want to wait?”

“Not a problem. I have some things I wanted to do anyway.”

Glancing again to Mia, I put my hand over the receiver. “Can she do anything to the store?”

“Nah.”

“I can hear you.” My mother’s fingers tapped the closest surface irritably.

“Um, well, yeah, thanks, Mom. That would be great.”

She hung up on me and I shrugged. Whatever she wanted to talk about was going to make me mad anyway, so angering her was probably proactive on my part. I turned back to Mia. “Sven said he had something to do. He’s leaving Vickie with Mom. Maybe he’ll stop in here.”

Frank chuckled.

I glared at him and slid from the booth. “I’m going to get a drink.”

Frank wiped a tear from his eye. He seemed to be coming to the end of his private joke. “Mia, I really must visit you more often. You have the most fascinating friends. I so enjoy playing in your pool.”

“You’re messing with all of us, aren’t you?”

He smiled up at me. “I am muse. I am inspiration. I can no more help what I am than you can help…” He quirked that blond brow at me and the expression said to me, in a word,
Chance.
 

“Your siren stuff.” Mia spun a straw around in the drink in front of her oblivious to the silent battle between Frank and I.

I glanced at the muse one last time before going to get a Corona. Something told me neither he nor I were thinking of siren stuff.
Jerk
.

I moved to the front of the bar to order my drink. I had just paid for the beer when a flash of red out the window caught my eye.
Julia
? I moved to the bay windows at the front of the bar to peer into the night. Beyond the green letters spelling Brennan’s in curvy script backwards, I could just see the night beyond. And on the street, stood Julia.

I turned and moved to put my drink back on the bar and nearly hit Frank.

“Are you following me now, too?”

“Tonight I am. Things are about to get interesting.”

I so did not want to know what he considered interesting. I placed my drink on the bar and turned as the entire gang lined up behind me.
Great, an entourage of strange folk.
 

I left the bar, trailed by a witch, a muse, and a fairy. We were a silent group. Well, mostly. Frank giggled. I glared at him and he shut up.

When I turned back around, I hit a mountain. “Sven?” I gasped as he caught me, barely keeping me from falling.

“Sorry, Janie,” he mumbled and did not meet my eyes. “Hey, I gotta go. Nice seeing you, though. Things to do!” With that, our gentle giant practically shoved me out of his way and hustled down the street, trailing a pink scarf in his wake.

Mia and I stared at each other and she shrugged. “Maybe he’s seeing someone?”

I grinned. “Maybe…” I tried to picture Sven’s idea of a good date and came up blank. I headed back in the direction I had seen Julia go and found her. She was, of course, standing behind Vance.

My power came online in a white-hot rush.

Vance crouched in front of Julia in a defensive position. Julia stood behind him, not cowering like a weak female, but like she was casting. They faced off with a dark haired man…who stood there leering?

I shut the power down as quickly as I had brought it online. When the air popped and hissed as it shifted, I did not even spare a glance at Chance.

Frank clapped his hands. “Well, the gang’s all here.”

Then, the man facing Vance and Julia began to get hairy.
Holy Teenwolf Batman
…

“Janie meets a werewolf.” Frank sounded positively ecstatic.

Great, exactly what I needed. More supernatural freaks. Like there weren’t enough monsters out tonight. I stalked closer and Chance mirrored me. Which of course was how I tripped over the body.

I gaped at it and then up at Chance. “A clue, Shaggy.”

“Yeah, well, you know where I was.” His brow quirked at me. “Can you say the same about your vampire?”

I opened my mouth to say something snarky, but before I got it out, the werecritter leapt at Vance.

“Well, crap.” I made a leap of my own.

Julia tried to cast and, behind me, Mia was probably trying to do something, too. White magic in battle has its limits, though, as I have discovered. Julia had not cast a circle around Vance and herself, so the creature began to pummel Vance.

My powers did not care about circles or species. My powers cared only about eating the electricity that wired the brain of anything. So as I leapt, I sang.

I made a simple humming noise. Lyrics were sort of beyond me then. The werething and Vance grappled in battle then both froze and gaped at me. Actually, the entire tableau froze and stared at me, which is kind of how my power works. Except Chance, of course. He just pried the werebeastie off Vance and pitched him to the sidewalk.

I landed on the stranger and stopped the sound. I smiled and allowed him to come back to himself enough to gaze up at me. I sensed him see me. I smiled down at him. Then I grabbed onto his essence and pulled.

His energy was like nothing I had ever tasted. Humans tasted weak. Vampires tasted of the grave, like cool nights and dew. Chance tasted like a spring storm. The shifting creature tasted like animal. He tasted like wolf, like running through the night on four paws and howling at a full moon. I tilted my head back and let it run up my arms in a liquid flow.

Chance laid a hand on my arm and bent behind me. “Enough.”

I glared back at him. I did not want to stop. I gave him a shot of what I pulled from the creature on the ground and he stiffened. He absorbed it and breathed deeply, savoring the taste of the werewolf’s power.

“You’re the one who claims we are not monsters.” His gentle reprimand blew warm against my throat. “You’re scaring your friends.”

I stopped the flow of energy as quickly as I had started draining it and shoved away from the creature. Chance pulled me to my feet, but I pushed away from him as well. He bowed his head in apparent acceptance, but I could almost taste his amusement.

He wasn’t feeling rejected. I had not tried to shut him out. We had worked together, and I had remained open to him. I spared a moment to search his features and he tried to hide his pleasure. It did not work anymore than I could hide from him. The damn path had worn too wide between us.

He kept his head ducked though, and didn’t come closer to me. If it made me happy, he would play nice…for the moment.

Vance stood pretty much where he had started. What I had missed, though, was that Julia pressed a shirt, which had to be Avery’s since he no longer had one, to a wound on Vance’s chest.

Seeing her hands on him made power crackle down my skin. Chance’s hand snapped out and caught my arm before I could do more than that.

Frank’s laughter distracted me from whatever would have happened next. “Priceless.” The stupid muse chuckled then grew somber as he stared at the ground. “Who killed the human?”

“Well, hell.” I had forgotten about the body I’d tripped over.

Julia pressed harder against the makeshift bandage. “I was trying to figure that out myself. I saw Vance and I came to see what he was doing. He was kneeling over that body and then we got attacked by the werewolf.”

“Vance was with the body when you got here?” I hoped Julia would tell me no, take the words back and with them the guilt they suggested.

Julia only had eyes for Vance and a cord shimmered between them. I could see it, but I was not sure if either of them noticed it. I could see it. Chance could. I knew from Frank’s amusement that he could. Vance and Julia could, even if they ignored it.

I was not a happy girl.

I stalked over and took the shirt from Julia and applied pressure. Vance smiled up at me. Chance’s voice in my head said,
Hold him close. He may be a murderer. You may not have much longer to hold him before I have to destroy him.
 

My head snapped toward him. He had not moved but his glass green eyes focused on mine. We stayed like that for a moment. I held Vance, with Julia behind me.

Chance considered me as I held Vance. Then Chance popped out.

It was as if we were all able to move again, as if we had been locked in place until Chance had left and released some pressure valve. Mia and Julia began to speak at once. Who was the were, why had he attacked, and who was the body?

I held Vance and our eyes seemed to speak as silent questions ricocheted between us.

What was with Chance?

What was with Julia? Why were you found near the body? You left so suddenly, did you do it? Could you be the one doing it? You’re old enough, you could have.

And for the first time in over a week, I think he tried to read my mind. Before I would not have known he tried, but my mind was no longer only my own. I shared the space with Chance, like it or not. More power ran through me than I had ever held before. So when the gentle sliver of thought tried to breach the edge of my consciousness like a tendril of smoke or the caress of a finger, I sensed it.
We
felt it because Chance now shared my space in such a way that a breach to my power was a breach of his as well. And we, as one, attacked the intrusion.

“Janie, no!” Julia jumped forward into my line of vision, terror on her face.

But it was too late. 

CHAPTER Twelve