Rowena's Revenge (Broadus Supernatural Society) (11 page)

“Penton can certainly take care of
himself,” Duncan kind of chuckles to himself, facing us and pointing for us to
come into the house further.
“Please, are you hungry? My wife is in the
kitchen making the kids snacks for tomorrow; I’m sure she’d be fine making you
something.”

“That would be great.”
Blaine smiles,
taking my hand and pulling me behind him.
“Maybe some
coffee too?”

“Certainly.”
Duncan slaps Blaine on
the back and the two
start
a line of typical small talk,
but I don’t really listen. I sink down into one of the chairs at the table and
stare out the window, blankly watching the snow blow around as the wind wails
at the glass.

I don’t care that I still have my jacket on and am sweating
beneath my sweater and tank; I don’t care that I’m not being proper or nice to
my hosts. All I want is for Penton to walk through that line of trees I see in
the backyard, over the chain link fence, and into my arms so I can feel him
near. That little amount of time I spent reliving my past with him when I was
Helen showed me that he is a part of me already. The way my heart seemed to
beat only for his pleasure as he held me in the tall grass, and the way his
laugh slid over my skin melded my leopards need for his bond and she is pacing
like crazy in my mind, making me tap my fingers on the table rapidly.

“Here, Hon,” the sweet voice breaks through my worrying and
a warm hand surrounding mine pulls my attention from the window to the smiling
and beautiful female Alpha standing beside me. Her pretty brown eyes wash over
me, stealing my mental block for only a second, but it’s all it takes for the
sadness to creep in at full force and bring tears to my eyes, my chest
tightening as she pulls the other chair up and sits beside me, her hand still
covering mine as the other pushes a cup of coffee to me. “He will come back,
but for now, drink this. It will help calm your nerves.”

Pulling my hand from hers as she pats it one more time, the
understanding in her eyes lets me know she has felt what I’m going through at
some point in her life, to some extent. I wrap my hands around the mug, sighing
as the warmth seeps through into my chilled hands. As I bring it up to my lips,
the distinctive scent of whiskey finds my nose and I stop, sending a
questioning look over to Blaine standing by the counter. He’s looking right at
me and nods, not breaking his conversation with Duncan and I shrug my
shoulders. Hell, the whiskey will help my nerves and it’ll warm me up in a
second, so I put the mug to my lips and let the hot, spiked coffee slide on
down with a sigh afterward.

Damn, it does taste good and I take another sip, only
sparing the window a short glance before looking back into the she-wolf’s brown
eyes. She’s smiling and replying to something that Blaine and Duncan are
talking about, but as her hand covers mine again on the table I can’t help but
feel safe. My leopard relaxes, which she rarely ever does around other women
supernaturals
, and I can’t help but sigh and look back out
to the blowing snow.

“You are like her.” The she wolf kind of laughs lightly to
herself and I give her a questioning look. She shakes her head, still smiling
while reaching behind her and grabbing a picture frame from a shelf and holding
it out to me; tapping her finger on the glass at the photo of a smiling family.
It’s three men, a woman, and three toddler age boys. “That’s your sister,
Siofra, and her mates,” the she-wolf says with another smile as she looks over
the photo and I’ll admit I can’t help smiling either while looking at the happy
scene.

The woman in the photo, my sister Siofra, has the same blue
eyes as Duncan and her smile, even though captured in time through this photo,
seems to reach into my heart and wrap around it, filling me with a sense of
security in my time of worry over Penton. I take notice of her green eyed mate
and his possessive hold on her hand that rests on his leg, the two other,
rugged looking men, and the three giddy looking boys; all of their eyes shining
bright with love for one another.

“They look happy,” I say, trying to hold in the sadness, but
I can tell I haven’t done a good job as the she-wolf’s expression turns
sympathetic and she pats my shoulder. “What is your name?” I ask in a yawn and
shake it off, looking down into my cup and seeing that I’ve downed almost all
of the whiskey spiked coffee without noticing it.

“My name is
Sindy
.”
She kind of laughs, patting my hand again before she stands,
nodding to Blaine.
“You better get her up to bed.”

“No,” I protest, trying to stand when I see Blaine walking
toward me, but as soon as I move, my head swims and I have to sit back down to
gain my bearings. I see the smirk on my mate’s lips as he wraps one of his arms
under my legs and the other around my back, pulling me up into his arms and I slap
his chest, getting him to laugh. “I want to stay up and wait for Penton. Do you
think you can just get me drunk and shuffle me off to bed? I won’t go down that
easy.”

“Oh yes you will,” Blaine whispers in my ear as he carries
me up the stairs. Over his shoulder, I can see Duncan following us with our
tote bag in his hand and a slight smile on his lips. I let out a frustrated
sigh and try to wiggle from Blaine’s arms, but he just tightens his hold,
squeezing me to his chest. “You need to get some rest, Kitten.”

I can hear steady, rhythmic breathing coming from behind a
few of the closed doors in the hallway he is leading me down so I keep my
protests to a whisper as not to disturb the sleeping children, but I punch
Blaine in the chest as he crosses the threshold to a dark room. He sits me down
on the bed and rubs the spot where I hit him as Duncan sets the bag down and
leaves, closing the door behind him without a word.

“How do you expect me to rest when Penton is out there?” I
try to say quietly as I sweep my hand out toward the large window letting in
the moonlight, but I know in my slightly drunken state my slurs are still loud
and I clamp my mouth shut, slapping my hand down onto the bed in frustration.

I throw myself back against the pillows and stare up at the
shadowy ceiling as I feel Blaine start to tug my boots off and hear them hit
the floor. I try to slap him away, but his quick and talented hands have me
down to my bra and panties in a blink, and he’s tucking me under the warm
comforter as I roll onto my side and sigh, looking him in the eyes.

“That cup was more than just a
lil
’
liquor, wasn’t it?” I try to give him the best accusatorial look that my
drunk
ass can manage and he just laughs, confirming my
suspicion. “You’re a bastard. I want to stay up and wait for Penton.” I try to
sit up, but his warm hands push back down on my shoulders and lay me back
against the flannel sheets. They do feel good and I shift, the liquor in my
system taking over and causing me to sigh as Blaine’s hand roams over my cheek,
neck, and chest.

“Just sleep, my Kitten,” he whispers, his lips only a
whisper above mine as his warm breath washes over me, filling me with his
scent. “I’ll be back with Penton before you wake.” His lips cover mine in a
hungry, possessive manner and I couldn’t keep the wanton moan from slipping out
if I wanted to, and it echoes through the dark room.

Wait? He’ll be back? He’s going out there without me?
The thought only crosses my mind before Blaine’s touch leaves me and I’m lost
in a sea of sleep.
Just wait ‘till I wake up, B,
I dream to myself,
I’ll
kick your ass ten ways to Sunday.
Damn right I will.

~~~~~~

Blaine

Releasing Rowena’s lips and leaving her passed out in the bed
is hard to do, knowing how mad she’ll be at me when she wakes up, but I can’t
have her getting hurt so I shut the door behind me quietly, facing a smirking
Duncan. The Alpha is a lumberjack of a man and I can feel his authoritative
power radiating off of him, making me feel at ease.

“Ready?” he asks, tipping his chin slightly toward the door
at my back and I nod, following him down the stairs and meeting up with at
least a dozen of his men as they come in through the front door, bringing the
chill of the wind with them.

They all nod at me, and I’m guessing that their Alpha has
already filled them in on the plan; to go see if we can find Penton to make
sure he is alright. Even though he told Row and
I
to
stay put and wait for him, I just can’t. There is this force pulling at my
chest, telling me to go look for him and my wolf is restless, pacing back and
forth and growling deep every time I tell myself to stay. He knows we need to
be out there and there is no point in trying to deny the animal within. I see
Duncan in the corner of the kitchen, a cell phone up to his ear and the piece
of paper Penton had given me in his hand, and the second instruction Penton had
given me pops into my head.
I forgot to call!

I rush through the crowded living room to Duncan’s side
about ready to tell him that I’m a dumbass when he throws his hand up, shaking
his head. “It’s okay. This number is my brother and I haven’t harassed him in a
while.”

He hands me back the paper and I finally look at the number.
‘Marcus, Senior F.S.C.C.A. Agent-1-555-655-5525’
is scrawled on the
crinkled surface and I have to clench my jaw to keep from grinding my teeth.
The Federal Supernatural Control and Containment Agency is one reason we are on
the run, and flashes of my night breaking Row out of their New York facility
flow through my head as the paper turns to a small ball of garbage in my fist.

It had been snowing like a bitch, but I had followed her
scent to an abandoned looking building and I had smashed in the bottom window,
not caring about the alarm or gash on my elbow as the sirens sounded and the
blood dripped down my arm. I only cared about her, about finding her and
getting her out of that prison. I had beaten three different guards before I
found her huddled in the corner of a cell, stripped naked with no blankets,
aiming to keep her from starting fires.

My body shudders as I’m remembering the moment our eyes
first locked through the bars; the defeated, broken expression pulling at my
heart and making my wolf whimper out loud to her, calling her to us. As she
slid on her knees toward me, her eyes never leaving mine, I knew she’d be my
world from that moment on, and as I come back to the here and now, standing in
the living room, I know I can’t let her down now. I need to bring Penton back
safe, so that we can move on and get her where she will be safe.

Because no matter what, all that matters is that Row is
safe. Above my life I hold hers and I’ll dive head long into the dark night to
try and stop anything that is coming to hurt her or my brother, Penton.

My brother,
I catch myself, rolling the thought throw
my head.
Yeah, he is my brother and I’ll do any
damn thing for him.

~~~~~

Penton

As soon as I hit the pavement, jumping from the speeding
Landrover
that continued on and took my mate to safety, I
missed her. I wanted to rewind time and jump back in, going back a hundred
miles to stop myself from taking her into the past and showing Rowena her life
as Helen, because it has given our location away to this evil, sadistic bastard
of a Warlock,
Cearbhall
.

The snow is picking up and the wind is blowing it around in
icy gusts as I slink around through the trees to the side of the thruway, just
waiting for the next Ghoul to attack; my lip curling back as their decaying
scent wafts around me. Ghouls are an abomination of a creature; once humans who
wanted to be vampires, but lacked the specific gene needed to take on the full
transformation, they are left in a zombie like state between mortal and
immortal, between life and death. The vampire who tried to change them is at
fault for their suffering, being able to smell the specific gene on humans to
tell whether or not they would survive the change. Whoever this vampire is was
careless and greedy, and it makes me wonder how
Cearbhall
got them to hand over their little army so he could mutate them into this
horrifying state.

His black magic, gifted to him by my parents, has
transformed these decaying things into black slimy skinned, winged, red eyed,
brainless drones and I can hear ones wings flapping up behind me. Ducking,
going down on one knee and thrusting my sword straight up I catch the creature
under the jaw and its body falls slack to the snow almost immediately. I twist
my blade free, hearing its brittle bones snapping and crunching and I clean my
sword in the snow, a scowl coming to my face from the smearing of the black
substance staining the perfect newness of the snow.

“Oh,
Pentonnnnn
,” I hear on the
wind;
Cearbhall’s
voice dark and deep as I always
remember it being, his laugh following his mocking of my name and my body
stiffens as I feel him near. “Penton, Penton, Penton; isn’t it funny how
history repeats itself?”

He pops up out of the dark about three feet in front of me,
his orange eyes reflecting the meager moonlight shining through the bare trees.
His hair sweeps around the side of his face with the scrawling tattoo and he
just bathes me in a cunning grin, a wave of superiority trying to flow over me,
but he underestimates me. I am still a part of the magic world, even if I don’t
have all of my powers right now.

“History will not repeat itself. Not here, not now, not
ever,” I tell him, my hand flinching on my sword as I see him eye it up. He’s
seen me in action, both back then and now, and I know he remembers how I don’t
show any mercy to those who hurt me. “I should’ve killed you a long time ago.”