Shadow Queen (13 page)

              Calum rubbed his chin and half-screamed behind him for Clark to leave.

              Clark was blushing heavily before saying, “No...sir.  Szar said not to let you be alone in her room.”

              Calum shot an angry hiss at him.  “Like hell.  Tell Szar where he can go and the horse he rode in on.”  Calum’s phone buzzed again and he checked it. 

              “I’m sorry, sir.”  Clark’s Vampire teeth protruded just enough to make himself clear.  “I need you to leave.”

              Calum shouted off three very distinguishing insults either intended for Clark or my brother or both and pointed a finger at the door for me to leave to.  I hightailed it out and ran down the hall back to the weights room.

              “No.  We’re sparring, Miss Priss.  Get your ass downstairs.”

              I didn’t argue.  Not when he was like that.

              Once again, guards were stationed down there always near us with Cord and Szar still gone.  Szar should have been back now.

              In the middle of the floor, Calum informed me he was going to work on grappling.  I didn’t feel like I’d ever need much hand to hand combat skills and Cas had taught me what I did know, but I didn’t argue.

              When his hand landed on my butt in the choke hold maneuver I knew wasn’t part of the grappling Cas taught, I grunted and used a little Valkyrie “umph” to kick him off.  He flew sideways and fell on his own hard butt.  Revenge was sweet.

              “I didn’t mean for it land there, Stace. It’s par for the course.”

              “Make your par land three feet off the course then Calum.  Hands off.”

              Grabbing a hand towel and wiping his brow, he faced away from me for a minute or two.  I glanced at the guard at the top of the stairs.  There was no other way out of the room and the windows were too small, so he was standing more in the foyer than the stairway.  It was the closest to privacy I’d had other than the bathroom and I knew now that was Calum's intention in coming down here.

              “Teach me to use the sword with my right hand,” I asked him when his back was to the guard.

              He looked at me weird then glared.  He walked over and picked up the long sword with such grace, I speculated he practiced walking that way.  It was too lithe and smooth for his build.  His powerful legs leaned over as he placed the sword in my right hand.  In my ear he said, “If you tell me why you were in a room with the shower going and came out in the same clothes and dry as a bone.”                           

              I gulped.  “That’s something I want to talk to you about.”

              His brow lifted in disbelief.  “Really?”

              “I texted a friend.”

              “Who did you text, Stace?” He walked forward to make me back up and land across the front of him. He’d probably like that too much.  My stomach was a mess with the buzz of electricity from grappling with him. 

              “Say his name Stace.”

              He knew.  How do they all know before me?  They were all disturbed in the brain.  “If you knew I called Lee, then why are you asking?”

              “Because I wanted to see if you’d go without me.”

              Stupid men.  “Your point?”

              Calum steamed more if that were a possible description for it.  “When were you planning to tell me?”

              “Now sounded good.” 

              He huffed at me and walked away with the sword in my hand.  He glanced up at the stairs and came back just as fast. 

              “Stace.  You don’t know what you’re asking.”

              “I know I want Cas safe.”

              “And if he can’t come back yet.  Are you prepared for that?  What you might see?”

              Now that scared me.  A very shaky yes escaped my lips, but it was a lie.

              “You will regret this, Stace.  One hundred percent.”  He sounded so sure.   “Come on.  You need to clean up and get in bed.  What time?”

              “Midnight.”

              “I will be in your room.”

              “How?”  He wasn’t allowed.

              “Szar got back half an hour ago.  Cord’s eating.   It won’t be a problem.”

              “Do they know?” I panicked.

              He raised a sweat drenched brow, “And if they do?”

              “Oh.  No reason.  I just know my brother.”

              “And he would object for very good reasons.  You know, I didn’t tell you about Thorn to make you reckless.  It was solely for your personal stress.”

             
Personal stress?
  He talked so out of character sometimes.              “Whatever.  I’m going.  He would go if it were me.”

              “Yes.  But it’s different.”

              I turned on him from where I’d started up the stairs. “What is that supposed to mean, Hunter boy?”  I ended up still looking at his chest from where I stood on the bottom step and was forced to look upward.

              “Just what it is.  You’re a female worth doing anything for, so nothing is barred.”

              “I suppose that’s a compliment, but how is saving or protecting Cas any different?”  I was touched, but didn’t show it.  He didn’t need any leverage to help his cause.

              “Men don’t see it that way.  I know you’re the big bad leader and all, but your still the female we’re protecting.  Put that aside and see that you are a beautiful, strong woman that we see as the perfection that makes us worth living for to achieve as a prize we can call ours if she will allow it.  Our life depends on you.  If we lose you, we lose everything.”

              “I’m not a prize.”

              “In all that pouring of pansy ass guts, you get that part the most?” He wiped his hand over his forehead to move the fallen hair away.

              No, I heard the very maturely spoken words of a wonderful man.  “It breaks my heart to break yours Calum because we have a history that will forever stay in my heart.  I can’t imagine the girl who will be lucky enough to have you, but I will beat her ass if she doesn’t appreciate you the way I do.”

              He half smiled, but the line between his brow told me he was still upset, but like me, he chose to ignore the obvious.  “I will be sure to keep that in mind.  Come on, let’s get out of here.”

              In bed, dressed in “work” clothes with all the needed “tools”, I waited for midnight.  I charged my phone and sadly watched it for the last thirty minutes willing it to ring.  I would see Cas soon.  That drove my every thought.

              I contemplated going to Calum’s current room.  I know he said he’d sleep a few hours while Cord took watch over me like the hawks they were being, but it unsettled me to have them sleep here when Cas wasn’t.  Not that I wasn’t appreciative of their efforts, it was just upsetting that it had to be this way.

              Calum made sure it was arranged that he was the one in front of my room at the allotted time. 

             
Buzz!
  The phone vibrated at precisely midnight by it and the clock on the wall.  The alarm clock was a minute off. 

              “The car is a half a mile from the front main gate.  Black Mazda.  Key in the ignition.”

              Click. 

              Guess stealth is a given, but Lee was hard to figure.  He may be a spy for all sides, but he had some skills to get him there.  And access to more than me in the goods department.  He just wasn’t the boy I knew before if I knew him at all.

              I flew out of the covers only to be faced with Calum standing on the balcony like he’d been there a while.  I peeked at the bedroom door seeing it closed and then whispered, “How did you get there?” 

              “You call yourself stealthy.  I walked right by you.”

              That concerned me.  A lot.  “Come on.”

              Sneaking out was rather easy considering all the overdone surveillance and guarding.  Calum told me he asked Claire to make a dessert worthy of the time the guards were putting in.  She loved to bake so much I doubted she read into it in any way.  Who knew Vampires were easily seduced with sugar intake.  Well, Claire’s Double Chocolate Cream Cake was to die for.

              Through the trees and on the street, I found the car easily enough.  Moving through the shadows I couldn’t help but realize I hadn’t ever “walked” through the woods at his court or anywhere near it.  I’d only ever flown with Cas.

              Cas.  I’d see him soon.

              In the car and moving, I didn’t know where to go or what to do next.  “Lee didn’t say what to do next.”

              Calum lowered the glove box door.  Inside, he pulled out a folded transparent bag with paper neatly folded and taped.  Open, we found a map, a note, and a key.  The note simply said,

              Pint under seat.  O positive
. 

              Nothing more, nothing less.  Lee wasn’t into to giving details, I see.

              “The map leads to Drac I assume.”  I said this hoping to gain insight thinking Calum might know more.

              “It does.”

              I was right, unfortunately.  I squeezed the hurt away. “And how did you come to know where he is located?”

              He flipped a scouring look my way from the driver seat but said nothing.

              “Fine.  Keep your secrets.  I’m used to it with Cas.”

              “You kick butt better than any Hunter girl I’ve ever seen Stace, but you’re still naive.”

              “Then why did this mother put me in charge of something I can’t even seem to stay in charge of.”

              He sighed, “When are going to realize that it’s not just you?  We are a team.  You compliment our need to pulverize with your quick witted rationalizations.  Without them, we’d all be dead.”

              I’d not seen it that way.  “Still, it seems more like I’m following, not leading or even at the same pace.”

              “This is a setback.  After Cas is through this, things will come back to some kind of norm.”

              “Yeah, cuz’ norm is our business.  Calum, we’ve not seen normal since the day we met.”

              In the darkness of the car with only the dashboard lights, he slid his eyes once more to me.  I heard his hard swallow before he said low and a little too huskily, “A day which means more to me than you.”

              I let it go.  He could drop those bombs all over the city and I’d still be looking in every direction for Cas as I did now.  As one sided as it was, I didn’t want him to hate me either.  So I kept my thoughts to myself.

              The map led us to a side of this predominately human town I’d not been to except to Cas’ club.  I wouldn’t have guessed Drac to live so close, nor that he would live in a suburb of Gem City.  The factions were all located right outside of a major city that is never disclosed to humans, but close enough to keep tabs on each other.  There were smaller faction houses in all major cities, but only one stood above them all and that’s where I’d been my whole life.  Living in the city that had the highest population in the continental U.S. was by far busy enough with the supernaturals, much less to travel to the others.  The lords of each faction traveled once a year to visit the east coast faction house, as well as the overseas houses located in England and Japan, but the others fared on their own unless needing assistance.  Our city’s factions seemed to have the most problems, but maybe it simply rooted to the lords, not the supernaturals.

              Cas even told me once that Chicago and Los Angeles both had their Vampire rogue problems, but nothing like ours.  He reasoned that they flocked to us because of who we are as faction leaders, nothing more.  You’d think the “rogues” would want to go away from the ones who could do them in for good.

              Drac and several of the prior lords did a lot of the traveling for Cas.  I knew Szar had even been as far as Dallas to check in with the Valkyrie factions.  I guess they all have “check in” representatives.  I’d have to ask Cord and Calum who went for their factions.

              We rolled into downtown with the traffic.  Even after midnight, it was still heavy slow and stop.  Calum flipped the turn signal for the next exit making me sit straighter in his seat.  I looked for a sign of where we were headed and compared it to the map.  Calum looked at it once and not again. 

              “Do you know where we’re going?”

              “Yes,” he punctuated the word.  He seemed even more ticked off than earlier.

              “Do you know where this leads on the map?”

              “Yes.”

              I feared I already knew the answer to the next question.  “Have you been there before?”

              “Yes.”

              Last burning question to come.  “Have I?”

              “No.”

              His hands on the wheel, he had yet to look my way since my Q and A.

              “Tell me about it,” I asked.

              He sighed heavily before saying, “I suppose I should warn you.  It will likely be hard to see, so stay close to me.  Guard your body against anyone nearing you and talk to no one.  I won’t let anyone harm you.”

              “Those sound more like fatherly rules.  You act like I’m some innocent girl who is stepping for the first time into the world.  Why don’t you tell me where we’re going and what’s there so I can be prepared?”

              “No need.  We are here.”

              Pulling in a parking lot, I recognized exactly where we were.  The club across the street from Cas’ club.  This one was called Incisor and looked darker and well, all human.  Allusive in his parking, Calum pulled around the back in the shadows.  We rounded to the front like we were club patrons and stood in line of what I swear used to be a church.  The stained glass windows were still there, just painted over with black spray paint. 

              I glanced forward and back at the others trying to reach the same destination.  With a giant Hunter beside me, we weren’t exactly incognito. 

              “With you beside me, we stand out Stace.”

              The soft-toned way that Calum always let his breath out and then held it made its way across to me signaling he was taking care of the current threat even if there wasn’t one.  I readied my dagger, but knew internally he had this.

              The way he looks at me has changed.  His eyes are sad, but full of emotion that can only be comprehended as a caring type of love.  I think that he is past the point of being in love with me, but rather his gaze tells me he is worried more and desperate.  He makes me want to do the impossible just as Cas says I can.  He believes in me, but he worries about my safety.  Kind of ironic since I’m almost completely invincible when I have my head on straight.  Maybe it’s the other times they both see me as weaker.  Maybe they see my weak sides more than I realize.

              “Funny, I just thought the same thing about you,” I looked up at his hardened face and nonchalantly checked for my weapons as we stood there.

              “Me?  You’re blonde and beautiful unlike human girls.  They will know your some kind of goddess and question us,” he scoffed.  “If you’d worn clothes, it might have helped.”

              “Yeah right.  And six and a half feet men are the norm.”  He ignored me.  “What?  Gorgeous, built like a battleaxe, and broody Hunters aren’t normal for their kind.  It’s the stuff of story books.”  I noted to those around us.  “And I’m not naked.”

              He blinked twice.  “Gods, Stace.  Saying stuff like that doesn’t fair well for me keeping my hands off you.”

              I flipped forward to the bouncer to avoid the look in his eyes.  I can’t seem to be candid or funny or honest with Calum sometimes.  It sparks a fire I can’t seem to douse.

              “We’re almost in,” I said to alter the situation back to the reason for being here.

              “Stay low.  It is an all human bar and we are headed straight for the back.”

              “Why are we here anyway?  How does it lead to Cas?” I looked carefully at some of the humans.  They were all jumpy and dancing to the loud music blaring from somewhere inside.  They didn’t seem so bad.  Didn’t we all want the same things?

              “Thorn is in there.”

              I looked up at him confused, “Then that would mean Drac is here.”

              “He is the owner.”

              “Drac, a Vampire lord, is the owner of a human club.”

              He looked at me like I had screws loose.  “Uh, you mean he feeds on the humans?”  I was horrified.  I knew Vamps did it, but I didn’t know any of those personally.  Cas warned me the world wasn’t always black and white like I wanted it to be.

              When he didn’t answer I turned back to the bouncer in wait to enter.  Calum pulled out his wallet but the huge, not quite as big as Calum, bouncer rubbed a hand over his bald head and said in a booming voice, “FREE.  IN.”

              I peered up at Calum.  My body hummed to life making me arch.

              “He knows you’re here.”

              “Does Cas?” 

              “Not sure.  Have you turned on your inner radio and tried to call him?” he grimaced saying it.

              “Not lately.  HE...turned it off.”  I frowned accordingly to make my point and then focused on sensing him.  “Besides, he can already feel me.  He has to know.”

              “Because you feel him like I do you.  Yeah, yeah.  Come on.”  Calum gently pulled my arm. 

              I was dressed for fighting, but the black “cat suit” as the guys called it was strangely appropriate attire against most of the humans girls were wearing.  Though they had way more skin to view.  I didn’t know how the males could focus.  Cas seemed to blur around the edges when I neglected to put on yoga pants or jeans on days I had sleep shorts on.  Even the tanks were a distraction.  While I liked the attention (from him) I didn’t like the constant ogling of others.  These girls seemed to relish in it.  Eww!

              We skirted the room side by side.  Calum didn’t once look at any of the girls in question.  I found that odd considering he should be a little girl crazy for his age.  I wasn’t termed as “boy crazy” by any means.  I guess we both were a little mature for our ages with all the doom and gloom in our lives.

              Around the first corner we found a narrow passageway filled with writhing bodies and a few acts I wasn’t sure if I should hide my eyes away from or not.  I was trying to act less like a prude, but this kind of stuff should be hosed clean from the human cops or something.  It was despicable.

              Calum leaned in keeping my body flattened across his front.  I didn’t argue and I didn’t mind it so much after the second hand groped my arm and went for the nether regions of my body I considered off limits to all.  When the third hand reached for my chest, I yanked it hard into me and twisted like it was on fire.  And on fire the human felt by the time I quarter turned their arm the opposite direction than it was situated.  His scream was drowned out by Calum’s one hand on his mouth and the other on his throat. 

              I think the human then passed out, but I couldn’t be sure.  Calum propped him against the wall never disturbing the grope happy couple going to town beside where he lay.  I watched as Calum returned to my side like the event was an everyday thing.  I worried for what Calum might be doing in his spare time.  The term, “fighting demons” was not far from the edge of my brain.

              The last door on the left came into view.  White washed and void of any sign for who was contained within the walls, Calum positioned me right in front of it.  The outside of the building was like an old church, but the inside was drab and dirty.  If they were worshiping gods in this place, they weren't heavenly ones.