The Siren Series 3: Brandon (A Siren Novel) (2 page)

Nova

I fling my black hair over my shoulder and bite back a sigh.

The hand grabbing my ass kneads it like bread dough. “That's it, sweetheart. Get that beer, and we'll get
real
close.”

“Get your hand off my ass,” I say evenly.

His expression bleeds to confusion. Probably a common occurrence given his double-digit IQ.
Yeah.

His fingers dig into my butt cheek through my jeans, and I wince. The commonness of being pawed here doesn’t make it right. Just because I desperately need a job doesn't automatically give a man the right to lay his hands on me.

I don't want to, but I can't help the flesh-crawling magic that’s beginning to tingle along my skin like a fine perfume.

My eyes close from the rush of power.

I let the music of the lowly bar I work at fade away, and the fingers that clamp down on my buttocks go numb as the forbidden happens.

My magic has its way.

I imagine each unwanted fingerprint of the douche's hand as though it is on fire, flames consuming it.

A chair scrapes backward then an accompanying howl sounds. “Fuck me!” the voice bursts in horror and surprise.

I smile as his hands jerk away from me.

Fucking cunt
, I hear his slur in my head.

My eyes open, and I face a patron who is typical in this den of inequity I call a job. Standing, he is well over six foot. He looms over me, shaking his burning hands.

I notice the tips of his fingers are chaffed and red. The skin is peeling as though he just touched hot coals.

I smirk, and his hand raises as though to strike me.

“Don't,” I warn. And as is typical, he doesn't stop.

He's not clever enough to understand the inexplicable. He only knows that he touched me and his fingers got torched.

I somehow caused it, though it makes no sense.

Magic pours out of me. Being a classically trained witch has its advantages.

His fist is a flesh meteor, and I crush it to dust with a thought.

My magic couldn’t succeed if he was pure of heart.

Woman-Beater bellows into the noisy bar, “Fucking freak!” He folds his handless arm against his breastbone, pinwheeling away. He takes his wounded ass and high tails it out of the bar, glancing at me with a familiar frozen expression of fear.

I don't mind it from him.

His buddies scoot their chairs back on the rough wood. The whites of their eyes are too wide in their faces.

“Jesus, let's get out of here!” one says.

I whistle a little tune as I scan the table and scoop up the dollar bills.
No tip from this table
. Just enough to cover the tab. I feel a tip would have been far more equitable.

With a disgusted exhale, I stuff the money into the front pouch of my apron.

I turn around and silence greets me. The music has fallen away.

Patrons stand.

Oops.

My boss, also serving as bartender, moves to my side.

Luey scrubs his face with a small shrug. “I try to be reasonable, Nova, but ya leave me no choice. You keep chasing customers out. I'll have to let you go.”

My stomach bottoms out.
I need this job.

I lean forward, my palms flat on Luey's chest. He flinches, and it makes my soul ache that my friend—my boss—would fear me. “I—he'll get his hand back. It's just an illusion, Lue.” My eyes search his, and I know all he sees in the smoky gloom of the bar are the twin holes of black in my face.

I have excellent night vision and zero in on his face perfectly.

“I'm sorry, Nova. Illusion or not, it looked damn real from where I stood.”

I hear muttering behind me, and the fine hairs at the nape of my neck lift. I look around. I know the tenor of the crowd.

Witch hunt, modern style.

I back away, handing my apron full of money to Luey. He watches me go with an expression like someone just kicked his puppy.

I try to explain, “It's just a parlor trick—an illusion.”

A few patrons shake their heads. One throws a chip at me. It hits my temple and breaks beneath my combat boot as I retreat.

Shit begins to fly.

I run.

I don't let the tears flow until I'm a half-mile downwind of the place.

Nobody's going to see me break down.

*

I kick a loose pebble with the chunky sole of my boot and it flies into the ditch.

My thumb goes out as I hear a car approach. I let out a tendril of discernment and sense that it isn’t someone from the bar.

They pass me, spraying the shoulder with the water from the wet pavement.

It slaps the cuffs of my jeans, soaking into my shoes.

Nice.

I have a pity party right there in the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt, ʽcuz it's where I happen to be.

Staggering off the shoulder of the two-lane highway, I leap over the narrow drainage ditch and traipse into the deep woods that border the road. I sink down on my haunches, my wet feet throbbing from the walk.

Normally I carpool with Ren, but tonight he's probably doing damage control. He'll be along eventually.

How many jobs have I had in the last year?

Ten.

I put my head in my hands. If only I could get somewhere where my differences wouldn't get attention.

I wipe the back of my hand against my nose, pissed that I've fucked up yet another job.

I slide my palms back and forth on my jeans to them before blowing on the chilled skin.

It's October and too cool for me to walk. Rain and shitty Pacific Northwest weather has set in. Go figure.

I swipe at my eyes, mulling over my options.

Go back to my seedy apartment and make another manipulation spell so I don't have to pay next month's rent?

Goddess, what a mess.

Or I can dream some more about that yummy dude who keeps interfering with my sleep. He has eyes like chips of coal in a face so handsome, I ache to touch it. He keeps calling to me as though through water.

I'd let him do more than grab my ass.

I smirk.

I scan my surroundings with my eyes. Then I do the same with my mind.

The small nocturnal animals of the forest thrill inside the cloak of the night, foraging, hunting—breeding.

The fingers of my power splay, scattering my senses to the four directions.

I get a hit like a club about a mile north of my position. That's not good.
Time to go.

Forces that most people don't know about are moving in my direction. I heed the warning Grammy gave me from when she brought me up.

I remember her words as she lay dying when I'd only been sixteen.

We are Druid.

She had been so certain. That explained the witchery.

I grunt as I jump back across the small gulley and walk toward the road.

There are hunters of our kind.

I had taken her hand those six years ago, though it feels like yesterday.

Clothe yourself in shadow, Nova.

Her flesh had been cool, growing colder without the kiss of life.

I run, ignoring the painful slide of wet socks against my skin. Blisters rise like oil on water.

Her final words were even more scary. We fear what we don't know.

Beware the Reaper,
she'd said.

I don't know what a Reaper is exactly, but a mental image of Death, with his creepy scythe and all, comes to mind. Not digging on that.

Grammy's mouth had opened to warn me of more, but time ran out. I always wonder what other things she'd meant to say, to make sure I was aware of.

Now I'll never know.

Air burns in my lungs. I conjure a spell of enhancement like a donut around me, and the oxygen percentage in the two-foot radius kicks up a notch. Instantly my gait smooths, my breaths come more evenly. I fly—free to run all the way to my craphole apartment.

I don't make it but another half mile before I see shadows disengage from the trees to become figures.

You can't outrun fate.

Destiny inserts itself where it will.

I slow, waving my palm at the spell, and it shatters like fine mist. I don't need oxygen for this new threat.

Three men I've never seen before move out of the tree line.

Instantly I know they're the threat I sensed earlier.

They move fast.

I'm really missing that ride with Ren about now.

Damn.

I let my power unroll. It hits them like a wave coming to rest at the shore, and I identify them.

Other.
Non-human.

Shit.

My pulse speeds and their eyes move to my throat.

Holy hell, they can sense my blood.

I retreat a step.

Their eyes are like reflective silver discs in faces too pale to be human. Their hair is as inky as my own.

“Female,” the middle one says.

I cock an eyebrow. As per normal, my smart mouth opens. “Really? You're not serious with that line? I'm thinking the cave man bludgeoning club will spring to action any second.”

His head cocks at an angle, a small frown wrinkling his forehead.

I laugh. It's too funny for words. Here I am in the middle of nowhere, and these half-naked giants just throw themselves out of the woods and call me female.

Priceless.

His eyes narrow like molten mercury.

Instantly, he's right before me—like ten inches from my face.

I do what I always do when I'm cornered—magic.

I instantly toss protection around myself. It's a spell I mastered when Grammy was potty-training me. Actually, she taught it as my first spell. The spell only works with non-humans.

I retreat from the guy. His eyes narrow on where I was.

I don't know what flavor this big muscle-y dude is, but I'm not interested in buying what he's selling.

His nostrils flare, and he moves closer to my position.

Damn.

Invisibility doesn't work either.

Now I know what he is, what they all are. My eyes take in the three coming for me, locating me without sight.

Just scent.

Vampire.

Nova

“She knows what she is,” the smallest one says.

Yeah, right.

They're all so massive, saying one is smaller is like saying a mountain peak is lower than the one beside it.

I'm skilled, but I have limited spells when it comes to the supes. I just don’t encounter that many.

In the time I've been practicing, I've only run into a handful, like ships passing in the night. There was nothing in the rule book about making friends or taking long showers together. They're usually hiding what they are, just like me.

Angelics and demonics, vamps and the Were. Usually I pass right underneath their radar. Druid witches aren't interesting.

But there’s a sect of vampire that Grammy apparently hadn't had time to warn me about. Reapers, in particular—now that takes some maneuvering. It would have been great to know that Reapers were vamps. Too late.

I turn to mist as the largest dude puts a hand out toward me.

Nothing wrong with his sniffer.

His palm passes harmlessly through me, but that won't keep them at arm's length.

I can't run.

The vampires are brutally fast. I've had experience with them once before, but there were easier pickings around than a clever witch who knew what they were instantly. Easier to drink from a human without witch ancestry.

But they hadn't been Reapers. Reapers were a whole different brand of vamp.

I shiver as they move nearer, tightening the noose of their position.

I know in ancient days, Reapers could turn human females with enough Druid blood into little baby machines of daywalker producers. That's what I think Grammy had wanted to tell me. I'll never know for sure, but the old legends speak of it.

Vamps who didn't need to be ruled by the night.

It makes me cranky—it's all so medieval.

Because let's face it, if I want a baby so badly, I wouldn't choose a bunch of blood suckers as sires. That's so obvious it's beyond stupid.

I smirk.

I'm aware I should be way more wound up about this predicament. But I think these vamps will be more reasonable than humans.

Just a guess.

I appear, and the largest one starts a little at my sudden appearance.

He recovers and fully encircles my upper arm with his big paw.

“We understand you might not know who we are.”

“Reapers,” I reply as though bored.

I can't hide my reaction to his touch though.

I've done what little research I can. There's an almost compulsive need to fuck these guys if a woman has Druid blood.

I look him over from the top of his gorgeous head to his feet encased in some kind of soft leather that laces to his upper calf.

I admit he seems very fuckable, but I'm not going to be their little baby-maker.
Uh-uh.

They look at each other.

“If you are aware of who we are,” he says, “then you must know why we have traveled to find you.”

I roll my eyes, giving his hand on my arm a pointed glare. “Listen, I know you dudes can bench press Volkswagens. I got it. But I don't want to do the penis dance with you.”

It's comical—they look at each other again with confusion.

“I don't need approval or a powwow, guys. I'm a Druid witch and I can make your lives really creative in the next ten minutes if you don't lay off.”

The big guy's lips twitch. “An agile mind is as much an aphrodisiac as a bewitching Druid pussy.”

Oh... really?

Then he kisses me. And not like I've been kissed before. In stolen moments of darkness before I move to the next Podunk town.

No
, he kisses me as though he owns my mouth, my breath.

I can't help my reaction. My resistance melts away as my arms wrap around that thick neck, my hands biting into a back so broad it's got its own zip code.

He groans, picking me up.

My legs circle his waist.

“Mikhail, you cannot breed her on the side of the road.”

He lifts his lips only long enough to say, “Only because you would, Damon.”

The
breed her
part breaks the thrall nicely, but not before a deep throb pulses from my core to the tips of my toes. Old Mikhail stud almost had me.

Right here.

That's scary as hell.

In theory, the Reaper-Druid connection sounds so clinical. Chemistry between the two. Ancient ties of the genes. Natural complement for offspring.

The reality is they make my pussy drenched with arousal. I don't want
anything
having that kind of power over me.

I'm not going to be their sex slave. In some deep recess of my mind, I thought I’d one day have just one guy.

Right now, it's looking like three.

The vamp named Damon narrows his gaze on Mikhail. “How much?”

Mikhail cocks his head, inspecting me. “Nearly full... However, there's a disturbing bit of maid of the Mer blood running through those veins.”

Mermaid?
Gah. “I am not a fishy chick, just so ya know.”

I know of the Mer. Mermaids who can morph into legs on land if they're not too far from the sea.
No, thanks.

Mikhail grins, his fangs peeking out. “My nose does not lie.” He taps the side of his beautiful Roman nose, broad, straight—proud.

My finger runs the length of his face. It moves over his high cheekbones to his full mouth. He sucks my fingertip inside his mouth, and the lightest prick from his fang gives him a taste of my blood.

I jerk out my finger. “Blood thief,” I grumble, trying somewhat successfully to quell my fear.

“She is too clever. Too much trouble,” the smallest Reaper comments.

I flip him off. “Mikhail doesn't mind, do you, stud muffin?”

His dark eyes regard me as he gives a slow shake of his head. “She could produce warriors. Strategists. They would be beyond daywalkers. A dumb Druid we do not need.”

I can almost hear the Neanderthal back there rolling his eyes, looking around for his club.

I smile. “I don't want to have babies, guys. I want one man. I want babies with one man.”

Mikhail holds my chin. “It is not the fate of a Druid female to breed with a human.” He spits out the last word as if it’s
dredge.

“And what of this future human male?” Damon asks, strolling to the edge of our embrace. “He will be so taken with you, he would overlook your witchcraft? I think not.” He smirks, pleased with his sarcastic insight.

The jerk Reaper says, “Not all the breeders are aware of their own magick.”

I look at the smallest one. “I've never met another Druid.”

He shrugs. “They exist, but with as much blood as you possess, that is a guarantee you will throw true.”

I turn away from Mikhail and walk up to the Reaper who's not a fan. As I draw nearer, he stands his ground. I stab a finger into his chest, about the level where my eyes hit. Though I am five eight, he's got me by eight inches. “Like a baseball toss or something.
You guys.
” I shake my head in resignation. “
You need to figure out modern speak to sound even vaguely relevant.”

He grabs me and jerks me against his body. “We are Reapers—we don't follow the human cattle. We are at the top of the world's food chain. We speak as we choose.”

I don't panic, but my heart takes a dive. “Not the very top, pal. There are others—Were, for one.”

He makes a dismissive noise, drawing me tighter.

“Kellan, do not,” Mikhail warns.

He bends his head to my lips, breathing my scent in deeply, compulsively. “I cannot
stop
.”

His lips fall to mine, branding me.

I kiss him back, my fingers spearing his hair. I push him harder against my lips until his fangs press against my flesh. I open my mouth, and his tongue finds mine. They twine as he moans against my lips, his fingers reactively splaying against my lower back.

Kellan is torn from me.

His pupils dilate, a light sweat beading his upper lip. Mikhail holds Kellan’s shoulder while his face bleeds down to bones and skin. He appears feral.

I back up a step.

“This is what we are, breeder,” Kellan says through his teeth. “We hunger. We fuck. We breed, and we bleed.”

My pulse picks up. “Well... good for you. And I have to say—you guys are kick ass in the chemistry department.” I flick a drop of blood from my lips. “However, I think you're a little too hands-on for anything permanent.”

A horn honks behind us. My face whips toward the noise.

Ren.

For once in my life, his timing couldn't be better.

I flutter my fingers in a good-bye wave to the three vamp hunks.

They gaze back at me.

Kellan leaps forward, and I melt into mist. His arm swipes through where I stood.

I sail through the atoms in the air and appear inside Ren's car.

His eyes bug when I materialize.

“Holy fuck!”

In the confined space, my ears bleed from his volume.

“Floor it. We've got some freaks.”

Ren stomps on the gas.

He plows into Kellan, and Kellan hits hard, tumbling over the roof and down the hood of the car.

I don't scream, but I make a low gurgling noise of terror and exhaustion.

I've hurt myself by changing mass twice in a half hour. I can't defend myself.

Ren runs over Kellan and screams, “What the hell was that?”

My head rolls against the head rest toward him. “Get us out of here, or you'll find out.”

I'm just awake enough to look behind me.

The Reapers stand in the center of the street, one vamp down.

He'll heal.

I let my head lull back to center, closing my eyes.

I've escaped the Reapers.

I should be relieved, and I kind of am.

My pussy gives a disgruntled pulse.

Even though I'm stuck with a case of blue clit.

Bastards,
I think before falling into a coma of healing.