Page 26 of Of Flame and Fate

Two hulking men wait on either side of the door, wolves the size of buffalo standing guard at their sides. They scowl when they see us. However, it takes the gray wolf with smooth dark fur sneezing and thrusting her tongue in disgust to make me realize they’re not exactly angry.

Like theweresat the front doors, they smell Emme, and like them, they don’t think my hand sanitizer did the trick. If anything, it’s like all the glop she was doused in is burning its way through their snouts.

“Is it that bad?” I whisper.

“No,” Gemini answers.

He’s lying. Obviously.

I stop in the doorway. The massive room, surrounded with floor to ceiling windows that unveil a sky littered with stars, appears to be under construction. Several tools, ladders, and piles of lumber are strewn haphazardly across the large expanse and the skeletal remains of broken furniture rest against the far walls.

“Keep walking,” Gemini says.

I do, my eyes widening as the piles of lumber and remnants of construction vanish, and a large group of supernaturals slowly come into view.

The room has been disguised and altered with a cloaking spell. Aformam mutatiospell if memory serves. Anyone who manages to get through the wards and guards will only see a room in the process of being fixed, not the magical muscle hidden within it.

Yet once we’re in, the magical muscles collectively flex, tracing like points from an arsenal of daggers across my skin, not enough to hurt, just enough to show me how easily they could puncture my flesh.

Uri, Misha’s master is close, as are the Pack Elders, and Misha himself. I feel them. Genevieve, Tahoe’s Head Witch, is here, too. Her magic like the others is strong enough to drip like warm blood against my skin. But even if I couldn’t feel her power, I’d know she was here. No one else could have cast a spell of this magnitude so quickly.

Some of her coven linger just a few feet away, huddled closely and speaking in hushed voices. I nod as I pass them, trying to be polite. Ordinarily I’d stop and chat. But these are extraordinary circumstances and no one is in the mood for friendly conversation.

Seated at a large granite table along a raised platform are Celia and the Pack Elders. Aric stands directly behind Celia, his arms crossed and his expression as dark as the five o’clock shadow lining his jaw. Celia is saying something I don’t quite hear, and she doesn’t quite finish. She and Aric turn in our direction, their eyes widening when they fix on Emme.

A cluster ofweresand witches loitering beside an elaborate buffet quiet as we near. I assume it’s because Gemini has arrived or because they sense my magic. It’s not until we’re almost to them that I realize they barely notice us. Oh, no, they’re attention is all on Emme.

Thewereslower their plates stacked with prime rib, fruits, and bread as we reach them. The witches mostly clasp their mouths, their faces blanching. It’s bad enough Emme looks like a hot mess. She reeks of one, too.

Witches have a way of sensing suffering and death, and likely sense all the damage Emme inflicted on the vampires. Theweressense more than that, their noses wrinkling, and more than a few walking away and leaving their food behind.

“Oh,God,” Emme squeaks, covering her face.

“It’s not you, it’s them,” I say.

I look to Gemini who regards me as if I’m crazy. “Isn’t it, love?” I ask through my teeth.

“Yes,” he mumbles. “Of course.”

Damn, he’s a terrible liar when it counts.

The wall of bodies ahead of us, some more or less human, others in beast form, part, giving us ample space as we make our way toward the raised platform where Celia appears worried and Aric is close to losing his cool. I’ll give us this, we know how to make an entrance.

And so does Destiny.

A spray of black, white, and hot pink feathers pop up over a crowd of very uncomfortable looking witches. The witches spread out, their medieval, crushed velvet gowns elegant and lovely, the exact opposite of the little number Destiny is sporting.

Oh, and when I say “little”, I’m lying.

Picture a zebra pantsuit, as painful as it sounds, and throw in a pair of polka dot hot pink boots. I know what you’re thinking, they don’t make that shit. I’m sure “they” don’t. Destiny, being the little creative stinker she is, must have dropped a few grand on the boots only to staple black leather circles to them. Don’t believe me? I can see the staples from here, fixed to the center of the dots so the edges flap like birds with broken wings as she races toward me.

She hangs tight to the pink cowboy hat on her head, the spray of feathers on the front fanning out like a giant turkey’s ass.

“Taran!” she says, waving madly with her free hand. “You didn’t get eaten!”

I point at her and make this clicking sound with my tongue. “Not yet, girl.”

She throws her arms around me. “It’s great to see you, and Celia, oh, and Shayna, too.” She hooks a thumb. “Shayna is outside,” she says, dropping her voice. “But I’m afraid she and Koda are fighting. Something about a vampire head, and finding her standing over the vampire’s writhing body.” She thinks about it. “Or was she writhing and the vamp’s body standing?” She shrugs. “I couldn’t hear well over his growls.”

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