Page 18 of Total Eclipse of the Moon
His oldest brother and unchallenged leader of the four of them stalked in and yanked out a chair. Roman pushed his signature knee-length coat out of the way before he sat in the chair that was way too small for him. The coat housed scores of inner pockets filled with magical trinkets to fight whatever type of paranormal creature they encountered. He announced, "I’m bleeding again."
Roman lifted his shirt to peek beneath bandages where blood had leached through. "That troll blade last night was different. They must’ve changed up their poisons since it won’t heal. Should’ve been gone last night."
"Maybe we’ll have time to seek out the mage later to have him fix it." Ky, their weapons expert, caressed one of his beloved pistols. He gazed through strands of long dirty-blond hair as if itchy to leave the open space of the library. Although Ky had found love and mated a beautiful lycan a month ago, it hadn’t evened out his edginess, the paranoia that kept him alive. Give him a gun or a knife and he had a gift to sense snipers and bull's-eye any target. "I don’t like this. This is the oddest place for the first meet and greet with the new handler."
"Weird, yes." Flynn, a year younger than Roman, rolled a lollypop from one side of his mouth to the other and plucked at one of several eyebrow piercings as he spun around before choosing a chair. He rotated his baseball cap backward over his shaggy surfer cut hair and sat. "You detect anyone targeting us, Ky?"
Ky would sense he was up here. This brother of his could pick up the vibrations of any watcher and know their skill level based on some sort of basic magical instinct that Shane never understood. Ky cast a glance in Shane’s direction before declaring, "No one around who plans to hurt us."
Within seconds, Flynn’s cell phone had his full attention. No doubt he was checking camera angles on the library. As the team’s security and computer expert, he probably had all cameras in the vicinity under his control.
"I doubt they’ll ambush us in a library." Roman shifted around in the chair with a grunt.
"Where’s this Thomas Phillips guy?" Ky asked as he rolled his wrist to view his watch. "He’s late."
Boom.
An early-thirties man with short cut brown hair and a patchy beard tripped over two chairs as he entered. Their new handler, the liaison between the monarch and themselves, was only the second one in the almost fifty years since they’d been cursed into serving the Crown of England. Thomas righted several chairs. His messenger bag hit the carpeted aisle with athunk, indicating its fullness. "Goddammit."
It came out in a muddled north England accent. After researching the guy to prepare for the meeting, Shane found out he was ex-Yorkshire police. He'd quit a few months ago after a prolonged hospitalization with a gunshot wound. For some bizarre reason, the monarch thought this human would make an excellent replacement handler after their last one tried to kill them. Shane had his doubts about Thomas’s ability.
"The beard isn’t a good look on him," Flynn muttered low.
Shane wanted to point out Thomas looked stressed to the breaking point. Shaving had gone out the window. The man’s outfit had seen at least a day or two of wear. The job was getting to him, and he hadn’t even met them yet. The brothers weren’t sure the guy could handle this, but what choice did they have?
Working with giant egos like his brothers, someone on the team had to be the voice of reason, the one down the middle who could keep them grounded as a team. Shane hadn’t always liked his job as the uptight straight shooter, but they needed it. Sometimes it was tough, but he believed in doing things for the right reasons, not simply because some human with a symbolic crown told them to do it.
"Give him a chance," Roman hissed under his breath as he crossed his arms. No humor in him tonight.
Good for Roman.
Thomas grabbed his stuff and froze, staring at the three brothers. Human instinct was kicking in. If lycans didn’t completely mask their inner predator with glamour, human intuition took over. It was the source of the niggling feeling that made humans scared of noises in the dark. It was that moment when they knew they were in the presence of something that could track and kill him on a whim with a power far superior to anything he could muster. And when faced with three of them…
Thomas shook. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Flynn pointed his lollypop at him. "Don’t pee. Please, mate. Remember, you’re protected by the Crown. So long as you are we can’t hurt you. It’s one of the rules of the curse."
"Why’d you tell him that?" Ky asked. "I kind of wanted to see if he’d piss himself."
"Enough," Roman thundered. "We’re real, Thomas. But we’re not the ones you need to fear. None of us will attack you. Sit. I’m Roman. The one with the sucker in his mouth is Flynn, who does tech and IT things. That one caressing his gun is Ky, who's good at killing things."
"What is it you do?" Thomas asked.
"Whatever’s needed to get the job done." Roman clasped his hands together and scanned around as if expecting an attack to come at them.
Thomas dropped his heavy messenger bag onto a reading desk and sat stiffly in a plastic chair, balancing on the edge as if about to bolt. They all stared at each other in silence until he said, "I don’t want to do this. Shouldn’t have agreed to it. This job isn’t worth the pay to have to…deal with you guys. I preferred not knowing you existed."
Roman groaned out a sigh. "You were benched after you got shot. Do you want to spend the rest of your career in a police building writing up other people’s cases, or do you want to spend it in an office with unlimited budget making the world safer?"
Thomas visibly swallowed. "How does one become like you are? If you bit me, would I turn into one of you?"
"No." Roman didn’t roll his eyes, but his voice sounded like he did. "It’s genetic. Like all the nonhuman species, you can’t be made. You’re either born into it or you’re not."
"Technically, there are some nonhumans that come about unnaturally," drawled Flynn. "What about necromancers?"
Roman shook his head and muttered to himself.
"If we’re getting technical, then angels and some demons started out human," said Ky.
