style="font-size:15px;"> “If you need to leave, I will watch her for you,” Renee offered.
With Renee’s apple-round cheeks, kind smile and ordinary flowered dress, she looked innocuous. Human, but still, humans were dangerous.
“Want me to come over?” Raphael asked.
“Hold on a minute,” Damian told him.
She held his gaze. “I was there at your birth.”
“T’me dis pas,” he said dryly, not believing a damn word.
“I do say,” she countered. Then she glanced around. Before his shocked eyes, she shifted into a wolf.
“Mon Dieu,” he muttered, watching her return to her human form. “You are family, non?”
“There are more of us than you know,” she said softly. Renee’s eyes grew sad. “My husband and son … they embraced the darkness. Your parents, they kept me safe. I am forever grateful and regret what happened to you as a bébé. Please, allow me to make amends now.”
He listened intently as she explained, everything making sense now. Renee laid a hand on his arm. “It’s all right. I’ll watch over her.”
Damian turned to the phone. “I’ll meet you.
Where?”
Raphael rattled off a place. Damian hung up, pocketed the cell.
He glanced at Renee. “Don’t let anyone in. When Jamie wakes up, don’t let her leave the house.”
“Go meet with your friend. Be careful. Terrible darkness has taken over the city.” The woman looked deeply troubled.
Though he trusted few outside his pack and his adopted family, and was frugal with his emotions, Damian hugged her. Renee looked startled, and then hugged him back. She patted his arm in a motherly gesture.
At the Chartes Street Café, his brother sat at a copper-topped table just inside the doorway. His gleaming Harley waited on the street, a shining chrome and metal horse.
Damian slid into the opposite seat.
“Watch our backs,” his brother cautioned, nodding toward the bustling street. He scrutinized Damian’s casual clothing. “Damian, ça va? Almost didn’t recognize you without your Versace socks, t’ frère.”
The endearment of “little brother” made Damian smile. “I’m trying to blend in.”
“You blend in like the wolf blends in the henhouse.”
Raphael signaled for a waitress and when she arrived, ordered seafood gumbo and water with lime.
“Just water.” Damian grimaced, thinking of the crayfish/Morph. He gave his brother a long, steady look. “Raphael.” He reached over and embraced his forearms.
The other Draicon squeezed back. His shoulder-length dark brown hair with its streak of pure white accompanied scuffed boots, faded jeans, black T-shirt and black leather jacket. A tiny gold sword earring hung from his left ear, and a day’s growth of dark beard shadowed his hard jaw. The ensemble contrasted with Raphael’s classically handsome face. It gave him an intense look, as if an angel had stumbled out of a Bourbon sex shop.
Damian leaned forward, serious. “How bad is it? How many?"
“Bad. Morphs are everywhere. Hard to get a count. Maybe fifty, or hundreds.”
“Dit moula vérité! Are you serious?” Damian sat back, stunned. “Why are they here?"
“We think it’s for the Book of Magick. It’s been hidden for seventy years, hasn’t it? If a spell isn’t used in the next couple of weeks, all the spells will vanish. Including the ones for evil the Morphs want, to make them more powerful.”
And the spell for curing Jamie would vanish, as well. Damian felt his insides clench at the thought. “If they get the book first …"
“They’ll use the bad magick to kill all Draicon. They’re killing machines now, here in town. And when they kill, the bodies they leave … They’re targeting the homeless. I’ve taught my guys to sniff the blood, find and destroy the bodies before the police arrive. We’ve gotten to most of them in time. We can’t risk cops poking into our world, our war.”
Damian felt his canines descend with the urge to hunt and destroy. A low growl rumbled from his chest. A passing waitress gave him a startled look. He offered a charming smile, which faded as she walked away.
“Bastards,” he muttered.
“Don’t fret, t’ frère. I took out a few. One dared to call me a dog. I showed him the unfriendly side of my blade before popping him.” The charming smile Raphael offered didn’t meet the hardness of his dark eyes.
Raphael was the Kallan, the only Draicon permitted to terminate the life of another Draicon, even a relative, without consequence. He had died and gone to the Other Realm and received the gift of immortality. Little scared him. Morphs who messed with Raphael lost.
Raphael’s gumbo arrived and he dug into it with zest. Damian sipped his water. “My father didn’t tell me where he hid it. Only said he entrusted a good friend with the secret until I was older. I wish our ancestors had never handed it down through my family, but it’s my responsibility.”
“What happened to your father’s friend?”
“Morphs killed Jordan when they killed all Father’s pack.” He stared at a droplet of water sliding down his glass like a tear. “The cure for Jamie is in the book.”
“So, tell me about your mate. We researched her. Her friends, her parents dying in that plane crash when she was five, the aunt and uncle who raised her. Hell, we even tracked down info about that bastard who imitated her brother. What’s she like?” Raphael asked.
“A killer.”
“Pretty?”
“She tried to kill me.”
Raphael stared. Damian explained.
Silverware rattled as Raphael slapped a palm on the table. “How the hell can you trust her? She deserves punishment.” His hand went to the dagger always tucked into his belt. “Remember our vow? You’re my blood brother.”
“And she’s my mate,” Damian said quietly.
“Then, t’ frère, you have a big problem. If you don’t bond with her, you’ll turn feral. But how can you mate with a human who wished you into a coffin?"
Damian leaned back, edgy and wanting. A male’s draicara pumped up all his testosterone, driving him to prove his strength and sexual prowess. In Alphas, the mating drive tripled, turning males wild and unpredictable. If he didn’t mate, he’d be dangerous even to his pack. Would they drive him away as his father’s people had?
He wanted only Jamie now, her scent, the taste of her skin, the feel of her soft, naked body beneath his. He
