Blown Away (Rogues Shifter Series Book 4) (2 page)

"Stay, dog." Heinrich was a giant. Six foot eight inches of brawn and muscle dressed in leather biker gear, his longer brown hair tied beh
ind his neck with a thin leather strap. His handsome, rugged face could pull off 'intimidating' better than the rest of us. Except maybe for Liam, who could turn into a ravening beast in seconds. Believe me, you definitely wanted to avoid seeing that happen.

"Angel likes to make
an entrance," Liam said with a shrug. As if on cue a corner of the patio glowed with energy and a man appeared dressed impeccably in black and holding a leather sports bag.

Angel looked nothing like the shimmering adult demigods depicted in many artistic works. No, this Angel had a smile which could make a woman blush, shining dark eyes that glittered either with mischief or ma
gical energy, and a body that—well you get the picture. His tanned skin tone and thick dark hair added favorably to the rest of his handsome Latin looks, and he seemed to ooze with a cool confidence. I heard Liam laugh quietly.

Garrett reached out his hand so they could shake. After the usual greet
ings were extended all around, Garrett said, "Thank you for helping us out with this unusual situation."

Angel smiled and spoke in his slightly accented voice. "I had to do some research, but I've come up wit
h two spells that should work. Unfortunately, one of them involves his death." He glanced at Nathaniel then back to Garrett. "I hope that isn't a problem for you. It's the better choice, actually, if you want to secure your territory."

"It's a rather large problem for
me
." Nathaniel had spoken from the ground, still not strong enough to move out from under Heinrich's boot.

"Shut your mouth, Nate." Rick growled at him.

"Garrett, could you get your gorilla off of me? I'm obviously not going anywhere."

Garrett nodded at Heinrich who moved away but still kept the sword pointed toward Nathaniel's chest. As Nathaniel stood and dusted himself off, Garrett moved me slightly behind him in an obviously protective and extremely annoying, (to me), gesture. I twisted to see Sasha
standing on my other side. Huh.

"Garrett, I can handle myself."

"When you work with the team, I'm the boss. No questions."
He arched an eyebrow in my direction and I scowled back, then shrugged. Yeah, I'd agreed to that when I'd joined the team and Garrett had made it very clear that this was still a team mission and that his orders were to be followed. Otherwise I could stay home.

"She's delicious, isn't she?" Nathaniel was looking me over for the first time. "Yours, I presume?" he glanced back at Garrett.

Sasha, always protective of me, hissed at him. "I'll cut your tongue out, snake."

Garrett calmed Sash with a gesture and then answered. "Jacqueline is my lifemate and a warrior on my team. She took out your second but you may have been too busy to notice."

"Your lifemate? You sound like a
shifter
." He said the word scornfully. "Having only one partner gets old fast." He took two steps toward me, but Heinrich stopped him with a jab of the blade, making him wince. "She reeks of power and certainly has the look of a warrior, so I suppose I see the appeal. Her blood must be exquisite."

He
stared at me curiously, then took in my scent with a long breath. "She smells like a shifter I knew a couple of decades back. She was also a magical powerhouse."

If I'd been in cheetah form, my ears would have been straight up and swiveled in his direction. I was determined to find out more about my birth mother and was searching along with the help of Maya, another cheetah shifter and a member of the Shifter Council of Crescent City, California. She'd mentioned recently that she was following up a lead on a cheetah birth around seventeen years ago in the Lake Ta
hoe area. I moved closer to Nathaniel and my two 'bodyguards'  moved with me, Garrett keeping a supporting hand on my lower back.

"What kind of a shifter?"
I asked.

Nate
smiled. "Oh, are you perhaps interested in her? You look very much alike around the eyes and the chin. Perhaps she was a relative? An aunt? A mother?"

"Answer her question, Nathaniel." Garrett's voice had gone cold.

"You're going to kill me anyway. Why should I?"

Liam moved in front of Nate with his fae blade drawn, its point held against his heart.  "I can make your death last for months."

"Then, I suppose my nest won't be freed." He shrugged nonchalantly, as if his death wasn't being discussed.

"We can use the other method to break the binding. It takes longer and is much more painful for all involved. Then a
fterward, Liam can get the information." Angel smirked back at Nate from the corner of the yard where he was working on preparing his spell. From that distance he could enjoy all the drama while managing to stay out of it.

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at the sorcerer then turned back toward Garrett.
"Perhaps we could strike a deal?"

"Go on."

"I'll tell her everything I know about this female shifter and you let me live and leave your territory in peace."

Garrett shook his head, and I caught a hint of sadness in his expression. He didn't enjoy ordering an execution."You've killed too many innocents, Nate."

"Not while I've been here, in California, on
your
territory. I've followed your laws, I swear."

Liam backed away and turned so Garrett could see his face. He sent to us both, 
"He's lying. I can extract the information about the woman."

Garrett responded.
"Try now, please. I don't believe that Nate will give us the information without a promise from me that he'll live, and I can't give him that."

I did my best to distract Nathaniel while Liam rooted around in his memories. "We know you're lying.
Getting the information isn't worth people's lives. You'd leave and go on killing."

He snorted in disgust. "Your mate and your friends have
all killed and tortured. You've just killed. Are you such a hypocrite? Or perhaps it isn't all that important to you?"

He gasped suddenly and covered his head with his hands, then snarled at Liam. "Thieving fae half-breed."

Angel's voice rang out. "Place him in the circle please, Garrett, then cut him with this blade and fill this small container with his blood." While we'd been speaking, Angel had created a circle with salt that he'd mixed with his own blood, then added candles and powerful magical runes. He'd left one section open, so there was a way in and out, but it wasn't really necessary. Liam grabbed Nate and flashed the three of them into the middle, where he then sliced Nate's palm and collected the blood while Garrett held Nathaniel still. Then they both dissolved out again and Angel closed the circle with a few softly spoken words, magically trapping Nate inside.

"Please bring the others from his nest."

Sasha and Rick ushered the nervous trio out onto the patio and then stood near the bar, keeping a sharp eye on the prisoners. Christine was dressed the way Heinrich usually did, biker style in leather and denim, although she didn't pull the look off as well as he did. Her shoulder length light brown hair blew around in the breeze as her brown eyes locked on Garrett and then moved to Nathaniel who showed his fangs and hissed at her from inside the circle.

She ignored Nate and looked Angel over with interest. "Is this going to work? I'd rather not end up like Carlos." She pointed to the blo
od and gore that covered my clothes.

Angel blessed he
r with one of his gorgeous come-hither smiles. "Senorita, my spells are infallible." Heinrich snorted and Sasha groaned quietly. "Pay no attention to the goons by the bar. You should have no concerns regarding your safety."

Garrett spoke before his nest could react. "Christine, introduce me to your two nest mates."

"Sure. This is Alex," she indicated a tall robust bodied vampire with a warm smile, dark brown hair and beautiful hazel eyes, "and this is Clark." She motioned toward a man around her height, maybe 5'10'', with blue eyes and blonde hair. His face had a scar that ran from the corner of his eye to his chin, just missing his mouth. "Guys, this is Garrett and his nest."

She took a closer look at me
. "I guess you're Garrett's new mate?"

I nodded. "Jackie."

"Sweet." She looked me over with a scowl and took in my scent. There was something creepy about the way she did it, but I met her gaze directly. She figured out pretty fast that she couldn't glamour me so she lost interest and looked at Liam.

Garrett spoke. "This is my close friend Liam, and Angel here will be doing the reversal spell." Christine nodded. "To be completely fair to him, I need to ask you if Nathaniel has killed any innocents since he's been in my territory."

"Duh. He drained a whole houseful of humans when we arrived in Tahoe City. There were two teen aged kids. He encouraged Carlos," she pointed to my bloody clothes, "to rape the girl before draining her. Since we've been here, he's gone through at least twelve servants."

Alex spoke up. "More than that. There were those tourists at that campground
just inside the border."

Nathaniel sc
owled. "Those were all humans. Surely, you didn't mean
humans
did you, Garrett?"

Garrett's glare was deadly. "Under the authority of NAVA, I have the right to decide your fate, based on the laws that govern North American vampires and our supernatural allies. Our current law states that you are not to draw the attention of the human authorities. Yet you killed many humans, where you could've simply glamoured
them and let them go, unharmed. Our NAVA scouts have been forced to cover up your mistakes. In addition, you didn't present yourself to me to ask permission to stay in my territory. Your unfortunate case of bad manners doesn't negate your responsibility to follow my rules while you're here. I've prohibited the harming of innocents, so you've broken
my
laws as well."

Nathaniel began to shout. "They were fucking cattle! Didn't Eleanor teach you anything?"

Garrett's eyes erupted in a silver rage as he hissed out, "Eleanor taught me that despots deserve death." He turned to Angel. "Kill him."

We all ignored Nathaniel's shouting while Angel gave directions to the three remaining members of his nest. "Stand around the circle, each one behind a black candle." As they each took up their positions, he passed out small bowls, then came around with a blade so they could slice their own palms and fill
the bowls halfway with blood. He used the same blade for all the cuts, explaining that it was a ritual blade: a blade forged with dark magic, as Liam's was forged in fae magic. When he finished the quiet chanting he moved between the three vampires, cutting himself with the same blade and adding three drops of his own blood to their bowls. Because Nate's sorcerer had used blood magic to invoke the original spell, Angel was forced to use the same to reverse it.

Garrett draped his arm around me as we stood out of the way a
nd watched the ritual with fascination. Angel began to chant loudly in an ancient language, pulling up power as he did, the magical vibrations it caused stirring the night air. He allowed a few drops of his blood to fall on the salt circle. Flames engulfed the circle surrounding Nathaniel but did not touch him.

"You really don't want to continue with this, Garrett. This spell is irreversible. You're putting your mate in danger. The sorcerer warned me that there would be a violent back-flash if anyon
e tried." Mild panic edged his voice and I couldn't blame him. This was some scary shit, but he'd brought it on himself.

"Pour the blood mixture onto the flames." They all did what he said and then moved back slightly as the flames grew higher. "Kneel behind the candles. I don't want any of you falling headfirst into the flames. This last part will hurt
, so you'll be grateful that you're already on the ground."

He lifted the container of Nathaniel's blood and uncovered it. "Revocare defixus." He sprinkled a few drops into the flames in front of Christine and she cri
ed out and bent over, whimpering with pain as she clutched her stomach. He repeated the ritual in front of Clark and Alex and they both crumpled to the ground, moaning or cursing.

When the first drop of his blood hit the flames in front of Christine, Nathaniel started to scream. The flames
on her side were reaching toward him like claws and his clothes began to burn the moment they touched him. The same thing happened with the other two and before long the whole patio vibrated with death magic and the smell of burning flesh as the fire consumed Nathaniel's life energy.  It didn't take long for him to die, but it was too much for me to watch. I buried my eyes against Garrett's chest and covered my ears and nose, the smell making me feel sick.

"Do you want me to take you inside?"

"No, just hold me."

"As long as you need me to, mon ange."
He stroked my back and I relaxed into his strength.

When it was over, we thanked Angel, who smiled, looking drained but satisfied, handed us his invoice, and then disappeared. Garrett told the three remaining vampires, who'd recovered their strength
as soon as Nathaniel had died, that they had two days to pack up and get out of his territory. They were never to come back. They all agreed, although Christine was throwing some very seductive glances Garrett's way as she brushed the dirt and ashes off of her extremely short leather dress. I tried not to look too smug when he didn't return her attention.