Chapter 47

Katya steered Cerise"s red Jaguar through Paris"s tight streets, trying to find the quickest way through the traffic. She was driving like a demon and promising herself to be Cerise"s slave for life for letting her use her car.

Bloody Izrayl! If it weren"t for him, she wouldn"t have overslept and would have been waiting for the Twins when they landed, not getting pissy texts because she wasn"t there. She screeched into the five-minute parking spots and dialed Chayton"s number.

"Hey, I"m here! I"ll get out and wave my arms like an idiot so you see me." She left the Jag purring, climbed out, and looked around the parking lot for her friends. She spotted them almost instantly.

They were both very handsome and tall Native American men with brown skin and long black hair. What didn"t show was that they were also immortal and were some of the few Powers that America had. They hated leaving America for too long, so Katya knew that she would owe them a hefty debt if they all survived the coming fight.

"Hey, I was wondering if you had abandoned us," Chayton said, and they hugged her from both sides. She groaned under their sandwiching weight but couldn"t stop laughing. When they freed her, she kissed them both.

"I"m so sorry I wasn"t here on time. I"m a terrible friend," she apologized.

"Yes, you are. You smell like a wolf. What have you been doing?" Honaw asked. There was a very loaded silence that lasted a full ten seconds. "I change my mind. Don"t tell me."

"Hallelujah, the dick drought is over," Chayton teased.

Katya rolled her eyes at them. "Don"t give Izrayl too much of a hard time. He saved my ass more than once in the past few weeks and I really like him."

"Sounds like that"s not the only thing he has been doing with your ass," Honaw muttered.

"Does he have jet lag or justs wants to bust my tits?" Katya asked his brother.

"Ignore him. He"s grumpy and hungry," Chayton said as he looked down the car bay. "Which one is yours?"

Katya walked over to the red Jag and slipped into the driver"s soft leather seat.

The Twins stood gaping for a few minutes before struggling with each other for the front seat. Honaw, the bigger of the two, won out.

"Holy shit, you"ve been a thieving hunter, haven"t you?" he said.

"It belongs to one of my new friends. She"s got a thing for red as you can probably tell." Katya eased the beautiful car out into traffic and hit the accelerator.

"She"ll kill you when she finds out you have been revving the shit of her car," Chayton warned as he got sucked to the seat.

"I"ve seen her drive. Believe me, I"m taking it easy. She"s also a keres." Katya couldn"t help but laugh at their faces. "What? You didn"t see that in your visions of the future?"

"We just never thought we would see the day you would be friends with supes," Honaw said. "Or be shagging a male volk krovi for that matter."

"I"m a big girl, Bear. I don"t need your approval."

"I"m surprised that you"ve finally gotten over your problem with his kind," Honaw replied.

"I think it"s great." Chayton placed a warm hand on Katya"s shoulder. "It"s good to see you have found someone to love."

Katya swerved erratically and swore loudly.

"What the hell?" Honaw complained, gripping the dash.

"Tell Chayton to stop scaring me," Katya shouted back, and she steadied the car. "Shut up about that sort of shit when I"m driving. Bloody hell, I barely know the guy. Sheesh."

"Yeah, but you more than just like him. I can tell," Honaw teased, toying with her ponytail. She battered his hand away.

"And what about you? How"s your love life going?" she counted, making Chayton laugh and Honaw grumble.

"None of your business."

"Yeah, that"s what I thought," Katya said, pulling into Trajan"s driveway and the underground garage. The Twins climbed out and looked around with wide eyes and drooling mouths.

"Hey, Honaw, I think we need to make friends with these supes," Chayton said as he studied an incredibly beautiful Rolls Royce.

"Come on, you two, you can look at pretty cars later." Katya took both their hands and pulled them into the elevator. She remembered the trip she had in there with Izrayl and grinned. The volk krovi sure could kiss.

"I see that smile, and it usually means trouble." Chayton gave her hand a squeeze.

"And you haven"t even met him yet." The elevator door opened, and they were flooded with the warm, sweet smell of frying pancakes. "By the smell of things, he"s cooking breakfast."

"No wonder you are in love with him. He"s replacing Aleksandra with the prestigious position of keeping you well fed," Chayton said.

A dreamy look passed over Honaw"s face. "Oh, Aleksandra, she can cook a meal so good it will make a man weep."

"Sounds like you weren"t just sighing over her cooking. Don"t be getting mushy ideas about her, or I"ll have to kick your ass like last time," she warned.

Katya followed her nose to the kitchen and pushed open the door. Izrayl stood in front of the stove, dressed only in a pair of jeans, cooking breakfast. Butterflies and lust exploded in her stomach as he turned and grinned at her.

"Good morning," he said with a welcoming smile. Katya"s gaze lingered along the smooth pelvic grooves, which disappeared under his loose jeans. She knew where they led and wanted to visit again.

"Boys, this is Izrayl. Izrayl, this is Honaw and Chayton," she managed to stammer out.

"The wolf," they said together. Honaw offered Izrayl his hand, and Izrayl shook it.

"That"s me. I thought you would be hungry after such a shitty flight," Izrayl replied.

"Honaw is always hungry. Don"t worry about that."

Katya"s glance started to linger over Izrayl"s mouth, and she quickly snapped her attention to the pile of pancakes he had cooked.

"I"m starving," she said loudly. She hustled the Twins to sit, and she set them up with plates and toppings. Katya did her best to ignore Izrayl as she brewed them all strong coffee. He disappeared out of the kitchen for a few moments, returning with a black singlet on. She wouldn"t have been able to say why, but that was worse than having his skin bare. Izrayl brought the food over and sat next to her, his knee lightly brushing hers.

"Did I tell you Isabelle Blackwood is in town?" Katya asked the brothers. Both stopped eating at the same time and gave her identical stares.

"Seriously?" they synced.

"We went with her on a job last night. A really fucked up one too. We could use her help with what"s going on with Anya and Yvan and the Darkness trying to find us."

"You want to be careful she doesn"t make things worse for you. That girl draws trouble like ants to honey, and the Illumination still have a hefty bounty on her," Chayton said and placed a hand over Katya"s. "Are you sure you are in that much trouble you would want to risk it?"

"We need her. She has more of an idea of what is going on currently with the Illumination and the Darkness. You know she"s obsessed with keeping close tabs on both," Katya replied.

"Only so she can stay out of their way," Honaw argued. "She"s not going to want to get into a head-on conflict with them."

"She might after last night. It was beyond fucked up. They have been experimenting on people with magical bloodlines and left the bodies there to die slowly from their transmutation experiments," Katya said, unable to get the strange pain-filled creatures from her mind. She stabbed a piece of bacon. "I don"t know if the Darkness is planning something big or just want to increase their numbers. Isabelle has been looking into it, so she"s supposed to drop in sometime today."

The Twins had one of their silent conversions with each other consisting of frowns, expressive eyebrows, and a grunt from Honaw.

"What? What have you seen?" Katya demanded.

"War, but we can"t see when it kicks off. I hope you know what you are doing. I love Isabelle, but you know she doesn"t play well with others," Honaw said.

"She certainly gave the impression of someone you"d want to avoid in a bright alley, let alone a dark one," Izrayl commented. "She isn"t all human, that"s for sure."

Katya smiled. "No, she isn"t, but I won"t be the one to talk about it, mainly because I"ve never had the guts to ask her. If the Twins know, they will keep their mouths shut. Right, boys?"

"We don"t have a death wish," they said. "Besides, it"s all speculation."

High female chattering echoed through the house, and Cerise and Anya entered the kitchen. The Twins stood respectfully with big smiles.

"I"m Honaw," he said and then nodded to his brother. "That"s Chayton. The less attractive brother."

"Hello, boys. I"m Cerise. When Katya told me she had shamans coming, I imagined old men. I"m glad to see how mistaken I was." Her blue eyes were pure mischief as she looked them over.

"It"s nice to meet you. We haven"t encountered a keres in a long time," Chayton said curiously.

"There are a few of us hiding about. Don"t worry, I"m retired." Cerise paused thoughtfully and added, "Well, sort of."

Anya held out her hand. "I"m Anya. Thank you so much for flying all this way." As her hand touched Honaw"s, there was a loud crack of static, and they blew back in opposite directions. Honaw hit the wall with an audible thump as Anya hit the kitchen counter, and the world turned to chaos.