9. Chapter Nine

“I think that’s her.” Ewan pointed through the front window of a bar called Tails, at a woman with magenta hair serving drinks.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked, tugging on the sleeves of the sweater I’d borrowed from Winter. “There are so many of them, packed like little sardines. Except, more tempting because, you know, I don’t like sardines normally.”

Ewan raised an eyebrow, amused. “You’re the one who insisted on coming. I could have managed this on my own.”

Which, I supposed, was fair because it had been my idea, but I didn’t appreciate him reminding me. Besides, Winter had been so upset, and I hated seeing her that way. Still, warning Tish that she was in trouble had seemed like a much better and nobler idea before we arrived in Tucson. Now, it felt risky.

“Okay, well, I’m a baby vampire with no impulse control. Maybe you should have used your alpha voice to talk me out of it.”

He rested his hand on the small of my back, expression serious. “You will be fine, Zara. Consider it a test.”

My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Excuse me?”

“I need you to be okay around large gatherings of supes.” He gestured to the crowded bar. “That’s nothing compared to the number of wolves in our pack. You did well earlier. What happened with Kilbi wasn’t bloodlust.”

Our pack, I thought. Not his. Even my father referred to the Geminis as his wolves. My mother was simply his mate. I liked that Ewan thought me his equal.

“You can do this, Zara.” Ewan’s hand slid beneath my hair.

“Earlier you had fae standing by.” I turned to him, tipping my head back. “Where’s that abundance of caution now?”

Ewan leaned down and lowered his voice. “It’s different. Those were my friends. I don’t care what happens to the people in that bar.”

“If I lose my shit in there and make some asshole my dinner, you’re okay with that?” I asked, only sort of kidding because he was very serious.

His lips captured mine. “You could make a buffet out of everyone inside and I’ll sleep like a baby,” he murmured. “Good girls get rewarded, though.”

I pushed on his chest. “I won’t hold my breath, buddy, talk is cheap. Let’s go before I change my mind.”

Ewan grabbed my hand and slid his fingers between mine as I opened the front door of Tails. Winter had hidden our crimson eyes with glamor, making them appear as they did pre-turning. She’d assured us it worked, since we couldn’t see the alteration on each other. With fae glamor, once you knew someone had it on, you saw them as they truly appeared.

A few people noticed our arrival. Most had no interest beyond an initial glance. One man, however, tracked our path from the door to the bar. Chin-length dark blond hung around a chiseled face that grew colder as he watched us. Many of the patrons wore clothes that suggested they came from work and stopped by for drinks or dinner with friends before heading home. This guy had on a bespoke suit jacket with monogrammed cufflinks that were too fancy for the establishment.

My hackles rose and my gums itched, and I had the urge to sink my fangs into the man’s throat. “Six o’clock. It’s Walter’s mini-me,” I muttered, just loud enough for Ewan to hear.

He didn’t laugh, his grip on my hand growing tighter. “Yeah. I see him. Oh, hey, look. Two barstools are free.”

A pair of shifters scurried away as we approached, leaving their beers behind. Ewan pulled out one high-backed chair and patted the seat cushion. I slid onto the barstool and frowned.

“Did you make them leave?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

An alpha usually only held sway over their own pack, but Ewan was the reincarnation of the first wolf the fae ever successfully made. His domineering presence screamed, “Obey me!”, in a way that was hard to deny.

He actually looked ashamed of what he’d done. “We’re on a timetable here. No telling how long before everything wears off and they have to rename this place Slaughter City.”

I pushed the previous patrons” drinks away and rolled my eyes. “I appreciate the confidence boost.”

“You’re good. You’ve got this.” Ewan squeezed my leg under the bar. “Seriously, all jokes aside, nothing is going to happen. I won’t let it, okay?”

I wasn’t so sure. There were just so many mortals with veins and pumping blood. Thanks to Essie, I couldn’t hear their heartbeats or smell their enticing aroma, but I could still feel them. My throat grew tight as the thirst intensified.

“What’ll it be?” a voice called to be heard over the crowd.

Even with my senses dulled, her question echoed loudly between my ears.

“Zos?” Ewan stared at me pointedly, making it clear he’d used the old nickname to check Tish’s reaction.

She showed no signs of recognizing it or me.

“Um, a beer. Something not too heavy. Maybe a cider.” My tongue felt too big for my mouth, and I stumbled on the words. “Nothing sweet.”

Tish cracked a smile. “I got you.” She looked at Ewan. “For you?”

“Darkest stout you have on tap.” He laid down a credit card. “Keep the tab open.”

Ewan swung his legs around, angling his body toward mine. He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and leaned in. “Don’t think about them. They’re background noise. It’s just you and me.”

I tilted my head, his face tantalizingly close. “You make it sound so easy.”

He moved in for a kiss. “Just you and me,” he murmured.

Tish cleared her throat as she placed our fresh beers on the bar and dumped the ones from the previous duo. Tickets popped up on the printer, and she went about her business.

Ewan tasted his beer and gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Best I’ve ever had.”

I sipped my cider. It was good, nothing to get dramatic about. Maybe once everyone trusted me enough to leave the house without the tonic and tea, I too would experience the joy of my heightened sense of taste. The cold liquid soothed my raw throat, helping to dull my thirst.

“Do you recognize her?” Ewan peered at me over the rim of beer as I watched Tish work.

Her face was familiar, though it hadn’t played a starring role in my dreams the way others had.

“Sort of. My dreams are like tunnel vision. The entire scene is there, but I can’t see it unless it’s directly in my memory of the encounter.”

Ewan nodded. “Mine are similar. They’ve filled out a little since… well, you know. Yours will too.”

I sipped my cider and shrugged. “I sort of hope they don’t.”

To my surprise, he nodded in agreement. “Some memories are probably best left unexplored.”

A twinge of sadness worked its way through the bond. Oh, Gaia. He knows, I thought, and then desperately searched for a new topic of conversation before he felt my sudden panic.

“So, distract me from all these beating hearts. Tell me about your friends.”

He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Everything, I guess.” It wasn’t that I hadn’t expected Ewan to have friends. He was friendly and funny and sexy, and I couldn’t imagine anyone not liking him. Plus, wolves respected power, and Ewan had more than his fair share. I had just never considered his life before me, probably because it involved Angelica and I preferred not to think about her at all.

Ewan swirled the beer in his glass. “Charlie, Birch, and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. Charlie is a few years older than Birch and me. Our wolves all emerged around the same time, though. We did everything together growing up.”

“Did you choose Charlie as your beta?”

He drank from his beer and nodded. “Yeah. He’s more suited for the position than Birch. Charlie is more even-tempered until he gets really worked up. Birch is, well, the perfect enforcer. He’s the only pack member to beat me in a fight.”

I had seen Ewan fight as a mortal, and it was a sight to behold. “How old were you?”

He grinned. “Nine. He kicked my ass.”

I laughed, trying to imagine Ewan as a child. “I bet you held your own.”

“Not really, but I haven’t lost a fight since. Birch is a serious guy. Give him a chance.” He downed his fourth beer. “You’ll like him when you get to know him.”

I cocked my head to the side and batted my eyelashes. “If he’s your friend, he’s mine, too.”

Tish put another round of drinks on the bar. The after-work crowd had started drifting away, and there was a lull in orders. She ran a wet cloth over the lacquered wood and then started wiping down the taps.

“So,” she said, pitching her voice. “You down here for fun or business?”

Ewan shrugged. “Business mostly.”

Tish blew out a breath. “Shame.”

Ewan spun on his barstool and leapt to his feet as the man who’d been watching us since we arrived appeared behind me. Two bear shifter bodyguards flanked him. With their massive size, the pair looked like a tag team on that fake wrestling show. I took a beat longer to respond.

“There doesn’t need to be trouble,” the blonde guy said. “Leave now, and we can forget you were here.”

“Not before we talk to Tish.” Ewan crossed his arms, the flannel straining over his biceps. “Ten minutes, and we’re gone.”

The guy’s eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. “Tish has nothing to do with this. You tell that asshole she’s under my protection. He so much as says her name again–”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I cut him off mid-sentence.

Ewan made his displeasure known through our bond. “I think there’s some confusion,” he said in his calm yet commanding voice. “We’re not here on behalf of anyone.”

The man glanced behind us at Tish, and his gaze softened. “Walter Stolly didn’t send you?”

It took immense willpower to keep from showing my surprise. In a very roundabout way, I supposed Walter had something to do with the reason we’d come. He and Colleen had tracked Tish to this town. It had been Winter’s mother who assured her Tish would be fine. Walter never spoke up on the matter, which I now found suspect.

What mess of the mobster’s had we stumbled upon?

Ewan was much better at concealing his emotions. He leveled the other man with the full weight of his alpha stare. “No, Nickelous. No one sent us.”

“The name’s Lucca, Lucca Guerra.” He said it like he was famous enough for instant recognition.

Lucca Gurrea was as foreign to me as the name Nickelous seemed to him.

“I know who you are,” Ewan said.

“Yeah, and I know who you are.” Lucca’s gaze whipped to me. “Zara Snyder, right?” A chilling smile broke out across his face. “You know, there are a lot of people willing to pay a lot of money for your head—attached or not.”

Ewan’s deep growl rumbled the floorboards. “Zara is under my protection. Look at her again and we are going to have an issue.”

The bodyguards tensed, both looking to Lucca for guidance on how to proceed, but it was Tish who spoke up.

“Everybody take a breath, okay? We don’t need fur to start flying. It’s just the two of you, right?” Tish glanced between Ewan and me, steel glinting in her gaze. “Meet me out back. I’ll talk to you.” Her eyes cut to Lucca. “Alone.”

Shockingly, he didn’t argue. He did, however, jab a finger in Ewan’s face. “Touch a hair on her head, and you’ll beg for death.”

Joke’s on you, asshole, I thought.

Ewan stepped towards Lucca’s finger, letting it poke into his chest. “We just want to chat, nothing more.” He leaned forward, purposely invading the other man’s space. “Tish will be fine, you have my word.”

Lucca’s lip curled, and it looked like he was going to say something more. Ewan unleashed the full force of his alpha nature, and Lucca’s hand fell to his side. He stepped back as if inviting us to pass.

“Ten minutes.” He whipped out his phone. “I’m setting a timer right now.”

Several patrons had watched the scuffle, and their eyes followed us as we wove a path to the door. The cool breeze felt wonderful after the warm, stuffy air in the bar. We rounded the side of the building and turned down an alleyway behind Tails.

Normally, this would’ve been a questionable choice, but Ewan provided a sense of unwavering safety. It was like nothing terrible could happen as long as he was near. And, well, I had fangs now, so dark, deserted alleys didn’t really have the same risks.

Tish stood in the shadows, leaning against the backdoor. She chewed her cuticles as we approached, nerves making her jump.

“He doesn’t know,” she admitted without prompting. “Lucca doesn’t have dreams. He doesn’t know what we are.”

Her use of “we” surprised me, though I finally understood why Ewan had called him Nickelous. Colleen and Walter hadn’t mentioned a second eternal protector in Arizona. Did they not know about Lucca, or was there another reason they’d kept it to themselves?

“Do you know who we are?” Ewan arched an eyebrow.

She twisted her hands, resisting the urge to bring them back to her mouth. “Not exactly. Nearly all my dreams are of Lucca. The only one that wasn’t had you in it.” She nodded to me. “You came to me asking for help. I assume that’s why you’re here now.”

“No, we’re here to warn you.” I wrinkled my nose. “Do you know what you are?”

Tish swallowed hard. “An eternal protector. Now ask me what that means.” She laughed humorlessly. “I don’t have a clue.”

It was going to take longer than ten minutes to explain everything, which Ewan clearly realized, too. “When did the dreams start?” he asked.

She hesitated, voice much softer when she said, “When I got pregnant with our daughter.”

And the surprises just kept coming. “You have kids?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

Having children had been a forgone conclusion before I turned. Just as I had always known the pack would choose my husband, I had always known that I would birth that man’s babies. That was no longer possible and left me mourning the loss of something that I wasn’t sure I wanted.

“Just the one. I got pregnant with her not long after Lucca and I met,” Tish said.

“Have you told him anything about the dreams or your past lives?” Ewan asked.

Tish kicked at the ground and shook her head. “A little. Not much. He knows we’re true mates, but he has no idea how many times we’ve fallen in love. I know I need to tell him. It’s just… complicated.”

I tried to imagine myself in her position and considered myself lucky that Ewan and I had both been drinking vampire blood and started having the dreams around the same time so neither of us had to explain anything to the other. At least not yet anyway. Before this nightmare was over, I was going to have to explain why I rejected him.

“His father is Tommy Guerra, right? Head of the Guerra family?” Ewan placed his hand between my shoulders, warning me not to say anything.

He need not have worried, since I knew nothing about the supernatural crime families.

Tish nodded. “Yeah. Lucca is next in line.”

“Get more bodyguards. Keep your daughter hidden.” Ewan pulled out his phone. “What’s your number?”

Tish rattled off the digits, and Ewan dialed her cell so she’d have his, too. “If you, Lucca, and your child ever need help—call me. If the Guerras can’t or won’t protect you, the Taurus wolves will.”

“From whom?” she whispered, her expression suggesting she didn’t want to know the answer.

“Anyone who means you harm,” Ewan said.

“How scared should I be?” Tish looked between Ewan and me. “On a scale of 1-10.”

“Eleven,” I said before he stopped me. “Talk to Lucca. Look, I get that it’s hard, but the sooner the better. You both need to understand the past. We all do. Do the Guerra’s have any skilled fae on the payroll, someone who could maybe spark the dreams for you?”

Did I feel a little like a hypocrite for advising her to do something that I refused to do myself? A tad.

Tish looked like a frightened rabbit. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Talk to Lucca,” Ewan said. “Tell him the truth. If he’s open to it, I can get you something that will trigger the dreams. Zara’s right, time matters right now. You need to go into hiding immediately.”

“Who’s hunting us?” Tish demanded. “If there’s a specific threat—”

“The Zodiac Councils,” I said. Tish deserved the truth. It was also the only way for her to understand the severity of the situation. The threat wasn’t idle speculation. It was very real, and it was very much coming for all of us. “They want to destroy us, and eliminate our bloodlines. I don’t mean to scare you, really. Except, I do because you should be afraid. This is serious, Tish.”

Her eyes focused on the ground for several long moments before she nodded. “I’ll talk to him tonight.” There was no fear in her gaze when it met mine. “The favor you wanted in my dream—you asked me to protect your daughter. To hide her. You trusted me then, and I am going to trust you now. But if you fuck me over, the Guerra family will be the least of your new worries.”

Alarm shot through my bond with Ewan. He worried that I wasn’t going to take kindly to Tish’s fighting words. Fair. Ordinarily, even before my turn, he would have been right to worry. I liked the fire in Tish’s eyes and her momma wolf behavior. She was fierce and determined and she had one very good reason to fight by our side. So, no, I wasn’t upset at her reaction. It inspired confidence that I hadn’t felt before coming to Tucson.

“Noted.” I grinned, flashing my fangs. “And if Lucca gets any bright ideas about turning me into the Leo Fae or the Virgo wolves or anyone else with a bounty on my head, Walter Stolly won’t need to ask me to rip out his throat.”

There was a tense moment of silence in which Ewan let me know how much he didn’t appreciate my big mouth. He refrained from lecturing me inside my head, but he radiated displeasure.

Tish finally laughed, breaking the tension. “Noted. Gaia, you really haven’t changed.”

“Yeah, so I hear.”

Tish agreed to call us after she spoke with Lucca and then retreated into the bar before her Walter-wannabe-of-a-boyfriend came looking for us. Ewan whipped out his phone as we departed the ally and dialed Winter.

“Hey. You ready to come home?” she asked.

“We’ll be at the spot in two minutes,” Ewan replied.

“See you soon.” Winter disconnected.

Ewan looked down at me, licking his lips. “We did our good deed for the day, time to get wicked.”