Chapter 14

Brooklyn

"Everyone stop!" The extra punch from my curse assured my wishes were followed, leaving everyone in peculiar states.

Samir was halfway to Echo, teeth bared, and fingers clawed, ready to tear her apart. There was murder written in his furious eyes. Dominic had his full attention focused on Chester after his gaze skipped all over me from head to toe checking for injuries, and he saw Alice was unharmed standing in front of me with that ridiculous vase. Rowen was peeking out from behind them, eyes wide and sigils lit up in a rapid pattern. Plaster and white dust covered all of them and the cloud was spreading around to fill the room.

"We will be fine now, don't worry." Alice turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. "No one is kidnaping my bestie."

"We were fine before, as well." There was a pounding headache forming right above the right side of my cheekbone sending waves of nausea through me, making me unsteady on my feet. "Everyone in this house is here because we are trying to help you, Alice. Please put the vase down and lay down until we are sure you are fully healed."

After a long moment and a nod from Dominic, she sheepishly cringed and gingerly placed the vase at her feet in the pool of water. I meant to do the right thing for her by bringing the demons to help her, but, yet again, I managed to make a mess out of things.

I was drained.

Mentally and emotionally.

To prove that fact, my curse couldn't hold the males much longer and they reanimated again. Thankfully, the promise of being told what to do again did its trick, and no one attacked anyone. However, there was a ton of glaring between all of them.

Scratching and soft whimpering reached my ears coming from somewhere in the hallway and I stabbed Samir with a pointed glare. He knew why I was sending him death threats through my gaze because all of us could hear the wolf attempting to get out of whatever room he was locked in. All of us but Alice.

"What's that noise?" My human friend pushed her glasses up her nose with a forefinger and glanced from Dominic to me. "Can you hear it?"

It appeared that I was wrong. Watching her tilt her head this way and that I couldn't help but wonder what other changes have occurred in her thanks to our meddling in her life. Afraid she was losing too much blood that cursed night, Samir and I both gave her some of ours in hopes to help with healing.

It didn't.

When that didn't work, Dominic tried, too, thinking that his shifter ability of accelerated healing is a closer match to human than ours. Time proved him wrong as well. Nothing changed apart from Rowen's ability to feed her potions that smelled vile but kept her afloat. Nothing healed her, but it kept her alive.

Until I brought the demons right at the time the witch decided to experiment with my friend. Now she could hear sounds that no human ever could. Everyone in the room was ignoring Alice's strange behavior. All of them were looking at me with accusatory eyes, like I knew something they didn't and was refusing to share.

I did, of course.

I just had no intention to share, yet.

Not until I knew which one of them, I could trust.

"I had to place the wolf away from you so I could try to do the spell, Alice." Rowen stepped through the large hole in the wall warily glancing at the red glowing door. "He wouldn't let me move you from the bed, so I took a steak from the fridge and lured him to the end of the hallway."

"You fed that mongrel my steak?" Dominic glowered at the witch.

"I didn't see you coming up with new ideas on what to do. I'll replace your steak." Rowen shuffled his feet faster when a low growl started in Dominic's throat. "Besides. That wolf was starving. He was dripping saliva all down the hall. When was the last time anyone fed him?"

He wasn't fully finished talking when Alice bolted out of the room, jumping like a gazelle through the hole, the long t-shirt bunched up in both hands and her skinny legs barely missing the sharp edges. She was muttering something about her soul burning in hell and that's why the demons came to get her. I flinched when the crashing noise came a moment later from my friend throwing something at the door holding her pet as she called him.

"Everyone needs to stop destroying my property." Samir huffed and spinning on his heel speed-walked after Alice. "I will be discussing all of this with you later, Brooklyn." He threw over his shoulder as his head disappeared from view.

"I'm sure you will." My grousing made Dominic's full lips curl slightly at the corners, and like a lovesick fool I smiled shyly at him.

Until Echo cleared her throat.

I frowned at the shifter then for making me lose focus of the people in the room.

"Not that this is any of my business, but I still would like to know why a witch was healing a human in a magic circle and that human was displaying demon attributes." Echo folded her arms across her chest and widened her stance like a Guardian.

I disliked that stance so much that it took effort not to start another squabble with everyone getting involved. Time was slipping away, however, and we needed to get some things out of the way before we could focus on important things.

Like the Syndicate.

"I thought your presence did something that caused that." Ignorance was my best friend at the time when I had to keep Alice's secret a little bit longer, and I hoped Dominic would just play along with it. "Could it be that your presence somehow interfered with the magic Rowen was using?" glancing between them I shrugged. "I know nothing about witch magic or demon magic for that matter. I just assumed…"

"I've never heard of anything like it." Rowen scratched at his head while thoughtfully watching the two demons. "I'd been told the two cancel each other out, which is why they can place wards we can't breach and the other way around."

The three of them were nodding in unison agreeing with the facts Rowen shared, and with that, destroying the sham I was waving to protect my friend. Desperately, I turned to my mate and begged him through my eyes to help .

"If that was true, demons would've stormed the base where the Syndicate operates from long ago. Witch magic is the only thing keeping them safe there. They must interact somehow; you just might not know it." Dominic reasoned as he moved closer to me, so we represent a unified front.

It warmed my insides and I leaned slightly into him.

"They do storm that dreadful place on regular basis, but the Atua have been using that weakness to their advantage. Guardians are tripled in the regular breach spots to capture them." Rowen explained through clenched teeth, his right-hand twisting in the fabric of his robes. "Demons aren't known for playing well with others, or each other, they never have the numbers to achieve anything with those attacks."

"He speaks the truth." Chester chirped from his place by the window. "Being unable to agree on things has been our downfall. Which is why despite the survival odds, we came to you." His chin jutted out pointing at me.

"Brooklyn is a very reasonable female." Dominic puffed up his chest and I gaped at him. "If you have information worthy of notice she would hear you out at any time."

Rowen was eagerly nodding his head, his face lit with excitement to not be put on the spot anymore. "Oh, yes. She is somewhat of a celebrity in the supernatural world. She took on the Syndicate head on and she's winning."

"Have you met her?" Echo stabbed a finger at me all wide-eyed. "Go tell that to two of my brothers. Oh wait, you can't. They're dead because she killed them."

"You said you weren't holding a grudge for it, but I see your point." I told her earnestly and blew out a large amount of air until I got lightheaded. "We should go somewhere else to talk. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to surprise my lungs with fresh air on occasion when I'm not locked up in a cage."

"I have no doubt the rest of you are hungry." Rowen got animated flipping around with a flourish and waving at us to follow him. I had never seen him that cheerful. He probably hated being the center of attention as much as I did. "I'm famished and Samir had a lot of food delivered earlier in the day. You know, in case the human woke up and needed nourishment."

"The rest of you don't?" Echo asked but followed right behind the witch. "Or is he keeping you on a diet?"

Chester snorted but stayed where he was, in his favorite place by the window. "We don't necessarily need to eat."

"No, but it's delicious when we do." She glanced back at him grinning.

"You are not coming?" I expected him to be the first to rush after Rowen who was standing in the hallway and watching us through the hole while Echo was jumping through the debris to join him, but the male just stood there, one shoulder propped on the wall and his face half toward us half facing the window.

"I'd like to stay here a little longer if you don't mind." Both his eyebrows pulled over his eyes and he leaned closer to the window. "There is just something nagging me about that far left area of the property and I want to make sure it's just my imagination and not something serious before I join you."

"You think there is someone there?" I was walking away with Dominic but that made me pause. Intrigued, I moved back next to him and tried to follow his line of sight.

"I'm not sure." The demon mumbled, his breath fogging the glass. His nose was slightly pressing on the window while he struggled to understand what it was that bothered him. "A few times I thought I saw something move but after staring for a long time it appeared to be no…"

"There." Dominic reached over my shoulder and pointed right at a silhouette that passed from one tall bush to the next in the manicured lawn Samir took pride in. "Samir, bring Alice here immediately. We have a problem."

He didn't need to shout, because the next second, we heard thudding footsteps coming down the hall and Samir popped in through the hole carrying an outraged Alice over his shoulder. The wolf throttled alongside them and gazed suspiciously at all of us, including me. When our gazes met, his upper lip curled up in a snarl and a low growl sounded from deep in his chest. I knew he blamed me for what I did to Alice, so I took his ire while lowering my head.

"Put me down you jerk." Alice pounded on Samir's back as he lowered her feet to the ground and stepped back. "I can walk on my own, thank you very much."

"And now you don't need to, Human. Stop making things difficult. There are urgent matters at hand."

"Argh!" Alice turned to me. "Can I punch him in the nose, Brooklyn? You are stronger than him, right?"

"You can." Dominic answered with a lopsided smile that made my heart skip a beat. "I can do it for you if you like, Alice."

"There is more than one." Chester breathed still pressed to the glass.

"Intruders?" Samir forgot to reply with something arrogant and annoying and rushed to where we were clustered by the window. "I could use a little exercise."

"Yeah, you could." Alice shouldered her way between him and Dominic so she could see as well. "You have a muffin top, old man."

"I do not!" the ancient Atua gasped in outrage staring down at my human friend in horror.

"It's going to be a long night." Groaning, I turned and tucked my face into Dominic's chest.

His soft chuckle vibrated from his chest into my brain, and it made me smile.