Chapter 10

Ten

Kelly is going to die.

Sky’s declaration is like a bomb going off.

“What?” I shout and my voice echoes down the hallway. “Bran? No . We can’t?—”

He grabs me to pull me to a stop. “Look at me.”

My heart is racing and my body is numb with panic.

“Mouse.”

I meet his eyes.

“Your sister is under the protection of Duval House.” His face hardens. “ I will protect her. Do you hear me?”

I swallow and nod.

“And Damien would sooner light himself on fire than let something happen to Kelly.”

“ Really ?”

“Yes,” Bran says. “You have me and you have my brother and nothing is going to happen to you or your sister.”

That helps calm me down a little. I know that when it comes down to it, Bran and Damien are the ones you’d want at your back.

I know that, but I can’t shake the bad feeling in my stomach.

My Pledge is an impending doomsday, apparently. I no longer want to leave Midnight, but I suddenly don’t want tomorrow to come either.

“Come on.” Bran takes my hand and pulls me down the hall. Sky is already gone. She dropped the bomb and quickly dodged its destruction.

Bran leads me through the maze of Duval House. We don’t return to the party. Instead we cross through the foyer, go down another hallway, then another, and enter a large office. It’s rich and masculine and smells like tobacco and liquor and dark forests.

Damien is at the bar pouring bourbon.

And the Alpha of the Midnight Pack is sitting in one of the leather club chairs looking sorely out of place.

I’ve rarely crossed paths with Cal and now I’ve been in the same room with him twice in a month.

He stands when we come in. He’s the tallest in the room and that’s saying something because Bran and Damien are tall on their own.

Cal is all muscle and raw power. If the Duvals are a hurricane, then Cal is a landslide.

He could easily bury you before you could take a full breath.

Dark jeans, ripped at the knees, cover his muscular thighs and a black t-shirt skims his body in all of the right ways.

The dark Scandinavian tattoos on the side of his scalp somehow look more menacing in this lighting and without an overshirt, his full sleeve tattoo on his left arm is on display.

I chose Bran and I love Bran, but goddamn, Cal is hot.

I swallow hard and Bran wraps his hand around the back of my neck and brings me close, his mouth at my ear. “Careful, little mouse. I will lock you in a room if I must.”

Taking a deep breath, I try to drive away any dirty thoughts of what that might entail and focus on the task at hand. Cal is here for business, not to overwhelm me with his raw sexiness.

I pity the girl that gets his heart. She’s going to be in so much trouble.

“Jessie,” Cal says. “Are you well?”

His question is clearly an interrogation of the Duvals.

Damien comes over with a glass of bourbon and hands it to the Alpha and says, “You are in my house. Disrespect me and we’ll have a problem.”

Cal takes the glass, not at all put out by the threat. “Jessie is just a girl caught in the predator’s snare. You’ll have to excuse me for caring about her well-being.”

They both look at me.

They’re all looking at me.

I lick my lips and try not to fidget beneath the overwhelming attention of three alpha men.

“I appreciate your concern, Cal, but I’m good. Really.”

And also…why does he care?

Cal isn’t a man that just does things out of the goodness of his heart. I have heard he is fair and just, but he’s also the Alpha. He’s got better things to worry about.

“Why are you here?” Damien asks. He goes to his desk and leans against the front edge of it. He takes a long pull from his bourbon and then sets the glass aside. He’s still wearing his party clothes but he’s left his jacket off, the sleeves of his white Oxford rolled up to his elbows. There’s an expensive watch on his wrist that glitters in the light.

“I told you already.” Cal sets the bourbon aside without sipping from it. He has on a watch too, but his is chunky black, more rugged than elegant.

That’s the difference between these two men. All you need to know you can know by the timepieces they wear.

“A psychic, yes,” Damien says. “How is it I’m just hearing about this now?”

“You think I play all of my cards at once?” Cal shakes his head, amused. “You clearly don’t know me, Duval.”

Bran crosses the room to stand beside his brother. “How accurate is this psychic?”

I go to one of the club chairs and drop into it. All of the energy has been sapped from my body. Because of that out-of-this-world sex and the immediate panic that came after it.

“Well,” Cal says as he eyes Damien, “the psychic knows you’re fucking a Locke blood bag.”

Damien goes rigid. Bran lashes out and puts his hand on his brother’s arm, anchoring him.

“Cal,” I say. “That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

His face softens. “Of course. Please accept my apology.”

I catch a barely perceptible uptick in Bran’s expression.

Something weird is happening here and we’re both picking up on it.

The Alpha is giving me considerable leeway.

“Why are you here?” Damien repeats.

“I have information about Jessie’s Pledging tomorrow. Specifics about what may go down there.”

“Why give us this?” Bran folds his arms over his chest. “What’s in it for you?”

Cal’s hands are loose fists at his side, but when he looks at me again, his thumb rubs back and forth over the inside of his fingers like he’s thinking hard on what to say and how to say it, like maybe he doesn’t want to say anything at all, but knows he has to.

“Someday I’m going to need a favor from Jessie,” he says.

“Me?”

“What favor?” Bran asks.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Bullshit. You can’t? You mean you won’t.”

Damien’s gaze cuts to me. Immediately my skin tingles. I don’t know how my sister handles his attention. I want to crawl beneath the chair when he looks at me. His dark brow pulls together like he’s trying to cut beneath my layers and figure me out.

“If you can’t tell us,” Bran says, “then we don’t know the cost and if we don’t know the cost, we don’t know if there’s equity in the exchange.”

God, it’s sexy when he talks like that.

I had no idea intelligence could be such an aphrodisiac. I’m coming to the realization that Bran’s allure isn’t just the vampire strength, the control in the bedroom, or the power of being a Duval.

It’s all of those things, and the constant mental chess he plays.

I like being caught in that snare sometimes. I like it very, very much.

Like the plug, the sex, being filled up?—

All three of the men take in a deep breath and look at me.

“Jessie,” Bran says. His irises light up.

“Sorry.” Heat rushes to my cheeks.

Gelatin cake. FUCKING GELATIN CAKE.

Cal trembles.

Bran pushes away from the desk and straightens his spine, leveling his shoulders. “Careful, Alpha.”

Cal’s jaw clenches. “Contrary to what you may think about shifters, it isn’t the full moon that sends us off kilter. It’s the absence of the moon. I’m on edge, but I have it handled.”

“I don’t care if it’s the cosmic equivalent of Armageddon,” Bran says and points a finger at me. “That one is mine. Not yours.”

Cal growls. “I know that.”

I want to turn into a puddle and slip from the room.

Good god.

I might have to ask my sister if she has any more of those Vane witch charms, the ones that guarded her scent. I could use about fifty.

Cal settles and some of the tension ebbs from Bran’s body. Bran rests against the desk again and says, “Regarding this favor, the answer is no.”

“I can appreciate the chivalry. You Duval brothers trying to protect Jessie from the big bad Alpha. But Jessie owes you nothing. She isn’t Pledged yet. Which means she can make the decision on her own.” The Alpha turns to me. “What is your answer, Jessie?”

I lick my lips and then worry at the corner with a drag of my teeth.

There is something I admire and respect about Cal. I don’t think he’d screw me over. Maybe Damien and Bran, but not me.

After all, when he witnessed Sasha bite me all those years ago, he went to my mother because it was the fair and respectful thing to do.

But beyond all that, if my sister’s safety is on the line, I’ll give him pretty much anything he wants.

“Think about this carefully,” Damien warns.

“You need this information as much as I do. Unless you’re okay with something happening to my sister?”

Damien’s jaw flexes, teeth grinding together.

“That’s what I thought.” I get up, legs still a little wobbly. “You have a deal, Cal.” I hold out my hand.

The Duvals don’t contradict me, but I can tell neither of them is happy about this.

Cal comes over and slides his hand into mine. His skin is much softer than I’d expect an Alpha’s to be. But his grip is strong and my hand is nearly lost in his.

“Now tell us what you know,” I say.

“Midnight has been ready for a shake up for a very long time,” Cal says as he sits in the leather club chair across from me. “Unfortunately, you’re caught in the middle. These two know that Julian has been trying to assume more power. And I’ve made it no secret that I think the vampires hold too much sway all-around.”

“We founded this town,” Damien says. “We have a right to the power.”

Cal glances at him over his shoulder. “Well, times are changing, old man. Best catch up.”

“What does this have to do with me and my Pledging?”

“Julian has allied with a witch house,” Cal answers.

“Christ,” Bran says beneath his breath. “What the fuck did I tell you?” he says to Damien.

“Fine, brother. You were right. Are you happy?”

“Pleased as punch,” Bran says, but his voice is cold.

“Which house?” Damien asks.

“Renshaw.”

Bran’s eyes slip closed and he presses at the bridge of his nose as he takes in a deep breath.

Damien says nothing.

Renshaw witches are the Addams family of Midnight Harbor. They live in an all-black Victorian on the marshy side of Midnight Lake. They’re a small house and they mostly keep to themselves. But when they don’t, you know about it.

There’s a thread of dark magic that runs through the family dating all the way back to Catherine de Medici, the Poison Queen of France.

It wasn’t actually poison though; it was magic that was her weapon of choice.

“They plan to make a stand before Jessie’s Pledging has been finalized,” Cal goes on. “Kelly will be on the north end of the Pledge Hall when she’s struck down. The vision wasn’t clear which direction the strike would come.”

“Okay,” I say, trying not to freak out. “It’s good that we know this ahead of time. How do we stop it? What do we do?”

“Cancel the Pledging,” Bran says.

“We can’t,” Damien answers. “Besides, that’s exactly what Julian is hoping will happen. The longer she’s untethered to a house, the more time he has to scheme.”

“Kelly will stay here.” I sit forward in the chair. “That’s the easy solution.”

“Of course she will,” Damien answers. “But if the Alpha’s psychic saw it happening, then just leaving Kelly at home likely won’t solve the problem.”

Cal nods and winces when he looks at me. “Sorry, Jessie, but he’s right. When it comes to visions, the strategy must always be how to react to it, not prevent it. Because you usually can’t prevent it.”

I lurch upright. “So my sister has to die? Is that what you’re all telling me? No. Fuck no.”

“There is an obvious solution,” Bran says.

“Which is what?”

Damien scowls at him. “Don’t even fucking suggest it.”

“It solves all of our problems and it fits in the narrative of the vision.”

“What?” I say. “Tell me.”

Damien turns his hardened expression on me. “He means turn your sister into a vampire.”