Red

  “I wouldn’t let him. Patrick and those who came before him have been after my family for a long, long time. I felt like it was my fight, and my fight alone. My bullheadedness put Sawyer in danger, though, and I’m sorry for that. He was nearly killed because of me.”

  I wanted to snap at her, tell her she didn’t have anything to be sorry for. But that didn’t seem like the right thing, so I just squeezed her hand.

  Dad continued to study her. “Because of you? I brought that maniac to you. And my misplaced trust put my son and his mate in danger.”

  We both flinched, surprised, though I probably shouldn’t have been.

  Dad reached out and took Elodie’s other hand. Patted it. “By God I want answers out of you two, but I can wait until you’ve had some rest. No more secrets,” he said, more strongly, pointing his finger at me and giving me the alpha glare. For some reason, it didn’t seem as potent as it usually was, and it didn’t make me angry.

  “Yeah, sure Dad.”

  “Right now I’m just glad you’re okay. I wish you’d come to me for help, but you handled things. You took care of your mate. I’m proud of you, son.”

  I swallowed, unable to think of a reply. We stood on opposite sides of Elodie and stared at each other for a long moment before he turned on his heel. “I’ll go talk to your father and see if he’ll consent to letting me check you out to come home with us. You’ll rest better outside a hospital.” Then he walked out.

  Elodie and I were silent for a moment.

  “Well, that was intense,” I said.

  “But it was good, right?” She squeezed my hand. “You two are good?”

  “Yeah, it’s all good.” And I was surprised to find that I actually meant it.

  Epilogue

  Elodie

  The shrill scream of the bell reached into my brain like a claw. Closing my eyes, I dropped my head forward, wishing the cold kiss of metal was soothing to the ache. All around me lockers slammed, footsteps shuffled and pounded down the industrial tile halls in a mass exodus stampede. The sounds ricocheted through me like bullets. I still couldn’t control the super hearing on my own.

  Happy first day of senior year.

  “Elodie?”

  I lifted my head to find Rich Phillips about two feet away. He leaned awkwardly against the bank of lockers, less a product of some new lack of confidence than to the permanent damage to his leg. He wore long pants, despite the August heat that our school’s air conditioner couldn’t combat. A backpack was slung over one shoulder, and his fingers moved restlessly over the strap in a vaguely familiar gesture I finally realized as guitar chords. He still wore that over-powering deodorant to cover the testosterone boy reek, but this time it was laced with an under-current of nerves.

  I made Rich Phillips nervous?

  “Hey,” I said.

  He started to say something and seemed to change his mind in midstream. “You look . . . different.”

  I glanced down at the red tank and khaki shorts. Yeah, I was wearing color. An outfit that couldn’t double as military fatigues. I even had on jewelry—a set of silver crescent moon earrings and matching necklace from Sawyer. Rich wasn’t the first person to give me a second look today, but he was the first person who’d mentioned it.

  I shrugged and waited for him to get to the point, which only seemed to make him more anxious.

  “Anyway, I just . . . I never had a chance to say thank you. For saving my life. And for . . . you know, the other thing.”

  “What other thing?” I asked.

  Rich looked around and leaned in. “For making sure the son of a bitch couldn’t hurt anyone else.”

  For a moment the hallway faded out and I was back in the clearing, my hand still singing, the blade still quivering in Patrick’s gurgling throat. I swallowed against a mouth suddenly dry, wondering when I’d stop having flashbacks.

  Rich was looking concerned when my eyes focused again. For the space of a breath, I wondered if he could possibly know the truth of his statement, then shook it off. No one knew who hadn’t been there. The Sheriff had accepted our statements. They’d found evidence in Patrick’s truck that linked him with Rich and Molly’s kidnapping. It was all over.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up, I just—”

  “How’s Molly?” I interrupted, trying for a smile and ending somewhere closer to a wince.

  “Better since— Better. Thank you.”

  I nodded, not knowing what else to say.

  From somewhere up the hall, a body thumped into a locker and books crashed to the floor. I knew the culprits even before I heard Amber’s shrill laugh. Leaning around Rich, I could see the Barbie Squad surrounding some poor girl who was crouched, trying to gather her books to stuff them in a patched messenger bag. I didn’t recognize her face, but I recognized the look. I’d worn it long enough myself. New kid. Fresh victim.

  My wolf roused.

  “Excuse me,” I said, moving around Rich and heading down the hall.

  Amber didn’t see me coming. But Deanna did. The smile slid off her face and she tapped Amber’s arm, nodding toward me. Amber turned. There was a fleeting moment of panic that flashed in her eyes before she buckled it down again and assumed her natural haughty expression.

  “What are you doing?” I didn’t raise my voice. But enough of a crowd gathered that I knew that rumors of our little encounter at Hansen’s had to have spread. I could smell the lust for violence on the air.

  “Nothing. Just welcoming the new girl. Teaching her what her place is.”

  My hands fisted and my wolf tried to stretch beneath my skin.

  Not now, I told her.

  I took a step toward Amber. She took a step back. I took another, then another, until she retreated right into the bank of lockers with a thud. I leaned in close, so I got a good whiff of her fear and bared my teeth in a vicious grin. “The only person here who needs to learn her place is you. Now we talked about this, but maybe you need a bit of clarification. I won’t stand for your bullying anymore. Not of me or anyone else. I see or hear any evidence that you’re up to your old tricks again, and you will answer to me.” I leaned in close, dropping my voice so only she could hear. “And in case you need a reminder, I’ve gone up against things much worse than the likes of you, and I’m the one that walked away alive.”

  I stayed leaned in a few seconds longer than necessary, enjoying the scent of her fear and the sight of her pulse beating rabbit-fast in her throat. My wolf had to be satisfied with that.

  “Are we clear?” I asked softly.

  “C . . . clear,” stuttered Amber.

  I stepped back. “Now apologize.”

  “Sorry Rachel.”

  Rachel, who stood staring from Amber to me, her bookbag clutched messily in her arms, muttered, “Thanks.”

  Amber shoved through the crowd, bumping into shoulders as she went, her entourage following in her wake.

  Everybody’s eyes were fixed on me. Where such attention used to make me nervous, now it just made me straighten my back and glare. “Can I help y’all with something?” I demanded.

  Someone in the back of the crowd started clapping. Then someone else joined in. And two others. And some others. Until the entire assembled group lit up the hallway with applause and catcalls.

  “Way to go!”

  “About damn time!”

  “You go girl!”

  I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks. Okay, so I wasn’t immune to all attention these days. I turned from the clapping students to Rachel, who still looked shell shocked.

  “Welcome to Mortimer, Rachel. I’m Elodie.” I held out my hand.

  She took it, shook it numbly. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the girl Amber’s been giving hell since the eighth grade. I grew a spine.” Actually, I’d grown claws. “I don’t think she’ll be bothering you again.”

  The crowd was starting to disperse, and even amid the competing scents I could smell his app
roach. Sawyer was grinning as he appeared, slinging an arm around my shoulders and tugging me in for a fast, dizzying kiss. I immediately felt my headache wane.

  “You missed some excitement,” I said breathlessly.

  “Oh no, I heard it from up the hall. Nicely done, by the way.” He stuck his hand out to Rachel. “Sawyer. Her other half.”

  Rachel took it and gazed up at him with the same star-struck, dopey grin that seemed to be the typical female response to his smile. I’d been seeing variations of it all day on practically every girl in school. How evolved was I, that I wasn’t even jealous? Much. And, okay, maybe that was because they’d all stared at me with such shock and envy when he’d made it abundantly clear that he had eyes for no girl but me. His mate.

  “You good?” he was asking. “Need a ride home or anything?”

  “Ah, no,” stammered Rachel. “I have to meet with my Latin teacher. Thanks.”

  “See you around,” I said.

  With the arm around my shoulders, Sawyer steered me toward the exit. “Well that confrontation went better than you expected. No fangs. No claws. Amber’s still breathing.”

  “It was easier to control this time,” I admitted. “So how was your first day?”

  In the end Sawyer hadn’t bothered to tell his dad about the GED he’d earned. He decided to just stick around and repeat his senior year with me.

  “Well Mr. Lester is trying to decide if I’m a delinquent. Mrs. Rabinowitz is convinced I am a zoology genius. And I’m pretty sure I got asked to join every sport at Mortimer High. All in all, pretty good. You?”

  I looked out at the emptying parking lot, past the skater guys, across the way to the football field where tryouts were already going and the cheerleaders were starting up practice. I lifted my hand to return a couple of waves as I considered the question. Then I felt a grin stretching my lips.

  “It was completely and utterly . . . normal.”

  And that was all I’d ever wanted.

  ~*~

  Finis.

  About the Author

  Kait Nolan is stuck in an office all day, sometimes juggling all three of her jobs at once with the skill of a trained bear—sometimes with a similar temperament. After hours, she uses her powers for good, creating escapist fiction. The work of this Mississippi native is packed with action, romance, and the kinds of imaginative paranormal creatures you’d want to sweep you off your feet…or eat your boss. When she’s not working or writing, she’s in her kitchen, heading up a revolution to Retake Homemade from her cooking blog, Pots and Plots.

  You can catch up with her at her website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Pots and Plots.

  Looking for more action-packed adventure? Check out Kait’s Mirus series (Forsaken By Shadow, Devil’s Eye, Blindsight), available wherever ebooks are sold. And don’t forget to drop by her website and sign up for the newsletter to be notified of upcoming and new releases!

  An Excerpt from Heroes ’Til Curfew by Susan Bischoff

  Joss

  Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean no one’s out to get you.

  The thought went through my head in my dad’s voice—I was that well programmed. That’s why I’d varied my schedule, to throw off my stalker.

  As I walked down the brick-paved road that ran through the middle of the downtown pedestrian mall, my own boots were the only ones I could hear beating the pavement. The feelings I had weren’t the sensations of being followed and watched that I had become familiar with over the last month or so. Tonight was different.

  It’s not like I’m that kind of psychic. I don’t have any kind of extra-sensory perception or anything. It’s just that, since I was a little kid, my dad trained me to pay attention to my surroundings. At some point that kind of training turns to instinct—an instinct that warned me something was up.

  The economy of our town was not great, and downtown was especially bad. Yeah, here and everywhere else in the country, right? That left a lot of empty storefronts on the mall, a lot of darkened glass windows that showed my reflection as I walked by, a lone, dark-haired girl in a vintage army jacket and combat boots, faking confidence in her stride.

  Our store was at the far end of the mall and I had to walk the whole length of it to get home. I was happy when my dad started letting me walk home by myself, because I loved walking it, the feeling of freedom in the night air, the quiet, the glow of the converted gas lights. But making enemies, getting my ass handed to me, getting to walk around with a bruised face for weeks and all the attention that got me…that kind of thing changes a girl, I guess.

  I glanced over at the image of the confident girl who moved from glass to glass beside me, at the dark alleyways that opened up every few buildings, the looming, brick store facades, and the shadows under awnings where the attractive but weak lamplight didn’t reach. I listened hard to the sound of nothing—too much nothing, it seemed to me—and tried not to think about the cell phone in my pocket and of calling Dylan. Not because I was some useless girl, afraid of the dark and in need of rescuing, but just to hear his voice.

  As if I would have the guts to just call up Dylan.

  I passed by the fountain that they didn’t bother to put water in anymore, even in summer. More than one person had used it for a giant trash can during the day. Is that really any better than throwing your trash right on the ground? What’s wrong with people?

  I don’t know what it was that made me take a closer look as I walked by Dog-Eared. Mr. McGuffey closed the shop at five o’clock. He always said that after dinner his customers were all home reading, and he would be too. The lights were on low in the front of the store, like usual. Over the piles of used books stacked against the front windows, the tall bookcases created a maze through the shop and stacks on the floor encroached on the narrow aisles. But I guess that squeezing your way around Dog-Eared is part of its charm.

  There was a flare of light. Just a quick something that was gone almost as I noticed it. Definitely not right. Moving closer to the shop, I thought I saw a shadow of movement, so I decided to duck down the alley and see if I could see anything through the windows over there.

  Now I’ll admit it: it’s not a great idea for a girl, alone at night in a deserted downtown shopping area, to go creeping down dark alleys to peep in store windows where suspicious activity may or may not be taking place. But in my defense, I’m not exactly an ordinary girl, and I was just going to have a look anyway.

  Through a window I could see the wide aisle that ran across the back of the shop, in front of the door to the back rooms. In that aisle were four boys doing bad things.

  I recognized Jeff right off, even though his back was to me. Maybe it was the Neanderthal posture. Standing next to him was a smaller guy who looked vaguely familiar. Probably a freshman. Across from Jeff was a tall guy I didn’t know, who looked older than we were. Next to that guy was a sophomore, Nathan, who was in my gym class last year.

  Jeff and the freshman each had a pile of books in front of them, and when I say pile, I mean it looked like they’d just gathered up an armload and dumped them on the floor. Nice. They were tossing these books, in sync with each other, into the air in front of the other two. Who would then d-i-s-i-n-t-e-g-r-a-t-e them. No, really, I kid you not. I don’t know what Nathan was doing, but his book just turned to dust which floated down to the carpet. The older guy’s book burst with a brief flash of flame and then exploded into embers that glowed for a second before they joined the mess of dust and ash on the floor.

  I shuddered. Damn I hate fire.

  And fire in a bookshop? Genius. What a bunch of idiots. Did they want to burn the place down? Start a fire that would rip through all those stacks of books, choking the place with thick, black smoke, trapping them all in that maze of bookshelves as they crawled frantically along the floor, searching for the exit, while the temperature—

  I sat down hard in the alley and put my head on my crossed legs, taking deep breaths of dirty, old cement and the sm
ell of my leather boots. It’s worth mentioning again: I hate fire.

  But what was I going to do, let them burn down the store with their stupidity? Besides the fact that not even stupid people deserved that experience, more importantly, there was Mr. McGuffey. He used to bring me some tattered picture book that was beyond selling every week when I was a little kid in the store with my dad. I totally owe my love of reading to my complete lack of a social life and the owner of Dog-Eared. So there was no way I was going to just walk away.

  And I couldn’t call the police either. Or…I guess it was more like I wouldn’t. These guys were Talents. No matter how much I didn’t like them, I still had enough us against them mentality that I wasn’t about to bring in the cops. We Talents needed to police our own.

  The cops would just report the whole thing to the National Institutes for Ability Control. If NIAC came to investigate Talents in Fairview again, it wasn’t going to be good for anyone. We’d already had more kids taken away to the State School in the last month than in the last few years put together, and I did not want to draw any more attention to our town than we already had.

  I just wished these idiots felt the same way.

  I pushed myself back up and moved to the next window, the one that didn’t have a view of much of the shop because it was located behind a bookcase and piled with paperbacks. I could see the latch in the middle, so it wasn’t a problem to reach out to it with my mind and get it to turn. The fact that it had been painted over at least once required a little mental elbow grease, but I got it. I floated the piles of paperbacks down to the floor before opening the window, so they wouldn’t fall and make noise, and then I hoisted myself up and climbed in.