Faine shifted again and they ran to the road and then he watched from the trees as she kept to the road.
The neighbors were agitated at first to have been woken up, but once she explained that she needed them to call 911, that their house was on fire and everything was inside, including her phone, they invited her inside where she made the call and also notified Meriel, who said she’d send someone over immediately and urged them to stay safe.
They invited her to stay until the fire trucks arrived, but she explained her sister and brother-in-law were waiting. The neighbors kindly sent her back with a thermos of hot tea and sweaters.
And a reminder that not all humans were like the ones who’d blown her sister’s home up.
Chapter 12
HELENA moved through the office with singular purpose. She’d flown back to Los Angeles and would be heading back to Seattle in only a few hours to meet with the full Council of Others. This time she’d be addressing the new military arm of the COO.
The FBI was still at Lark’s. Still sifting through the smoking rubble looking for clues. Anderson had come out to oversee everything himself. Lark had spent the night across the hall from Faine and Helena at the hotel where the Clan put up out-of-town visitors.
Lark had left first thing upon waking to head back to the house. Simon had gone as well, which at least made Helena feel better knowing her sister would have some backup if she needed it.
But it was Rain Jaansen who stepped out of the warren-like maze of cubbies, offices and conference rooms that held the Gennessee Hunter Corps.
Her mother caught sight of her and, with a happy cry, pulled Helena into her arms, hugging her tight as she murmured endearments. Then she pushed back with surprising strength, shaking her daughter once, hard. “Oh my goddess! You could have been killed! You and your sister are going to be the death of me yet. How could you do that? How could you throw yourself and your magick in front of a bomb? A bomb, Helena Marie?” By that point Rain was weeping and Helena just pulled her mother back into her arms.
“I’m all right. See? I even drank gallons of your tea. I swear. There were even witnesses.”
Her mother kept on, the words tumbling from her mouth like a hard rain. “And your sister’s house was blown up? How much do you expect me and Dad to take? Why can’t you two do something safe for a living? Nice and safe with no bombs and no guns and no one wanting to kill you? Be a travel agent or a high school gym teacher.”
“That’s not her path, Rain.” Her father joined them in the hallway, pausing to kiss Helena’s temple. “Your daughters are meant for great things. They’re protectors and we just have to believe in their skill and their training.”
He hugged Helena and whispered. “You scared the hell out of me, girl. You and your sister cool it on the nearly getting killed stuff, why don’t you?”
She was so glad she’d come back. There was nothing like a hug from your mother and father.
“Trying.”
“Try harder.” He let her go. “Everyone is waiting.” His gaze flicked to her left and then up and up some more. “Hey, Faine.”
“Mr. Jaansen.” Faine bowed slightly and then gave Rain a smile that told Helena the two of them were thick as thieves while planning to make Helena drink nasty-tasting tea. “Ms. Jaansen.”
Rain smiled back prettily and her dad sent Helena a raised brow.
Helena shrugged. “I don’t know. Simon’s the same way. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
Faine rumbled a laugh. “Not so. It’s got everything to do with you.”
“I can see we need to talk.” Her dad gave Faine the once-over.
“Ugh. What we need is to go to the meeting of the Full Council. Then it’s right back to the airport.”
“Can I go to your place and pack you a bag?”
Helena turned to her mom again. “Yes, please. That would be so appreciated. And can you please pack some of those spell volumes? The ones I’ve been working through are on the dresser in my bedroom. Take Evan with you.”
No one would be traveling without a guard anymore. The world had just changed and if they didn’t change with it, more people would end up dead, and it sure wasn’t going to be her mother, if Helena had any say.
“Don’t worry, I’ve gotten used to it.” Rain rolled her eyes, but squeezed Helena’s hand. “I’ll run over and be back as soon as I can.”
When she entered the room, The Gennessee, because that’s most definitely who Rebecca Gennessee was right then, stood up and began clapping.
Blushing furiously, Helena looked to the side and then behind herself.
“Oh for goodness’ sake. Helena Jaansen, you’re a hero. Stop looking around,” her father said in her ear as they moved to sit.
She waved at them to stop. “Thank you. Very much. But I didn’t do anything special.”
Rebecca gave her a very imperious look. “You stopped an explosion. How is that not anything special? I can’t stop a bomb and I’m a Full Council witch.”
“To be honest? I think many of us can do far more than we could before the Magister. So if I can deflect the energy of an explosion, imagine what a Full Council witch can do?”
Rebecca nodded, sitting down. “You make a good point. Then again, my point still stands. What you did was an act of service and heroism. You saved lives and you, my darling hunter, did it on television.”
“On television?”
Rebecca laughed, clearly delighted to relay the news. “Someone in the crowd was filming with a cell phone. When the pigs at PURITY began to accuse us of setting it up to make ourselves look better, the camera video began to flow in. Some from people who counted us as enemies until the moment you would have died to protect them.”
Helena blew out a breath. This was double edged. Good that they were seen to have saved lives. But now that the humans knew they had this sort of power, who was to say that they wouldn’t want to try to harness that power for military use or worse?
She said as much, only more diplomatically.
Rebecca sat back, her fingers steepled in front of her mouth. “You’ve done a lot of growing up since you took this job. The Helena who came on to the squad with her sister wouldn’t have seen that nuance. You’re right, of course. Which is one of my reservations about getting too close with some of these humans in government like Agent Anderson. A nice man, yes, but he doesn’t serve two masters. He’s a government man and I don’t doubt that he’d throw you in the back of a truck and take you away where you’d never see the light of day if he thought it would serve his government.”
There it was. The baldest of truths out there. And some words when spoken couldn’t be taken back.
It was no longer their government. It was his government. The gulf had grown far deeper than they could manage to bridge with talking and debate.
“I agree. And it is my recommendation that we create a military arm of the Council of Others. We need to protect ourselves and send out patrols. We can no longer rely on the human authorities to protect us. They want to put us in camps and put GPS chips in our bodies.”
Rebecca nodded. “I will address all of Clan Gennessee, along with the Owen, who will address the Owen’s members. In that address, we will urge our witches to move into one of the armed enclaves popping up all over the West Coast. We will help as we can with expenses, but we can’t protect everyone in their own neighborhoods. We’re fortunate that a great many witches already tend to live in clusters. I’d like for you and your people to give me a concrete idea of who can be protected in the current population situation. And then how we can get those who are too far out or all alone in a part of town protected.”
“The group who runs the enclave Faine lives in down in Huntington Beach has two witches on their board. I’ll liaise with them about setting up other groups, as well as touch base with the hunter arms of different Other groups in our territory. There’s strength in numbers and shared resources will lessen the financial burden as well.”
“I wish
we didn’t have to do this. But we do and I am fortunate to have such a fine staff to make it happen. Helena, I know you and Faine have to get back to Seattle for the big meeting. I’ll be joining you via video.”
“I’ll get you the information as soon as I can. I’ll start the calls now.” She nodded, standing.
“Your sister is well?”
“Yes. Shaken up. Simon had just finished construction on the house less than a year ago. Most of the furnishings and things inside were destroyed. But we weren’t. We’d been out on a run. But there was someone on the trail with a gun and silver ammo. They think they know what Simon and Faine are.”
“And they’re willing to kill. We knew this before. With Molly. With the countless Others who’ve been assaulted and killed since this mess started. And we need to be willing to defend ourselves with that same zeal. If it’s us or them, Helena, it will damn well be us.”
Helena agreed.
• • •
AFTER the meeting Faine held her up at the airfield. “I need to leave you for a few hours. I’ll see you in Seattle when you land.”
Helena narrowed her gaze his way. “What are you up to?”
He took her shoulders. “Twice. Twice in one day these humans have tried to kill what is mine to protect. This cannot go unanswered.”
Part of her thrilled at the possessive note in his tone and the other part, the one not near any erogenous zones, tightened up. “Yours?”
“Hush. You know it’s true and things are too dire to deny it any longer. I’m not playing silly games. You are mine to protect. I can accept that you need time to fully embrace what is between us. But I won’t accept that you don’t understand what is there. And what my nature is. I’m not a human male. I have more patience on most everything, but not this.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
His severity washed away on a smile. He kissed her quickly. “A first.”
“Ha. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going home for a bit. Simon is meeting me there. I’ll let you know the outcome when I see you when you get off this plane. You’ll be safe while you’re in the air.”
Safe as she could be anyway. Nowhere was totally safe. Not anymore.
“I’m absolutely sure this is going to mean trouble for me.”
His grin was back. A brief flash of teeth. “I’ll see you soon.”
She got on the plane and he got into a car and sped away.
He met Simon in the wide field just on the other side of the Veil. They clasped forearms and headed to the main house.
“What did you tell Lark?”
“I told her I was coming here. She’s . . .” Simon’s mouth flattened in a hard line. “She’s shaken in a way I haven’t seen. This was her home. The one place she felt safe, and now she doesn’t have that. She’s damned lucky I don’t just toss her ass through the Veil and move us both here permanently.”
Faine blew out a breath.
“I told her I had had enough and I was speaking to my father. I didn’t say what about exactly. I got the feeling she just assumed it was to inform Father of the bombing, and given the amount of things she has to manage today, I didn’t give her any more detail. Helena?”
“I told her twice in one day what was mine to protect was threatened and it couldn’t be borne any longer, and that I was coming here. I’m guessing her assumptions were the same as Lark’s.”
Pere’s soldiers came out to greet them as they moved to the house where their oldest brother and their father awaited them.
Cross Leviathan gave both his sons a raised brow as they entered his office and went to one knee. He touched the backs of their heads. “Get up and tell me what brings you here. Not that I’m unhappy to see you. I’m pleased, but I can see this isn’t a social call.”
Simon got straight to it. “My home was bombed yesterday. Set ablaze. A near total loss.”
Cross’s eyes widened as he turned his attention to Faine.
“Yesterday, before that, a car Helena and I would have been riding in was bombed. She repelled the force of the explosion with her magick and passed out, bleeding from the nose and mouth from the exertion. We were also with Simon and his Ne’est when his home was attacked.”
“Helena, hmm? This is our little pixie’s sister? You’ve been a busy male, Faine.”
“She is mine.”
The simple words were enough for Cross. And for Pere, who smiled from his place at their father’s right.
“The violence by the humans against Others continues to escalate. We have tried diplomacy. Molly Ryan has delivered an articulate message about our limits being reached.” Simon shrugged.
Lark was shot twice when they’d sent the Magister from the human realm. But Simon had killed the shooter. It had been enough to hold back on a declaration of war by Lycia. But this was different.
“When you were here with Lark before, we called a council of war. You have all the beasts of Lycia at your beck and call.” Pere spoke this time. Cross was the elder, but it was Pere who really ran things. “Simon, you are my voice on that side of the Veil. Faine, we wish to meet your Helena when you are able to bring her.”
“What is she to you? Will you take her in marriage?” His father asked this with hooded eyes.
“She is . . . she is everything. My key.”
He nodded. “As you know, I had love before I bonded with Tila. I cared for Simon’s mother with everything I am. But the difference now? What I have with my Ne’est and anyone who came before is immense. I am glad that you cleave to this witch. I know how much our little bird cares for and respects her sister. We will welcome her to our Pack when she is ready to come here to perform the binding.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Your mother says you’ve never failed to convince a female to give you what you wanted. I doubt you will this time either.”
Simon snorted. “The Jaansen sisters are a world apart. But Helena is worthy.”
Faine was proud to have the words from his brother.
They thanked their father and brother and headed back, both males loath to leave their protected alone for too long in a world full of people who wished for nothing less than their annihilation.
Chapter 13
TOSH felt it was his turn to face some danger. He looked to his left at Delilah, who was his escort to this Council of Others meeting.
He hadn’t been surprised that Helena had recommended the Others cease their PR travel. After all, how much could they be expected to endure? How many more of their people had to die just to be heard?
But he knew it was more than a simple cease of travel. The bomb at the capitol building, the second such incident in less than a month, had only underlined the tenuous nature of the situation. And then the attack and subsequent destruction of Simon and Lark’s home and the evidence of an armed male with silver ammunition on a trail on Simon’s land.
Spiraling out of control and heading to war. Which is why he needed to address the Council to try his best to alleviate the mounting tensions that he worried would explode into a war neither side would really win. And it would definitely end with far too much damage to recover from.
Encroaching on a werewolf’s land the way those who’d bombed Simon Leviathan’s house had done had broken so many rules Toshio knew it would be an uphill battle to get the Others to ease back. More than that, Simon’s woman and Helena—Faine’s woman, Tosh suspected—had been there. The mate of a shifter being endangered would push both males into hyper-protective mode.
He knew Simon and Faine were more than normal werewolves. Werewolves were large, but the Leviathan brothers were beyond large, they were massive. The werewolves treated them with respect and a bit of awe, but it was clear they were apart somehow.
“Simon and Faine aren’t werewolves, so what are they?” Tosh asked Delilah, who accompanied him on the trip.
“It’s not safe for anyone to know more than they already do. Not for any of us. And this
is a public place.”
Her words were severe and she must have noted that because she relaxed and took his hand, squeezing it and then, as if she were surprised by her action, letting go quickly.
“After this, will you have a drink with me?” He blurted it before he changed his mind.
Clearly surprised—again—Delilah started, and then she smiled. “A drink drink? Like you like me as a female? Or a collegial drink?”
He got caught up in the shape of her mouth as she smiled. “Huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you asking because you’re interested in me romantically or is this just a drink like you’d have with anyone else who served in the senate?”
He blushed, he knew it. “I don’t feel the same way about Senator Harley that I do about you. I’ve been meaning to ask you to dinner for some time, but things have been . . . crazy. I realized if I didn’t move now I might lose my chance.”
“It’s about time, Toshio. I was beginning to wonder, you know, if I was imagining things between us.”
“Not imagining it. So yes to the drink?”
“You can buy me a drink and dinner when all this is finished.”
“I’ll even spring for chocolate cake.” He knew she had a fondness for it.
She leaned in and her scent wrapped around him, holding on tight. “I might just let you kiss me.”
He laughed, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles before turning all business again. “Two slices then. So I think with the Council, you should take the lead. Your voice is important. They’ve heard mine.”
“Just take my cues. Molly will be there, along with Helena, so there will be friendly faces. But this isn’t human communication any more. There are things shifters do . . . I’ll need to show my obeisance to my Alpha. I’m here to address them not only as an elected official, but as a wolf as well.”
He nodded. “I understand. We’re on your turf. I’ll defer to your expertise.”
She laughed. “Well, one step at a time. The Vampires were our biggest worry. But now that there’ve been two bombs in less than twenty four hours, both attacking Others, one in the den of a very powerful male? It’s going to be very bad. The wolves and cats are going to follow the lead of Simon, who’s older than everyone else and far better trained.”