James and I stood outside, near the front door of the den. I had called another pack meeting so we could discuss and vote on the Mauritius situation. I had learned early on in my life that if I wanted to keep the pack’s respect, I needed to be honest with them.Robert was angry because I had denied him access to the meeting. Although we considered him family, he wasn’t a wolf. I wasn’t about to change hundreds of years of tradition just because I liked him.More cars pulled into the space in front of the den and I greeted my pack members warmly. Malachi was the last to arrive, smiling to himself as he walked towards us. ‘Only Jessica can be responsible for that smile,’ I thought to myself as Malachi grinned at me.I closed the den’s door behind me as the rest found seats. I walked to the front with James trailing behind me and hit the gavel once on the table behind me. “This meeting is now called to order.”The men settled down with low whispers as I leaned back against the table and
Malachi watched me but made no move to meet me halfway. His face was void of emotion and I had a hard time reading his aura. I pushed harder against the mental wall and his aura appeared and his guilt showed.“Sorry, I know you wanted to discuss this but I kind of had my hands full,” he said to me and I smiled. “It’s okay,” I replied.“But you did well on your own, there’s nothing I would have done differently,” he said to me and slapped me on the back.I was about to say something more but kept quiet as our pack members started leaving the den and shook our hands. Carl and Frank stopped in front of us and I smiled. I knew Carl’s mind was working overtime already.“If it comes to it, we go with you and we kill Vincent.”Frank nodded his head. “And whoever else we need to.”“Yeah. You’re not going down for this shit, Kiran,” Carl said.“It’ll be fine. Vincent has to prove his claims and a truth seeker will know, so I doubt there’ll be a tribunal.”Carl smiled and slapped me on the bac
I raced down Lowell Canyon Drive with Malachi next to me and Carl in the backseat. I skidded around the corner and raced towards Robert’s house.“Whoa, slow down, Kiran!” Carl said from the back seat and I slowed as I got to Robert’s driveway and parked the Navigator in the street. We got out and Robert opened the door just as I wanted to open the door myself.“You brought Malachi and Carl?” He asked me and I shrugged.“Of course, the more the merrier,” Carl answered before I could say anything. He led us inside and to the two bodies in the living room.“Turn them over,” I said to Carl and he bent down next to the first one. He turned the first man over and I lifted his shirt. I instantly recognized his tattoo.“Zetas,” Malachi said as I lifted the second man’s shirt.“Robert, this was self-defense,” I said to him and he nodded as if I had asked. Robert didn’t have a mean hair on his head.“Tell me what happened,” I said as Malachi searched the first man and opened his wallet. Carl wa
We got the body parts loaded in the bags and we’d washed the floor, just in case. Frank and Carl had gone outside to make a fire to burn the carpet. We watched it burn in silence while Carl and Frank drank another three beers each. My phone beeped and I checked my messages. It was Robert. Robert: Thanks, I’m fine now. I put my phone away as Frank threw water on the fire.We all got into my car and drove towards the Bay when Carl grabbed me by the shoulders from behind. “How many bodies have you added to the Bay since Malachi’s wild days?” He asked me and I looked at him in the rear-view mirror.“Four, why?” I asked him. He was an odd character, a special kind of special, like Jessica would say.“Because you never asked where to go to dump them,” Frank answered and laughed. I smiled briefly and shook my head. I parked the Navigator and then reversed as close as I could. I opened the trunk with the remote and we started dumping the bags into the icy waters below. There was a storm bre
I took out my phone and made my second mistake for the day. I called Jessica, I was worried what Malachi might have done to her. The last time Malachi lost his mind hadn’t ended so well and I had to dump a body in the Bay. Her phone rang and rang but then she answered just as I was about to disconnect and drive to her house.“Hey, Superstar,” she answered and sounded like herself.“Are you okay?” I asked her, my voice sounding loud even to myself.“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” She answered. I turned around and Adara looked at me, I closed my eyes briefly as her anger flared up again and I could taste the bitterness as she went upstairs. I couldn’t worry about that now, but knowing that Jessica was unharmed calmed a bit.“Did you see Malachi this morning?” I asked her.“Sort of, what’s going on? I woke up and heard him downstairs, but when I got to the kitchen he just left and my kitchen was sort of ruined and when I asked him if he was okay he completely ignored me and walked out. I
Jessica closed her eyes as I showed her the photo. Somebody was deliberately trying to cause havoc in our lives. Kudos to them because it was working. My wife and my father both hated me and it was the one time that I was actually innocent.“Somehow we just have to get Malachi to listen. If he can just read both our minds, he’ll see that we’ve never slept together,” I said to Jessica and she bit her lower lip.“That’s not technically true,” she said to me and now I was confused.“What do you mean technically? Either we did or we didn’t, and we didn’t!” I said to her as I ran my hands over my face and sat back.“We did. It was right after you dumped Sarah, when we first became friends. You came over one night, already half drunk, we got really wasted and not just alcohol. We smoked something too and the next minute we were naked in my room and it was awful,” she said to me.I felt the world spinning around me and the force of her words slammed into me. Had I been that lost that I could
Malachi drove away from the den and glanced in his rearview mirror and looked at Kiran one last time before the road curved and he settled his eyes on the road in front of him. It was still early and he smiled as he thought about sliding into bed next to Jessica.Malachi parked his Navigator in the garage and closed the doors. The side door was open as usual and he briefly closed his eyes as he locked it behind him. Her scent beckoned to him as he took the stairs two at a time.He grinned as he undressed. Jessica was on her stomach, splayed out over the whole bed with his pillow tucked under one arm. He wasn’t a small man but even he didn’t take up half the space on a bed that Jessica did and she was small compared to him.“Jess,” he whispered as he slid in behind her.Her legs curled up and Malachi shifted her to her side of the bed and tucked himself around her. Her hand gripped his and he smiled as he closed his eyes. This was home. That thought had his eyes snap open and thinking
Malachi went for Kiran and in his mind he could still hear him laughing. Malachi was on top of him as they fell to the floor, hitting him wildly as Kiran brought his arms up to protect his face. He could still smell Jessica's scent on himself but in his mind it was Kiran that smelled like her.“Malachi!” Kiran’s scream didn’t penetrate.He could hear Kiran’s heart slow down as he choked the life out of him and suddenly he was on the floor holding his head and screaming in pain. Malachi registered Kiran’s coughing next to him as he tried to breath and then the pain was just gone.Malachi stood up from the floor and he couldn’t believe that he had just done that. It was like all the fight had left him in an instant. He stalked up the stairs as he blinked the tears away, tears of anger and regret at having almost killed his own son.Malachi washed the blood from his hands and face and threw clothes into a duffel bag. He couldn’t be in that house anymore as more memories flooded him, memo
I could feel my body shifting towards the darkness. I was exhausted and strangely enough, also hungry. I couldn’t eat though. Vincent’s blood filled my nostrils and I kept swallowing down my own bile.It was an odd cycle to be caught in. Never before had I experienced it like I did now. It was like something else had a hold of my soul, tearing, pulling, and pushing at the same time. Everything felt fuzzy.Bryan kept forcing me to drink water to keep myself hydrated. My mind felt alert but my body was threatening to give in. I was convinced it was the magic doing this to me. I could vaguely hear Death in the back of my mind and I groaned.Bryan kept me awake and talking for nine hours straight until we landed in Anchorage. I handed him my keys. I was in no condition to drive. I made it to the car and got in the passenger seat and struggled with the safety belt. I was sweating and shivering as Bryan drove out of the airport towards Seward.I felt my eyes close involuntarily and Bryan sh
Vincent was lying on the floor where Bryan aimed the dead man’s gun at his head. Bryan looked at me as my hands shook. Even when I had killed the other four men in Mauritius, I hadn’t come close to using the amount of magic that I had just used by burning her.“Are you okay?” he asked me and I nodded as I stood upright. I walked over to them and I pulled Vincent up by his shirt, his eyes were full of fear as he looked at me.“You tried to ruin my life,” I said to him as his eyes blinked rapidly.“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.“You will be,” I said to him as I pushed him down to the floor and ripped his shirt open.“Please don’t kill me!” he screamed.“Stǫðva.” Vincent stopped moving on the floor immediately. “Skera” I said and Bryan looked at me as my hand moved over his chest in a downward line to his navel, cutting the skin open.Vincent was screaming and bleeding profusely. I cut open his ribcage and took a hold of each side and pulled them apart.I stuck my hands inside the open wound
We stayed in the restaurant all through the lunch rush hour, talking about life and Bryan had only shook his head at me when I told him what I’d done with Adara. He told me to my face that I was an idiot and then laughed at me.“I should confess something to you, Kiran,” Bryan said as he looked at me.“What?” I asked him because the look on his face was serious.“I sent Norah to you, for protection.” he looked at me, uncertainty in his eyes.“A human for protection?” I laughed at him as he frowned at me.“Norah’s my sister,” he said and I coughed as I choked on the beer I had just swallowed from.“How did she get through my circle?” I asked him.“I thought you knew,” Bryan said to me.“Knew what?” I asked him.“The circle broke the night you died. When you enter any part of Helheim, you die and Death decides if you come back or not. It depends on the strength of your character, the purity and the desire to live,” Bryan said to me.“I didn’t know that I had died, so every time I use th
I kept my phone turned off and if James or Malachi phoned me, they would think Adara and I were still busy sorting through our problems. I doubted that they would call, they wanted us to work our problems out too much.“Good morning,” a young girl greeted me as I walked into the dining room and I sat down at a table. “Good morning,” I said and ordered breakfast and coffee. It was going to be a long day and I had no idea what was waiting for me. I ate breakfast and I asked for a large orange juice I could take with me.“I hope you’re here on holiday,” Bryan said as he sat down in the chair at the other end of the table.“Bryan. Why am I not even surprised?” I said as I smiled at him and we shook hands. The waitress brought two more coffees to the table as I glanced at Bryan who had to have ordered them.“How did you find me?” I asked him.“Our amulets are still linked and you brought your cloak,” he said with a smile.“Like I told you, I never leave home without it.” He chuckled as I
I put the papers back in the envelope and put them in the bottom drawer of my desk. I stood up and walked out to the kitchen where Adara stood in front of the kettle. She was just standing there and I wanted to wrap myself around her.“You should hire Norah,” I said to her and she nodded. “To live in, so that you’re not alone with them at night.” I couldn’t give her a better explanation than that. She turned around and looked at me.“Where are you going?” she asked me. She had been crying again, lately it seemed to be all she was doing. I was the cause of all her pain, all her inner turmoil and I needed to stop hurting her.“To the hotel,” I said and went upstairs. I was busy packing when she stood at the door but didn’t come in.“She looked like Sarah, didn’t she?” she asked me and I looked at her. “Madison.”“Yes,” I said and continued packing. When she’d walked into that drawing room, time had stood still and it felt like I’d been dreaming. Even her voice had sounded like Sarah’s v
“Hi, please sit down,” I said as I walked to where Adara sat on the couch and sat down next to her.“This is Madison and this is my husband, Kiran,” Adara introduced us. The girl was shy and barely looked at me, younger than us and she had probably just finished school.“Please tell us more about yourself,” Adara said to her. She wasn’t friendly but not rude either, just sort of neutral.“I’m busy doing my degree in child psychology and I really love children. I think children should learn as they play, different types of stimulation for different age brackets are very important. They should know they’re special and loved…” She continued talking but I wasn’t listening anymore.Her aura was very peculiar, this girl was shy but not by nature, she seemed confident enough when talking about what she wanted from life and her eyes lit up when she talked about children, all good aspects but something else was there, something painful. She seemed to be more on the docile side and it made me c
I parked my car in the garage and with a sigh headed inside the house. Adara planned to hold the interviews in the drawing room that she’d redecorated. It felt almost like a lifetime ago but I could still smell James and Shoran’s blood in that room.It held so many memories and even with the new flooring, furniture and bureaus in there, I couldn’t seem not to remember what had happened in there. I’d never forget that image of them both, covered in blood, lying on the floor.I walked into the room and Adara looked up briefly. Vases with fresh flowers now adorned side tables and I could see that she’d put effort into the room. Despite the room’s history, it looked inviting.“I didn’t think you would come,” she said to me.“Well, here I am,” I said and then I regretted it. It sounded very uncaring.She only nodded and walked back to the kitchen and I heard the doorbell. The first woman was here. I turned my emotions back on so I could really get a feel for these women that would look aft
James didn’t blink and I sighed. I took a deep breath because he was going to have some choice words for me after I told him everything.“Okay. It’s just a matter of time before Vincent makes his move. He messed up everything I had built up with her in one message, then had me arrested, then that bogus tribunal where we all almost died. If she’s not in my life, he won’t focus on her and he won’t hurt her,” I said to James.“I get where you’re coming from, but did you tell her that so that she at least knows it’s not her that you hate, because she thinks you despise her.”I shook my head. “I don’t despise her.”“She tried to give it time, kept doing everything for you, being there, hoping you’d see the light and forgive her,” James said.“She’s stopped doing anything for me,” I said and he smiled again.“Yeah, that one’s on me. I told her to stop being nice to you because you’re being an asshole and now you tell me that you’re not even mad at her? How are you going to make it right wit
Two weeks went by and Adara contacted references on the applicants’ resumes and made notes as she spoke to former employers. She threw out more than she kept and we were left with three. She’d done it all on her own, never once asking for my help or opinion.“Do you want to be here when I interview the nannies?” Adara asked me one morning as I came downstairs, ready to go to work. It was the first time in nine days that she’d spoken to me. I had just gotten used to her silence.“I said you could choose the nanny,” I said to her as I took my keys from the bowl. I could taste her disappointment in the air around me and I turned to look at her.“Oh wow, if that’s how interested you are…” she said and broke off mid-sentence.“Adara, do you want me to be here or not?” I asked her. I wanted her to need me, just once.“Whatever, the interviews start at three, be here, don’t be here, you’ll do whatever you want anyway,” she said and walked away from me. She didn’t seem to miss me at all and I