Alex stood outside in a black wool coat and muffler, hands under his arms and his shoulders hunched against the whip of wind, snow and ice. He was a quiet, unassuming-looking man in his early sixties, with receding gray hair. Usually he was meticulously groomed, but now he looked haggard and so miserable, she found herself unlocking and opening the door.
She said, “Alex, what on earth are you doing here?”
He gave her a sad look as he said, “I didn’t wake you, did I? I have been fretting about you all night. I finally had to come see if you were all right.”
“For heaven’s sake, come in.” She stepped back and opened the door wide.
Alex ducked his head and stepped forward. The wind blasted down the steps and into the opening. It brought with it a whip of snow and outside scent—
—and a faint chemical taint…but no scent at all from Alex.
All her thoughts flatlined as she stumbled back. Stupidly, she tried to close the door again.
And Alex’s step turned into a lunge as he brought his gloved hands out from underneath his arms. A glint of light came off a long, thin knife he gripped in one hand, while he slammed the door wide open with the other.
“Oh gods,” she said.
Alex’s sad gaze had turned bright with a fanatical light. He said, “Yes, Alice, oh gods. And Abraham said to the Lord, ‘Behold, here I am.’ It is the most holy sacrifice to give the gods those you love. And the Lord said, ‘In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven’…”
She flung out a hand, grabbed hold of something, screamed, “You crazy murdering bastard!”
Nearby, there was a smash of splintering wood.
Alex had brought his knife hand back for a killing blow. “Only show me your will, gods, as I give to you another one of my own…”
She flung what she had grabbed at him. It was a small potted plant. The pot hit Alex in the chest with a spray of dirt. He flinched and grabbed for her throat. The knife arched—
A silent behemoth hit Alex with a body slam that sent the smaller man crashing to the ground. At the same time, Alice was knocked back with a flattened hand shoved into her chest. She lost her balance, fell and scuttled away from the doorway with her head ducked.
Everything went still. She dared to look behind her.
Alex lay on his back. His throat was torn out, his knife hand crushed beyond recognition.
The monster from Haley’s apartment crouched over the body. The planes and angles of his face and body were all wrong. There was one difference: this time he was quite nude and dripping wet.
He bared his teeth, icy gaze alight with incredulous fury. “You opened your front door to him?”
Alice threw up her hands and cried, “He was my boss!”
Her cry turned into a sob, and suddenly the monster became Gideon again. He dove forward, grabbed her and clenched her to his chest. She buried her face in his hot, wet skin. He was breathing hard, a fine tremor rippling through his muscles.
Gideon said grimly, “Well, he’s not anymore.”
The time came around again for the annual Festival of the Masque, where all creatures, Elder Races or gods, pay homage to the dance that drives and sustains the universe. Planets swirl around their suns, galaxies spin in space. Even tiny atoms joined in the movement.
Every winter solstice, Cuelebre Tower put on one of the most lavish spectacles in the world, complete with a horde of paparazzi and a red carpet. Celebrities and dignitaries from humankind and all the Elder Races attended. A crowd of two thousand attendees wore extraordinary, designer jeweled costumes and masks that glittered with onyx and diamonds. Cuelebre’s public hall was decorated with great swathes of ivory and gold cloth, towering ice sculptures, and champagne flowed like water.
A traditional Masque officially began with a procession of the gods and ended with everyone unmasking at midnight, although most of the parties continued till dawn. Most gatherings had volunteers dress up to play the part of the gods. Usually at the school fundraiser, the gods were played by the school trustees. Here, she had no doubt that the procession of the gods would be an elaborate affair played by professional actors.
Alice stared at everything and everyone with wide eyes. Now and then, she caught glimpses across the hall of Dragos Cuelebre, Lord of the Wyr, and his beautiful new mate. In that striking way that mated Wyr had, they moved in sync together, always aware of where the other one was. Alice and Gideon would develop the same ability over time.
At first Alice had been reluctant to come to the Tower Masque. Along with the rest of her community, she was grieving for her friends who had died the week before, and still in shock from discovering Alex Schaffer had been responsible for the murder of ten chameleons. In light of recent events, Broadway Elementary had canceled its annual fundraiser as the school trustees struggled to regroup and look for new leadership.
But Gideon had gotten two tickets to the Tower Masque at a time when no one could beg, borrow or steal them. He had coaxed, and she had capitulated, and now she was glad she had come just to witness the sheer spectacle of the event. They had made a pact to stay until the unmasking at midnight. It was their first official date.
After catching a glimpse of all the extravagant finery in the hall, she felt self-conscious, having worn a simple black sheath dress, high-heeled, peep-toed black patent leather pumps, and a plain black satin half-mask. She had bought contact lenses just for the occasion.
She tugged at her slim skirt. She hoped she didn’t look too plain. As if he had read her mind, Gideon bent his head to say in her ear, “You are the most elegant and stunning woman present.”
She turned to give him a startled grin. His icy pale gaze met and held hers with a private smile. Clad in a sleek black tux and a plain black half-mask that matched hers, he was so lethally sexy she could hardly believe he was hers. “I just hope I’m doing my handsome escort justice.”
Her escort, her mate. The wonder of it stilled her breath.
He tugged at one of her corkscrew curls and released it, watching as it sprang back into place. He never seemed to tire of doing that. She didn’t have the heart to tell him how much it irritated her. He whispered, “I couldn’t be more proud to be your mate.”
The crowd fell away, and it was just the two of them. She reached up to touch the corner of his straight, sexy mouth, and whispered back, “Me, too.”
Then suddenly they were no longer alone. A brawny, tanned giant of a male had joined them. It was Gideon’s boss, Bayne. As Alice turned with Gideon to face the newcomer, she drew in a deep breath to brace herself against the impact of his presence. Like all immortal Wyr, Bayne radiated a ferocious energy. He hadn’t bothered with a mask, had already removed his tie, and his dress shirt was open at the throat.
Bayne said to Gideon, “The hell’s the matter with you, son? Go grab your mate a glass of champagne and some of those fancy-ass hors d’oeuvres before they’re all gone. “
Gideon met her gaze. He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“My pleasure, sweetheart.”
He turned to Bayne, who said, “You better hurry. The procession is about to start. I’ll stay with her while you’re gone.”
They both watched Gideon wind his way through the crowd toward the refreshments. Then Bayne turned to her. “Good to see you, Alice. I’m glad you two decided to use the tickets. How are you doing?”
Bayne had given the tickets to Gideon? “It was a lovely gift,” she said. “I’m doing much better, thanks.”
To say she had not been at her best when she first met the gryphon was putting it mildly. She had held it together when she had really looked at Alex, the knife lying on the floor beside his sprawled form. After holding her so tightly he left bruises, Gideon had covered Alex’s face and shoulders with his bath towel, gone to dress and made phone calls. Alice had taken a seat at one end of her couch and remained calm and still when Bayne
had arrived shortly after, questioned them both, and supervised the removal of the body. Then she had taken one look at the deep red pool of blood that had soaked into the carpet by her front door and slid into a complete meltdown.
Gideon had snatched her up and carried her out of the room, his face tight. She wasn’t sure who was responsible, but despite the blizzard and it being a Saturday before a major holiday, she’d had new carpet installed within the hour.
Now her cheeks darkened at the memory. She said to the sentinel towering beside her, “I’m sorry about how we first met.”
“I am, too,” Bayne said. He glanced down at her, regret in his rugged features. “I wish we had been able to catch the fucker before he got to you.”
She sent him a sidelong glance. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
The gryphon stood at ease. As he rested his hands on his hips, his jacket parted to reveal a glimpse of his two gun holsters. In the last week, with Gideon moving in, and his friends from both the WDVC and the army dropping by with the casual air of those hoping to be fed, Alice was growing used to the sight of large muscular people wandering around armed. She and Gideon had also bought a larger fridge and a larger dish set.
“I know what you meant,” said Bayne. “You found your friend murdered, discovered your mate and caught a killer, all in less than eighteen hours. To top it all off, the killer was someone you knew and had trusted for years. You think you weren’t entitled to throw a little bit of a fit?”
She chuckled. “Well, when you put it like that.” Then she sobered. “I keep trying to make sense of what Alex was saying at the end, and I can’t. I think he was quoting the Bible, of all things.”
“Don’t waste your energy on trying to make sense of it,” said Bayne. “If you’ll excuse my language, the dude was effing nuts. You wouldn’t believe what we found in the basement of his townhouse. He had made plans to start up the True Colors support group before he ever took that first trip down to Jacksonville seven years ago. He had books and scribblings from all the major religions, and prayers painted on the walls and ceilings. He’d added up and subtracted all kinds of numbers that told him the pope was the fricking antichrist. He had this whole messianic delusion going on, about repopulating the Earth with chameleon Wyr after he had sacrificed what he most loved to the gods—his people. He planned to keep on killing until he had gotten some kind of divine sign. I’m telling you—Whack. O.”
They had found more than books and scribbling in the basement. Stewart, his mother Leigh, and Jim Welch had been found bound and gagged, but alive. Alex’s guards had been looking to keep a killer out of his house, not to keep Alex inside. He had given them the slip by going out his back gate when he had come after Alice. If he had not been quite so obsessed with form and ritual, Stewie and his family wouldn’t have survived. As it was, he had told them once he had sacrificed Alice, he would be able to kill the rest of them over the next several days. Leigh told Alice, in a phone call several days later, that Alex had seemed astonished at their distress. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t aware of the honor he was bestowing upon them.
“It’s all so hard to believe,” Alice whispered. She shuddered and rubbed her bare arms. Alex had always been a little tight-assed, a little too buttoned up, but no one had ever conceived of him as being anything other than normal.
“Well, hell,” said the gryphon. He regarded her with chagrin. “Gideon’s gonna shoot me. This was supposed to be your night out for fun, and here I’ve got you looking like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s all right,” she told him. “Talking it through is much better than trying to ignore it. It’s just going to take a while to process.”
She spotted Gideon’s light blond head over the crowd. He was working his way back to them. The joy she felt as she watched him approach was almost too much for her body to contain.
Bayne had also turned and caught sight of Gideon. The gryphon told her in a quiet voice, “We all think very highly of him. He’s one of the finest men I know.”
Her eyes fixed on her mate, Alice said, “He’s one of the finest men I know, too.”
At last Gideon reached them. He presented her with a plate piled high with delicacies and petit fours. In his other hand he cradled two glasses of champagne. “Sorry,” he said to Bayne as Alice took one of the glasses from him. “I didn’t think I could juggle three glasses without dropping something.”
“S’all right,” said Bayne. “Champagne’s not my drink.”
Gideon gave Alice a swift kiss. “What were you two talking about while I was gone?”
She and the gryphon looked at each other. “Mating,” she said. “And how fast it can hit.”
“I blame it on the air,” said Gideon. He winked at her. “There’s an awful lot of Wyr mating pheromones floating around these days.”
“Well, you both look very happy, so good on you,” said Bayne, with a hearty clap to Gideon’s shoulders that threatened the plate of food. “As for me, I just might start wearing a gas mask.”
At that moment, the crowd parted and the procession of the gods started. They were led by the god Taliesin who was portrayed this year by a slender male. Taliesin was followed in short order by the other gods, each sumptuously costumed, and the crowd in the hall swept into a low bow as they passed.
Alice couldn’t help but shiver as Azrael, the god of death, drew near. Old legends told that a god attended every Masque. If there were ever a time when death might appear, she thought, it would be at this Masque.
The elegant, glittering figure passed by. She sucked in a breath and called herself silly. The last in the procession was the goddess of love, Inanna. The tall, striking woman moved with regal sinuousness, a wild mane of waist-length blonde hair flowing back from a feline mask. Her gown had seven embroidered lions pulling seven chariots. As Inanna drew level, the goddess turned to look at them, almost as if she had heard Bayne speak. Alice thought she caught a glimpse of something vast and amused gazing at the gryphon out of the mask’s eyeholes. Alice shook her head sharply, and the strange vision passed.
Then the orchestra struck the first notes, all the participants took their places, and the dance began.
About the Author
Thea Harrison resides in northern California. She wrote her first book, a romance, when she was nineteen and had sixteen romances published under the name Amanda Carpenter.
She took a break from writing to collect a couple of graduate degrees and a grown child. Her graduate degrees are in Philanthropic Studies and Library Information Science, but her first love has always been writing fiction. She's back with her paranormal Elder Races series. You can check out her website at: www.theaharrison.com, and also follow her on Twitter @TheaHarrison and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheaHarrison.
Look for these titles by Thea Harrison
Now Available:
Elder Races
Dragon Bound
Storm’s Heart
Serpent’s Kiss
Coming Soon:
Oracle’s Moon
He can be a slave to his past…or allow her love to free him.
Evermine
© 2012 Hailey Edwards
Daughters of Askara, Book 2
There’s such a thing as too much change. Emma’s sister is mated. Revolution is brewing in her home realm. The last straw: her would-be mate is back from the dead and back under her skin—yet when it comes to the last five years, he’s not talking.
Desperate for a chance to start her own life, she answers the queen’s call to ensure equality for all of Askara’s newly freed slaves. It’s the perfect opportunity to escape a heartbreak in the making named Harper.
Harper loses a piece of his fractured soul when Emma walks away. His lies were meant to protect her from torturous years that drove him to the point of madness. Instead, when he comes to her a year later to help avert a crisis in a freed-slave community, the wedge those lies drove between them is firmly in place.
&n
bsp; As their new lives collide with old wounds, they race to stop a threat that could not only destroy the queen, but send Harper back to the hell he escaped. Emma must decide if the man she still loves deserves equal rights to her heart.
Warning this title contains torn pants, ripped gowns, and sand in uncomfortable places. It also includes one overcompensating villain, one gnarly priest, and two battered hearts willing to give this thing called love one last chance.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Evermine:
Harper walked a circuit of the guest bedroom. Night sounds poured through the open window, carried on an arid breeze. He paused when the curtains rustled and the soap-clean scent of Emma teased him to lift the fabric, inhale her fragrance and wish for things best forgotten.
Dillon lay on a cot, staring at the ceiling. “You’ll wear tracks in the floor.”
“I have a lot on my mind.” He stepped away from temptation.
“I don’t supposed this ‘a lot’ has blonde curls and a temper?” He sat upright. “She could have at least been born with red hair.” He scowled. “A warning label would be appreciated.”
“She wasn’t feeling well.” The excuse came easy. It was one he’d made often after finding out about Emma’s caffeine addiction the hard way. Seeing her doubled over and gagging on her bedroom floor brought his first night in the earthen colony rushing back in perfect detail.
His bittersweet homecoming had served as a wakeup call when he snuck from Clayton and Maddie’s guestroom to find Emma and made a chilling discovery. He’d found her, all right, crawling on her hands and knees on the floor of her diner. Shattered coffeepots had driven glass into her palms. Mud-brown sludge had smeared her mouth, her chin. Her eyes had gone glassy.
He’d seen enough courtesans crazed with their drug of choice not to recognize her symptoms. She’d purged her stomach across his lap, then curled up against his chest and slept as if she hadn’t closed her eyes in all the time he’d been gone. Other memories drifted into his conscience, but he choked them, stuffed them back into the hellish box where they belonged.