From the Ashes (Force of Nature #1) Read online

  “He is.”

  “What? Where?” I blurted out, looking around the various vehicles for this loose cannon brother-in-arms of theirs.

  “Right on cue,” Dean said under his breath, looking back at the mansion. I turned to follow his gaze. What I found approaching was a veritable wall of brooding darkness. Clad in all black, he stalked toward us like a midnight assassin. Merc was easily as tall as the boys and equally built, but he had an edge that they lacked. An arrogance that permeated the air around him. His black, shaggy hair was partially pulled back, letting the moonlight highlight the sharp angles of his face. I expected his eyes to be almost as dark as his hair, but as he grew nearer, I saw that they had a surprising hue. Pale gray-blue eyes fell on me, staring me down as though I were an alien—a being like nothing he'd ever seen before.

  “Merc,” Jase said, edging himself strategically between the new guy and me. “This is Piper, the one we mentioned earlier. She's coming with us tonight.”

  Merc continued to stare silently at me before walking past us toward the SUV. He opened the passenger door and got in, leaving the boys and me standing in his wake. I looked up at the brothers incredulously, trying to give them my very best “what the fuck?” face.

  “You didn't tell her?” Dean asked his brother, mimicking the expression I wore.

  “I thought you did!”

  “Well, I didn't.”

  “Tell me what?” I asked, not wanting to bear witness to one of their epic verbal battles. Those things had been known to drag on for hours.

  “So, there's one other little catch with Merc,” Jase started, ushering me toward the vehicle. “Like I alluded to before, he's not really a talker.”

  Dean scoffed.

  “Like he's quiet?” I asked.

  “No. Like he never talks. Ever,” Dean clarified.

  “You've got to be kidding me...”

  “Sorry, P. Wish I was.”

  “Well, I guess it's a good thing you hadn't planned on leaving us alone then,” I mumbled to myself.

  The boys grinned simultaneously before replying in unison.

  “This should be a fun night for sure.”

  * * *

  I'd never been so happy to escape a confined space in all my life. Jase and Dean did their best to make the ride to the club tolerable, but their efforts were in vain. The second we were parked, I bolted from the SUV toward the line stretched around the outside of the three-story red brick building. We had an easy time getting in, which meant that Jase really had smoothed things over with the owners. The vamps were a bit like the mob. They practically ran parts of NYC (the non-supernatural parts). And because of that, we had ins at nearly every place worth going to in the city.

  Bruno, the bouncer working the door, patted me down, being extremely careful not to linger too long near any of my valued areas. He had done that once. After that night, his fingers had never quite looked right, remnants of the anatomically impossible angles they'd been bent into still present.

  Dean was a little sensitive when it came to me and my virtue.

  Once we entered the main room of the club, the boys made their way back to their usual spot in the VIP section above while I hit the ladies room. I needed a break from Merc's intense glare. Since the place was run by the vamps, I didn't have to worry about any unfriendly supernaturals showing up there. It was a safe haven of sorts for me. Even though I bitched about the boys and their all-night partying, I secretly did love going there.

  The line to the ladies room ran the length of the hall, but I eventually got to use it before I peed my pants. I then made a pit stop at the bar to talk to Kat, the werewolf who bartended there a couple nights a week. Even after “marrying” one of the enforcers, she insisted on maintaining an air of normalcy, as well as income of her own. The sad reality of which she was all too aware was, in the event that her mate, Jensen, was killed, the vampires would kick her out of the mansion to find a pack to take up with. Most supernaturals tolerated mixing, but it wasn't their favorite practice, especially in the vampire community. Kat was by far and away an exception to the rule, but it wasn't hard to see why. She was five-foot-eleven and built like a swimsuit model with the looks to match. Her clear blue eyes were almost too large for her face, but the almond shape of them gave her a mysterious beauty that boys of any species had a hard time ignoring. Hell, I’d checked her out when I’d first met her. Nobody should be that good-looking.

  Nobody.

  “The usual?” she asked, leaning over the bar so that her breasts rested on top of it. The guy next to me was mesmerized.

  “Please,” I replied and watched as she fixed me a vodka cran the size of Texas. I saw no point in ordering drinks all night long. I preferred to get mine Big Gulp size so I wouldn't have to make a return trip.

  She plopped it down on the bar in front of me and waved me off when I reached for my wallet.

  “You know your money is no good here,” she said with a smile before her eyes lifted toward the VIP section. “You keeping the boys company tonight?”

  “Ugh...you know it isn't like that, Kat,” I sighed. She'd always hoped I would hook up with one or the other. She adored Jase and Dean, though she would never directly admit it when asked. “Besides, I think they have their hands full enough.”

  Before she could interrogate me about my remark, some rowdy guys at the other end of the bar started to razz her about slow service. She rolled her eyes at me, then turned to give them a wink. As soon as they laid eyes on her, their expressions lightened. Werewolves really did have an animal appeal that couldn't be ignored. Or maybe it was Kat's amazing boobs. It was hard to tell.

  “I'll catch you later, Piper,” she called over her shoulder, running her hand through her short auburn hair as she made her way over to take their order.

  With drink in hand, I wove my way up to the VIP section, a growing sense of dread accompanying me. By the time I made it to the table, I was ready to place it down and retreat to the dance floor immediately. The boys, however, had other plans for me.

  “No you don't,” Jase said, grabbing my arm when he figured out my plan to escape. “You're hanging out tonight. No more of this drink and ditch bullshit. You've been playing that game for the last two weeks.”

  “Yeah,” Dean chimed in. “I'm starting to think you don't like us.”

  “Fine,” I declared in surrender before flopping down into the empty seat at the table. “I've had a lot on my mind for the past couple weeks. You know music is how I escape. How I deal. Dancing is my vice.”

  “What's been going on?” Jase asked, leaning forward onto his elbows. “You haven't mentioned anything. Is it the warlocks? Do we need to crack some skulls?”

  I considered his offer for a moment, then thought better of it. Though the boys knew I had an extensive and occasionally violent past with the warlocks—more specifically a small faction of them—I never did tell them, or anyone else for that matter, how things came to be so bad between those warlocks and me. I usually did all I could to block those memories from my mind.

  I had been young and impressionable and desperate for supernatural guidance, a link to the world I belonged to, yet wasn't a part of. I found that link, if only for a while, in a warlock named Kingston. He took an interest in me when nobody else bothered. He cared about me and tried to be my mentor. But when I proved unable to deliver magically, he turned on me. And his buddies followed suit.

  For those eight years on my own, I’d done all I could to evade them, succeeding for the most part—narrowly escaping them for the rest. With every encounter, Kingston's rage grew, his hatred of me poisoning his mind. Kingston abhorred the weak.

  And weak I was.

  Knowing that the brothers would do anything to keep me safe—especially bend the rules until they broke—I did what I could to keep them from knowing all that went on with me when they weren't around. They didn't need to know that my warlock situation had recently escalated. At least not yet. If the boys intentionally
went after them, it would only cause trouble for all of us.

  It wasn't yet time to raise that alarm.

  “Nothing like that,” I sighed, looking annoyed by his over-protectiveness, even though I thought it was endearing. “It's just more of the same old. It wears on me after a while.”

  “Define 'same old'.”

  “It's nothing crazy, Jase. It just seems like New York isn't big enough to avoid those that I want to avoid, that's all,” I explained with a sigh. “Things have been so much easier for me since I moved in with you guys, but that doesn't mean that the past has changed. I may be much more tolerated than I was before, but I'm far from accepted.”

  “Then why go out during the day by yourself?” Dean asked, mimicking his brother's posture.

  “My options are kinda limited. Kat's about the only one who can venture out into the sun with me, and she's usually spent after her nights working here. What am I supposed to do? Stay inside all the time? Hole up like a daytime recluse? No,” I said shaking my head. “I'm not going to do that. I need the sunshine, the blue sky...normal things like that.”

  “Piper,” Jase started, his tone taking on its big brother affectation. “Things between the different supernaturals are not so stellar right now. There are...tensions brewing.”

  “What he means to say is that shit's about to hit the fan because everyone is so twitchy. It won't take much, and knowing how some of them get around you—”

  “You mean the warlocks,” I specified.

  “Yeah. Them,” he replied with a sour expression. “We just don't need to give anyone a reason to drop the first bomb, you feel me?”

  “Um, not really, but...”

  “The different races are just looking for a reason to go at it. I don't want you to be the reason.”

  “Oh.”

  Merc, who I'd nearly forgotten was there, leaned forward out of the shadows and looked at Jase.

  “Long story,” the older of the two brothers replied to a question that hadn't been asked. I looked on while Merc and Jase stared at each other, trying to flesh out what the change in Jase's expression meant. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought they were having a telepathic conversation. “Ha!” Jase laughed, finally breaking his silence, “that's an even longer story.”

  “Don't go down that road, bro. Trust me. It won't get you anywhere,” Dean chimed in, confusing me even further.

  “What are you two talking about?” I asked, trying to make sense of what was going on.

  Jase and Dean both smiled.

  “Just having a little informative chat with Merc.”

  “But he doesn't talk,” I whisper-shouted, leaning in toward Jase. My eyes darted to my left to find Merc staring at me, his dark, veiled expression unchanged. I wondered if it ever did.

  The boys' smiles widened.

  “Not in the way you do,” Jase said unhelpfully.

  “With us, he's never needed to,” Dean added.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that he speaks directly to our minds.”

  Holy shit. Suddenly my telepathy theory was back on the table.

  “So he was talking to you? Just now?”

  “Yes,” they replied in unison. It always freaked me out when they did that.

  “Can he talk?” I asked, wondering if he was truly mute or just chose to be because it suited his creepy, mysterious vibe.

  “He could once, but I haven't heard him utter a word aloud in...shit. I don't even know how long.”

  “It's got to have been, what? Eighty years or more now?” Dean said, looking to Merc for confirmation.

  In a rare act of acknowledgment, Merc nodded.

  I stared in disbelief, not because they were at least 80 years old and looked 30. I stared because I couldn't imagine going eight decades without communicating verbally. No wonder he was crazy. I'd have been nuts too, if that was the case.

  “Why you two?” I finally asked, wondering what made them so special. Why he could talk to them, hang out with them, and seemed to tolerate them when he allegedly tolerated no one.

  “Because he's our brother,” Dean said, looking utterly confused. “We didn't tell you that either?”

  “What did you two actually tell me, since everything worth mentioning seems to just now be coming out?”

  Dean's eyes shot to Merc suddenly.

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “What did he just say?” I asked, wondering if that was how the night would play out; they would have their little conversations and I would be left demanding explanations for the bizarre and random responses they gave.

  “He asked if you were always like this.”

  “Like what?”

  Dean hesitated.

  “So uptight.”

  “I'm uptight? The guy that doesn't fucking talk for almost a century thinks I'm uptight?” I exclaimed before slamming the better part of my drink. “I've officially entered the twilight zone. If you need me, I'll be on the dance floor trying to sort all of this out.” I got up abruptly and walked away to the sound of Jase and Dean calling after me. Merc didn't say a thing, not that that was surprising. I probably would have fallen over if he had. How did those two manage to not once mention this strange brother of theirs to me? Dean couldn't keep a secret to save his life. Jase, though better than his younger brother, must have had a hard time sitting on that little detail—or not so little detail, as the case seemed to be.

  Either way, the cat was out of the bag, and it left my mind reeling. Why had he been gone? Why was he so dangerous? And why was he selectively mute? The last thing I needed were more questions in my life. I had plenty of my own, thank you very much.

  Thankfully, the pounding bass line reverberating all around me offered reprieve from the barrage of questions that ran through my mind. Instead, I let the rhythm take over, carrying me deep into the crowd of humans. It was easy to lose myself in there, to go unnoticed. It was a welcome feeling. While I danced until beads of sweat started to gather at my hairline, the boys hung out in their lush VIP section, drinking, canoodling with the high-priced ladies of the night that frequented the place, and, from what I could tell, trying to coax Merc into joining in their fun. Not surprisingly, he wasn't having any of it.

  After an hour of dancing, my body demanded liquids of some kind, so I made my way through the crowd (with a lot of difficulty) to find Kat at the bar.

  “Having fun, I see,” she said with a wink, handing me a bottle of water.

  “It's better than the alternative,” I replied after taking a huge drink.

  “Which would be not having fun?”

  “Ha! No. Well, actually yes, but maybe only kind of. Jase and Dean brought someone with them tonight. He's not very entertaining, so I've decided to do my own thing.”

  “He?” she asked with mischievous look in her eyes.

  “Oh my God, no! Not like that. Holy crap, Kat. You know the boys don't swing that way. And besides that, ew! He's their brother.”

  Her expression fell just as quickly as the color drained from her face.

  “Merc is back?”

  “So it seems.”

  Her hand darted out, catching my arm as it brought the bottle to my mouth. I got doused with water in the process, my white tank now translucent.

  “Stay away from him, Piper. I mean it.”

  “Well, that's a bit challenging since I came here with him and the—”

  “I am not bullshitting about this, Piper. I really mean it.” Her eyes pierced mine with a desperate intensity that I couldn't overlook. She looked more than concerned. She looked scared. “If even a fraction of what I've heard about him is true, he's no joke, girl. There's a reason he's been gone.”

  “Which is?” I probed, hoping for some answers about the newcomer.

  “No clue. All I know is it can't be good, and I don't want you around that.”

  “The boys already warned me about him; that I'm not to be alone with him.”

 
; “Ever!”

  “No objections here. He's super creepy,” I added. I conveniently left out the 'hot' part of my analysis, thinking it wouldn't do much for Kat's blood pressure. “I think this avoidance plan might prove problematic given that he and I both will be living in the mansion.”

  “I don't care. Find a way to do it. Live in my room if you need to. Whatever, just promise me you'll stay away from him after tonight.”

  “Okay. I promise. But you're going to have to explain to Jensen why I'm sleeping on the floor of your room. And you're also going to have to explain to the boys why I can't hang out with them anymore.”

  “Deal,” she said with a hesitant smile. “Need anything else?” She jerked her head back toward the wall of alcohol behind her.

  “Good thinking,” I replied, eyeing the backlit bottles. “Make me something strong. Really, really strong.”

  “You're going to need it.” I watched her walk over and start pulling various liquors down from the shelves. I stopped counting after the fifth one. It seemed Kat was about to make good on her word.

  2

  Thirty minutes later, things were looking up.

  I had rejoined the boys in VIP with my new favorite beverage, and I proceeded to drink it as quickly as possible. Given that I'd all but chugged the previous one, I was well on my way to drunk as it was. I wasn't much of a partier, so I had lightweight drinking status at best. My size didn't exactly work in my favor either. After Kat's concoction was done, I was lit up like a Christmas tree.

  The women that had amassed in my absence cleared out not long after my return, putting an end to any potential shenanigans for the boys. Dean pouted. Jase looked concerned. And Merc just brooded in the corner like nothing had changed.

  “So now what are we going to do?” I asked, leaning back in my chair to prop my feet up on the table. “Looks like none of ya will be getting laid, I know that much.” I laughed heartily at what I'd thought was a joke. When nobody joined in, I sat up a bit straighter. “What? Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “You're wasted,” Jase observed.