Approaching Storm Read online

  "I see Maverick finally got the nerve up to ask you out." She grabbed two menus. "Right this way you two."

  She led us to a booth and laid the menus down. "What would you like for drinks?"

  "Just a water please." I opened the menu out of habit. I'd eaten here often enough that I knew what I would order, but I wanted something to do with my hands. There was still that feeling in me that something was wrong.

  "Pepsi please." Maverick didn't pick up his menu. He was probably just as familiar with it as I was

  I peeked over my menu at him, and he folded his hands on the table, just watching me. That didn't help my nerves. I cleared my throat. "So um…how was your day?"

  "Quiet, sounds like you guys had all the excitement with the wind storm. Nothing touched my house." He laughed. "Or the office for that matter. Seems like it was isolated to Main Street."

  Yeah, probably because it was supernatural. "Strange, isn't it? The weather around here?" I put the menu down in time for Tammy to come up with our drinks.

  She sat them down. "What can I get for you?"

  "House steak and a loaded baked potato please." I handed her the menu.

  "Steak and a salad please." He handed her the menu as well and then looked back at me. "Ms. Corvidae, the town has been so different since you were found here." He rung his hands for a moment. "You're the big mystery of the town, and yet it feels like you've been here all along. You're the only person I can connect with here."

  I swallowed. "I feel like I belong here, which is why I never tried to leave after I healed."

  "Davina said you were in bad shape when she found you. She left you to Lee's and Teal's capable hands. Where those two learned medical training, I don't know. But I remember the first day I came to see you. I instantly knew you were different from the others."

  Seeing as he had no idea the others were paranormal creatures, I wasn't sure how I felt about that statement.

  "Ms. Corvidae. I love you."

  Well, I damn knew how I felt about that one. Panic. "Wow, Maverick, I'm flattered."

  "I know we haven't really gotten to know each other, so I don't expect you to return the feelings right now, but I'm hoping we can date and you'll let me woo you."

  I smiled because I don't know when the last time I'd heard sweet words. Zephyr flashed in my mind, and the panic returned. That wasn't true. I felt like I was taken to a whole other world, the restaurant around me disappeared, replaced by a clearing in the forest.

  The smell of pine and rain filled my senses, and Zephyr was standing in front of me. He held his hand out to me, that sorrow in his eyes. "I love you, Amaya. I'd do anything to protect you."

  Shouts sounded from behind us.

  "You have to run. I'll come find you." He pulled me close, crushing his lips to mine in desperation. "You are the only one meant for me. You fill my immortal soul with a happiness I never thought I'd find."

  The forest disappeared and the yells faded. I tried to find my breath as I looked at Maverick. His mouth was moving, but I didn't hear the words. "I'm sorry what?"

  "I'm asking you to give me a chance, May. To see what can develop between us."

  I stood. "I'm sorry, Maverick. I…I need to go." I rushed out without looking back. I felt like a jerk for letting him pay for my uneaten meal, but the panic kept rising, and I needed to get out of there.

  I ran home, ignoring the calls from the soda shop as I passed by. I didn't want to talk or see anyone at this moment. I unlocked my house and slammed the door behind me before I fell to my knees and wept. I had no idea why the sorrow filled me, but I knew that it had to do with Zephyr.

  I laid in my bed until noon the next morning, still trying to figure out why I had been in such a panic the night before. I hadn't come up with an answer, and I could no longer ignore the noises of the day floating through my window. The night had been unusually quiet, but it was nice to sleep without nightmares and images of Zephyr.

  I pulled myself out of bed and got dressed. A pounding at the door had me rushing to open it, and I found Davina and Teal standing there with Maverick's body on my porch. My heart pounded in my chest. Cuts marred his face, the blood dried almost like a mask on his skin and soaked into his shirt. The one he'd been wearing at dinner last night.

  My eyes widened as I took a step back. "What the hell?"

  "We don't know, we just found him here. We were hoping you had an answer."

  There was only one person I knew who might have wanted to harm Maverick. Zephyr. And even that was a stretch. He hadn't seemed angry about the date, just hurt.

  Chapter Three

  I took a moment to consider what to do with Maverick's body. Normally we'd call him to deal with a murder.

  "We need to take care of the body and get it off my front porch." I put my hands on my hips and looked down at the corpse.

  "Shouldn't we examine it first?" Davina asked. "After all, clearly he was attacked."

  But by what or who? I sighed and squatted down next to the body. Part of me felt guilty because I had left him last night, maybe if I hadn't stormed out of the restaurant, this wouldn't have happened.

  The slices on his face seemed to have been split by something sharp, claws or a knife, but I didn't feel the damage was enough to kill him. His body laid funny as if something was trapped under it. I rolled him over and found what had killed him.

  A piece of wood was shoved into his back. It must not have been long enough to go through the entire body because it didn't come out the front of him. "Should we let the deputy handle this?" The one deputy we had was a vampire, it'd be a while before he woke up, but we should still involve him.

  "He's out of town. So why don't we try to take care of this quietly before the deputy comes back?" Davina shook her head. "This has trouble written all over it."

  "And how do you expect to explain to the deputy that the sheriff is dead or gone when he comes back?" Teal snapped and motioned to the body. "He was the picture perfect of health."

  "Let's deal with this first, then worry about how to deal with the deputy."

  They nodded, and together we decided it was best to bury him in the graveyard. Maverick once mentioned that he was going to die here in Normalcy and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. Luckily for us, he'd already bought his plot of land and put a headstone there. All that was missing was the year of his death.

  I looked at Davina as she worked magic to dig a hole. "Teal, I feel like you've guys have done this before."

  "Mysterious deaths aren't new here. We just don't talk about them a lot." She patted my shoulder. "My guess is someone just mistook Maverick for a new vampire or something. We'll figure it out."

  Davina rolled Maverick's body into the hole, and the dirt just started moving itself back on top of him. "He confessed love for me last night." Even to me, my voice sounded numb. I should be grieving him. We'd been friends for the last five years, and now he was dead because of a stake to the back. The three of us would be covering it up until we could figure out what actually happened.

  "Wow, love confession on the first date." The witch whistled. "You two must have hit it off. Human and…" she waved a hand at me. "Whatever you are."

  I tried not to roll my eyes. "There was a dead man on my porch, and both of you are acting totally casual about it."

  "Like I said, we've dealt with this before." Teal shrugged. "Don't worry, Maverick was a good man, certainly his death was a misunderstanding. If we figure out what happened, okay, and if not, then we tell his deputy the truth. Until then, you get to act as sheriff because well, you're the only one of us that is good at wrangling things."

  I took a deep breath and started walking out of the cemetery. I stopped.

  "So why were you at my house?" I glanced at the two. I was especially curious as to way Davina showed up. I only saw her when I needed magical work done.
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  Teal sighed. "Tammy mentioned that you walked out on your date. I wanted to make sure you were okay. You've been acting strange since yesterday. Well, stranger than usual."

  "I'm fine. I just…the date felt wrong is all. I didn't want to lead him on."

  Davina shrugged. "I was at the shop, so I followed Teal here. I wasn't sure what she was planning on doing. We got there, and Maverick was laying on your porch."

  I glanced back at Maverick's grave and wondered if she was telling the truth. Both her and Teal were way too calm about the only human showing up dead.

  Davina moved on ahead of us, but Teal stayed behind with me.

  "You sure you're okay?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, I'm going to go see if Zephyr knows anything about this."

  "He is the only stranger in town, but I don't know why he'd kill Maverick." Teal raised a brow. "Or are you going to see him for some other reason?"

  I snorted. "No, I'm going because he is the only stranger in town, and I saw the look on his face when he realized Maverick was taking me out to dinner. He wasn't happy."

  "Yes, but really, is dinner with you worth killing over?" she asked and grabbed my wrist. "Come on, let's get out of the graveyard. It's creepy."

  I walked with Teal back to the soda shop but then continued down the road to the bed and breakfast that I had recommended to Zephyr. I wasn't sure if he actually took my recommendation, but it was a starting point.

  The cute little brick house held only a couple bedrooms but was adorable enough to attract business from tourist. A pair of sweet old shifters who'd retired here after living in the big city ran the place. The stairs had white railings that led up to the matching front door. Potted flowers that seemed to be in bloom all year sat on top of the railing.

  I hadn't even gotten to the door when I heard Zephyr's voice. "Now why would you be coming here?"

  I spun around to face him. "I'm looking for you."

  "Interesting, seeing all you've been doing is running away from me." He crossed his arms, and something vicious seemed to flash in his eyes.

  "That's not true, yesterday I stayed while you helped us clean up the shop." I put my hands on my hips. "We need to talk."

  He nodded. "We do, why don't you come in for a cup of coffee and we'll sit down like adults and chat?"

  I gave him a wary look, but in the end, I dropped my hands. "Okay, fine." Not much trouble could come from a cup of coffee, right?

  He led me into the house, and I took a moment to admire the way his jeans hugged his ass, tightening just enough as he walked. I licked my lips but then shook my head. I should not be thinking about his ass. He might have killed someone. Really, why were my priorities already screwed up? He glanced back at me with a grin that made me weak in the knees.

  "The owners left for Salt Lake City early this morning, so I have the place to myself." The words made a thrill go through my toes, causing them curl in my shoes as if we were naughty teenagers whose parents weren't home.

  He led me to the kitchen and already had a cup of coffee there. I sat down while he went to the counter to pour another cup. I expected him to ask me how I took my coffee, but he didn't. He simply went to the fridge pulled out the half&half and added it to the mug. He handed it to me and then sat down. I felt…normal.

  I looked down at my coffee and then to him. "How did you know?"

  "Because I know you." He sighed. "Five years ago-"

  "Before you get into that." Though I had to admit that curiosity was getting the best of me. Everything seemed to fall to five years ago. "I need to know where you were last night, between the hours of eight PM and noon today." The blood had dried, but someone still had to drop the body on my porch.

  He raised a brow. "That's quite a stretch of time."

  "Did you kill Maverick?"

  He jerked like I'd hit him. "What? Maverick's dead? Who kills the only human in the town?"

  His reaction surprised me. I expected a 'good riddance' or something. "I don't know. They left him on my doorstep."

  "This isn't a safe place anymore, poulaki, we need to get you out of here, home, and find out what has happened to you."

  I shook my head. "It was safe until you showed up, then the sprites and whoever killed Maverick showed up."

  "I'm not the problem here. Look, all I know was that you were dropped here to be safe and now you're not. Please, Amaya."

  I growled. "Stop calling me that. Amaya died the night I was left here. Whatever that life was, I left it behind." I tried not to scream at him. "If something is coming, I'm not going to leave this town defenseless. This is my home now."

  "You're still as stubborn as always, I see." He ran a hand through his black hair letting it fall around his face. "Okay, fine, we stay, and we defend, but I don't know what is going to come next. Sprites are easy to deal with, other creatures not so much."

  I licked my lips, distracted by watching the movement of his. "Why kill Maverick though?"

  "When you kill the only human in the town, you don't have to worry about things blending in or being covered up. Haven't you noticed that all the tourists have left?"

  I jerked my gaze to his. I hadn't noticed because I'd been too busy with other things going on. "All of them?"

  "They left the same time I got here."

  I had only remembered the one that Joseph had been feeding on. "There's that common denominator again." I leaned back and crossed my arms. "Why doesn't that surprise me."

  "You know what else is a common denominator? You. It's two days before the anniversary of your disappearance, which means you're getting close to the anniversary of your appearance here."

  I hadn't kept track of that. I'd spent my first week unconscious or close to, and I didn't want to mark the date on the calendar. It wasn't a good date for me. I grabbed my mug and tried to hide behind it. "So what happened almost five years ago?"

  He looked down at his coffee. "You disappeared from home. Just gone. I tracked you down, but I wasn't able to get to you."

  His screams echoed in my head, and I closed my eyes. Why couldn't I get to those memories?

  "Ananke's men were done with you, they took you. I'm assuming to drop you off here." He hung his head. "It took me five years to find you because of Davina's wards on the town."

  And now the wards were failing. "Who's Ananke?"

  "Mother of the Fates?" he offered, and I shook my head.

  "It doesn't ring a bell, I'm sorry."

  He rubbed his eyes. "I don't have time to catch you up on thousands of years of history. Just know that Ana has always had it out for you. She believed that your powers would outgrow her own and you would take her place as head of the Fates."

  I laughed. "Right, head of the Fates. First off, no one has heard of or seen the Fates since I don't know, the fall of Rome? Second off, I'm human, remember? I have no powers."

  He let out another frustrated noise. "Okay, I'm bound by my word to the gods, so I can't just come out and say what you are. But you are not human."

  "Bound by your word? What are you?"

  He shifted in his chair and picked up his mug. He had yet to take an actual sip, but like me, he seemed to be hiding behind it. "I'm a demigod."

  I blinked at him. "Come again?"

  "A demigod, a half-god? Half-mortal, half-divine being?" He put his cup down. "Come on Amaya, you have to remember some of this."

  I wanted to because there was part of me that knew he needed to be trusted. I closed my eyes and tried to remember something, anything.

  Warm arms were wrapped around me as Zephyr pressed his lips to my head. "I'll be back in just a few minutes."

  I rolled over to face him, reaching a hand up, I brushed his hair out of his face. "Where are you going?"

  He flashed me a wicked grin. "After all that, I'm sure you must be hungry."

  I blushed instan
tly and pushed him away playfully. "I won't turn down food."

  He pecked me again on the cheek. "Okay, five minutes, promise." He got out of the bed and pulled the blanket over me. "I'll be back, poulaki."

  He left, and I closed my eyes to bask in the bliss that I felt. A bang on the door had me shooting up in bed, and I pulled the blanket over my chest.

  A man stood there with a sinister smirk on his face. "Hello, sister."

  Panic bubbled through me as I saw his short black hair curled around his face, his black eyes, and felt the power he held in him. He had called me sister, but that wasn't true. I knew that he used the word in a mocking sense.

  My hands shifted to claws.

  I screamed in pain and fell to the ground. My hand shot up to my head as I tried to make the agony stop. Zephyr was by my side in an instant. Holding me to him. Cradling me against his chest like I might break.

  "It's okay," he whispered. "Please, poulaki, you're safe. It's okay."

  I knew the man that had entered our chamber. It was the man that Delphi had shown me at the soda shop; he was just missing the scar. My body ached as the memory crashed through me again. I flexed my hands almost willing the claws to appear so the pain would fade. They never changed, and Zephyr didn't let go of me until my body stopped shaking.

  I looked at him. "We were lovers."

  He touched my cheek. "We were so much more than simple lovers." There was that sorrow in his eyes again. His hand cupped my cheek. "We were soul mates. You saved me, Amaya."

  "From what?"

  He chuckled. "Myself."

  I just stared at him for a moment. He wasn't making any sense, none of this was making sense. "The man, the one who called me sister. Who is he?"

  He pulled away from me and. "He's my brother. He called you sister because we were to be married." He held his hand out to me to help me up, but I ignored it.