Chapter Five

SUNLIGHT POURED THROUGH the windows of Kana’s apartment. He groaned and rolled over, smushing his face into his pillow where the light couldn’t bother him. He was just drifting back to sleep when the morning alarm on his phone blared. Kana stuck one hand out from under the covers, tapping his fingers over his nightstand and not finding his phone.

“It’s over here, still in your pants pocket from last night,” Sora said.

The alarm stopped, and the bed sank as Sora sat on the edge of the mattress at Kana’s side.

“Can’t you skip work today? We’re all still exhausted from yesterday,” Sora asked, his voice hopeful.

Kana rolled so he could look up at Sora. “I can’t. They’ll be worried at work if I don’t come in, or they might think something happened to me. Besides, I'll likely have to do some damage control after all the magic they saw. It’s probably a good bet they’re going to change their write-up for the interview after Stephen almost got bitten, but I want to make sure they don’t have anything about my potion in there.”

Sora sighed. “You’re right. I’ll brew some tea and start breakfast. You go kick Mika out of the shower.”

Kana crawled out from under the covers, but instead of going to the bathroom, he reached out and wrapped his arms over Sora’s shoulders. Sora tilted his head just right and bent, Kana pushed up onto his toes, and their lips met.

“Good morning,” Kana said when he pulled away, his lips feathering over Sora’s as he spoke.

Sora laughed. “It is now. Go tell Mika good morning too so we can get today started.”

Kana obeyed, heading to the bathroom where the shower was still going strong.

Mika liked water, particularly when he was in his human shape. Sora tolerated it as a necessity to stay clean, but Mika was standing, unmoving under the warm spray, letting the water completely soak him. Kana stared at him for a long moment, taking in the beauty of his sleek human body and the water droplets rolling down over taut muscle and smooth skin. Kana let out a heavy breath and tried to refocus. He had to get to work, which didn’t leave time for all the filthy, wonderful things the sight of Mika was inspiring. Especially when his lips were still tingling from Sora’s kiss. He shook his head to clear those thoughts away. He had to get to work today.

“Did you at least bother with the soap?” Kana asked, his voice almost steady. He shucked his pajamas and tossed them into the corner, and then climbed into the tub with Mika.

Mika rumbled out a purring laugh and opened his eyes. “Yes. I did that first, but I’m sore from all the running yesterday and was trying to use the hot water to ease my muscles.”

He stepped out of the way so Kana could get under the water and handed him the shampoo bottle once Kana was wet enough. Five minutes later, Kana rinsed off the last of the soap. He reached for the handle to turn off the water, but Mika’s hands landed on Kana’s hips. He yanked Kana backward until Kana’s back was pressed to Mika’s chest.

Mika purred in Kana’s ear. “You never told me good morning.” His hands drifted forward and down, one taking Kana’s quickly growing length in hand, the other reaching past to caress Kana’s balls. Mika’s fingers were skilled, his fist strong, and his purring breaths an aphrodisiac in Kana’s ears. Mika thrust his own length against Kana, using the pressure between their bodies to pleasure himself as he pleasured Kana. It didn’t take long before Kana was moaning out his release. Mika’s length pulsed as he let out his own moan.

Kana leaned against Mika’s body, waiting for his knees to remember they were supposed to hold him up. Mika chuckled and then manhandled Kana so he was back under the spray where the evidence of their fun would be washed away. By the time Mika was done cleaning him, Kana’s brain was back online. He shut the water off and grabbed towels for them both off the rack.

“You’re going to be late!” Sora yelled, his voice easily penetrating through the bathroom door.

“Crap,” Kana muttered. If he missed his usual bus, the next one wasn’t for twenty minutes and then he’d be really late. He rushed to get dried and into clothing and ran out the door with a piece of toast in his mouth, a travel mug of tea in one hand, his bag in the other, and two cats trailing behind. It wasn’t until he was on the bus—which pulled up just as he got to the stop—that he was able to straighten the strap on his bag and open the top so Mika and Sora could climb inside.

He made it to work on time and trudged inside. Beth was sitting at her desk. She glanced up at Kana and grimaced.

“You have a hangover too?” she grumbled. “I’m gonna be dragging all day.” She thumped her head down on her desk, then groaned. “One of these days I’m going to remember I’m not twenty anymore, and I can’t drink like I used to,” she said through the arms she had crossed over her head.

Kana placed his bag on the ground and turned on his computer while Mika and Sora squirmed out the top and went to curl up on their pillow.

“Do you need any painkillers?” Kana asked.

“Waaay ahead of you, but thanks,” she replied, still with her head hidden.

Kana shrugged and sipped tea from his mug while he waited for the computer to load. Once it was running, he opened his email to see if anything had landed about the interview.

There was one email. Kana opened it and sighed. “We have a meeting in a half hour about yesterday,” he told Beth.

“You’re joking. Don’t they realize some of us need a bit more time than that to recover from yesterday?”

“Well, they did decide to still go through with the interview even after I told them it was dangerous,” Kana answered. “Hopefully the meeting is to apologize?”

Beth lifted one of her elbows so she could side-eye him. “Have you met Stephen? He doesn’t apologize. This is probably a meeting for how to spin this so he comes out looking good.”

Kana rolled his eyes. “You’re probably right. Think I can get the notes for the Kreller Op-Ed done before the meeting?”

Beth snorted and dropped her elbow back into place. Kana left her to it and got to work.

*

EVERYONE IN TODAY’S meeting had also been present in the previous one. Kana and Beth took the same seats at the far end of the table and settled in to wait until Stephen was ready to start.

Five minutes later, Stephen strolled into the room. He took the chair at the head of the table and waved his hand to get everyone’s attention. Once everyone’s eyes were on him, he leaned forward.

“For anyone who wasn’t present at the interview yesterday, we had a bit of excitement.”

“Understatement of the year,” Beth muttered under her breath. Kana elbowed her to get her to shut up.

Stephen luckily hadn’t heard because he was still talking. “We had what appeared to be a solid interview, but in reality, the vampires were working their wiles to placate us. The second they believed the cameras were stopped, I was viciously attacked. Thankfully for us, we always keep the cameras rolling until after our subjects have left the room.” He beamed at the room as if waiting for someone to drop accolades on him. Since that was company policy rather than Stephen’s brilliant idea, no one said anything. “I, and our editing team,” he added belatedly with a nod to two men sitting in a corner, “have pieced together a video that I’m proposing we use when we air this segment.”

Stephen tapped the audio/visual controls on the touchscreen panel sitting in front of his seat. The lights dimmed and the overhead projector turned on.

Master Octavius and Mistress Penelope sitting together on the couch in the sitting room came into focus. Octavius was giving the creepy closed mouth smile that kept his fangs hidden.

“Yes, we drink blood, but we have grown practiced at surrounding ourselves with willing donors, so the general populace need not fear our presence here,” Octavius said.

“You will not touch any humans in this city to feed from?” Stephen’s voice asked through the speakers, although he didn’t appear on camera.

Octavius shook his head. “As I said, we have no need to touch the unwilling. No human need fear us.”

The video paused and the lights came up. “Here seems like a good spot to add some commentary,” Stephen said. “I was thinking we could say something along the lines of how we believed them, and they seemed genuine, then start adding some foreshadowing.”

“Drama hooks viewers,” Marilyn added. “Maybe say something like: we should have listened to our history books instead.”

Stephen frowned at her for interrupting but jumped right back in when she was done speaking. “We don’t want to overdo the foreshadowing, of course, but I think adding a warning that the content might not be suitable for all viewers here would be good.”

Stephen hit the play button and the lights dimmed again.

This time, the camera angle wasn’t perfect. Kana could make out Stephen’s back because of his hair color, and Penelope because of the size of her wide skirts. However, Stephen was still wearing his mike clipped to his lapel.

“Do you want a tour of the house?” Penelope asked, her voice completely clear. In the video, Kana could see her lean toward Stephen. The camera zoomed in, which made it go a bit blurry, but Kana could definitely see her mouth open wide as she bent toward Stephen’s neck.

And then a flash of bright yellow light obscured the scene, and a screech filled the air. The camera cleared just in time to catch a glimpse of Stephen’s shocked face as he said, “She tried to bite me.”

The video ended, and the lights came back up.

“What do you think?” Stephen asked the room.

“We need to fill in some of the details,” Amanda, Kana and Beth’s boss said. “You had assurances before the interview that you would be safe? We don’t want anyone thinking we provoked the vampires into attacking.”

“We didn’t provoke them! We were invited,” Stephen replied.

Kana couldn’t help wondering whether Stephen had forgotten all of Kana’s warnings, or if he just didn’t care.

Amanda shook her head. “That doesn’t answer my question, but if we stick with the story about being invited we should be fine. What about the flash of light at the end? Did you add some sort of special effect?”

“Of course not!” Stephen replied, sounding affronted as his back stiffened. “That was some sort of goo Kana slapped on us. He said it would help protect us.”

“Kana?” Amanda asked, and suddenly the entire room was looking at him.

He should have expected this. Kana wracked his brain, trying to come up with a plausible story.

“Well,” he said, trying to stall for time to think. He didn’t bother trying to hide his nervousness or the shaking in his voice. “It’s probably not something you’ll want to share. I went to a bunch of different shops, but no one had anything that would repel vampires. But I stopped at a little pop-up tent in the square—you know where they hold the flea market every Friday? The old lady running it promised the oil would keep vampires and mosquitoes away, so I bought it. I figured it was better than nothing?”

“You bought snake oil?” Stephen gasped. “You put some sort of unknown grease on me?”

“It worked, though,” Amanda cut in sharply. “Snake oil or no, you still have all your blood thanks to it.”

“Well, I can’t talk about some unknown old lady and her creepy goop,” Stephen said, his voice firm as his outrage vanished.

Amanda shrugged. “So, we spin it. Despite being invited, you weren’t certain of their intentions. You were smart enough to take some precautions just in case, and they paid off. It makes the network look good for doing something to protect our employees.”

And it wouldn’t hurt Stephen’s image either, Kana thought when Stephen immediately jumped on board.

“All we have to do is iron out what we want to say on air, and what we want to write for the newspaper and website columns,” Amanda said when Stephen stopped preening.

Kana let out a breath, relieved attention had been diverted from him, then focused on taking notes for the meeting. He and Beth were likely going to write the first drafts of the columns—which would then be completed by the writers with bigger names so they would get the author credit and drum up interest—so he needed to know what was hashed out.

Two very long hours later, Kana and Beth staggered back to their desks. Beth immediately went to her desk in search of more painkillers while Kana collapsed into his chair.

“I need a nap,” he said aloud.

Told you we should have skipped work, Sora said, sounding smug. He yawned and stretched on the pillow, then curled up again and pressed his nose to Mika’s side. A second later Sora was as asleep as Mika, and all Kana wanted to do was crawl under his desk and join them.

“If only,” Beth groaned. “But I don’t think we’ll be allowed to leave today until we submit an acceptable draft.”

Beth’s words proved to be prophetic. She and Kana wrote four drafts. The first three were returned heavily edited. The first was edited by Amanda, the second by Stephen and Marilyn—mostly Stephen—and the third by the writing staff who would be putting their name on the final product. Each draft had to be approved by every single person on the list, so they had to wait for Amanda, then Stephen, and finally the writing staff to approve the fourth and, thankfully final, draft before they could finish work that day.

Kana was just short of staggering and was yawning heavily when he and Beth were finally allowed to leave. The sun was setting, its blinding glare making Kana squint as he stepped outside the building.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you home?” Beth asked, concern in her voice.

Kana yawned and waved his hand at her. “Thanks for the offer, but I live in the opposite direction. No sense in you going out of your way. I’ll just take the bus.”

“If you’re sure…” Beth trailed off, but when Kana didn’t change his mind, she sighed. “Don’t fall asleep on the bus and end up two towns over.”

Kana laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not that tired. My brain is fried, that’s all.”

Beth smiled at him. “Mine too. Okay. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.” Kana walked to the bus station while Beth went in the other direction to the parking garage across the street. He had about five minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive, which was more than enough time to mosey his tired body across the street and down one block to the stop.

The crosswalk light changed quickly, and Kana walked to the other side of the road. He turned to walk to the bus stop when a black SUV suddenly stopped at the curb right next to him. Both passenger-side doors flew open, and two werewolves jumped directly into his path.

“Get in the car,” the closer one growled.

Kana shook his head. “No thanks.” Either Mika or Sora were growling from inside Kana’s backpack. Kana widened the channel between them, letting more magic flow. His circle to repel werewolves would need aconite, but Kana would combine that rune with the rune for flower so it would only stun them. The roots and seeds of aconite were deadlier than the flower. Werewolves called aconite wolfsbane, and it was extra potent against them.

Kana couldn’t go with the werewolves, but he still had to stay hidden, so he would also need a secrecy spell. A second rune layered beneath and around the wolfsbane one would keep any passersby from noticing.

The closer wolf reached out and the second one put a piece of paper into his hand. The wolf held up the paper for Kana to see.

“What would happen if this photo were put online in a blog post reading: witch with two familiars!”

The photo was of Kana, toast in his mouth and two cats running after him as he sprinted for the bus that morning.

Kana’s gathered magic froze, and his breathing stuttered into a gasp. The circle faded from his mind, replaced by the photo. Kana’s face was clear; anyone who saw it would recognize him, even all these years later. He would definitely be found if that were posted.

“Our Alpha said if you didn’t get in the car, this would be all over the internet by tonight. He wondered who besides him might come knocking on your door?”

“What…” Kana’s voice came out as a croak and he swallowed to try to get some moisture back into his mouth. “What does your Alpha want from me?”

The wolf shrugged. “Just to talk.”

Kana very much doubted that, but what choice did he have?

What do I do? he asked Mika and Sora.

Go with him, I guess, Mika replied.

We can always blast them all later, Sora added.

Kana looked at the photo again, then up at the wolf whose face was stern and unbending. Kana didn’t think he was lying.

“Just to talk,” Kana said as firmly as his shaking voice could. He turned and climbed into the back seat of the SUV. Two more wolves were inside, one driving and the other across the seat from Kana behind the driver.

The spokes-wolf took the front passenger seat and the second wolf waited until Kana moved over to take the middle seat before he climbed in and shut the door. Kana buckled up and closed his eyes, hugging his backpack tightly to his chest and hoping this adventure really would be “just to talk.”