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Coven Chaos
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I stared incredulously at Venom. “You think I’m scared?”
“Absolutely not,” he replied, the hot dog paused at his mouth. “I’m just saying, we’re much stronger during the blood moon.”
“And apparently much more stupid,” I murmured.
“Not stupid, but crazy. Probably why those wolves attacked those humans. We can be impulsive but know our boundaries.”
Phoenix snorted. “Right. Remember those ones in the Quarter a few months ago we had to get rid of? There was no blood moon then. So what was their excuse?”
Venom swallowed the last of his bite and said, “The whole pack went crazy. I thought we went over this.”
Shaking my head, I said, “That’s not an explanation, though. Just that one pack happened to go mad? Because there have been plenty of wolf attacks over the course of my lifetime I could tell you about.”
“Same,” Viper replied, standing next to me, his arms folded across his chest.
Venom ran a hand over his mouth and down his salt-and-pepper beard to clear all the crap that had fallen off his bread-wrapped hot dog. “Like humans, there are deviants among us. Some are born bad and don’t give a fuck about the rules. If we were all insane, we certainly wouldn’t still be a secret to the humans. We’d be attacking constantly during a full moon.”
He had a point.
“Fine. So, what’s your take on this wolf issue now?”
With a shrug, he said, “Let’s get out and find them.”
“What do you mean ‘let’s’? Is there a mouse in your pocket?” Phoenix asked, laughing.
“Fuck you, fire boy. You guys go find him. I’ll be in my cage licking my balls.” Venom flipped him off.
“Ew,” MyAnna said, coming up to Viper and putting her arms around his waist.
“Sorry, girl. Didn’t smell ya comin’,” Venom replied with a tip of his invisible hat.
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “I was just kiddin’. I’m used to you boys’ filthy talk by now,” she drawled.
“You heading out?” Viper asked her, looking down at her with that look in his eyes that I didn’t think I’d ever get used to. Kinda made me want to gag, to be honest. I’d known the man thirty years and had never seen him like this.
“Yes, class starts in twenty.”
I just now noticed her workout clothing.
“You’re not going alone.” He didn’t ask.
“Jewel’s coming,” she replied, grinning as she reached up on tiptoe to kiss him.
I snorted out a laugh as I saw Jewel coming out from her apartment before sprinting down the stairs. She wore some tight, shiny black yoga pants and a tank top with a big mouth sporting vampire teeth dripping blood from them. She had none of her jewelry on and her hair up in some bun thing on the top of her head.
“Subtle,” Viper muttered, nodding his head at her shirt.
“Love you!” MyAnna called out before they left out the front door.
“You’re gonna owe Jewel big time,” I said, biting back a laugh.
“I know,” he groused.
“Shadow!”
We all turned to see Paz, one of the prospect mechanics, poke his head out of the door leading to the shop.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Got a phone call.” He raised the cordless phone into the air.
I heard Face and Phoenix chuckling. They knew as well as I did who it was. Everyone else I knew had my cell phone.
Hell, everyone else I knew was standing in this room. I had no friends except them. And I sure as hell had no family.
“Shadow,” I answered after taking the phone from Paz’s hand.
“This is Bloome. My sisters and I would like to meet with you and your vampires. Is tonight good?”
I checked my watch to see it was barely past 7 p.m. “Sure, meet us at the Cobalt Room on Twenty-First Street in half an hour.”
“I’m not sure I can round them up in half an hour.”
“Then you don’t want that meeting very badly, do ya, sweetheart?”
I heard her huff dramatically in irritation.
I pursed my lips together to keep from laughing.
“See you then.” She hung up.
After putting the greasy fingerprinted phone back onto the cradle on the wall, I went back out into the clubhouse. Venom, as his wolf, sat curled up in his cell.
“Witches are stopping by in about thirty minutes. Told her to meet us in the club.”
“Okay, lieutenants only. Let’s get things ready,” Viper said, heading toward the walkway that led to the club, and we followed. “Text Kovah,” he added to no one in particular.
I looked at Face and Phoenix and said, “I got it.”
Me: Emergency meeting in 20
It took him three minutes to reply.
Kovah: I’ll be there
“Kovah’s good,” I replied once we had set up the tables the way we wanted.
I poured three glasses of blood from the wine bottle blood section of the bar and sat down with my brothers. I handed Phoenix and Face their glasses. Viper got his blood straight from the tap these days and obviously never needed the bottled stuff.
It was a stash I was responsible for keeping up with. Since I could appear and disappear, I’d been tasked with taking blood bags from the local donation center. I wasn’t sure how they even kept up their supply, since I wasn’t the only vampire in the area who did this. The poor humans in New Orleans who actually needed blood transfusions had to wait a while for blood because of this. I paid karma back by sneaking into hospital rooms and feeding dying humans my blood to help heal them. It wasn’t ideal, and was definitely risky, but I was always the one who felt like there was a circle of life and that karma was a real fucking bitch.
“Did she say how many she was bringing?” Viper asked when the conversation stalled.
I shook my head. “Nope. How many witches are in coven, anyway?”
“A coven is anywhere from three to a hundred,” Phoenix replied immediately.
Face stopped thumb-typing on his phone and looked at him. “Oh, that’s just awesome.”
I chuckled. “I doubt she’d—”
Just then, the front door opened and in walked Bloome, flanked by four women and one man. He was almost as effeminate as they were.
Five it is.
“Have a seat,” Face said, standing to greet them. Once they sat, he asked, “Drinks? Sorry, we don’t serve food here.”
Bloome made a scoffing sound. “Shocking.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Have some respect.”
Viper cleared his throat. “What can we do for you?” he asked.
“I’ll take a gin and tonic,” one of the witches replied, looking at Face with a flirtatious smirk. She was pretty, blonde ringlets on her head, porcelain skin, big crystal-blue eyes.
“Noted,” he said. “Anyone else?”
“Wine, please,” the male replied.
The rest of them shook their heads.
I turned briefly to see Face preparing the drinks, then I looked back at Viper.
“We’d like to set down some ground rules,” he started. “We’re well aware that the Nighthawks are new around here, but we’re not new in general.”
“Let me guess, you’re, like, a thousand years old?” Bloome offered with a facetious smirk on her face.
I scowled at her. “His age is none of your business, red.”
“Neither is my hair color, yours. Don’t call me that,” she seethed.
Face set the drinks down then took his seat.
I blew her a kiss.
Bloome flipped me off, and by the look on her irate yet curious face, I knew I had gotten under her skin. Although she seemed to partly enjoy it.
“Okay, red... what can we do for you and your clan?”
“It’s Bloome. That’s my name, asshole.” She lifted her chin.
“I highly doubt that,” I said, laughing.
“Let’s get back to the issue at hand...” Viper sounded annoyed.
I ignored him.
“Bloome, really? Your mom was a hippie, or what?” I asked, smirking at the redhead whose clothes I wanted to tear off. I would bet she was a hell of a fuck.
“Hippie?” She blinked big blues at me.
I craned my head back, annoyed at the ignorance. After righting my neck, I blew out a breath. “Bloome. Come on, now. Really? Flowers and shit?”
As I watched the red stain creep up her neck and into her face, she finally calmed and said, “My mother was told she couldn’t have children. When she felt me blossoming in her womb, she called me Bloome. You got a problem with that?”
I cleared my throat before responding. “Let’s get back to the issue at hand.” I inclined my head at Viper. “We’re here to keep the peace.”
She looked angry and it just made me want to tear her clothes off faster. “And we’re here to tell you that we do what want.”
“And that means... what?” Phoenix asked.
The male witch—warlock—responded, the wine glass at his lips. “It means exactly what it means.”
Phoenix addressed him. “Still not an explanation, man.”
Bloome smacked her pale, freckled hand onto the table. “We don’t answer to frickin’ vampires.”
“And who do you answer to?” I asked, staring into her eyes.
“Ourselves,” an older woman responded. “I’m Iliana, I’m the council-slash-coven leader.”
Viper sat forward in his seat. “Is that so? So you are a law unto yourselves?”
“Damn right we are,” Bloome quickly replied, staring at me defiantly.
I huffed, annoyed. I looked at Iliana. “Good to know. However, you need to start policing your own.”
Bloome narrowed her blue eyes at me. “What does that mean?”
Grinding my jaw, I replied, “It means that you need to put a fuckin’ leash on bitches like Amara. She was killing humans.”
“We weren’t aware she was killing them,” Iliana responded.
“Well, it’s not okay,” Viper responded.
The male witch waved a hand. “So what? There are billions on the planet.”
I pounded my fist on the table and ignored the looks from my club brothers. “It doesn’t matter, you asshole. You can’t just go killing them for no reason. That’s the reason for this meeting. We need to set some goddamn ground rules.”
“We have our own rules,” Bloome replied.
I looked at her square in her perfectly beautiful face and said, “It’s clear that killing and assaulting humans are part of your ‘rules’ and that doesn’t fly with us.” I put up air quotes around the word rules.
“We’ve never answered to vampires and we never will. I’m not even sure why you called this meeting. You guys kill people, too. Don’t try to deny it.” Bloome smirked at me.
“Have you spoken to any wolves lately?” Face asked, staring at the group of witches.
“None of your business,” Iliana replied.
Viper smacked a hand on the tabletop and said, “Maybe you should. Witches, vampires, and whatever else is out there. We don’t put up with shit. We need to coexist with the humans... there’s six billion of them on the fuckin’ planet and we’ll have no part of you exposing us or killing them. You dig?”
The witches all whipped their attention to my friend, and I resisted the urge to smile with pride.
“We’re the closest thing to humans you’ll find in the supernatural world,” the male witch replied, looking bored as he gazed as his fingernails and rolled his eyes.
Before he could blink, I launched myself at him and used my talents to push him up against the wall of the bar. His face was two inches from the dartboard, which still had several darts imbedded in one of the boards.
I yanked out a dart and hovered it centimeters from his eyeball. He squeaked like a little bitch and squirmed.
“Listen here, and listen good. You may be close to humans, but you’re not. I’ve seen the havoc you can wreak, and you’ll not be doing that in New Orleans. Keep your spells and shit to yourselves. Oh, and if you think you can hex me or curse me or whatever you assholes do, you cannot. We’ve already put our own protections in place.” I dropped him, and he fell to the floor.
A scream had us turning around. Bloome stood with her arms out, but no magic dripping.
“Magic doesn’t work in here, sweetheart,” I said, smiling.
“You’re such an asshole!” the warlock snapped, gripping his neck. “Also, that beard of yours is just disgusting. Along with all other vampires. He scrabbled to his feet before making his way to the group of witches at the table.
I slowly made my way to the table. The look Viper gave me was hard to decipher. It was like he wanted to kill me, but he was proud of me, as well.
“It’s time to go,” I said, my adrenaline pumping. “We aren’t changing our stance on this issue. Get in line with the rules or get the fuck outta New Orleans. It’s really quite simple.”
The witches got up and moved toward the front door of the Cobalt Room. Last to leave was Bloome. She turned around glared at me, her icy blue eyes boring into mine. I felt a small thrill rush through me when I realized she hadn’t looked at anyone but me.
That thrill was short-lived, unfortunately. Through gritted teeth, she said, “We’ll adhere. For now. But later on, you’ll be wondering what messes you’re cleaning up and who caused them, and there’ll be no way you’ll figure it out.”
“Cute, sweetheart. Real cute,” I replied, laughing.