Zauran (17 page)

The last thing I hear is the pipe missing my head and smashing my Bonneville. I spent years restoring that baby.

Fuck!

Gurgling on hemoglobin, I hope I'll survive, the bike won't.

Blood whooshing deafens me, my lip is throbbing, my face maimed into agony.

I'm going to fucking kill you...

*

Jowendrhan:

A flash of light stuns me long enough for something powerful and rock hard to crack down on my head.

Ready to disappear, to get away, I prepare to manifest elsewhere when I'm held down with so much weight it causes the cartilage in my knees to cave. My face is thrust into incoming force, crunching my nose and snapping one of my incisors.

Blood erupts out of my nose, my lip throbbing where my other incisor is embedded like a piercing. I can't open my mouth to breathe with my own fang sealing my mouth shut.

A brutal blast to the side of my head sends me keeling over, slamming my temple into the white marble of the coffee table.

Who the hell are you?

How did you find me?

Red pops painfully across my eye, blinding me to the world as incinerating agony forces consciousness to recede.

Chapter 16

Zaria:

I've arranged to meet up with Phoebe at
Nikola Pašić Square
, at the fountain. It's open and outdoors, and we're less likely to feel cornered.

The supernaturals would be insane to make a move on us out in public like that.

Urgency pumps my legs faster. It warms my body as my heart responds to the quickened pace. I cover the distance of Bulevar Revolucije, what we locally call Bulevar. It's the longest road in Belgrade, known now as
Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra, but after world war two it was just shortened and remembered as '
Bulevar'.

Not that Phoebe would know any of this, so I had to explain everything to her in minute detail so she and Seithe can't get lost.

Waiting at the statue, the blue domes of Parliament catch the morning light, instantly reminding me of Zauran's eyes when deeply under the influence of passion.

“
Zaria!”

Turning, I spot Phoebe waving me over.

I wave back, trundling over red decorative paving bricks to where she is hugging Seithe goodbye.

Seithe and Jowendrhan look identical. The brothers look like they should be twins, but aren't; and their similarity confused me endlessly when I first met them.

I give them a smile when I reach them, “Hello Seithe.” I give her a wink and she grins at me as if we're about to get up to mischief.

“
Hiya Zaria. How's things?” he says.

“
Okay,” I nod.

“
It's time to give the girls some space,” Phoebe smiles up at him with sunlight catching the cosmic hues of her hair.

He can transport her anywhere, which is such a bonus. We never have to wait for planes and trains when we have Jowendrhan, Seithe, and Darise around.

“
Call me when you need me, okay?” He hunches to give her a kiss goodbye, takes five steps closer to the park, looks around, and vanishes with a wink aimed at us.

“
How are you?” she smiles, linking her arm in mine and automatically walking.

I hand her the extra coffee I bought, “Um, hell, I don't even know where to begin.”

Leading her into Pionirski Park, we wander past well trimmed lawns and box hedges cut low enough to frame bright red tulips and haunting blue phlox.

The lamps set out at intervals along the pathways look like clusters of mistletoe berries on bevelled iron arms. This walk is gorgeous any time of the year, but right now it's fragrant and inviting, perfuming the air and redolent with fresh green notes.

It used to be the King of Yugoslavia's garden. If we keep walking we'd get to Parliament, which is housed in what used to be his palace. This is a king's feast enjoyed by commoners. We're walking over ancient land full of history, when really it wasn't very long ago that this was a haven for our royalty.

Taking this walk is a testament to our Serbian world. If we kept walking we'd reach the statue o
f Prince Mihailo Obrenović. He is the one who finally freed the Serbian people from Turkish rule.

I'm tempted to take her to the Prince's statue, to tell her we should be free from tyranny and that is why we even have neuri.

Instead we end up stopping underneath a tree off the pathway and I slip down to rest my arms on my knees. Balancing on nature's green carpet I drink my coffee with my ass leaning on my heels. “Phoebe, we've been through a lot together. You helped me end the last vampyre / neuri war...”

She sits down in front of me, crossing her legs and inhaling the steam from her own cup, “Spill it. Cut the bullshit and tell me why I had to travel halfway around the world to have coffee with you.”

“
Darise was with another woman last night.” Meeting her dark blue gaze, I launch the grenade that shatters lives, “She looks exactly like you and me.”

“
Oh?” she says, her voice dropping to deadly serious while her eyebrows raise as if she's about to punch someone.

“
Jo says she's Darise's ex-girlfriend. Her name is
Božena.”

I'm deliberately not saying his full name so he can't sense where we are or what we're doing.

“
Zaria, spit it out dammit! What the hell is really going on?”

Swallowing, losing interest in my coffee, I exhale heavily, “Jo turned Božena into a vampyre last night.”

She pales, making her long black hair look like the folds inside the coffin of a cadaver. “He
what
?!”

“
Phoebe, this is heavy. This is so damn dangerous for all of us. The neuri are beyond angry because this territory was given back to them by Venix before he left. The neuri call the shots here and Pravus is their hunting ground for mates, it no longer belongs to the vampyre. And now...”

I take another earth halting deep breath, and say, “Now Jo has started a new war. The neuri alpha family are outraged, especially the oldest and youngest. It's so damn complicated... and to top it all off and make it even worse, is I was so angry with Darise I dumped him, I just ran out of Pravus straight to Zauran.”

“
And what does Zauran say about what happened with Jo turning a female?” says Phoebe, shielding her eyes and scrutinizing me.

“
I don't know if he knows. I spent the night with Zauran and woke up to his family telling me the news. He was out at the time due to an emergency.”

“
You spent the night with Zauran?” Gnawing her lip, she examines her fingertips before meeting my gaze again. “Zaria, what are you saying? You're now a neuri woman?”

“
Yes. It took me half the night to realize it was what Venix wanted me to do anyway. We have his blessing. But I just can't handle another war! I don't know what the hell to do.”

She inhales, looking at the view of the bright green leaves of spring on this perfect sunny morning. “Three of us? And now she's vampyre? I didn't even know that was possible.”

Watching her troubled countenance, I say, “Phoebe, we're in danger. The neuri seem really interested in you, me, and Božena, but Zauran told me he would protect both of us. I don't know what the hell to think about Božena, but Zauran's brother Sveta was really angry Jo got hold of her in neuri territory. He broke a rule when he did that and I'm really afraid of the two sides clashing again. I asked Jo to fix it, but I have no clue if he did or not.”

I meet her gaze with the seriousness of a woman before a jury. “We need to tell Seithe, maybe he can talk some sense into Jo? I refuse to talk to Darise because he's a grade A asshole who was trying to get into her pants behind my back. And I'm so upset with Jo I just get hysterical.”

“
Not to mention you are now Zauran's girl.” She slaps my arm, really damn hard, “You stupid woman. Did you even think it through? You didn't think maybe you helped to start the war? That maybe you running off to Zauran started this retaliation?”

Oh god! No, that never occurred to me.

Shit!

“
He didn't say a word about it. Joey seemed really shocked to see me with Zauran's bite mark,” I say, thinking back over the last twenty-four hours.

“
Your what?” she says, cocking her head and looking at me like I'm high on dope.

Moving my hair which is identical to hers, I show her the circle on my neck. It's teeny-tiny. “No one will even notice it, Phoebe.”

“
Why the hell did he mark you?”

Swallowing harder, my chest feels like I'm inhaling chlorine. “I'm pregnant with his babies.”

“
Since when?!” she says so loud strangers look at us as they dawdle along the path.

“
Last night.”

“
Bullshit Zaria. How gullible are you that you're buying his PR crap? I say we get a pregnancy test and prove it to you. There is no possible way for you to be pregnant after one night and “know” you're pregnant. How do you even know this? Are you the magic baby maker or something?”

“
He told me I am. They can control their bodies the same way the vampyre can.”

“
And you believed him?” Phoebe slaps my arm again, even harder. “Wake up and smell the manipulation!”

God, she's filling me with doubts; peppering me with them.

“
You know what, you are right, let's get a test-kit and go home and check it out. There's a pharmacy at Depo,” I say.

She stands with me, dusting off her light blue jeans and adjusting her dark blue hoodie. Aiming our disposable cups at the closest bin, she gets rid of our trash and glowers at the park, “Now I'm really glad you called me. Let's go.”

Linking her arm with mine, she literally drags me back to Bulevar, looking both ways at the busy street. “Which way, Zaria?”

I point, and she heads straight into the wind which is picking up as if we're about to have a storm. Pausing as we wait at a traffic light to cross the street, I check the sky behind us, noticing how heavily purple-black the thunderclouds are. Lightning jumps across clouds, but we're still standing in sunshine. It feels weird, like a portent of danger.

With the pregnancy test in my hand, walking to the check-out with Phoebe, I almost die of fright when I see the pale woman already there paying for the same item as I'm holding.

Snatching Phoebe back behind a row of cold and flu medication, I whisper urgently, “That's her! That's Božena.”

Phoebe sneaks to look at her, and I follow suit, shocked at how ill Božena looks. She's pale and glistening, as if she has a terrible fever.

“
And that's Jo's girl, right?” Phoebe hisses spitefully to me.

“
I guess,” I whisper back.

“
Then we'd better introduce ourselves because we're as good as family now,” and before I can do a thing she's marching off to the counter, directly to Božena.

Cripes!

But she was sucking Darise's face off last night and I really want to deck her. And why the hell is
she
getting a pregnancy kit? Whose is it? Darise's or Jowendrhan's?

Phoebe is shameless with her smile, shaking Božena's hand and name dropping Darise and Jo as if they're rock stars who grant free passage into anyone's life.

She shows off her ring and I overhear her telling Zena she's
married to Seithe, and just heard about her and Jo, offering her congratulations.

Ugh! Get me out of here.

I give Zena the once over, amazed at how we are all built like cloned copies of each other. Her hair is waist length and raven black, her skin smooth and pure like créme brulée; her eyes are dark sea blue and match her sweater. She's also wearing jeans but there's a noticeable bulge in them.

I saw her last night in skin tight clothes and that baby bump definitely wasn't there then.

Phoebe keeps the bitch talking while I pay for my own pregnancy home-test kit, stuffing it into my pocket as I angle toward the doors and the other two. Dammit, I don't want to talk to her. I want to kill her, painfully and slowly.

The door blocks with incoming traffic and I pipe behind Phoebe and Božena, giving Phoebe my death-stare. She turns to guide Božena out of the store when two big men block the doorway, and instantly the two girls in front of me are locked in purple and orange compulsion stares.

Oh god!

No!

While their minds are captured I'm ready to bolt, but the handsome older brother strikes his long arm out and grips my black sweater, hauling me closer and forcing me to face him.