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Meri said, “Guest room. Strapped down.”

  She started to get antsy and wanted to move and shift really bad as Meri went over what happened in the alley. She shivered and was shocked to find out she’d shared trunk space with the dead soul eater for a half an hour, until Meri had dumped the body. She also learned he was the Jacob she’d been waiting on, or that Meri had been, anyway.

  He grunted.

  She could feel him moving down the hall. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, except someone quite a bit older. Meri had named him their leader, and the oldest of them, so when he opened the door she got quite a shock.

  He was tall, six foot two, with wide shoulders. His muscles were clearly defined, and he looked like a wall. She’d seen linebackers that were less intimidating. He had dark brown hair and eyes, and a strong square jaw and chiseled face. He was very attractive, and he didn’t look a day older than twenty-eight. He also looked familiar, and something stirred inside of her.

  His eyes locked on hers, and then widened and turned ochre when he deliberately sniffed the air.

  “Lilith?” he breathed out in disbelief.

  She frowned, “You tell me, and I need to leave.”

  He shook his head, “Impossible. Who are you?”

  She growled in frustration, “Lily, now untie me.”

  He just stared, and she banged her head backwards on the pillow, completely out of patience. The night had been surreal, but she was done with all of it, especially being tied up.

  “What’s impossible,” she snapped angrily.

  He moved forward and started to unstrap her. It surprised her, but she wasn’t going to argue.

  “Emil knows about you now, you killed his child, and you live right next to that alley. It isn’t safe for you to go home, or to work. He’ll be intrigued by what you are, want to possess you, even if he probably doesn’t really know.”

  She hated the idea of being stuck here, or hunted, but she latched on to the last part.

  She accused, “But you do?”

  He frowned, “I suspect who and what you are. It shouldn’t be possible. But… only one creature with the power of the four supernatural races exists. Do you remember me? I mean, what I am?”

  Creature? She was a creature?

  She sighed in disgust, “I don’t remember anything past six months ago. Supernatural races?”

  He nodded, “Shifters, vampires or soul eaters, witches, and warlocks. That won’t tell you much though, the races are nothing like pop culture make us out to be.”

  “You’re a shifter, and Meri?”

  He blew out a breath, and then nodded.

  The moment felt surreal, actually the whole night had.

  “I have a job, and a cat.”

  He shook his head, “We need to talk, if you’ve truly lost all your memories. That makes you vulnerable.”

  She shivered, and reluctantly admitted, “I have dreams, but they don’t make sense. It’s random and mixed up.”

  Meri interjected, “All four?”

  Jacob turned, “Can’t you scent it in her? I know it seems fantastical, but she fits the legends. That she’s back…” he trailed off.

  She frowned. She didn’t think he’d just lied, but he was obviously holding back something.

  “I have to go.”

  He growled, “No. Emil is ancient, and far more powerful than what you faced in that alley. You have to stay, at least until we remove him. You also need to learn to control yourself, relearn.”

  She tried to get up and push her way past him, but he was a brick wall of pure muscle.

  He asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She blew out a breath, “Bathroom. I won’t promise not to leave, but I’ll call in sick today so we can talk. I want to know what I am too.”

  Meri said, “I’ll get you some clothes.”

  She smiled at Meri despite herself. “Thank you.”

  She still wanted to run, it was all too much. But… she felt safe here, and despite being an overbearing mountain of a man, Jacob felt… familiar in some way. She didn’t think it was really him though, or rather, he was reminding her of someone she’d known in her past, yet someone that she couldn’t actually remember. It was all vague in her head, and extremely frustrating.

  Supernatural races? She didn’t even know where to start on that one.

  He crossed his arms, and then moved out of her way, his eyes were hard.

  “I’ll trust you, don’t make me regret it.”

  He really was attractive, too bad he seemed to be an asshole. Just as well, despite her attraction to him there was too much going on, and it was the last thing on her mind.

  She followed Meri out the door, and down the hallway. They were obviously in a large mansion, it looked like there were eight rooms in this one hallway, and there was a window at the end of it that showed acres of land outside with no other houses or buildings in sight.

  Meri went into a room, and she waited by the door for a moment. Meri came out with sweats in her hands, and she shrugged apologetically. Of course, Meri was a few inches shorter, and although curvy and athletic like her, Meri had a smaller bust and shorter legs, none of her other stuff would probably fit.

  “Thanks.”

  Meri smiled, “Forgiven for shooting you then?”

  She realized then that the apologetic look hadn’t been about the sweats.

  She just shook her head, “I’ll consider it.”

  Meri pointed back down the hallway, “Second door on the right. What if I cook you breakfast?”

  Lily laughed, “Maybe? If breakfast is good.”

  Meri snorted, and walked her to the bathroom.

  It was really strange, but she had a good feeling about Meri, and that they’d be friends. It was absurd, because she really wanted to just leave, and go back to her life. It was impossible though, she couldn’t just forget all she’d learned, even if it wasn’t much on the details, her old life was far more terrifying and stranger than she’d ever suspected. It was the normalness of the past six months that was the lie.

  Chapter Three

  The light din of conversation fell as soon as she stepped into the room. It hadn’t been hard to find the dining room in this large place, she’d just needed to follow the noise of tinkling silverware, glasses, and voices. She felt a lot better after a hot shower and putting on clean clothes.

  There were three more people at the table besides Meri and Jacob. Two men and a woman. The men were obviously shifters, they gave off the same kind of vibe, and she could just tell. She wasn’t sure what the woman was, except of course, she wasn’t a soul eater either. Which left what, witch or warlock. She bet on the former, though she couldn’t say why, and not because she was a female.

  Meri said, “Take a seat, this is Allison, Jace, and Carl,” she gestured to each one as she named them.

  Allison was truly petite and looked about five foot two. She had bright red hair, and light brown eyes, with a smattering of freckles on her nose. She was cute with a pixie type beauty, and she had a shy smile on her face as she looked up from her plate to Lily.

  Jace looked like a linebacker, much like Jacob, with slightly lighter brown hair and the evidence of youth still on his face. He had a curious smile on his face as he looked her over, quite obviously checking her out. She ignored it and wasn’t offended, she didn’t get the sense he was flirting with her, just trying to figure her out.

  Carl was the big surprise that way, he looked about thirty-two, but hadn’t Meri told her Jacob was the eldest? He was about six feet tall, with black hair, gray eyes, and a wiry body. He looked almost like a normal human, but she could sense his strength was a match to the others, but she couldn’t say how or why that was.

  “Hi, nice to meet you.”

  Allison tilted her head, “That’s incredible.”

  She sat, unsure, “What is?”

  Allison blushed, “Sorry. Your life force is reaching out. We’ll have to work on it together l
ater. It’s making you horribly vulnerable. No wonder you were attacked last night.”

  She frowned, “Wait? Work on what?”

  Jacob ordered, “Eat, we’ll talk later. There’s too much to go over during breakfast.”

  She bit her tongue. She didn’t like taking orders, especially as she was in the dark about so much, but he was obviously an alpha in charge of this group. She’d pick her battles. She needed answers first, then she could give him a piece of her mind, and possibly leave.

  “Is this everyone?”

  Jacob shook his head, “Not quite. There are seven on my team, including myself. You’ll meet Cinna and Caroline later.”

  “Cinna?”

  Jace said, “Short for Cinnamon.”

  She dug in, the bacon and cheese omelet was delicious, and the biscuits were moist and buttery. The coffee was excellent as well, and she wondered what kind they used. She was shocked at her own hunger, as she ate ravenously. It was like… feeding on that monster last night had woken up something inside her.

  More than that, she felt more filled out when she got out of the shower and looked in the mirror. She knew she’d been slowly recovering and gaining weight after the incident six months ago, and now her body seemed to be demanding even more food. She just hoped if she gained more weight it wouldn’t go straight to her hips and ass.

  Jacob asked, “You lost your memories?”

  Lily sighed. She didn’t really want to talk about it, but she wasn’t all that surprised they’d want information before they gave up theirs.

  “I woke up in a hospital with no memories of my past, or who I was. From what I was told, I was found by the police among others who were dead. They suspect I’d been held a long time, because I was obviously malnourished and quite weak when they found me. I weighed less than a ninety pounds, and I’ve been recovering ever since. Still, they had a lot of questions to resolve that they never figured out.”

  Allison asked, “And you have nightmares, and get feelings about people?”

  She nodded, “That second part only the last week or so. And only obviously so last night, when we ran into that thing. Soul eater.”

  Allison looked up thoughtfully, which made her look rather mischievous. That impression was all her face though, and nothing to do with her personality.

  “I’d guess your powers were dormant until you recovered physically, probably an instinctual attempt to preserve your life force energies.”

  Right… whatever that meant.

  “What exactly is a witch?”

  Allison raised an eyebrow, “That’s complicated. All life is connected, we call it the web of life. Mainly because that’s how it feels to us, like a web, or a net, with all the connections between all the life over the world. A witch can sense the web, connect with other life, and even affect it. That’s a simplistic overview of course. Witches are also mostly human outside of that awareness, as far as senses, strength, and speed, though we live about twice as long as a human.”

  She frowned, “I felt a connection to that monster.”

  Allison shook her head, “Completely different. Soul eaters connect to others through emotions to tap their life force, and it’s a single connection based on emotions and empathy. The web ties directly into life force, and a witch can feel the web for several miles depending on the strength of their power. We don’t feed on life either.”

  “So, you could what? Track people?”

  Allison said, “Or put them to sleep, control their body, paralyze them, read their minds or emotions, and many other things. Or just getting a sense of who that person or animal is.”

  That last one sounded familiar. Had she been doing that without knowing it? Is that what Allison had meant by her life force reaching out? Is that why she felt safe here?

  “What about Warlocks? Isn’t that just a male witch?”

  Allison shook her head, and she looked horrified by the thought.

  Jacob answered, “Before we get deeper into powers. You need to understand the nature of the four supernatural species. Shifters are angelic and human, we were actually created to hunt down the soul eaters and warlocks who are demonic in nature. Witches… are more complicated, and closest to humans in nature. They have a touch of both the angelic and demonic. The four races are different, warlocks and witches have no commonalities at all.”

  “Angelic?”

  Jacob nodded, “Legend has it we’re all descended from Uriel.”

  She frowned, “Shifters good, warlocks and soul eaters bad, witches could go either way?”

  Carl laughed, and Jace snickered, she glared at both.

  Meri smiled too, and explained, “If only it were that simple. We are all, of the supernatural races, half human. The angelic and demonic has a huge influence on who we are, but humanity has the capacity for both good and evil. Nothing is black and white, or that easy to pigeon hole. For the most part, you’re right, but there are rogue shifters out there that prey on humanity, and there are soul eaters out there that respect life and don’t kill or even torture humans while they feed. Most shifters are good, and they fight to protect humanity from the demonic predators out there, but not all. Most cities have a small soul eater population that doesn’t break the rules, and they get a pass from us. No one deserves to die, merely because of how they were born.”

  Right, life and people were complicated, why would the supernatural beings be any different? She felt a little lost, she belonged in this world, she felt it deeply, in her very bones, but it frightened her at the same time.

  “Where do I fit? Who am I?”

  Jacob looked at her for a moment, “You could join us. But at the very least you need to be trained, both to control those powers you’ve been using subconsciously, and how to fight. Even then, you should stay here until Emil has been tracked down and taken down.”

  She didn’t fail to notice he didn’t answer her second question, but let it go for now.

  “Soul eaters?”

  Jace said, “They feed on humanity. They feed on life energy, and if they don’t kill the human they’re usually drained. It’s an addiction for them, and they usually have a favorite emotion.”

  “Favorite emotion?”

  Jace nodded, “Some like to feed on terror, some pain, which is the basis for silly human legends like the nosferatu. Others like to feed on pleasure instead, and even copulate during feeding, which is where the legends of the incubus and succubus come in. You fought off their compulsion, so can probably understand the legends of irresistible men and women, creatures from hell that seduce. None of those things exist, a lot of legends like that are just the different feeding habits of soul eaters.”

  “But, they don’t feed on blood, how did the humans get that so wrong?”

  Carl answered that one, “They don’t feed on blood, but they do exchange blood to create children. All the races can procreate the natural way, but soul eaters and shifters can exchange blood to bring a human into the fold so to speak. Witches and Warlocks as well, to a lesser extent. It actually changes their DNA, and race.”

  She sighed, “There’s a lot to learn, isn’t there.”

  Meri nodded in agreement.

  “What do the good ones feed on?”

  Jacob shrugged, “Lust, love, ecstasy? The most important thing are the humans they feed off of are volunteers. Consent is the rule there. Besides feeding, and compulsion, they are projective empaths, meaning they can feel and even manipulate emotions in others. They’re extremely fast in short spurts, they don’t age because feeding on life force keeps them forever young, and they’re about twice as strong as a human.”

  That was startling, more because she thought she’d looked younger when she looked in the mirror earlier after her shower. She’d dismissed it at the time, but now she wondered. Just what was she, and how old was she? The fact the language she’d known when she woke up was Latin, made her worry a bit in light of this new information.

  “Shifters?” she asked, mostly to
distract herself. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know anything else at that point.

  Meri said, “We can take on animalistic aspects. Even shift into an animal fully, though we do that rarely. We aren’t at all linked to the moon like human legends say, and certainly not linked to one animal. Perhaps more importantly, shifting can be limited to one body part, or one sense. We can take on the eyesight of an owl or eagle, form lion claws instead of hands, take on the sense of smell of a wolf, the hearing of a bat, the speed of a jaguar, and the strength of a gorilla. All at the same time. We’re behind most of the chimera legends. In today’s world we try to be as subtle as possible, which means no running in the streets in the shape of a lion, wolf, or bear.”

  Jacob added, “We can also take on animalistic instincts, at least partially. That’s important for us because that’s how we resist compulsion while fighting a soul eater. I’m not sure if you’ll need to do that at all, since you have other avenues that way. We’re also only as fast and strong as the aspects we are holding, if we aren’t channeling any shift at all, we’re pretty much just humans as far as strength and speed.”

  Allison grinned, “It also makes them a pain in the ass to control for a witch.”

  Meri winked at the young witch.

  Jacob shrugged, “That’s just the basics, and you’ll have to learn how to do those things.”

  She asked, “What about warlocks, I have that power too?”

  Carl shook his head, “You can’t learn that, except maybe to make sure you don’t ever use the power. The only good warlock is the one that ignores his or her magic and never ever uses it. It is the corrupting power of hell itself. A witch’s magic is grounded in the mortal plane, and life. A warlock’s magic is bound in the infernal magics of hell. Demon summoning, sacrifices, hellfire, soul deals, and things of that nature. It would sour and foul your soul and bind you to evil.”

  That wasn’t frightening, not at all. She was a little amazed she was taking all of this so well. Just more proof she already knew all of it, in another life, before she lost her memories…

  Chapter Four

  She finished off breakfast without asking any more questions. She thought about what they’d all told her, and obviously she’d gotten the blurb version, there was a lot of other things she’d have to learn. Weaknesses, habits, and things of that nature. Heck, she wasn’t even sure what they did or why they did it. Not really.