A Muse for Mishka (Wiccan-Were-Bear #12) (9 page)

After the glasses of blood and red wine were
dropped off, along with a basket of sliced bread, Harmony said,
“You don’t allow the
family
to bring their food to their
chambers.”

“Correct.”

“Even the people the club pays to donate
their blood?”

“We perform extensive background checks for
food, but the
family
’s chambers are very private. In order
to bring someone to their chamber, they would need to bring that
person under-the-fang.”

Harmony pursed her lips for a moment, her
left eye closing slightly as she thought. She looked adorable.

“I’m searching through our memories,” she
said. “Do I look weird when I do that? I feel like I look
weird.”

“Not at all, my heart.”

She snorted delicately. “Under-the-fang is
permanent food, but not a mate.”

He nodded. Taking a human or shifter
under-the-fang was akin to what humans called
going steady
.
It was a serious relationship, one that involved the food moving
into the vampire’s chamber. Only trusted food would be taken
under-the-fang.

“Remind me why we needed to leave the
club?”

He chuckled and lifted her hand, placing a
kiss on it. “Because I want to treat you properly.”

“You’re possibly the most proper person I’ve
ever met in my life.”

“Old habits die hard.”

Her meal arrived, and she made a humming
sound of pleasure as she looked over the meal she’d chosen. His
SyBl was in a black glass so that the obvious color and contents
were obscured.

She lifted her glass of red wine, and he
lifted his SyBl. “What should we toast to?”

“Us,” he said.

“And the future.”

Their rims touched with a soft tinkling
sound, and they both took a sip. She put her glass down on the
table and lifted her fork. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m starving.
There was this sexy guy in my bed who kept me up half the day.”

“I can’t help it that you’re
irresistible.”

“I wasn’t complaining,” she said with a
wink.

* * *

When the meal was finished, Rage came to the
table and said with a low voice, “We need to leave through the
back. There’s a huge crowd out front.”

Harmony’s brow raised. “Why?”

Vex joined them and pressed a button on his
cell, and then he turned it around to face them. A local news
station’s website was streaming a video of Mishka and Harmony
entering the restaurant. The heading of the video displayed,
“Master of the City’s New Female.”

Harmony leaned back in the booth with a sigh
and lifted her nearly empty glass of wine. “New female? It makes me
sound like one in a long line of many.”

Vex shook his head with a laugh. “I checked
in with Cella, and she said that all the news stations have been
calling for comments. For now she’s saying no comment, but you know
you’ll need to make a comment eventually.”

Mishka nodded. “Tell Cella to draft one for
us. I’ll look it over when we get home.”

After sliding out of the booth, he held out
his hand for Harmony. She set her empty glass of wine on the table,
grabbed his hand, and joined him. “Was this a bad idea?”

“What?”

“Us going out in public. We’re on the news,
for gracious sake.”

Before he could answer, Finn said, “You’re
the beloved of the most powerful vampire in the Midwest. It was
only a matter of time before your relationship was leaked to the
public.”

Mishka slipped his arm around Harmony. “We’ll
leave as we did before, with the limo first and then the town
car.”

Vex nodded and left to speak with the other
guards.

Mishka directed his gaze to Rage. “It won’t
take long for it to become known that Harmony is the lead singer of
the band. Vigilance will be key for the nights when she performs
with the band.”

He nodded. “Vex and I were discussing
increasing security at the club while you were eating.”

Harmony tipped her face up to Mishka, and he
met her gaze. “With the news that I’m your beloved, there are going
to be a lot of broken-hearted females in Cleveland tonight.”

Mishka grinned. “I’m sure your fans will be
sad that you’re off the market as well, my heart.”

Ten minutes later they were in the town car.
Harmony sat next to him, and Vex and Rage sat in the front. The
limo pulled away from the restaurant with the plan to lead any
followers on another wild goose chase. Harmony pressed her hand to
Mishka’s cheek, and he turned his head to look down at her. The
alley was dark, as was the interior of the vehicle, but he didn’t
need to have lights to know exactly what she looked like.

“I wish we were home right now,” she
whispered.

He brushed his lips against hers. “Do
you?”

She hummed softly, sliding her heeled foot
over his calf. “I liked our date, but now we’re stuck waiting for a
crowd to disperse instead of rushing home to the chamber.”

He played his fingers over her knee and up
the outside of her thigh. There was no partition that separated the
front and back of the town car, so they had no real privacy. What
he wanted to do was lay her down on the seat and ravage her, but he
knew she valued their privacy.

“Our date isn’t over yet,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I want to dance with you.”

“Out in the club?”

“There’s a private viewing room. We’ll be in
the club but not part of the crowd.”

“Sounds perfect.”

She wrapped his ponytail around her hand and
kissed him, a soft purr in her throat. He gripped her thigh,
stilling the urge to find out how wet she was from just a kiss, and
sucked on her tongue. The car moved slowly, creeping forward as Vex
and Rage watched for trouble. The vehicle accelerated as they
cleared the alley and moved swiftly away from the restaurant.

“This is not fair,” she whispered against his
mouth. “Wouldn’t we have privacy in the limo?”

“Tomorrow this car will be as private as our
chamber.”

“Promise?” she asked with a laugh.

“Definitely. I’m also thinking about building
a restaurant next to the club.”

“Can we have our own private booth so we
never have to make reservations?”

“Whatever you like.”

“Now that’s a dangerous promise. I like a
lot
of things about you.”

He opened his mouth to tell her just how many
things he liked about her –
loved
about her – when the sound
of several vehicles accelerating filled the air along with Rage’s
snarl and Vex’s curse.

Mishka pulled Harmony to the center of the
bench seat and covered her body with his own seconds before the
town car was rammed. She screamed and gripped him tightly as the
car spun in a circle and then was rammed a second time by another
vehicle. The impact jarred his bones, but he managed to sink his
fingers into the seat to ensure that Harmony was kept safe in his
embrace.

“We’ve got incoming,” Vex shouted.

Both back doors of the town car had been
crushed. Mishka watched as Rage launched himself from the front
seat with a growl loud enough to rattle the car’s windows.

“You both okay?” Vex asked. A cut was already
healing on his forehead where he’d hit the steering wheel.

“Who hit us?” Mishka demanded as he released
his hold on Harmony and cracked his knuckles.

“Humans. Church members, I’m sure,” Vex
said.

He disappeared, and Mishka listened as a
fight raged outside of the vehicle. He glanced at Harmony;
protective feelings for her surged inside him like a tidal
wave.

“Kill a couple for me,” she whispered. “Put
this threat down for good.”

He kissed her swiftly and twisted in the
seat, slamming his feet against the door. It wrenched open, and he
bolted out, stopping only long enough to slam it shut to keep
Harmony safe. As he turned to face the fight, he heard a gun cock,
and he darted forward, crushing the barrel of the gun and then the
hand of the male holding it. The man screamed, and Mishka grabbed
his throat, sinking his fingers into his skin and pulling out a
chunk of his flesh.

Tossing the dying male aside, Mishka scanned
the intersection and saw the limo arriving. The doors opened as the
other guards joined the melee. Discarding his jacket, Mishka headed
into the fray, intent to secure his beloved’s safety in every
way.

Chapter
10

Harmony was both freaked out and turned on by
the battle outside. She’d seen her bandmates break up the odd fight
over the years, but what Mishka and his guards were doing to the
humans who’d engineered the accident was nothing short of
terrifying. The vampires moved so fast that she had trouble
tracking them. One minute Mishka was tearing the throat out of a
human and the next he had broken another’s neck. He was beautiful
in his rage. She could feel his emotions through their connection
as beloveds, and she knew that every move he made he did with her
in mind. He was securing her safety above all else, and he would
kill a thousand vampire-hating humans to do it.

She gripped the door handle, her thoughts on
helping her mate and her people, but she knew if she opened the
door, she’d embrace the dark side of her power. She’d never used
her powers to kill someone, and even though she knew she was
powerful enough to do it, she was afraid to lose herself, afraid to
taste the darkness and not be able to come back from it.

The door creaked open suddenly, and Mishka,
with his white dress shirt splashed with the blood of their
enemies, snarled, his fangs glinting in the streetlights.

“Are you okay?” he demanded. His golden eyes
were so bright they looked like shiny coins.

“I’m good. You?”

He gripped the collar of his shirt with both
hands and ripped it off, tossing the tattered remnants to the
street. “Not my blood.”

In the distance, police sirens sounded. “We
need to get out of here before the human police show up,” Vex said
as he joined them.

She pointed to the streetlight overhead.
“There’s a traffic cam up there; they already know we were
here.”

“I texted Temple, and he hacked the camera
system. Rage and the others are sticking around to deal with the
cops. The master and mistress of the city cannot be the subject of
a police investigation where a dozen humans died.”

Mishka climbed into the car. “Get us home,”
he said just a moment before the door shut.

Vex pulled away from the curb, driving in the
opposite direction of the sirens. Harmony was surprised that the
car could even drive, but Mishka assured her that it was built to
take a beating and still get the occupants to safety.

The silence in the car was stifling. Deciding
to try for a little humor, she turned to Mishka and said, “So this
is the most exciting first date I’ve ever had. How about you?”

For a long moment, no one said anything, and
then Mishka laughed, followed by Vex. Settling back against Mishka,
she listened as he told her about a first date he had with a fallen
angel in the 1700s.

* * *

Mishka hustled her through the garage and
into the club while Vex stayed with the vehicle to wait for a coven
mechanic who was going to tow it to a nearby garage. She wasn’t
surprised that there was a mechanic in the coven who owned a
coven-friendly repair shop. Mishka had ensured that the coven had
everything they would need for their day-to-day lives, from car
repair to SyBl delivery.

“Will Rage and the others be okay?” she
asked, holding Mishka’s hand tightly as they hurried through the
hall toward the elevator.

“The coven’s lawyers are already heading to
the scene. If the police want to detain the guards, the lawyers
will ensure they’re out well before dawn,” he said.

“Is it dangerous to be at the police station
after dawn?”

They stopped in front of the elevator, and he
pushed the call button. The gears whirred inside the shaft as the
elevator moved.

“Not necessarily, but since our kind are
vulnerable to sunlight, it’s best for our people to be home so they
can be safe instead of at the mercy of someone who may not have
their best interests in mind.”

She shivered. “Would a cop really leave a
vampire in a cell where he would get burned?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she
looked up at him to find him frowning. “It’s not happened since
I’ve been master of the city, but I have heard of it happening in
other places from time to time. When you’ve been around as long as
I have, you tend to see the best and worst that humanity has to
offer.”

The elevator opened, and they stepped inside.
“I wish I could have been more helpful tonight,” she said, leaning
heavily against Mishka.

He snarled, his arms tightening around her.
“I wouldn’t want you to have been out in that mess, my heart.”

“I don’t know what would possess them to
attack us like that, or how they even knew it was us. They went
after the town car.”

“I suspect that they realized the limo was a
decoy. All the humans who attacked us are dead; otherwise we could
get some answers.”

She shivered. “The church is watching
you.”

“Watching the club. I’ll have Brone do an
exterior sweep to make sure they haven’t found a way to sneak
cameras anywhere.”

“It would be nice if the leader was among the
dead.”

“He wasn’t, but I suspect he was watching
from a safe distance.”

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped
out into the hallway and headed toward the chamber. “Why can’t the
local police make them pack up? They’re a terror.”

“Because on the surface they hide behind
their religion and appear to be harmless – just humans who don’t
like vampires.”

When they were inside the chamber, with the
door locked and the shower heating, she turned and leaned against
the counter. “I thought about stepping out and using my power to
help.”