Daughter of the Tides, Servants of the Moon Book 2
the bookshop

Leon circled the block holding the bookshop. Del and Nyall got out at the corner. Kaiyou had gotten out and walked to the corner at the other end of the block. His dark eyes scanned the crowded street as he hunched under his oversized trenchcoat. It gave the giant wolf the appearance of being average height but very overweight. His eyes rested on a tall man with white hair and two rough looking wolves with him. Nyall’s eyes followed his mentor’s, he sensed something was off with the wolves, and something about the man made him want to attack him then Nyall realized the thin man wasn’t a human but a warlock.

Del pulled Nyall to a window as the almost albino man turned toward them. “Stop glaring at them and smile at me.” She hissed through a bright smile. “We’re just a young couple on a shopping date.”

He made himself smile at her the way he would have smiled at Moire, and asked through gritted teeth, “Better?”

“Much,” she responded softly.

They walked arm and arm toward the bookshop, but the pale warlock and the two wolves entered first. They turned the sign and locked the door behind them. Delilah led Nyall past, pulling him away from the doorway when he started to turn toward it.

“I can force the door.” He muttered.

“Too many humans around,” Delilah reminded, “And we need that warlock and those two rogues to think we are just humans too.” She stopped at the next shop, then Kaiyou walked past them.

He stopped in front of the shop and knocked until one of the rogues answered. In Japanese, he asked if they were open, then in broken English, “I… appointment… books to… purchase.” He held up his phone as if to show the wolf something.

“Look, you have to come back later… La-ter! We’re closed.” The wolf said loudly as if volume somehow would make up for the language barrier.

Kaiyou rose up to his full height and grabbed the wolf by the throat, then propelled him backward so quickly he didn’t have time to react. Del and Nyall rushed in after him and closed the door. The wolf’s eyes blazed golden and he punch Kaiyou hard enough to make him grunt but could not free himself. A man’s scream from above had Del bolting for the stairs with Nyall behind her. The other rogue wolf was holding a human while the witch held up his palm. The human’s skin was being burned to the point it was smoking and blistering.

“Stop!” Delilah shouted.

“It’s the Delphi!” The rogue wolf dropped the man and jumped at her only to meet Nyall’s bulk; their beasts snarled as they attacked each other.

The warlock pulled something from his pocket, but before he could throw it into the large censer on the table, Del pinned his forearm to the oak surface with the silver blade of the Benjmin. Her claws tightened around his throat.

“Where is the Vampyr child, servant of the sun?”

The thin, pale man could not match her werewolf strength, and, without his sorcery, he was helpless. But he laughed hollowly, and mocked, “You’re too late to save the coven, daughter of the moon. I helped kill them all, we burned their blood for our god, just like we will burn the hearts of your pups.”

“Not if we burn your heart first.” Snarling, Del sank her claws into his chest and ripped his heart out, she crushed it in front of him then tossed it on the burning censer of bloodbane and rowen wood where it flared like it was filled with kerosene.

Turning, she bent over the wounded human. He was too burned to be saved. The flesh on his chest was burned to the bone, but he looked at her with desperate eyes. “Please save him… His name is Evik. He… he was hurt when we escaped.”

“You have my word as the Delphi of the Moon, I will return Evik to his kind. Where is he?” She pled, ignoring Nyall and Kaiyou now watched them.

The burned human pointed at a bookcase, then died. Del stood up and went to the shelves.

She touched the books, “I think there is a room behind it. I can feel a shadow beyond it.”

Kaiyou ran his fingers over the volumes, then he noticed the three from Ainsley’s drawing. Pulling the two identical books caused a click. The bookcase rotated like a revolving door and Del went forward cautiously into what looked like a storage room.

“Evik? Evik, are you here?” Del called softly, “My name is Delilah, the Augur Vampyr sent me to save you.”

There was a small, muffled sound, almost a whimper. A tiny boy no more than three was huddled in a blanket. His chest was bare except for a swath of blood-soaked gauze wrapping him. He trembled and sniffed as she knelt in front of him.

“I won’t hurt you,” she promised softly.

“The three-faced mommy said you were coming.” He whispered, then he said, “I’m hungry. Richard fed me and told me to hide in here.”

“I know. You’re hurt and that makes you hungry. I’m sorry, but the sun-worshipers hurt your feeder and he died. He died protecting you.” Del added as the boy’s eyes filled with tears again. She rolled up her bloody sleeve and offered her arm. “I will feed you…”

“Delilah, no,” Nyall interrupted, but she threw him a hard glare to silence him as the boy cowered.

“It’s okay, Evik. Eat and sleep and when it gets dark out, I will take you to someplace safe,” Delilah promised. She took the small boy in her arms and held him as he bit her.

“Nyall, help me with the bodies. There is an incinerator in the basement.” Kaiyou summoned him away from watching the Vampyr child sucking blood from Del’s arm.

“I cannot believe she is feeding a vampire,” Nyall declared his disgust as they put the bodies of the two rogues and the witch in the incinerator.

“The Vampyr are not our enemy. Many, many generations ago the Lycaeon and Vampyr lived in harmony, but their children were too powerful, and some became corrupt. All were killed to stop the madness of a few,” Kaiyou explained. “Since those days, matings between our species have been forbidden.”

“How can wolves and vampires have children together?” Nyall demanded in shock.

Kaiyou shrugged, “The same way vampires and humans can have children together, through the blessings of the gods and goddesses. It should not be possible because we are three different species but the miraculous happens.”

Nyall was silent then he asked, “What about the witches?”

Kaiyou growled before he answered, “Through sorcery anything is possible.” He trembled uncharacteristically in anger then inhaled deeply to calm himself. “I am going with Leon to check the penthouse where the human lived with the coven. Guard the Delphi and the child.”

Staying away from the windows, Del walked around the bookshop carrying the boy, wrapped in his blanket. The terrified child clung to her desperately when she tried to lay him on the cot, so she just held him. Leon had brought in clothes for Nyall and Kaiyou, then Leon had made a call to a pair of Servants who brought cleaning supplies. While Leon and Kaiyou were gone to check and see if any were left at the Coven’s home, she contemplated getting the store cleaned out. Del read the book titles as she wandered. So many that she had read, and many she had not. She stopped a shelf holding hardback first editions of serial westerns. Shifting Evik to one shoulder, she took a book off the shelf, then walked over to where Nyall watched out the window. The clouds were moving in and it had started raining.

“Here, I found one we haven’t read yet.” She held out the book to him.

Glancing at the title, he eyed her distrustfully. “Are ye asking for a truce? Because I won’t give up Moire.”

“Eventually you won’t have a choice. You are not as strong as you could be. Wouldn’t it be better if you made the choice you wanted?” Del asked softly.

Nyall breathed out heavily, “Delilah, I know the Moon tells you many things, why can’t She tell you that I am not ready. I will never be ready. Moire and I were born the same night. We never lived a moment where we couldn’t feel each other until her death. Being without her now is torture. It is a physical emptiness that starts around my heart and spreads through my whole body… I… I don’t even have anything with her scent on it to sleep with.” He looked at the book in his hand. “It’s why I only sleep when I am too tired to feel anything because as soon as I get some rest, my heart begins to beat and I can feel how empty I am.”

“I know how you feel… I don’t sleep either. I could read all the books in this shop, fill my mind with more words than ever existed and it wouldn’t stop the war from coming or my visions about it.” She looked out at the rain pouring from the blue-gray sky. “I’m just trying to prepare you. We… you and I… we won’t get the luxury of choice very often… if ever… and getting a boon is sometimes the worst thing that could happen. Being chosen by the Moon is as much a curse as a blessing.”

She turned to walk away from him then she paused and said over her shoulder, “You should pick out the ones you haven’t read, before these are shipped out.”

“I’ll just go through them when they get to the Temples.” He said. He laid the book aside, stiffening as he heard the rear door unlock, but relaxed when he saw Leon come out of the back.

“They aren’t going to the Temples. These books belong to my sister, the Augur Vampyr. Her brother loves books. I am sending them to her coven,” Del revealed softly. “Leon.” She greeted her brother-by-mating as she walked past.

“Delphi.” Leon bowed his head to her as he passed, then he held out a roll of brown paper to Nyall. “We need to cover the windows, and I have papers to put on the door to say the shop has been closed due to the death of the owner. We have a contact in the coroner’s office that has already filed the paperwork for the death certificate and a Servant who is a lawyer is handling the probate with the Coven’s lawyer. The human was quite shaken when Kaiyou told him what happened. He wants to join the child when he is finished with the court proceedings, his family has served this coven since the 1700s.”

Leon turned and looked around the bookshop. “These books are a treasure. I could retire to this.”

“Maybe you could become a librarian,” Nyall taunted and Leon laughed, “No, I don’t like children. I did not even like my baby brothers until they were grown.”

There was the creak of a chair on the balcony above. They looked up and saw Del sitting in an overstuffed chair, still holding Evik, and reading from a book to him.

“If Luca would not have died… Delilah would have been an amazing mother,” Leon said sadly, then he turned back to taping the paper over the window.

Nyall watched her curiously, he realized that Del grieved more than just the loss of her mate, she grieved the loss of her future children. She was so attentive to Ainsley and really loved his little sister-by-mating because Ainsley represented something Del would never have, a daughter of her own. For the first time since going to the Gate, Nyall felt pity for Delilah.

Helios twitched with disappointment. Looking around the empty store front, he could only wonder where the Servants of The Moon had sent all the books and the surviving child of the Illuminati coven. The blank walls still bore the outlines of bookshelves that once sat against the old paint. He inhaled deeply and sneezed at the scent of moonlight and snow.

“What does your beast scent, notlazopiltan (my son)?” Soleil demanded.

Helios hated her, hated that she did not understand that he and his wolf were one. “It smells of wolves and moonlight and the freshest snow. The sister of my mate was here with five others. They took the books and the vampire child. Your warlock and two of my wolves were here and I believe they were slain.”

She trilled in her throat and clicked her teeth unhappily, reminding him of a giant angry bird of prey. “Can’t your dog track them?”

Resisting the urge to strike her, Helios stalked away from his witch mother and went into the basement. Opening the incinerator doors, he held his hand over the ashes. The flames rose up and showed him the outlines of the bodies burned there. The warlock had been burned without his heart.

“Stand aside, Helios. I will revive Huicotl from his ashes,” Soleil shoved him away from the opening.

“But, Mother…” He started.

“Do not distract me.”

“As you wish, Mother.” Smirking, Helios walked away.

He knew she was wasting her magic, attempting to restore the ashes to flesh. Huicotl had been his mother’s ally for ages untold. The warlock had spent the last several decades pandering to Soleil in the hopes that she would choose him to be the fire priest. The soul that shared Helios body had no use for Huicotl or his need to use potions and powders to boost his magic. Real fire came from within, fire glowed from his fingertips as they slid along the banister. Helios’ wolf bared its teeth. It knew its prestige and power were greater and older than any wolf or witch it had met. It often saw itself running among the burning trees of a forest inferno or across immense lava beds. The only thing that would sooth it was its mate.

Wandering the upstairs, he found Huicotl’s heart burned in a brass censer left in a corner with the rubbish near a restroom. Grinning malevolently, Helios tipped the ashes into a toilet and flushed them. His mother’s ally would never bother him again. He washed his hands and checked himself in the mirror, knowing none were as handsome as he appeared to the wolves of this generation.

His wolf expressed its wish to kill his mother, but Helios reminded that they needed her and her witches to ensure he fathered many pups. They had to keep the alliance with the witches a little while longer. But eventually, he promised, eventually he would let his wolf eat her heart the way he had let him eat his half-sister’s heart.

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