CHAPTER NINETEEN

CAL

The sitting and dining rooms had become a scene out of a mafia movie. Like all the key players were gathering to figure out how to protect the family from the local gang bent on taking over. Not a far off analogy really, but I didn't expect the company to have grown overnight.

Niko stood between Ishiah and Promise over the dining room table. The white, high-backed chairs had been pushed asunder in all directions to make room for inevitable pacing. Only one of the chairs was occupied and that was by Rafferty. The werewolf healer sat low in the seat with one ankle braced to the knee of the other leg and one hand lifted up to brush over the arm of his now-obvious-to-even-me mate. Mia, I think they called her. She wasn't draped over the back of the chair like a doting trophy, but Raff still kinda looked like the Godfather with the pretty woman standing over him.

In the adjacent sitting room, Catcher and his other two pack mates were distracting the fluffy-tailed werewolf pups with Dante's few meager toys. Both seemed to be a little old for them, but they also didn't seem to care. Robin was in the room with them, but half sitting on the back of the white couch to face the dining room and partake in the conversation while still being able to leave room to walk away if he got bored.

I paused in the space between the two rooms, looking around the full apartment in confusion. "I missed something."

"I'm sure you're accustomed to that feeling by now," Goodfellow quipped without hesitation.

"Rafferty and Catcher came to help," Niko explained. "They heard about the Evati reestablishing."

"Someone's got to keep you boys out of trouble, especially when this situation is indirectly my fault," Rafferty added. He looked calm enough for a wolf with the Kin out to hunt him and his cousin down. Then again, the Kin's focus seemed to have shifted to taking out the Harbinger first.

"Pretty sure this one is a group effort," I joked. I started to put Dante down so he could go play with the older boys, but he let off a sound that was as close to a wail as he'd ever gotten and clung to me like a squirrel on a wind-roiled branch. "All right, all right," I anchored him back to my hip, tilting my head to see his screwed up face. "Has he been like this all morning?"

"All morning," Rafferty offered with a snort. "Stuck to Niko's leg like a tumor."

I frowned and nudged my nose to Dante's temple, breathing in his foxglove scent for a moment. I was never a very social creature and I was pretty sure Castiella grew into her vibrant personality from rock bottom, but it still bothered me a little that Dante was so adverse to new people. Maybe it was the dad in me, because normally I would praise him for his selective trust.
And speaking of selective trust...I didn't like how Cassie made a bee-line right to Catcher. Granted, there was a couch between them and she obviously was going to speak with Robin first, but that didn't stop Catcher from turning in his seat to focus on my girlfriend. No, I guess she was more than that now. My fiancé? That just sounded weird when we weren't even considering marriage. She was mine, regardless and Catch needed to come to terms with that.

"Any players we know?" Cassie asked Goodfellow. She leaned up against the couch next to him, sparing Catcher only a quick hair ruffle. I felt a little better at that greeting. "Volcheck, Erot, and Semalyski. After the incident in Nice, I didn't hear any news of the Evati; I think we both assumed we'd killed enough of them for the pack to leave us be, but about one hundred years after you ran out on me for the thirdtime I made nice with a wolf from the Aggi crew and he told me a plethora of information. Needless to say his loose jaw eventually got him 'running no more', but that is beside the point."

Cassie glanced over her shoulder with an inquiring look toward the blond male wolf. I didn't remember his name, but he seemed normal enough playing with two rowdy pups in Promise's sitting room. "Hey," he snapped when he caught Cassie's glance. "I'm not that old, Harbinger."

"Well, you're the only wolf running from the Aggi crew that Iknow," Cassie teased.

"No, this wolf was skinned and cut into pieces," Robin interjected. I saw the blond swallow and turn his attention back to the tikes; I didn't blame him for not wanting to think about that image. If he was running from the same pack he probably would share the same fate if they found him. Luckily, he now had a friend who could stop the heart of any wolf that messed with them. Lucky me for that too. "Volcheck, Erot and Semalyski all started new packs. No better than beta males at the time, but now they are probably as formidable as Cerberus."

"I don't remember them."

Robin sighed ever so slightly and recited three short phrases in another language. Cassie smirked like a little kid who'd just made up her own curse words and they were catching on. "To translate, I suppose it would be: Snub-nose…, Tail-rot, and Psycho-puppy."

"I remember now," Cassie offered. I chuckled, loving my girl even more; she didn't know their names and the ones she came up for them were the kind that I would use as well. "And please. Snub and Rot are nothing. Pyscho might be trouble."

"All of them have a large following, Cassie," Catcher chimed in.

"So we gain more experience points when we kill the bastards." I tried to contain my own smirk in Cassie's response, especially because a heavy percentage of the gathering was watching her, dubious and indignant. It was entertaining to say the least; most of the time she was a lite version of a righteous peri, but I really adored these moment when the Auphe broke through; that gun-slinging ask questions after the blood bath kind of thought process. I found it so endearing. Robin didn't share my affection for the kill-switch response though.

He clapped his hands together as if preparing to host a cooking show and flashed a smile just as phony. "Great, then I'll just run out and buy you that papoose I'd been eyeing. The one with the tiny machine gun attached. I'm sure Dante will get the hang of it before the wolves rip his throat out." Sarcasm aside that sounded like an awesome baby accessory.

"So what do you suggest?" Niko asked, leaning against the dining room table with his eyes lifted to Robin. Obviously, after Cassie's half-cocked proposal, he determined who would be the one to conjure up the sane plan and the fact that it was Goodfellow made me realize how desperate we'd become.

"I suggest waiting. Lying low until we know who, how many, and logically what their moves might be."

I snorted. "And how might we do that? The Kin aren't really on speaking terms with any of us and I doubt even you can sweet talk that kind of information from them."

"You have such little faith in my abilities and after all I've shown you? All the grace and knowledge I've given, which your vagrant brain has yet to comprehend, and you entertain the doubt that I would be unable to manipulate a few flea-ridden mongrels?" He actually had the courtesy to tip an imaginary hat toward Rafferty, adding, "Present company excluded," before turning back to me, awaiting an answer to his rhetorical rambling. At my glare, he sighed. I couldn't tell if it was false disheartened frustration or if he was actually a little peeved. Either way I didn't much care. I trusted him to have my family's back that was faith enough; anything else he claimed he could do or actually did was nothing to me. My lack of response didn't stop him from prattling on either. "I've never been a family man. Considering pans don't sire children in the conventional 'human' fashion, it is no surprise that paternal instinct is one of the few things that eludes me. It never held much baring on my life as vast as that time may be, but regardless, here I am trust into the role one of my magnitude should never be subjected to—"

"The role of crazy uncle?" I intoned. He certainly couldn't claim the role of father that was reserved for the floundering idiot, bouncing the kid to his hip.

Robin gave me a sour look for interrupting him. "I'm a godfather now," he said dramatically.

"Right." Beside me, Cassie was trying her best not to burst out laughing. I didn't try to hide the fact that his ego still managed to astound me by its ever-expanding size. "Did you forget that I was sired by a race of pure evil? Pretty much means if I try to practice anything of any religion I will spontaneously combust. Besides you don't touch my son unless myself, Cas, Nik, and Promise are all dead. In that order."

"You will regret that decision," Robin grumbled. "Especially with how Promise's last one turned out."

"You had a point to this," Nik commented. It was a low blow from Goodfellow, but Promise ignored it with poise. There was always contention between them –pretty much always contention between a puck and any race of paien– but it wasn't often that Goodfellow let the razor sharp words slip out. Promise had come to terms with her daughter's poor and murderous choices over time. She had been trying to set the bitch straight before Cherish even managed to wrangle a Chupacabra that had a knack for mind-melding a dead Cal in pieces on the living room rug. Cherish was old news, dead news, but that didn't stop me from cringing at the comment.

"You stay here with the Auphe trio and let your elders play the game," Robin explained with that arrogant smirk of his. Cassie started to interrupt, but her BFF cut her off, knowing exactly what she was about to say. "And when you act older than Promise I will consider you her elder, you cradle robbing cougar."

I snickered; from insulting Promise to showing respect –you never knew what you were gonna get with Robin. Castiella's mouth snapped shut at his comment. She knew the puck had every right to question her choice of bed-partners, or at least make fun of her. She was sleeping with me. A weaker, dumber, and much, much younger man, but I could admit to each without shame. I wasn't complaining either, as long as we didn't go through her little black book, which had to be pretty extensive since she was friends with a puck who had regular orgies in his apartment pre-monogamy. Friends with him for over a thousand years. That racked up a lot of experience, but I just decided to enjoy the ride with the oblivious naivety of a computer nerd with his con-artist dream girlfriend.

Robin's suggestion gave me pause though, mostly because I didn't like it. Ever since we stopped running from the Auphe, Nik and I stopped running from everything with the exception of some choice memories and several boxes of unwanted emotional baggage. We stood our ground, side by side or back to back. Stepping aside to let out few and only friends pick the fights, our fights, didn't seem natural, let alone right.

"Are you kidding me, right now?" Cassie said with more distain than I thought was warranted. Then again the Evati were after her. She, more than any of us, wouldn't want to back down from that. She crossed her arms under her chest, which I noticed not for the first time since I woke to the vision of her in Raff's surgery, was still marvelously enhanced after birthing and probably nursing Dante. A cup size at least. "I'm trying my best not to gate off and do this on my own because that isn't what my family wants and now you want to bench me completely?"

It was Rafferty that cleared his throat, drawing attention from the puck and the half peri. "Not to point out the obvious, but last week you were dead."

Cassie's shoulders dropped, her arms remained crossed, and she looked off in the direction of the now dozing werewolf pups to avoid eye contact. I watched her back and tried not to think about the new scars on her stomach. I'd traced them with my fingers last night, but I knew it had been black claws that made them, gutting her. "I can accelerate your naturally swift healing, but I can't make white blood cells pop into existence," Raff went on, still sitting comfortably in his chair. "You're still healing and you're in no shape to take on three alphas with vendettas by yourself."

"Robin isn't suggesting you hide, Castiella," Promise assed. She wasn't healed completely either, making it difficult for me –and probably more so Niko– to agree to them fighting our fight. "Ishiah, Robin, and I have certain connections in the city. We have the means to get Kin information without actually speaking to the Kin. What we aresuggesting is that you remain here until we have something to go on. Rushing in blind will not lead to success here."

I still didn't like it, but I begrudgingly admitted it made sense. I wanted this over with. As much as I was itching for a fight, as much as the new and improved Cal wanted to play this round, the bell hadn't rung yet. So the next hour, I tried to just let them hash it out.

Eventually, Raff and Catcher left with their pack, on call for the fallout when that undoubtedly happened. Rafferty was a powerhouse to have in a fight and a ranged fighter too, but he had a new responsibility to his new teammates and Cassie made it clear she didn't want them involved, if it wasn't necessary. I was said to see out healer leave, anticipating a great need for him soon, but he was his own man, capable of his own decisions. It was even briefly discussed that we should have him take Dante with him, but Cas and I shot that down quickly. Rafferty wasn't the only one with new responsibilities and I wasn't about to shirk mine for a good gouge and tumble with the Kin.

As the day wore on the gathering disbursed. First the wolves, then Ishiah. Promise and Robin were the last to leave and they did so together. We were united in his, hostility over words or past actions pushed aside. The first time our band of brothers was larger than two or three. It should have been a comforting thought, but I could only see it as too many bodies in the way of the target. Too much cannon fodder to be had.

Then came that pesky waiting part. The part I hated. Television didn't help – how Promise could survived without the premium package was beyond me, but it also solidified just how perfect she was for my anti-boobtube brother. That would have to change if we moved in with her though. Dante seemed to enjoy the Discovery channel more than I had as a child though. He watched the lions prowl the Serengeti like he was part of the pride and ready to take down the sickly Gazelle in the brush. His shoulders rolled, head tilting as he mimicked the rumbling growls and added a few higher trills of his own Auphe heritage.

Cassie divided her time between accompanying me on the couch, pacing behind it, and peering over Niko's shoulder as skimmed the web for any information that might help up. I knew she wanted to be airborne or gate-bound, tearing into some wolf throats and I wasn't ashamed to admit I craved the same.

We didn't have to wait long, but none of us expected what was behind door number one.

For one, our adversaries didn't often knock on the front door. Usually it was more of a dive and grab, or a kick in and lash out action. They liked to break things about as much as I did, thoroughly. We all knew though; Cassie and I smelled him and Nik probably just knew because he was Nik. Unfortunately, I thought it was Ishiah and Castiella didn't realize otherwise until I was pulling the door open. I recognized her clipped syllable for what it was, a warning, so by the time the door was cracked enough to see our visitor I already had my Glock up and pointed between his dark blond eyebrows.

Molten gold stared fixedly on me instead of the weapon. I wondered briefly if his asshole's ever changed back from the peri-gold or if they were naturally on a temper flare high. Niko was behind me with one of his many blades in hand and from the corner of my eye I could see Cassie. She held Dante protectively in her arms, one wing of peppered white curled around to hide him from view. Her eyes were blazing the same karat as her uncle's.

"Joel, right," I greeted with my finger on the trigger. "To what do we own the displeasure?"

He said nothing. His dark lashed eyes boring into my like he could burn my soul. Little did he know that even I doubted I had one. I decided to be patient for once, remaining just as statue still and lifting my chin to match his haughty look. He was the runt of the Cheris boys. I could see that now. All of them were broad-shouldered and relatively tall, though not much taller than my brother. The exception had been their father, Izrahiah. That was a damned intimidating peri and I was overjoyed when I heard Niko and Robin had crossed their sword through his heart. Joel was more my size. Broad where I was wiry, but just as tall, though his unfurled wings did give a bit more girth. "Could you put those things away? This isn't my place and I don't think they allow two hundred pound parakeets, the neighbors might cause a fuss."

The gold-barred appendages lifted in irritation, but he didn't will them invisible. Well, he waited several seconds and it wasn't until Castiella hid hers from view that he allowed his to disappear. "What are you doing here, Joel?" Obviously, she hadn't expected him back any more than I had. Ishiah told us they would leave us be. The Cheris clan wouldn't attack Cassie until Dante was independent or at least twenty.

I didn't remove the gun from its position between his eyebrows and he didn't move an inch. When he finally spoke it wasn't in English. My finger tightened on the trigger in irritation, disliking that he was obviously being disrespectful to the sheep and half-sheep of the room. Plus I wanted to know what the hell he was saying. Cassie knew and she remained silent through whatever speech he was offering her. It wasn't a loving admission of douchebaggery on his part, I could tell as much from his level and threatening tone. And the smile he offered at the end was far from familial…or rather it was, just more at home on the other branch of Cas and my family tree.

Cassie spoke in retort, her voice calm despite the tight wrinkles between her eyebrows. She looked like him –I realized. Cassie didn't look much like Ishiah beyond her coloring, which I attributed to her being half-Auphe, but looking at Joel now, up close and personal with the muzzle of my gun millimeters from his skin, I noticed the similarities. He had a rounder face than his brothers, a softer nose, and even a little bow in his upper lip. It made me wonder how much he looked like his sister, how much Cassie looked like her mother, and how much that pissed this dick off. Whatever she had to say, in perian to Joel, he didn't appreciate and cut her off with a sound crossed between a hissing Cockatoo and human groan of disgust.

They fell into silence. Castiella's hand brushed over Dante's dark crown and she hushed him when he squealed something undeniably Auphe. I nearly smiled, catching the phrase and wanted very much to follow through. Perhaps I should have been more concerned with the fact that my two-year-old was telling me to kill the stranger in Promise's doorway, but who was I to judge. It sounded like a good idea to me, but I figured I needed another option. "Cas?"

She didn't say anything for moment, not a smart thing to do when someone was on the brink of discharging a weapon in the fact of your relative. She called to me before I put the last .5 pounds of pressure on the trigger and at the sound of her voice Joel spun to leave. He knocked the barrel aside as he made the turn, as if he knew just how eager I was to let the bullet free. The vibration against the metal almost had me fire it. I managed to keep it in the chamber, re-aiming at the back of his skull as he walked down the hall toward the elevator.

"Leave it," Cassie told me. So I did, but that didn't stop me from slamming and locking the door. When I turned around Cassie was still behind my brother. That in and of itself said volumes regarding her fear for Dante. Not that I blamed her. The peris had wanted Castiella dead for several millennia for her party fouls forever ago, then to see her content and with a child just like her… It was no wonder Joel came back. I was just surprised he didn't finish the job himself, or try. Niko trailed his eyes between the two of us before resting them on Dante.

"What did he say?"

"Dante was calling for blood," I smirked and ruffled my son's tousled hair. "What the peri was saying, I don't know." Niko gave me a weary look for my stating the obvious. Neither of us knew perian and my brother didn't know Auphe, but he had to have seen my reaction after Dante spoke. He knew a vicious plea when he heard one. Kill the bad man, daddy.

"Joel was calling for blood, too. A duel," Castiella lifted Dante from her body and plopped him against my chest. I managed to holster the Glock before he slipped down my front to the floor. And Niko managed to catch Cassie's arm before she went for the door.

"No, you promised this would be a family's effort." And that was how it always was. Nik and I fighting for our lives, for each others lives. It didn't matter whose fault it was or what was after whom, all that matter was that we wouldn't be able to get through it without one another. Or well, I wouldn't have been able to get through it without Niko. Cassie stared at my brother, arm pulled back, ready to shake him off, but she didn't. He would have been unrelenting anyway. "You said that. You promised Cal that you wouldn't leave. I like you Cassie, I really do. I appreciate all you have done for my brother and the scrapes you have gotten him out of, but I swear to you if you leave him again we are done."

"I'm not leaving him, Niko." She was trying to assure him, but the tightness in her tone belied a temper on the edge. Her peri heritage gave her that extra conscious that enabled her to be more stable on that scale between good and evil incarnate, but it also gave her a hair-trigger temper. It wasn't something Auphe had. They didn't partake in a grand spectrum of emotions, mostly I noticed boredom, bloodlust, and (for me at least) sexual desire were the forerunners. If there was a game, I wanted to play it, if it wasn't a challenge I wanted to kill it quickly and walk away. It had to be entertaining and it had to cause pain, mine or someone else's. I was noticing the desire for these things more and more. The more memories that came back the more solid I felt, but I gave up a part of me when I let them return. I gave up a bit of my humanity, if not all of it, and the only things keeping me grounded and not on a psychotic murdering spree were my brother, my lover, and my son.

I knew Cassie had similar priorities, but her go-to emotions were much different. As viciously protective as Niko on a bad day, she wanted to end every living creature that so much as gave me or Dante the stink eye. Before, when it had just been me, she'd let a lot more slide. She knew I could handle my own battles and she knew I was used to the distain, letting it drip off me like water on a raincoat, but Dante was a different story. He was her baby and I had to reason with her to bring her down from her skewed Auphe/peri need to slaughter. "All right, mama lion, before you go charging off for the final battle, why don't you tell us what's going on?"

She wet her full lips. Niko let her twist out of his hold when her feet became more grounded and not ready to spring for the door. Not that she needed to, she could have gated, but she allowed us to stop her. "In the peris' culture a duel is how they settle most disagreements. Even if it's between several factions or even full clans. Pick a champion, champions fight and whoever comes out on top is the one that won the disagreement. As battles go, it is quiet effective in keeping casualties down and peace between the clans, but that is only because it is widely accepted within all the peri clans. Joel is challenging me to a duel; he says the others have no knowledge of this and the treaties to spare Dante until he's old enough stand." She paused to take in a long breath and raked her fingers through her hair, mussing the beginning of the smooth plait it had been in. "He's arguing that this duel isn't for my past crimes, but to avenge his family and honestly he has every right to challenge me for that. So does Ishiah."

"That's bullshit and you know it," I grouched. That was the thing I hated about paien cultures. All of them had these stupid little manipulative tricks of deceit and honor. Castiella had no reason to feel guilty for killing the leaders of the Cheris clan. She was protecting herself and, more importantly, saving my ass. She would have never harmed them if they had left her alone. She was honorable in that agreement and they chose deceit. Fuck the peris' culture. "So you want to what? Go meet that peri prick and fight him to the death? What does that prove?"

"If I kill him my punishment for murdering my family will be excused. If he kills me his vengeance will be complete. No one else involved. No one else fighting. And I can take him. Even as a peri with a blade, I know I can best him."

"I have no doubt of that, but I still call shenanigans. It's a trap, Cas." I approached her with Dante, hoping his puppy-dog eyes would entice her not to be so reckless more than my words. "It's obviously a trap."

She shook her head. "They wouldn't do that. The others of the Cheris clan wouldn't agree to an ambush, not after they decreed that they wouldn't harm me with Dante as my dependant."

"You didn't even know about that decree before!"

"I know they will uphold it."

"You already said Joel didn't even tell them! They'll uphold nothing—"

"They won't set a trap, Cal! Joel would never get their support for that and he would need more than himself for an ambush!"

"Stop," Niko cut in, actually having to slide his arm between us to separate us. He didn't realize that Cassie and I used to argue like that all the time, peri/Auphe temper meets human/Auphe arrogance. Usually it ended with us making out or toppling to the bed…or one of us storming out. Maybe Nik did realize it was the same kind of argument. He turned to Cassie first, tone even and ready to reason this out. "At Rafferty's place, Ishiah said the others agreed to leave Dante be until he is of age. This is a similar concept to how they avoid fighting in a village that has women and children in it?" Cassie nodded to affirm his half-rhetorical question. Niko's brow was wrinkled when he glanced over at me, which made my stomach turn. He was going to agree with her.

"Niko—"

"I know the concept is foreign to you, Cal, but the peris are righteous with their honor. Deceit is treated as cold-blooded murder. What Castiella is saying rings true to their traditions. The rest of the Cheris clan regards Castiella as Dante's guardian and they would not break that decree for one peri's vengeance. This is why Joel chose a duel. It follows the peris thoughts of honor."

"But the whole reason for the decree was because Dante's dependant on her. Kill her in a duel would be the same as breaking the decree," I countered, more than a little pissed off that my brother was taking my girlfriends convoluted side. She didn't need encouragement, she needed a slap to the back of her head.

Niko frowned, knowing I wasn't pleased with his decision. His hand went to Dante's crown. Little Ace had started dozing in my arms, his head half tucked under my chin and his breath warm against my chest. He didn't even stir at Niko's touch, actually he didn't even react much to Cassie and I arguing as heatedly as we had been.

"Dante has two parents."

I glared at my brother for the obvious comment. "Yeah, that's kinda necessary for him to have been born."

"I imagine the other peris don't even consider you an option, little brother, but Joel might be able to rationalize that and convince the others that killing Castiella wouldn't break their agreement."

"You want her to go then?" I snapped, trying to keep the volume down for Dante even if the bitterness was thick. "You want her to just run off again, leaving her son behind."

"Cali—"

"No," Niko cut in, waving a hand in front of Castiella to stop her defensive whine. "We fight as a family." He fixed his gray eyes on Cassie. "We're going with you. We will let you fight Joel on your own, but I want to be there if something goes wrong. And if it's a trap, be ready to gate Dante to Rafferty as fast as you possibly can."

Cassie pressed her lips together as they had parted to argue in the middle of Niko's speech. We all knew what 'something goes wrong' meant. He wanted to be there for me if Joel succeeded and he wanted to know for sure he played fair. If he killed Cassie with a trap or an unfair advantage, I had no doubt my brother would rattle the peris' cages until one of them acknowledge Joel's betrayal and then he would kill Joel, or let me do it. And Niko's plan made sense. Even with my three-gate maximum I could get Dante out of a sticky situation and into the arms of a healer that might be able to shield the boy's presence from even the Auphe.

"All right," she finally conceded. Her mahogany eyes fell on me as she attempted an apologetic smile. "Let's do this then." I pressed up to her again, only this time there were no lashing words exchanged. I took her mouth and knocked my forehead to hers when we parted. She hummed softly, still braving that half-hearted smile. "I'll be over before you know it."

"Better be," I grumbled with good nature. "I'm getting hungry."