Homelands Pt. 10 Ch. 03

Lance chuckled. It sounded strange coming out of his wolf mouth.

"Do that, and we'll take you to Winter," Lena said.

Yvette grabbed the meat cleaver she'd used to chop Kristen's arm off. "Well, then."

"You really don't-" Zach began, stepping towards her.

Before he got another word out, Lance smacked the back of his head. Casually. Halfhearted though the blow might have been, though, it still sent Zach flying across the room. He landed in a heap and didn't move.

"She's not real," Yvette whispered to herself as she raised the bloody knife. A voice in the back of her mind asked her if it would matter if she was. "She's not real," she repeated.

Dull pain shot up her arm as she made impact. The cleaver sank several inches into Kristen's skull. And then the girl opened her eyes and began screaming.

#

"Nothing?" his brother asked him the moment Nick took shape again.

"Nothing," Nick confirmed.

What he didn't say, as much because it would go against the ritual as anything else, was that he hadn't even been looking for Frank. Not this time. Rather, he'd been stalking a commoner girl who he thought might make an easy mark. He might have grabbed her too, if he hadn't been ambushed by a snow leopard.

Might have. He still wasn't sure.

Nick's cloak sublimated. He looked down and studied the body he hadn't seen bare in weeks. Not that he was expecting to find any-

"Are those scars?" Eric asked.

"Huh. Yeah, they sure are," Nick said, too stunned to inject any sarcasm into his response. "She shouldn't even have been able to touch me," he muttered.

"She who?" Eric asked. "Don't tell me you ran into Daphne."

"Pffft."

His brother breathed a sigh of relief. "Good." Then he added, quite unnecessarily, "Suppose I should've figured that. You wouldn't be standing here if you had."

"Right. Because you're the only one brave enough and strong enough to go face to face with her and live to tell the tale," Nick said.

Eric held up his hands defensively. "I didn't say that."

"Whatever," Nick said. His cloak wrapped itself around him once more. "Anyway, it wasn't her. Just one of her daughters. Apparently one of the stronger ones." He snickered in spite of himself before adding, "That, or we're even more fucked than we realized."

"That's not funny."

"Kinda is, actually."

"What the fuck's happened to you?" Eric asked, staring at Nick as though seeing him for the first time. The look didn't suit him. Eric's pretty face did smug better than it did surprise. "Do you even want to make it back to Summer?"

"Of course I do," he said. "Just because I don't whine about Vee the way you do Gabby doesn't mean I miss her any less."

"So why are you being so reckless?"

He wanted to talk about reckless? The guy who wanted to kidnap one of Daphne's daughters because he was convinced she wouldn't see it as kidnapping once she saw how handsome and brave and charming he was?

"Precisely because I want to make it back to Summer," Nick said. The hopeless romantic probably still thought everything would work itself out just because they were the good guys. Probably figured Flori would knight him when they got back too. "There's no way we're getting out of here without getting our hands dirty. Even then, outlook's not too good."

"I agree. It's time to start looking for hares."

"You know, I'm really starting to wonder about that," Nick replied. "We both know that if there's no real desire involved, no new energy will be created. We'll milk her dry in no time. Buy ourselves another day or two, at best."

"Right, if there's no desire involved."

Nick sighed. He had no hope of getting through his brother's thick skull. Even if he did, there was that giant ego to grapple with.

His brother was a good-looking guy. Not irresistible, but attractive.

What if they used each other? No kidnapping, no risk of attracting Daphne's attention. No additional mouths to feed. Just a nice, simple, elegant solution to their biggest problem.

Nick tried picturing his brother on top of him, and a shudder ran down his spine.

It was no use.

He could appreciate his brother's physical perfection from a distance. But the thought of letting anything other than his eyes touch the guy was just too much. He didn't like what it said about him that he'd sooner resort to kidnapping and raping an innocent woman than have sex with another man, but he couldn't reason his way into wanting his brother. And if he didn't genuinely want him, then there'd be no point.

But, then, Nick didn't need to like it. Not so long as Eric did. His brother could produce the surplus, and pass some to Nick in his moment of ecstasy. Then they'd both be better off. All Nick had to do manipulate his brother's emotions.

Nothing he hadn't done before. To someone he cared even more about.

And if he didn't, the two of them would be forced to do the same to someone else. So, really, it was just the lesser of two evils.

"Quit looking at me like that," Eric said. "You're creeping me out."

"Tell me something," Nick asked. "My eyes look green to you?"

Confusion fell over his brother's face. "No. Why?"

"No reason."

It wasn't like Nick was worried that he was turning into their father or anything. No, nothing as ridiculous as that had crossed his mind.

"Did you think you'd changed them?" Eric asked. "How can you melt into shadow day after day and still have trouble with a little thing like that?"

"Dunno," Nick replied.

Eric grunted.

Before he could overthink it, he reached inside his brother.

It was awkward, not being able to see what he was doing. And there was nothing there to work with. No latent sense of desire that his brother had been suppressing, which always helped. So it took all the skill he possessed, not to mention all his remaining energy.

But he knew right away that it had worked.

"What...what did you just do?" Eric asked, breathing heavy. His blue eyes started to glow. They were a different hue than those of Daphne's brood. Lighter. Almost colorless, at least by comparison. But for just a moment, Nick was reminded of the snow leopard that had nearly spilled his shadowy organs on the mountainside.

"Go easy on me," Nick said as his brother approached.