Kathleen Collins - Realm Walker

“Super.” Her voice drifted to where Thomas sat in the back. Sometimes he was more grateful for his superior hearing than others. “Where are you?”

Michael shifted in his seat. “I have some business to finish up. I’ll be around in a day or two at most.” Not a lie, but skirting the edge of truth.

“Call me when you get here. I want to see you.” Thomas clenched his teeth. She should be saying those words to him. No one else.

Michael glanced at him for the barest of moments. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? I hope you don’t think you get to disappear just because Thomas shows back up.” Thomas dropped his chin against his chest unwilling to let Michael see the pain the conversation brought with it.

Michael cleared his throat. “You know why not. You’re his whether you want to admit it or not. You always have been.”

“I don’t belong to anyone, Michael. Especially him.”

“I’ve got to go. We’ll talk when I get there.”

Thomas kept his head down as his second hung up the phone.

“I can explain,” Michael said after a moment, his voice low.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m aware of more than you imagine.”

Juliana tossed her phone on the table, knowing it wasn’t broken despite the satisfying crack it made. The cursed thing was impossible to break. She’d tried many, many times. Curse Michael for not being more concerned about Thomas’s sudden decision to move home. And curse Thomas for making her care. She shouldn’t give a crap what he did. Shouldn’t care where he lived or why. But she did. She couldn’t shut down that elated part of her that was jumping around like a demifae on crack.

That this was the first Michael heard of Thomas’s move bothered her. Thomas didn’t go around announcing his plans, but he rarely kept them from Michael. Shit .

Michael was Thomas’s second, the one that would take over his territory should anything happen to him. Once upon a time, she thought nothing could separate them. Then the vampire Thomas put in charge of the coven when he left attacked her, drained her and left her for dead. It was her first death. At the time, she also wished it had been her last.

When Raoul and his cronies realized she survived, they fled the territory. Thomas sent Michael to find out why. Instead, he found her in a hospital bed with Thomas’s sister Sara holding her hand. Sara had been too afraid of her brother’s wrath to call and give him the news. Michael told her not to and sent her home.

Thomas reclaimed the coven, ruling it from afar and Michael stayed with Juliana for a year. After he helped her heal, he helped her hunt the bastards down. They’d found them all except for Raoul. They still chased down the occasional lead, but always came up empty handed. When Michael returned to Thomas, he didn’t breathe a word of what had transpired.

At the time, Juliana thought he had and Thomas just hadn’t cared. Michael told her it wasn’t his story to share. She believed him. He’d never lied to her before and she didn’t see why he’d suddenly start. She hadn’t thought about the attack in months and she hated Thomas for bringing it to the forefront of her mind again. Hated him for stirring up emotions she buried a long time ago.

She picked up the phone and dialed Sara’s number.

“Thomas is back,” Juliana said.

There was a long silence on the line. “Well, crap.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Of course not.” Relief flooded through Juliana. “He may be my brother, but I wouldn’t let him surprise you like that. Although...”

“What?” she asked, already knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It should tell you something that he came looking for you before seeing me and Rachel.”

Juliana ran a hand down her face. “He was probably just checking on the Den,” she said even though she knew it was a lie. “It would figure the person I least want to see owns my favorite bar.”

“If you recall, that is precisely why it was your favorite bar once upon a time.”

Juliana grimaced at the reminder. “That was a long time ago. Now I like it because everyone leaves me alone.”

“Have you talked to Michael?”

She clenched her teeth. “He says he didn’t know anything about it?”

There was silence for a moment. “You believe him?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I am starting to regret not letting James give me those mage lessons he offered, however. A fireball spell wouldn’t be remiss right now.”

Sara snorted a laugh. “That is unfortunate. My husband would have greatly enjoyed teaching you how to bespell my brother’s ass. Not that you haven’t done it in your own way already.”

“Yeah, that’s enough of that conversation. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

She tossed the phone on the table and rolled to her feet. She peered through the slit at the edge of the curtain. Her eyes ran up and down the length of the street looking for any sign of Thomas or the car. They skipped over a shape in the lot opposite her house then snapped back when her brain realized it didn’t belong. A figure stood with hands stuffed in his pockets. The streetlight at his back kept his face in shadow.

It wasn’t Thomas. The figure was too short, too lean to be her vampire. She eased away from the window, careful not to disturb the curtain.

Grabbing her gun, she fired up her gift as she opened her door and stepped out onto the front stoop. Cold cement against her feet reminded her she wasn’t dressed for a pursuit. Scanning the area, she picked up no signature, nothing at all. Not even the residual signature she should have gotten if someone had just left. There was no sign anyone had been there at all. Her blood chilled. The key was not to freak out. The cursed troll had probably given her a brain infection and she was imagining the whole thing.

She slipped back inside the house, locking the door behind her. For an hour, she moved from window to window searching for another glimpse, another sign she wasn’t crazy. Nothing. Of course not, why would there be? That would mean she could relax and quit freaking out. Eventually she crawled back onto the couch. She placed her gun within easy reach on the table beside her and she fell into a fitful sleep.

The phone vibrated and shimmied across the tabletop, knocking against the wood as it went. She opened one eye to scowl at it, but it continued to buzz instead of going to voicemail. The Agency provided her phone, which meant they could charm it and she couldn’t say a word. The charm that gave her full service bars and a battery that never died she loved. The one that caused the phone to continue to ring until she answered when the call was work related? Not so much.

She glanced at the clock and groaned. Fewer than four hours of sleep. She groped along the scarred wood, feeling a flash of triumph as her fingers closed around the cool plastic. This had better not be another bullshit relocation or she was going to shove the phone up someone’s ass.

“Norris.”

“It’s me,” answered a low, smooth voice.

Jeremiah Grace was Juliana’s screener with the Agency. All Walkers had one as there were a lot of cases and a relatively small number of Walkers. The screeners went in, assessed the situation and decided whether the Walker needed to be called at all or if it could be handled by the lower level agents. In her case, it was precisely why Jeremiah was the first point of contact. Juliana had a tendency to think no one else could do the job and take on everything herself. He was objective enough to know when that was true and when it wasn’t. Not that she couldn’t take a case on if she wanted to anyway, but she rarely overruled Jeremiah. There was no quicker way to piss off a screener than to constantly ignore their opinion on cases.