Annie Nicholas: Prima

The drone of machine guns and alien death cries jammed Daedalus's vampire senses. Eric and Sam, two of his wolf shifter roommates, were busy trying to save the world one video game at a time.

Daedalus sat on the couch, ankles and arms crossed, facing the living room doorway, not the television. Faces scrunched in concentration, the boys pushed past enemy lines to gain entry onto the rival base. He couldn't immerse himself in fantasy like they could. Games gave Daedalus no satisfaction, but watching the shifters’ reactions stirred ancient memories. He'd been in real battles and forged through enemy hordes to gain territories centuries ago. Now, he trained Vasi shifters to fight, but even that hobby was growing tedious.

The other shifters who lived under the roof waited for their turns to slaughter aliens, hooting and shouting at the television as if the electronics could actually hear them. Twelve in total lived in Sugar's brownstone. They'd added two pups to their family in the last year. Shifters loved close quarters.

He didn't.

They didn't truly need him anymore. The ragtag band of shifters he'd come to save had grown into the largest pack in Chicago. Eric, their alpha, could assign Robert or Sam, his beta and sigma, to take over the training. He clenched his jaw and shot a glare down the hall at the closed bedroom door. The only thing that anchored him here was Sugar, and she had taken to the annoying habit of going to bed early every night, so he barely saw her anymore.

A knock on their front door silenced the shifters. He wasn’t sure how any of them heard it even with their exceptional hearing.

Eric checked his cellphone and shook his head. “Shouldn’t be for me. I haven’t had a call all night.” As alpha, most late-night calls were for him, and the pack knew better than to show up on game night uninvited.

Turning off the video game, Sam followed his alpha to the door while the others took defensible position within the household. A swell of pride at their unspoken synchronicity filled Daedalus's empty chest.

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. A little over a year ago their home had been attacked by a rival shifter pack. Everyone had recovered from the fight except Sugar, their human friend and the love of his existence. Her injuries had scarred the pack for life. Security in the household had tightened even more since the birth of the pups.

Remaining in his chair by the far wall of the living room, he had a full view of the entrance. Centuries of experience became reflexive. Never expose your back, and always have an escape route planned. He assessed the familiar layout of the room and what moves he could use within that space.

Eric hesitated by the front door and glanced over his shoulder at Daedalus, the unasked question Are you ready? in the way he quirked his eyebrow.

Daedalus nodded.

Opening the door, Eric remained transfixed to the spot, his eyes growing wide.

Sam leaned over to get a better look and blocked Daedalus’s view. “Wow.”

Gritting his teeth, Daedalus rose. “Who the fuck is it?”

“Your friend?” Sam stepped aside. “I hope. Should we let him in?”

“No—” But Daedalus was too late.

The visitor shoved the shifters aside, crossing the threshold of their home and met Daedalus’s stare.

Sweat beaded on Daedalus’s forehead. Shit, he wasn’t carrying a wooden stake. He’d have to break one of the chairs again. Sugar would be pissed. She’d purchased them last week.

He hadn’t seen another Nosferatu in decades. Their guest had as much fighting skill as he did. They'd been made Nosferatu around the same time and been in the same training camp. “Pallas,” Daedalus whispered.

His brother by clan had probably noted each person’s position in the room and made out their weaknesses already. It’s what he would have done.

Daedalus moved to a better position in the room so he could defend the shifters if the need arose. They didn’t have a fighting chance against Pallas. “Everyone, this is Pallas, one of my clan brothers. Pallas, this is everyone.” He gestured to his housemates, purposely not identifying them. There was power in names.

“We need to speak.” Pallas’s gaze darted to Eric. “In private.”

The alpha growled low in his chest, looming over the shorter Pallas.

With a sour taste in his mouth, Daedalus waved Pallas toward the kitchen. “Outside in the garden.” His clan brother had gone into a deep sleep three centuries ago when the great vampire wars ended. They’d once been friends. Someone had awoken him. What were the chances this was good news?

Daedalus didn’t want to invite Pallas to his room in the basement. It was cramped quarters, leaving little room to fight, and he didn’t want his collection of NFL memorabilia to sustain any damage. Some of those things were priceless. Leading Pallas through the house, Daedalus sensed the shifters’ gazes on his back.

As soon as he closed the sliding glass door shut, he’d bet his bank account that his conversation with Pallas would only have a pretense of privacy. Shifter hearing could be miraculous, especially when pressed to cracked-open windows. The distant sound of a chair clattering to the floor in the dining room reached his own sensitive hearing. He could picture his housemates scrambling to find the best places to eavesdrop.

Pallas strode to the center of the moonlit garden. “So the rumors are true. You’ve lost your mind.”

Daedalus chuckled. The other Nosferatu hadn’t changed. They’d been close once. “Maybe. I wish the one about you was true.”

Pallas spun around. “Which one?”

“You being dead.”

“That would be too convenient.” A familiar crooked smile bloomed on his ugly face.

Daedalus laughed louder and shook Pallas’s hand, squeezing his fingers together as hard as he could. “You’re such an ass.” Bearer of bad news or not, he was still a brother, a tie to his past, and a comrade at arms.

Pallas returned his strong grip. “I learned from the best.” His clan brother, and he used that term loosely since they weren’t born from the same parents, bore the trademark appearance of their people—bald, pale, and deadly. “You’re creating quite a stir in the council, enough for them to coerce me to wake and seek you out.”

They released the painful handshake, and Daedalus shook his numb fingers, grinning as Pallas did the same. “You can tell them, for once, I’m happy.”

He snorted. “Like they care. I can’t believe you’re living with shifters again.” He made a distasteful noise. “Nasty habit. They said you left your post.”

“I did, and I left it in good hands.” Then the fools were killed and the traitors who took over tried to have him assassinated, but Pallas didn’t need to know that.

“Your company is in chaos. I went there before arriving here.”

“No.” Pal Robi Inc. was his private security company, hence it being named after him. What better than hiring an almost indestructible vampire as a guard? The company also served as a front for the vampire political structure in his area. Vampires had revealed themselves, with the other supernatural creatures, to humans fifteen years ago. Vampires were expected to follow human laws and their government, but vampire society had had these things in place long before humans had figured out how to organize themselves. The Vampire Council didn’t expect their people to follow human laws, but Pal Robi Inc. was developed to give his people legal jobs and to police their hunting. In other words, if a vampire couldn’t feed without killing, it was his responsibility to stop that person before humans were aware of it. “I didn’t assign those who presently think they are running my company.”