One Mark: Steamy Friends to Lovers Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn) Read online

  “I’ve killed men I’ve known longer.” He stood from the chair and went to the bar to pour himself another drink. Ashley met him and yanked the decanter out of his hands.

  “You shouldn’t be drinking this much.”

  He took the decanter back. “I shouldn’t even be breathing, maus. And yet, here I am.”

  Maus was German for mouse. Red used to call Thorin’s mother by the same name when she was alive. She’d hated it. Somehow it fit Ashley much better. And she didn’t seem to mind it.

  Dae came around the leather sofa, but didn’t make a move for the liquor. He knew better than Ashley did. “She’s right you know. A human body can only take so much abuse.”

  Red gave Dae a cold look. “We have more important things to be discussing other than my mortal constitution.” He slung back the second shot and exhaled a second later like his breath was made of fire.

  Beside Thorin, the air opened up and deposited Poe and his caeli Willa in the room.

  Willa looked a little out of sorts, like she’d been roused from a nap and then Thorin remembered she and Poe had been staying at the family cottage in Scotland. If it was eleven at night here, it was four a.m. there. Probably Willa had been sleeping.

  Still, she looked gorgeous as always. Fair and fierce. Her red hair was braided into a messy side braid. Though she didn’t appear to wear any makeup, her lips were plump and red.

  Not for the first time, Thorin was struck by just how much the Blackwell family had changed in such a short amount of time.

  Two of his brothers had found their caelis—their soul mates—and bound themselves to their mates. In the world of djinn, they were more than married. They were spiritually and magically intertwined and therefore, extremely powerful.

  “What are you doing here?” Thorin asked Poe.

  “I heard we had a Northman problem,” Poe said.

  “How did you hear so quickly?”

  Dae leaned against the sofa’s back. “I texted him.” He nodded at Willa. “Hello, darling.”

  “Hey.” She smiled at Dae and Thorin and said, “Hey, Ash,” before coming to a stop at the sight of Red. Like most women who knew the truth of the Blackwells, she lingered on their grandfather, unsure of how to address him, if she should address him at all.

  “Red says hi,” Ashley said.

  Red scowled. “Do I now?”

  “Yes. You do.” She grabbed a bottle of red wine from the bar and waved it at Willa. “Care to share a bottle in the library? We can play the ‘Spot a Blackwell in the History Books’ game.”

  “That’s my favorite,” Willa said with a laugh.

  “Careful, love,” Poe said. “Ashley already knows a dozen of our aliases. She’s had a head start.”

  “I’ll give her hints,” Ashley said as they disappeared through the archway.

  Red poured scotch in four glasses and passed them out as he made his way back to the side chair. “What is it Rose wants?”

  “I don’t know.” Thorin sat down on the sofa and rested his glass on his knee. “When it comes to her, I suspect my imagination is lacking.”

  “And how does Lola fit into it?”

  Dae lit a cigarette and paced behind Thorin, leaving a trail of curling smoke in his wake. “Rose has always been of the mind that if she can’t have Thorin, then no one can.”

  “Not that it’s any of her business,” Thorin said, “but Lola and I are not seeing each other. We’re only friends.”

  “Doubt Rose cares,” Poe pointed out.

  “Regardless,” Red said, “our boundaries were outlined after the dispute in the 20s. They are not allowed in Blackwater or the surrounding counties. Clearly they need to be reminded.”

  Thorin’s knee bobbed up and down. The scotch sloshed over the rim of his glass. He knew this was his fault. Ghosts haunting him from his past. And he hated that his brothers were now trying to help him clean up another mess. But he was also supremely grateful to have them by his side. Though he had always hated being the youngest brother, he was man enough to recognize that the family was better as a whole.

  Speaking of which…

  “Where’s Mad?”

  Red scrubbed at his eyes. Was he…tired? Thorin would never get used to Red being human.

  “Oddie needed help with something,” Red said. “They left a few hours ago.”

  Dae, cigarette pinched between thumb and index finger, took a hit, the ember burning brightly. When he expelled the smoke, he said, “Should we call him?”

  “No.” Red emptied out his glass again. “Let’s start with a friendly warning. Find the Northman djinn and tell them to leave. If they ignore our request, then we’ll reconvene and we’ll bring Mad in.”

  Poe stole what remained of Dae’s cigarette right out of his hand and finished it with one long inhale.

  “Is there anything else I can provide you with, dear brother?” Dae said. “Would you like the shirt off my back, perhaps?”

  Poe stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray. “I do rather like that shirt.”

  Thorin climbed to his feet. He wasn’t a smoker or much of a drinker, but he was so restless, so wound, he wished he did have coping habits like his brothers. He drained his glass for good measure, but the alcohol wasn’t spiked with ginger—the spice that helped a djinn get drunk or high—so the alcohol only served to warm his throat. And he was already on fire.

  What he needed was to cool down.

  “Poe,” he said, “you got eyes in the usual haunts? Has anyone seen Rose or her brothers tonight?”

  Poe pointed at Thorin. “Brilliant idea. I know just who to call.” He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts. Once he’d initiated the call, he only had to wait a few seconds before someone picked up. “Teddy,” he said. “You big mutt. Where are you?”

  Werewolf, Dae mouthed to Thorin.

  Great. That’s just what they needed to add to the mix. Something as equally monstrous as he.

  “You’re at The Blackbird?” Poe said. “Have you seen any djinn tonight? Perhaps of the Northman clan? Uh huh…all right…how long ago? Okay. Thank you, Teddy.”

  “They’re at the Blackbird right now,” Poe said after he ended the call. “Shall we?”

  Dae looked to Red. “Will you watch out for the girls?”

  Red laid his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. “I’m not a babysitter.”

  “No, but you’re a thousand-year-old former djinn. That’s close enough.”

  “I suspect Ashley would be annoyed to hear you say she needs a babysitter,” Thorin said. “In fact, I’d put money on it.”

  “Yes, well, so would I. But I also don’t care. Her safety will always take priority over her mood. I would rather her be alive and pissed than…I don’t even want to consider what the alternative is.”

  Since Thorin was not invoked and could not vade, he went to the brother closest to him. Poe put his hand on Thorin’s shoulder, prepared to send them to the Blackbird.

  “Wait,” Red said. He opened his eyes and looked right at Thorin. His gaze was glassy and bloodshot, but his words were clear and perfectly enunciated when he said, “Thorin stays here.”

  Thorin bristled. “For what reason?”

  Red said, “You know the reason.”

  “I’m not sitting this one out.”

  Red stood. His balance was unsteady, but his gaze was still sharp. “Your brothers are better off without you.”

  “Well, now—” Dae started, but Thorin cut him off.

  “Why do you always insist on sidelining me?” Thorin took a step toward Red. That far off vibration hummed through his veins. His anger raising its hackles. Baring its teeth. “I’ve spent the last three hundred years trying to prove to you that I can stand with this family and help protect it and what it possesses and yet you continue to disregard me. I am better now, Red.”

  The whole room was silent and still.

  Thorin’s hands were fists at his side.

  Red sto
od motionless in front of the fireplace, steely flint in his eyes. “Are you, though?”

  A growl rumbled in the back of Thorin’s throat.

  The hair rose along his arms and along the back of his neck.

  “We’ll watch out for him,” Dae said as he put his hand gently on Thorin’s shoulder. “You have my word.”

  Poe came up on Thorin’s left. “He’ll behave.”

  Red snorted and turned away. “Funny, I said the same thing about a dragon once. Right before it burned an entire city to the ground.”

  Thorin opened his mouth to argue, but Dae was already vading.

  Before he could get a word out, they were gone.

  Chapter 11

  THORIN

  When they reappeared in the basement of The Blackbird, Thorin turned to his brothers and said, “I had that handled!”

  “Of course you did.” Poe straightened the lapel of his jacket. “But we’re on a time constraint here, are we not? We have things to do and people to see and battles to win.”

  “I don’t know why Red continues to treat me like a dog. Like I don’t know the difference between a bone and a stick.”

  Dae patted him on the back. “You should try to refrain from decoding Red’s motives and inner thoughts. You’ll be happier for it. Trust me.”

  Thorin grumbled again. Both his brothers were right. Trying to figure out Red was a fruitless endeavor. And they did have more important things to be worrying about.

  “Shall we?” Dae said.

  The Blackbird, like a good half of the clubs and bars in Blackwater, was owned by Dae, but the supernatural beings of the city didn’t drink and revel on the main level. They went down to the basement and through a doorway hidden behind a faux bookcase. The hidden room had been a speakeasy in the 1920s and once Prohibition was repealed, Dae decided to keep it as a place for supernatural beings to be as they were.

  The basement, constructed of stone quarried in Pennsylvania, was always ten to fifteen degrees cooler than the world at ground level and always just slightly damp.

  Thorin hadn’t been to the Blackbird in several years. Bars had never been his scene. He preferred the quiet of nature or the hush of a library.

  A jazz band played on the small stage in the way, way back of the room, lit by soft golden lights that glittered off the sequined headband worn by the lead singer. The black woman was known in the supernatural world as Queen Louisa and she was said to be a powerful voodoo witch who’d left New Orleans behind after a tragedy that no one dared speak of. The Blackbird wasn’t her only haunt. Thorin had heard her sing at more than one charity event—above ground with the humans—and in every situation, those in the crowd had immediately fallen to her special brand of musical thrall. More than once, Thorin wondered if the voodoo witch was just a cover, if she was in fact a siren who had somehow grown legs. Her voice was just too damn good to be anything other than supernatural.

  “Since you all have been so damn charitable tonight,” Louisa said through the vintage, steel microphone, “how ‘bout I play you a little song called, ‘Don’t Cross Me’?”

  The crowd cheered and Louisa’s band started in with a bluesy harmonica, followed by a twangy guitar.

  “Get ready, y’all,” Louisa said. “This song, as many of you know, cuts right to the heart.”

  A pack of werewolves to the right of the stage howled as the bass player filled the room with a deep thrum.

  “There’s a Northman,” Poe said and pointed at a table to the left of the bar.

  Dae, Thorin, and Poe formed a V with Dae at the front.

  Although he was third oldest, Dae had always been the one to take point on confrontations that required verbal negotiation, and not the kind that demanded swords and fists and bloodshed. That was left to Thorin and Mad. Poe…well, he was usually on the sidelines breaking hearts and emptying pockets.

  Thorin was glad he was here tonight, though. If he was close to any of his brothers, it was Poe. He was the least judgmental Blackwell and sometimes that was exactly what Thorin needed.

  After the incident, the one that haunted him the most, it was Poe who said to him, “I know mortals who’ve done worse than you tonight. You are not evil, dear brother. Never think that.”

  When the Blackwells made their way across the Blackbird, those in attendance quickly noticed and within seconds, the chatter in the room faded to a quiet hum. Only Louisa and the band kept on as if nothing had changed.

  Djinn didn’t have a hierarchical system, but if they did, in Blackwater, the Blackwells would be kings.

  The energy in the room shifted and the hair on Thorin’s arms rose on end. There was magic here. Not just djinn. Witch and demon. There were wolves and vampires and other things that went bump in the night.

  Thorin even spotted one of the lesser gods. The ones who were chained to the earth and answered prayers and curried favors.

  There was a hierarchical system to the gods. One so shrouded in secrecy that Thorin knew little about it. Only one thing was certain—the older gods, the ones who’d been around since the world began, had gone to ground hundreds of years ago.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Adonis Northman said when he spotted them approaching.

  Adonis was the fourth oldest Northman djinn. If rumor could be trusted, he was about the same age as Dae. Out of all the Northman, Adonis was Thorin’s least favorite. He was mercurial and spiteful and easily distracted by revenge.

  Thorin scanned the tables nearby. Rose was nowhere to be found.

  Panic slithered up his spine.

  If she wasn’t here, then where was she? With Lola?

  He needed to go.

  He needed to—

  Poe put a hand on his arm and squeezed.

  “Breathe, brother,” Poe said.

  Easy for Poe to say.

  Poe barely cared for anyone, least of all a human that wasn’t Willa.

  Lola didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into.

  She was no match for Rose Northman.

  “Adonis,” Dae said. He pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat. Thorin preferred to stay on his feet. He didn’t want to get comfortable. Not now. Not when Rose was absent and adrenaline was spiking through his veins.

  The heat was building.

  Thorin bit on his fear, trying to quell the rising shake of it.

  “What are you doing here, Adonis?” Dae asked.

  Poe sauntered around the table and leaned himself on the brick wall at Adonis’s back. Adonis, to his credit, did not look over his shoulder.

  Like Thorin, he was taller than most, stockier. If it came to a fight of hands and brawn, Adonis would have most of them beat. But if magic were involved, Poe and Dae would outpace him for days.

  They were caeli-bound and from the smell of him, Adonis was not. He didn’t seem to be invoked either. Invoked djinn had a certain feel to them, a ripple of energy like heat pulsing over black pavement.

  Adonis hoisted his beer in the air. “Enjoying a drink, brother.”

  “I’m not your brother,” Dae said.

  Adonis looked at the friend on his left and smiled. “Blackwell djinn have no sense of humor.”

  Dae folded his hands on the table. “You don’t have permission to be in Blackwater.”

  “I didn’t know I needed it.”

  Louisa said through the microphone, “You feel the wind kick up, y’all better run.”

  She was talking about djinn magic.

  Louisa was no fool.

  The band started up a new tune. Maybe they were hoping to dispel the tension with music. Thorin tried to focus on the guitar chords, the in and out of the harmonica. Jazz music usually calmed him.

  Not tonight.

  Where was Rose?

  Was she with Lola?

  He pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket and typed in a quick text: Stay away from Meg or Rose or whatever you want to call her. Please, Lo. Trust me on this.

  He watched as the three dots i
n the text window danced. He clutched so hard at the phone he worried he’d crack the damn thing.

  The dots disappeared.

  Come on, Lo.

  His heart beat in his head.

  Fucking hell.

  “We’re here to ask nicely that you leave Blackwater right now and never come back,” Dae said.

  Adonis laughed like this was all a big joke and then he said, “The Northman were the first to tread on these lands. We have as much right to it as you do.”

  “This again?” Poe said. “Just because you walked here, doesn’t mean you own it.”

  The smile remained on Adonis’s face, but his voice lowered a notch. “We own property here. You can’t keep us out.”

  “You did own property,” Dae pointed out. “A dispute that was settled almost a hundred years ago. Unless you’ve forgotten, I now own that property.”

  The smile finally disappeared and the veins in Adonis’s arms bulged when he tightened a hand into a fist.

  If a fight broke out, Thorin would no longer have control over himself.

  Everything within him was already balanced on a blade’s edge.

  They were wasting time.

  But he knew this was a task that needed doing. If Adonis left, chances were Rose would too. She rarely went anywhere without a brother.

  “You Blackwells always were too arrogant for your own good. You think just because you made a few good investments hundreds of years ago that you can throw money around now and everyone will bow to you.”

  “That’s exactly how it works,” Poe said.

  Adonis shook his head. Some of the mirth returned to his expression. “In the mortal world, money is respected because money they can see. But show them magic? Everything changes. In fact, I’d suspect most of the mortals who reside in your territory would rather have a djinn deal than money. Really, if you think about it, by insulating these mortals from dealing with other djinn, you’re doing everyone a disservice. A magical monopoly, if you will.”

  “Our mortals are just fine, thank you very much,” Poe said.

  Adonis looked right at Thorin and said, “You have a mortal on the hook, don’t you Thor? Heard she’s a pretty blonde one. Lola, was it? Have you popped her djinn cherry yet?”