The Second Covenant

Three days passed and each one was easier than the last. Peyton hadn’t called, or e-mailed me, or texted me. Nothing. I wondered if he’d made it alive after what I’d told Tristan. I was still struggling with the loss of that childhood friendship. Tristan had been right, it wouldn’t ever be the same now. But there was hope, I had Druex, and being with him was a cosmic experience.

The Circle was opening tonight and I was ready and raring to go. I’d bought another pair of leather pants, black, and a white off the shoulder sweater. I put a belt around my hip that was hung with a handful of glittering chains. A pair of lovely heeled boots. My father had taken one look at me and decided that he and my mother were going along as well. “Gee dad, why don’t you just spell up an iron clad chastity belt on me or something.” I said and I think for a moment he considered it. My mom rolled her eyes and took the car keys. “Come on family, let’s go. I want a pair of those pants for Christmas.” She told me in a loud whisper.

The Circle was hopping, but Druex was not pleased about something. Sure he smiled at me and shook hands with my parents and they went to make a circuit of the place. “What’s wrong?” I asked him, having to practically yell over the loud music. “I didn‘t anticipate I‘d need another bartender.” I lifted a brow and waved a hand at him. “I’ll fill in.” His brows shot up disbelievingly. “Sorry?” I smiled sweetly. “I worked summers at Nikki’s. You can call him for a reference.” He shook his head and pulled me over to the big oak bar where another man, quite possibly the third most handsome man I’d ever seen was trying to handle all the orders being shouted at him.

Druex held up the walk through for me and shouted at, Declan, the guy looked over at him, and then at me with a slow grin. He held his hands up to the folks at the bar. “Hold on, the boss is calling.” He wiped his hands on a towel and came over to us. “Cherish this is my cousin Declan.” We shook hands and I could see a resemblance now between them. Darker blonde hair, darker blue eyes, but the same bone structure, same wicked smile. “You touch her and you’re dead.” Druex said seriously and Declan put his hands up. “Hands off.” He said with a wink. “She’s going to fill in tonight until I can find another bartender.” Declan nodded. “Cool, need the help.”

Druex spun me around and gripped me by the arms. “You are a life saver.” He kissed me right there in front of most of Ipswich, and my parents and then left me with Declan. The other bartender handed me a towel and winked. “So that’s the way it goes huh?” I snapped the towel at him playfully and he danced out of reach, laughing. And we went to work. My father came over to the bar and was shaking his head. “What are you doing Cherish?” I smiled at him and pulled a beer for a local shopkeeper. Who tipped me a five. “Working daddy. Want something?”

He sighed but his eyes were dancing with laughter. “Your mother wants a Cosmo.” I made a face, “Ick. Sure?” He nodded and looked over to where my blonde mom was talking with another parent of someone we knew. “Yep.” Declan gave me a curious look from his end of the bar and I smiled lifting my chin at him. “Dad this is Declan, Druex’s cousin. This is my dad, Caleb Danvers.” They shook hands and Declan smiled a suave grin. “Pretty girls you got.” He drawled and my dad lifted a brow. “Unfortunately.”
“Daddy!” I said with an incredulous laugh and he raked his hand through his hair. “I’ve gone prematurely gray.”

Which was a total lie, his hair was still, at forty, black as night. Declan polished a beer glass with his towel, very bartender like and pointed to the honey colored wood stairs. “There’s a café upstairs if y’all get hungry. My brother Donovan’s working up there, on the house, just tell him I said so.” My dad tipped us extra big and took my mother’s froo froo pink cosmo over to her.

I looked at Declan and grabbed a bottle of whiskey to make someone a shot. “Are all the employee’s male and have names that start with D?” I asked with a grin. He winked at me and shrugged. “The Trengereid clan breed lots of boys. First born boys get the D-names. So there’s Druex, Dax, me and Donovan are twins, so we both got D-names er…Daire, Damien, Dominick, Dorian, Derrick, Drake, Danny and Dasha. Token first born girl. Only Druex, Dax, Donovan, me, Dominick and Daire work here.” I blinked at him a few times. “There are thirteen first born kids in your family.” I said and he nodded, “Yup. But only Twelve branches of the family.”

I took about five more drink orders before I was able to talk to Declan again. “So does your whole family live in Ipswich?” He shrugged. “No, the six of us live around here, the rest of the cousins and the family live mostly in Canada. They like the back water woods.” He said it with a smile, but I got the feeling it was to hide the bite of anger in the words. “You and Druex been dating long?” I shook my head at the question and smiled at Sandra across the room, waving at me from the stairs. Was it her night off or was she working upstairs? I waved back. “No, since right around Halloween.”

I looked around and saw Druex near the door, checking ID’s with another blonde, another cousin? “That’s Daire.” Declan said as though he’d read my mind. “You know, I grew up with three really good looking boys. But I‘ve never seen so many tall, gorgeous blue eyed blondes in one place before.” He laughed at me but waggled his brows. “That’s cause we’ve got Viking blood in us. Dax is a brunette though, we call him our black sheep.”

I smiled and let Mr. Thomas wag his finger at me chidingly. “Young woman, you are not old enough to be slinging drinks.” I leaned over and kissed him on his weathered cheek. He was a very retired police officer, very sweet. “That’s what you said when I stopped wearing diapers, not old enough.” He nodded importantly and I poured him up a bourbon. Straight up no ice. “And when I started wearing make-up and working at Nikki’s.” I pointed at him now. “And when I started driving a car.”

He snorted at me but paid for his drink, handy that the prices were right there on the touch screen register. “You’re growin’ up to damned fast, knock it off. And what the hell did you do to your eyes, they were just fine like they were.” He slipped me a ten and I rolled my eyes at him. “I didn’t do anything to my eyes, they changed colors all by themselves. Swear to my momma.”

He clicked his tongue at me but smiled. “You’re not dating yet are you?” I laughed in delight and pointed to the door. “Good god girl, datin’ the owner of a bar, your daddy know about that?” I shrugged. “Go ask him, there‘s a café upstairs, been yet?” He tossed back his bourbon and sighed, patting my hand. “Cherish girl, you’re growin up to fast.” he repeated but winked at me. “Sure are pretty though.”

He wandered off eventually and Declan lifted his brow over at me. “How old are you?” I stuck my tongue out at him. “Old enough.” He looked around the bar at all the people and then back at me. “You’ve grown up here?” I nodded and he made a hmm sound.
I had fun, but by two in the morning I was dead dog tired. My parents had left a long time ago, Druex assured them he would bring me home. I’d gotten ‘The Look’ from my dad but he’d left. After the doors closed and everyone was gone, Druex ordered me to sit down and eat something.

I grinned at him and hopped up on the bar to nibble on a sandwich Donovan had brought down for me at about eleven. He was Declan’s identical twin, it was just evil how good looking they all were. Dominick, call me Dom, had been working the DJ booth and was just smooth as whiskey. He’d grinned and kissed my hand upon meeting me, but Druex had smacked him upside the back of the head and told him to drop dead. Daire seemed shy and quiet compared to the others.

He was one of those people who watched, never missing anything, his mind memorizing things for later. I bet if I asked, he’d remember exactly how many people had been here tonight, without looking at his little clicker. Of the six, he was the tallest, six five, the most heavily muscled and the sweetest. His smile was boyish almost eighty percent of the time, but the other twenty percent was all wicked male.

They were surprised by my ability to understand guy jokes, even Druex. “I did grow up with three boys.” They’d laughed and went back to cleaning up. Declan was the one to ask me where they might find some good people to work the café upstairs. I thought about it and shrugged. “You might put up a employment sign up in the post office window. The gossip alone with filter people in here. School paper.” I shrugged again and swiped my hair back over my shoulder, biting back a wince at the sore muscles. God, I hadn’t pulled a pint in almost a year.

I tried to help clean up, but got growled at by nearly all of them to just sit the hell down. It made me laugh, ah what a familiar feeling. Druex finally let me off the bar, his hands sliding over my leather pants appreciatively. “Come on, my keys are upstairs.” I looked at the three flights and groaned. “You’re going to make me walk all the way up there?” I whimpered and he grinned. It was the evil grin and I backed away warily.

“No.” I said and his grin only deepened. “You guys gonna let him get me?” I said incredulously and to a man they held their hands up. “Touch you and die he said, so we don‘t touch you and we live.” Declan answered with a wolfish smile. I spun and ran to put a table between me and Druex. “Whatever that thought going through your head is, just forget it.” A growl rumbled up from his throat and made my stomach clench with desire. “Are you running Little Red?” he said seductively and started stalking me. “Hell yeah I am, you are not…” I shrieked with laughter when he lunged around the side of the table, running from him seemed to turn him on, so I weaved in and out of the tables and the stacked chairs.

I skidded across the wood and raced for the stairs with the men all laughing behind me.
Druex caught me with my foot on the first stair and spun me around with a triumphant laugh. “Gotcha!” He pressed a kiss to my neck and nipped my ear. It made me shudder, the pleasure almost enough to make my knees buckle. Just a nip on the ear and I was burning. “Ouch!” I said playfully and he soothed the little bite with a lick of his tongue and a chuckle. “I didn’t bite you very hard.” He picked me up and carried me back to the bar, putting my butt up on the polished wood. “Stay there, I’ll get the keys.” Dom snickered and gave me two thumbs up. “Already got you trained doesn’t she?” I held up my pinky finger. “Wrapped up around that finger right there and got nine more on stand by.”

Everybody but Druex laughed. “Very funny.” He drawled and I lifted my soda glass to my mouth. But something about it smelled wrong and I looked at it. There wasn’t any ice, or bubbles, or sprite in the glass. It was thick, red coppery smelling liquid. Blood. “Cherish?” I blinked and the soda was clear, bubbles, ice and everything. I set it down and looked up at the ceiling. Someone was up there, hurt and bleeding. “What?” A cold, menacing tingle carved up my spine, like the scrape of metal on ice and I shuddered. “You okay?”

I didn’t stop looking up, because something was up there other than the hurt person. “You should go upstairs now Druex. Take Dom or Donovan with you. Actually, take everybody with you.” I said softly, hearing the power that drifted off my voice, made it husky, almost sexy. “Cherish?” Druex’s tone was sharper now and my gaze jumped to his. I hoped my eyes were normal. “What’s the matter?” I swallowed at his question, should I tell him, in front of witnesses that there was something big and bad upstairs, that it was here for me, and if he went upstairs it would come down? “You really should go upstairs. Trust me.”

He frowned at me and then at his cousins. “I do honey, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” I nodded cast another look upstairs. “Well, Ipswich is known for having haunted buildings. I’m fine, you guys just go on upstairs and check it out okay?” They went, I felt them casting me odd looks, even heard Dom ask Druex if I did that often.
I didn’t look at them but got down off the bar and took the sharp knife I’d used earlier to slice fruit. I heard them pause at the café level and heard someone swear, but I was moving across the room, knife in hand, to the circle in the middle of the dance floor.

Now typically you didn’t need blood for a ritual, hell, I typically didn’t need it. But for this, I’d make the sacrifice. Quite literally. My heart was pounding as I kept my eye on the shadow in the corners. I stepped over that line of lighter wood on the dance floor and turned in a slow circle. I flipped the knife around in my hand, the blade pointed back towards my elbow. ’You think a circle will save you little witch?’

The voice filled the bar, a whisper of air that swirled around me, cold, freezing cold. I was away from my home turf. No wards to protect me. “Not from something like you.”
The laughter that I heard made my bones ache, it was so cold, metal across ice. ‘You don’t even know what I am.’ I nodded in agreement. “No, and right at the moment, I could give a shit. Bar’s closed.” I said and slashed the knife over my arm, I knew I’d cut to deep because I didn’t feel anything. At first. But the blood welled and dripped as I walked around the inside of the circle, my blood dotting on the floor, little drops of power, and when I came to where I started, the magic flared, the blood faded into the wood, soaked into it, turned the pale circle a dark red.

The laughter cut across the air again. ‘Your circle isn’t complete without the others, it isn’t enough to keep me from you little witch.’ I scoffed and pushed power down through the ground, used my magic to find the four corner stones of the building. Something it took normally an entire coven to do. I poured power into those stones, until I could see them glowing brightly in my minds eye. “Who said I was making a circle asshole?” I hissed and brought my hands together sharply in front of me.

The sound was like a thunderbolt and light exploded from the circle around me, from the corner stones I had just turned into warding stones. I heard an outraged snarl, a few choice curse words from the Shadow thing and then it was gone, cast out by the power it thought I didn‘t have.