Bloodfire (Blood Destiny 1) - Helen Harper Page 0,46

have much choice after the things you two had told him.”

“What were we supposed to say, Red?” Tom looked askance. “He’s got this power and he looks at you and you want to tell him everything just to please him. And god knows we can’t tell him the real truth.”

“He doesn’t suspect anything like that,” I tugged on my ponytail. “He just seems to think that I’m the local lay with a penchant for inveterate lying. Anyway, from now on my hair is dyed because I hate my original colour. Oh, and I’m having an affair with Nick behind your back.”

Betsy looked rather pleased at that one. I was about to say something that we’d both regret when the office door opened and Staines and Corrigan came out followed by a ridiculously young looking man with a shock of blond dreads. No wonder he’d agreed to come to Cornwall: our mage was a surfer dude.

Corrigan cleared his throat. “This is Alexander Floride, a mage from the city. We will travel to the site of John’s death where he’ll scan it for any signs of what might have occurred. We will find out who killed one of our own.”

He wasn’t yours, I thought sourly, he was ours.

The blond wizard stepped forward. “Hi there.” He almost waved. Good lord, was this the best they could do? I realized that he was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt and ripped jeans. He wasn’t even from this decade for god’s sake.

“So, uh, yeah.” He grinned a toothy smile. “I’m gonna hit the site, do some scrying and tell you what’s what. S’all good.”

I had to pinch myself to stop from rolling my eyes. I wondered idly if Corrigan was impressed.

Staines spoke up. “We need everyone who was present when his body was discovered to be with us so the scrying doesn’t get mixed up. Get a coat and wait outside.”

The pack sprang into action. I still couldn’t move fast because of my injury – and I noticed satisfyingly out of the corner of my eye that Anton couldn’t either. Tom gallantly fetched my leather jacket and helped me put it on. It appeared that all of a sudden Cornwall was full of gentlemen. Wonders would never cease.

There were nineteen of us in total: Corrigan, Staines, the other Brethren members including Lucy, the mage, Anton, Tom, me and three other pack members. It felt like a goddamn school outing. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Staines had pulled out a little flag and started waving it around for us all to follow. At least the crescent moon was shedding some light down around us. I’d heard that in the cities it never seemed to get properly dark because of all the lights, but that certainly wasn’t the case in rural Cornwall.

We headed off down the path in single file. I could feel my bloodfire curl around me in tendrils of anticipation. Despite myself, and the mage’s unlikely appearance, I was curious to see what he would do. I had to admit that I was starting to feel confident in my ability to pull off this pretending to be a shifter thing. I’d now had a couple of close encounters with the supposedly omnipotent Lord Shifty himself and I was sure that, despite knowing that I was scared of him and commenting on my un-packlike independence, he’d not actually suspected a smidgen of humanity about me. Add that to the fact that after my fight with Anton there was virtually no point in pretending to hide in the shadows anymore and I figured that I could get away with trying to sidle up to the mage and find out what he knew. Julia had already said that he had no interest in exposing me; the best plan was to initiate contact with him, get the human part out of the way and find out what he knew.

I stepped out into the undergrowth and quickened my step to catch up with him. He was sandwiched between two of the Brethren, who were marching along with straight backs and stiff shoulders as if they were in the army. Floride, by contrast, loped along with an easy gait and a hint of a swagger. I sneaked in beside him and ignored the hiss of annoyance from the Brethren shifter behind me.

“I’m Mack,” I stuck my hand out and grinned at him.

“Uh, Alex,” he replied, shaking my hand back. His palm was slightly sweaty and I resisted the urge to wipe my