Hell on Wheels (Faetal Attraction #1)

Damage Control

When our friend’s car comes shooting around the last curve, it’s obvious we were right. There are dings and dents, but the actual damage is in the form of several large caliber bullet holes in different places on the body. Reb must be ready to kick the living shit out of someone, but he’s driving as if nothing is wrong. Rogue’s gasp makes me squeeze her palm, reminding her to keep the mask on until we’re away from the crowds.

Rebel clears the flag first with ease, rolling into a spot among the other racers carefully. My twin nods at us, then leads us over to the fucked up Shelby at a deceptively slow pace. I get what he’s doing, but the tension radiating from our girl is about to burst. She has to see Reb to make sure he’s okay or we won’t be able to do anything else. Archie grunts, rubbing his chest, and I know it’s bleeding into him as well.

Rogue is powerful as hell and our bond gets deeper every day.

“He was well enough to finish the course and drive in without a hitch, Dragonfly. That means he’s not bad.”

She whips her head around to arch a brow at Javier. “He’s Fae, Javi. We can do that with a spell if we absolutely have to.”

I blink. Good to know, but I don’t think that’s the case this time. “I think if he was weak and hurting, Sparkles, he wouldn’t be able to enchant the car that convincingly.”

My words give her pause and she sighs, “I saw the bullet holes, Damon. That’s not encouraging.”

Archie clears his throat as we approach the car. Our chatter stops until the door opens and our friend rolls himself out with a groan. He’s holding his side, but there doesn’t appear to be blood, so he must have gotten banged during some evasive bullshit. Before I can stop her, Rogue rushes over to him and throws her arms around the grumpy asshole.

“What the fuck happened out there?” Angelo says loudly, clearly hoping to distract people from their moment. “The damn car is a mess, man.”

Reb’s eyes swirl with color as he lifts his face from Rogue’s neck to pin us with an angry glare. “Fucking Oswald, man.”

My eyes widen as I realize what he’s implying. Someone not only put whatever obstacles in his way that he told our girl about, but they staged snipers on the course. That means they knew enough to figure out that the car would be ahead of the pack, zooming through alone, and have the skill to hit him at the speed he’d be going. They’re definitely not human, but using the gun takes a few species off the table.

“Demons wouldn’t bother with the bullets,” Angelo murmurs and I nod.

Our kind would use magic and creatures, not human weapons. They hate the meat bags and everything they’ve stolen from us over the centuries.

“Too fast for non-supes,” Reb grunts as Rogue and Archie wrap their arms around his waist for support.

Rogue rolls her eyes as she looks at him. “Fucking duh, bro.”

“Some shifters, maybe. There are mercenary groups and smaller gangs of them. Everyone knows the wolves are pretty unstable,” the hockey player says with a pleased smirk.

Javi groans and I’m inclined to side with him. Big cats and wolves are natural enemies and most large cities are split heavily on either in terms of territory. The only place I’ve ever been on this continent that’s big enough to support two equally huge factions of both without a civil war is New York. Bay City is weighted towards the felines, and they adore blaming every problem outside of the organized crime factions on wolves.

“Shut it, bird boy. I can hear you thinking,” the lion says with a smirk. “Yes, my kind like to blame them, but also a shit ton of the flea-bitten dickwaffles work for the Stuhlls. This is their race, their course, and our buddy got shot at by a supe with speed and precision.”

“Which means it’s not a wolf,” Rogue says. She shakes her head and bites her lip, thinking as we follow them to the med tent to have Rebel checked out. “Wolves are fast, yes, but precise? Patient? Not even remotely, especially if they work for those dipshits. They take all the leftover nutters the packs won’t allow in.”

She has a point.

“Fae and mages wouldn’t bother with guns, either,” Rebel grits out as he lowers himself onto the table to wait for a healer. “There are far better ways of taking someone out without leaving evidence any fucking fool will see.”

“Then who the fuck did this?” I look at my twin, frustration radiating from my frame as I try to work it out. Puzzles are my thing and the brain work has always been my strong suit, but nothing about this shit makes any sense.

“Vampires.”

A chorus of groans rises from every single one of us as the pieces fall into place at Angelo’s suggestion. Vampires are fast, have no loyalty outside of their hordes, and live in the shadows everywhere. They’re easily one of the top three categories of supes in terms of numbers, more so even than the Fae, but they purposefully stay as separate from the rest of the Society factions as possible. They skirt the rules constantly and though they’re a branch of demons, even we aren’t fond of them.

“Our father will lose his goddamned shit,” I whisper. “You know how controversial the topic is in Hell.”

“Too close to humans for demons, too close to demons for magic wielders, too close to shifters for Fae… they have such a blend of all the supe powers that it makes everyone nervous,” Javier says with a frown. “It’s helped them self-isolate and grow their numbers with little oversight.”

“No one in the pits is happy with that development, as you know. They aren’t loyal to the powers down there or the ones up here, either. It makes sense clans would hire out as assassins and shit.” Archie runs his hand through his hair, then over his face. “But again, with all the supes in this city, who the fuck would spend the money to bring in some fangy ass professional?”

“And were they aiming at Rebel in the car, or did they gamble on our girl taking that race instead?”

“Fuck if I know,” Rebel sighs as he responds to me. “But she’s not racing the next card—the car is too fucked up and I want to call Abbott in.”

Rogue sucks in a breath, and her face turns bright red. “Abbott Remington?”

Uh-oh.

“Yeah, Abbott Remington, sis. How many fucking Abbotts do you think I know?” Reb’s eyes are closed, which is the only reason he has clued into the same thing the rest of us have.

Our girl fucked that nerdy criminologist from Virginia, and her non-bonded mate is getting ready to bring him in on a rush job.

This is definitely not good.

I voted to leave when the truck came to retrieve Rebel’s car, but Rogue and my old friend flat refused. They wanted to see the outcome of the last race to determine if the attack was race related. Angelo agreed with me—it wasn’t—and we both wheedled our girl as much as we could, but neither Fae would budge. Archie and Javi are too easygoing, so they got swayed to stay despite Rogue acting squirrely as shit since the mention of the Sphinx shifter from the Sibbies.

He’s definitely an ex, and if the rest of these schmoes don’t see it, they’re in for a surprise.

“Why is this taking so long?” I grumble as we watch the crews set-up and half-naked dancers perform while they do so. “This is weird as fuck.”

Rebel snorts. “My guess is that people are clearing out the shit I had to dodge.”

“I still think it’s odd that they tried to frame you for reckless driving, then escalated to snipers,” Rogue murmurs, tapping her fingers against her lips. “Seems like a big ass jump, no?”

“It does, Princess,” Angelo replies before passing the cheesy fries Archie got to her. “Almost like the race had two separate saboteurs.”

“Now that is a theory I can get behind.” Javi leans back, snatching a fry as his back touches my legs. “Maybe the people and shit were an idiotic way to beat you, just timed poorly on the night someone else tried to take you out.”

The green-haired Fae sighs, nodding at our friend. “It’s possible. The purses are high tonight. One of the racers could have been desperate enough to arrange some obstacles to help them catch up.”

I smile as Rogue leans her head on his shoulder before murmuring, “The snipers are the bigger problem. They weren’t aiming for your car and they were good enough to hit you if you weren’t such a fucking amazing driver. That takes serious cash.”

She’s got us there; someone with the money to hire a vamp is rolling in it.

“Merra,” Angelo murmurs. “But she’s not the only one. There are a lot of supe faction and family leaders in Bay City with the pull and the money to spare—our father being one of them.”

My ire flares and I have bite my lip hard to keep from letting my wings unfurl in fury. Once I’m under control, I nod at my twin. “Mom, too. Several high-ranking demon families within the organization.”

“So many shifter groups have the clout and cash,” Archie growls softly. “Though outside of beating teams in the derby, I can’t see why.”

Javier frowns and looks at his hands. He finally adds, “Quite a few of the mythical groups, too. They’re more legit, but equally ruthless and rich. But to Archie’s point, I can’t see why.”

“The council would just eliminate us with one of their assassin teams, so not them,” Rebel says as he flicks his tongue stud over his lower lip thoughtfully. “Neither of us are connected to the Veil Realm at all, so they don’t make sense. That’s not to say they wouldn’t or couldn’t… but they wouldn’t use vamps. They’d send dragons.”

“Great, my life is turning into Game of Thrones , and I don’t even get a fucking crown. Awesome,” Rogue mutters before shoving some fries into her mouth angrily. That gets a snicker out of us all, but she crosses her arms over her chest. huffing as her eyes scan the crowd. “I don’t enjoy seeing Mina and her cronies with the Mounties still. They’re involving humans—that’s a big no-no, but no one’s saying shit.”

“Leans towards Merra being her sponsor.” Rebel flicks his gaze to the shielded VIP boxes set-up by powerful mages to protect the identities of the attendees from prying eyes. “It just doesn’t make sense for that bitch to get involved in derby unless she’s considering buying the Sickos.”

“She can’t,” Archie pipes up. “The official athletic leagues are purposefully guarded by the Society and the local Councils to ensure no illegitimate business holders can purchase them, even through shell corps or whatever. It was the lesson they learned after Vegas was taken over by the mobs.”

Humans have no idea how deeply entrenched supes were in their precious city of excess for decades, but it’s how a lot of the families in various big cities made their fortunes.

“True,” Rogue muses. “But how careful are they about influencing greedy humans to front for them? Maybe the gang running the human derby team is an arm of the Stuhlls, just in a roundabout fashion.”

Rebel shakes his head, grimacing. “That would definitely merit a deep dive into every college and pro sport in the country that supes play in. Yikes. It would take a lot of infrastructure, both on the human and supe side, and a lot of complicit people in top positions in leagues or schools.”

Angelo frowns, looking at me, and I pull my phone out, making some notes for research. It would also take a third party involved with neither side to be the middleman. Demons, perhaps? Our people consider themselves on the outside of supes and I could see someone in Hell’s corrupt royalty assisting with this sort of thing if it made them enough money. They’d have the skilled minions to send in to get humans on board, too.

It’s just bigger than most demons envision; they just want control of our realm, not everything.

“I’ll work on possibilities,” I say finally. “I can run some probabilities through my systems, see if any names or odd occurrences pop.”

“Good,” Angelo replies as the cars line up to begin. “I don’t know if our father’s in on it entirely, but seeing Lucian—of all demons—at that meeting makes me worry. He’s always wanted to climb the ladder to the top and being head of the most elite university in the pits isn’t high enough for him. He could easily be swayed by alliances with other beings if he’s promised what he wants in the end.”

Fucking Luca. That man stopped doing us favors the moment we were born and has been a problem ever since.