Part 1 (1/2)
Tales of the Darkworld.
Fire Season.
By Lex Valentine.
Author's Note:
The Tales books don't go in order chronologically. Each story can stand alone, but read together provide the reader with a comprehensive view of the Antaeus family and their friends and connections. The series spans ten books and in each book there are characters the reader will recognize from prior books. Here's a mini-time line of the chronological order of events for the books that have been in the series thus far.
Fire Season, s.h.i.+fting Winds, Hot Water, s.h.i.+fting Winds epilogue
Prologue
Alfred Stone leaned back in the sauna, casually adjusting a white towel over his naked lap.
His voice sounded as casual as his demeanor, but to his one man audience, the tone rang more warning bells than a three alarm fire.
”I am Magia. My job is to ensure that nature's intended matings actually occur.”
Sean Antaeus stared at his best friend in shock. ”You have got to be joking.” Nothing in his life had prepared him for the words Alfred had spoken. It wasn't so much what Alfred had said about Sean's younger brother, it was what Alfred had revealed about himself.
The Darkworld held people with power and powerful people. Sean had been living in a dream world thinking that Alfred, as the head of the Funeral Directors Guild, was merely a powerful person. Now, he knew the truth.
”Sean, I wouldn't have told you if I didn't think you could handle the information. My job isn't always easy. Your family has been especially hard. In fact, I need Marius' help too. His family is going be just as tough.” Alfred's brow crinkled with worry as he spoke.
Sean arched a sardonic brow at him. ”So you're letting Marius in on the secret too?”
A sigh escaped Alfred.
Sean thought it sounded rather dramatic and long suffering, which made him feel like he'd walked into some kind of set up.
”If you knew what I was up against, you wouldn't ask me that,” Alfred replied in a morose voice.
Now, Sean knew he'd been played. Maybe not a lot, because at the core of it all, he knew instinctively that Alfred had spoken the truth, but Sean also could tell when he'd been manipulated. After all, he was a master of manipulation himself. Took one to know one.
”So you're telling me that both Diandra and I were the victims of your...gift?” Sean put his friend on the spot.
Alfred s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably on the sauna's seat. ”Not victims, Sean. Recipients of a power that managed to keep you from f.u.c.king up your life. If it weren't for me, do you think either you or your sister would have ended up mated? Both of you were so stubborn and arrogant, refusing to see the truth, not wanting to be seen as weak.”
Alfred made a rude sound and his gaze locked with Sean's. ”If I hadn't b.u.t.ted in and used my gift to help you, both you and Diandra would be single today and unhappier than you could ever imagine,” he said solemnly.
Sean bit back his own sigh. He couldn't imagine. His life would be awful if he didn't have his mate and wife, Careen. Yet, getting to the place where he'd accepted that he had a mate, a woman he loved beyond everything else in his life, had been a particularly rough road. The same had held true for his sister Diandra. Her path to love and marriage had been every bit as rocky. Now, Alfred made it seem like neither he nor Diandra would have managed to mate without a nudge from Alfred's power.
”Please tell me that you didn't pick our mates,” he growled, feeling unnerved by everything Alfred had told him. ”Of course not. Those are nature chosen. But it's my job to ensure that those who are resistant become...more amenable to having a mate.” Alfred smiled, something Sean knew he rarely did. ”I smooth the path in any way I can without disrupting the natural flow of a mating.”
Sean's brain raced as he absorbed Alfred's words. ”And now you're telling me that Holden is in trouble?”
Alfred nodded solemnly. ”A lot more trouble than you and Diandra put together. I need your help, Sean, or your brother will be unhappy until the day he pa.s.ses to the Afterlife.”
”f.u.c.k.” Alfred had him. Sean loved his younger siblings fiercely. He would fight anything that threatened their lives and happiness.
”So you're in.” Alfred looked at him expectantly, triumph already s.h.i.+ning in his eyes.
This time Sean did sigh. ”Yeah. I'm in.”
He shook hands with Alfred and realized that he'd sealed a pact of duplicity and manipulation as he did so. Luckily, being Machiavellian was second nature to Sean, and he bet Alfred knew that fact quite well.
Chapter One
The first to arrive, Holden slipped into his seat and opened his leather covered notepad with irritation. He disliked rah rah meetings. Despite all the team building pep talks, things always went back to the way they had always been...with his oldest brother Sean wielding his iron fist and micro-managing while he and his other brother Declan struggled not to let Sean overwhelm them.
In Holden's opinion, corporate life had been worse while Declan had been gone. During Declan's tenure at a European conglomerate, Sean had refused to replace him. Instead, Holden's oldest brother had taken on acquisitions himself in his brother's absence. Sean had gone crazy buying up whatever he could. Declan had a lot more finesse and savvy when it came to choosing the funeral homes and cemeteries that offered the best value. The company needed Declan's firm hand and cool head when it came to acquiring new businesses and Holden had been relieved when his brother returned to Antaeus International.
Declan's return to the company heralded the end of their sister Eden's term of employment in the corporate world. Her contributions to the company were myriad, but all of them had been tainted by her unhappiness in that environment and Sean's determination to keep her there. It had all come to a head not long after Declan's return. Eden had ditched her marketing job at Antaeus International, packed up her cameras, and headed to New York City. Within a few months, she'd become the fas.h.i.+on industry's new hot photographer, making her name shooting nearly naked men in designer underwear. Sean's fury knew no bounds over her defection and both Holden and Declan had borne the brunt of it.
The door opened and a muscular man with unruly black curls entered the room. Holden c.o.c.ked one brow up at Vahid Delrey, his brother Sean's right hand man and the company's Chief Operating Officer. Vahid had also been Eden's live-in boyfriend for two years prior to her departure from all things Antaeus. Holden had always been amazed that Vahid had retained his cool demeanor, his deepest emotions, if he had any, masked from everyone when Eden had dumped him. Not for the first time, Holden wondered how Vahid had ever gotten together with his free-spirited sister. They seemed like such polar opposites.
”This is another attempt at a team building meeting, isn't it?” Holden asked as Vahid took the chair opposite him.
A dry chuckle escaped Vahid. ”You know Sean. He may suck at something, but his determination won't let him stop trying to master it anyway.”
Holden felt his lips curl in a derisive smile. ”My brother is a force unto himself that's for sure.”
Now, Vahid's brows rose. ”Nice way of saying he's an arrogant a.s.s.”
The door whooshed open and the subject of their conversation strode in with Declan and another man behind him. Holden's nose twitched. The scent of spearmint a.s.sailed him.
”Thanks for the compliment, Vahid,” Sean said smoothly, a sardonic expression on his hawkish features.
Declan took the chair at the foot of the table, seating himself on Holden's left. Sean took the chair at the head of the table. The spearmint scent intensified as a man Holden didn't know took the seat beside Vahid. More staff rushed in to join the meeting, but Holden found his gaze caught by the newcomer. Intense green eyes gazed back him, an indefinable emotion churning within them. Holden had no clue as to the man's ident.i.ty, but an odd sense of familiarity p.r.i.c.ked his awareness as he stared into those enigmatic eyes. It was as if knew the man, but couldn't place where or how.
The green gaze s.h.i.+fted as a tall, blonde woman strode into the room. Dressed in an unrelenting black suit and matching silk s.h.i.+rt, her pale hair twisted into a neat chignon, Emily Carrington looked like a fas.h.i.+on model until one noticed her stern visage. As one of the most powerful people at Antaeus International, she held the company's purse strings in her long- fingered, capable hands. The new man smiled at her as she took a seat beside him. Her expression turned smug and the new guy's ident.i.ty dawned on Holden. The wunderkind of the death care industry's financial sector, Garret Renquist.
Sean and Emily had somehow managed to lure Garret from his position as the head of finance for Stone Mortuary Services, a job he hadn't even held very long. Alfred Stone had hired him away from the biggest British mortuary conglomerate in the hope of turning him loose on the Funeral Director's Guild's financials, a big project that Alfred had spearheaded as the head of the FDG. Instead, Sean and Emily had whisked the whiz kid to Antaeus International. With an internal smirk, Holden briefly imagined the acquisition of the stock market genius taking place over a round of golf. His brother Sean golfed regularly with Alfred and Marius Granville of Granville Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in their part of the Darkworld. Holden figured the three powerful men brokered all kinds of industry related deals during those golf games. Something told him that Garret Renquist might just have been one of those deals.
”Let's get started,” Sean said from the head of the table. ”This will be a short meeting anyway since we're all leaving.”
”Leaving?” Holden asked, startled. What the h.e.l.l was his brother up to now?
Sean's intense golden stare turned on Holden. ”Yes. Leaving. I'll get to that in a minute.”