Ashes on the Earth (Stones of Fire Book 1) Read online

  He’s not a mafia don. Stop thinking things like that, I scolded myself, even as part of me wanted to study Mr. Costas to see if I could detect any truth to the rumors. Not that I would even know what a mafia don looked like, aside from gangster-type movies, which I wasn’t a big fan of.

  “How interesting. And your father? What does he do? Is he still in the military?”

  “No, he’s retired. He works with vets now, helping them transition back into civilian life.”

  That sounded alright, didn’t it?

  Did it? My throat was dry. I’d never felt more out of place in my life. Quickly, I retrieved my water goblet—and it was a fancy goblet, by the way, not a glass—for a sip.

  “That sounds like a very worthwhile career choice,” she approved. “And homeschooling can be a viable option these days. Our Jackson is currently taught at home by tutors. We haven’t decided yet which schools he’ll attend.”

  “Plenty of time for that,” his father spoke up. His voice was a little gruff, but I guess he was ready to return to the conversation.

  “Of course,” his wife agreed. “Ellie, you must let us know what nursing school you attend. Or if there’s one you’d prefer to attend instead. We want you to know your tuition is completely covered. It’s our gift to you.”

  “Oh.” I’d thought the expensive designer glasses, which I was wearing, and the dinner were their thanks. “You don’t have to do that,” I said lamely. “Really, you don’t.”

  “We insist. Don’t we, dear?”

  “We do. Absolutely,” Mr. Costas affirmed.

  The strength of his tone was final. I shut up and didn’t argue any further.

  At that moment, the door at the far end of the room opened. The main course was being served, and I was grateful for the diversion from the stilted conversation.

  Chapter Four

  Standing in the background, hands folded in front of him, Carter Ballis observed the scene playing out in his boss’s dining room.

  The girl. Eleanor St. James. Ellie for short. Parents, Darryl and Susan St. James. Brothers, Andrew and Tyler. Father a former Chaplain’s Assistant with a distinguished twenty years in the service, now an ordained minister and working at a center for military vets. Mother a school teacher turned homemaker turned homeschooling teacher. Ellie—twenty-one years old. Nursing student. Pediatrics the field she wanted to join.

  Ciara Costas had known all of that information without asking. Nobody passed the threshold of the Costas home without being thoroughly vetted. The stakes were too high. As head of the Costas security team, and Sean Costas’ personal bodyguard, Carter had had his people find out all there was to know about Ellie before she was invited in. Nothing had screamed danger, deceit, or her being a plant for the other side. Everything he’d dug up on Ellie and her family verified they were what they appeared to be: people minding their own business, living their own lives. Ellie’s social media accounts were non-descript, especially for a woman her age. Few selfies. Maybe a picture or two with her brothers. Talk about her studies, her work. Quotes she liked. Funny cat memes. Nothing controversial.

  Watching her struggle tonight, Carter almost felt sorry for her. Her upbringing was showing. She was beyond her depth, and knew it. When dinner was served, she didn’t know which fork to use. She chose the wrong one. Her hosts pretended not to notice. She didn’t eat much; mainly just pushed the food around on her plate. She should eat more. She was too skinny, too pale, in Carter’s opinion. Cute, in a big-eyed, ingénue sort of way, with those freckles across her nose, but nothing that would stand out or catch most people’s eye. There wasn’t much about Ellie to really stand out or catch anyone’s attention…

  Except for the fact that she’d risked her own life, or at least a terrible accident, to save the Costas’ son.

  That kind of courage, of self-sacrifice, didn’t grow on trees. Sean Costas wasn’t the sort of man to forget it, either. Maybe having the girl in his home was a little too much for her, but Carter knew he’d wanted to show her in his own way that she was a part of the family now. And nothing in heaven or earth or any worlds in-between meant more to Sean Costas than family and blood ties. Ellie St. James didn’t know it, but that one brave act on her part had set her and her brothers for life. Whatever schools they chose—paid for. And that was merely the beginning.

  Dinner had nearly ground to a halt. Miss St. James had apparently run out of things to say, even in answer to questions. Carter glanced at Mrs. Costas. She was smiling sympathetically at her guest, who looked painfully ill-at-ease. Clearly, Ellie was ready for things to be over, ready to get back to her own space, her own tribe, her own people. Taking pity on her, Ciara asked if she’d care for dessert or if she’d rather have it boxed up to take home with her.

  “I’m guessing you probably have studying to do tonight, and might have to get up early for class tomorrow,” she said. “I remember my college days.”

  Miss St. James’ relief showed in the relaxing of her shoulders. “I do have an early morning tomorrow,” she confessed.

  “I figured. Well, we won’t let dessert go to waste. In fact, we’ll send some home with you for your brothers. I’m sure they won’t turn it down, being growing boys and all. How about your parents—do you think they’d like some too?”

  Carter didn’t catch the girl’s reply, because Mr. Costas crooked a finger, motioning him over.

  “Get the car,” he ordered quietly, and Carter nodded, slipping out of the dining room to do as ordered.

  Outside in the hall, he texted Tracy, the driver, to bring the Aston Martin around front. Slipping his phone into his jacket pocket, he went back into the dining room. Mr. Costas was standing, and so was Ellie. Sean walked around the corner to get his wife’s wheelchair, pushing her as they led their guest out of the dining room, down the maze of corridors, and into the foyer. Ciara maintained a light flow of conversation as they escorted their guest outside, into the cool autumn night, Carter following at a respectable distance. He hovered inside the foyer, behind his employees, as headlights flashed. Tracy was bringing the car around from the garage. For a split second, the headlights splashed over Ellie St. James, highlighting her ivory blouse, pale skin, and blonde hair. In spite of himself, Carter stared, distracted.

  That was a mistake.

  In that moment of distraction, of headlights’ glow and a young woman’s beauty, they went for it.

  Nobody was expecting an attack. Not here at the Costas mansion, one of the most heavily guarded places in the state, if not the most. Maybe that was why Nosizwe, his boss’s arch-rival, had sent them, hoping they’d be caught off guard here on their home turf. And they almost were, but Carter Ballis was never fully caught off guard. Even as his focus was momentarily on his boss’s guest, out of the corner of his eye he saw the dark shadow descending.

  Wings, his mind told him.

  There shouldn’t be any wings here. They should be stationed elsewhere throughout the compound.

  He reacted without thought. “Sean!” he shouted, even as a dark creature dropped from the sky onto his employer’s back.

  It all happened so fast. Sean roared in anger as talons pierced his skin, but his shapeshifter side took over and he changed so quickly that tender human skin was a Minotaur’s thick hide in the blink of an eye. A human roar became a bull’s bellow as he bucked, throwing off his attacker. Carter didn’t have time to stop and see exactly what the creature was, but he thought maybe a griffin. Even as the Minotaur ridded itself of its assailant, a second winged creature, an itsumade with a snakelike body and human skull face, dropped from the sky with a screech, also aiming for the Minotaur. Carter leapt into action. He felt the ripple pass over his body, felt blood and flesh and bones swiftly alter to bronze as he shifted. Carter, the human, had been left behind. The Talos, a living, breathing, moving bronze statue, ruled now.

  His roar could be heard across the courtyard, and the pounding of his feet shook the ground. In the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware of female screams, but the Talos had taken over, and his one instinct, to protect, was in full force.

  He reached the Minotaur at the same time as the itsumade, and with a sweep of his bronze arm caught the creature, knocking it aside. It coiled like a serpent preparing to strike, but the Minotaur spun like a great bull, lashing out with its mighty fists, catching the monster in the middle of its chest, sending it rolling with an angry shriek. The Minotaur swerved around the hood of the car, chasing after it, even as Carter, the Talos, readdressed the original threat, the griffin.

  It had taken to wing and was on him before he could react. Its eagle screech echoed in his bronze skull, but the talons that raked his shoulders did no more than create an annoying screech of sharp points against metal. Clothed in bronze, he felt no pain at the gouges. The griffin wasn’t expecting him to. He wasn’t its target. The talons scraping his shoulders were a mere distraction to throw him off guard as the winged animal flew at its real target: Ciara Costas.

  Momentarily blinded by the griffin’s wings and fur, the Talos spun as the creature streaked past. From across the courtyard, he heard a bellow from the Minotaur, a bellow in which he could hear Sean’s wife’s name.

  “Ciara!”

  Warm light spilled out from the vestibule onto the terrified faces of both Ciara Costas and her guest. Were Ciara in the water, she would be safe, but out of the water her ability to shapeshift, to change, was gone. She was stuck in the wheelchair, and as helpless as her very human guest. The griffin was coming right at her, ready to tear her apart. Even as it ducked, talons extended, there was a flash of ebony and ivory. Ellie St. James, looking small and helpless in comparison to the beast diving her way, had moved, throwing herself across the woman in the wheelchair. The griffin screeched, but
didn’t change course. Its talons ripped the back of the girl’s blouse as a shot rang out.

  Tracy.

  Timewise, the Aston had screeched to a halt in the driveway, and the Minotaur had swerved around it to chase the itsumade. The griffin had raked Carter, the Talos, as it dove for Mrs. Costas in her wheelchair. The car door opened as Ellie St. James threw her body across her hostess, and Tracy had emerged, gun in hand. She hadn’t taken the time to shift. Tracy was a Deer Woman from the Sioux tribe, which was not a creature that typically engaged in violence, fighting, or warfare. Her alter may not have made a difference in battle, but the sawed off shotgun in her hand did. She was never unarmed, usually driving with it under the front seat, which was a good thing for Ellie and Ciara.

  The shotgun blast lit up the night, the sound echoing off the stone walls of the Costas mansion. Struck in the side, the griffin twisted, releasing an unearthly scream that was half bird, half human. Mortally wounded, it shifted as it fell, and what dropped onto the pavement right in front of the wheelchair was no mythological monster but a wounded man, naked from the waist up, his side blasted away, his blood drenching the paving stones.

  The Talos ran forward as Tracy walked over, gun in hand. The man was twitching, writhing. Blood was everywhere, spattered on the wheelchair, the hem of Ciara’s pants, and Miss St. James’ ivory blouse. Pounding hooves approached and Carter, the Talos, whirled, but it was only his boss. Even as Sean slid to a halt next to Tracy, he shifted, resuming his human form. His shirt was torn and hanging in strips. There was blood on his back, but he would live. Releasing his alter, Carter shifted too. In the flash of an eye, the Talos was gone, and Carter stood next to his boss, his shirt and coat not just gone but exploded into bits. Both men looked at each other.

  “The itsumade?” Carter asked.

  “I didn’t kill it. Wounded it, but it got away,” his boss growled.

  Carter swore. His boss sidestepped Tracy and the bleeding attacker, currently gasping his last breaths, to approach his wife. He knelt next to her chair.

  “Ciara, love?”

  Miss St. James rose from off her hostess, but clutched the back of the wheel chair as if she was afraid to let go. Sean Costas glanced up at her.

  “Are you alright, Ellie?”

  She didn’t reply. Just stared, her eyes huge and her mouth hanging open. Her glasses had fallen off into Ciara’s lap. Even as Ciara clutched her husband’s left hand, murmuring that she was okay, Sean picked them up and handed them to his young guest. At first she stared blankly, like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, then slowly accepted them, letting go of the wheelchair long enough to slide them onto her nose.

  A gasp, a wheeze, a gurgle from the dying shifter seized all of their attention. Tracy stepped up, lowering her weapon.

  “Want me to finish him off?”

  Sean stood. “No, give it here.”

  Tracy passed the gun into his outstretched hand. Insensible to the blood on his clothes or shoes, Carter’s boss knelt next to the fading man. Post-transformation, the griffin’s human body was long and lanky. Shaggy dark hair framed a youthful face with glowing golden eyes. Eyes that were glazing over as blood bubbled from his lips, spilling down his neck.

  “No one,” Sean Costas said softly, to the dying man, “attacks my family. You can attack me. You can attack my people, my shifters. You can attack my business, my empire; anything that I am or have. But you do not attack my family. Nosizwe just made a huge mistake. The pit itself can’t compare to what I’m going to unleash on her.”

  Carter saw the wounded shifter’s mouth work as he tried to speak, tried to say something. Too much blood. He was strangling on his own blood.

  Sean Costas stood, looming over the once griffin.

  “Go back to the pit from where you came,” he said, and raised the gun.

  But not to shoot.

  Instead, he’d turned it, butt down, and brought it down with all of his considerable strength onto the attacker’s skull. There was a loud crack. A groan from the shifter. A horrified scream from Ellie St. James. No one else reacted, Carter included, as his boss slammed the gun butt into his victim’s face again and again and again. Teeth cracked and blood sprayed, splashing Sean’s skin, his beard, his face. Bits of bone, brains spattered everything within a few feet radius. To Carter, watching in the dim light from the foyer, between the fury on his boss’s face and the blood streaking it, he almost looked like more of a devil than the nastiest shifter Carter had ever encountered. And that was saying a lot. Yet he watched without feeling, without pity. Like Sean had said, you didn’t attack his family. Nosizwe should’ve known that. The skirmishes were over. She’d just unleashed war.

  The dull whacks of the gun butt finally stopped. The shifter was long past dead. His body was limp, his skull more jelly than bone. He was barely recognizable as human. Sean stood over him, breathing hard, staring down at his handiwork.

  “Carter?”

  He stepped up.

  “Call James. Tell him to get some fliers in the air and make certain this is all she sent. Then tell him to have this mess cleaned up and get the body ready to be moved. We’re sending Nosizwe a message she won’t miss.

  “Tracy.” He handed his driver the gun, looking her in the eye. “Thank you.”

  “Anything for you, Mr. Costas,” she replied soberly, taking care to keep her feet out of the dark pool spreading across the paving stones in front of the house.

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, Carter was about to make that call when a choking sound caught his attention. Everyone turned towards the Costas’ guest, who’d been momentarily forgotten as Sean finished off the creature who had dared to strike at his wife. Ellie had retreated a few steps. Both hands were clapped over her mouth. Behind her palms, she was breathing hard, so hard Carter could see her chest heaving, despite the dim light. When he looked at her, her huge eyes behind her glasses caught his for a split second. Then she heaved, gagged. Spinning, she dashed towards a flowering bush, pruned down for the approaching cold season, and sagged to her knees, losing whatever dinner she’d managed to eat earlier.

  Carter’s attention switched back to his boss. Hands on hips, he was watching the girl also.

  “Carter, we have a big problem here,” he said.

  Chapter Five

  That went without saying. The evening wasn’t supposed to have gone like this. Ellie St. James, an ignorant human girl from a world of ignorant humans, wasn’t supposed to know about their world, his world. Instead, she’d been introduced to it in the worst possible way. Shifters existed, and they tried to kill each other. Now that she knew, they couldn’t simply let her go. More than that, she’d been seen by the itsumade. She’d thrown herself over Sean’s wife to protect her from the griffin’s attack. Nosizwe might not know who Ellie was now, but if she and her shifters found out, they’d assume she was aligned with Sean Costas and his mob. They’d just as happily kill her as any of them. Ellie had saved the life of both Sean Costas’ son and his wife, and for that hers was now ruined.

  “What do we do?” he questioned his boss, as both men stared at the young woman. She’d finally stopped retching and was working to push herself up off the ground.

  “For now, you take her. Get her out of here to a safe place. You protect, you hear?” Sean turned to him, grey eyes flashing. “I’ll send Ciara and Jackson to a safe home too, until we can check out the compound and make sure there are no more security breaches. You stick with Ellie and you protect her, no matter what. She’s my family now. She stays alive and she stays safe. Get her somewhere separate and secure until we can decide what to do. Maybe they don’t know who she is yet. Maybe they won’t figure it out. Maybe she’ll eventually be able to go home. We’ll have to keep our ears to the ground and listen to the talk. But until we know, one way or the other, you stay with her and keep her alive. That’s your one job now.”