The Weretiger and Werewolf

Coven

Winter

I give half a smile as I spot the café, which acts as the front to the entrance of the Blood City. It's a small café with the paint starting to flake while the chairs outside look as if they've had too many people sit on them and too much time facing the rain. The smell of coffee drifts lazily as it winds through the air and I spot a waitress through the window serving food to a few customers. The street seems fairly quiet, with only a few motorbikes sitting directly outside the café.

I've never entered the Blood City through this entranced but all supernatural creatures have built in senses that can lead them to the Blood city, and all it's entrance points. Which is lucky because I'd have never of picked a tiny café as one of the entrance points to the largest supernatural city on Earth.

Leaving the car a few blocks away I walk, keeping an eye out for anyone who is showing too much of interest in me. A few people leave the café as I enter and I can tell they're residents of the city. The pale skin gives them away. After all it's not like those in the Blood City see a lot of sunlight.

At best I've got a half hour lead on Ruka. If she's smart, which I know she is than she'll guess where I'm headed. After all if there is one place where I can get answers on how to kill Ruka and get Cleo back it's the Blood City. Which means she's probably already on her way here.

Sitting down at one of the small tables I watch as the supernatural and human alike enter the café. I haven't used this entryway before and the best way to figure out how to enter the city is to watch the other supernatural beings do it.

I suppose a normal person would just ask someone where the gateway is but I've become paranoid over these past few days and I don't want to draw attention to the fact that I'm new here. The humans oblivious to their supernatural counterparts eat cakes and drink coffee while around them Fae, and Shifters move. Once a supernatural creature steps inside the small café a glamour protects them from human eyes and I watch as a group of spiked haired Shifters all laughing walk past a clueless couple oblivious to the teenagers.

"So a werewolf. Don't see many of your kind wandering around these days." The witch's voice is full of amusement and excitement. I feel my breath hitch, Witches are notorious for hiding their scent but even so I thought I'd scoped out the area.

I feel a hand clamp onto my shoulder from behind as a coven surround me. I keep my shoulders relaxed though inside I can feel my stomach coiling. I'm not technically inside the Blood City, which gives these witches free rein.

The hand trails off my shoulder as owner of it swings around into the seat across from me, the table the only thing between us. Chairs scrape as the rest of the coven drag chairs up to my tiny table and chair and I stay still, faking calm as I count them, five in total; a small coven.

I study them. They're a young coven, all roughly my age. My guess is they probably branched off from the coven they were born into, deciding the old rituals were too boring or whatever it is that makes teenage witches rebel from their mother covens.

They don't look like a traditional coven, though I suppose not many witches would still wear robes these days. Dressed in tight jeans and leather jackets they exude an air of confidence that has nothing to do with the fact that they probably know thirty types of poison that could paralyse someone without actually killing them.

"You're the head witch?" I half nod towards the one that sits directly in front of me.

The girl shakes her head before flicking her hair over her shoulder. The movement catches my gaze and I frown in confusion. When she had sat down her hair had been a light purple but now it's blue, dark at the top and going almost white at the ends. "Well I suppose technically yes, but we don't stick to traditional names."