Shattered: The Sundance Series

by Rider, C. P.

  Eighties music blared through the bar, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before Lucas's and my sex theme came up. Lucas had purchased the refurbished classic jukebox as a bar-warming gift for Chandra, and filled it up with old songs. He'd told her it was because people got nostalgic when they drank, but Neely knew the truth: he'd wanted to put in that damn song.

  Sure enough, Air Supply's All Out of Love floated over the speakers. I blushed. I couldn't help it. Lucas knew it, too, and he got the biggest kick out of seeing the color flood my cheeks.

  Thank goodness he wasn't around to see it this time.

  I climbed on the nearest barstool and scanned the bar as I waited for Chandra to stop threatening Norman. I recognized most of the shifters present, though there were a few people I didn't know. Most were dressed in their New Year's finest, which ranged from sweaters and jeans to dresses and business suits. The booze was flowing, faces were glowing in the slightly overheated room, and everyone seemed in a celebratory mood.

  "Norman, I don't think you understand that I can make your life a living hell."

  Pause.

  "What does you being married with six kids have to do with already knowing what hell is like? Get my beer here ASAP or I will never order another thing from you or your distributor—and I will tell your boss exactly why, you thief."

  Pause.

  "That's what I thought. Going to be hard to support that wife and those kids you don't like without a job. Yes, I'll serve you a drink when you get here. Yes, even if it's nine in the morning. Just get here." Chandra ended the call and tossed her cell phone under the counter.

  "Hi, Chandra."

  "Hey, Neely. Cute dress. Really like that color on you—brings out the golden tones in your skin."

  I was fortunate to have been born with great skin—dark brown with a golden undertone, like my Scottish-Mexican-African-American dad's. My curly chestnut-brown hair was from my Mexican-American mom, and when I looked at her picture, I couldn't help but get misty over the fact that I never got to see her in person.

  "Thanks." I smiled. "It's got pockets, so it's pretty much perfection in a dress."

  Chandra grinned. "I have pockets in all my clothes. Where else would I store my knives?"

  "I was thinking more along the lines of carrying my cell phone, but I can see where it would come in handy for weaponry, too." I peered around. "I thought Fiera might stop by."

  Fiera Kennith was a friend of mine, a fire witch who lived with some other friends of mine, the tower witches. She was around my age, petite, with bright red hair and skin the shade of sugar. Chandra and Fiera had become friends over the last month while the fire witch helped the ex-assassin out.

  "She's not back from Atlanta," Chandra replied, and I detected a trace of unhappiness in the way she said it.

  Before I could ask her about it, there was a tug on the back of my hair. I spun around on the stool, ready with a smile for the only person in the world I allowed to touch my hair whenever he wanted.

  "Lucas."

  I reached for him, brushing my fingertips over the sharp jut of his cheekbones and the chiseled line of his jaw. He was muscular, with the sort of build you'd be more likely to see on a baseball field rather than a football field, with dark blond hair and heavily lashed eyes the color of aged whiskey.

  "About time you got here, sugar cookie." He brushed his lips over my shoulder.

  The man looked delectable in faded jeans, black motorcycle boots, and a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He wore cologne made for him by our local apothecary, a scent that enhanced rather than covered his natural scent.

  "I'm not late. Besides, I was here before you." I sniffed his chest. "Mmm, you smell good."

  "Thanks. You look good. Stunning." He pulled me in for a kiss. "Mmm. You taste good, too."

  "Thanks."

  "You didn't get here before me, either. Chandra sent me outside a few minutes ago to check the breaker box because the refrigerator shut off. Did you notice the song?" He waggled his brows. "I've been playing our sex theme all evening."

  "Oh God, that's what this song means to you?" Chandra rolled her eyes. "Neely, he plays it all the damn time."

  Lucas sniffed. "Shut up, Chandra. You know you like Air Supply. It's romantic, and you like romance."

  "Seriously?" Chandra hiked up her eyebrow. "You've both borne witness to my love life lately. Why in the world would you think I'd be excited about a romantic song?" She crossed her arms over her chest. "Alpha Blacke, I swear, if you play that song again, I will unplug the jukebox for the night and everyone will be pissed at you. You're the alpha, so they won't say anything, but inside they'll be seething."

  "Come on. Look at her cheeks. She blushes every time I play it in front of other people. She can't help it."

  "Oh gag," Chandra said, then added, "He's right though. You are blushing."

  "Stop it, you two. Come on." I grabbed Lucas's hand and led him to the tiny dance floor, a single flaw in an otherwise perfectly imperfect bar. "The song's almost over and you can't play it anymore. Let's not waste it."

  He spun me out onto the floor, then pulled me into his body. We danced like that for two straight songs—even though the next one was the much peppier eighties song, Come on Eileen—and into a third. It felt good to be in his arms. With Lucas, I felt a connectedness that fed my soul. I held him tightly as we danced, burying my face in his chest and digging my nails into the muscles on his back to ground myself.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  Nope. Nu-uh. Not by a longshot. "Yes."

  "God, you're such a liar. And you weren't even trying that time, either. Sad."

  I tipped my head back to look him in the eye. "I had a rough day."

  "You did spike a granny alligator."

  "That's ageist, Lucas. Anyway, it's not just all that. I'm broke. The bakery has taken so many hits lately, I don't know what to do. And I'm tired. Tired of fending off stupid alphas, tired of worrying, tired of being tired."

  He kissed the top of my head, toyed with one of my curls. "My instinct is to solve all of your problems for you, but you don't want that. So, I'll let you talk. I'll offer some solutions, but I won't force them on you, and I'll try hard not to save you, even though it's really hard on me."

  "Poor Lucas." I reached up and kissed him, long and sweet. "You are the best boyfriend ever."

  "Pressure's on now," he said, smirking as he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me tight into his hips. "Tell me more nice things about myself."

  "All my other boyfriends were complete shit compared to you."

  He looked unimpressed. "Um, hello? Everyone already knows that. We’ve seen your boyfriends."

  "Not all of them. Before Julio, I dated a medical student who was very sweet and quite well-endowed. He was what the girls call 'a catch.'"

  "Quotation fingers?" He slow-blink-eye-rolled me. "That's so nineties."

  "Please. We're dancing to a song that was released in the early seventies."

  "Late seventies. You're thinking of Layla. This is Lay Down Sally."

  "Impressive," I smiled up at him. "I thought I knew everything about your tastes, and I had no idea you were into Clapton."

  "I like to keep you on your toes."

  "You've said that before, Blacke."

  "Yeah, but it wasn't received well back then, Costa-MacLeod." He smiled down at me—a little wickedly, I thought.

  "Stop looking at me like that or we're not going to make it until midnight."

  "Nothing says we have to."

  I stepped out of his arms. "Yes, we do have to. We can't leave Chandra's party early."

  "Are you sure? I've got your favorite vanilla bubble bath, some of those Korean paper face masks you like, and a bunch of Malcolm's coffee at my place."

  "Can we not call it 'Malcolm's coffee,' please?"

  "Well, I took three cases of it from his kitchen, but okay. Sensibility over accuracy. I get it."

  "And let the record show
, that's your favorite bubble bath, too. I haven't used any of it, and the last time I was there, half the bottle was gone—as were half the Korean paper masks."

  "I like it because it smells like vanilla. Like you." He buried his face in my hair, trailing kisses down the side of my neck. I almost caved and went home with him then.

  "Come on, let's get a drink."

  He gave me one last kiss and straightened. "All right."

  We had just started toward Chandra when the door opened, and Dan and Farrah Winters entered the bar. They were dressed up, Dan in black trousers and a sports jacket, Farrah in a stunning white chiffon dress.

  "Change of plans. Let's grab a table instead," I said.

  Lucas had other ideas, though, and steered us toward the bar. "I don't avoid my own security team." His tone was harsher than I liked, so I dug in my heels, wrenched my arm out of his grip, and detoured into the recently remodeled restroom.

  "Going to the ladies’ room for an hour or two. See you at midnight."

  He reached for me, but I was gone. He was very quick, so I knew he'd let me get away. "Neely, damn it."

  I was in the bathroom minding my own business, phone in my hand and back against the Mexican artisan-crafted tiles on the wall, when Farrah pushed open the door and flowed into the room. She set her gold handbag on the narrow counter in the prissiest way possible, and pulled out a tube of lipstick. She smoothed the neutral mocha shade over her lips, capped the lipstick, then faced me.

  "Have you ever considered leaving town?"

  Chapter Three

  "Hey, Farrah. Congrats on the nuptials," I said dully.

  Farrah Smyth-Winters—S-my-th, not Smith, as she corrected me once—was the sort of chic, elegant woman I always felt awkward and graceless around. My hang-up, not hers, but there it was. The coyote shifter was stylishly slender with black hair and cool-toned melanin-rich skin, but her best feature was her luminous dark brown eyes. She almost always smiled, but it never seemed sincere. I'd read her mind a couple of times, and I got the oddest nothing feeling from her, as if she were an emotional blank slate.

  She seemed pretty annoyed with me at the moment, though.

  "Do you feel congratulatory toward Dan and me?" Farrah asked.

  "Nope." I returned my attention to my cell phone and the puzzle game I was playing.

  "Then why bother congratulating us?"

  "Because I was hoping you'd thank me and leave," I replied without looking up.

  She sighed. "I'm not here to start anything with you. I simply want to talk."

  "Right." Concentration lost, I closed my game and checked my email.

  Farrah leaned against the sink. "I am respectfully asking you to leave Sundance."

  "You have a weird way of not starting anything with me."

  "It would be easy for you to go. There's nothing holding you here, you aren't intrinsic to the community the way Dan is. You know that." She smiled that pretty, hollow smile. "It's not as if you don't have anywhere to go. You've had offers from countless other alphas to join their groups."

  Offers. That was one way to put it. "That is true. My dance card is full." I suddenly wished I'd ordered a shot of Jack Daniels before I dove into the restroom.

  She fiddled with the clasp on her purse. "I realize that some of the offers have been less than cordial."

  "You mean the ones where people tried to tranq and kidnap me?"

  "Well, yes, of course you wouldn't want to go with any of them. But what about the Austin alpha? From what I hear, his pack would welcome you with open arms. Plus, he's very handsome—and kind. Dan and I met him two years ago when he was in town."

  "Alpha Juan is a good guy," I agreed.

  "So, take his offer and go. Let us stay here in Sundance with our child."

  Farrah appeared to think I knew she was pregnant. I'd had no idea, but then again, I didn't much care.

  "You and Dan can stay in town if you want. I have nothing to do with it."

  She fisted her hands at her sides. "You're causing problems between Alpha Blacke and my husband. Dan has been the Blacke group's third for years with no issues. He has worked hard, he has been loyal, he—"

  "—failed in his capacity as third when he didn't intervene or immediately summon his alpha when I was abducted."

  Farrah relaxed her hands one finger at a time and drummed her pearly pink fingernails on the edge of the custom sink. "He assumed you had things under control. Perhaps Dan gave you too much credit, but—"

  "He knew exactly what he was doing, Farrah. He hoped the kidnappers would kill me before Lucas found me, because then all his problems would be solved." I slipped my phone into my pocket and, standing in front of the other sink, stared at my face in the tiled mirror. My makeup was intact, but it didn't hide the gray circles around my eyes or the exhaustion lines tugging down the corners of my mouth.

  "I'm sure he—"

  "His mistake wasn't in assuming I had things under control. We both know that's bullshit. His mistake was in assuming Lucas wouldn't move heaven and earth to find me."

  To this, Farrah had no response. I'd nailed it.

  I glanced from my mirror to her face. "That's dereliction of duty. No matter how Dan felt about me, he should have obeyed his alpha. He didn't. What happens to him after this is not up to me. It's up to his group."

  "What are you saying? Are you saying Alpha intends to censure Dan?" She clasped her hands over her still-flat belly. "Forswear him?"

  "Not a Blacke group member. How would I know what next week's convocation is about?" I smiled at her stunned expression and sauntered out of the restroom. It was a cheap shot, and I knew it, but I also didn't care. Farrah had crossed a line tonight and she was due a little payback.

  Welcome to the new Neely.

  After hinting to Farrah that her new husband might be foresworn—in effect, kicked out of the Blacke group—I made my way up to the bar and ordered a margarita. In truth, I had no idea what the convocation was about, and only knew it was happening because Chandra told me.

  "Neely, come over here," a group of shifters, three men who stopped by the bakery every weekday morning before work for coffee and pan dulce, called out to me. They were all holding one of the palm-sized cookies I'd sent over earlier in one hand and a mug of beer in the other.

  I winked at Lucas—who was trapped at the end of the bar listening to Margaret Lentz complain about her neighbor playing his music too loudly—and headed over to the guys. On the way there, I stopped at a couple of tables to say hello, and nearly everyone appeared happy to see me—a change from a few months ago when many of them had stayed away out of fear. It wasn't as if they'd forgotten what I was, so I wondered what had changed their minds.

  By the time I made it to the table with the three men—whose names were Alonzo, Roberto, and Chris—they were arguing.

  "Cookie first, beer second," Chris said.

  "Beer first, cookie second," Roberto countered.

  "You can do it however you want." Alonzo smiled drunkenly at me. "Good. The cookie espert is here. We're having a contest to see who can finish their cookie and beer first, and we need an imp… imp… a fair judge. Losers buy a round for the winner."

  Personally, I didn't think these guys needed another round, but what did I know?

  Five minutes later, I'd called the contest, polished off my margarita, and was headed to the bar for another.

  "Who won?" Chandra asked.

  "Roberto. But the real winner is the proprietor of this fine drinking establishment." I slid the men's money across the bar. "Another round for three shifters I'm sure will not make it through the night without driving the porcelain bus at least once."

  Chandra wiped down the bar. "It's not easy for a shifter to get drunk and stay drunk. They have to work at it."

  "They are doing a commendable job." I sat back while Chandra fixed me a margarita. The bar looked festive tonight, with gold and silver streamers and a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling. I imagined the ball
was supposed to represent the one in Times Square in New York, because the Dusty Cactus Saloon was not a disco ball sort of place.

  From the corner of my eye, I spied Farrah at a table with Dan and some friends by the wall mural. They were talking and laughing just a little too loudly.

  Lucas walked up, a scowl on his handsome face. "How'd you find out about the convocation, Neely?"

  Good news travels fast. Farrah must have told Dan, who tattled to Lucas.

  "I told her," Chandra said. "I need someone to cover Earp's and my shifts."

  "Can't you just close down for a night?" He ran his hand through his hair. "It doesn't start until sundown anyway."

  "Respectfully, sir, this is a business with regular business hours. I open at noon and I close at 2 am." Chandra loaded a tray with three beers and summoned Earp with a wave of her hand. "Last call is 1:30, because I'm not the kind of ass who last-calls on people five minutes to closing so they can't finish their drinks. I serve lunch and dinner, and building up that clientele takes time."

  "You don't have to be such a crank about it," Lucas muttered. "And stop telling outsiders about group business."

  I flipped him the finger at the "outsiders" comment and returned to my margarita.

  "Thanks for making this for me, Chandra. I know a lot of bartenders don't like to."

  "I'll make anything you ask. I think most bartenders don't like that slushy crap that passes for a margarita. On the rocks, it's not an issue." She glanced at Lucas. "Sir, I solemnly pledge to keep your outsider girlfriend-mate out of the loop whenever possible."

  I raised my hand. "And I, as the outsider, solemnly pledge to keep myself unlooped."

  "You're both assholes," he muttered.

  "And proud of it," I said, patting the stool beside me. "Come have a drink, handsome."

  Chandra poured him a finger of Macallan whisky. He grumped and cussed as he sat down next to me. "Good thing you're hot."