Shattered: The Sundance Series

by Rider, C. P.

  "Will you be upset to see Dan go if Carter wins?"

  Amir stared at the mural on the wall. I wondered if he was looking at his eagle or Dan's coyote. Both were part of the painting, along with Carter's wolf. "If you'd asked me that a year ago, my response would be different."

  "And now?"

  "No. I won't be upset. He needs to go. You are Alpha Blacke's choice and we are his security team. It's not for Dan to pick and choose when he wants to follow his alpha's orders. I've known shifter groups where that would have been an immediate execution. No other alpha would have allowed him this much leverage."

  "Why does Lucas?" I asked.

  "He didn't. Not at first." He mulled over his response before speaking. "I'm going to tell you this, because I think it might set your mind at ease where Alpha is concerned, but I request that you not repeat it."

  "You have my word," I said, making a mental note to tuck the information in the back of my head where Lucas wouldn't see it.

  "Alpha was angry when he found out what Dan had allowed to happen to you."

  "How angry?"

  Amir stared unblinkingly into my eyes. "How deep is the sea?"

  "I knew he was upset—"

  "Upset? When you returned from the sanctuary, after the dust had settled somewhat, Alpha approached Chandra and me and asked us to call a convocation. He intended to challenge Dan to the death for his part in your abduction."

  "A challenge? Not a group punishment?" Normally, an alpha would censure a shifter, which meant the offending shifter would be issued a formal statement of disapproval. Basically, it was strike one and two in the same swing. Strike three was being forsworn, which was an immediate, and often painful, severing of group ties.

  Amir looked uncomfortable. "A censure would be … swift."

  "Wouldn't that be the best way to handle—oh. Lucas wanted to kill him slowly, didn't he?"

  "His rage was enormous. Alpha's intention was to censure and forswear Dan in front of the group, then challenge him."

  "Why didn't he?"

  "Chandra brought up her feeling that Carter Reid would soon become dissatisfied with his role in the group. He would eventually either leave or challenge one of us. As I mentioned, he's a strong alpha and his wolf was not going to allow him to remain in a strictly subservient role forever. She and I suggested that Alpha allow Carter to challenge Dan. This would solve three problems—it would satisfy Carter's wolf, fill Dan's position, and demonstrate impartiality to the group."

  "And that last thing is important?"

  "There is a faction in the group who stands by Dan and thinks he was right to do what he did, since you aren't a group member. I suppose that's not news to you."

  It wasn't news, but it wasn't pleasant to hear, either.

  "Rest assured, there's a much larger faction that sees what Dan did as treason. Disobeying Alpha and putting his mate in danger is low. Whether or not they like you is immaterial. The group protects the interests of the Alpha. Full stop."

  "Good to know." My stomach lurched and my head pounded. I didn't think those healers were as good as they thought they were.

  Amir slid off the stool. He went behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of cleanser and a few rags, then walked around wiping down tables, locking doors, and turning off lights. When he was finished, he climbed on the stool again. I was resting my heavy head on my arms, eyes closed, but I heard him.

  "That was a lot of blood back there. Are you sure you're okay?"

  "I'm not going to lie. I'm a little shook up by the news that my boyfriend considered murdering his third over me, not to mention this whole imaginary beer drinker who wasn't imaginary, no matter what those healers think they saw or didn't see. And then there's the mess I made. I should clean up the blood. Someone might walk behind the bar and slip." I slid off the stool and the world went swimmy. "Or not."

  "Already done. And I was talking about the blood in the kitchen, not the blood by the bar. You didn't hit your head there, so where were you bleeding from?"

  "Don't know. Did you see any dead bees on the floor?" I squinted up at him.

  Using my chin, he gently turned my head to the side. "Ears, definitely nose—" He pushed on my chin to open my mouth. "—mouth and eyes? You were crying blood?"

  I shrugged. I couldn't remember. In fact, the whole night was starting to blur. Now I couldn't recall if I'd ever been in the kitchen. And the man, he was starting to fade, too. I couldn't recall what he'd looked like or even his name. Only the song he'd played. And the Spanish word for bees.

  Abejas.

  "My Mini is parked out back. Help me lock up and walk out there?" I asked.

  "I'll drive you to Alpha's place. He won't be happy with me if I let you go home in this condition."

  "The convocation, remember? I'd prefer not to get attacked by a whole bunch of bloodthirsty shifters, thank you very much."

  "They're probably still out near the mountains. Just in case, though, I'll pull up to the door and you run inside. The front door is open. Lock yourself in Alpha's bedroom until morning and you'll be fine."

  When I gave him a unsure look, he smiled. "Do you honestly think I'd let anyone hurt you?"

  "Well, no."

  "I've asked Earp to meet me there."

  I finished my water. It was going down easily now. "Through the group bonds?"

  "Yeah. He's not an alpha, but the lizard is strong and ill-tempered enough to hold anyone off. Plus, his bite hurts like hell. No one wants to mess with him."

  "He's tough, all right." I slid off the stool, taking a moment to balance.

  "Neely, do you really think that wolf creature was in the bar tonight?" His tone was concerned, not accusatory. I was glad, because I was feeling delicate, and accusatory would have either hurt my feelings or pissed me off. Hard to say which.

  "Yes. But I don't know what part was real and what part was illusion. Have you ever heard of a wolf creature who can get into your head like that?"

  "Yes. It's unpleasant."

  "Disorienting. I feel like I just got off of a merry-go-round that was spinning ninety miles an hour. I'm dizzy and I can't find my footing." I scrubbed at my eyes. "I don't like not knowing the difference between what's real and what's imaginary. It scares me."

  Amir slung an arm around me and gently squeezed my shoulders. "It'll be okay. Let's get you to the house so you can rest."

  In the end, I agreed to go because I was too tired to fight Amir about it. Also, Lucas had a big tub and vanilla bubble bath. I really wanted to soak for a while.

  True to his word, Amir pulled the Mini up to the front. The porch furniture had been stowed away for the night, so Amir literally drove all the way to the door. I barely had room to open the passenger side enough to exit the car. Once I did and was clear, he took off again, parking my little Mini under the carport by the house.

  I went inside, shut the door without locking it, and stumbled down the hall to Lucas's bedroom, where I did lock the door. Lestat was sprawled out on his back in the middle of the bed, snoring. How such a small creature could take up so much room on the bed was beyond me.

  Lucas's fancy specially engineered self-dimming, floor-to-ceiling window looked out upon the moonlit desert night. The moon provided just enough illumination for me to see a golden eagle take flight, swooping low as it headed west. Outside the window near the sill, a Gila monster shifter appeared. He snapped his jaws and stood sentry there, elegant triangular head pointed in the direction Amir had flown.

  My bodyguard.

  I dragged myself into the bathroom and stared at the tub. I wanted to run the hottest water I could tolerate, empty an entire bottle of bubble bath inside, and soak there until morning, but I was afraid. What if whatever had happened to me at the Dusty Cactus happened again? What if I was neck deep in water when it did?

  With one last longing glance at the tub, I cracked open the bathroom door, stripped down, and took a hot shower instead. I needed to wash my hair anyway. And I was being guar
ded by a Gila monster shifter. With the door cracked, Earp would for sure hear me if I called out for help.

  Five minutes into my shower, Lestat pawed the door open and meowed repeatedly at me to get out and fetch him a treat. Guess I could have taken that bath after all. I doubt I'd have stayed passed out for long with all that caterwauling going on.

  I dried off, dressed in the prairie girl flannel nightgown I'd left here earlier in the week, and padded barefoot into the bedroom. I sat on the bed and dug two little fish shapes out the bag of treats Lucas kept in his nightstand. I tossed them to Lestat, who gobbled them down and then head-butted me until I stretched out on the bed and made a lap for him. Spoiled kitty.

  Lestat worked his way up to my chest, purring like a motorboat and licking my chin with his sandpaper tongue. I smooched his white furry face and scritched his cute triangle ears. He finally settled on the bed beside me, one of his paws on my arm.

  I'd just switched off the light and pulled up the covers when a furred male body hurtled into the floor-to-ceiling bedroom window. Thank goodness it was Lucas's special one. Shifters' bodies were dense and heavily muscled, and had been known to break through walls when they slammed into them.

  Blood drooled down the glass as the furred body was hurled against the window again. I recognized the animal. A coyote. Dan Winters.

  "Come here, Lestat." I tucked the cat under the covers with me as I watched Lucas's third alpha pull himself off the window and—five seconds later—splat against it again.

  And again.

  Finally, the coyote hit the window, slid to the dirt below it, and was still. The light of the moon revealed the shadowed outline of Lucas's people. They milled in a half circle around the beaten shifter. Someone let out a roar. It was followed by various animal cries, including mournful coyote howls.

  A large gray wolf, blood dripping from its jaws, approached the coyote. The beaten animal rolled over and tipped its head back. The wolf gripped the coyote's throat in his powerful jaws, holding tight, but not choking or drawing blood. Acceptance of surrender.

  Things would be different around the Blacke group after tonight.

  Dan Winters had just lost the position of third alpha to Carter Reid.

  Chapter Eight

  Five o'clock the next morning found me in Lucas's kitchen, brewing coffee and making blueberry coffee cake for all the shifters sprawled across his living room. It was common for some of them to crash at their alpha's place after a convocation, so I wasn't taken by surprise when I walked out of his bedroom and spied fifteen naked shifters in human form lying on every available surface in the room.

  I let them sleep as I puttered around in the kitchen. Once I started the coffee, Lestat appeared in the open doorway and meowed. The bossy cat pounced on a stool partially tucked under the island, wriggled up onto the countertop, then leapt into his Kosta Boda art glass bowl on top of the fridge. He purred like a motorboat until I tossed him a couple of treats, and then promptly went to sleep.

  "Happy now?"

  Blessed silence broken, I turned to face Farrah Winters. She was dressed, and had not come from the living room, but the guest room down the hall. Dan must have been really hurt if he'd spent the night at Lucas's place after losing his position in the group.

  "I had nothing to do with what happened to your husband. I didn't even know about it until after the challenge started." I sprayed disinfectant on the counter where Lestat's cat feet had been, wiped the surface with a paper towel, and returned the cleanser to the sink. "So, you can direct your attitude elsewhere."

  "You're the reason Dan was in trouble," she hiss-whispered. "You're at the center of every problem this town has."

  As I washed my hands, I read her. A quick skate over her thoughts. She was furious and sad, and worried. None of that translated into immediate danger, so I let her rant. Her fury and grief meant nothing to me. Not after what her husband had done.

  "You led Alpha Roso here. Then his brother. You've led poachers and rival alpha leaders here. Because of you, Alpha Blacke had to kill his own alpha."

  Ex-alpha, and technically, we'd both killed him. Lucas and I weren't sorry in the least about it, either. If there ever was an Alpha who'd needed killing, it was Xavier Malcolm.

  And as far as leading one of those cowards who kidnaps shifters and other paranormals and sells them to the highest bidder to Sundance? That was utter bull. Della Bates, a Blacke group traitor, had done that. A shifter. In fact, my saving Della's son from a poacher had started my association with Alpha Blacke and his group. Sure, I'd had to take out Della after she tried to kill me, but that didn't change the fact that I wasn't the one who brought poachers to Sundance.

  I could have said all of that, but I didn't see where it would make a difference. Farrah was determined to blame me for everything that had gone wrong in Sundance, and nothing I said was going to change her mind. So, instead of defending myself, I retrieved a carton of blueberries from the refrigerator and rinsed them in the sink. I set a small bowl of them aside and folded the rest into the batter I'd mixed together before Lestat and Farrah interrupted me.

  "Did you know Alpha offered to buy Dan's and my houses?" Her teeth clamped together, so her voice came out low and mean. "Could he have made it any clearer that he wanted us gone?"

  I greased two pans and poured the blueberry batter into them. Set them aside and went to get the brown sugar from the pantry.

  "It's because of you that those beta shifters were murdered. You brought that monster to our town. The same monster who killed your own uncle. It's because of you that he's dead, do you know that? How does that feel, spiker?"

  The brown sugar was behind a bag of chopped walnuts. I scooped up both and set them on the counter. Made the topping for the coffee cakes and sprinkled it on top of the batter. The oven was preheated by then, so I loaded the pans inside and set the timer.

  Her voice shook with the energy of her rage. "You are a curse upon Sundance, upon Alpha Blacke, upon the world."

  Humming to myself, I took the coffee cup Lucas had bought me for Christmas out of the cabinet. It had a picture of a pink concha on it and the words, "Don't be self conchas." I poured myself a cup of coffee in my special mug, adding a generous measure of whipping cream from a carton in the fridge. Some shifters preferred tea over coffee, so I also filled the kettle and set it to boil.

  "…had plans and dreams and now it's all ruined—are you listening to me?"

  I made a so-so gesture as I leaned against the counter and sipped my coffee.

  "You think I'm hysterical because I'm pregnant, don't you? That's why you aren't angry about what I'm saying."

  "Nope." I popped a fresh blueberry into my mouth, enjoying the burst of sugary sweetness.

  "Then why aren't you responding?"

  "Because everything you've said is so wrongheaded and stupid that it doesn't require a response. Because you're ranting and maybe you need an outlet and a target and I'm convenient. Because you just lost your place in the group along with your husband and I pity you. Take your pick. Any of the aforementioned reasons will work, and they're all valid."

  I popped another blueberry into my mouth. This one was a little sour. I hoped the rest weren't as sour, though it wouldn't matter for the coffee cake. There was enough sweetness in the topping to make up for any sour berries.

  "Keep your damned pity, spiker."

  Sighing, I picked up my coffee mug. "Did you ever consider that the reason your alpha leader offered to buy your properties is because he wanted to make it easier on you both? The real estate market in Sundance isn't exactly booming. I'll bet his offers were generous—too generous. He's like that. Soft-hearted." I took another sip of coffee. "But not a pushover. Alpha Blacke has expectations, and every shifter has to live up to them. He's not an unfair alpha, but he is a demanding one—especially when it comes to loyalty."

  "How dare you insinuate that my husband wasn't loyal to Alpha Blacke." Again, the clenched teeth, seething voice. She was
white hot, and everything I said was adding fuel to the raging fire inside her.

  "He wasn't. If he had been, he would have continued to be loyal even when his alpha made choices he didn't like." I drank some more coffee, ate some more berries.

  "You are everything that is wrong with this town."

  "Please. I was the loyalty test that Dan failed. If it hadn't been me, it would have been something else."

  "Dan failed a loyalty test? What about you?" One perfectly sculpted brow shot up and a mean smile crooked her mouth. "You're this all-powerful spiker and you claim to care about Alpha Blacke, yet you resist joining his group. I mean, you could solve all the doubts Alpha Blacke has to deal with from his group, even help protect them, simply by joining. That one move would make things so much easier for everyone." The smile widened, and didn't get any friendlier. "And you won't do it. No reason, just pure selfishness on your part."

  Arrowhead, meet bull’s eye. Farrah had set out to dig in deep, and sure enough, she'd achieved her goal. "Make up your mind. Do you want me to leave town or not?"

  She ignored me. "Why won't you join? Most of the shifters Dan and I have talked to assume it's because you don't believe Alpha Blacke is strong enough to protect you. They say you don't trust him."

  There was a sliver of truth in her words that went right under my skin. Not the "strong enough" part, because Lucas was one of the strongest people I'd ever known. It came down to trust. Why couldn't I hand myself over to him? I loved him. Why did I resist fully trusting him?

  "Sounds to me like most of the shifters you and Dan hang out with are treasonous fuckwits."

  I turned my back on her, set my mug on the counter, and reached for the coffeemaker with trembling hands. That proved to be a mistake. She was on me in a half second, her hand wrapped around my throat from behind, claws sliding beneath the flesh on my neck. Pain sliced into me and I froze, afraid to move and hurt myself even worse. I reached for the apathy I'd once feared, held it around me like a shield as I did what needed to be done.