by Elle Thorne
“Until death.” Mae’s voice was quiet.
Mae's tone gave Circe pause. Then it struck her. “He died?”
Mae nodded.
“When?” Circe pried.
“It was long ago,” Mae said.
And a part of Circe that she hadn’t planned on softening did just that. For a moment, she felt Mae’s grief, and then anger took over again, because Mae’s mate had died a long time ago, and Mae had not returned to the Order.
Circe knew the blame should fall on herself, but at the same time, Mae could have reached out.
After you kicked her out? a voice in Circe’s mind said. Her own voice, the voice of reason.
Circe shoved the voice aside. She could have reached out.
Circe fought a sigh; her anger was not ready to subside, her fury at Mae’s decision to abandon the Order for her mate still stung. “What do you want?”
“Didn’t Marco tell you?”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“You want to hear me grovel; that’s what you want.” Mae sneered.
The old Mae was back. The Mae that Circe remembered, hot-tempered and quick to speak her mind.
“Groveling is the least you could do to make up for what you’ve done.” Circe stayed in place, harnessed Albani, then looked at the good-looking muscular man with Mae. “Who are you?”
“That’s Doc—Jake—Evans.” Mae released a deep breath. “My mate.”
Circe’s eyes narrowed, she leaned against the doorjamb, still clearly not stepping aside, not allowing them in, keeping Albani on a tight rein. “So, what is it you want that Marco hasn’t told me?”
Chapter Seven
Linc couldn’t have said what drew him to the window while Dina napped. Probably just wanted to look outside, to hope that nature would have a healing effect on him, calm his raging side, make him relax.
He was in one wing of the expansive building. To one side, he saw the driveway, to the other, a window that faced the scenery.
He’d pulled the curtain aside and admired the majesty of the mountains in the distance and the evergreen trees in the nearness.
The lawn was immaculately kept until the point where it reached the forest. The Order clearly kept up with the outside of the manor as much as they did with the inside. The room he and Dina had been put in was warm and welcoming, furnished to give comfort, and it was spotless.
Whatever this operation was, it was topnotch. To the left of him, he noticed a car pulling up the driveway, coming to a stop close to the front door.
A tall, husky man emerged. A shifter, for certain.
If Linc were to guess, he’d have thought a bear shifter, but he didn’t always guess correctly, so he wasn’t going to wager any money on it.
The shifter moved to the other side of the vehicle and opened the door for a dark-haired, curvy, attractive woman. There was something about the woman that reminded Linc of Circe. Maybe they were related.
They strode toward the front door. The woman wasn’t a shifter, but there was something about her, something supernatural, Linc was convinced. She walked with an air of uncertainty, glancing at her companion, seemed to be asking him something. The man put his arm around her, gave her a kiss. The smile she returned after they’d parted from the kiss was tremulous and unsure.
Curiosity piqued, Linc stayed at the window.
The two walked to the front door, the same one that Linc had knocked on that very same morning. Though now, how odd, it felt like a month had passed, what with the revelations and upheavals of learning Circe was an elemental shifter hybrid, of having Dina try to set Circe’s brother on fire.
Linc heaved a heavy breath with a near-silent whoosh. What a day indeed. He turned his mind back to the couple waiting at the door.
The door cracked a bit, and soon enough he saw Circe had opened it. Even if he’d planned on looking away, seeing the body language of the brunette standing next to the shifter and catching sight of Circe’s expression were enough to keep him glued to the spot.
The brunette stiffened and Circe’s face had filled with an emotion he hoped she’d never look at him with.
* * *
Having enhanced shifter vision allowed him to catch the details of the encounter, but not even his shifter super hearing would allow him to catch the conversation between the three. Not that much conversation was allowed to happen.
Before he knew it, two chains of electric lightning had emerged from Circe’s hands—or was it her fingertips? He couldn’t have testified one way or another because it happened so damned swiftly. The electric chains had wrapped around the attractive brunette’s wrists and tossed her backward, slamming into the man behind her.
It was a good thing he was there. Linc couldn’t imagine what would have happened if the man hadn’t been. The brunette would have crash landed into the large tree trunk across the driveway.
Linc hissed a response to the electric bolts. These damned elementals were ridiculously powerful. Half of him wanted to get the hell out of there immediately and head home. The other half wanted to stay so he could get little Dina help.
Damn this situation.
He shouldn’t be the one dealing with this. It should be something his brother and Dina’s mother should be handling.
Yeah, well that ain’t gonna happen. It’s me. Just me. Only me. Dina has no one else. Period.
Circe retracted the bolts and then the two women stared at one another, their mouths moving, clearly not a happy scene, telling from the set of their jaws and the frowns on their faces.
Linc wondered if he should dash downstairs and across the building to come to Circe’s assistance, though at the same time, logic told him she could handle whatever the other woman could deliver. He wondered if the other woman was an elemental. She hadn’t done anything threatening.
Yet.
Maybe I should go help Circe.
Now why the hell did he want to come to the defense of a woman he just met and barely knew. A woman who represented everything he hated about elemental life.
He studied the man with them, the shifter man. The shifter was poised to save the brunette again, and that made Linc’s desire to aid Circe even stronger. Seconds later, the door opened wider, and Marco, Circe’s brother—and protector, as Linc could testify to—stepped behind his sister.
Linc wondered if this would bode well for the newcomers or if Marco could deter violence and blood spilling.
Chapter Eight
Circe felt Marco’s presence behind her even before he opened the door. She and Marco weren’t twins, but if pressed, she’d swear they were as close as twins, that’s how connected she was to her younger brother.
Irish twins, everyone called them because they were born less than a year apart. Of course, there was some Irish blood in their family, so that did make for some joviality at family gatherings. Though truth be told, Circe and her siblings didn’t seem to make it to family gatherings nearly as much as they should. A pang of guilt at that thought pierced her, before she pushed it away so she could deal with the family—cough, cough—standing right in front of her.
Marco cleared his throat. “Hi, Mae.”
Circe was frustrated that he didn’t seem the least bit hostile toward their traitorous cousin who stood before them.
Marco stepped around her and toward the broad-shouldered shifter next to Mae. “I’m Marco.”
Then he stood right there, next to Mae and Circe, facing both, not closer to one or the other, as if he was Switzerland and totally neutral.
Circe seethed and gave him a dirty look.
Way to go, baby brother, she thought, but said nothing.
Marco glanced at her. “I forgot to give you the details.” Then he looked at Mae. “I’m sorry. It was a bit of a busy morning, never got around to telling Circe.”
Mae nodded.
The shifter—Jake, or Doc, Mae had called him—gave a nod. “Understandable.”
“Shall we go inside?” Marco waved
toward the front door, toward the interior.
Circe bit back the urge to bite his arm, or even worse, strike him with a bolt of lightning and shove him out of the way for this betrayal, this insolence.
Marco raised a brow, as if he and his elemental might know what she was thinking.
Circe set her lips into a tight line and stepped out of the way. “By all means.” She ground the words out.
Except it didn’t quite go as planned, when she backed up, she ran right into a solid wall of man chest and chiseled man abs.
She whirled around.
Linc.
Things are just getting better and better.
She straightened her back.
“Sorry,” she managed to say without the agitation she felt with the situation. “I didn’t realize you’d crept up behind me.”
Linc frowned. “Wasn’t creeping. You just didn’t hear me.” His forehead carried the lines of that frown, but they didn’t reach his eyes. His gaze held sympathy and pity.
Why was he commiserating? How could he possibly know what she was feeling?
He couldn’t, she knew, but she appreciated the silent support he was sending her way.
“I was just heading out,” she said. “Marco, you can see to our guests.”
There, that’ll fix Marco’s conniving ass, trying to trap me into talking to Mae.
Marco was barely shaking his head, as if trying to pass her a message without making it obvious.
She gave him a grimaced smile in reward, and pulled her keys from her bag.
“Now?” Marco said, his tone clearly sending the signal that she would piss him off if she ran away.
She tilted her head. “Yes, now.”
“If—” Linc put a hand on her arm.
She tried to ignore the surge of energy that flew between his skin and hers. She jerked her gaze to his eyes, wondered if he felt it.
“If you don’t mind,” Linc continued, “I’d like a word with you.” He paused, waiting for her response, and when no response was forthcoming, he added, “Please.”
Circe looked from Marco, to Linc, to Mae, then Jake, then finally allowed her gaze to settle on Linc again.
“Sure,” she said hesitantly. “What about Dina?”
“Napping. I ran into Marie on my way down. Asked her if she’d keep an eye on her. You know, if she wakes up.”
Circe nodded. “Any of the meeting rooms will be fine.” She waved toward the hallway behind her.
“Actually—” His grip on her hand grew more firm. “—I’d rather go outdoors, if it’s all the same for you.”
It wasn’t all the same with her. Nothing was the same for Circe, but it didn’t seem like anyone gave a crap.
Might as well go with the shifter who seemed to despise her, rather than the cousin who abandoned her, or the brother who betrayed her.
Chapter Nine
Linc couldn’t have said what motivated him to leave the drama-free comfort of his assigned room next to Dina’s, and go to Circe’s aid.
And it’s not like she really needs my help anyway, he noted to himself.
No, true. That she didn’t. At all.
Not if that display he’d witnessed was any indication. That little electric show pretty much ensured her status as a major player.
Still, there was something in her stature that drove him to slip away from the window and out the suite door. Luckily, he’d run into their assistant Marie as she was walking by, and she agreed to keep an eye on Dina.
Not that Dina would necessarily need any watching. Often times after she’d calmed down following one of her episode, she’d sleep for hours. So, he wasn’t too worried about it. And Dina seemed to take to Marie as she was showing them around earlier.
He’d arrived at the scene unfolding at the front door just in time to catch the exchange. The look in Circe’s eyes pushed him to want to whisk her away, save her from something that was obviously giving her grief.
It’s not like he was some hero in a bodice-ripper romance, he couldn’t exactly pick her up in a fireman’s carry and haul her out of there. So, he appealed to her sense of duty, and the hope she didn’t hate him so much that she blew him off.
Clearly, she didn’t hate him as much as she hated the situation she was in.
He’d held the door for her, and now they found themselves walking about the grounds, farther and farther from the mansion.
Circe walked wordlessly beside him, seemingly involved in her thoughts, or whatever the drama was he’d pulled her away from.
They’d meandered through the topiaries—all animals, all huge, larger than the flesh and blood creatures would have been. Bears, tigers, lions, giraffes.
He and Circe came to a row of hedges and were walking a straight line parallel to the well-groomed bushes.
Finally, she spoke. “What was it you brought me out here for?”
To save you from killing someone, or even getting hurt. Yeah, he couldn’t say that. He paused, thought it over. “Guess, I thought…”
No, he still couldn’t come up with what to say.
“Is it Dina?” she asked.
“You look like you needed to get away.”
She paused mid-step. “You…” Her eyes locked with his.
He wished he could read the expression there. Was she pissed? Did he overstep?
She exhaled. “I should thank you for giving me a good reason to get out of there.”
He released a pent-up breath of concern. “You’re welcome.” He couldn’t take his gaze off her dark eyes with their gold flecks that sparked deeply within.
Time to probe. “What was that all about?”
“It’s a long story. Not one I want to cover right now.”
“Are you open to suggestion?”
She raised a finely arched brow and tilted her head slightly. “What’s on your mind?”
Seeing you naked.
Damn where did that thought come from. Jeez.
He shoved his lion aside. The lion roared at him for trying to blame him for something that clearly was Linc’s thought.
“Shifting for a run?” he asked.
Her head tilted even farther.
Maybe she thought he was crazy.
He forged on. “It helps me to destress.” God knew, he had plenty to destress about.
Dina.
The elemental thing.
And now, add his attraction to Circe.
She was still silent.
He shifted his weight uncomfortably, waiting for her to answer.
A slow smile curved her full lips. “I haven’t done that in so long. I forgot how cleansing that can be.”
She walked toward a small storage building near the hedges and placed her purse inside, then turned toward Linc.
With a swiftness that belied the discomfort of shifting into their animal form, she transformed from a dark-haired, dark-eyed luscious, curvy beauty to a black panther.
Her ebony fur shined in the darkness, her eyes had turned from a gold-flecked almost obsidian color to a dark emerald hue.
She raised her majestic head and filled her panther lungs with a chest full of mountain air, then fixed her stare on him, her head tilted much the same way it had when in her human form.
She pawed at the grass, as though impatient for him to get his own shift on.
Linc took one last look at the beautiful beast before him.
She was magnificent.
In his mind, his lion roared his agreement.
Chapter Ten
In her panther form, Circe pawed the ground impatiently and watched the gorgeous specimen of mankind before her.
She yawned and stretched. What was he waiting for? He was the one who suggested they shift and go for a run.
She’d forgotten how good it felt to be in her panther skin. The sun warmed her fur, she blinked lazily, wanting to bask in the sunshine, to lie around lethargically.
But the human side of her wanted to explode into action, to leap and run, to
remove the stress that plagued her.
She raised her lip in a slow snarl, warning the man that if he didn’t shift soon, she’d be on her way without him.
That must have been the impetus he needed. Linc’s gaze was locked to hers while his eyes turned from a dark brown to amber.
She backed up a paced at the intensity of his lion’s stare.
Her panther snarled, commiserating with the discomfort and at times, the downright pain of shifting.
The sounds of bones crunching and tendons stretching filled the air.
It didn’t take long; within seconds he was a fully matured, full-maned lion. His fur was golden, but offset by a dark brown mane that moved with the mountain breeze.
He huffed his lion’s chuffing, sounding more like a lion cough, revealing his large canines, making his alpha status clear. Canines much larger than her own gleamed in the sun’s bright light. His chest was massive and broad, his back rippled with musculature.
He glanced around then turned his piercing gaze back to Circe and let loose a roar that shook the trees.
And with that, he pounced toward the cover of the forest full of evergreen trees.
Circe followed at a quick trot behind him.
* * *
Circe and Linc ran, trotted, and loped, for more than an hour before they stopped at a brook to drink.
Linc stood back while she lapped the fresh clear water to her heart’s content.
She then stepped back and let him have his turn, guarding him, as bears lived in the area, and they weren’t the two-legged, shifting types of bears. Not that one was necessarily preferable over the other. Not all shifters were good—she’d learned that from experience.
She felt a nudge against her mind and realized Linc was pushing her for a sync.
Syncing was how shifters could communicate in their animal form. A silent style of mind-talking. She allowed for the syncing link and waited for him to speak.
“Feel better?” His voice was deep in her mind.
“Thank you. I needed that.” She paused and studied his broad head, his strong jawline. “Shift to human for a while?”
