by Dana Archer
“You’re right. We’ll ask Devin to stay until our brothers arrive.”
Silence descended. Finally, Kade cleared his throat. “Did you ask Jasmine how she came to be the mother of Royals?”
“She claims she found them behind a Dumpster.”
“A lie?”
Rafe glanced at the house where she was no doubt reconnecting with her kids, probably soothing their fears. “Yeah, the lie soured her scent but so did fear. Whatever she’s involved in has terrified her and made her fearful of shifters.”
“Do you think she stole them?”
“No. It doesn’t fit with her protectiveness of them. If she’d kidnapped them, she would’ve sold them, not raised them as her own.”
“True. She loves them. I saw that in her expression just now.”
Rafe motioned toward the older human with a jerk of his chin. “What’s your take on Mr. Wilkins? Any threat there?”
He doubted it’d be an intentional one, but a loose tongue could be just as devastating.
“Maybe, he was quite talkative after he learned I was a shifter, but once we stress the need to protect our secret, he’ll be trustworthy.”
“What did he have to say?”
“Seems he’s the only other person who knew about Seth and Levi. He also mentioned she’s had a rough time raising them.”
Rafe tensed. Had their lives been threatened? “What does that mean?”
“It means Jasmine has had some near misses with humans almost seeing her kids in their animal forms.”
One slip would’ve exposed not just her boys, but all shifters. Secrecy was a must. That was something both single shifters and Royals understood.
“He also said she’s struggled being both father and mother to her boys,” Kade added. “But I don’t know. From the way those kids treated Mr. Wilkins, I’d say she did a fine job.”
Rafe grinned. The sense of pride swelling his chest left him eager to get his hands back on his female—the one his cats had helped him find. Without their interest in her, he might’ve focused on the danger she posed and not taken the time to touch her. To learn she might just be the woman he’d been waiting his entire life for.
Of course, she might not be his perfect match. There was always the chance possessiveness had swayed his cats, but the more he interacted with her, the more he suspected she was his one true mate.
“Jasmine and I are going to head back to her place before the others arrive. If you don’t see us when you get there, keep the kids occupied and in the house.”
“Plans for your little human?”
“Lots. One night with her wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy me.”
Kade’s amused expression faded. “Careful, brother, or your fascination will turn into an obsession. They say that’s how it starts. Enthrallment. And once our instincts kick in, there’s no denying it. You’ll start thinking about mating her.”
Rafe already had. Actually, thoughts of mating her had crept into his mind within minutes of meeting her. He wasn’t ready to admit that to Kade. Or Jasmine. If Rafe did, there’d be no escaping the talk of just how dangerous loving a Royal could be.
Chapter 20
Jazz tightened her grip on Seth’s hand and rubbed soothing circles into Levi’s palm. They each reacted differently to things, but both had the same fear—that the three adult shifters in the yard would kill them.
Hearing the reason why they were barricaded in the bedroom cut at her heart. Had she instilled such a profound fear into them? She hadn’t meant to. She’d only wanted them to tell her immediately if they sensed another shifter. It wasn’t as if she could tell the difference. Look at how she’d messed up with Rafe.
She’d tried everything she could think of to convince Seth and Levi that Rafe, Kade, and Devin weren’t going to hurt them. After an hour of talking, she felt fairly certain her boys understood. It was the animals they housed that had doubts. Both boys told her how their cats paced inside them, but she couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer.
She peered out the small window at the top of the front door. Devin and Mr. Wilkins sat at the picnic table with Megan, a bag of cookies between them. The little girl studied Devin with open curiosity, no fear. At least one kid was handling the situation well.
Rafe and Kade stood, talking, several feet from the porch. As if Rafe sensed her gaze on him, he turned his head. He offered her a small, comforting smile. He’d assured her they had plenty of practice in similar situations. She shouldn’t worry. Easy to say, hard to do. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly released it.
She glanced at her kids. “Ready?”
They nodded.
“Levi, get the door.”
The door swung open but nobody moved, inside or outside the house. Silence stretched until finally Rafe walked toward them. He approached cautiously, stopping at the porch stairs. He crouched and clasped his hands loosely between his thighs.
“Seth, Levi, my name’s Rafe.” He motioned behind him with a tilt of his head. “That’s Kade. He’s our alpha, the one who leads our pride. He might look tough but don’t let it fool you. He’s a softie at heart, just doesn’t want to let the other pride leaders know.” Rafe lowered his voice. “Can you keep his secret too?”
She peeked at her boys. Both frowned but neither responded. Rafe glanced between them. “He has another secret. Want to hear it?”
Levi nodded.
“He’s been known to cry at movies,” Rafe whispered.
She looked behind Rafe to Kade. Kade’s lip quivered as if he thought about smiling, but he cracked his jaw after a moment and pressed his thinned lips in a hard line. “Don’t listen to my idiot brother, boys. I have never shed a tear over any ridiculous movie.”
Rafe braced his body with a hand on the ground and peered over his shoulder. “Oh yeah? What about that dog movie? You know where the boy’s dog has rabies and—”
Kade’s brows scrunched. “Old Yeller?” He ran a hand over his skull. “I don’t think I’ve ever watched that movie.”
“Right.” Rafe looked at her boys who’d taken a couple of steps onto the porch and winked at them before facing Kade. “Or Star Wars with that carbonite scene and—”
“For the love of the gods, stop telling lies about me.” Kade crossed his arms and glowered at Rafe, but Peggy Sue chose that moment to bump Kade’s leg with her head, demanding a pet. Kade sighed but obliged the dog.
Seth slid his hand from her slackened grip and walked over to Rafe. He tugged on his shirt. Rafe glanced at him.
“It was Empire Strikes Back, not Star Wars.”
“Are you an expert then?”
Seth nodded. “We got their toys for our birthday this year.”
“You sharing?”
Seth glanced at Levi before meeting Rafe’s eyes. “We’re sharing.”
“Do you have any here?”
“Not any of the cool ones,” Levi answered. “We only have some memory matching cards, but…” Levi rubbed at the back of his neck.
“But what?”
Levi shrugged. “They’re for babies.”
“Babies?” Rafe raised a brow. “I have a memory matching app on my phone. Not Star Wars, though. It has different shapes with numbers on them.”
Seth tilted his head and studied Rafe. “Why?”
Rafe thumped his chest. “My cats enjoy it. To them it’s like hunting. They’re very good at picking out details.”
Levi sat on the step next to Rafe. “Do they talk to you?”
“Ours don’t.” Seth took up a similar position on the other side of Rafe.
“No, they can’t talk, but they’ve learned ways to show me how they feel. They’ll smack their tails or nudge me. Sometimes they’ll growl or snarl if they’re mad.”
Seth rubbed his chest. “Or scratch. That hurts.”
“Sure does.” Rafe glanced between them. “Have you figured out how to walk in the field where they live? Not just look at it?”
Eager
nods from both boys answered him.
“Mom thinks we’re daydreaming and yells at us to pay attention,” Levi informed him.
“And when I’m talking to you or you’re supposed to be doing something, you can’t be lost in your own world.” She couldn’t help defending herself. Jazz didn’t want Rafe to think she was a bad mother.
Rafe glanced at her and grinned, then focused on Levi. “Well, she’s right. It’s not good to get lost inside ourselves. If we spend too much time in our animals’ world, we forget that we’re people too.”
Seth glanced at the ground, and Levi looked over his shoulder, an apology in his gaze. She gave him a small nod.
“But for short visits it’s okay, even necessary.” Rafe waited until Seth looked up. “We can soothe them so they don’t lash out at us when they get frustrated. Try petting them. Talk to them.”
“But I thought you said they can’t talk to us.” Levi’s narrowed gaze challenged Rafe.
“They can’t, but we can talk to them.”
Levi frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Rafe motioned to the Rottweilers sitting near Megan. “Do you talk to the dogs?”
“Yes,” they both said.
“And I bet they respond a lot of the time too?”
Seth and Levi nodded.
“It’s our tone of voice and our body language that clues them in to what we’re trying to express to them, not our words, but I’m positive mine have come to associate certain words with actions and my moods. They learn, and”—Rafe glanced between the boys—“once they get a little older, they’ll start to show you pictures.”
“Pictures?” Both boys asked at the same time.
Rafe nodded. “It’s not easy for them, but they’ll work together and use our memories to pick out images to express themselves. Say my cats miss one of my brothers. If they want me to go to him, they’ll shove his image into my mind.” He grinned. “Sometimes repeatedly until I give in.”
“That’s cool! Can you help us teach them to do that?” Seth asked.
Rafe ruffled his hair. “Sure thing, kid.”
Jazz would bet money that there was a huge smile on her face. She didn’t care. Rafe was amazing with kids. She could easily picture him with his own.
With theirs.
And… it was best she cut off that train of thought before it could take root, except she feared it already had.
Chapter 21
Jazz’s house looked exactly how she’d left it yesterday. The grass was calf-high because the lawn mower had broken. The siding needed to be scraped and painted. Same with the porch. Cars under blue tarps were stored in the field alongside the garage. And boxes of car parts were piled near the door to be carried up to the loft for storage.
Everything looked the same, yet her life had taken an unexpected turn overnight. None of the concerns that had bothered her yesterday seemed important, not when there was a crazy shifter on the loose who had set his sights on her family. She’d always lived with the worry of attracting the wrong kind of attention. It was why she lived in near seclusion.
Cindy had hit it on the mark the other night. Her life revolved around Seth, Levi, and her garage. And why wouldn’t it? Everything she needed was right here.
Or had she been fooling herself?
She peeked at Rafe’s profile. Maybe she didn’t have to face life alone. Maybe the man she’d always wanted was the one right in front of her, the one who wasn’t really a man but who’d captured her attentions. He’d tempted her from the minute she saw him. Even after learning he was a shifter, she still desired him.
The car hit a bump and dragged her out of her inner musing. Her relationship with Rafe wasn’t the most important concern at the moment. Her family’s safety was her top priority. The problem was, the longer she thought about it, the harder it was to keep the two issues separate. Rafe had a tie to both—the threat to her heart and her life.
Rafe parked in the grass. “Stay here until I can check out the house and the outer buildings. I want to make sure it’s safe before the others arrive.”
She knew that was the plan. Her boys, along with Megan and Josh, would make the trip over to her place after a couple more of Rafe’s brothers showed up. She’d agreed it was best and had planned to use the short drive over to talk to Rafe about Jon. Her wandering thoughts had stopped her.
Watching Kade, Devin, and Rafe interact with the kids all morning had saddled her with guilt. For five years, she’d feared running into another shifter. The ones who’d kidnapped her were beyond sick. She hadn’t realized how much until they’d ushered her—gagged and in chains—into their “medical center” and tossed her into a cell next to Seth and Levi’s mother.
The three men who’d played memory matching games and shared milk and cookies with her boys didn’t fit her view of shifters. Nothing about Rafe did, actually. Attentive and loving described him, not depraved and cruel. It was for those reasons she’d agreed to leave her kids with Kade and Devin.
She trusted them.
“Hey?” Rafe covered her hand with his. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, just lost in thought.”
They were alone. It’d be a good hour or two until everyone arrived. She could tell Rafe the story of how she got her boys. She wanted to get it off her chest.
She turned toward him. “I want to talk to you.”
“So do I. I have many things to share with you.”
The seriousness of his tone gave her pause. “What about?”
He glanced at where his hand covered hers. “This. That. The future.”
Her breath caught. “The future? As in our future?”
“Yes.” He laid his fingertips against her cheek. “Our very long future.”
So he was also thinking about them as a couple. Growing old together. She grinned. She couldn’t help it. “Oh.”
He matched her smile. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Scream if you need me, but I don’t think Jon will strike here, not after learning we’re on to him. He’ll either have run or he’s planning his next move.”
His words didn’t exactly comfort her, but his tone did. He’d protect her and her family. His determination rang true.
“Okay.”
He locked her door, then jogged toward the barn.
She followed his retreating back with her gaze until he disappeared inside before closing her eyes. The moment of solitude was a godsend. Her emotions had been through the wringer over the past few days, but the couple of hours since she’d woken had left her shaky. Her family’s safety had a lot to do with it, but so did Rafe.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Men had never ruled her before. She didn’t know if she was okay with the change or not. Luckily, she didn’t have to focus on the answer. An hour. Two at the most. After the rest of his family arrived, Rafe would be occupied with them, planning how to take out Jon. She’d be on the sidelines. As much as she wanted to be a part of what was being done to protect her family, she needed space to think.
The car door opened.
She jumped. “Rafe.”
“Everything looks safe. No sign of Jon.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Will you show me around before the others get here?”
His gaze drifted from her face to her chest. Her lower belly warmed.
She cleared her throat. “Sure. How about I give you the tour of my garage? I’m really happy with how my latest car is turning out.”
“Great. I’d love to see it.”
Before she knew it, they were at her garage, an old barn her pappy had converted into his workspace over forty years ago. It housed Classic Wyns, the restoration shop she’d taken over after he died. Being a mechanic wasn’t exactly what she’d planned to do with her life.
The fancy Physics degree she’d been so proud to get had gone to waste. Cindy had been right about that, but Jazz had found she liked working with her hands and being in charge of herself. It was all about looki
ng for the good in things. It wasn’t always easy, but she tried.
“What’s on the upper floor?” Rafe asked.
She glanced at the stairs on the outside of the building. How many times had she dragged herself up them over the summers she was home from college? She grinned at the memories of her carefree pre-mother years. “An apartment. I lived there on and off after high school and right after I moved home with the boys. Now it’s my office.”
“Let’s check it out.”
Lust gave his words a deep timbre. She cut him a quick look. The hunger stamped on his face matched his tone. He’d devour her the minute they were alone.
“Rafe, I—”
“No arguments. You promised to give me a tour.”
Jazz swept her gaze over Rafe’s body. Loving him wasn’t how she’d planned to spend their time together. They needed to talk.
Rafe slipped an arm around her waist and drew her close, letting her feel his need for her. He brushed his nose along her cheek to her ear. “What happened to you today messed with my head. Pushed me to the edge. I need an outlet for that tension. For a shifter, that’s either fighting or fu—”
“Rafe.” She cut him off. “I need to tell you about the boys. How I—”
“The boys aren’t going anywhere. Neither am I, but we need this. I need this.” Rafe pressed his mouth to her ear. “The physical contact, the reminder of what we shared last night, the knowledge that we’ve found each other. Now, Jasmine. Before our families get here. Before life crashes in on us. We won’t be able to do anything but talk.”
Jazz studied the man holding her. He looked about two seconds away from ripping her clothes off. His instincts drove him to this state. She’d bet money on it. The lover she’d welcomed into her body last night wasn’t a man. He was ruled by primitive drives she had no hope of understanding. But she did know one thing. “You need me to tame you. That’s what you’re saying.”
He pressed an openmouthed kiss to the edge of her ear and exhaled a warm breath, making her wet skin tingle. “More than you could even guess. I need you to bring me peace. Can you do that, Jasmine? Can you do what no other woman has managed to accomplish?”
