by Nancy Gideon
“What?” Her shock ebbed into a naughty snicker then to a more conservative concern. “Will he get in trouble for that?”
“Naw. I’ll pull some strings. Should I wake him up?”
“Let him sleep. He looks like he could use it. If you don’t mind him being here.”
“Better he sleeps it off here than out there somewhere.”
“Should we call someone?”
“Tonight, we’re that someone.”
Babineau watched his wife drape a blanket over their insensible guest, hoping he wasn’t bringing trouble under his roof that he’d regret.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Just a whisper of a footstep.
That’s the only sound Oscar Babineau made crossing the living room to pack his school bag on the dining-room table.
He’d been bummed to find his uncle unconscious on the sofa when he’d gotten back from his game the night before. He loved hanging with the wild, irreverent Terriots, and his school cred had gone through the roof when they’d arrived to support him after he’d gotten cut from the basketball team. He owed them his return to the team and the awed status that came with calling himself a relative.
After Cale, Colin was his favorite, if he had to pick one. Booster moms still sighed over the memory of his abs and charming grin after their impromptu basketball game at the school, which was both creepy and something to brag about. And his step-dad liked his shifter uncle, which gave Oscar hope there’d be acceptance for him, too. Colin was smart, built, razor sharp-witted, tough yet easily approached by a shirt-tail nephew.
One second, he was sighing over a missed opportunity to talk to him, and the next, Oscar confronted an unholy nightmare.
Colin exploded off the couch like a triggered bomb. The next thing Oscar knew, he was flat on his back, pushing to keep wicked teeth from snapping at his throat. Arms quaking, heart knocking frantically as he struggled beneath the coiled bundle of ferocious power, he faced the end of his impossibly short life span, crying, “Uncle Colin! It’s me! It’s Ozzy!”
Lurid, red-rimmed eyes blinked then focused. Immediately the danger lifted. Before Oscar could manage another word, his uncle was gone.
He managed to get to his feet, system still twitching at the near brush with death when his mother emerged from the bathroom, fresh from the shower. She paused in the towel-drying of her hair at the sight of the empty couch.
“Did Colin leave already? I was going to make you both breakfast.”
Oscar forced a smile. “He said to thank you for the hospitality.”
“Sorry I missed him.”
Oscar wasn’t sorry. He was wondering what the hell had just happened and who he should call about it. His big brother Max would know what to do, but he was out of town playing arm candy for Detective Cassie at some police convention. He didn’t dare say anything to his dad. Finally, as he was crossing the street on his way to school, he reached out to the one person he knew he could trust.
“Hey, Uncle Silas, it’s Oscar.”
If Colin hadn't been so beaten down and exhausted, he wouldn't have been surprised as a familiar figure rose from one of his patio chairs.
"Where have you been?"
He didn't pick up the worry in her tone, only the accusation. "Out? What are you doing here, Mia?"
"I was worried when I couldn't reach you."
"What? I'm MIA for a few hours, and you're here to snap me onto your chain?"
The gruff words straightened her stance and narrowed her eyes. "Do I need to?" She inhaled, nostrils flaring along with her temper as she picked up a mélange of odors from multiple females, blood, and booze. "Colin? Do I need to?"
"I went out. I needed to work off some steam after the last really shitty week.”
“Does that shitty week include us being together?”
“Of course not. Is there a problem?"
"I don't know yet. You could have worked it off with me."
"That's not what I wanted at the time. Is that a crime?"
He wasn't in the best shape to be setting boundaries for their new relationship, but here she was, in his face, bristled and braced for a battle he couldn't win. He ran fingers through his hair, noting her scowl at the sight of his bruised knuckles. "Mia, I don't want to do this right now. I'm tired and I'm dirty and I need a shower and a meal."
"Do you need help with any of those things?"
Her tone gritted like glass under one of her heels. Fearing nothing would follow but more conflict he wasn't prepared to deal with if he opened his door to her, he answered, "Not this morning."
"I see."
An ocean of subtext seethed within those two words. Grabbing for a life-ring to keep himself afloat, he jumped to a new topic, one no less roiling with difficulties, but at least it took the bull’s eye off him. "Have you told your family yet?"
She tensed. "No. Have you?"
"No."
"I see."
Those two words again. Problem was, he couldn't see clearly, and until his focus returned he couldn't let her get close. His silence, though prudent, didn’t calm her mood.
"I'd better leave, because if I don't, I'll be tempted to beat the hell out of you, and it looks like someone already took care of that for me. Should I assume everything else you needed was taken care of, as well?"
"Assume what you like."
Her glare flashed with anger and insult. And pain. That last had him gripping her arm when she tried to brush past him. She tugged, shaking beneath the circle of his fingers. He wouldn't release her.
"Mia, I got drunk and into a fight. My cop brother-in-law bailed me out. I spent the night on his couch. I didn't do anything else to be ashamed of. Okay?"
That wasn’t quite true.
She wouldn't look at him. Her hand touched his, stroking gently over his battered knuckles before grabbing his pinky, twisting sharply to earn escape. The gate clattered behind her.
"Sonuvabitch."
He let himself in and quickly locked the door behind him as if that would keep the monster inside him at bay.
What was happening to him? What the hell was happening?
Mia waited until a shift change on the docks brought a steady parade of workers toward Cheveux du Chien for drinks and steam-releasing camaraderie. As the big, white-blond Mohawk of T-Ray Roux bobbed above the other heads, she rolled down her window to call out to him from behind the anonymity of large sunglasses and a headscarf.
“T-Ray!”
His glance caught her, and as he elbowed his way through his co-workers, laughing off their crude remarks, Mia popped the door locks of her rental so he could climb in.
“This is a surprise. Slumming, Ms. Guedry?”
“Shut it, T.” She put the vehicle in gear and wheeled them away from where she couldn’t afford to be recognized. She gestured to the ball cap on the console between them. “Cover that ridiculous thing.”
Grinning, he concealed the bright bristle of hair. “What’s up, boss lady?”
“Colin Terriot.”
“What about him?”
Mia struggled with the surge of emotions just the mention of her mate brought swirling about her senses. His scent. His heat. The rumble of his voice and hurried sexiness of his breathing as they . . . Sweat broke on her brow as she shifted uncomfortably in the leather seat.
What the. . .?
Their bond.
She glanced at her passenger. Did he notice the sudden barometric change in her libido? Thankfully not. His brows lifted above the rims of his rose-lensed glasses, waiting for her to continue. She pitched her questions like a fastball.
“What do you know about the attack on him? Was it ours?”
If he picked up the tension in her voice, he didn’t make something of it. “You asking if Rueben wants to start a war? ’Cause if he was the one behind that mess the other night, that’s where we’d be heading.”
Mia squealed the tires, making a sharp turn into the mostly empty parking lot of a take-out joint hyping
its fish tacos on a faded billboard. She slammed into Park and twisted toward him.
“Did Rueben order it?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. He chewed my ass over it. We’re talking a freaking prince, not some Joe Schmo Terriot. Cale’s looking to tear throats out. He’s a pit bull when he gets riled, believe me.”
Mia relaxed back in her seat. Not Rueben. Good to know. That left Thorne or the rogue Terriot prince behind the order. Just to be sure, she asked, “Any rumors out there? Maybe from them?” She tapped the flame tattoo on the back of his hand.
He sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on there. Used to be Tibideux ran a pretty tight ship. Now there’s all sorts of politics. New members showing up with their own agendas.”
“Is starting a war one of them?”
“Let’s just say they aren’t thrilled with all the outsiders walking the streets.”
“Like us? Keep your ears open and your head down. Anyone in particular making noise, I want to know about it.”
“Got it, boss lady.”
Her attitude thawed, allowing a weary smile. “Thanks, T. I don’t want things to go South. I need this win.”
“You mean we need, right?”
“Right.”
After she dropped him off at the bar, Mia sat in the idling vehicle, insides winding up again into that painful, restless knot. Colin . . . What to do about Colin Terriot?
She couldn’t blatantly protect him and his, not from her standpoint as a Guedry. But she was more than that now. A “more” she didn’t fully understand until just the whiff of danger concerning her new mate scrambled her like a squadron of fighter jets with targeting sites locked on in his defense.
Colin . . . The thought of him with another as she’d sucked in the fragrance of female that morning pushed her into a foaming rage. She’d have ripped through the entire Quarter to hunt down and extinguish that possible threat if she hadn’t believed him. But, if he’d been screwing around, he’d have told her. Her Terriot prince wasn’t a liar and, if her own tangled emotions were any example, there was little chance he’d be cruising for any strange tail with the power of their bond growling through both of them. She didn’t need to put him on a leash. They were both tethered, and it was a tad too late to wonder if that had been her best idea.
She’d wanted Colin, in her bed, at her side, in her life as a staunch ally and incomparable lover. But what to do with him as an equal in every other aspect of who she was?
Have you told your family yet?
That she’d bonded with a Terriot? With Terriot royalty? A shaky laugh escaped. Yeah, that was going to go over well. Bringing him into her world under her control as a subordinate was one thing, but standing next to her in a bold affront of all she claimed to believe . . . All her chances of rule, of commanding any kind of respect and allegiance—poof—gone with that first glimpse of their mating mark.
Her only chance was to take control before that truth eked out. Once she’d etched her own name on that high-rise office door in Memphis, who’d challenge her?
Rueben, if alive. And Daniel’s heir, once he was of age.
Mia slammed the car into gear and roared away from those unacceptable choices.
To Colin it seemed he’d barely closed his eyes when an insistent knocking had him stumbling to the door trailing a cloud of curses. He squinted out into the brutal daylight.
“MacCreedy?”
“We need to talk.” A hard shove sent him shuffling back as Silas came in and shut the door behind him.
“Make yourself at home.”
His wry observation was lost on his surly guest. It was rare to see the laconic Shifter lathered up, but today he was and the source of his ill mood jumped as a fist clutched in his shirt front.
“I ought to tear you up and ship you back to Tahoe in a plastic mailer.”
What the hell? “What’s got your shorts up your butt, MacCreedy?”
“My foot’ll be up yours if you make smart with me again.”
Colin sighed, shoulders slumping. “Did Babineau call you about me being an ass last night?”
“No. Oscar did about this morning.”
He went still, brow lowering in confusion. “What about it?”
A laugh of disbelief. “Seriously? Are you going there? He called me, scared out of his mind. Not because he was afraid you were about to rip his throat out. No. He was worried about you, you son of a bitch.”
Colin stared at him. “What?” Panic leapt in his chest.
“You don’t remember going all fangs out on that kid when he startled you awake? Knocking him down on the floor and going for his throat?”
“I didn’t . . . I don’t . . .” His eyes darted wildly as if searching for something he couldn’t quite find.
“You stay away from them.” A hard thump to Colin’s shoulder sent him back peddling. “Get yourself together or get the hell out of this city. We don’t need any more trouble, and you don’t want to make yourself my problem. Understood?”
No. That was the problem. He didn’t understand.
MacCreedy got up close and very personal. “This isn’t Tahoe, and here you’re no prince who can get away with any damn thing he pleases. Not here. Not in my city. I think more of that kid and his family than I do a whole mountain full of you and yours. Remember that.” A sharp poke of his finger stabbed the message home before Silas slammed his way out, leaving Colin with his mouth hanging.
What was that about? He started paging rapidly through what he could recall of the night before. Vague images, a rollercoaster of emotions, to the final steadying sense of satisfaction facing down the assailants in that alley.
Surprised the hell out of them, didn’t you?
A slow smile began to spread, pushing away his anxiousness and confusion. His eyes narrowed as he studied the door MacCreedy had blown through like a hurricane wind.
Who does that half-caste nobody think he is, talking to a prince in the House of Terriot that way? We don’t have to explain ourselves and we don’t apologize. Ever!
A cold, faceless fury began to build, massing like a storm without direction, with no purpose but destruction. Wailing through him ferociously.
“No one talks to a Terriot like that and walks away in one piece. No one!”
Colin took a sudden startled breath when he recognized the voice urging him toward violence. His father’s. Bram the Beast.
He’d listened to that voice as a boy, when he’d had no choice except to heed it. It had driven him to terrible things. Actions he couldn’t look back upon without horror and regret. Of standing in the midst of unbelievable carnage, covered with the cooling blood of others whose crimes were never fully explained. Of the feel of his king’s hand gripping the back of his neck, of hot breath against his ear as he whispered, “This is what it means to be a Terriot.” And he’d known at that soul-shattering moment that he’d never become what his father expected. That moment he, Wes and James had decided to overthrow their king.
Why was he hearing that voice again? Why was the need to follow it almost too much to resist?
And then he remembered. Oscar squirming beneath him, terror in his eyes. He’d been that terror. A mindless, ferocious thing raised for only one purpose. Slaughter.
Then the hand relentlessly pushing his face toward the puddles of gore and entrails he knelt upon was gone, and another took his elbow to lift him.
“This is not who you are. This is not who we are.”
Colin's eyes flooded, drowning out the visions of horror as he heard Abel Conroy's steadying voice speaking quietly as it had that day almost twelve years before.
“Our time is coming soon. Be ready, son.”
His step-father had been planning rebellion!
He'd been too shaken by the events of that day to put much stock in those words, especially when his life took a tragic turn only a few weeks later when Abel Conroy went up in flames with his two eldest sons in a
'62 T-bird. But Colin considered them now.
Had the two been connected?
And as he wondered for the first time who'd lit that torch, Colin swayed on his feet. The scent of burning flesh scorched his nostrils. Heat prickled along his skin. He went to his knees again, not on the bloodied trophies of his king's madness, but on his bathroom floor, heaving up what little he’d put in his stomach after chasing Mia away that morning.
When the eddies of sickness eased, he dragged himself to the phone. He had to do something. His first thought was of Mia, but he pushed it aside.
"Hey, Col. What's up?”
He’d heard the boy had just returned to the city, but Kip hadn’t touched base with him yet, hadn’t even called to see how he was doing. Which said a lot.
“Colin? You okay, dude?"
"No. Can you do something for me, Kip, on the down-low?"
"Sure."
"No one can know about it. No one."
"Okay." A little less certain, but not objecting.
"It's old stuff, almost before you were up on your hind legs. I don't know if there's anything to it, but if it's there to find, you're the one who can turn it up."
"Whatever you need, brother. Whatever you need."
The remains of day stretched out as taut and trembling as his nerves. Colin tried to get more sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, Oscar Babineau's horror-filled face returned to haunt him.
What was wrong with him? What had they done? There was no way, no way, he'd ever, ever, hurt that kid! Even thinking that, reminding himself it was true, didn't stop the feelings from seeping in, those of violence, rage and desperate, clawing fear.
He lay shivering in his bed, fully dressed under the covers, so cold and at the same time cored with the lava-hot need to act upon the instincts his father had called to all those years before. He didn't run from a fight. He'd enjoyed his share of brawls, like the one last night. He'd square up without flinching to do anything necessary to protect his family, his clan, those who'd come into his circle of care. But the urges, the gnawing instincts prowling, snarling, seething inside him were not his.
