by Talyn Scott
Her stomach dropped. “You’d fight him over me?”
Again, he studied the rearview. “Vamp’s not getting you, Kalen,” he vowed with a sharp nod. “Not while I’m breathing.”
“If I wanted Syon’s protection, I would have taken it when he offered.”
“Then Syon will live another day.”
She rolled her eyes and looked behind them, studying the palm trees as they whizzed by. Kalen had superior eyesight when compared to humans, but it was nothing when compared to that of a pureblood. “Is the Habaline shifter following us?”
“He dropped off two blocks ago.” Mason slowed the car to something near the speed limit. “We’ll head back now and get your stuff. Which hotel?”
When he moved to turn at a side road, she placed her hand on his forearm, “I haven’t checked in yet. My bag’s still in the trunk.”
He straightened the wheel. “Perfect.” Mason’s eyes dropped to her fingers, her white skin a stark contrast to his bronzed forearm. “One bag, though?”
She pulled away her hand and shrugged. “I’m just here for a week.”
If he was disappointed over her short-term say, Mason played if off well. “Sanibel Island is where you need to stay. Only the stupidest Habalines breach our territory, and when they do, Pack males kill them on site.”
Was there ever peace here? “Last I heard, shifters had formed a faction.”
“You hear a lot for a creature who doesn’t belong to one.” He curled his tongue around his canine, thinking. “Yeah, Habalines formed a faction, and we’re making great strides in joint efforts.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.” They passed a miniature golf course with a gigantic pirate ship sitting in the center. Humans were laughing, playing with their friends and family and oblivious to the glowing eyes dotting the high limbs of overhead trees. None of their eyes glittered, however, so they were either vamps or werewolves.
“But our original intel was wide of the mark.” He stopped at a red light. “Habaline rogue count is off the charts, and it’s difficult to bring in rogues when they can shift into anything human or otherwise.”
“Can you scent them after they shift?”
“Not always.”
Kalen didn’t like the sound of that. “Then I’ll be staying on Sanibel Island,” she agreed. Although she still needed to venture into Fort Myers and Marco Island during her stay, at least her nights would be safe and secure on Sanibel due to the werewolves on patrol.
“Good choice.” The tension left his face, his mouth widening into a panty-scorching grin. “I have a specific place on Sanibel in mind.” He veered right after the light changed, bringing them within eyeshot of the toll booth that separated Fort Myers from the Sanibel Causeway. “For the next seven days, you can stay at my house. We’ll catch up and down and whatever which way we have a mind to.”
She drank in his profile. He was so commandingly Beta, so perfectly beautiful. This was going to kill her all over again. She’d always wanted Mason to be her first, and years hadn’t changed her desire in the least. “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t. What went on between us, back in the parking lot, shouldn’t have happened.”
“You are rough on a male’s ego.”
“If memory serves, I don’t think your ego has anything to worry about.”
His smile disappeared. “What other memories serve, Kalen?”
She curled her fingertips into her skirt, staying quiet, as her mind shifted through those early days with Mason. He’d held her hand, kissed her, too, on a moonlit beach before he’d transformed into a werewolf for the first time. So many firsts, and yet they’d not shared the most important first of all. She wondered who he’d lost his virginity to. Then again, it would hurt too much to know.
At the tollbooth, he handed the attendant a twenty and refused the change. The young woman gaped at Mason, but not due to the generous tip. Yeah, Kalen thought dismally, he’d had enough females to choose from after she’d moved away. And since he couldn’t contract any diseases, he probably bedded a new one every night. With a sigh, she looked through the side window and watched the flickering resort lights play across the ocean while they crossed the causeway.
Finally, Mason broke the thick silence, “I guess my werewolf sensed who you were from the get-go.” He tapped the steering wheel, the thick muscles in his forearm tensing. “Took my head a little longer to catch up.” She could only nod, so he continued after a beat, “You smell familiar yet different. Like a woman. But when I finally saw your eyes,” he whispered as he dragged in a rough breath. “No one has eyes like yours, Kalen.”
She closed them briefly, enjoying the cadence of his voice. Mason had once said that her eyes reminded him of the island’s waters on a brisk, winter morning, when the rough surf swirled blue and green.
Inhaling slowly, she breathed him in. The smell of him, all contained inside the car’s tight confines, coiled inside her. Stirring Stirring. Stirring. Until the part of her that wasn’t human reared its head, opened its thighs, and beckoned for him to come inside. “I didn’t recognize you at first, either, even when I was staring at you straight-on.” She cleared the huskiness from her throat. “Your eyes have changed color.”
“Yeah, after I left my Youngling years.”
“I guess we’ve both changed since our Youngling years.” She squeezed her thighs together, trying to stop what her body was doing, but a fresh coat of moisture slicked her intimately.
With his next breath, Mason’s violet eyes suddenly flashed cerulean — a warning sign of his arising Beta Beast. “Kalen, you can’t expect me not to finish what we started in the parking lot when you keep tempting me.”
Her face heated. “Turn here.” Kalen pointed to a quaint set of multi-colored cottages a street over from the beachside. “I’ll see if there’s any vacancy.”
He sped up, his claws beginning to erupt. “I can’t do that.”
A tingling sensation zipped down her spine. “What’s going on?”
“Two unfamiliar vampires started following us mid causeway,” he admitted.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I was hoping they’d lose interest and move on.”
She read the tension in his massive body, unable to decide if it was sexual or territorial. Maybe it was a combination of both. “They’re advancing on us, aren’t they?”
“Looks that way. So I’ll let the lady choose the night’s festivities.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like this.”
“First choice,” Mason explained, “you take over the driving while I unleash my Beta Beast.”
“F-full transformation?”
He tilted his head, studying the side view mirror. “Two vamps who have at least a thousand years on me? Yeah, I’ll need to go into full transformation to behead them.”
Her heart stopped, then started sputtering.
“Settle down, female.”
She patted her chest, where her heart thundered. “I can’t believe you can hear that.”
“I’m sure the vamps can, too.” He lifted his phone, thumbing over the screen while keeping his eye on the road ahead. The sound of his claws scraping the smooth screen set her teeth on edge. “Bane, got an issue,” he barked after he lifted it to his ear. “Two old, unfamiliar vamps trailed me off the causeway.” He sighed in aggravation. “No, my claws aren’t broken, asshole. I’m driving a car with an unclaimed female inside. Uh-huh, that’s what I thought.” He pocketed his phone and took a left.
“I’ll drive.”
“What?”
“I said, I’ll drive,” Kalen enunciated. “I didn’t want to be around while you transform, but I can drive a damn car while stressed. I may not have Were speed, but my reflexes surpass those of a human.”
“Your hands are shaking. If you wreck this rental,” he threw her earlier words back at her, “you might go to jail or something…maybe die since you’ve not been claimed by a male under the full moon to ens
ure your immortality.”
“Not everyone wants to live forever.”
“Now who’s lying? You’re so scared right now that you’ve got my werewolf slamming the inside of my skull to soothe you.” He cursed, rubbing his temple. “Calm yourself.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do since I left Chicago!”
“You should have never moved there in the first place!” he shot back.
“So I should have stayed here to be claimed?” She blurted one of the worst fears from her past, “What if I had found my mates and none of them were you? Or what if I had never connected with any male, only to see that you’d found your celestially appointed female, loving her for the eternity you’d once promised to me.”
“So you think that you were the only one who worried about all of that?” Mason brought the car down an open length of road, low-lying brush lining both sides. “Fact is, at Six Feet Under, we were a hairsbreadth away from finally finding out if we are true mates.”
If he brought her to orgasm, scenting her in that way, Mason would know if she were truly his. “Like I said, tonight shouldn’t have happened.”
“I want to know, Kalen.” He drove past the neighborhood church. “So do you.”
“What I want to know is where those vamps are.”
He refused to be deterred. “By your scent, I’m assuming you’ve never taken an immortal male.”
“I’m not discussing my sexual history with you!”
“I don’t have to take you completely, if you’re not ready for the size of my cock and my Tribal Inflixx.” He took another turn. “I have twelve, by the way.”
Twelve piercings, she realized. “Is this your usual opener with the ladies, Mason? You tell them vamps are fast on their heels and slide in how your cock is loaded with metal.”
“It’s not all metal,” he corrected. “I have some onyx beads.”
“Oh, hell.”
Two blue streaks lit the night sky, splitting wide as they passed over her car. Mason didn’t bother looking at them. “Now’s a good a time as any to tell me why you were meeting with Syon.”
So he thought to shock her and catch her off guard? Not happening. “Smooth.”
“You’re leaving me to think the worst.”
“You don’t have to think anything about me.” A crack of thunder rumbled behind them, yet there was no storm. She turned around, searching the sky but finding nothing.
He wrenched the steering wheel. “You’re looking for your dad. Aren’t you? That’s why Dru hooked you up with Syon.” His fist slammed the dashboard and every light in the car went out, including the headlights. “I’m going to stake his ancient ass for this, and Bane won’t be able to stop me!”
“Stay out of it.” She watched him drive in complete darkness, his immortal vision needing nothing to aid it. “I have a right to find my father.”
“What’s going through your head?” The car hit a bumpy patch, as if they were off-roading. “And don’t feed me any of that father-daughter bonding bullshit.”
“That’s rich coming from someone whose parents are still living and under the same roof.” Kalen wasn’t jealous of him or anyone else who had a fantastic family, but he shouldn’t begrudge her the family she had left. “I’ll bet you and your siblings still gather for Sunday dinner.”
“Not every Sunday. And that bastard you call a father ditched you after your mother’s death, or have you conveniently forgotten?”
“He sent me to live with the human side of my family,” she reminded. “My aunt and uncle weren’t so bad.” As long as her father had kept sending those monthly checks. “And when I left my Youngling years, he wired me the funds from my mother’s estate and matched the amount himself.”
“Wired? So he didn’t call you? Pay you a visit at all?”
“No.”
“That’s payoff money, baby, nothing more.”
“You can’t blame him for sending me into the human world after Mom’s death, can you? He was trying to protect me.”
“Yeah, I can blame him,” Mason argued. “Your father should have left you with Pack before he took off.”
“Pack doesn’t take too kindly to vampires. Don’t get me wrong. No one ever treated me badly, but I was never welcomed the way other mixed bloods were.”
“Pack’s changed a lot since Jayce took over. None of that clique crap goes down anymore. And besides, you carry some vampiric blood, Kalen, but you’re not truly a vampire.”
She might as well tell him. “When I was a teen, I didn’t need to feed at all.”
“Most vampires don’t need to feed until they’ve reached Youngling status or thereafter,” he said as he slowed the car. “But I figured you were so washed down that you’d never need to feed.”
“The thing is - I didn’t until this year, after I hit twenty-four.”
“Everything changed this year?”
“Yes, and the problem is — ”
“Because you’re not a pureblood, you can’t coerce humans to let you drink, and afterwards erase their memories.”
“That’s not a problem, since I don’t feed from humans.”
“Not at all?”
“Nope.”
“I know you don’t have a current lover, Kalen.” He pulled into a driveway. “I smell no male on you, particularly an immortal. So how — ”
“In Chicago,” she interrupted, “I feed from a generous vampire who expects nothing in return. Unlike what Syon claimed, this vampire never insisted ownership over me.” In fact, Carther hadn’t even fed from her in return, or marked her throat with his bite of possession. “Otherwise, I would need around four times the amount of human blood to sustain me.”
“So one feeding would suck a human bone-dry.”
“That’s never happened!”
“I said would, not did.” He parked and shut off the car. “So tell me how often you feed.”
Kalen hated him grilling her. “Carther had to visit family in Slovakia a few days before I left, so I haven’t fed in four days.”
“By your evasiveness, I’m guessing daily.”
“Yes,” she snapped, “daily.”
“And Dru knows this?”
“Carther is Dru’s brother, so yes.”
“That Carther?” Mason seemed to settle down. “He visited over the holidays. I met him at my brother’s house.”
She nodded. “Anyway, I discussed my feeding with Dru, in hopes of getting a professional opinion.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He doesn’t know what to make of it. But reiterates the fact that my wonky breeding creates wonky side effects.”
“So all of this time, you kept in communication with Dru Holt but not me.”
“I never really kept in communication with him until recently. I called him about my cousin, Jenny. She sounded terrible every time we talked, like she wasn’t anywhere near recovering after her horrible…accident.”
“That was no accident,” Mason growled. “Those rogue Gryphs did a number on the island’s compound, burning everything they could get their claws on. Unfortunately, Jenny was one of many who suffered, who are still suffering, because of those bastards.”
“Jenny told me all about it.” Kalen twisted her hands in her lap. “When I finally reached out to Dru, I asked if there was anything I could do for her. He suggested I visit, so I scheduled this vacation with work. But as far as suggestions went, that’s all he offered.”
“Because Dru’s not Jenny’s doctor, I am.”
“He told me, Dr. Ruyter,” she said proudly. “Dru also said you were now his brother-n-law.”
“Even then, you didn’t ask him or Jenny for my number?”
“I didn’t need to bother you with this stuff.”
“Right.” He pointed at her. “But you bothered Dru.”
“Long ago, he was my doctor — ”
“Not that long ago, I was your everything.”
Chapter Four
“
You have no idea what I went through,” Kalen whispered, “none at all.”
“You’re right. I only know what I went through.” His grip furious on the door handle, he heard it crack and loosened his fingers. “You left without saying goodbye.” This was just great. He was turning into a blubbering pussy right before his very eyes.
Cursing, he knocked the back of his head on the headrest a couple of times, to shake it off. He didn’t know what he wanted more, to spank her ass until it turned bright red before he fucked her, or to bring Kalen to his chest and make maddeningly slow love to her while he marked her. Either way, he refused to give her up this time, at least, not without one hell of a fight. So all things considered, finding out if Kalen was his female, once and for all, topped tonight’s agenda. With his talented tongue, this could take as little as three minutes. All she had to do was accept his touch the same way she had back in Six Feet Under’s parking lot, and he’d do the rest.
“Mason, you must understand why the human world was best for me after Mom’s death.” She shifted in her seat, the perfume of her arousal wafting beneath his nose. “I wanted no part of the immortal world, especially Pack.”
“So that whole immortal world slash Pack generalization included me?”
“I hadn’t much of a choice,” she said with a weak shrug.
A fissure of familiar power parted the sky right above them. Ail and Archer were drifting down, materializing on the side porch. He hoped they didn’t wake Jude. “We’ll finish this later,” he warned her. “My brother and an Alpha Pack Male are here.” He gave her a look before he opened the car door. “They just saved your tail, so try to keep your thoughts on Pack to yourself while they’re around. Okay?”
She looked wounded, her sea-eyes glaring. “Of course.” Then she bolted out of the passenger’s side, not wanting him to open her car door. He eased out of his side and walked to the back of the car, waiting and sensing. Although Ail and Archer were giving off no tense vibes, he still pulled from his werewolf, allowing the Beta Beast to read the safety of his environs. Were hungry leeches cloaked and still lurking, or maybe a horny shifter waiting to take Kalen away from him? The possibilities were horrifyingly endless. So when the all-clear came back from his werewolf, Mason did the whole thing over, not trusting himself, and for the first time, not trusting his werewolf. His kind believed in fate, and she’d walked back into his life for a reason.
