by Skye Jones
Mate? Young?
Here we went again!
“What do we do with these?” Drew stood and pointed to the dead rogues.
I studiously avoided looking at his nudity. Gemma did no such thing as she approached, and her eyes went wide when they got to Boyd, and then Jake. Something unfurled within me. Something new and unfamiliar, yet oh-so-insistent. Hot and furious, it bubbled in my chest as she copped a look at my man.
Mine. The word pounded through me. I snarled and reached out with both palms, shoving her away.
“Jesus, Cait.” She rubbed at her chest. “What the hell?”
I blinked and shook my head. I tried to come up with some rational explanation for my behavior, but none came to me.
Instead, I turned to Jake and scowled. “Put some clothes on. I don’t see why you have to walk around naked, with your…” I waved my hands in the air. “Your bits out for all to see.”
He laughed and pulled me in for a hug. “And you think you can walk away. Oh, my little innocent one.”
No one had called me little in…forever. Not since I’d experienced a growth spurt, both vertically and horizontally, at age thirteen. Since then, I’d been the big one. Big Bird was my nickname when I was fourteen. Giantess at age sixteen, invented by some short-arsed whit in sixth form. But in Jake’s arms, I actually felt small, cared for. Feminine. But also strong. I’d protected this huge male. Risked my life for his and not hesitated.
I wrapped my arms tighter around him and sighed into his chest.
Something stirred between us, and he groaned.
“Uh-oh. Looks as if you’ve got me all excited.”
He pulled away and glanced down, and being an idiot, I followed his gaze. His straining erection made my mouth water, but it struck me as all kinds of wrong, seeing as how his friends and mine surrounded us.
“Gods.” Drew huffed out an annoyed breath. “Go get a room. We might not mind nudity here at the village, but that isn’t for public consumption.”
He pointed at Jake’s hard-as-nails dick and stalked off, shaking his head.
“Here.” Louis held out a tattered piece of clothing with a smirk.
Jake took it and held it over the offending body part. “Thanks, my friend.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I need to sort my neck out. Will you come with me?” Jake looked at me, and I nodded.
“Can they come?” I pointed to my friends.
“Of course.”
We all followed Jake toward the building we’d come from minutes earlier, no doubt heading for the medical center. Behind us came the sounds of the community dealing with their prisoners.
Chapter Eight
“You say the human female experienced a strong sense something evil came our way?” An elderly woman spoke, her long white hair glinting in the firelight.
We were in one of their communal rooms, sitting in a circle as a discussion about our fate dragged on. The alpha, Jake’s father, Adam, was present, as were healers, some of the village elders, and Drew, Jake, Boyd, Reba, and Louis.
Jake got patched up by Marissa, their healer. She’d given him something to drink and told him to make love to me, which she said helped. Of course, I’d wanted to be of use, so we’d spent hours making love. And now I felt sore and stretched—and so damn content I wanted to purr like some overfed cat.
“She did.” Gemma spoke up. “Laura told us we couldn’t stay because she sensed something horrible headed our way.”
“Could she be a Seer?” A tall woman with wavy gray hair and deeply tanned skin spoke. Her astonishingly blue eyes settled on Laura.
“I doubt it. None have been found amongst ordinary humans for a long time.”
“What do we do about them?” Louis asked the question. “The rules say we wipe their minds, but if the female possesses the gift of sight—and one linked somehow to us—she might be useful.”
“Wipe our minds?” Laura shouted.
“It’s our way, dear.” Marissa spoke. “It is safe, and you won’t know any different.”
“Maybe the old ways are wrong,” Drew said. “This attack came about out of the blue, totally unprecedented. Something is changing. The rogues get bolder, stronger. I think they are more than rogue. These were coming for us, but I believe they wanted more than to harm our settlement. I think the Kikan Myre influences them.”
I glanced at Brooke, sitting by my side, and she pursed her lips. She turned to my friends and me and whispered, “It means the Dark Creatures. Ones of their kind who mean harm to humans.”
“What is your plan, son?” The pack alpha, Adam, spoke. He barely looked old enough to have Drew and Jake as sons. He appeared around forty years old, but I’d been told he was much, much older.
“If the females agree, let them take the oath, then go back to their world. We used to do this. Only because the Kikan Myre have been silent for so long have we stopped. If they take the oath in the proper way, they will be bound by it.”
I glanced at my friends and saw they were as lost by all this as me.
“It means you can go home, your memories of this place intact. But you make an oath not to speak of us or your time here. If you break it, we will find out. And there will be severe consequences.” The elderly white-haired woman spoke once more and fixed us all with a steely gaze.
“It means there are people out there who are aware of the dangers around them. Who can contact us if things occur in their world we ought to be apprised of. It also means your female can go home if she wishes and take the time to think about things without having to be wiped of your memory.” Drew looked at his brother.
Jake grunted. “I do not wish her to leave.” His gorgeous gaze switched from Drew to me, and my heart flipped in my chest.
“I understand,” Louis said. “I totally understand your feelings, as they were my own only a short time ago. But human females are different. It seems they need time for their minds to catch up with their hearts and bodies.”
“He’s right, Jake.” Izzy glanced at me and then Jake. “Let her go now, and when she comes back—and she will—she’ll truly be yours.”
I didn’t appreciate the way all of them kept speaking for me. What I’d want tomorrow stayed hidden and unknown. A mystery bound too tightly by the emotions from all I’d learned and witnessed.
The white-haired woman looked at the three of us. “If we let you leave this place with knowledge of what we are, understand you will be the first in centuries. Do you promise to take the oath and honor it?”
I nodded immediately, as did Laura. Only Gemma looked unsure.
“Gemma?” I turned to her.
“I don’t think I want to remember. Those…things. They terrify me. I’ll not sleep knowing they are out there.”
“Fine.” Adam stood. “Two of them take the oath. The other has her memory wiped. This means you must not speak to your friend of the truth of this place.”
Laura nodded, but tears gathered in her eyes. I understood only too clearly how she felt. This would place a burden on our friendship. A wall of knowledge, so thick it’d be hard to overcome, would separate us from Gemma.
“Sorry, guys, but I can’t.” Gemma’s lips trembled, and I wrapped my arm around her and hugged her to my side.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
I had my suspicions about why Laura wanted to keep her memory of all this, and the possible reason stood across from us in the hulking form of Boyd. I didn’t think she’d have any luck there, though. He didn’t seem too interested, despite the odd glances he threw her way, which might be exactly why she wanted him so much. Laura wasn’t used to rejection.
Things passed in a blur from then on. We found ourselves shuffled off to a large, round building to take the ceremonial oath.
Flames flickered around the room as we entered, and a group of women in flowing white dresses chanted as they weaved an intricate pattern of steps around the room.
The white-haired woman who’d s
poken at the meeting headed to the back wall, where what looked to be a makeshift altar stood under a huge, stained-glass window. This window reminded me of the ones in churches, but it contained scenes from nature. Trees, flowers, a variety of animals, they were all there, all represented so beautifully. With twilight descending, I doubted the colors were as bright as in the full light of day, but they were still stunning.
Laura and I drank some bitter concoction and then repeated words, which meant nothing to us, in some unfamiliar language. Gemma took the drink to wipe her memory, and she soon grew drowsy. Laura and I were told we’d need to leave tonight, and we’d have to take care of Gemma. Drew would drive us back home, along with Boyd. I’d be given a tincture to help stop the side effects of my bonding with Jake.
Time passed in a dreamlike blur as my mind grew more and more detached from the strangeness around me. I needed sleep. Food. Time alone to process it all.
Part of me yearned for my tiny flat, and part of me dreaded the moment I’d leave Jake.
The man in question stood off to one side, brawny arms crossed over his broad chest. His eyes glowed with the eerie light of his wolf, and a muscle ticked in his cheek. I hated to hurt him. And my heart screamed at the idea of leaving him, but none of this made sense. I couldn’t stay. Abandon my old life and not go home. And it wasn’t as if we were a million miles from one another. He’d be able to come visit me in the city, and me him here. I’d always hated it in romantic movies where one-half of an estranged couple was about to get on a plane from, say, New York to California, and if their lover doesn’t get there in time to stop them, the whole relationship will be over. It’s nonsense. There are phones. Texts. Email. The lover can hop on a flight later and go visit. Yeah, no way I’d be pushed into doing something hasty. My going back home for some much needed time to get my head together shouldn’t be some defining moment between us. I hardened my heart.
Everything passed in a blur, enveloped in the strange, dreamlike fog I’d become wrapped in. Until it came time to leave. Standing by Drew’s big off-roader, with the girls by my side and Boyd shifting his heft from one foot to the other, my heart sank. Jake’s jaw was set so hard it might shatter as he watched Laura and Gemma clamber into the back of the car. Drew and Boyd climbed into the front, and Brooke and Iz gave me a quick hug and kiss good-bye. Then only Jake and I remained. The air around us seemed to hold its breath as we looked at one another.
“I’m not going because I don’t have feelings for you,” I blurted out. “I need time to get my head around things, though. This is all so much. I need to sleep. To rest. And then I can understand it all. Right now, I don’t know which way is up. And I need to sort things out. My job. My flat. Speak to my mum. Do you know what I mean?”
“Not really.” He shook his head, and dismay crept over me. “But despite not understanding, I’m letting you go because I want you to come back and be truly mine. So, go sort things.”
He bent his head and kissed my forehead. Tipped up my face and kissed my nose, my cheeks, my chin.
“But don’t take too long. I’m going to be out of my mind. And if you don’t come back, I’m coming for you.”
Then he kissed my lips. Hard and demanding. A promise that I was his now, and it told me he would be coming for me. Instead of worrying me, the promise in his touch anchored me and gave me the strength to leave…if only for now.
I still felt damned tears well up, and I dashed at them and got into the back of the car to sit alongside Laura and Gemma. Laura wrapped her arms around me as the tears fell in earnest.
I sighed and ran my fingers along the shelf above my bed. A dark line of dust came away on my skin. After a week of resting, or rather, moping about, I had still not made a decision. I yearned for Jake each moment of every day, but then I thought about the small life I’d carved out for myself. I didn’t want to be that girl. The one who abandoned it all to follow her fella and who didn’t have any life of her own. Mum’s experience taught me well. Never throw it all away for a guy. She had, and it almost ruined her life for a while. How pathetic would I be if I did the same?
My doorbell went. I sighed again. It had been another crazy-busy day at the surgery, and my boss truly excelled in the wanker stakes. He’d blamed me for his own clerical error, which meant a ton of insurance forms didn’t get sent in time and the deadline for two clients’ end of year claims were missed. Then he’d shouted at a poorly feeling kitty when she clawed him. In all my time working there, he hadn’t stooped so low as to take his temper out on the animals, and it sickened me to see him do so.
I trudged to the door, my feet dragging across the floor in my slippers.
“Open up, babe.” Laura’s muffled voice reached me through the wood.
Not in the mood for company, but not wanting to turn my friend away, I swung the door back.
“There she is. You’ve turned into a hermit.” She jabbed me in the chest and walked into the room. “Been texting you all week.”
I shrugged. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. I get it.”
She did?
“You don’t want to talk about things because your head’s all mixed up about Jake. You’re stewing in your little flat because you think, if you go to be with him, you’re some sort of failure to the cause of feminism. But if you stay, you miss out on what may be the love of your life. Stay stuck in your crappy job and living in this cramped little hellhole of an apartment. When you could be living amongst some amazing people, in a world full of insanely hot men.”
“You wouldn’t go.” I threw back at her. “Not with your great job and your brilliant life. You only think I should because my life is so pathetic as far as you’re concerned.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I do not think your life is pathetic. I think your boss is an utter dickhead. And I think you sell yourself short all the time, truth be told. You sabotage yourself whenever anything good might happen.”
“As if.” I bristled at her words, but part of me heard the truth in them.
“Okay, what about failing your A Levels at the last moment. Or how, once you’d retaken them, electing not to go to university and taking a job as a veterinary nurse instead of following your dream to be a vet. The way you never…never believe the hot, sexy guy wants you.”
Oh, crap. My nose prickled as her words hit home, and I found myself on the verge of tears.
She took my hand. “I can’t say what I’d do in your shoes. But I honestly think if Boyd and I got it on, and he wanted me to give things a try…I’d be tempted beyond belief.”
I stared at her, aghast. “You’d pack in your amazing job? For a man?”
“Not quite.” She leaned forward, a curious gleam in her eyes. “He’s not a man, is he? Neither is Jake. What they are is wonderful and…important. Something’s coming. I can’t tell exactly what, but it’s bad. I sense it. It’s the strangest thing. I’ve gone from being a rational person who sneered at superstition and denied my own intuition, to believing in all kinds of things. Something’s coming, though, and I want to be a part of it. Plus…”
“Plus.” I nudged her leg. She’d gone bright red.
“I do like Boyd. It makes no sense. I hardly know the man. Must have spent a few hours in his company, tops. But he does something to me. So, yeah. I think I’d give it a go. It’s not as if it has to be forever. You can rent out your flat. You need to leave your shitty job anyway. If things don’t work out, you come home, move back in here, and find some other work. I doubt it could pay much less or be anymore soul-destroying than working for your idiot boss.”
I sat with her words for a few moments.
“Give it a go is all.” She smiled her killer smile. I used to so envy her and Gemma for the way they could light up a room with a mere show of teeth, but Jake made me feel as beautiful in my own way.
Laura continued. “Drew told me there’d be plenty of work there for you. Hell, you’ll probably find yourself doing something of much more impo
rt than working for shit-for-brains. You also get a chance to see if there’s something real and solid between you and Jake. And you can always come back and see us. Spend time with Gemma and me. In fact, you’d better. It’s so odd not to be able to talk to her about any of this.” She sighed and glanced away. When she looked back, her eyes were shiny. “I’ll miss you. Can’t deny it. But God, hon, take a chance for once!”
I nodded. “I’ll think about what you said.”
“Suppose I can’t ask for more.” She reached over and gave me a hug. “Got to go as I’ve got a conference call this evening.”
She made her glamorous way over to my door, her high heels not impeding her grace one jot. We hugged it out again, and then once more I found myself alone in my tiny flat with a lot to think about.
Chapter Nine
I sat in the car with Izzy next to me. We were outside the gates of the eco-village, and my body fizzed with nervous energy. Once I’d decided to give this a go, I’d called Izzy to ask her a few questions. She’d been over the moon and offered to come pick me up. Thinking it’d be nice to surprise Jake, I’d agreed. Now I wasn’t so sure.
A hissing from the back seat reminded me that Darcy would be more than unsure, once he met Jake again. I hoped he’d get used to the shifters, once he learned they meant him no harm. I couldn’t leave my baby behind. Would Jake want a cat? Would he still want me?
“What if he’s changed his mind and doesn’t want me anymore?” I chewed at my lip.
“You don’t understand these men,” she said. “Won’t happen. Trust me. You’re it now for Jake. No worrying about whether or not he’ll cheat. Whether he’ll grow bored. Doesn’t happen, not once you’re bonded and mated with one of these guys.”
“What about for me?”
“Same goes, as far as we know. But you’re somewhat unique. Not wolfen. Not empathine. It’s been a long time since any of these guys has bonded with a human.”
