Grayslake: More than Mated: Beneath the Surface (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Reina Torres

  Gathering her top together, Grace discovered that her hands were shaking too much to manage the simple task. Standing up, Travis easily set Grace on her feet. He placed a kiss on her cheek. “Stay here. Let me talk to him.”

  Travis walked off, jogging down the porch steps and onto the driveway. The uniformed officer didn’t move from the curb and when Travis stepped up beside him, the officer started talking.

  Sure, he let Travis get in a few words, but for the most part there were a lot of gestures. She was halfway to the curb when the officer grabbed him by the arm.

  “Hey!” Grace almost stumbled over a clump of grass and swore under her breath. “You leave him alone.”

  “Look, miss,” the officer pointed back at the house, “why don’t you go inside and let me deal with him.”

  “You’ll answer me or I’m going to call your boss,” she informed him.

  He took a long look at her from head to toe. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Travis’ teeth ground together and his chest expanded like a bellows. “Leave her out of this.”

  “This ain’t your town, Owen.”

  “What is your problem?” Grace tried to push in between them and narrowed her eyes at his nametag and read the word on it in the shifting darkness. “V. Abrams. Huh,” she frowned thinking back to the conversation around dinner. “Van?”

  His features tightened as he gave her a second look, took in a deep breath before his expression shuttered. “Come on, Owen.” He pulled at Travis’ arm, but it took a second to get him moving. “You’ve got some nerve.

  “Nerve?”

  Grace started forward and came up short when Van threw her a look. “You might want to get dressed.”

  “I am dressed! Who are you, the fashion police?” Still, she pulled her top together again, Van didn’t deserve to see any more than he already had, and followed them down to the cruiser, peppering Van with a bunch of questions. “What’s the charge?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Oh yes, it is.” She struggled to keep up. The two men were an equal match in size and muscles. “You can’t just arrest him without telling him what the charges are!”

  Van’s shoulders expanded with a deep indrawn breath as he yanked the back door of the cruiser open. “Get in, Owen.”

  Grace poked a finger into Van’s back and he turned on her with a growl.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  She barely flinched, her eyes snapping in anger. “Answer my questions!”

  He remained silent for a moment, but his glare was fairly eloquent.

  “What are you? Some kind of attorney?”

  “No,” she sassed at him, “but I know his rights. I can read and I had a damn good civics teacher in college. So, stop stalling,” she reached into her back pocket and took out her phone, “or I’m calling the ACLU and maybe the SPLC and- Hey!”

  Her phone clattered to the pavement with a sickening crash.

  She stared at it until Van slammed the door of the cruiser. When she looked back up at Van, her eyes were narrowed on his face. “You haven’t changed a bit since we were kids, have you?”

  He scoffed. “Kids?” His lips twisted at the corner. “Who are you? Why do you smell familiar?”

  She looked straight at him and lifted her hands to her face, circling her fingers around her eyes like a pair of glasses. “Grace Howard. Remember me now?”

  Van gave her a blank look. “No.”

  “Yeah, well I remember you, so answer my questions or-”

  “Grace.”

  She heard Travis’ voice from inside the car, slightly muffed but still, she heard it. She moved closer to the car, placed her hands on the window glass. “Travis, this isn’t right, I’m going to find you an attorney and-”

  “Grace, baby, please.”

  She heard the plea in his voice and some of her anger eased away as if he could soothe her worry with his voice.

  “Let me handle this, okay? I’ll be fine.” He looked at Van for a second and then back into her worried gaze. “I have to talk to a few people, but I’ll be back. I promise you. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She didn’t want to listen to him.

  She certainly didn’t want to make things easy on Van.

  Still, she gave Travis a smile and turned her hand so that her knuckles lightly grazed the warm glass by his cheek. “I trust you, Travis. Some might think I’m crazy, myself included, but I trust you.” She watched him lean his cheek against the glass and then turn to press his lips on her fingers.

  Van groused as he rounded the car toward the driver’s door. “He better hope that glass was clean.”

  Moments later the cruiser pulled onto the street and disappeared into the night.

  Chapter Five

  It took quite a bit of convincing to get Grace not to call in the ACLU. It took her uncle’s resolute promise that everything was going to work out and a call from her Aunt Nellie to the Abrams house to have a talk with Ty, although what the eldest Abrams had to do with the situation was still a mystery to her.

  Still, she loved her aunt and uncle and knew they wouldn’t lie to her. They loved her like their own and she loved them just as much. If they asked her to be patient, then she would do her best.

  But her best only lasted until the next morning.

  Up before the sun had even had its first cup of coffee, Grace was waiting for her uncle to drive her into the diner when someone knocked on the door. A quick look at the clock had her swearing beneath her breath. “It better be the Publisher’s Clearinghouse guy at this hour.”

  Getting up from the dining room chair she made her way to the door and swung it open with a huff.

  The handsome face on the other side of the door was staring at her with open concern. “Is this how you open the door in Arizona?” He shook his head and his eyes said he thought she was crazy. “You just throw it open without asking for I.D. or at least peeking through the curtains. How did you manage not to get killed or something worse?”

  “Killed? Or something worse?” She laughed at him. “You want to know how?”

  He set a hand on the door frame by her head. “Yeah, I do.”

  There was a long pause between them.

  When he was done waiting he sighed. “Waiting…”

  She smiled back. “Look down.”

  When he did, his shoulders slumped a bit. Less than an inch from his hip was a Taser held easily in her hand.

  “I’m not just a pretty girl with a bangin’ body,” she told him with a broad grin, “I’m evil with the heart of a badass.”

  He shook his head, the long thatch of his ash-blond hair falling over his forehead. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you too, Noah.” Tossing the Taser onto the couch she wrapped her arms around her old friend and barely managed to mumble a few words when she was nearly smothered by his muscular pec. “Air, please.”

  Noah pulled her outside and let the door swing shut behind her. “I’ve seen all of your pictures online, but wow. You look even more awesome in person!” He picked up a cup of coffee from its travel tray from the gas station. “Here. Java.”

  She barely managed to ‘not’ snatch it from his hands, but once it was in her hands she held it up to her nose and took a long sniff of the heady brew in the cup. When she heard him laugh she looked up at him with menace in her eyes.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “You used to do the same thing, but with hot chocolate. Some things never change.”

  “You know what else doesn’t change?” She saw the effect her sweeter-than-sugar tone had on her childhood friend.

  The nearly six-foot-tall man standing before her was worlds different from the knock-kneed little boy who loved to push her into the river when she wasn’t looking and then let her return the favor.

  “No,” he leaned closer until they were almost nose to nose on the porch, “what?”

  “You’re still totally gullible.” Be
fore he could move, she grabbed the tip of his nose between two fingers and she made a loud honking noise.

  Noah reached for her, but she danced away, holding her coffee securely in her hand.

  “Nope. Don’t threaten the coffee or I will kick your ass, Redwood.”

  The door opened again and her Uncle Eddie stepped outside. Grace narrowed her eyes when he didn’t seem shocked to see Noah Callahan on his porch in the pre-dawn hours.

  “Morning, sir!”

  Edward winced. “I’m not that old, Noah.”

  The younger man dropped his arm over Grace’s shoulders. “It’s like old times again. I get your uncle all ticked off at me in a minute flat.”

  Grace elbowed Noah in the gut. “Be nice.” She gave her uncle a smile. “Ready to go?”

  He gave her a kiss on her forehead. “You have the day off. Lauren’s coming in to help with the morning shift.”

  “Wait. What?” She took a sip of her coffee and found it wasn’t enough.

  “Ty and Van are coming over to explain about last night. So it’s best if they do it here.”

  “You mean it’s better if we’re not on the main street of town when I hand them both their asses?”

  Noah looked up at Edward with naked hope in his eyes. “Do you have a camera I can borrow?”

  Edward waved him off. “Don’t press your luck, son.”

  He was gone a few minutes later and Grace took a long sip of the coffee to get her blood vessels to open up and start pumping in earnest. “So are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

  Noah swallowed hard and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Can’t I just be here to see my oldest friend in the whole wide world?”

  “Sure.” She nodded and took another sip. When she pulled it slightly away from her lips she nailed him with a look. “But there’s something else going on and you better spill before I go and get my Taser.”

  “Wow, is this what happened when you moved to Arizona?”

  “No, this is what happened when I came back here and everyone’s acting like we’re in Oz and I’m way too close to finding out what’s behind the curtain.” Setting the coffee down on the railing she turned to her old friend. “What’s going on?”

  Noah’s friendly grin faded a little bit. “Look, you know I love you, but I’m here because Ty said to come. Your aunt told him you’re close to me and that it would be a good idea if I was here when Ty and Van show up.”

  She reached over and pinched him on his side, a few inches up from his waist.

  “Hey!”

  “Stop stalling, or I’m going to see if you’re still ticklish.”

  “Please!” Noah waved her off. “I’m a grown man now, Grace. You can’t think I’m ticklish anymore.”

  “You’re full of it. So when do I get the Abrams dog and pony show?”

  Noah’s expression changed as he shifted his arms to protect his vulnerable sides. “I don’t know exactly. Sometime this morning. Van had to drop his ma- Lauren at the diner to help out your uncle. Then they’ll be on their way.”

  She nodded, smiling, her expression a picture of calm and happy indulgence.

  And the look obviously scared Noah. He backed away, knocking his coffee cup off of the porch railing. “Oh come on! You’re so gonna pay for that.”

  “No,” she shook her head and moved to cut him off from the steps, “you’re going to pay for that. Now!” She darted forward, but he made use of his longer form. Bracing one hand on the railing he threw himself over and onto the grassy side lawn. “Cheater!”

  “Ha!” He called back. “Come and get me now… if you can!”

  Oh, that did it. Grace muttered a few words she’d learned from waitressing at the biker bar just outside of Flagstaff. The words would have gotten her a scolding from Nellie or Edward, but it was the right fuel she needed for the moment. She took off at a run, regretting the summery dress she’d worn. The spaghetti straps tied over her shoulder didn’t allow for a regular bra, so the only things holding her girls in the simple bodice were tension and a prayer.

  Noah darted around the big oak and she heard a series of scratches on the bark and stopped. She looked up into the lower branches and saw a rather disgruntled squirrel shoot out onto the limb, a nut or two stretching his right cheek into a big bubble. Chattering, he twitched his tail as he looked back at the trunk.

  “That’s so not fair,” she shouted at the branches and the thick canopy of leaves, “I’m wearing kitten heels and this dress is vintage!” She looked down at the yellow flowers sprinkled across the base of her hem. “Fine!” She gave up, lifting her hands up into the air before lowering them down in a huff of breath. “I give up, just get down here and- what?”

  A pair of incredibly strong arms wrapped around her middle and lifted her off the ground.

  “Got you!”

  She tried to elbow Noah and couldn’t quite get her elbow far back enough. “Put me down!”

  “Nope. I think it’s easier if I just hold you still until the Itan gets here. I mean Ty”-

  Grace kicked out her legs and got in a lucky strike on his shin.

  Noah swore. “Stop it.”

  “Put me down before you hurt yourself.”

  “Ha, very funny.”

  She felt him lower her, but the tension in his arms didn’t lessen. She had one moment of shock and apprehension before the world shifted beneath her and she saw the top of Noah’s head a moment before he laid her over his shoulder. He wrapped an arm that felt more like an iron band across the backs of her thighs. “There,” he grunted as she kicked out, “I just don’t want you to kick me in the nuts.”

  She snarled at him. “I bet the squirrel would help hold you down.”

  “Funny, Gracie, just keep still and before you know it…”

  A roar shook the trees around them and Grace felt Noah shake in fear under her. Later, she would muse over the fact that the same roar made her quiver in all kinds of delicious ways, but in the next few terrifying moments, her world became a slo-motion sequence better suited to a Thriller TV show on a cable network than her boring life.

  Something plucked her from Noah’s shoulder and set her down on the grass, and then something that looked like a moving wall of muscle knocked Noah into the grass beside her.

  Fabric tore. Shouts peppered the air. And her inner ears swelled as though she’d changed altitude by about a thousand feet up in the air.

  She felt a wave of energy that staggered her to the side, tilting the ground beneath her feet.

  “Grace!”

  Falling to her knees, she reached up both hands to press against her ears. The pressure eased the slightest bit, but she fought the pain.

  “Noah?”

  She heard a grunt and thick wet sound that sounded like silk tearing.

  “Stop, please.” She sobbed out the words. She lay on her side in the grass and looked behind her at the two figures tussling in the grass. There were hands, almost hands, and skin thickened with a dark mat of hair. And there were eyes that looked back at her and stole her breath.

  “Travis?”

  The fighting stopped and the wave of energy that lay heavily over her prone body started to ease back and away. “What’s happening?” Her voice was thickened, sticking like peanut butter in her throat. “Someone help them!”

  She felt hands hook under her arms and start to lift her to her feet.

  “No, wait.” The voice in her ears was almost human. Almost. “Leave her there.”

  She sighed in relief as the hands moved away. “I just need a minute.”

  From her place on the ground she watched Ty Abrams, all grown up Ty Abrams, cross the ground from the police cruiser. He stopped beside the two figures in the grass and grabbed the first by the shoulder. Noah winced, but he didn’t pull away from Ty.

  Grace could easily see the red splash of gore on his torn t-shirt and cried out. Noah turned to her and gave her a smile from a mouth that was longer and wider than a normal h
uman face.

  “He’s hurt.”

  Ty nodded and looked back at her. “He’ll heal up soon enough.”

  She caught the subtle nod of Noah’s head and she relaxed a little bit. “Travis?”

  The head that turned toward her matched the rest of his body. Broad shoulders and a hulking frame covered in thick brown fur took a step in her direction. Most people would have tried to get away, but she was tired, and saw the dark-night expanse of his eyes looking at her with sorrow.

  The bear hung his head and started to move toward her, but Ty Abrams was suddenly between them, ignoring her soft protest. He advanced on the bear and stood, feet braced apart.

  Noah, his hands clutched over the wound in his chest, was on his knees, his head almost bowed. “Itan, please.”

  “Back it down, Travis.” Ty’s voice was tight, almost cold with his anger. “Don’t make me regret this little field trip.”

  Grace felt another wave of power roll over her and she clutched at her chest. “Crap, that hurts.”

  Noah’s face lifted to Ty, his lips set in a determined line. “You’re hurting her.” Then he turned to Travis who looked like he was getting ready to charge at Ty. “You too, outsider. Both of you, tamp it down.”

  Van, somewhere behind her, spat out a curse at the man bleeding all over her aunt’s lawn. “You watch your tongue, Callahan.”

  “Punish me all you like, just stop with all the shifter shit, you’re going to give her a heart attack!”

  She wanted to tell Noah to stop being so dramatic, but the cramp in her chest was only getting worse and the edges of her vision were starting to go dark.

  “Oh, crap,” she panted out a few breaths and clawed at the neckline of her dress, pulling down dangerously close to ‘off,’ but she couldn’t help it, she needed to breathe and she was getting precious little air as it was. “What’s happening to me?”

  “Itan, please,” Noah had dropped his hands away from his wound, gesturing at her with one of them and Travis with the other. “Let him go to her. Please!”

  Ty looked from one to the other, his eyes carefully looking at everyone in the small and chaotic little lawn party. “He goes as a man or not at all.” He looked at Grace, meeting her eyes. “I don’t know how you got in the middle of all of this, but your Aunt is going to kill me.”