by Elle Thorne
“There will be other years.” Alexa touched Reese’s hand.
Lézare turned to Theo. “Can your men handle this until the Enforcers arrive to take custody of Scanlon’s men?”
Theo nodded. “Scanlon’s body has been removed. None of these shifters know who Valencia is. I recommend she get out of the area before the Enforcers find out there’s a hybrid here. They’d have to hunt her down.” Theo’s dark eyes were trained on Valencia. “Sorry.”
Valencia’s lips curled. Evie wasn’t sure if it was a smile or a self-deprecating smirk. “I understand. That won’t be a problem, though. I don’t have plans to be here. I have to leave the area.” She turned to Lézare. “That includes Arceneaux Point.”
Lézare frowned. “I’m not tracking.”
“What do you mean?” Alexa’s voice had risen an octave in concern.
“Let’s talk about this when we get back,” Rory declared.
“I may have a solution,” Leandra glanced at Theo.
Theo nodded.
Lézare’s growl was audible.
What is his problem with her?
Evie suspected it had more to do with the typical animosity between shifters and witches.
“Evie and Mason can ride with us,” Alexa said. “We can catch her—them—up on everything that’s happened during Escape Weekend.”
“Let’s go to my cabin. It’s not spacious, but we can gather on the porch to discuss matters. It’s a safe neutral place. And there will be no interruptions.”
“I’ll be out there in a moment. Let me give a final instruction.”
“We’ll wait with Leandra until you come out.”
“I ’preciate it.” Theo’s gaze was dark and full of yearning for his mate. He started toward the room holding Scanlon’s shifters prisoners in a cage. “Be out there in a moment.”
The rest of the group filed through the dark hallways toward the entrance, a hidden door in a warehouse in the midst of the industrial district.
Evie shielded her eyes against the brightness. Graffiti peppered the walls of the warehouse designed to appear abandoned. Outside, the roads and alleys were nearly empty of vehicles. “Where did the people watching the fight park? How did their cars not attract attention?”
“They had to park elsewhere and were brought here in a bus. Scanlon took extreme measures to keep the place a secret,” Lézare explained.
“How did you find it?”
Lézare and Reese exchanged a glance, then her brother answered. “We have mutual acquaintances who found it in their best interest to help us.”
Reese nodded in agreement.
Why do I get the feeling there’s a lot more to this than I’m hearing?
She followed Alexa toward her car.
Valencia and Rory got in theirs.
Leandra stood with Alexa and Evie, waiting for Theo.
“I’m worried about Valencia,” Evie said, watching her sister and Rory in the car. “She’s very different.”
“She’s at a crossroads, in many ways.”
“But deep down, she’s still the same,” Alexa said. “Just a little more intense.”
Evie didn’t want to say she felt like it was a lot more than just a little, so she nodded.
“I’ll catch you up on everything while we’re driving home.” Alexa put her arm around Evie.
They both watched Mason who was talking to Reese and Lézare by Lézare’s car. Natalya had already gotten in and was waiting for Lézare.
“You have a lot to catch me up on—like you and Reese. Lézare and Natalya—”
“Yeah, that one caught me off-guard,” Alexa confessed.
“Everything’s catching me off-guard.” Evie couldn’t take her eyes off Mason.
Photoshop. The idea that maybe he’d never been unfaithful, that all this time she had made a decision on misinformation weighed on her. An anger burned within her toward Todd Scanlon even though he was dead.
Mason, all six-foot plus sexy of him was walking her way. The darkness in his gaze told her they had unfinished business. The dilation of his pupils made her heart skip a beat and then begin a rapid tempo.
Broad shoulders that tapered toward a hard stomach, thighs with quads so pronounced they strained the fabric of his pants, his sleeves pushed up, showing off the forearms she’d always found sexy…
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, cautioning her tigress to step back before both of them decided to jump on him the moment they were alone.
And then a thought struck Evie—a very sobering thought.
What if Mason doesn’t want me. Sure he looks like he’s interested in me, but what if that’s just his lion for my tigress. What if he wants nothing to do with me because I never told him why I was ending it?
The visage of him began to swim in the tears that filled her eyes. She looked down, swiped at her eyes furtively, then turned away from him so he wouldn’t see the naked emotions in her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Alexa’s touch was gentle on her arm.
“I’m fine.” Evie plastered a smile on her face.
“It will work out.” Leandra’s silver blue eyes glowed.
Evie climbed in the back seat.
Chapter Twenty
Mason sat in the back next to Evie. Alexa drove, Reese rode shotgun.
Of course, saying he sat next to Evie was a stretch. Evie seemed to be pushed up as far away from him as she could be, practically hugging the door. At least during the first portion of the drive back to Arceneaux Point. Then Alexa and Reese began to update Evie—and Mason, by default, since he was there—and Evie relaxed a bit, leaning forward and sometimes closer to the center, poking her head between the seats to talk to Alexa.
He couldn’t help but look at her, taking in the tight T-shirt she’d changed into, the way it hugged her curves, pulled tightly against breasts that strained the material thin, making her lacy black bra all too evident, also not for a second did it hide her nipples—which for fuck’s sake, were hard nubs tempting Mason the whole damned drive.
She was in a skirt, her curves accentuated, especially those hips and thighs that flared outward from her waist.
Mason fought the raging boner and his lion’s reaction at the same time, fearful that at any point of time he’d lose that battle.
The only saving grace was that Alexa and Reese were there to keep Mason from ravaging her. Her hair was a mess that brought to mind the mornings they’d stayed in bed late, engaging in sexual acrobatics that left her with a bedhead, flushed cheeks, and sparking eyes.
Mason gritted his teeth against the pain it caused in him to think of what they used to have. And what they didn’t have now.
God, I miss her.
At one point, her thigh rubbed against his knee, and a surge of electricity coursed through Mason. God, he’d forgotten what her touch did to him.
Alexa briefed them on how Lézare had left the ball to find Natalya, and ended up with her.
“They brought home a distant relative—by marriage.”
“Really? Who? How is it we didn’t know?”
“She’s old. And she’s got an—she’s an elemental. Her name is Claudette. She was mated to one of the Arceneaux. Knew Étienne and Celine when she was younger.”
“You’ll like her.” Alexa assured her then went on to explain how she and Reese had found their attraction…
“…insatiable,” Reese said with a smile for the curvy redhead in the front seat.
Alexa returned the smile. “And then Rory and Valencia…” She looked at Mason and Evie in the rearview mirror. “Those two…”
“What’s Valencia going to do? It sounds like she can’t be at home. Can she go back to Georgia? Is she going to be staying with Rory?”
Mason wondered the same. Rory would have his hands full with a hybrid as alpha and as powerful as Valencia seemed to have become.
“What about Leandra and Theo? All this time, I thought he had a crush on you,” Evie asked Alexa.
&
nbsp; “Not exactly. Leandra had to charm him, or cast a spell on him, or use some kind of sorcery.”
“That had to be difficult for her. I’m not sure I could have done that with a man I love. I’m not the sharing type.”
Evie gave Mason a glance when she said that.
He wondered if there was something he was supposed to take from that.
Yeah, we have a lot to clear up as soon as we have a moment alone.
Reese’s hand traveled along the back of the seat until it met Alexa’s shoulder. Reese made tiny patterns.
It reminded Mason of when he used to do something like that with Evie.
Seemed they all had someone now. Her siblings. Leandra and Theo.
Everyone but Mason and Evie. It was all about everyone else.
Everyone but him. And the woman he loved. And his lion’s mate.
Everyone but them.
They all had their happily ever after.
All but us.
His resolve set in. He’d figure this out. Immediately. Or he’d fail and get the hell away from anything that reminded him of Evangeline Arceneaux.
* * *
Alexa drove past the Arceneaux Point driveway and toward a semi pebble-paved dirt road. She pulled up next to Theo’s vehicle. They’d barely opened the car doors when Theo came out of the woods and made his way toward them, taking quick steps with a long-legged stride.
“Lézare’s running a bit late. We’ll wait for him to get started. Follow me to the cabin.”
“I’d like a moment,” Mason said.
They all turned to look at him, but he kept his gaze fixed on Evie.
“With you.” Mason made sure she understood she was the one he wanted to talk to.
“I—”
“Stay.” Alexa pushed Evie back into the car. No big feat, as Evie still had one leg in the vehicle.
Alexa nodded to Mason over the car’s hood.
At least one of the Arceneaux sisters is on my side.
He slid his large frame into the back seat next to Evie.
“I know what you’re going to say.” Evie bit her lip.
“Why don’t you tell me then?” Because in reality he had no clue where to start.
“That I was wrong. That you weren’t in that picture.” She paused. Green eyes the color of a tropical lagoon studied him.
“See, I don’t even know what picture you’re talking about.”
“Well, seems Todd confessed to doctoring it, so I’m guessing it wasn’t even you.”
“What wasn’t even me?”
A red color kissed her cheeks then flamed darker as her embarrassment grew. Mason didn’t want to admit it but he’d never found her more incredible, sexier, than right this moment.
And he’d never loved her as much as he did right now.
“A girl…” She drew a breath in, let it out slowly. “She was going down on a guy.”
“Let me guess. I was that guy?”
Evie nodded. “But…” She swallowed hard.
Her delicate throat working, giving him all the wrong damned ideas.
How can I think of sex at a time like this? Man, I’m such a douchebag.
Except he wasn’t, not totally, because he realized his lion was contributing to the craving for Evie and her tigress.
“But…” he prompted.
“But I know now that it wasn’t you, that Todd set it up, did some photoshopping on the picture.” She glanced at her fingers, which were intertwining and moving constantly with nervousness.
“Evie.” Fingertip on her chin, he pushed gently until she was looking into his eyes. “You should have come to me.”
“I know.”
“I’d never cheat on you. Not in my mind, not with my body.”
Her eyes bored into his soul, seeking answers.
He knew she’d seen the worst sides of infidelity. It was incumbent that he showed her he’d never do that.
“I wish…”
“Tell me what you wish.” When he said that, he thought of his kit in his back pocket. He thought of lost chances, lost lives, lost friends.
He was unconditionally unwilling to lose her.
“I wish there was a rewind button I could press. Something that would take me back to that moment.”
A thought occurred to him.
Why the hell not?
Why couldn’t he suggest it? Why couldn’t they do it? It wasn’t anything more than a damned misunderstanding. It’s not like either of them wanted someone else.
“I have an idea.” He took her hand in his.
Again, the electricity, the chemistry between them was tangible.
She looked at him, eyes full of trust.
This was the old Evie.
His Evie.
“Who says we can’t press rewind?”
“You don’t hate me?”
As Mason saw it, there were two choices: he could spend a lifetime loving her from this moment on or he could hate her for the past.
And he’d be as lonely and as miserable as he’d been all this time.
This tigress, feisty, bratty, fiercely loyal and almost childlike in her innocence was the woman he wanted and the mate his lion needed.
“I couldn’t hate you anymore than I could hate the very air I need, Evie.”
Her face crumpled into an ugly cry mask for a brief second, right before it beamed with the largest grin.
“You say the most amazing things.” Her voice was heavy with emotion. “Is it really possible?”
“Unless for some crazy reason you want to keep on hating me…”
“God, no.” Her squeal was pure joy. She shot across the seat and fell into him, as if they’d never been apart.
They fit perfectly. Just like they used to.
Mason breathed her in. He took her essence in. The scent of her love. The scent of her desire.
“I’m making you mine first chance I get.”
He felt her heartrate quicken with excitement.
“I’d like that very much.”
They stayed there, holding each other. Their bodies joined as their tigress and lion joined, as their souls joined. They were there for what seemed like a long time, but all the same, seemed not long enough.
Tires crunched the pebbles on the dirt road. Mason glanced up. Lézare and Natalya were pulling up.
“Looks like it’s time for us to go,” he murmured in her hair.
“Can you stay at Arceneaux Point after Escape Weekend? For a short time?”
He knew she’d struggle if she had to leave her home for his in Florida.
“Sure. I can. For a short time.”
Forever.
Chapter Twenty-one
Evie and Mason held hands on the walk through brush, cypress, and evergreen trees. They stayed on the path, following Lézare and Natalya.
It was surreal to Evie; like time had stood still and she and Mason had never been apart.
She wasn’t going to question Mason’s decision to put it all aside, as it was her heart’s desire, but she did wonder if losing his friend had given Mason the outlook he had.
Five minutes into the walk, Alexa and Reese joined them.
“We were beginning to wonder if we should send the cavalry out for you,” Alexa said.
All six began the trek toward Leandra’s place.
Evie picked up the pace, getting closer to Lézare. “Why do you hate Leandra so much?” she asked him, figuring this was a better time than in front of Theo and Leandra.
Lézare drew to a halt in the middle of the path, then turned her way. “Leandra’s great-great-grandmother was the one who helped Étienne. Our families have a history. They’re sworn to hatred. Except she didn’t help him quite the way he wanted.”
Evie was confused. “But no one knows exactly why there is such animosity?”
“Do we really need logic when tradition and culture are in place?”
Natalya took his hand, intertwined her fingers with his.
“Don
’t, chère.” It was as if Lézare knew what she going to say.
Natalya raised a brow, a tiny curve on her lip showed Evie exactly what this curvy blonde was to her brother.
Evie realized the calming influence the former spitfire had on her brother. She recognized the inner peace his tiger had—a peace he’d never indicated before.
Yes, Evie could definitely come to love this blonde, white tigress shifter her brother had taken for a mate.
Even the hard-to-win-over Alexa’s eyes twinkled as she watched Lézare react to Natalya. Alexa leaned her head against Reese’s shoulder.
“So basically, there’s no good reason?”
“The answers are in Étienne’s journals,” Lézare said.
“Don’t tell me you, of all people, haven’t read them.” Evie laughed. She knew how much Lézare loved their family’s history. He had to have, even though no one else probably had.
“I have not. I don’t have access to his journals.”
“So how do you know the answer is contained within?” Alexa asked.
“Grandfather told me.” Lézare frowned at the questioning.
Evie wanted to roll her eyes. “I think for Theo’s sake and the sake of your friendship with him, you should consider changing your stance on Leandra.”
“Agreed.” Alexa’s tone was firm. “She’s been a strong ally to all of us. She’s been invaluable to me and especially to Valencia.”
Lézare cocked his head, studying Evie and Alexa, as if appraising them. “When did my baby sisters grow up?” He smiled, then looked down at Natalya. “I may be stubborn…”
“Bullheaded,” Alexa whispered.
“Insufferable,” Evie added, also in a whisper.
Natalya giggled.
Lézare gave them a mock dirty look. “I know when I’m beat. You’re right. For Theo. For Valencia. For you, Alexa. I’ll let bygones be bygones with Leandra Mathieu.”
Alexa nodded. Evie didn’t say a word. She knew as alpha, concessions weren’t always easy for Lézare.
They began the walk toward Leandra’s again, and moments later were walking up a ramp.
Mist surrounded the ramp that connected the slight cabin’s wraparound porch—such as it was, because it wasn’t much of one, and it was in need of repair and paint.
