by Nancy Gideon
What had Cee Cee said, echoing her own feelings? Join the club?
“I don’t know his reasons, Turow, but he believes they’re sound. I believe they’re going to get him killed. Please don’t let that happen.”
“I won’t, my queen.”
They both turned at the sound of the king in question on the stairs. He’d quickly showered and changed into a sleek grey pullover and black cargo pants he’d tucked into loosely laced boots, making a strong, lean silhouette with jaw gripped and hands fisted. The rest he hid behind the sunglasses.
For a moment, Kendra feared he’d brush right past her without acknowledgement. But he paused beside her at a cautious distance to utter one word that spoke sonnets.
“Stay.”
And he walked away in that quick impatient stride, eager to meet danger head on. Turow gave her a slight nod and fell in at his heels.
Her heart and hopes followed.
Oscar came downstairs disappointed that last minute homework prevented him from seeing Cale and meeting another uncle. Max softened that regret by saying he’d ride into the city with him and Giles. After Ozzy gave his mother a quick hug and endured her kiss, he hustled after Giles while Max took an extra moment to embrace his warrior bride.
“And so it begins again,” he murmured.
“Would you have it any other way?” she chided with a smile.
“I won’t be long.”
“Yes, you will. Play nice, big fella.”
A toothy grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
Then it was just the four females and the big empty house.
“You know what I’m thinking,” Brigit began.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
She grinned at Cee Cee’s caution. “Time for some serious girl talk.”
*
Savoie’s stylish office was in a renovated building by the water front. His assistant, Marissa, brought coffee and set up an impromptu continental breakfast bar while Silas and Nica filled him in on the situation with Warren Brady and Casper Lee, and in New Orleans as a whole. He wasn’t pleased by what had transpired in his city during his brief absence.
“I picked a helluva time to get married,” the Shifter leader commented after the colorful tale concluded. “But I don’t regret it.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair, fingers tented. “So you don’t know who this woman is that your cousin has stashed on my grounds,” he asked Silas.
“If Turow had her, I’m guessing it’s Sylvia Terriot.”
“Any clue as to what she might have to do with the Guedrys, who also seem to have free run of our streets?”
A guilty shrug. “Cale’s been rogue for the past few days. I have no idea what’s going on with him.”
“He’s in trouble, Max,” Nica interjected quietly. “He won’t come to us for help. Maybe he’d talk to you or at least listen.”
Before Max could reply, the door opened to usher in the Terriot contingent of Cale, Turow and Colin. As soon as Cale made the introductions between Max and Colin, his brother targeted the breakfast buffet to load up on carbs and caffeine while Turow assumed a watchful stance behind Cale’s chair.
“What the hell are you up to, Cale?” Silas began less than diplomatically.
He regarded MacCreedy through his dark lenses and began a drawling recitation. “Lemme see. Found out my co-worker was gathering information for Rueben, and that the hottie both my brothers are screwing knows who I am and is playing Rueben off Casper Lee.”
Colin choked on his Danish.
“Rueben and I had a nice little chat. He doesn’t trust any of us but trusts those up North even less. He’d tell us to go get fucked except he’s got a personal interest at stake.” He nodded to Silas to subtly point out the tie to his sister. “He’s worried that someone in his clan’s muscling in on him and that somebody is the go between for James and our pals in the North.
“Found out from Lee, when he invited me for a sleep over, that Martine had a cure for the Kick addiction, so Philo Tibideaux and I met up with Row at her place in the Garden District. After she offed herself rather than share her secrets, I took her daughter prisoner and burned down the place over her bitch ass.” He paused, waiting for a stunned Silas to comment but when he just blinked in disbelief, Cale asked mildly, “So what have you been doing?”
“Ho-ly Shit!” Silas gaped at him. “You burned everything? How could you be so monumentally stupid?”
Both Colin and Turow immediately bristled at the insult to their king, but Max waved them back cautioning Silas, “Let him finish.”
“After I took her daughter, her belongings, and samples of all her crops. Tibideaux has everything except the lovely Sylvia stored in a locked warehouse on the docks. I thought we’d ask Susanna LaRoche to take a look at what we collected after she takes a sample of my blood for comparison. She’s a smart female. If anyone can put it together, she can.”
Silas just stared at him for a long moment then said, “You figured this out all on your own?”
“And I wasn’t even wearing my good clothes.” He leaned back in his chair looking smug and satisfied.
“Well done,” Max pronounced to all of them. Then to Cale, more personally, “Now, what can we do for you?”
“What?”
“How can we help put you back together?”
Max had been watching him carefully, noting the unsteadiness of his hands, the perspiration rimming his brow, the fact that he didn’t take off his dark glasses even though the room was comfortably dim. His color was bad, his features skeletal, his respirations coming in quick little snatches. Silas was right. He was a raw nerve on the edge of implosion.
“I’m fine. I’m okay.”
Max smiled. “You’d say that if we were pulling out your fingernails.”
Cale catapulted out of his chair. “I said I’m fine! Could I have wrapped all this up in a pretty ribbon if I wasn’t fine? Instead of interrogating me, we should be pulling out Sylvia’s fingernails. I’m sure there’s something she’s forgotten to tell us.” He began to pace, steps fast, path growing erratic as his thoughts flew ahead.
“I need to hook back up with Lee, work him if he doesn’t know who I am yet. With the supply here gone, he’ll be anxious to reach out to James, probably through Maisy J’s, that place over in Algiers Babineau, Colin, and I went to.” His thoughts and speech rapid cycled, coming faster and faster until Silas put himself into his path to catch hold of his arms.
“Cale, sit down.”
Cale pushed his hands off as if they represented a threat. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you try to handle me.” He grabbed for a breath, gasping when it escaped him. He took a sudden faltering step to the right. His brothers were instantly there on either side to back him or protect him, fierce, immobile sentinels. He clutched at them, struggling for balance as his rant continued with an escalating rage toward his perceived nemesis.
“It galls you, doesn’t it? Galls you to no end that I might actually be one up on you. You brought us here to run interference for you so we’d take all the hits while you just slip in behind our body count smelling fresh as a daisy to claim the credit. We are not your trained animals, to jump when you snap your fingers, to lie down at your command, to beg for your approval. We are the House of Terriot. We are fucking warriors, not children! Not a one of us needs you to tell us what to do. You think the Guedrys are the only thing you have to worry about? Maybe you’d better think again. Maybe you’d best start worrying about us.”
Silas tried to close the distance between them, to get him to see reason, but Colin and Turow closed ranks, warning him back with their menacing scowls.
“Dammit,” Silas shouted at them, “can’t you see he’s lost it, that he’s out of control?”
With a war cry, Cale hurtled between his brothers, ripping the knife from his boot, swinging a vicious arc that would have taken out MacCreedy’s throat if Colin hadn’t whipped a solid arm about his chest like a steel band about a barrel to yank him off his feet.
As he turned Cale away, Turow placed himself between them and the rest of the room, hands up to warn them back.
Screaming furiously, Cale fought his own demons as much as the restraining hold, kicking, thrashing, but getting nowhere as Colin told him calmly, “It’s all right. I gotcha, brother. We’ve got your back. You want us to come on down off our mountain and slaughter every one of them, you just say the word, and it’s done. Is that what you want? You want their blood on our hands? Say the word, my king. It’s what our father would have done.”
The struggles stopped. For a moment, Cale’s ragged breathing was the only sound.
“Okay now?”
“I’m not okay.”
“I know,” Colin responded to that hoarse whisper. “Are you done? I’m not going to have to hit you, am I?”
“No.”
“Good. You’ve got a hard head. I almost broke my hand the last time.”
With a gusty laugh, Cale rested his head back against Colin’s broad shoulder. His sunglasses had been knocked off so he squeezed his eyes shut. He continued to breathe slow and steady, finally asking, “Can you handle things for me?”
“Piece of cake.”
“I need Row to take me someplace.”
“You got it.” He turned to tap Turow’s shoulder, saying quietly, “Take him.” Softer still, “Stay with him.”
After passing Cale to his brother, Colin bent to pick up the dark glasses. Restoring them, he told Cale, “You’ll be okay. I got this for you.”
A faint non-committal smile was his answer.
When he and Turow started out of the room, Silas moved to intercept him, saying worriedly, “Where are you taking him?”
Colin moved between them. “That’s not your business. Your business is here, with me. Let’s get to it.”
*
Susanna LaRoche moved the end of the stethoscope to another spot. “Big inhale. Out. Again. Good.” She traded tools, flicked off the lights, ordering, “Look straight ahead.”
The small beam seemed to pierce his eyeball and punch through the back of his head. It was all Cale could do to sit still until blissful darkness returned. “Am I gonna live?” The cocky question disguised how terrified he was of the answer.
“Long enough to pay my bill.”
Cale let out his breath. “I’m gonna be okay then?”
“Your heart rate is all over the place, your pressure is through the roof. Whatever you’ve been putting into your body, it doesn’t like it and won’t take much more of it.”
“Am I dying?”
“You’re making it much sooner rather than later.” She prepared an injection and administered it. “This will help you sleep.” She sighed. “Normally, I’d suggest you take your family and go home. Someplace you can safely recover and clean out your system. That’s what I’d suggest if you’d listen.”
Cale smiled grimly. “I’m a stubborn sonuvabitch when I’ve got a job to do. Can you use my blood to find a cure?”
“If I’m very, very lucky. How can I put this?”
“Give it to me straight, doc. I can take it.”
“No. That’s the problem. You can’t. Put that combination of herbs and chemicals in your body again, you will die. I can’t even guarantee you’ll survive the withdrawal. The pain, the stress on your body and mind, I couldn’t imagine worse torture. This is some ugly, deadly stuff, Cale.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I have to stop this shit from destroying my people. Good, decent, hardworking, family-loving people are going to die from this. Or worse. And if I have to go through this hell to save them, I don’t see a choice. I don’t have a choice. They’re my clan. My family. My obligation.”
“It’s not your fault, Cale.”
“But it is! Don’t you see, it is, because I could have ended it in Tahoe. I could have ordered James and those witches killed on the spot. My father would have. I thought I had it under control. And I was wrong.” He took a choking breath and continued with an awful finality.
“I’ve stood by and allowed an entire bloodline of people I loved to die because I lacked the courage to do something to stop it. That won’t happen again. It stops with me this time. No matter what I have to do. It stops with me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Five very different females gathered in the MacCreedy’s condo, drawn by friendship and necessity to bond with others who’d understand their unique situations. A queen, an assassin, the fashionable mother-to-be of a ruler, the housewife with a secret she hadn’t known, and a cop wed to a mobster who might be the Prophesied One, sharing their tumultuous relationships with men of strength and occasional cluelessness.
Feeling very much the outsider, Kendra feared she shouldn’t have come the minute Brigit started pouring a discreetly doctored punch and boldly asked, “So, how are your sex lives?” When met with four wide-eyed stares, she laughed. “Oh, come on! Enough bitching and moaning about being the stable influence on our frustrating other halves. Let’s dish some hot stuff while we’re still able to do something about it when they get home.”
“You want to know how your brother is in bed?” Nica arched an incredulous brow.
Brigit grinned. “I bet he folds your clothes as he takes them off you.”
Kendra could help herself. “And does the laundry afterward.
“Probably strips the sheets while you’re still in them.” Brigit and Kendra laughed together over that.
Nica simply smiled. “He would.” A dramatic pause. “If he had the energy.” She drew her celery stick through a flavorful black bean dip. “I’ll have you know, it took a herculean effort on his part to get up this morning, make this very tasty dip, and run a load before I let him go to work.”
“Ah, a man in the kitchen,” Cee Cee sighed. After a long first day back on the job, she’d eased out of her killer heels and had her feet tucked under her on the sofa, but her cell phone sat on her lap, a tether to her NOPD obligations.
“Like you’ve ever been in a kitchen before,” Nica scoffed.
The detective leaned back into the couch cushions to muse, “We bonded over the breakfast bar in my apartment.” She smiled in smug challenge. “I was his first.”
“First what?” Tina asked, shocked, but intrigued.
“Everything. Jimmy Legere kept him on a very tight leash.”
“Until he slipped it, the sly dog,” Brigit chuckled.
With a satisfied smile, Nica ran bare toes through the nap of the carpet. “Right here on this rug in honor of our first time together under the skylight.”
Brigit’s feet jerked up. “Eww. I hope he did more than vacuum afterwards.”
“In the bathroom,” Kendra offered somewhat shyly then at the astonished looks, elaborated with more confidence. “In the main Terriot lodge with all his brothers and his father in the other room. And Silas outside the door. We paraded the mark up to Bram. Then Cale claimed the crown and me as his queen.”
Silence. Nica settled the matter. “You win.”
“And you’ve managed to hold onto him despite all the rumors about Terriot princes.” Brigit let that dangle.
Tina leaned curiously toward her step-sister. “What rumors?”
“Go ahead.” Kendra made a helpless gesture with her hands then quickly stole her thunder. “It’s not like it’s a secret that they’ll hit and quit anything that moves. And yes, my prince was as big a horn dog as the rest of them, a fact the Terriot females were very gracious to share with me. I believe Sizzle, Boom, Done was their fond nickname for him.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Tina gasped.
Kendra put her hand to the diamond he’d given her when they were children, that sacred symbol passed from king to prince that he’d shared with her claiming she held an equal loyalty with his crown in his heart. “He’s my prince, my king. I’m the one he fought for all his life to make his queen. I don’t worry about what he did before me because they’ll be no one after.”
“Because he knows I�
�d rip out his heart, among other things, if he ever hurt you,” Brigit vowed.
Kendra smiled, her mood growing introspective as she murmured, “I’m sure his fear of you is what keeps him in line.”
“As well it should.”
“What’s it like?” Nica asked her flamboyant sister-in-law. “Being with a human?”
“I prefer it. None of that biting and clawing nonsense. I was never a fan. He calls me Goddess.”
“As well he should,” Cee Cee echoed, chuckling at her friend’s hard fall over the sassy redhead.
“No one could be as shocked as I was to find an Upright so completely and utterly satisfying in every way I could ever imagine. Isn’t that true with your cutie detective, Tina?”
“I have nothing to compare him to.” Tina took a deep breath and sadly confessed, “Alain was everything I dreamed of as a husband and father.”
With an interrogator’s insight, Cee Cee caught the soft snag in her voice. “Was?”
“He’ll come around,” Kendra assured her. “He’s an honorable man.” Her thoughts took a guilty turn. If Cale left them alone to sort out their differences.
Brigit’s brows soared. “Your vacay lingerie didn’t work?”
Tina sighed and shrugged. “He’s a man, and we were in paradise. Of course it worked. Things were very . . . amorous. But not so much that he’d forget a condom, or me the fact that he doesn’t want me to bear his child.” As tears brightened in her eyes, Kendra slid close to put an arm about her. “He feels cheated out of a family because he didn’t know what he was getting when he married me and became Oscar’s father.”
“He’s an ass.” Cee Cee’s conclusion came from equal parts indignation and guilt, because she’d been the one to out Tina’s heritage during a heated argument with her partner over her relationship with Max. She’d been trying to patch that rift ever since. “What he got was a wonderful wife and an exceptional boy.” A truth that had taken her a long time to embrace.
“Whom he thinks of as monsters,” Tina whispered.
“He’ll come around,” Cee Cee promised. “Even the biggest fools do eventually. I should know. Give him time, Tina.”
