by Nancy Gideon
“Follow up appointment.”
Relieved, he prompted, “So you came here to wait.”
“And get good and lit before driving her home.”
The Terriot prince didn’t respond to the tartness of Silas’ remark, not directly. “No.” Slowly, he straightened, letting his large form pour back against the couch, head thumping the one-way glass overlooking the bar area. His eyes closed. “It’s not Mia,” he groaned.
“It’s not,” Silas agreed, more charitably, to a degree. “None of this is her fault. Or yours. But she’s depending on you, so quit your damn whining and deal with things.”
A frighteningly lucid stare fixed on him. “She’s not Mia.”
Colin shoved the hand off his shoulder. “Whatever that thing is that’s in my house and in my bed is not my mate! I don’t know what they brought back but it wasn’t . . . It isn’t her.” Voice breaking, his fury fell apart the same dramatic way he was.
Silas quickly composed himself, trying to convince Colin to do the same with a soothing, “Maybe there’s a simple explanation.” When Colin held his stare without blinking, he reasoned, “What’s different about her?”
Colin knuckled bleary eyes. “Not everything. Not even most things. Just the ones I’d notice . . . when we’re alone.”
Was he talking about intimacy? Silas cast a “Help me out here,” glance at Max, but he was studying the glass tabletop, giving Silas no option but to proceed carefully. “She went through a terrible trauma. I’m sure Dr. LaRoche warned you that things might be a little awkward at first. Be patient and I’m sure she’ll respond—”
He flicked a dismissive hand, voice a growl. “I’m not talking about sex.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing eyes shut to concentrate. “It’s hard to describe. Her scent.” His gaze flashed up, high-beam bright. “Her scent is different.”
“The pregnancy—”
“No! It’s not a hormonal thing. It’s a bond thing. There’s something broken, something missing. Like we’re . . . strangers.”
Before Silas could speak again, Max put up a hand and leaned in. “What else is off?”
Startled then grateful for his belief, Colin considered the question for a long moment before murmuring, “Coffee. She’s drinking coffee. She hasn’t been able to since that first month. The taste, even the smell of it makes her sick, even if I’m the one drinking it.”
Max shrugged. “Pregnant women get strange likes and dislikes.”
Colin turned on him with a snarl. “Would pregnancy make her start rolling the toothpaste tube instead of squeezing from the middle? Make her sleep on the left side of the bed, with extra pillows? Straighten and pick up everything then put it in the wrong place.”
“Nesting . . .”
“No! Mia’s a slob, a lovely, maddening, card-carrying mess. It drove me crazy, picking up after her.” His eyes glittered with emotions quickly blinked away. “This—this imposter puts coasters under everything.” Seeing they weren’t convinced, he blurted, “A mated pair knows what one another wants. There’s no connection. We’re strangers. It was never like that with Mia. We were right, just right for each other. Whoever, whatever’s in that apartment, carrying my child, is not my mate!” He slumped, eyes closing again as if he couldn’t stand the sight of his own thoughts. “I wanted them back. But she’s not who came back to me.”
Which explained Max’s reaction back in the apartment.
Controlling his shock, Silas placed a hand on the broad shoulder for a hard, warning squeeze, his tone coolly clinical. “If this isn’t Mia and you can’t get your Mia back, is what you have better than having nothing of her?”
A single tear tracked his cheek. “If it’s just her shell and nothing more, I’d say no. I’d say send whatever that thing is to hell, so I can mourn the mate I lost. But it’s not just Mia.”
“The baby,” Max finished for him with gutting clarity.
“My son. Our son. If she came back different, would that change what he is, too? Is he still my son?” He ground knuckles against his eyelids. Hands dropping limply to his lap, he looked between them and whispered, “I don’t know which is worse, you both thinking I’m crazy or knowing that I’m not.”
“Don’t alarm her,” Max suggested. “At least until we find out what her agenda is.”
“There’s a way,” Silas began, his expression warning that none would like it, “to find out the truth. I’ve seen this before, not exactly like it, but close enough to scare the hell outta me. I’ll make some calls. In the meantime, you need to hold it together. Can you do that?” Colin stared at him unblinkingly until he repeated, more forcefully, “Colin, can you do that?”
“Yes.” He sucked in a stabilizing breath. “I need to know.”
– – –
Cee Cee never said no to company. She’d been a self-proclaimed loner for most of her life, with the exceptions of Mary Kate and her NOPD brothers. Something about this new gathering of friends with their like problems and similar goals relaxed instead of aggravated her. Silas and Nica were almost family, always welcome and at ease. Though Colin and Mia were relatively new in her trusted circle, the Terriot prince she enjoyed for his sharp wit and pretty green eyes. Mia took time to warm up to, but pregnancy and the fierce protectiveness that came with it had bonded them as sisters. It should have been a relaxed and enjoyable evening after her frustrating workday.
What was she missing? Tension hardened Colin’s wry smile. Tonight, the usual physical and emotional closeness between the attractive couple seemed as wide as the Mississippi. Recent trauma perhaps. Both had been to hell and back. Or had they come back at all?
Max gave a start at the pinch of her grip on his arm.
“Got a minute?” she murmured. A sharp tug offered no option except following her from the parlor into the wide hall where she turned on him with a curt, “What the hell, Savoie?”
“’Scuse me?”
“Colin and Mia. You and the MacCreedys are watching them as if they’re about to explode.” Concern thickened her tone. “Are they all right? Something about the accident?”
“Can this wait until—”
“No, it cannot.”
Max sighed, expression betraying a rare indecision. “Nothing for certain. If it was, I’da told you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Colin suspects it wasn’t Mia who came back from the dead.”
That bluntness exploded, a hollow point to the heart. Recovering quickly, she wasted no time speculating. “What’s the plan?”
His slow smile unfurled. “You are purely amazing, Detective.”
Cee Cee batted his words away like a gnat. “Yah, yah, blah, blah. So, if Si and Nica are here, I’m assuming some serious woo woo is about to go down.” She assessed their guests with a cool glance. “If we’re casting out demons, our parlor probably isn’t the best setting.”
“Something in mind, sha?”
She laid out a plan knowing none of them would like it.
Max certainly didn’t. But, expression as harsh and dangerous as what they were about to attempt, he nodded. “All right then. Let’s get this soiree started.”
– – –
Mia Terriot began to sway. Colin caught her as her punch glass tipped then fell from slack fingers. She went boneless in his arms.
“What the hell?” His alarm heightened when none of the others seemed surprised. “What is this?”
“Safe,” Nica assured as she felt for a pulse in one slack wrist. She’d come prepared, with Dr. LaRoche’s blessing. “And to see it stays that way, we need to take this someplace contained for all our safety.” Seeing hesitation and a whole lot of Hell no! building in Colin’s features, she added, “Trust us, or this won’t happen the way it needs to.”
A quick nod. He scooped up Mia’s slack form, and once assured she was breathing softly against his tightly-working throat, he followed their hosts out of the house with the MacCreedys close behind him. He’d expected a
vehicle waiting to take them to Susanna. Instead, Max led the way across the dark, vast backyard toward a small dot of light tucked up against dense woods. Trust struggled against a tidal surge of dread when their destination became clear—a large brick cold storage burrowed back into an overgrown hill, its mouth studded with bars instead of teeth. Inside, illuminated by several powerful lanterns, waited Max’s human bodyguard, Giles St. Clair along with his own clan’s new king. They stood by a single chair bolted to a cement floor with wide, sturdy cuffs attached to its metal arms.
Objection burned harsh and bitter in the back of Colin’s mouth. Everything he’d asked for suddenly became way too much for him to accept. The limp figure cradled to his chest went from dangerous threat to his beloved mate and mother-to-be of their child. If turning her over to whatever they planned required restraints and this diabolical setting, it no longer had his support.
The second he balked, Silas’s hand fit between rigid shoulder blades, convincing him to continue with halting reluctance to the throat of the manmade cave. But he wouldn’t cross the threshold.
“I didn’t agree to . . . this, whatever it is.”
Max answered the menacing rumble with a quiet, “Yes, you did.” He turned, reaching to take Mia from his arms but arrested the movement when green eyes flashed a red-and-gold warning.
Casting an anguished look toward his approaching brother, Colin found empathy but no support. Max stepped aside so Cale could reach for the figure clutched to his chest.
“Let me take her, Col,” Cale coaxed, slipping his palms beneath her. “I’ll be gentle. C’mon. Let me do this for you, for both of you. Okay? Let me take her.”
Cale eased the limp figure from shaking arms, turning to pass her to Max, then quickly braced his palms against the surge of his brother’s chest. Danger threatened with the seismic growl of each breath.
As Max placed Mia in the chair flanked by the MacCreedys, Giles slipped out of the Quonset-like structure to shut and secure the barred door with lock and chains, keeping them in and whatever subtly shifted through the waking Terriot princess from getting out, then took his place next to Cee Cee.
Huge dark eyes opened. Confusion melted to alarm as she looked from face to face until finding her prince.
“Colin? What’s going on?” Her voice trembled. Tears pooled in the dark, pleading gaze. When he didn’t respond, she called out again, clearly terrified. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Cale gripped his brother’s arms, readying to fight him to the ground if necessary. But it wasn’t.
An impenetrable stillness settled over Colin’s features as he regarded the now frantically weeping female. “Mia would never betray weakness in the face of fear. Never.” His cold tone plunged several more degrees. “I don’t know who that bitch is, but she’s not my Mia.” He pushed free of Cale’s hold as he looked to Max, demanding, “Find out.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As Silas knelt in front of the anchored chair, Max stood behind him, smile calm and reassuring as he spoke to the imprisoned female. “This is to protect you and the baby. Don’t be afraid.”
Whatever looked back at him through Mia’s damp eyes changed in a blink. “Do your worst, Shapeshifter. Harm me, harm them.” The low-pitched warning was issued in another voice, one filled with fierce intent.
“Is Mia there with you?”
A thin smile. “You mean is she dead? No. She feels everything you do to me.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m not your friend, even though I’ve enjoyed playing house with that one.” When a sly lick of her lips got no reaction from a now stoic Colin Terriot, she dismissed him to concentrate on her interrogator. “I know who you are and what he and that one,” the dark head jerked toward Nica, “are, so don’t play your games with me.”
Max almost smiled. “I like games. I’m good at them but not as good as my friends here. But let’s you and me play first.”
She feigned dismay. “Right here in front of both our mates? Shame.” A quick display of sharp teeth. “Let’s do it.”
Jade-colored eyes flashed red. “Harm her, you won’t escape. Understand?”
No response.
Max nodded to Nica who anchored the creature’s head between her palms, immobilizing her despite her struggles. When Silas’s hands fit over his mate’s so that fingertips pressed to suddenly sweaty temples, the imposter growled and tried to snap but couldn’t break the two-fold grip. So, she went still, eyes gleaming, breaths coming in rapid hisses.
Max leaned in close, staring in through the raging glare. “Mia, let me see you. Colin needs to see you.”
A silent struggle pulled between them. Finally, a soft whisper. “Colin.”
The Terriot prince wrenched from his brother’s grip to throw himself against the bars. “I’m here, Mia. I’m here to bring you home.” The female in the chair began to pant raggedly.
“Mia, where are you?”
“I don’t know. It’s dark. I can’t see you. I miss your face. Get me the hell out of here.”
At the sound of her familiar tone, Colin slumped against the bars, too overwhelmed with relief to answer. Silas took over the questions. “Mia, it’s Silas. I need you to help me. Where are you? Concentrate.”
They waited in tense anticipation, but her answer was no help. “I can’t tell.”
“That’s okay. Let me help you see. Trust me.”
She began a jerky panting then went still, eyes black and sightless. “Walls. All around me. It’s cold.”
“Have you been there before? Look everywhere.”
“It’s too dark. Wait. Boxes? Crates. Familiar. I smell earth, the river.”
“A grave!” Colin threw himself against the bars, wild with panic. “She’s been buried alive!”
Max put up a hand to silence him, then bent low to address MacCreedy. “Ask her if she’s in a box.”
His question was greeted by another long silence then a confident, “No. I was. Not now. There’s space. A small room. I’ve been here before. I-I can’t remember. My head hurts. Colin, find me. Bring us home.”
“I will. I’ll find you, baby.”
“Colin?” Her voice faded away. “Hurry.”
Dark eyes rolled then slowly focused on Max. “That the best you’ve got, Shapeshifter?” came the mocking voice.
“Mia!” Colin cried, clutching at the bars. “I’m going to kill you, you bitch!”
She laughed at his threat. “You’ll have to go through her. Or should I say them, first.”
Max crossed to the bars to speak low and calm to the Terriot prince. “How do you want to handle this? It’s gonna get dangerous.”
“If we let her go now, she’ll run. I could lose them both.” Anguish twisted Colin’s features then they firmed, becoming hard as well as brutally handsome. “Push her out. Expel her like the demon she is. It’s what Mia would want.”
Impressed by the other’s courage, not knowing if he could have made that same choice, Max nodded to Silas.
MacCreedy turned back to the creature glaring at him in bold defiance through Mia’s dark eyes. She spat and snarled, “Do your worst. I’m stronger than you are, half-breed.”
“Perhaps,” Nica murmured against her ear, “but not against both of us. I know what you are, and when I see your true face, I’ll know who. Then I’ll destroy you before I move on to the rest of your kind. You don’t know me, so you don’t fear what I can do. But you will. Then we’ll have your secrets and theirs. This will not be pleasant.”
“You’ll be harming your friend.” A weakening bravado shaded that warning.
“She’s one of us. She can take it. You won’t be so lucky.”
The figure in the chair snapped taut, arching, eyes rolling back as the pair’s combined psychic energies probed deep. Together, they peeled back the layers of darkness smothering Mia’s vibrant spark. When close, so close, their enemy shrieked, blood streaming from her nose and eyes. Then a wild laugh shocked them into
hesitating.
“Enough! Take the bitch. I’ve learned what I needed. I’ve seen your weakness. We’ll meet again. Then things will end differently.”
Mia’s body went boneless.
With a roar, Colin gripped the bars. Massive shoulders straining, he unleashed the same tremendous burst of primal strength that had ripped his mate from their mangled vehicle. Hinges groaned and twisted. Chain pulled taut until links snapped, opening the way for him to kneel on hard stone before her, big hands covering those small and still.
“Mia, come back to me!”
For a long heartbeat, no response. Then lashes flickered. Eyes opened slowly; dark gaze unfocused then centering on the hopeful stare. The corners of her mouth tipping upward.
“Hey, Dreamboat.”
Colin Terriot’s megawatt smile burst wide.
– – –
Wrapped in a blanket within the warm circle of her mate’s arms on the parlor sofa, Mia recounted what she could remember, which wasn’t much.
She recalled the accident. Her hand clutched Colin’s tight. She’d been aware of his presence, of his worry, of his pain while drifting somewhere outside of consciousness. Then nothing until Silas’s thoughts grazed hers.
“Could you tell where you were being held?”
An apologetic shake of her head at Cee Cee’s question. “Just a sense of the familiar, that I’d been there, that I’d recognize it in the light.” She rested her head against Colin’s broad shoulder, his strength sustaining her. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
MacCreedy pressed her knee. “You gave us a good start. And you were strong enough to survive. A win, I’d say.”
“And I’d say,” Colin interrupted, “it’s time to get you home . . . to the Towers. But maybe back to Dr. LaRoche first. Okay?”
“As long as you’re with me.” She wobbled when Colin helped her to her feet, so he swept her up in his arms. Though content to linger there, a sudden remembrance had her turning to the others. “There is something. I don’t know for how long, but there was a time when she was gone, and I was back inside myself. In that small space. That’s when I got a glimpse of where I was. When she came back, she was somehow, I don’t know, weaker, in pain. I felt her pain.” A hand went to her shoulder.
