One True Mate 4: Shifter's Innocent

by Lisa Ladew

  Cerise and Kaci slid into the booth, and Cerise’s eyes met his. She shook her head slightly, looking completely overwhelmed. Beckett watched her for a moment before he realized what was wrong. “I’ll surprise you.”

  He came back five minutes later, holding three bags and two drink carriers filled with soda, milk, coffee, and orange juices balanced directly in the middle. He’d ordered three of everything on the breakfast menu, plus one of all the drinks.

  He ripped open the bags and spread them across the table, the greasy scent of fried hash browns making him lick his lips. He took out two Big Breakfast platters and placed one in front of Cerise and one in front of Kaci. Kaci looked from him to the Styrofoam cover on the platter, then back to him again, her eyes wide. He nodded and gave her an encouraging smile, ripping the lid off and pulling her fork out of its plastic sleeve to hand it to her.

  “There’s so much food,” Cerise said in an awed voice.

  “’Merica,” Beckett grunted, then shoved an entire hash brown in his mouth and washed it down with some soda. “Go easy if you’re not used to it. It’s pretty greasy.” He tipped another wink at Kaci. “Just the way McDonalds should be.”

  Kaci only stared, then darted her hand forward to take her fork, then cut into a pancake and delicately placed it in her mouth. Her eyes opened wide in pleasure and she chewed quickly, made another mouthful disappear, then stabbed her fork into the eggs.

  Beckett nodded at her and pushed a drink toward her. “Try the soda, li’l bit,” he said, watching her closely. As she took a sip, her eyes crossed, then sank closed as the bolus of sugar hit her tongue. A whimper of bliss escaped her throat. He’d bet a year’s salary she’d never tasted soda before. She could use a little fattening up, but he’d be sure to talk to her about the dangers of too much, eventually. He frowned at the thought, wondering when he’d turned into a lecturing old man.

  Cerise started on her meal, more hesitantly than Kaci had, but soon she also discovered the relative joy of fast food.

  Beckett grinned at both of them, pushing food toward them, encouraging them to try at least a bite of everything on the table. “It ain’t worth a plugged nickel when it comes to nutrition, but it sure tastes good.”

  Chapter 18

  Grey hunkered, completely still, in Beckett’s bedroom, Beckett’s stink coming at him from all directions. His eyes were trained out the window, watching for Beckett’s easily-distinguishable truck, his mind focused 100% on the task at hand, finishing what he’d started so many years ago. When the first rays of the morning sun filtered over the eastern horizon, he finally gave up. Beckett wasn’t coming home.

  Grey relaxed, dropping to his ass on the bedroom floor and leaning against the wall, then pulling out his phone, but before he turned it on, he lolled his head, thinking hard, replaying the prophecy that had ultimately led him to be there, hunting Beckett.

  The booted wolf, a tempest in the storm, saves the Savior in the final hour. The Demon cries.

  When he’d first heard that prophecy, Trevor Burbank had already been identified as the most probable Savior, from the Savior Prophecy, and Grey couldn’t touch him without revealing his plans, his treachery as most would see it. He’d made some attempts on Trevor’s life in a roundabout fashion, binding him, trying to convince him to kill himself, but it hadn’t worked. So when he’d heard of the booted-wolf prophecy, he’d latched onto it, determined to discover who the booted wolf was. If he could get rid of the booted wolf, killing Burbank would not be necessary. If the booted wolf wasn’t around to save the savior, Burbank would die somehow, probably at the hands of Khain, in the final hour, which Grey interpreted to mean the last battle, the one that determined if Khain lived, or Rhen lived.

  Grey’s purpose was simple. Make sure they both lived. Forestall the final hour, forever. If he had to dismantle the KSRT, indeed, the entire shiften populace to do it, he would.

  It had been simple to decide which booted wolf, of the only five or so he knew existed, was the one the prophecy referred to. Beckett Oswego’s renqua was a circle with three wavy lives projecting out from it in a circle, rather like an abstract rendition of a hurricane as seen from above, a tempest in the storm.

  Unfortunately, wolven were single-minded, and he’d found none he dared try to bend to his ideals, so he worked mostly alone, or with humans, or with a few select half-breeds. Which meant his plans had to be sneaky, roundabout, under the radar.

  He’d manage it somehow. Take out the one true mates. Take out the savior. Take out the booted wolf. All he needed was to break one cog in the wheel, throw something important off, and history would sway in the direction he required. He knew it.

  When he’d gotten into Serenity the night before, Cerise Pekin had just been delivered to the jail, and Kaci Pekin was already settled into the interim home. Which was almost perfect. Before he went out to search for Beckett, though, he needed to make sure they were both still there. He called his contact, not waiting for the male to finish saying hello before he barked out his demands. “Report.”

  “Ah, Chief, you’re not going to like this.”

  Grey shook his head. He knew exactly what he was about to hear, and the dolt was right, he didn’t like it one bit. “Tell me.”

  “Cerise Pekin got into a fight and was transferred to the hospital late last night. Apparently she walked out of there, escaped somehow, and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “And Kaci Pekin?”

  “Also gone in the middle of the night. Slipped out of her bed and crawled out the window.”

  Grey clenched his fingers into his palms, but his voice never belied his anger. “I want to be told immediately if they are found.”

  “Yes, Chief.” The male sounded eager, and surprised to be let off without an ass-chewing. Grey would deal with him later.

  He hung up, trying to decide his next move, then realized he had to know if Cerise and Kaci were with Beckett or not. He called the number to the KSRT office. It rang and rang. Twelve rings. Twenty. Just when Grey was about to give up, a harried voice answered. “What?”

  Grey didn’t recognize it. He kept his voice neutral, and tried to smooth its normal rasp enough that he wasn’t immediately identifiable. “I need to speak to Beckett Oswego. It’s an emergency. Is he there?”

  “Ain’t no one here,” the voice growled. “We got our own emergencies to deal with.”

  Gently, almost delicately, Grey removed the phone from his ear and pressed the end call button. A dead end.

  He stood and paced. If the KSRT had figured out Cerise was a one true mate, she wouldn’t have had to escape, she’d have been freed by Wade or one of the other Hardy Boys.

  So that meant they were both on the run, the only question was if they had connected with Beckett first, which Grey knew could have happened, somehow, being led by a divine hand. He knew exactly where the girls were headed, so that was no problem. He could meet them there, but if Oswego was with them, Grey would need help. He could handle Oswego on his own, but one thing he’d realized from his many conversations with Azer before the angel had disappeared, was not only would the males be drawn to their mates to such a degree that they’d be twice as dangerous if their mate was in danger, but the one true mates’ powers would also be strengthened and more focused when they were together with their mate, making them dangerous in a way Grey couldn’t possibly predict.

  He needed help. He raised his phone again and paged through his contacts until he found the name he was looking for: Bane. He called the number.

  “Yeah, what?” The voice was high, open, excited. Not Bane. “Zane, it’s Grey, get me your brother.”

  “You got something for us, boss? We got a job? I was just telling Bane we hadn’t heard from you in a-”

  Grey cut him off. “Just get me Bane, now!”

  Nothing. Grey could imagine Zane’s hurt look as he held the phone away from his ear and went to find Bane. But trying to talk to Zane was an exercise in futility. He might as well be exp
laining his plans to an inanimate object for all Zane would underst—

  Grey’s thoughts cut off mercilessly as he realized something important. Inanimate objects sometimes spoke volumes.

  Bane came on the line, speaking with his usual plodding deliberateness, wasting not one more syllable than was necessary. “’Lo?”

  “I got a job for you. Get ready for a road trip,” Grey said, his mind already at his Lambo. “I gotta call you back to give you the details.”

  He hung up without waiting for an answer, stood, then took a tube of his own creation out of his pocket, and sprayed the concoction on his face and body, plus some in the air for good measure, then more over all the spots he’d touched and sat on. If Beckett did come in anytime soon, he would be able to tell someone had been in the house, but he wouldn’t be able to identify who. He’d think it was a foxen, as this particular mixture had foxen scent mixed with masking agents, like wintergreen, camphor, and eucalyptus. He worked quickly, his mind humming with excitement.

  Once out of the house, he covered the ground to his Lamborghini quickly. It was parked a half mile away, off the road a bit, between a farmer’s stack of hay bales on one side and a hill on the other. When he reached it, he stopped for a minute, frowning. That wasn’t his sleek, black, Lamborghini 350 GT. He put a hand to his forehead, then patted his goatee, remembering. The Lambo was in storage. He couldn’t drive that thing with every cop in the country looking for him. Which, if they weren’t now, they would be soon. He’d taken this silver mini-mom-van from a supermarket parking lot, swapped the plates with another silver mom-van just that morning, like he always did when he needed something to drive.

  His mind for details was going, as it probably had to, in order to make room for his genius. He was the only wolven in existence who had the foresight to realize what a huge mistake the rest of them were making. Genius.

  He slid open the side door and fished under the fabric covering of the child safety seat that was installed in the back seat, complete with crumbs and remnants of baby puke. He pulled out what he’d hidden there, slowly, testing it with his fingers. The wrapped pendant that belonged to Cerise Pekin.

  Carefully, he unwrapped it. It wasn’t glowing, which was good. It gave him the courage to attempt the crazy idea he’d thought of while on the phone. Quickly, before he talked himself out of it, he stripped off his glove and wrapped his bare fingers around it.

  “Mudge, Mudger, Mound, Hound, Hive, Hell,” he muttered, his brain feeling cracked open and examined. His thoughts pushed around in his head, motivated by the energy coursing through him from the pendant, energy that did not belong to him, that he had no right to try to harness. He focused anyway, trying to ask his question.

  “Mudge Mudge she?” he said, his fingers swelling and cracking open in tiny spider webs, plasma leaking out.

  He pressed his eyes shut and tried again. “Mudge-mudge. No, where. Where is she?”

  The pendant seemed to pulse in his hand. Cheat! it screamed at him. Traitor! it crooned, turning deadly. But it knew where she was, he could tell. If he could just hold on…

  Images shuddered past his closed eyes. I-80. Thunderclouds. The people of Iowa welcome you. Nebraska, the good life. Snow. A green pickup truck. Red hair. Oswego. Grand Island. Hilton.

  Grey forced his fingers open, letting the pendant fall to the ground, as his body did, too.

  ***

  Grey woke slowly, trying to open his eyes, but unable to. They felt strangely swollen, like he’d been stung by a dozen bees on his face. He pressed his fingers to his overripe skin and pulled his eyes manually open, cracking the seal of yuck that had sewn them shut. He forced himself into a sitting position, shivering violently. The day was overcast, socked in almost, so he couldn’t tell what time it was, but common sense told him he’d been there for hours, unconscious in the snow.

  The pendant!

  He searched for it, his fingers finally grazing it in three inches of powder. He pulled his hand back and stuck his fingers in his mouth, realizing his lips were swollen, too, his entire face, maybe. He found the cloth he had wrapped the pendant in and picked it up with that, desperate not to touch its cool surface again. It had hurt him.

  But he knew what route to take. If he and his team got lucky, maybe they could catch up to them before California, ensure no one else got involved.

  He placed the wrapped pendant back in the folds of the child safety seat, then closed the door and opened the driver’s door, about to slide behind the wheel, but something stopped him. A scent on the wind.

  He lifted his swollen face and flared his nostrils. Was it what he thought it had been? He strode to the front of the minivan, then climbed on the hood, then up the windshield as high as he dared, trying to gain high ground, pressing his face to the sky again, and flaring his nostrils.

  Yes. Myles Pekin lived nearby. Less than two miles away. Or had, when he’d been alive, betrayed by his sour scent, which was a fixture on the wind.

  Grey grinned and hopped to the ground. Coincidence always meant that The Light or Rhen or Khain or an angel was at work, molding the futures of the humans and the shiften, shaping their paths, lighting their way. What greater coincidence could there possibly be than Myles and Sandra Pekin fleeing Grey in New Mexico and settling in Serenity, less than two miles from Cerise Pekin’s fated mate.

  Although a lesser wolf might have argued this particular coincidence worked against Grey’s plans and not for them, Grey knew different. Someone was helping him. Someone wanted him to succeed.

  Rhen? Possibly. He stood stock-still and drew lines in the murky sand of his mind until he convinced himself of more than that. Possibly turned to almost definitely. Almost definitely morphed into certainly. He was untouchable.

  He got in his mom-van and backed out, turning right on the road, seeking the highway.

  Nebraska or bust.

  Chapter 19

  Cerise surveyed the miles slipping past them with heavy-lidded eyes, feigning drowsiness so Beckett wouldn’t talk to her or ask her questions. Kaci didn’t have to pretend, she was asleep, her head on Cerise’s shoulder. Cerise shifted to get more comfortable and pulled Kaci’s head into her lap, as much as their seatbelts would allow, then allowed her body to relax again, trying to seem on the verge of resting, feeling guilty even as she did so. Beckett hadn’t slept at all, and he was starting to look tired.

  He swayed in his seat slightly, tapping his fingers and thumbs to the music on the radio, possibly trying to keep himself awake. The singer’s voice on the radio was deep and throaty, vibrating country in a way that fascinated Cerise. She and Kaci never had music to listen to, never had radio of any sort, only able to listen to movie credit intros, or the occasional snatch of song in one of the shows they snuck at night. Only now did she realize what they’d been missing.

  She picked apart the lyrics, loving them, loving everything about the song, loving especially when Beckett sang along, softly, so as not to wake Kaci. She watched his profile as he sang, finding it even more interesting than the highway and the other cars. His strong jaw, full lips, the stubble growing on his chin. Her eyes traced his tattoos that wound down both muscular arms and she bit her lip to keep from asking him about them. She never would have thought tattoos would look good, be sexy, but his were. She wanted to trace each one of them with her forefinger, find the starting and ending places, feel the texture and temperature of his skin under them.

  Cerise tore her eyes away from him, back onto the road, onto Kaci’s hair, anything to stop her thoughts in their tracks. She was ruining his life, using him for her own ends against his conscious will, she had no right to think those kinds of thoughts about him. But she couldn’t keep her eyes away; they returned to him, almost lovingly.

  He sang along with the music.

  I met a girl

  She made me smile, she made me wait

  She crossed the street, she crossed my heart

  She fixed her dress, she bit her lip, she lit m
e up

  I met a girl with crazy shoes and baby blues

  The way she moves is changing my whole world

  I met a girl

  He glanced in Cerise’s direction and she let her eyes drop shut, her heart rate speeding up. If only he wasn’t so nice, so kind, she might have found it easier to stop looking at him, but he was. Kaci had insisted on drinking all of the soda that was left, then asked to stop four times in their first hour and a half of driving. Cerise had gotten frustrated with her, but Beckett had only grinned and said, “Li’l bit has a li’l bladder. It’s not her fault,” then found the closest bathroom each time.

  She hadn’t explained anything about why she’d been handcuffed to the bed the night before, why she’d had to break Kaci out of the interim home, or how they’d ended up with no money and no shoes, trying to make their way across the country, and he hadn’t asked. She didn’t think it was because she had pushed him either. She could sense his genuine curiosity, but also his marked restraint. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

  Cerise chanced a slit in her eyelids. He was facing forward again. She shifted her head position so she could gaze out the window. She’d never had anyone care about her comfort before, except Kaci. It felt good to have this big, strong man taking care of them both. She felt safe with him. Dangerous, her mind tried to whisper. She didn’t fight it, but she didn’t encourage it, either. She would just have to wait and see if Beckett was for real or not.

  A green sign ahead caught her attention and she sat up, frowning at it, trying to read it in her plodding manner before it disappeared.

  “Welcome to Nebraska?” she said, the incredulity in her voice making Kaci shift and mutter. “We’re in Nebraska already?” It was one thing to calculate how long it would take to cross a state while staring at the sterile page on a map, another to experience it in real time. The last time she had been in a car for more than a few minutes, had been years ago, after she’d tried to steal Kaci away from Myles and Sandra the second time, and they’d gotten her out of the police holding cell, then driven for two days to their new home in Illinois. Cerise and Kaci had been in the back of the truck, forced to lie down the entire time under blankets, threatened with a beating if anyone saw their heads pop up.