Caged Heat (Black Meadow Pack)

by Milly Taiden

  Love,

  Susana

  What her mother suffered would’ve been normal among shifters. The loss of a mate could mean the end to a shifter. Symptoms ranged anywhere from depression, anxiety, loss of enjoyment in life, weight loss, and some even went as far as suicide. It was all the things Susana had mentioned in her letter. Mate Loss Disease was one of the hardest things to experience and get through.

  Riel glanced up at Sam, and his heart broke for her. He pulled her shaking body into his arms and held her while she sobbed openly. Every time her breath hitched it was as if a knife was shoved into his heart. He wanted to make things better for her but didn’t know how. The towel in her hair fell to the side, leaving her long dark curls hanging damp. He used the towel to wipe her face and did the only thing he could think to show her she wasn’t alone: he kissed her. A soft flutter of his lips over hers. He held her face and caressed her soft cheeks with his thumbs.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve turned into an emotional rollercoaster.” The sorrow in her voice made him even more determined to stand by her side.

  “It’s OK, sweetheart.” She grabbed another letter from the pile. They read it together.

  Dear mom,

  I’m scared. I’m not sure what’s going on, but the drugs they’re giving me are making me really sick. I feel as if something isn’t right with the baby. She’s slowed down her movements, and I asked the doctor if he could stop the medication, but he refused. Please, mom, take me out of here. Sam will be born any day, and I don’t think this medicine is helping me as much as it’s hurting her. I can’t live with the thought that I caused her any pain because of my weakness. Get me out of this place, mom. I want my baby with you.

  I know my time is short. They don’t think I know, but my kidneys aren’t well. It’s a side effect of this medicine. I’m sure you thought not telling me would make things easier on me, but now all I can think of is my Samira.

  If you ever loved me, do this for me. Let me have my baby out of here.

  Your daughter,

  Susana

  “I can’t believe Ginny would let her own daughter sit in a hospital getting pumped with a medication that made her sicker.”

  Sam shook her head, lifting a newer letter. It was addressed to her. Once again, they both read it together.

  Dear Sam,

  I’m sick and will probably die before you come home. How sad that I was too much of a coward to tell this to you in person, but I loved you so much, as much as I loved my Susana. When your father was killed, Susana was so grief-stricken she had a hard time coping and moving on. If I hadn’t known for sure my husband was fully human, I would have believed she was a shifter in loss of her mate. Your Aunt Margarita never cared for Susana or her mate Korr. I’m not sure if it was because she’d tried to gain his attention but never succeeded or if it was just plain jealousy. Whatever, all I know is that I made a mistake. I listened to Maggie. She mentioned a doctor who was using new drugs to help people with severe mental illness.

  Until that point, I didn’t think Susana was that sick. But then she started having hallucinations. You were already in her belly, so I needed to look out for you. It wasn’t until you were almost born that I found out the drugs Susana was given were a powerful combination of dangerous compounds no one had ever mixed. I brought Susana home, but she passed away shortly after you were born. It was after she was home that I found out she never had hallucinations until she started getting treated by that doctor. It made me feel even guiltier for putting my own daughter in the devil’s hands. I promised her I’d look after you. My guilt and shame has been mine to bear. All I can ask is for you to forgive me for not ensuring your mother’s health when I had the chance.

  It’s my hope that asking Riel, your mate, to give you the time to spread your wings as you wish will at least give you the space to learn to handle being a shifter’s mate. Yes, he is your mate, Sam. He told me the moment he saw you the first time and I didn’t have it in me to let you go so soon. Your mother loved Korr, and I know you and Riel belong together. You may not shift, but the link is there. There’s a bond between you that no one can take away. Even I can see it. You can trust him. He’ll love and care for you when I’m gone.

  Love,

  Ginny

  Riel glanced at Sam. She was still staring blankly at the letter. He knew she was suffering, and his wolf pushed him to do something to make her feel better. But what? He couldn’t change the past.

  His gut clenched. The grief and loneliness in her eyes was enough to make a knot form in his throat. She put all the letters and photos back in the trunk in complete quiet. Then she lifted the trunk and put it on the floor. She removed her robe, sliding out of the silky material in drawn-out moves. He gulped. She crawled over to him, completely naked.

  His cock hardened instantly, and he felt like a sick bastard. “Sam?”

  Here she was going through this sad discovery of her past, and he was ready to lay her on the bed and worship every inch of her luscious body.

  She sat on the back of her feet and placed a finger over his lips. “Shhh.” Her soft sad smile was his undoing. “Make love to me, Ry. I don’t want to feel alone anymore.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “You’ll never be alone again, sweetheart. I’m always going to be by your side.”

  “I know. But I have a lot to think about, and I can’t do it with the heat I feel inside urging me at every moment to have you filling my body. You have to help me. I don’t want to leave this room until my body no longer screams for you to take me every second of the day, OK?” She moved the finger over his mouth and trailed it over his lips. “I need you to make this burning stop.”

  What the fuck could he say to that? If his mate wanted him to make love to her then he would. “Sam—”

  “I’m all yours, Ry.”

  And that’s exactly what he did for the following four days. He ignored all but the most important calls and explained to others his need to be home with her. Once the word heat came up, everyone understood and backed off. Food, sex, and bonding with his mate were all that mattered to him. When they finally emerged from his home, he couldn’t stop the satisfied grin covering his face. Their mate bond had strengthened into a tangible link that he’d never felt for anyone else.

  He took in Sam’s sexy body as she floated on the pool, naked. He was glad he’d built a high fence over the front yard. The only way to see into his backyard had been through Sam’s backyard, but now that the house had burned he’d had the side leading to his closed off. Privacy was important to him.

  The ringing of his phone made him glance down at the name on the screen. Kane. He sat up on the lounger and pressed the button to answer the call.

  “What’s going on?” He knew Kane was investigating the family, so if he was calling, he probably had new information for him.

  “Sorry to interrupt your time with Sam, Ry. We’ve found some interesting information on Sam’s Aunt Cecilia. She’s got a young man living with her, but he’s sleeping with another woman. Since you were the one that got the scent of the man off Sam, I need you to come check him out.”

  Ry narrowed his eyes. “What about the other aunts?”

  “Maggie and Luisa. Yeah, we’re still doing background on them. But there is a lot of shit in this family. Maggie appears to just be a miserable old bitch. She keeps a strict schedule so following up on her shouldn’t be too hard. We’re still probing into her husband, Danitelli’s affairs and business dealings. He’s a slippery one. Luisa is last on our list after her.”

  A low growl worked up Riel’s throat. He’d been dying to get his hands on the person that had tied Sam to the bed to burn.

  “I’ll be there soon.” He didn’t want to leave Sam alone, so he was about to call on Troy when she strolled up to him.

  “Where are you going?” she asked and toweled her body dry.

  His eyes drank in every single sexy curve of her beautiful body. He pulled her on his lap and kissed h
er. “I need to see Kane. I’ll have Troy come watch you.”

  She shook her head and kissed him on the nose. “Nope.”

  “What do you mean ‘nope’?”

  She curled her arms around his neck, kissed the shell of his ear, and ran a tongue over the rim. “I mean, nope. I’m going to visit Sophia and bring the papers from my mom’s medical stay. She wanted to see if she could figure out why I can’t shift, and I want to know more about the drug they gave her.” Her eyes filled with sorrow. “I need to know for my own piece of mind. You understand, right?”

  He did. It wasn’t hard for him to see how much it meant to her. “I’ll drop you off at…”

  She shook her head again. “No. It’s probably best if I take my car just in case I want to come back.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. “Sam, you shouldn’t be driving around alone until we’ve figured out who wants to hurt you.”

  She nuzzled her nose into his neck, sniffed, and licked. His gut clenched, and his cock hardened. She lifted her face. “Fine, have someone follow me. I won’t go anywhere without telling you, but I prefer to take my car. I’ve taken self-defense classes, I’m not completely useless, you know.”

  Her jaw was set, and her brow was lifted in expectation. Arguing would probably be pointless. He’d just have to follow her over there.

  Sam clutched all the relevant papers and shoved them into her new tote bag. She ran down the stairs knowing she’d left poor Ry waiting. He turned to her at the doorway, his face serious. Uh-oh.

  “You know I’m going to follow you there and back.” His voice was steely and commanding.

  “Yep. I’m OK with that.” What she didn’t tell him was that she preferred to keep her car handy in case of emergencies. Since shit had literally hit the fan lately, she didn’t know when she’d need it.

  He followed her car the entire length of her drive to Sophia’s house. He sat idle in his SUV until Sophia opened the door and led her inside. He waved and drove away slowly. Talk about paranoid.

  “You think that’s bad? At least he’s letting you drive your own car. Chase won’t even let me go anywhere without a driver. He thinks I’m just going to pass out behind the wheel,” Sophia complained.

  Sam’s gaze went back to the other woman, and that’s when she noticed the dark circles under Sophia’s eyes. “Are you OK?” The pretty geneticist appeared to be sick.

  Sophia beamed. “I’m pregnant. It makes me really tired.”

  OK. Didn’t pregnancy make all women tired?

  “I’m different.” Sophia said, reading her mind. “I get more tired than most women. I can sleep for days. At least this time it’s not twins, or I really would be sleeping for days.” She sighed and motioned Sam inside.

  Wow. Would that happen to her?

  Sophia answered almost like she’d read her thoughts. “I don’t think that would happen to you, so don’t worry. Most other shifter-pregnant women don’t need as much rest as I do. Although you’ll find you do need more than your usual amount of sleep.”

  “You’re different?”

  “Yes. I am a dual shifter, and so it takes a little more out of me.”

  Sam stared at the petite brunette. “You can turn into two different animals?”

  She nodded. “Yes, and it really is quite fun, except for the being exhausted during pregnancy part. You should ask Troy about my lioness one of these days.”

  That was way too much to take in for all the crazy stuff happening lately. “I brought some papers I found inside Ginny’s trunk.”

  They headed to the living room where two cots held the twins.

  “Should we be in here?” Sam whispered.

  Sophia laughed. “Yeah. They can sleep through an earthquake. Plus, I can’t leave them alone yet. Raven is getting me a nurse to help around here with them, but that’s not for another week. Until then, I’m on my own.”

  “Wait. You said you have dual animals inside you.”

  Sophia bent over Selena and moved the clear pink pacifier away from her face. “That’s right.”

  “So what are your babies, one animal or the other?”

  Sophia grinned, her expression bright and excited. “They’re dual shifters as well. It looks like Shane might be the first wolf/lion shifter born to an Alpha wolf. If he turns out to be Alpha in both, it can prove really interesting.”

  Sam was amazed. She couldn’t wait to see if cute little Shane would be a dual leader one day.

  Sophia groaned and glanced down at her smart phone. She pressed buttons and grinned. “See what I mean. Chase texts me every hour on the hour wanting to know how I’m feeling. Paranoia at its best.” She laughed. “It’s OK though. We had some big scares in the past, so I don’t hold his concern against him.”

  Sam remembered Ry’s protectiveness. It seemed all of the shifter males went overboard ensuring their mate’s safety.

  She sat down on a dark-chocolate-colored leather sofa and passed papers to Sophia. “These are the documents I came across. I’m not sure what they mean, but it may be the reason why I’m not a shifter.”

  Sophia read through the papers, and a wave of nausea hit Sam. Her nerves made the anxiety inside her grow into a sick churning.

  “I see.”

  “Well?”

  “Do you know if there’s anything with the name of the drug? That would’ve really helped.”

  Sam thought back, but all she’d left behind was an invoice from the hospital. She didn’t recall seeing a drug named there, but maybe she’d missed it. “I’ll check again. So you can’t tell from this if this was what caused me to be this way?”

  Sophia gave a soft shake of her head. “No, Sam. I’m sorry. I want to tell you it was caused by whatever they gave your mother, but the reality is, it could just be a mutated gene. For all we know your body rejected the gene that allowed the change, and that’s why you’re not a shifter. I’m not sure, but I will find out for you.”

  Sam’s spirits plummeted. She’d hoped Sophia would be able to put her concerns to sleep.

  “Let me get another sample of your blood, and I’ll look into different drugs I know can cause these kinds of effects OK?”

  She nodded and guarded the children while Sophia brought the items necessary to obtain a blood sample.

  “Don’t worry, Sam. I will figure this out.”

  “Thank you. I really want to know what caused that difference in me versus everyone else.”

  She strolled to the front of the house and waved at Sophia. Her mind was so involved in finding answers she almost missed the man that marched out of a truck in front of her.

  “Well if it isn’t my little cuz,” Juan Junior spat.

  Oh, great. Just what she needed. “What are you doing here, Junior? This isn’t your type of neighborhood. You know the people in this area are all shifters. The Black Meadows Pack doesn’t like people that refer to them as ‘animals.’”

  Juan Junior snarled like the very animals he hated. His gaze moved to the door Sam had just left. Sam turned to see Sophia watching him. Sophia had her phone by her ear. Juan’s face was blotchy and his eyes red-rimmed almost as if he’d been drinking all night. He exuded the disgusting smell of sweat, vomit, and liquor.

  “So now you’re consorting with animals just like that whore mother of yours, I see.”

  Anger bubbled up inside her. His words were meant to hurt, and they’d done the job. She wanted to hit him. She growled and moved, not realizing she’d done it until he was only a foot away from her. “Don’t you dare speak of my mother! She never did anything to any of you.”

  “She was a filthy whore that liked to get fucked by animals. You don’t think that bothered us? It made us all look like depraved fools.” Juan yelled at her as if she were a piece of trash in his way.

  Her temper snapped. “My father wasn’t an animal, you asshole!” Her voice rose with her temper. “They were in love. She was his mate, and he was hers. Do you even know what love is you self-serving no
good son of a bitch!” By the end of her speech she was screaming the words at the top of her lungs at Juan.

  Juan’s face reddened to a deep burgundy, and his eyes narrowed with hate. “You little bitch. You think you can talk to me like that and keep my money? That’s my inheritance Ginny put in your name.”

  “Yeah? Well guess what primo,” she drawled in the same hillbilly whine Juan used, “I’m giving it all away to charity. Every single cent is going to the poor and the needy.” She smirked at his outraged features. “Yeah. Every…single…penny.” She punctuated each word to drive the point home. He wouldn’t get a single dime if she had to burn it all. She was beyond caring. Juan had gone too far by speaking ill of her parents. “Te lo prometo. I swear I will make sure nothing, not one cent, goes to your greedy fat hands. I hope you rot in hell without a pot to piss in, you bastard.”

  She didn’t see the danger until it was too late. He jerked a meaty hand toward her face, shoving her backwards with a loud slap. She fell, landing on her ass from the force of the hit. Pain lanced through her face and made her eyes water. She groaned and lifted a hand to block off other attacks, but be grabbed her by her T-shirt and slapped her across the face again. Needles of torture shot through her cheek and jaw. The taste of metal filled her mouth, and she knew she bled. She tried to get loose from him, but his grip was tight, and he was huge compared to her. She kicked and punched to no avail.

  A loud, angry growl filled the air. Juan’s fist stopped mid-air, and they both turned their faces to see multiple wolves surround them. She recognized Riel’s animal instantly. The big brown wolf stepped closer to them until he was only a few feet away. This close, he was huge. He bared his teeth and growled low and deep. His tail and head lowered to an attack position.