Seducing Beauty

by Skhye Moncrief

  Luckily, I passed into the circle of log cabins unscathed, put Bolt to bed with his supper, thankfully being bothered by nobody, and headed in to face my sire's gaping maw.

  There's nothing like spending time with animals out in the forest only to return home to being eaten alive. They say Shifters are supposed to be above the worst human behavior. And even though Shifters swore they are as humane as Normals, Croc just seemed the extreme version--hating in his completely human way. Embracing that ugly side of the human genome he'd been unable to shake in his conception.

  You gotta love human nature.

  And my love of nature and its beasts just fizzled at times when standing in the same room as my sire. Like now. At least, my brothers and cousins are gone. Probably snoring.

  Golden firelight gilded Father's straight-lipped scowl where he eyed me through accusing slits, leaning his tall frame with an elbow against the main lodge's mantle. His cropped graying blonde hair brushed his shoulders. If he shaved his yellow circle beard, he'd look even angrier with one blunt flat line slashing his face for a mouth. "It's late."

  Of course it's late. It's always late when I've gone out hunting or foraging. Why the fuss? I'm not backing down. "Are we going to have this conversation again?"

  "Don't argue with me," he growled, standing statue-still otherwise.

  Croc rarely chewed me a new asshole. Something must have happened. "I rode along the southwestern bend of the river looking for berries. Hoping to find some a little early this year. Remember, we didn't have enough to make it through last winter." That should be enough to shut him up. After all, I always found foods to store for the long haul of the bitter winter.

  Still, he stood motionless. "I know you have this insatiable need to roam. But there's no time for it now. I've been summoned to Death Summit."

  That's why he's angry. He didn't think I'd be home before he departed. His body language was so like his namesake--laying in wait, ready to burst from the cloaking water to clamp those unyielding jaws around his prey and viciously roll.

  "I leave before dawn. Wolverine will be in charge."

  Alright. As long as Mary is accessible to spread her legs when he needs it, all would be well. Otherwise, I'd have to juggle my cousin's unwanted affections in his misdirected attempts to appeal to my favoritism. Or I’d just disappear until next week when Croc returned, if he returned immediately. "But you know Wolverine's asinine since I refused his proposal."

  Croc nodded, the blunt ends of his cropped hair waving around his collarbone. "I told him to leave you to yourself. I'll call him in and tell him in front of you if you like."

  "That won't be necessary." Not the way Wolverine got pissed. The gene for volatile behavior flourished when passed from generation to generation in this the family when second and third cousins came to foster under my sire. Why didn't somebody put a boot down and keep their sons at home to end the vicious cycle of learned behavior?

  "Stay close to the outpost, Willow," Croc's voice softened quite a bit.

  He always got so sentimental when dealing with me. Maybe if he treated the rest of his children the same way they would react more like Boa. Boa. Where is my Boa?

  "I could take you along, Willow."

  Not the mating discussion again. "No thanks. I'm content here. Doing what makes me happy."

  "Your need to meld with nature just isn't natural, honey," he said after painting on a sensitive mask.

  Cut the Gods-be-damned honey shit. I rolled my eyes.

  The truth of the matter seeped into my bones.

  He set me up for this discussion. Waited for me like a predator hunting its prey. He already planned to take me along. And I had no choice but to go now.

  He sauntered over to me and tried to line his gaze up where it met with mine. "I know you're full-grown. I know you can make decisions for yourself."

  I tried to slide my gaze to shadows at his left.

  He matched my move, stepping sideways, blocking the rest of the cabin with his thick arms crisscrossing his bare broad chest. "But you need to do your duty for Earth."

  Have babies. Fine. Let's measure his reaction. "I don't mind doing my part for humanity as long as I can mate a Shifter of my choice. And you know I'm not interested in those cousins at hand. And you know the only other nearby clan is Bitterroot."

  His mouth turned down. "You're coming along then."

  We won't be back by Saturday. "But--"

  "Pack your things, Willow."

  ****

  This pathetic rudimentary Shifter lodge is more pathetic than my dodging my sire's assessing stare the entire journey to Death Summit. It's bad enough Croc is trying to gauge my openness to mating. But how do people live with dirt floors? And women at this outpost aren't allowed to come and go freely to forage for seasonal foods.

  A mushrooming sense of confinement choked my chest.

  Add my imprisonment in this sanctuary among a small army of Shifters to my unnerving sire with dirt floors and all is supposed to equal a vacation from loneliness, here, my time spent among women and children. Right. Out there among the people, I'd be parading the tail of Croc's daughter around for all to see. Not to mention I'd had no rest on the trail. I'd spent most of my time en route hoping Croc wouldn't focus his golden Wolf gaze upon me. Just in case I suddenly looked or smelled pregnant. The fact I'd do so after having sex one time seemed almost impossible. But all the shattering of my fragile world took was one sperm uniting with one egg.

  One risky interlude.

  And Boa simply walked away from using me to get to my sire. Absolutely unscathed.

  Just what would Boa gain in the end? Revenge against Croc for Falcon? No. That can't be true. But must be. Why else wouldn't Boa mark me? His Wolf was ready. So Gods-be-damned there with glinting fangs. And I wasn't good enough to mark. Croc's whore daughter. Gods, I'd stripped off my clothes. I begged Boa to take what he wanted. I gulped down a lump of reality and set my boots back to work treading a path in the hard-packed earthen floor of the small circular lodge but stopped before the window pane.

  Everyone carried on as if the world was as right as could be after the aliens screwed everything up. People bustled around the large sunlit courtyard contained inside a huge circular palisade. Normals and Shifters. Working together harmoniously to strategize and survive in the struggle to hide and exist in this isolated human outpost tucked into the remote eastern mountains of the Oregon Territory. The Wild. A nice place to live if you have friends and family.

  Pure hell otherwise. Hell was the only thing the aliens proved humans had all along.

  And I'm stuck here when the serviceberries and wild rice are just about ready for harvesting. This whole trip to meet with the Elders is at the worst time of the year. The time for preparing for winter. Right when I'm supposed to meet with Boa. But my missed meeting was the best response to his postponing the marking. An unfortunate delay for the man. And if he fancied the event unfolding just the way he planned--screw Croc's daughter for revenge then disappear for good--he has another thing coming when we meet up again.

  The door swung into my temporary one-room lodge.

  Croc thrust his squared jaw into the lodge's shadows with a long beam of white sunlight. "Let's go, Willow. The Shifters are meeting," he called in a commanding tone.

  I'm not the Elder here. Croc and his bloody need to see me mated was truly obsessive. I shoved away from the window sill, passed the two chairs at the small rickety handmade table, then the cot-like bed.

  That's it in this cold barren musty lodge. No storage shelves. And these Shifters fancy Death Summit the Taj Mahal. Any Shifter of this outpost isn't the mate for me. No. I'd die of boredom waiting for some warrior to bring me fresh fruit and vegetables to eat or cure. Still, I had no choice but to bear the trip with Croc's determination to bring me along.

  We stepped into warm sunlight and followed the lodge's wall left. The wall led to another and another, ushering us around the outer ring of Shifter lodges that encircle
d the alpha's lodge.

  "The next door," Croc said.

  Nobody really cared that I was herded to the doorway of the larger lodge where Death Summit's Shifters gathered for meetings. I should have felt a little more at ease about this whole Gods-be-damned joke of my sire's grand plan for me. But something gnawed at my rational thoughts and made my suspicion bleed out like a carcass hung for processing.

  Croc's black combat boots halted at the wooden planks of the door as he shoved the creaking hatch open.

  Into darkness. If I had an inner Wolf, rather Cougar since I'm female, I could have summoned my inner beast's night vision and scanned the lurking shadows in the room. But no such luck. Luck-less… My pathetic state of reality after gifting my virginity to Boa. Hopefully, the Shifter was planning to meet me in two days and going to have the surprise of his life. No sweet thing to cuddle. I'd laugh if all the men lurking in the dark wouldn't fancy me insane.

  Father's hand squeezed my elbow, nudging me into the darkness, toward golden flames dancing inside the cobble-lined fire pit in the floor, then to the shadows to the fire's right.

  Probably every damned clan head stood in the room. Assessing me. What's wrong with my sire? What kind of sire forces his daughter to mate like this?

  My eyes suddenly acclimated.

  Okay. Time to step back and evaluate my situation. I scanned the faces of a good forty large males.

  Many shrouded by heads of hair of clan leaders.

  Alphas. Faces cloaked by unrelenting fingers of shadows. What I'd give to have a Wolf's night vision. One by one, I recognized so many though. The Black Hills clan head who wore two long braids like the Native Americans of his clan. Drake, the clan head from Idaho.

  Boa.

  My heart stopped cold.

  He locked his green gaze on mine then flicked it to Croc.

  Challenging Croc through acknowledging his daughter's presence instead of politely ignoring my existence. Croc will explode.

  Chapter Three

  I snapped my gaze to Croc's luminous slitted Shifter eyes, hoping he wasn't watching Boa. No such luck. And Boa still stared down Croc with an equally condemning slitted amber gaze. Damn them both. I elbowed Croc's ribs. "Don't you dare," I muttered.

  Croc shot me a scowl. "Who's the sire here?"

  "You will behave. This is a meeting of the Elders." Or whatever it's supposed to be with a daughter in the mix. Probably just a standard gathering of Shifters even though Elders are the alphas. Still, my point stood for exhibiting our clan's best behavior.

  Croc smacked his lips with disdain.

  He had to know how our clan appeared with his poorly thought-out reactions toward the Bitterroot Shifters. I leaned close to mutter. "You'll leave a bad taste in the mouths of the unmated." And I implied nobody will want me. Joy of joys. Maybe I should just let him go berserk.

  He sighed forcefully and kicked up a breeze. But kept his mouth shut, turning his shoulder to Boa, snaking his arms unwelcomingly across his chest.

  Okay, I can live with this type of measured reaction. Blonds. Those who get to have fun. Yes, nothing has changed since the alien conquest of Earth. Unfortunately, nobody has time for a blond's bad behavior from being spoiled. I flicked my gaze to Boa.

  Possibly the worst of my choices yet.

  He studied me, his burning gaze softened, eyes fully-opened showing his round golden irises.

  So much for teaching him a lesson by missing the meeting on Saturday. I'd just have to be as inaccessible as possible. Or forget proving my point. Either way, if he approaches me, I'll know he means to continue our relationship. I think. What else could it mean?

  Tornado's hulking musculature parted the crowd from the meeting room's back doorway leading from his lodge into the Shifter meeting area. His dark graying hair didn't diminish the respect his Shifter persona insisted everyone give him.

  Here stands the epitome of alpha male. The kind of powerful gorgeous man any woman would want even when his hair faded with age. The kind of Shifter that kept the other Shifters with far less self-control in line. Surely, now, I'd be spared a humiliating display of my father's temper throughout the rest of this meeting.

  The outer door creaked, sending a shaft of white light through the space filled with flashing golden Shifter eyes.

  Everyone turned to the latest arrival.

  Jackal. His head shaved like the standard hair cut of one of those Shifters herded by an alpha. But Jackal was anything but weak and beta. If I'd lived closer to Oregon, I'd have set my sights on him. Or maybe it was his quiet manner and intelligence that attracted me? Like Boa.

  My Boa.

  I think I want him to be mine.

  Maybe.

  The door clapped shut, leaving my vision to adjust to the darkness once again.

  "Since everyone's here, let's get started," Tornado thundered.

  Croc's hand landed on my arm and gently pushed to drive my gaze from Jackal's towering height to my observant Boa and on across the crowd of glowing eyes in the sea of darkness to Tornado.

  Tornado swept the crowd with his fiery gaze. "We've got a new theory about what the extraterrestrials are doing here on Earth."

  Only the fire-pit's flames moved.

  Everyone else was too frozen with anticipation. What will the Elder say?

  Tornado snaked his arms across his chest. "They're creating hybrids right under our noses."

  Sets of burning shifter eyes turned in the shadows, casting contemplative glances at other sets.

  "We don't have much to work with other than the infamous Brutus has mated a half –alien. And she only recently learned of her ancestry. The extraterrestrials planted her in a warlord's family, giving guardianship to the warlord. We think this is to rear her as one of us and use her to infiltrate our groups through political contacts."

  Dear. Gods. Not an infiltrator. I shot Croc a worried glance.

  He sighed a sound suggestive of understanding but didn't waste a moment resting his gaze upon mine.

  Like I'm just here to mate. Keep me quiet until the warriors come sniffing around. Sires and their ideas. I'd be better off mated and living under a mate's nose. A mate would insist I stay home though. Stay safe under his protection.

  Doing a man's bidding doesn't seem like living at all.

  "And another group of hybrid sisters has traveled into The Wild. These sisters are psychic and can heal with touch." Tornado paused and met everyone's gaze, one-by-one.

  Even mine. Sending a strange tremor of understanding through every cell in my body.

  "We don't know why the aliens have bred these hybrids," he said succinctly.

  Bred. Such a disconcerting point to toss into the meeting. Like we're cattle. Livestock. I really don't want to think about myself that way.

  "The Elders have much more to discuss," Tornado added. "Many will travel to meet with the Rites of the Goddess priestesses. But for now, this is all I'm permitted to explain to everyone. The rest is for clan heads. I'd appreciate all Elders returning here after supper to continue the discussion and help expand Shifter Augustus' current theory. And please keep this information among Shifters until the Elders decide what to do. We don't want to panic the Death Summit's Normals with a witch hunt or two." Tornado waved us toward the door.

  Croc hadn't shifted a foot or grumbled one bitch.

  What thoughts whirled through his mind? "Croc?" I faced his grim contemplative mask.

  His gaze settled upon me. "I don't know what to say."

  "Does anyone?" What am I thinking? I'd be a fool to continue looking to him for answers like his little girl. Especially with Boa here at Death Summit. How can I make a rational choice about my future when vacillating between father and lover? Or even the enemy? When can I go hide out in my little cell of a room? I scanned the crowd for a hint of dismissal.

  Everyone stared at the serious Tornado as he continued talking.

  "So," Tornado said, eyeing each of us with a look that demanded cooperation. "Now we h
ave another issue to contend with in regaining control of earth. Augustus wants a report of mating combinations and their resultant offspring in type. Do any of the children have heightened psychic powers? Which matches produced Cougars? Were the sires mated to Cougars, or were Cougars mated to Normals? Were any of these females impregnated by extraterrestrials? And, yes, I realize rape is a touchy subject. But we must provide the most accurate data as possible to Augustus. Or he his conclusions won't reveal what the aliens are doing here on Earth. He's apparently onto something. Let's work together this gathering to help him learn what he needs to know. Remember, this is everyone's war. If answering some personal questions is the only thing required of you, that's a small price to pay in the bigger picture."

  And Tornado still didn't let us go.

  ****

  The outpost's community dining area was nothing more than logs and boulders for people to use for seats while eating out of aluminum camping tins. Not that I'm a princess and am complaining about sleeping on a pile of mattresses with a pea buried beneath them all. But the sea of people, including women and children, seemed to eat up the available space with all the outpost's guests. The upside is it would be easier to blend in among all these folks and disappear. Forget how I'm always on stage now--the available female always in someone's line of sight. Now, I've come full circle and am back to the fact Croc brought me to bait a mate. Damn him. And damn Boa for not marking me. But what would I have done to skirt Croc's anger if he'd detected one iota of Bitterroot scent on me? I have to be wrong about Boa. He must be protecting me from Croc's anger.

  "Well you're all grown up, Willow," a woman lilted behind me.

  I turned.

  Tornado's beautiful young mate Ginny smiled.

  Pleasantly. Maybe she isn't as young as I am. But clan heads always got the best of the lot when it came to mates. Youth and beauty. And the clan leaders always mated soon after losing a mate. Power is such a lucky thing to have…I sighed.

  Alas, the best interest of humanity hinged upon Shifters producing as many more Shifters as possible in a lifetime. Especially a clan head. So, nobody could point a finger at Tornado and say he didn't do his share in siring fourteen Shifter sons and two daughters for the greater good of humanity. And if he was single now, I'd probably latch onto the security in the gorgeous Shifter's mark and be done with Croc's lodge and Boa. I smiled at the fortunate Ginny.