by Tami Lund
He remembered that she had laughed. And then she grabbed his hand and placed it on her breast. When his dick jumped again, she covered it with her hand. By the time she slipped her hand into his pants, he’d come all over himself.
But he’d always had a quick recovery time, and barely ten minutes passed before he was hard and ready to go again. She climbed onto his lap and he slipped it inside her, managed to thrust three times before she twisted around, rotating on his dick like a damn spinning top. He was on the verge of climaxing again, and while he was a shifter and therefore understood the implication of the position she’d just moved into, he was too far gone to be able to stop the inevitable. With a cry of frustration and maybe a little fear, he came, clutching at her hips while she ground into his lap.
He’d shoved her off him and scrambled off the bed, struggling to get into his gym shorts, while she lay there and watched. She hadn’t bothered to get dressed, but her nakedness had been no longer attractive at that point.
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck. You can’t tell anyone that happened.”
“Why not?”
“We’re younglings. We’re in high school, for fuck’s sake.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she’d said. “What we just did is a very grown up activity. If I want to, I could go to the pack master right now and he’d declare us mates.”
“We’re still in school. Why would you want to take a mate when we’re so young?”
“I don’t,” Kat informed him. “I’m just saying I could. Keep that in mind, Matt Tigre.”
He’d run straight to his brother’s house and confessed all.
“How could you be so stupid, Matt?”
“She came on to me. I’d never done it before. I was—I couldn’t control myself,” he had admitted, red-faced.
“Why the hell didn’t you do it facing her? Who the hell has shifter style sex their first time?”
“She was.” He recalled how embarrassing it had been to explain to his brother exactly what transpired. His first sexual experience had been forever tainted by Kat’s decision to turn around in his lap, to face away from him, thus turning it from a mere first-time discovery to a mating ritual.
“Why the hell would she do that?” Matt had asked in desperation.
Nick hadn’t answered him. He’d simply said, “Don’t tell anyone else. Act like it never happened.”
As it turned out, that had been easy to do, at first. Kat had been a senior and Matt was a freshman, and the two didn’t often mix. They had classes in different sections of the school, and hung out with entirely separate groups of kids, even if they were from the same pack.
A week later, Kat showed up on his doorstep and declared she was whelping a pup, and the pup was his. Panicked, he’d run to his brother again.
“It can’t be true,” Nick said. “There’s no way she’d know already. It doesn’t work that fast. Just stay away from her. And whatever you do, don’t tell another soul.”
He didn’t speak to Kat for the duration of her whelping. He kept tabs on her, though, through a buddy who was friends with her brother. And when he heard she’d whelped a male pup, he’d slipped over to her house and had peeked in the bedroom window at a dark-haired infant, sleeping in a cradle, and looking nothing at all like him, but everything like another shifter in their pack.
Years later, he learned his brother had paid Kat not to say anything either. He had paid her for the duration of the pregnancy. And then when the pup came out looking like it morphed from one of their other classmates, Matt had felt like he was finally off the hook. It wasn’t his, and Kat had been far too busy playing mom to mention their coupling to the pack master, who happened to be Matt’s uncle.
“She insinuated her son might be yours,” Josh commented, pulling Matt out of the nightmare of his memories.
“No way,” Matt said flatly. “Henry is a carbon copy of Eddie Vetch.”
“Yeah, except there’s a problem with that. Eddie’s dead. And he never claimed the pup. So all she has to do is start spreading word around the pack…”
“Wait—Eddie’s dead? What the hell happened?”
Josh shook his head. “He took his dirt bike over to the west side of the state, said he needed a vacation. Rode the bike over the edge of a sand dune. I always knew he was one of the dullest knives in the drawer, but that was just plain stupidity.”
Something in what Josh said struck a chord with Matt. Suddenly, it was as if the pieces of a puzzle had been floating around haphazardly in his brain, and out of nowhere, they all clicked together.
West side.
Unknown shifters sniffing around the coterie.
West side.
An entire human family, slain in their home. Just down the road from Josh’s house.
West side.
Shay was from the West side. And she’d been visiting Josh’s pack when those humans were slain. Matt wondered if Tanner’s guards had noticed a decrease in strange shifter scents around the coterie last week.
West side. Shay had gone home earlier this week.
“When did it happen?” Matt wanted to know.
“Yesterday,” Josh replied.
Shay had gone home on Tuesday.
“What do you know about the pack on the west side of the state?” Matt asked.
Josh shrugged. “It’s small. They keep to themselves. Rednecks, I hear. Why?”
“What do you know about their feelings about humans? Specifically, say, a pack master taking a human to mate?”
Josh narrowed his eyes. “What are you trying to say?”
“Shay Zebree. And her brother, Steve. They claim to have nothing against humans, but remember when he talked shit about weeding out the weak? We all know shifters believe humans are weaker than we are. And what do we really know about Shay? There’ve been an awful lot of coincidences in the last few weeks.”
“Like my mate being attacked at a restaurant fifty miles from here,” Josh said grimly as he whipped out his cell phone and punched in his mate’s number. “Call me,” he said into the phone and then disconnected. “Voicemail,” he explained unnecessarily.
“Adora doesn’t have a cell phone,” Matt said before he could ask.
“Are they together?”
Matt furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about? You told Rachel they could go to the farmer’s market. With Jeannine.”
“I would never do that, not unless they took someone with them, like you or me. Or maybe Cal or Brendon. And I can’t see Jeannine ever willingly going anywhere with Rachel. She hates my mate. In fact, I’m about ready to fire her ass because I’m sick of the way she treats Rachel.”
“Son of a bitch.” Matt whipped out his phone and shot off a text to Cal and Brendon.
“What are you doing?” Josh asked.
Matt’s phone vibrated before he could answer. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Cal and Brendon are here at the hotel, helping with the convention.”
“Of course they are. So what am I missing?”
“Jeannine came to Adora’s room this morning, told us she had invited Rachel to the farmer’s market and that Rachel wanted Adora to go with them. I told her to ask Cal or Brendon to go with her.” He waved his phone. “Which she obviously didn’t do. So where the hell are our mates?”
Josh strode out from behind his desk, lifting his index finger. “First, she isn’t your mate. Not yet. We still have to sort out this Kat mess. But before that, we need to find our women. Let’s go.”
“To the farmer’s market?”
“Yeah.”
Matt followed him down the hall toward the employee entrance.
“What if they aren’t at the goddamn farmer’s market?” Josh asked, his voice tinged with desperation. He was worried, afraid for his mate’s safety.
Matt could relate. Whatever the hell was going on, Rachel was most likely the target, but he had no doubt Adora would end u
p caught in the crossfire. She had become fiercely loyal and protective of Josh’s mate, and she’d likely do whatever she could to protect her. Problem was, aside from puking at inopportune times, he wasn’t sure what the hell else she could do to help the human woman.
“We start with Steve Zebree,” he said to his cousin. “And we work our way through the entire fucking pack. Someone has to know something. It’s a pack, for Christ’s sake. There are no secrets in a shifter pack.”
*
Jeannine drove like, well, an old lady. Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, she stared out the windshield, not speaking to the other two women in the car as she drove along, barely above the minimum speed limit, heading toward the Lightbearers’ coterie.
“I’m not overly confident we will return before Josh and Matt are home from work,” Adora muttered. She’d had enough human assignments over the years to have a general concept of how quickly it should take to get from point A to point B, using one of these motor vehicles. Most human sped along the highway at a speed significantly faster than the posted limit. Most—except Jeannine.
The trip was made infinitely worse by the older shifter woman’s attitude. While it had been Jeannine’s idea to go to the coterie, and in fact, she had even lied to Matt this morning to ensure they left as early as possible, as soon as they’d climbed into the car, she’d become as cold and sour as always.
“I hope we don’t get a ticket for going too slow,” Rachel added with a sideways glance at Adora, who sat in the backseat.
Jeannine grunted.
“So what did you tell Josh?” Adora asked Rachel. “Jeannine told Matt we were going to the farmer’s market.”
“Josh was in the shower when Jeannine stopped by to tell me she wanted to leave as early as possible. So I popped in, told him I was going to work out and I’d see him when I got home. Anything else would have led to a lecture about my safety, and I hadn’t had any coffee yet.” She chuckled and Adora smiled. Jeannine stared straight ahead. And continued to drive at a snail’s pace.
“Speaking of, I should probably send him a text.” Rachel pulled her phone out of her purse.
“No,” Jeannine shouted, lunging for the phone and causing the car to swerve into the next lane. Adora let out a shriek as another vehicle drove onto the shoulder to avoid getting sideswiped. Rachel’s phone in her hand, Jeannine straightened out the car and continued driving as if nothing was amiss.
Adora glanced at Rachel, who was chalk white, sitting in the front seat, staring at Jeannine, her hand still in the air, as if clutching an invisible cell phone. “What the hell was that about?” she asked, finally finding her voice.
“You shouldn’t call him,” Jeannine replied.
“Why not?”
“Because.” She did not elaborate.
The housekeeper was agitated, severely so. It was obvious, even to someone who was not accomplished at reading other people’s emotions. But to Adora, who made it a habit to familiarize herself with people’s heightened emotions, Jeannine was off the charts. She was nervous and angry and frightened, and an alarm went off in Adora’s head.
“Jeannine, where are we going?” she asked.
“I told you: to the coterie.”
“Why are you so nervous?”
Her gaze lifted to the rearview mirror and caught Adora’s eye. “I’m not.”
She was lying.
“Shouldn’t we call Tanner, let him know we’re coming? As I understand it, we won’t even be able to see the coterie, unless one of the guards lifts the ward that was cast over it five hundred years ago.” She didn’t add that she could get through the ward without issue, in the hopes that Jeannine wasn’t aware of that bit of information. Given the general ignorance of shifters when it came to other species, she figured it was a safe assumption.
“A ward?” Rachel asked, as ever, fascinated by all things magical.
Adora nodded. “Five hundred years ago, the faery queen helped the Lightbearers go into hiding, because back then, shapeshifters preferred killing them over mating with them. So she took them to what is now the coterie, and cast several spells over it to ensure all other beings could not find it. Cupids, of course, and fae are excluded from that list.”
“Faeries live in another world, too, don’t they?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, they do. They can only visit this world through portals, which exist naturally in various places around the globe.”
“What are they like?”
Before Adora could answer, Rachel’s phone made a noise, and all three women glanced at the screen. Jeannine pushed a button to make the noise stop and the name on the screen disappear.
“That was Josh,” Rachel said, pointing at the phone. Jeannine switched the device to her other hand so Rachel could not reach it.
“No it wasn’t,” the housekeeper said. She shoved the phone into the front pocket of her jeans.
Adora wished she had a cell phone. Sitting in the backseat, she was certain she could get away with sending a text to Josh or Matt, letting them know where they were really going today. She had an ominous feeling she should be concerned, although she could not fathom why. The Lightbearers she had met were nice people, and seemed to genuinely like both Rachel and herself. She couldn’t imagine they would be in any danger, if they were heading to the coterie.
Maybe Jeannine was nervous because she could not say the same for herself. Maybe she was uncomfortable with the idea of spending time inside the coterie. She didn’t strike Adora as someone who often ventured outside her pack.
The car began to slow and Jeannine flipped on the blinker. As she guided the vehicle off the highway, Rachel asked, “What are you doing?”
“Making a pit stop.”
“But we’re almost there,” Rachel protested. “Lake Michigan is only twenty miles away, and you said the coterie is located on the shore.”
Adora had no earthly idea where they were at the moment. For over an hour, they’d seen little but woods and plowed fields that had been harvested for the season. She’d never been to this area before.
“I can’t wait,” Jeannine replied as she came to a stop and then turned right, the sedan meandering down a narrow two-lane road.
“Well, there’s a gas station,” Rachel said, pointing out her window as they passed it.
“There’s a place up here a-ways,” Jeannine replied.
Something was wrong. Adora knew it as surely as if someone had said the words out loud. Something was very wrong.
If she were alone, she could simply pull out her wings—she concentrated, and yes, they were still there—and turn into a string of lights and slip out through a crack in the window, rushing back to the Detroit area to warn Matt and Josh. But what did she warn them about? Jeannine was acting funny? For all she knew, this was typical behavior for the housekeeper. She didn’t think so, but she hadn’t really paid the woman much notice until now.
Unfortunately, her sense of loyalty to Rachel overrode any thoughts of using her magic and slipping away. What if Jeannine was going crazy? What if she intended to do harm to Rachel? Adora couldn’t leave her alone to face that. Not that she could be of much help, but at least she could remain by Rachel’s side.
The car slowed again and Jeannine turned left into a parking lot overgrown with weeds and scrub trees growing from cracks in the asphalt. A tiny, weatherworn building sat on the far end of the lot. Adora recognized it as a church, one of those places humans used to seal their mating rituals. The white paint was peeling off rotting boards, and the small cross perched on the roof’s peak swayed precariously in the fairly gentle breeze. This place had long ago been abandoned. Surely this wasn’t better than a gas station, which was attended at least once in a while by a human?
Jeannine pulled the car around behind the church and parked it next to a newer model, full-sized truck with enormous wheels. Why was there another vehicle parked behind what was clearly an abandoned building?
And why were they stopping?
“There’s a bathroom inside,” Jeannine said as she shifted into park and turned off the engine, slipping the keychain into her pocket. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll wait out here,” Rachel said, eyeing the dilapidated structure with obvious trepidation.
“No, you won’t. We’re all going inside.” Jeannine gave Adora a disdainful look. “Well, I don’t care what the Cupid does.” She climbed out of the vehicle and headed around to Rachel’s side.
Adora scrambled out of the backseat. “I think I’ll come with you.”
She had no idea what to do, only that she needed to stay close to Rachel. Jeannine clearly had plans that Adora was now reasonably certain did not involve Lightbearers. Or Josh and Matt. Or anything good at all, frankly. But what was she up to? What did she mean to do with Rachel?
Jeannine tossed a scowl in Adora’s direction and pulled open the passenger side door. “Come on,” she said, speaking to Rachel, who glanced at Adora. She too suspected something was wrong, but had no idea what to do.
“Can I have my phone back?” Rachel asked.
“No. Let’s go.” Jeannine grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the car. Rachel stumbled and fell to her knees on the gravel-strewn ground, crying out in pain. Adora took advantage of the distraction and tried to tug Rachel’s cell phone out of Jeannine’s pocket, but the shifter smacked her hand and then grabbed the phone and tossed it across the parking lot. The sound of the rectangular bit of electronics breaking into pieces reverberated around them.
“Hey,” Rachel protested. “Why did you do that?”
“Because you two are too damn obsessed over that thing. Now let’s go.” She lifted Rachel by her elbow and dragged her toward the rundown old building. Adora rushed to keep up, her wings sprouting from her back to speed her along. She actually wished there was a human in the vicinity, watching them. The sight of a woman with wings on her back would surely cause the person to call some sort of authorities, wouldn’t it? Without Rachel’s phone, they had no way to reach Josh or Matt, and no one else knew where they had gone. Whatever was about to happen, they were officially on their own.
