by Nancy Gideon
So little Rosie wasn’t so simple after all. “Right next to me,” Kendra agreed.
She had her first ally.
Unmated females in the House of Terriot were protected as fiercely as their business interests. The Shifter clan had grown obscenely rich off of what had started as protection and intimidation, then grown into investments, groomed mostly by Kendra’s father, in the casino and entertainment trade in Reno and Las Vegas. It was their purposeful attention to bloodlines that kept them powerful within their own Shape-shifter world.
Before Bram’s feudal rule, their strength had been nearly crippled in struggles with Memphis rivals, the Guedrys. Bram had stabilized their family by linking the purest, most respected of their lines in the seeding of his sons. Enemies were absorbed into that collective or destroyed with swift brutality. The way the MacCreedys had been.
The Twelve of the House of Terriot held the future of the clan within their genetic breeding pool, and the well they drew from to expand their line had to be untainted. The instant eligible females were fertile, they were sequestered in their own guarded lodge, their access to family and especially breeding-age males strictly monitored. It was more prison than dorm. They ate together in a common room and traveled in a group with chaperones except on rare occasions. The confined proximity created strong bonds, but mostly, it fostered fierce competition.
As she crossed the dining room with a tray full of food she had no appetite for, Kendra was aware of all eyes upon her. She was used to being ostracized because of her affiliation with the MacCreedys, widely considered traitors to their clan, but she was also resented for the freedoms it had earned her. She and Brigit had been raised outside their rigid society rules and had escaped the cloistered walls to mingle with other clans and even with . . . humans. Orphaned and highborn, she was a novelty, a curiosity, and now the center of a lucrative betting pool attached to her chastity and to which of the princes would ultimately claim it. Great stuff for conversation and speculation, unless one was the focus of it.
So Kendra was surprised when her name was called and a chair pushed out for her across from Wesley Terriot’s half sister, Sylvia.
Being the oldest of the unmated females gave Sylvia a certain degree of notoriety. Gorgeous, clever, and a complete political animal, she’d reportedly rejected three Terriot princes, something unheard of and scandalously impressive. Brigit called her a manipulative bitch with grudging respect and had warned Kendra of her agendas.
Sylvia smiled up at Kendra, expression benign, as she said, “I thought it was time we got to know each other. Please sit.”
“I know who you are,” Kendra murmured as she took the seat and regarded the beautiful creature with elegant manners, wavy auburn hair, and catlike blue eyes, the way she would any dangerously exotic species.
“You know who Brigit said I was. Though I admired her fashion sense, little about your cousin inspired thoughts of friendship. She and I were too much alike. But she did mentor you closely, and without her, I thought you might need counsel.”
“I’m not seventeen. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Sylvia laughed, showing perfect teeth. “No, you’re not. But you are a sheltered female about to be tossed to a group of extremely predatory wolves with only one thing on their minds. Am I wrong to think you find that a little intimidating?”
“No,” she admitted quietly. “You’re not wrong.”
“Since I’ve been where you are, I could offer some advice. Whether you take it or not is up to you.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Not from any unselfish motive, I assure you.”
Kendra relaxed at that candid admission. “Your motive?”
“I have my own interests to protect, and as long as they don’t clash with yours, I see no reason not to play nice.” Her stare grew penetrating. “Are your interests focused on any particular prince?”
“My interest does not live on this mountain. I have no desire to bond to any prince.”
That bluntness brought back the silky smile. “Good. When you’re ready to pursue your outside interest, you’ll find I can be helpful. Just don’t interfere with where my attention lies.”
“Where would that be, so that we don’t cross paths?”
“I’ll let you know if it becomes a problem. I’m willing to wait and work for what I want. Are you willing to do the same?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then we’ll be of use to each other.”
Cale had one goal for the evening, and it had nothing to do with impressing his future queen. His focus was on discouraging his competition as quickly and decisively as possible.
His brothers were trained in weapons and hand-to-hand. Each had pursued a particular style, and all were undeniably lethal. Because Cale had needed to overcome so much, he’d mastered every discipline.
Runt of the litter. That harsh stigma had followed him throughout childhood. The one his father should have crushed under a stone upon birth. Puny, sickly, an embarrassment. Survival had been a daily struggle, to thrive a near-Herculean feat. In order to have, hold, and protect those things closest to his heart, he’d had to be bolder, braver, more ruthless than the others. He’d had to train until he was too exhausted to stand. He’d faced down any risk, any challenge, any threat in order to keep the edge. He’d accepted punishment without flinching, delivered cruelties without hesitation, because nothing could beat or torture him as much as the thought of another humiliation like the one he’d suffered at Silas MacCreedy’s hands. And now that all he’d fought for was within reach, he wasn’t going to let it slip away again.
He was aware of the audience seated in the bleachers above the high walls of the racquetball court where they often sparred, but he didn’t acknowledge them. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Yet still he was.
There were almost ten years between Cale and his three youngest brothers. He’d quietly taken them under his wing to help with their training. Because they’d been too little to remember when he was a disgrace, they regarded him as if he were immortal. And he kind of got a kick out of it.
Kip, the youngest prince, was seventeen and this was his first contest. His nervousness had him sweating. Cale stepped up next to him to advise without seeming to, “Breathe. Keep your hands dry. Who do you face first?”
“Colin.”
“Go at him fast and hard. Don’t give him time to think.”
“And what advice do you have for when I go up against you?”
“Lose gracefully.”
The boy grinned at him and wiped damp palms on his T-shirt. “Thanks, Cale.”
“What don’t kill you, brother.” Methodical Colin would crush him, but a quick attack would give a good accounting.
Restoring his game face, Cale drank deeply from the mixture in his water bottle as he watched James and Frederick square off for the first match. James was good with weapons: crossbow, rifle, blades, throwing stars, but no equal to the hotheaded Rico’s hammering body blows. Not a humiliating loss but quick.
Giving Kip an elbow bump as the boy walked toward the court, Cale plugged in the earbuds of his iPod and cranked up the volume so he could sink into the heavy-metal fury of “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.” The first warm twists of aggression unfurled. He put on his wraparound dark glasses and waited for the heat to burn. A lovely, fierce blaze that would make him if not immortal, then at least pretty damned invincible.
As the youngest prince was carried out draped over the victor’s shoulder, Cale followed Michael out into the spotlight. Almost twenty, with at least six inches of height and forty pounds on him, his little brother was full of self-important posturing. The instant Michael turned toward him, Cale hit him like a head-on collision.
Cale’s first blow broke his nose, the second his jaw, the third, three of his ribs. A vicious elbow to the chin and a roundhouse to the temple laid his brother out on the floor, spitting up blood. Reining back hard on a seething need to do more damage
, Cale knelt beside him. Bracing a forearm across his throat, Cale leaned in close to warn, “This isn’t your time, Mikey, it’s mine. Yield before I really hurt you.”
Michael spread his hands wide and let his older brother drag him to his feet. One down. One step closer to his goal. As Cale draped Michael’s arm about his shoulders, he glanced up to gauge the audience’s reaction. He got the expected nod of approval from his father, but when he looked at Kendra, he was held by her expression of shock and abhorrence.
She thought he was an animal. And she was right. There was nothing civilized about the pressure cooker of violence steaming inside him. This wasn’t how he wanted her to see him, out of control and dangerous. If he continued to annihilate his brothers to prove his point, he risked pushing her further away.
Time for a little finesse, instead of brute force, to catch his lady’s eye. His father’s idea. It was time to show off.
Though outwardly composed, Kendra was devastated.
He was everything rumors claimed.
She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She’d desperately hoped there was some remnant of the boy in the man Cale had become. But as she watched him destroy his brother with a brutally efficient blankness, she knew Bram had ground out all decency beneath his heavy heel. What was left of Cale Terriot was a ferocious replica of his father.
Seated between Rosie and Sylvia, Kendra shut out the younger girl’s excitement to imitate the elder. Be indifferent, Sylvia had advised. Show no reaction, no interest, no favoritism. But stoicism was difficult. Kendra despised violence and couldn’t imagine finding pain entertaining. Watching the combatants purposefully injure each other, even though she knew they’d quickly heal, left her stomach knotted with shaky sickness.
With five of the princes left to prove their mettle, Kendra wasn’t sure she could sit through much more, especially when Cale made an unscheduled return to the court. She glanced at Bram, who appeared equally surprised, though curious.
Cale took off his MP3 player and tossed it to Kip with a call of “Plug that in for me, brother.” He crossed to the weapons bar, forgoing bold aggressive moves for sleek athletic grace. He stripped out of his jacket and gave it a toss, then selected a staff, moving to center court to glide through an elegant kata of positions.
Kendra’s breath caught involuntarily.
There was nothing weak about Cale Terriot now.
He wore the same loose tech pants as the others, tucked into black high-tops. An olive-drab tank hugged his muscle-sculpted chest, delineating abs as rugged as a series of foothills. What that tight shirt left bare truly amazed her. His arms and shoulders were wickedly cut perfection, all bronzed skin contoured by powerful swells, accented by the Terriot clan’s snarling rampant wolf tattoo on one shoulder. Though he still wore impenetrable dark glasses, his features were relaxed, confident.
He was simply the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Cale,” Bram called down indulgently. “What’s this about?”
“You wanted a demonstration, my king, and you’ll have one.” With the bow resting across the back of his shoulders, he gestured to Kip. “Give me a beat.”
The sexy dance tempo of Madonna’s “Music” wasn’t something Kendra would expect from his playlist, but Cale picked up its infectious pace with a thirty-second warm-up. Fluid, strong, his demonstration was sinfully seductive as light gleamed off those glorious arms. Then he struck an en garde to face his brothers.
“You have four minutes to take me. Let’s do this.”
The foursome grinned in response to his challenge and stepped out onto the floor.
Cale let them come to him, timing his movements to the rhythm of the song with easy bounces of his feet. He met Rico’s charge with a quick spin of the staff, whapping the side of his head with one end and cracking into his ribs with the other. A kick to the sternum took him down. Wesley and Colin chose to meet him armed, the older brother with a staff and the younger with a pair of batons.
Planting his staff, Cale swung around it, landing both feet in Wesley’s chest, then, as his brother tumbled backward, spun down to the floor to sweep Colin’s feet out from under him with a twirl of the bow. Rolling up to his feet, he executed a series of spins, meeting their strikes in a lethal blur before his own effectively stopped them both.
Kendra couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Backpedaling a few light skips, Cale faced Turow, who’d been calmly waiting his turn. The silent middle brother kept to himself, a bit of a mystery to everyone. That unknown had Cale regarding him cautiously as Turow held up his empty hands, then beckoned with his fingers. With a slow smile, Cale tossed the staff aside, the motion leaving him open.
With a sudden running leap, Turow took him in the ribs with a heel, sending him sprawling backward. Turow rebounded with an agile flip while Cale rolled to his feet more slowly, protecting his side while he grinned, goading softly, “Let’s dance.”
Turow was patient, hanging back to see what Cale would do, saying quietly, “You lead.”
Cale exploded straight up, torquing his body into a tight revolution with enough height for his right leg to catch the side of Turow’s head, and enough momentum to twist as they both went down so that he landed with his other knee drilling into his brother’s solar plexus. A hard strike from Cale’s elbow effectively ended the competition just as the last bars of the song played out.
Cale sucked a stabilizing breath, stepping over the prone figure to approach the wall. His father was applauding. He could hear nothing else over the pulse pounding in his ears as his blood sluiced, hot and wild as his ancestry. Slowly, he went to one knee and placed palms to the floor. “For you, my king.”
A shiver of instinct gave him just enough warning to roll out from under Rico’s unexpected and unworthy attack from behind. He hooked his leg around his brother’s waist to bowl him over onto his back, coming up astride him with one hand about the throat as the furious features began to transform into the snarling visage of a beast. The competition had turned deadly.
“Frederick!” Bram roared, coming to his feet. “You shame me and yourself with your lack of control. Stop this, now!”
Kendra had come out of her seat the instant she realized the threat to Cale. Her hands gripped the railing as alarm panted from her, quick and anxious. She watched as he looked to his father for direction; receiving that slight nod, he struck with a vicious punishing intent until his brother’s features were unrecognizable.
Kendra sank back into her seat, nausea roiling. She had to close her eyes. How was she going to survive in this ugly, violent world that had turned her former friend into a ruthless destroyer with blood on his hands and death on his soul?
“Wasn’t that amazing?” Rosie gushed, squeezing her arm. Her voice grew dreamy. “Your prince slaying them all to have you.”
This wasn’t about her. It was about power claimed through force, and that was something Kendra wanted no part of.
To think she’d considered him beautiful. He was just as monstrous as the rest.
She left her seat and hurried blindly toward the narrow stairs. She’d started down them when she came face-to-face with the event’s victor. Kendra couldn’t look at him without reliving the slaughter of her loved ones.
“For you,” he told her with a low intensity as others begun to crowd in behind them. He offered his palm. “Be with me, Kendra. It’s what we’ve always wanted.”
Because it had been, her pain was that much greater. She responded to his petition in a choked whisper. “How could you think I’d put my hand into one red with my family’s blood.”
Cale went still, then expelled a harsh breath. His tone was concise and hard. “Hate me all you like while you bend over to receive my heirs, but bend you will.”
three
Cale took another long pull at his beer and stared listlessly up at the stars. They’d been bright against that black sea when he’d first come out on the patio with a small group of revelers, but n
ow, as he sat alone, he could hardly tell they were there. He closed his eyes, frustrated and discouraged. And lonely, despite being surrounded by family.
He’d been properly congratulated and openly admired, but none of that did a damn thing to erase the memory of Kendra’s disdain. Perhaps he should have let himself be beaten to a pulp to gain her sympathy. He remembered how sweet that was, how gentle she could be, how tender her touch. Of course, she’d been little more than a child then, but his memories had aged her progressively with every passing year.
He sighed and took another drink. The competition had served its purpose. He’d spoken his claim and reinforced his ability to make good on it. The only one left to convince was Kendra. At the moment, he didn’t believe she could think less of him.
She was right. He was a beast. He’d had to be, to win this chance to have her. He’d have to show her he could be other things, too. Good things, noble things, admirable things. Protector, mate, friend. And lover, not just the throw-her-down-to-sink-a-claim-and-carry-off-a-crown fuck the rest of them were interested in. He was interested in that, but only as a secondary goal, far removed from the one that would have her looking at him as she had when they were young. Who needed to see the stars when that glimpse of heaven was in her eyes?
Tomorrow he’d have another chance to breach that gap between them . . . that yawning open grave filled with the bodies of her loved ones. Just how, he didn’t know, short of falling to his knees to proclaim the truth. I have loved you all my life and will never be any kind of man without you.
He used to be able to talk to her. He’d just open his mouth, and his soul would come spilling out. Maybe if he could get close enough to kiss her, words wouldn’t be necessary.
He frowned unhappily, thinking of those youthful kisses. And was startled by the light touch of lips upon his own.
Cale’s eyes flew open. He jerked his head to the side, growling, “Dammit, Syl, I told you not to do that.”
