Prince of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  “She’ll be safe with me,” he growled defensively.

  “You can’t be sure if you’re not in control. Cale, please.”

  Very slowly, he withdrew his arm from about Kendra’s shoulders and took a step back. Vera immediately pulled her away as if he represented some volatile danger.

  “Maybe she’s right. Maybe you should stay.”

  There was a chilling quietude in Cale’s voice. All at once Kendra’s worry for her own safety if she went with him was less than her fear for him if she let him go alone. She turned to embrace Vera, whispering, “I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure he’s all right.”

  Vera clutched her tight, saying with a low urgency. “Kendra, you don’t understand. He’s not himself. He could hurt you.”

  “He won’t.” She leaned back with a determined smile. “It was so good to see you.”

  “Come back again.” She looked to her son, features softly pleading. “You take care of her, Cale.”

  His hand closed about Kendra’s when she slipped her fingers across his palm. “Don’t worry, Momma. I know what I’m doing. We’re going to be a family again. You’ll see.” With that promise, he led her away from the anxious woman on the porch.

  The place Cale picked for a late-afternoon meal was a surprise. Instead of a restaurant, he took her to the bar in a big hotel/casino where the noise level pounded in tandem to piped-in hard country music. He asked for a table for two in the back and menus. When he was told they didn’t serve bar food, a fifty appeared between his fingers. “I don’t want bar food. I want a big-ass steak.”

  The money discreetly vanished. “How would you like that cooked, sir?”

  “Drop it on the grill, flip it over, and walk it through the room.”

  “And you, ma’am?”

  She asked for a burger.

  Cale sat with his back to the wall, so revved that his knees were bouncing. His fingertips tapped restlessly on the table until a waitress brought them glasses of water. Cale took his down in greedy gulps, then asked if she’d bring a pitcher. His hands continued to beat out that fast tattoo until Kendra seized one of them for a stilling press. “Cale, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, baby.”

  “Why haven’t you taken off your sunglasses?”

  “It’s bright in here. It bothers my eyes.”

  It was so dark, she would have had to light a match to read a menu if they’d been provided one.

  “Why are we here?”

  “They have good steak.”

  That was all he’d say. He didn’t release her hand, though his mood calmed as he began a slow, sensual massage with his thumb, circling each knuckle, rubbing up and down each finger. Though she knew she should, Kendra didn’t pull away until their meals arrived and he needed both hands to attend to the huge slab of beef on his plate. He slashed through it with a single-minded ferocity and was finished before she’d managed half of her quarter pounder. When he’d sopped up all the rare juices with his fries, he watched her through those impenetrable lenses.

  “I can’t believe how beautiful you are.”

  Surprised by his unexpected comment, she laughed, wiping at the juice on her chin. “I find it hard to believe, too, considering I’ve spent most of the day on the back of a motorcycle, and I have helmet hair and food on my face.”

  “You look good enough to eat.” With that husky vow, he caught her free hand and drew it up for a kiss. And then a slow inhale. His mouth moved over her fingers, licking, sucking the greasy residue, the gesture studied and uncomfortably arousing. She couldn’t break from the intensity of his stare until a passing tourist wearing a new cowboy hat remarked, “Geez, use a napkin, dude, or get a room.”

  Her hand was dropped, and Cale had the fellow by the wrist before she could blink. He looked up over the top of his glasses and asked flatly, “Did you say something to me? Because if you want to have a discussion, you’ve got my attention. Let’s talk.”

  The man blanched at whatever he saw in Cale’s eyes. “I didn’t mean nothing. Just being a jerk, man. I’m sorry.”

  “Cale, let him go.” Kendra stroked the back of his hand so he’d ease the crushing pressure. “He’s just a jerk.”

  His fingers opened slowly, and the fellow bolted away, unwisely muttering, “Psycho.”

  Her grip on Cale’s hand tightened as he started up out of his chair. “Sit. Down.”

  He settled back, a reluctant smile flickering. “Just a jerk, right? It doesn’t matter.”

  She reached up and removed his glasses to see what had alarmed both his mother and the pseudo-cowboy, and then she understood. His eyes were black, with just the faintest outlining ring of silver, like a lunar eclipse from the darkness of his soul. Scary as hell.

  “Cale, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You said you wouldn’t lie to me.” She tapped in to a vein at his wrist. His pulse raced like a heart attack waiting to happen. “What have you done? Did you take something?”

  “Just some herbs. Natural stuff. Nothing dangerous.”

  “That’s not an answer. The truth. Why?”

  He pulled his hand free and leaned back in his chair, fidgeting restlessly. He reached for the sunglasses, but Kendra held them away from him, her expression impatient.

  “Just to get an edge. That’s all.” Those spooky eyes were as evasive as his answer.

  Kendra threw the glasses at him and got to her feet. He caught her hand and tugged her back down, leaning over to fiercely confide, “To see. Okay? I take it so I can see.”

  The scar that cut through his eyebrow and made a curving arc over the top of his cheekbone had been left by Silas’s silver blade to make sure the mark was permanent, but she’d never considered that other consequences might be long-lasting.

  Cale half turned to avoid her concern. “At first I couldn’t see at all, then just blurry shapes if they were bright and right in front of me. Do I need to paint a picture? Your cousin maimed me, proved me weak, left me vulnerable, useless. I’d already spent my whole life with my brothers snapping at my heels, and now I couldn’t even see them coming.”

  “You could have gone to your mother.”

  “And be a burden? A disgrace to my family? I’d rather my father kill me.”

  “He would have done that?” she whispered in dismay. Bram Terriot became a whole new level of loathsome.

  “No. I asked him to, but he wouldn’t.”

  “You asked him—”

  “First time he’d ever looked at me as if I might be worth a damn.” He smiled faintly. “He told me if I could find the strength to match that courage, I’d be the one to inherit his crown.” A quiet laugh. “Can you imagine? A puny half-blind king on the Terriot throne. But once there, I could have anything I wanted.” His gaze darted up to her and then quickly away. “Martine made my father a remedy to help him recover after the conflict with the Guedrys. It healed him, strengthened him, made him almost invincible. Sylvia was able to get some for me.”

  “And what did you have to give her in exchange?”

  He met her question directly. “Whatever she wanted. At first it was money, then it was favors, then it was me.”

  Kendra took a steadying breath. She’d wanted the truth, and she’d known it wouldn’t be pretty. Because he didn’t flinch away from it, neither did she. “Did it work?”

  “Not permanently. I can compensate without the herbs, but I’m still partially in the dark until about here.” He moved his hand in from the left side until it was perpendicular to the cap of his shoulder. It shook visibly. “My momma worries too much. It’s not dangerous. It juices me up if I take too much. Makes it hard for me to keep a grip. But I’m a Terriot. People expect that. I’m careful.”

  “Why so much today?”

  Cale looked past her, his focus fixing on an approaching male. He stood, clasped the fellow’s hand, and bumped forearms. “Hey, man. Thanks for meeting me, Tony. Got the place?”

  Th
e tall, muscular, rather homely Shifter looked offended. “Of course, my prince. It’s an honor that you’d ask.”

  Cale passed him a parking receipt. “Can you drive me and have someone take my bike home?”

  “Of course. And will you want the lady taken there, too, or is she just for the night?”

  Cale’s hand flashed out, fingers closing about the man’s windpipe. He drew in close so they were eye to eye when he snarled low, “You are speaking of your future queen.”

  Tony’s expression grew stricken as he regarded her. His eyes lowered. “Forgive me, Princess. I didn’t recognize you.”

  Cale released him. “She goes with me. Always. And if I’m not beside her, you’ll guard her with your life. Understood?”

  “Of course, my prince. This way.”

  A black Escalade was idling outside the door. Behind the wheel was a beefy male whom Tony identified as Daryl. He answered Cale’s “Hey, brother” with a rumbling “My prince.”

  Cale boosted Kendra into the backseat and slid in beside her. Tony passed back a dark parcel as Cale stripped out of his coat and button-up shirt. He tugged on the black T-shirt, adjusting its fit so that it sculpted to his body, then rolled the sleeves to expose his clan tattoo. He sank back into the seat beside her, all dark, sleek, and lethal, and hot as hell. When she slipped her hand tentatively over his, he gave her a quick look and a slight smile, then laced their fingers together. “D-baby, how ’bout some tunes?”

  The banging sounds of Rammstein’s “Du Hast” filled the interior as they pulled out like rock-and-roll royalty.

  twelve

  They stopped at the edge of the desert, where a warehouse was surrounded by vehicles and bristling security. Cale never slowed his exaggerated swagger. The guards parted with hurried murmurs of “My prince.”

  His presence caused an immediate stir inside the vast space strung with lights and speakers high above a clutter of tables. Heavy metal assaulted the eardrums, notching up the aggression in Cale’s walk as he nodded or spoke briefly to his clansmen in passing. Tony procured them a table in a back corner where Cale would have an unobstructed view of the entrance. He seated Kendra next to him and pulled her chair up close so he could loop his arm possessively along the back, then sent Tony and Daryl to the bar so they wouldn’t hover. Once he was outwardly relaxed with beer in hand, those of his clan felt it safe to approach him, sometimes singly, sometimes in small groups, paying court.

  Kendra studied him, bemused that the once shy boy exuded such authority and genuine warmth to strangers. He greeted them by standing, gripping their hands for that comradely arm bump with a laid-back “Hey, baby” or “Good to see you, brother,” and invited them to sit. Once they recovered from the shock of being asked to share a table with a Terriot prince, Cale coaxed them to unburden their concerns while attentively holding eye contact. If they asked for a solution to a problem—a foreclosure pending on their home, a missing child, a neighborhood grievance—he’d listen and then share his bank account, his resources, his suggestions. After standing to embrace them like old friends, he’d direct them to Tony to implement his promises.

  During a lull, Kendra leaned close to whisper, “I had no idea you were into clan PR. I didn’t think you or your brothers liked to be bothered by meet-and-greets.”

  “That’s because we usually travel in a group, and it intimidates the hell out of the Lessers. Here, like this, they’ll usually take a chance and come up to me.” Lessers. Those of his clan but not of his elevated standing. He said it without the contempt used by his brothers.

  “What are they to you?”

  “My people.” He smiled with a surprising openness. “My family. If I can do something to make their lives better, why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t have more shit than I’ll ever need. They deserve someone who gives a damn about them.”

  Kendra studied him, awed, as if seeing a new being. For the first time, she recognized the makings of a powerful king. “When you do things like this—” Her words choked off with emotion, forcing him to pursue an answer by nocking his fingers beneath her chin to turn her toward him.

  “You hate me a little less?” he filled in for her. “Like me just a little? Want to have wild, naughty sex with me?”

  She smiled, her eyes warming. “Like you just a little.”

  He laughed, and Kendra admitted to herself that his surprising acts of kindness had her liking him more than just a bit. In fact, “like” was too tepid a word. She was just beginning to wonder what wild, naughty sex with him might entail when everything about her prince changed in an instant. Tension snapped through him, pulling his muscles so tight they vibrated. His breaths deepened into a harsh, rumbling growl. Even his scent altered, becoming hot and feral as his grip on her intensified to the point of pain.

  “Cale, you’re hurting me.”

  He released her instantly with a taut “Sorry, baby.” But his attention wasn’t on her. It stabbed across the room at the trio who’d just entered.

  When she recognized them, Kendra gasped and shrank back in her chair. Sickness rose in her throat, burning there as memories assaulted her. The feel of their hands on her, the overpowering smell of their lust, every crude, ugly thing they’d said echoing until she cringed and wanted desperately to crawl away. She had to get away.

  She looked to Cale to ask if they could leave, and then she understood everything. The sharp edge of anticipation in his narrow smile betrayed him. Their trip to Reno was no accident. He’d come here to hunt down his brother’s friends on this collision course to violence.

  Kendra turned in to his shoulder, trembling as she urged, “Cale, you don’t need to do this. Please let it go.”

  His hand stroked her hair, the gesture almost tender. His voice was deadly calm. “It’s okay, baby. I got this.”

  She risked a quick glance at the threesome and tried to swallow down her panic. They hadn’t looked this way yet. She put her hand to Cale’s face. He resisted her attempt to turn him toward her as she begged, “Forget about them. Please. Cale, we can get a room. We can be together. We can do whatever you want. Just let’s go now, Cale, please.”

  That offer claimed his attention. For a moment his eyes almost returned to normal, fusing with a deep, smoky passion as he looked at her, really seeing her. It wasn’t enough to hold him. The blackness swelled, engulfing all but a fiercely checked fury. “You don’t think I can take them? Is that it? You think I’m too weak to punish them for what they did?”

  She was thinking about it now, about all he’d recently endured and how that must have taken a toll. “I don’t want you to. I don’t need you to.”

  “I need to,” he snarled. “No one disrespects me or my family name or your honor.”

  He may not have noted the order of importance, but she did. His purpose was about abused pride, not what she’d suffered. She was an afterthought, an excuse for the consuming viciousness. And it hurt!

  The trio spotted them and started across the room, full of contemptuous attitude.

  “Well,” drawled the tall, almost Albino-pale Whitey. She remembered Michael calling them by name. “If it ain’t a Terriot prince and his bitch in heat, mingling with the Lessers. What are you doing here without your army to back your big mouth, Cale?”

  Cale smiled, a flash of teeth. “I don’t need any backup to deal with the likes of you cowards.”

  Whitey laughed. “Big talk like that could get you killed tonight, little prince.”

  The other two—Mule, a huge, rather slack-jawed male, and Slick, a greasily handsome one—chuckled, goading Whitey to get more aggressive. He placed his hands on the tabletop and smirked down at Kendra, making the remembered fear dry her throat and threaten to choke her.

  “After we’ve humbled your prince, we’re gonna play some more, pretty thing. Still as tight and sweet as I remember? Either he’s not man enough to service you proper, or he’s too insignificant to blaze a trail, if you get my meaning.”

  She
did. That flushed out the timid horror with a scalding rush of rage. She gripped Cale’s empty beer mug and smashed it down on those long, spread fingers, sending the pale Shifter staggering back with a howl.

  Cale caught her wrist and took the glass from her, lifting her hand so his mouth could caress her knuckles. “Like I said, Tony’s going to take you home while I eat these bastards for breakfast.” He leaned forward to kiss her, but she turned her head so his mouth skidded across her cheek. When he reached her ear, he whispered, “I should have gotten that room.”

  Kendra let Tony take her elbow as Cale came up out of his chair in an explosive surge. Conversation all around them came to a halt as he suggested, “Let’s take this downstairs. I’ll dance with all three of you. You’re not worth more time than that.” He strode across the room, the way parting and filling in his wake with a wave of curious followers. The trio, looking not quite as cocky, trailed behind.

  “Tony,” Kendra asked uneasily, “what’s downstairs?”

  “We should just go, Princess.” When she set her heels, he told her, “They hold tournaments.”

  “I’m assuming it’s not chess. What kind of tournaments?”

  “Cage fighting.” He fidgeted uncomfortably. “We should go.”

  “Which is what, exactly?”

  “Two go in, one comes out.”

  And if three against one go in . . . Kendra started toward the stairwell.

  Tony grabbed for her arm but thought better of it, simply trotting to keep up. “You shouldn’t go down there. It’s bloody and unpleasant.”

  “I’ve seen my share of bloody and unpleasant, Tony. Just stay close.”

  The club’s lower level was a dark, sleazy underworld existing only to make money off someone else’s pain, arranged like a wrestling arena, with balcony, bleachers, and front-row folding chairs circling a large enclosure with steel bars on top and sides. All the prime spots quickly filled. Tony managed to elbow them a place at the balcony’s edge, where she could taste the sharp scent of violence and bloodlust.

  “If he goes down, Princess, we leave immediately.”