“Vaughn!” Naya yelled from outside.
It looked as if Vaughn might have winced.
“Coming!” he shouted back. He wiped his hand down his face and then plastered on the biggest fake smile before heading outside.
They all looked around at each other, and Zane said, “Yikes.”
Phoenix hadn’t seen Naya for about a month, so she wasn’t sure what to expect, but what she saw wasn’t it.
Naya usually looked so put together, even throughout her pregnancy, but today, she looked nothing like her normal self. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a messy bun—and not one of those stylish messy buns. This one was of pure convenience. Her skin was free of all makeup, and if Phoenix had thought Vaughn had bags under his eyes, then Naya had suitcases. The normal violet hue was dull. And, while typically happy, tonight, she wore a scowl on her beautiful face. She looked miserable. And very, very pregnant. Phoenix didn’t even know how the poor woman walked.
Vaughn helped his mate into the nearest recliner while everyone greeted her. They all made sure to say nothing of her huge belly, even Zane.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” Vaughn asked as he straightened up from helping Naya sit.
“Upstairs,” Saxon answered.
The door opened, and Sawyer and his mate, Kenzie, walked in.
Upon seeing her best friend, the human said, “Oh, Naya.” Kenzie bent over to give the vampire a hug, and she just had to add, “You look like you’re about to explode.”
Vaughn visibly cringed this time and muttered, “Shit,” under his breath.
“Yeah, well, you smell weird,” Naya told Kenzie.
Kenzie stood, her back stiff, and she looked at her mate. Sawyer grabbed her hand.
“Naya, baby, Kenzie wasn’t trying to insult you. Remember how we talked about being nice?” Vaughn said.
Naya adjusted herself in her seat and shot a death glare at him. “Fuck you. Don’t treat me like I’m a child.”
“Naya!” Kenzie exclaimed.
Naya threw her head back against the recliner and groaned. “God, not you, too. Listen, when you have this male’s”—she jerked her thumb at Vaughn—“evil spawn inside of you, sucking the life out of you, then you can reprimand me all you want. Until then, shut up, please.”
Everyone was silent.
Then, someone said, “Holy shit, Vaughn. I think you broke Naya.” It might have been Zane.
Naya grumbled as she put the foot of the recliner up. “Yeah, well, when you’re forty-one weeks pregnant with twins, then you can talk to me about how I should behave.”
Suddenly, all the anger left Naya, and her eyes filled with tears. She looked up at Vaughn and pleaded, “Why won’t they come out? Why?”
Vaughn knelt next to her and rubbed his hand over her hair and down the back of her neck. “I don’t know, baby, and I’m sorry you’re so miserable. But, remember, Dr. Montgomery said it should only be a few more days.”
Vaughn had told them before that human drugs used to induce labor wouldn’t work with vampires. Plus, most vampire doctors believed that, if a female was still pregnant, it was because she was supposed to be, and they didn’t like forcing the child to come any earlier than they were ready to.
Naya sniffled. “I know.” She smiled a smile she reserved only for her mate. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok—”
Naya gasped.
“What’s wrong? The babies?” Vaughn asked, alarmed.
Naya shook her head and looked at Kenzie, her face full of surprise. “You’re pregnant.”
Kenzie’s eyes got huge, and guilt flooded her face.
“That’s why you smell weir—different.”
Kenzie looked at Sawyer, and he nodded.
“Yes,” she told her friend. “We wanted to wait until I was a little further along before we told anyone. I’m only about six weeks.” She looked around the room. “Please don’t say anything. I know you all have stronger noses, so some of you might smell it on me, and if someone asks, you can confirm it, but please don’t go around telling everyone.”
“Congratulations,” Vaughn said. He stood up, shook Sawyer’s hand, and pulled him into a man hug.
Naya held out her arms, and Kenzie leaned over to hug her again.
Saxon and Tegan offered their congratulations to the couple.
Phoenix tried to say something, but she was afraid that, if she opened her mouth, embarrassing words would come out. The ache in her chest from earlier had now widened until she was filled with anguish and grief. Even though she had poured out her secret to Sawyer, she didn’t think he had told anyone about her deepest wish to be a mother. Kenzie didn’t know what her pregnancy announcement along with Naya’s pending birth did to Phoenix, but right now, their happiness hurt. Even Naya’s misery hurt because the reason Naya was unhappy was because she was going to give birth. Phoenix couldn’t help but feel a little resentful of both of them. She knew it wasn’t true, but it seemed like everyone was pregnant but her. Or maybe it was because everyone could get pregnant but her.
Most days, Phoenix had come to terms with her past, but abruptly, the bitterness from her past would come out of nowhere. It wasn’t fair. Why did she have to have issues? Why couldn’t she just be normal? She was only twenty-nine, for fuck’s sake. She had plenty of time to have a baby. If only she could make it through the baby-making process. God, she hated being broken. Phoenix worked hard to be strong, but this weakness of hers ate at her sometimes.
Afraid that she would have to leave the room before anyone saw her misery, she was saved by the front door opening. Payton and Damien walked in as the alpha couple came downstairs.
Thankfully, the arrival of the two separate parties in the entryway saved everyone in the living room from having to explain what they had been talking about.
“Are you all ready to go?” Vance asked his sentinels.
Sawyer answered, “Yep,” rather fast, but Vaughn looked down at Naya with worry.
“Honey,” Lilith said, “don’t worry about Naya. Payton, Kenzie, and I will take good care of her. We’ll call you if anything is wrong.”
“Yes, go.” Naya waved him away.
“Okay,” Vaughn said reluctantly. He leaned over and kissed Naya. “Be nice,” he murmured against her lips, smiling. “My mom’s not tough like me,” he said a little louder.
Naya grinned back at him and pushed him away. “I know. She’s tougher,” she teased.
They all laughed as most of them headed for the door.
Sawyer pulled Kenzie close and cradled the back of her head as he kissed her like he was leaving for a month while Payton pulled Damien down to kiss him, as if he were going off to war. Normally, all this PDA didn’t bother Phoenix, but it did tonight. At least Payton wasn’t pregnant. That was something.
Phoenix made her way around the group and was the first one outside. She took a deep breath of fresh night air, trying to rid herself of the love and pregnancy hormones swirling inside the house. She had a feeling it was going to be a long night.
“THIS IS THE first time someone has been hurt in these acts of vandalism, and even though it appears to be an accident, it doesn’t sit well with us,” Vance told Dante and the room.
“I agree,” Damien Lowell said. “Something needs to be done.”
Dante stood at the head of the conference table along with the cat-shifter and wolf-shifter alphas. This was the first time he’d been to L & L Construction, and he had to admire the business the shifters had built from scratch. The vampires, at least the king and queen and the members of the Vampire Council, came from old money.
Nobody even knew where the king and queen’s fortune had started. They had inherited it from the king and queen before them and were able to live off the money and subsequent investments. The king and queen had enough money without either of them working to pay for his and the other Guardians’ salaries and for them to live in their large mansion. Many of the council members held vast empires, like
the Vanderbilts who owned a chain of five-star hotels around the world, and that was how they made their money.
But the shifters had worked hard for what they had. The L & L Construction company easily brought in millions of dollars a year, but the fact was that they were what some vampires considered new money, and that was one of the reasons the shifters were looked down upon.
Man, vampires were such snobs.
It wasn’t as if Dante wasn’t proud to be a vampire because he was. It was just that many of them could use some humility and humbleness. It was no wonder Naya had mated outside her species.
Dante’s gaze shifted to Phoenix, who was sitting between Saxon and Tegan. Something was off with her tonight, and he didn’t know what. Usually, she had plenty of input and thoughts on things, but tonight, she’d been quiet the whole time. She was a hotbed of emotions, judging from the blood he’d drunk from her last night. She seemed irritated yet sad and angry, all at the same time. He wasn’t even sure if she was paying attention to what was going on around her.
Not wanting to be accused of the same thing, Dante turned back to the matter at hand. He had just finished telling everyone in the meeting about poor Mrs. Howard’s near miss with the trespasser on her property.
The shifters hadn’t been as unlucky—or lucky, depending on how you looked at it. No one was hurt because no one had been home at the wolf-shifter residence when they were attacked, but their brand-new home had been burned to a crisp. It was a nice elderly couple who had just moved back to the Twin Cities area after the wolf-shifter exile had been lifted, and they had sunk all their retirement money into their dream home.
Last night’s simultaneous attacks had seemed to specifically target the senior generation. That didn’t sit well with anyone. One thing vampires and shifters agreed on was that they both respected and cherished their elders.
This time, Dante looked at Lexine. She’d been particularly upset last night when she found out about Mrs. Howard—to the point that she had fled the compound. Something had been going on with her the past couple of months, but no one had any specifics—not even Lennox, her twin brother. Sterling had followed her after she left the night before, but he had reported that she’d only driven around for a little while before going to a bar near the vampire clinic. She’d sat alone for a half hour, nursing a beer before leaving and heading home. Dante hadn’t talked to her about her leaving in the middle of their conversation yet, and he wasn’t sure he was going to. Something was definitely off with Lexine, and Dante thought it might be better to just keep an eye on her.
“So far, we’ve warned the public to be careful, but I think we need to step up and do more interviews,” Dante suggested.
Vance nodded. “I agree. There are times when someone has seen something, and they don’t even realize it.”
“How are we going to have time to do interviews when we’re needed out there, looking for the perpetrators? We should be out there right now instead of having everyone sitting in here,” Phoenix said.
Phoenix might be opinionated, but he’d never seen her question authority before. Something was absolutely bothering her. He wanted to pull her aside and ask her what was wrong. But they didn’t have a relationship like that. And did he even want one?
Hell, he didn’t know.
The cat-shifter alpha wasn’t going to let Phoenix’s challenge go. “Seeing as how the assaults on our communities so far have been spread out by days, tonight is the best time to meet. And this meeting is needed. Not only are shifters and vampires the targets, but they are also being targeted for a reason. And the more we work together, the sooner these criminals will be caught,” Vance explained, looking directly at Phoenix, his words clipped. His eyes shifted to everyone else in the room, even the wolf-shifters and vampires sitting around the table. “Does anyone else have questions for the three of us?” he said, letting everyone know the three of them were a team on this.
Phoenix cast her eyes downward, obviously feeling ashamed. “No, sir,” she said.
Dante had the sudden urge to comfort her. While he understood why Vance was upset, as Dante wouldn’t like having his authority or decisions being questioned like that in front of everyone, he also understood her frustration. It was hard to be here, knowing the offenders were out there, running free and planning their next act of violence.
“As for the interviews,” Damien said, “we’ll select a few people to do them, and we’ll try to have all the interviewees come to you to save time from traveling from place to place. Also, we will send out notice to everyone and set up a tip line. It will only take one or two of us to man the line, so the rest of us can get out there and find these assholes.”
Murmurs of agreement went around the room, but Dante hardly noticed. Saxon had leaned over and was whispering in Phoenix’s ear, way too close for Dante’s comfort. And, when Phoenix drew her hair over her opposite shoulder as she looked at Saxon and smiled, the first smile she’d shown all night, Dante felt like the room was shrinking.
Dante liked Saxon and would even go so far as to say they were friends. They’d hung out a few times. And he knew Saxon thought of Phoenix like a sister. But seeing her smile like that at the male cat-shifter pissed him off. And then it pissed him off that it’d pissed him off.
The snapping of the pen he’d been holding drew his thoughts away from the green-eyed monster raging inside him.
Thankfully, no one noticed the broken ballpoint because Damien’s phone rang. Except Phoenix. Her eyes locked with his before she looked down at the now-worthless writing utensil in his hand. He tried to hide it from her without being too obvious. Whether from embarrassment or from worry that she would see his little act of uncontrolled anger and be afraid, he didn’t know.
She wasn’t the only one who wasn’t being herself tonight.
The wolf-shifter alpha closed his phone. “That was my sentinel, Quentin. He just got off work and is on his way.”
Thank fuck, Hunter thought. He was getting impatient and wanted to leave.
Part of the reason the meeting was still going on was because they were waiting for the wolf sentinel who was on the Minneapolis Police force. Hunter understood their gathering was important, but he wanted to get out of there and take some action.
He didn’t think Phoenix had gone about it the right way, but he saw her point when she’d asked why they were all sitting there. He was itching to get out there and do something. Last night had been his night off, and a part of him wondered if things would have gone down differently had he been in the rotation.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and the male who had to be Quentin entered the room and headed straight for his alpha. He shook Vance’s and Dante’s hands before speaking to Damien. Hunter felt like all the air had left the room.
The police officer/sentinel had a head of buzzed black hair and short black stubble. He was probably only six feet, if even that, because he was shorter than all the other males standing in the front of the room. Hunter wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been standing right next to them because the wolf-shifter was built like a linebacker. His police uniform looked like it barely fit with his biceps ready to bust out of the short sleeves of his shirt.
Until now, the vampires had mostly worked with the cat-shifters. The wolf-shifters had only just started to settle back in the Cities. The Guardians hadn’t had much interaction with them besides their hunt for the wolf-shifters back before Damien challenged his father and won. Hunter hadn’t been there that night—he’d just heard about it—so tonight was the first time some of the wolf-shifters and vampires had met one another.
Damien and Quentin had been speaking to each other in lowered tones, but then Damien raised his voice to be heard by everyone. “Quentin, you know all the cat-shifters. But have you met all the Guardians?”
Quentin turned toward them since they were all sitting together in a row. His almost-black eyes along with the beautiful natural bronze of his skin spoke to African l
ineage while his facial features hinted toward European ancestry. His nose was straight and narrow, and his lips were on the thinner side—although not too thin that they wouldn’t feel good kissing.
Hunter shifted awkwardly in his seat. What the hell? He had never thought of another male’s skin as beautiful or lips as kissable before.
Quentin looked at all the vampires, but when he got to Hunter, who sat on the end, his onyx eyes felt like they looked right through Hunter and into his soul. Then, the heavy rumble of Quentin’s voice said, “Nope. I’ve never had the pleasure.”
A shiver ran up Hunter’s spine as he stared into the deep pools of Quentin’s eyes. Hunter would have squirmed in his chair again if he’d been able to, but for some reason, he was unable to move.
The spell between the two males broke when Quentin looked away as Damien made the introductions. Quentin nodded to each of them, and Hunter was both disappointed and relieved that Quentin didn’t shake their hands. He didn’t know what would have happened if they actually touched, and it scared him.
Nothing like this had ever happened to Hunter before. He’d never felt such a visceral reaction to anyone, female or male, and he didn’t know what to do or even think.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to because Quentin was all business as he began to explain what the police knew, and Hunter was once again in full Guardian mode. Finally, for the first time since the wolf-shifter had entered the room, Hunter relaxed.
AS QUENTIN TALKED, Phoenix listened, trying to ignore her sense of restlessness.
“We had a couple of witnesses—human—who said they saw a dark SUV. But this is Minnesota, so the number of dark SUVs is in the thousands. It’s not much to go on, but it’s something. So, everyone, keep an eye out,” the wolf-shifter explained. “Unfortunately, the number of perps seems to be inconsistent. We’ve had reports from two to five.”
Forbidden Addiction (Forbidden, Book #4) Page 3
