by A. Star
Suddenly a light bulb went off in her head. Without much thought other than the desperate hope that it would help Nick, she shifted. She put both hands to her mouth and blew a loud, shrill whistle. It was only when two of the enemy cougars stopped in shock at seeing a naked woman standing there did she realize she might distract Nick as much as his pursuers. But it was too late now. Luck was with her, and Nick kept moving.
She brazened it out. She held her form until he was close enough that she knew he’d make it, and then she shifted, waited the few more heartbeats for him to reach their group, and together they all dashed for the helicopter. Carstairs’s scouts didn’t pull up as they hit the border, but continued to give chase.
As Hannah watched, Jaxon had the pilot lift off. She, Nick, and their guards all leapt for the door. As they rolled inside, the chopper took off into the sky. Hannah shifted and was immediately wrapped back up in the blanket.
“Don’t you ever do that again!” Nick yelled at her over the noise of the rotor blades. And then he reached out and pulled her into his arms. The action shocked Hannah into silence. They didn’t need to pretend that they were Mated or Fated with their own people.
So what was he doing?
*****
Hannah stepped out of her shower and grabbed the nearby towel. After drying herself, she wrapped it turban-style around her hair. She quickly dressed in pajamas and then opened the door leading to her bedroom, only to come to a dead halt.
“What are you doing in my room?” she asked.
Nick was sitting on her bed, his back against the headboard, and his feet stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
“Waiting to talk to you. You’ve been avoiding me since we got back. So I decided to corner you here.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Us.”
Hannah swallowed. “There is no us. We were just pretending.”
“I wasn’t. If you recall, I asked you to think about letting me woo you before we ever went to the Carstairs's. But I’ve changed my mind.” He got up from the bed and started pacing toward her.
Hannah’s eyes widened and confusion muddled her thinking. He’d changed his mind. But he hadn’t been pretending. What the heck did that mean? She backed up as he came closer, stopping only when she hit the door. “Which part?”
Nick stepped in close and placed a hand on the wall on either side of her. He frowned. “Which part what?”
“Which part were you not pretending about?”
His gaze turned intense. “This part.” He leaned down and laid his lips on hers in the softest, sweetest kiss Hannah had ever experienced.
Nick pulled back–only slightly–and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve loved you for a long time, Hannah. And I’ve been waiting so long for you to grow up. And now you’re this incredible woman. It was worth the wait. I’ve changed my mind about wooing you. I want to Mate you.” He paused, and the vulnerability in his eyes made Hannah’s heart soar. “Please tell me I might have a chance to win you,” he said.
Tears burned Hannah’s eyes. “You won my heart a long time ago, Nick Jensen. It’s yours, along with my soul.”
She’d barely stopped speaking when he yanked her roughly into his arms.
“Thank God,” he whispered in her hair.
“Can’t breathe,” Hannah squeaked.
Nick’s arms loosened only slightly. Just enough for her to breathe, and just enough for him to kiss her, stealing her breath all over again.
“I love you, Hannah,” he murmured against her lips.
“I love you, too,” she murmured back.
Nick leaned back to look tenderly into her eyes. “And now I can finally tell you…we are Fated.”
Hannah gasped. “The story…about the Seer, Sarai… It was true?”
Nick grinned and nodded. “It was a bit of a risk, since I wasn’t supposed to share that information until you confessed you loved me back. Or know a Seer’s name. But yes, all true.”
Hannah gave him a dreamy smile. “Fated,” she said, satisfaction filling the words.
Nick looked down at her glowing face. “Fated,” he whispered, and then leaned down for another kiss.
~*~ The End ~*~
About the Author: Award-winning author, Abigail Owen was born in Greeley, Colorado to a high school English teacher and a social worker. Abigail was raised in Austin, Texas and now resides in Northern California with her husband and two adorable children who are the center of her universe. Abigail grew up consuming books and exploring the world through her writing. A fourth generation graduate of Texas A&M University, she attempted to find a practical career related to her favorite pastime by obtaining a degree in Technical Writing. However, she swiftly discovered that writing without imagination is not nearly as fun as writing with it.
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I pulled my pickup truck into the lot and parked it under a street lamp. After checking the locks on the gun rack behind the seat, I put my sidearm and holster into the glove box and locked it. I slid the two-shot derringer into my bra. The knives in my boots I took those as a given, checked every morning when I got dressed.
El Lobo Cantina. What a creative name. I walked in the front door and looked around. There weren’t a lot of customers on a Wednesday night. It was no surprise that the place smelled like dog.
Taking a deep breath, and regretting it, I approached the bar and settled on a stool. The bartender walked over, and I pushed my business card toward him.
“Is Carlos Lopez here?”
He glanced at the card and then my face. His eyes slid down, lingering on my chest, then rose back up to my face. His smirk froze.
“Carlos?” I suggested. I understood why he didn’t think my smile was very friendly. I wanted to rip that smirk off his face. Permanently.
“Si, señora, he’s here,” the bartender said, instantly sober. “I’ll get him.”
He whirled around and headed toward a closed door in the corner.
The bartender knocked and then opened the door. He spoke quietly, then returned to the bar, leaving the door open. I ignored him, my attention focused on the open door. A man emerged, six feet tall and powerfully built. With a smile on his broad face, he walked toward me and extended his hand.
“Señora Cortez? I’m Carlos Lopez. Thank you for coming. Won’t you come on back?”
“Señorita,” I said, taking his hand.
“My apologies,” he said. “Would you like something to drink or eat?”
“Negro Modelo, if you please,” I said.
Lopez nodded to the bartender, who scuttled to a cooler and pulled out a dark bottle, popping the cap and handing it to me. His attitude was very subservient, a major change from when I’d first approached him.
“Gracias,” I said, taking a pull on the bottle. I slid off the barstool and followed Lopez into his office.
He settled behind a large desk and motioned me toward a hard-backed chair.
“Thank you for coming,” he repeated, reading my business card, glancing up at me and then back to the card.
“I understand you have a situation,” I said. “I checked on you, and I’m curious as to why you think you need my services. You have a reputation of being very capable. I’d think you would be able to take care of any issues in your territory.”
Indeed, Carlos Lopez was a respected alpha, leader of a Werewolf pack numbering over a hundred strong. There were three packs in New Mexico, and his in Santa Fe was the largest.
Lopez took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. “I, and the other alphas, have tried to resolve the problem, but when you’ve tried everything and failed, it’s time to bring in a consultant. You come highly recommended.”
He dipped his head in a self-deprecating way and gave me a broad smile. In spite of myself, I laughed. An alph
a with manners. It was refreshing.
“Señor Lopez,” I said, “you said in your email that you had a problem, but you didn’t specify the problem."
He raised his nose and sniffed. “You’re some kind of cat,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered, taking a swig of my beer.
“You understand packs?” he asked, watching me closely. Cats tend to be solitary animals, as opposed to the pack instincts of wolves and other canids.
I gave him a smirk of my own. “Yes, I understand the pack mentality. I’ve worked with a number of different supernaturals.” I sighed. “Señor, I have a doctorate in psychology and a doctorate in animal behavior. I’m old enough to have taught your grandmother to suck eggs. I survived Montezuma and Cortez. My rates are high, but I deliver. Now, let’s stop beating around the bush and get to the point.” I leaned forward. “Let’s get something straight. You’re not interviewing me to determine if you’ll engage my services. I’m interviewing you to determine whether I’m willing to take an engagement. So far, I like you. You have a good reputation as a pack leader. But I’m very curious as to what kind of problem a pack alpha needs an outsider to help him solve.”
His eyes ran up and down, surveying me. I knew that the package wasn’t very impressive. A full-figured Mexican peasant woman with a stereotypical Mayan nose, I wore blue jeans, a loose white blouse, and a khaki jacket. It had been over three hundred years since anyone called me beautiful. I really didn’t care what he thought of my looks.
“There’s a rogue pack,” he finally said. “A bunch of young males who are acting out and gone out on their own. They’ve been killing livestock and wild game, terrorizing humans in remote areas, and trying to lure away young females. We know who they are, but can’t find them. We’ve tried. It wasn’t considered a major problem until they expanded their activities.”
“Terrorizing humans,” I said.
He nodded. “That, and they’ve started taking cattle and sheep from human ranchers. At first, they preyed on livestock from ranches owned by Werewolves. Lately, they’ve taken some cattle from other ranches. We can’t afford that. There’s a wolf re-introduction program in the southwest corner of the state. Those wolves haven’t traveled up here, but we don’t want anyone investigating the possibility that they have.”
Nervously swiveling back and forth in his chair, he said, “If the feds are forced to investigate the possibility that the Mexican gray wolves have moved out of their territory in the Gila, they’re likely to see evidence of my pack’s activities. And the sheriff here isn’t stupid. I get the feeling sometimes that he’s sensitive. I’m a law-abiding citizen, but he directs far too much attention at me and my pack.”
“Okay,” I said, “drop the other shoe. What moved you to call me?”
He took a deep breath and swiveled his chair away from me, staring into the distance. Then he swiveled back.
“Last week, a small rancher was found dead. His throat was torn out. The body was near a dead horse. It was obvious that more than one animal had fed on the horse. The sheriff was in here asking questions.”
It was my turn to take a deep breath. This was bad. The supernatural community was pretty fragmented, but one thing they all agreed upon was that their existence needed to stay a secret. Lopez’s rogues had crossed a line.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Bring them in if you can, let us deal with them. Take them out if you have to.” He shook his head. “Most of them are good kids, just a bit wild. But we can’t afford for this behavior to continue. They’re putting all of us in jeopardy.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Ten or twelve young males. A couple of young females, teenage girls, have recently disappeared. We think they might have joined the rogue pack.”
“Call me Isabella,” I said. “I’ll take the job.”
~~~
Lopez put me up in a motel owned by a pack member. It wasn’t fancy, but it was clean and comfortable. The New Mexican restaurant next door wasn’t much to look at, either. But the enchiladas turned out to be incredible, and the sopapillas practically floated out of the basket they were served in. I resigned myself to gaining ten pounds on this assignment.
Armed with maps Lopez had given me, I set out the next day to scout the areas where the pack had been spotted. I started with the ranch where Art Hayes had been killed.
Driving down a winding dirt road through piñon and juniper, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a police car. Since I was on private property that was part of a murder investigation, I assumed this wasn’t a chance encounter. When a flat area gave me a chance to pull over, I did so and waited.
A Santa Fe County Sheriff’s car pulled up beside me. The driver, wearing a cowboy hat, got out and strolled around to my truck. He looked rather lackadaisical, but his hand never left the butt of the .357 magnum hanging from his belt. The name tag on his uniform shirt said 'Ted Layden.'
“Hello, ma’am,” he said, pushing his cowboy hat back on his head to reveal blond hair and sky-blue eyes. “Are you lost?”
“No, Sheriff. Why do you ask?”
“Because this is private property, you’ve got out-of-state plates, and I’m wondering what you’re doing out here.”
I smiled at him. “Can’t a girl just take a ride in the country to enjoy the fresh air?” I asked.
He smiled back, a very lovely smile, and snapped, “License and registration.”
My smile melted. I reached for the documents and handed them to him.
The sheriff glanced at them, then his eyes wandered over the gun rack and down to the pistol holstered at my side.
“Quite an arsenal you’ve got there, Dr. Cortez.”
Since neither of the documents he held said that I had a doctorate, I felt my eyebrows shoot up before I could control my surprise.
“Half the pickups south of the Mason-Dixon Line have gun racks,” I said.
“That’s true. Are you out here researching Meso-American history, or animal behavior?” he asked, his eyes riveted on my face.
I twisted in my seat to face him squarely. He’d obviously researched me before this encounter and knew who I was.
Grabbing my camera from the seat beside me, I held it up. “Just playing tourist, Sheriff.”
He snorted a laugh, then dipped his head so I couldn’t see his face. When he looked up again, his features had resumed their stony, hard-cop lack of expression.
“Okay,” he said, handing back my license. “If that’s the way you want to play it. This is private property. You’re trespassing. Turn your ass around and get the hell back to the main road.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, my features as hard and unfriendly as his. I started the truck. “You’re going to have to move for me to turn around, señor.”
He just stood there, head cocked to the side, staring at me. The silence began to grow uncomfortable, but I waited him out. Humans don’t truly understand patience. I had no problem waiting to find out whatever was on his mind.
“You were at El Lobo Cantina last night,” he finally said. It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t feel any need to answer him.
“Are you working for Carlos Lopez?” he asked.
“Sheriff, since you’ve obviously checked me out, you should know that I’m not going to talk about who is or is not my client. If you want to know, then I suggest you talk to him.”
He nodded, then took a step back and stared at the distant mountains for a long moment.
“Dr. Cortez,” he said, turning back, “I have a proposition for you.”
One side of my mouth crooked up and I lowered my face, looking up at him through my long eyelashes. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
His eyes widened and he took a step back, his mouth working without any sound. Then he barked a laugh. His face completely changed as the smile came back.
“Look, I know you’re out here because of the murder. I’d have to be a lot more stupid than t
he normal small-town cop not to figure that out. I’ll be candid with you. I don’t have a lead that makes any sense on this one. If Carlos hired you to look into it, I’d be glad for the help. I’ll share what I have if you’ll let me in on anything you might find out. Is it a deal?”
“Why, Sheriff, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Stepping close to my truck, he leaned in the window. “I can make things incredibly difficult for you,” he said. “A cop following you around will make your job practically impossible. Think about it.”
I did, for about three seconds. “I don’t answer anything I don’t want to. You don’t ask the same question twice. Why I’m here and who’s paying me are off limits. I decide what you need to know and what you don’t. I don’t cover up any illegal activity. Is it a deal?”
He studied my face for a long minute, then nodded. “It’s a deal. Follow me. I’ll show you where we found Art’s body.”
~~~
I followed him another few miles until we rounded a curve and saw a windmill and a stock tank. Half a dozen horses grazed on the sparse grass in the area. I parked behind Sheriff Layden's SUV.
“We found Art Hayes here.” He pointed. “He’d been mauled by animals and his throat was torn out. The ME gave me a coin flip on the cause of death. Suffocation because his lungs were full of blood, or exsanguination. He bled out.”
There wasn’t any evidence now to show what had happened. The body was gone and not even a blood stain remained on the dry, sandy ground.
“I heard there was a horse,” I said, looking around.
“Yeah, over here,” he said, walking away from me. I watched him. He was worth watching, tall and lean with broad shoulders. His tight jeans outlined an ass I would love to get my hands on. It was getting close to the full moon, and I was feeling it.
“We took both bodies into town,” Layden said. “The ME and Dr. Rosen from UNM did an analysis. They said some of the bite marks on Art and on the horse were from the same animals. They made a meal of the horse.”
