Tall, Dark and Furry (The Elementals Book 1)

by Meredith Allen Conner

  She wondered if his friends knew about Mac’s furry side.

  Both men turned to face her. And now I know what an animal in the zoo feels like. They both displayed the same intensity as Mac. They . . . did they just sniff at her?

  Sela pushed her shoulders back and marched over to them.

  Mac smiled at her and held out a hand. As soon as she took it, he pulled her in tight to his side. He bent and gave her a hard kiss that sent shivers in a heady cha-cha down her spine.

  “Don’t mind us. We’ll just wait until you’re through.”

  Mac lifted his head. “Roc . . .” he growled.

  Sela surreptitiously licked her lips. Oh goody, no drool.

  “Are you going to introduce me, Mac?” Cam’s gravelly voice suited his scarred face.

  Sela leaned into Mac. Cam did not intimidate her. She simply enjoyed Mac’s heat.

  “Cam this is my mate, Sela.” Absolutely no mistaking the pride in his voice, or the possession. “Sela, this is Cam, my Wolven.”

  He gripped her hand gently and carefully, like some big men did, conscious of his own strength. When he smiled, Sela forgot about the large scar.

  “It is an honor.”

  And charming to boot, but what . . .?

  “What’s a Wolven?”

  “Wolven is the title bestowed on the head of our clan. Cam is our King.”

  “King?” Sela glanced from face to face. No smiles. “Seriously? You guys realize that you’re living in the United States, right?”

  “The laws of your country do not pertain to us.” Wow, and she thought Mac took the cake for arrogance. He had nothing on Cam.

  “My country? Don’t you live here too?”

  Cam scowled at Mac. “Why haven’t you explained things to her?”

  Sela watched the red climb into Mac’s cheeks with the utmost fascination.

  “We’ve been busy,” he muttered.

  Cam’s frown deepened. “You took care of the Order of the Elements.” Cam made it a statement not a question. “Surely you’ve had time . . .” He broke off when Mac shook his head.

  “She’s my mate, Cam.” Something that might have been envy flashed quickly through Cam’s eyes. Roc walked over to study a painting on the wall.

  “Of course.” Cam dragged a hand through his short hair. “I’ve had other things on my mind. You’ve just found her. You wouldn’t have time for anything other than mating.”

  Now Sela turned bright red. She ducked out of Mac’s embrace and strode over to a table in the corner. She picked up an old, very fragile looking book lying there and opened it.

  Holy Hannah. These guys are discussing my sex life.

  “She does know you’re a Were?”

  Sela turned back towards them. She shouldn’t be the one embarrassed. Mr. Bad-at-Sex Mac should be. Plus she didn’t care to be discussed like she wasn’t even in the room.

  “She’s seen my Were half.” Could his shoulders get any broader? Men and their egos, really they . . . wait. Cam and Roc knew about Mac’s furry side?

  “They know that you’re . . .you’re . . . you,” Sela raised her brows at Mac, nodding her head towards Cam and Roc.

  “Of course. We’re all werewolves. Everyone in our clan is.”

  He said that word again.

  The sound of paper ripping filled the air. Sela looked at the men. They were looking at the book in her hands. She winced.

  Oh no.

  She peeked at the book. Yep. Pages ripped, spine broken, cover mangled.

  “Isn’t that your mom’s book?” Cam asked.

  Mac sighed. “Yeah.”

  Think positive. If it’s his mother’s it’s probably not as old as it looks.

  “When did she have it made?” Roc asked.

  “When I was a pup.” Mac eyed the book in her hands. “Several centuries ago.”

  Sela dropped the ruined book. It made a pitiful thunk as it landed, a sound echoed by her heart.

  Mac said centuries again. How old were these guys?

  Beloved, custom seat cover. Really, really, really old looking pottery bowl. Expensive leather jacket. Might-be-able-to-replace-it-in-a-decade flooring. And now a family heirloom.

  Why did she have to develop a conscience now? She much preferred the conscience free life. She felt slightly nauseous.

  Sela sighed. “Maybe I could talk to your mom and . . .,” she stopped. Mac shook his head.

  “My mom died a while ago.”

  I think I’m going to throw up.

  Her mother may have been a disaster, but she knew most people had parents they cared about. Loved. Wanted to be with. Treasured the memories and heirlooms from their parents.

  Sela bent down and carefully picked up the book. She tried to ease some of the pages back inside. A couple of pages fluttered to the floor. She gently set the cover straight. A large section broke off and joined the pages lying dead on the floor.

  Mac eased his ancient family heirloom out of her hands. He picked up the pieces on the floor, set them back on the table then he folded Sela in his arms. How could he even want to hug her?

  “Don’t worry, Lupa.” He nuzzled his chin on the top of her head. “I’ll have someone in the clan look at it. I’m sure they can fix it.”

  Did someone snort? Sela raised her head to see Cam smiling benignly at her. Roc had turned back to study the painting again. His shoulders jerked every once in a while.

  Mac tipped her chin up to drop a soft kiss on her lips. He kissed her nose then her forehead. “We can get it fixed,” he reassured.

  Sela eyed the tattered book in doubt.

  Was this what it meant to be part of a relationship? Acceptance and forgiveness?

  Cam cleared his throat. “Sela, I need to ask you a few questions.”

  She pushed her thoughts aside. She’d needed more time than she had know to really think all of this through.

  Mac swept his hands up and down her back. The heat from his touch lingered even when he turned her and prodded her over to sit on the couch. Mac sat down next to her, Roc and Cam took seats on the opposite couch.

  “Sela what can you tell us about your family?” Cam studied her intently.

  Sela stiffened. Mac rubbed his hand over her back. “We need to know, Lupa.”

  “Why?” She did not want to discuss her family.

  Cam lifted his chin, “Because we used to protect the women in your family and it is time for us to reclaim our jobs.”

  “Huh?” Wonderful. It appeared it was once again time for her to show off her brilliant intellect.

  “So, you’re not aware of your past either?” Cam stated thoughtfully.

  “Uh . . .” Any moment now her brain would slam into gear. Any moment now.

  Mac leaned forward. “It’s true?” Cam nodded. “What did Tom say? Why the secrecy?”

  Cam sighed. “Embarrassment mostly.” He clenched his hands until his knuckles whitened. “When the Elements disappeared and the elders couldn’t find them, they thought they might have all been killed. The Vampire War had just ended and we’d lost too many of our clansmen. The remaining elders didn’t want to face another loss. And they weren’t certain the Elements were even alive. So they made a pact to not talk about it and concentrate on rebuilding the clan.”

  Vampires too?

  Roc thumped his fist on the arm of the couch. “They didn’t have to hide it. We could have helped look for the women as we got older.”

  “No one had heard from the Elements. Tom thought they really were dead. No point in bringing up old history, especially bad old history in his opinion.” Cam’s tone made it apparent he did not agree with Tom’s view.

  “Wait. Wait.” Sela gave up waiting for that moment when her brain would shift gears. “The Elements? You know that our power is Elemental?” Mac and Roc had been in the bar, but she didn’t realize they knew her power was Elemental in nature. She didn’t know what they’d thought. She didn’t understand most of it herself.

  �
�Yes.” Cam said simply. “There are four Elements. The Elements always reside in women, sisters. You and your sisters house the power of the elements within your bodies - Water, Air, Fire and Earth. And up until the previous Elements disappeared, our clan had always protected them.”

  She could scarcely take it in. Finally, someone was providing her with information on her power. And the best part of it all, these guys seemed to take it all in stride.

  She’d spent her life on the run from men who equally hated and envied her for what she held within her body. She’d been separated from her sisters due to that power. Her own mother had hated the power and her daughters who possessed them.

  Sela glanced up at Mac. He smiled, his hand continuing its lazy stroking on her back. She searched his face for any signs of disgust or loathing. Nothing. The look in his eye was the same as it had been from the first moment. Possession, need, want and something more. Something that promised he would do anything to keep her.

  Sela faced Cam again. She had to ask and in front of Mac might be best. “You said women? You’re saying that I’m human?” She held her breath.

  Cam shook his head. Her heart plummeted. She couldn’t look at Mac. Didn’t want to see his reaction. “You’re more than human. You control an Elemental power.” More than human still said not-human to Sela. “Just like we are more than human.”

  “I’m not some sort of freak?” Her voice shook. She didn’t care that she sounded like an idiot, or that her vulnerability lay out there in the open for them to crush at will. Cam had answers and this was simply too important.

  Cam’s expression softened. Mac lifted her onto his lap, his arms squeezing her. “Lupa.” He said softly.

  “No one has ever explained this to you?” Cam phrased it as a question.

  Sela shook her head. She’d never understood. She knew she and her sisters had a power that was Elemental in nature and that it would one day be sparked. She knew her mother had once had a similar power, as had her aunts. She knew that the MIBs had hunted her mother and aunts like they hunted her. And that the MIBs had been successful in murdering her aunts before they killed her mother.

  That had been the sum of her knowledge until now.

  Her mother hated the power. She would not consciously talk about it. She hated her daughters even more once the power had been transferred to them, and since the method of transfer occurred only when the previous woman who controlled the power died, that had meant the death of her sisters.

  With each successive death, and transfer of power, her mother had chosen to drown her sorrows in alcohol and drugs rather than focus on her daughters.

  Sela could recall every second of the moment when she had received her power. Her mother, barely more than a broken rag doll, chained against the wall in front of her cage. The tall, dark haired man with the sword he plunged into her mother’s chest. Her mother’s crazed, blood choked laugh. And her final words, to both the tall man and Sela, “I’ll see you in hell.” Then the final swing of the sword.

  Lock it away. Lock it away.

  Mac made a soft soothing sound and Sela realized she was shaking.

  “You are not a freak, Sela,” Mac said. He tightened his hold as if he were trying to force the importance of his words into her.

  “Not at all,” Cam said gently. “There is a whole other world out there and we are all a part of that, gifted with powers that separate us from the humans, but connect us to each other.”

  Right, they were werewolves. These guys were not exactly human either. Sela sighed. Sometimes she needed to be hit over the head, more than once, for certain things to sink in. Handling Mac’s otherness had been easier than handling her own. And Cam said there were more than just the Elements and werewolves?

  Cam sighed and shook his head. “What happened to your parents? Why has no one explained this to you?”

  “I never knew my father and my mom hated the power,” she answered. “She wouldn’t knowingly talk about it, not to me or either of my sisters, Livie and Rea.”

  “Your mother should have told you. She should have explained.” Mac stated.

  Cam nodded. He opened his mouth then paused. “Wait - did you say Livie and Rea?”

  Sela nodded.

  “You only have two sisters? Not three?”

  Sela nodded again. “We’re triplets.”

  Cam frowned. “There should be four of you. Four sisters to control the four Elements.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you saying that you’re wrong about me? And my sisters?”

  “No,” Cam said thoughtfully, shaking his head. “You carry the mark of the Elements.” He reached out, wrapping his hand around her wrist. He twisted his hand gently so her mark faced upward. He rubbed his thumb over it. “Each circle represents one of the Elements.”

  Mac’s chest vibrated against her back. He pulled her arm out of Cam’s grasp. He ran his hand over her mark as if to erase Cam’s touch.

  Roc scrubbed his hand over his mouth several times. Cam held his hands up in front of him.

  Sela twisted her head to look up at Mac. “Are you supposed to growl at your King?”

  He continued to glower at Cam. After a few more seconds he relaxed. “No one touches you but me,” he stated gruffly.

  Cam took no offense. “All rules are off when it comes to mates. I shouldn’t have touched you,” he said by way of apology to Mac.

  Mac tugged her slightly closer, but nodded at Cam. Sheesh, werewolves, go figure.

  “Tom said that the Elements were housed within sisters,” Cam went back to the previous subject. “Usually the sisters were quadruplets, but not every time. But they were always sisters.”

  Roc leaned forward. “Your mother never mentioned another sister?”

  Sela shook her head, and shrugged. “No. She . . .” She firmed her lips. She was not about to admit that her own mother hated her and totally ignored her. She settled for a different answer. “Mom spent most of her time drinking and doing drugs before she died.”

  The men recoiled as if she had thrown a bomb into their midst. “Your mother did drugs?” Mac asked. Sela nodded. They didn’t flinch at her power, but the mention of drugs horrified them? Sela hated drugs too, but what the hell?

  Mac tilted her chin so she met his eyes. “Have you or your sisters ever done drugs?”

  “No,” she said. “We saw what it did to our mother. I hate them. My sisters and I all hate them.”

  Mac let go of a breath she hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank the moon,” he muttered. He kissed her briefly. “Drugs can play hell with anyone supernatural. They can damage our powers and they’re the only human thing that can kill us.”

  “Except for a sword,” Roc added. “We can be killed by a sword as well, if our heads are chopped off.”

  The final swing of the sword. Sela cringed. She knew that one only too well.

  “But most humans can’t get close enough to wield a sword against us. And very few even know that we exist,” Roc continued, oblivious to Sela’s reaction.

  “Well, if it hadn’t been for Mom drinking and getting high, Livie, Rea and I wouldn’t know anything. The little bits and pieces that we were able to find out about our powers only came when Mom was totally out of it.”

  The men looked equally disgusted, but Sela knew now they were reacting to her mother’s liberal use of alcohol and drugs, and not her. They accepted her as is. Not accepted, but thought of her as normal.

  What a concept.

  “I wonder how this Order of the Elements found out about you and your powers?” Cam mused, leaning back into the couch. “I guess it doesn’t matter now that you’ve taken care of them,” he said to Roc and Mac.

  Sela sat up straight. “They didn’t kill them all.”

  “We did kill them all, Lupa. They were hurting you and . . .”

  “Oh, I’m thrilled you killed them.” She interrupted. “Absolutely, positively thrilled. I wish I could have helped kill them. You k
now, savored their tortured cries.” Sela smiled at Mac. Her brief time in the cage had relieved her of any softer sensibilities toward torture. Mac choked, a sound echoed by Cam and Roc. Sela blithely went on, ignoring them. “I meant that the MIBs in that building were not all of them.”

  “MIBs?” Cam recovered nicely.

  Didn’t any of these guys watch Sci Fi?

  “Men in Black. Like the movie.” She explained

  “There’s a movie about them?” This looked to be turning quickly into a who’s on first thing.

  “No. Forget it. I call them MIBs, as in Men in Black, because they all wear black, okay?” Another garbled choke issued forth from behind her.

  “Moving right along, the MIBs in that building were only a part of the whole group.”

  “Where are the rest of them?” Cam demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Mac continued gasping. Roc came around the back of the couch and pounded him on his back. Sela would have bounced right out of his arms if he hadn’t recovered enough to grab her.

  Roc swiped at his eyes, his shoulders still shaking. He flashed her a quick smile. She ignored the Laurel and Hardy duo. Like they wouldn’t have the same feelings if they had been the ones in that cage.

  “They seem to be everywhere. They’ve found me every time I’ve moved. Sometimes it takes them a little while, but they always find me. I’ve never recognized a face, so I’ve just figured that they have people everywhere.”

  Mac placed his hand on the back of her neck, under her hair and squeezed. He’d quit choking and Sela knew he was thinking about her lack of a home.

  You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.

  But the warmth of his hand and the possession in his grip still felt . . . wonderful.

  “They probably have a headquarters somewhere.” Cam said, thinking out loud. “If they’re this organized they have to have a chain of command and regular meetings of some sort.”

  “I think that I might have met their leader, or at least someone very high up once.” Sela said slowly. She didn’t want to dredge up bad memories, but if she could help she wanted to, to get answers, to be with her sisters, to have a chance at normal life.