by SM Reine
I narrowed my eyes and shoved his arm. “Austin Cole, you leave my dragon alone. I was five when I made that cup and you’re how old? I think my artistic abilities excel in comparison.” I leaned over the pan and touched the ear. “It’s all crooked.”
He snatched my wrist. “It’s a work of art. Why don’t you put on some clothes?”
There it was again—that husky morning voice oozing with sex. It made me want to snuggle against him. Sometimes I wondered if there was a power in his voice because he was an alpha.
“It’s my house,” I argued. “If I want to prance around in my underwear, I will.”
Maizy giggled and when she started humming the kissing in a tree song, I lifted her off the counter. “Go watch cartoons, sweetie.”
She jogged into the living room clutching a little stuffed dog I kept around for her. Maizy also had her own drawer of clothes for her visits, although Auntie Naya had a whole wardrobe for that child. Naya treated her like a girly girl and Maizy adored her. The last time they went swimming, Naya bought her a pair of pink sunglasses shaped like two hearts. Maizy wore them for two weeks until they finally broke when she fell asleep with them on.
Austin scooped up the pancake and put it onto a plate. “You want me to make you one?”
I cracked a smile. “You want to cook me breakfast?”
While wearing no shirt and doing his infamous lean against the wall, holding a spatula in his right hand. He had great arms. Cords of muscle that roped around, but not the kind my meathead ex had with the bulging veins. Austin was built like a man should be, all the way down to the V-cut that peeked out of his jeans, which were slung low on his waist.
Damn, that lean.
I grabbed the pitcher of batter and made an attempt to do something creative in the pan.
Austin came up behind me and peered over my shoulder. He took my hand and guided the drizzle that shaped into a snake. Then I realized he was trying to do his own rendition of my version of a dragon.
“Cut it out,” I said with a soft laugh. He used a knife to shape the legs. His left hand slid around to my stomach as his chin rested on my right shoulder. Then his breath grew heavy and he suddenly stepped back.
Austin tossed the knife into the sink and raked his hands through his hair. “You’re right,” he said. “You can’t stay at my house. Not right now.”
I turned off the burner and moved the pan. “I’m glad we see eye to eye. What’s really bothering me this morning is what Lorenzo said. I don’t know anything about pack rules, but why would his uncle have murdered his wife?” Then I thought about it. “My mom.”
Austin had a pensive stare that made me uneasy. “The greatest shame on an alpha is for his woman to go to another man’s bed. Having his baby? Even worse.”
“Divorce?”
“It’s not the same with us as it is humans. When we choose a mate, we mate for life. Some alphas have more than one mate, and that’s their prerogative, but loyalty is expected on both ends.”
“He’s hardly loyal if he has more than one wife.”
“If it’s consensual, it’s loyalty. If he strays outside of his females, it’s infidelity. His pack won’t respect him if his woman doesn’t.”
“That’s really scary, Austin.”
“It goes on in the human world,” he said indifferently. “It’s not commonplace, but I see his motive. Had it been proved, he would have been put to death. That would have shamed his entire pack, so maybe that’s why they covered for him and kept it a secret.”
I stared at his abs and began daydreaming about how close Lorenzo was to having his way with me. My mind drifted back to what the Mage said about Wes. Austin had taken care of the killer years ago, but not the man who put a hit on him. And if my father stole diamonds, why did he come back? My head was swimming.
“Did you hear me?”
“Huh?” I glanced up at Austin’s messy bedhead as he was raking his fingers through it. He yawned and casually leaned against the sink.
“I was just asking if I could take you to The Pit for dinner. It’s been a while since I’ve gone there and I’d like to take your mind off all this. You got nothing to worry about with your mom; I trust Ivan will keep to his end of the deal. We can talk about old times.”
Then I got nostalgic. Me tagging along with Wes, Austin, and two more of their friends one Friday night at The Pit. I felt like I was part of the cool crowd. Wes had this thing about keeping his cigarettes under his shirtsleeve and when we sat at the table, I snatched the box and pulled out a cigarette. It broke when Wes grabbed it from my hand. His friend Randy complained, “What are you, her dad? Let her have it. She’s a big girl.”
So Wes let me have my first cigarette. He admitted later on he wanted me to get sick smoking it so I’d never pick another one up again, which is why he kept telling me to take another long puff. It worked. Fifteen minutes later, I ran outside and threw up by a newspaper stand. Then I started to cry. I was only fourteen at the time, but I felt humiliated in front of his friends.
I crouched down on the curb, hugging the yellow stand and crying relentless tears. I was too embarrassed to go back inside and I had no other way home. All I could think about was hearing them laugh as I bolted from the table, and it burned me because for a split second, I thought they had accepted me. Stuff like that’s a big deal when you’re a teenager—it’s your whole world.
There was one person who didn’t laugh.
I’d made it two blocks when Austin pulled up in his Camaro. He helped me inside the car without saying a word and drove me home. I’d always assumed Wes had sent him after me, but now I wasn’t so sure. In retrospect, there were a number of memories I had of Austin looking out for me, I just never thought of it that way at the time.
“Well?” Austin asked, setting the spatula on the counter and wiping up a splatter of pancake mix. “Unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”
“I need to find out if Naya can watch Maizy for a few hours.”
“Bring her,” he suggested. “If they still have crayons at the table, she’ll have something to do.”
“No, I’d rather her stay with Naya. I won’t be able to talk to you about certain things with her there. She’s been asking where her mommy is and I don’t have an answer. I just don’t know what to say.”
Maizy suddenly ran into the kitchen half-dressed with her blond hair in wavy tangles. Her pea-green summer dress was open in the back due to a stubborn zipper.
“Lexi, can you fix me?”
“Sure, sweetie. Turn around.”
“Can we go to the pool?” she asked hopefully.
“No, not today. You don’t have a bathing suit.”
I knelt down and straightened out the fabric. “What time did you want to go out?”
“Where are we going?” Maizy asked.
“Not you. You’re going to stay with Auntie Naya tonight while me and um…” I started thinking about all these aunts and uncles and how confusing that was going to be for her. “Mr. Cole and I are going to go out and talk about grown-up things.”
The zipper got stuck and I tugged it a few times, but a stubborn thread was wrapped around it.
“Here, let me try,” Austin said. He knelt down and as he grabbed the zipper, he froze.
“I like Auntie Naya,” Maizy went on. “She’s pretty, and so is Misha even though she hides from me.”
“What’s wrong, Austin?”
He was staring at her back. “What’s this?” he asked in a whisper, pointing to a mark on her shoulder blade.
“It’s a birthmark, silly.”
He leaned in and looked closer, rubbing the pad of his thumb over it. “I’ve seen that pattern before. That’s no birthmark.” Austin yanked up the zipper and Maizy took off.
“What was that about?”
Austin stood up and covered his mouth. His eyes were sharp and wide.
I shoved his chest, coaxing him to talk.
“I met an old woman when I was up in Wy
oming. She was one of the ancients—a Chitah.”
“What the hell is a Chitah?”
“It’s not just Shifters out there, Lexi. Chitahs live much longer than we do and while they don’t shift, they have an animal spirit within them. The woman had the same exact mark on her wrist.”
“So?”
“Some are born into the Breed, but not everyone. Humans can be transformed into a Mage or a Vampire if chosen, but the rules are pretty cut and dry. Breed can’t have babies with humans. She told me she was once a human, which is impossible because a Chitah is born into their race. She said there are a rare group of humans called Potentials, and there’s something special about their DNA. She didn’t seem to know much more than that, other than they all carry the same exact mark.”
“I don’t get it; so she shares the same mark.”
“This changes everything,” he murmured.
Now he was really freaking me out. I stepped closer until we were just an inch apart. “Changes what? Don’t scare me with some old wives’ tale.”
“Maizy has the ability to absorb Breed DNA and fuse it to her own.” He looked down at me and I still wasn’t getting it. “When she’s a woman of age and beds a man, the first Breed male she takes in, she’ll become that Breed. No take-backs. If she stays with human men her whole life, she’ll be nothing more than a human herself. What that means, Lexi, is if Maizy sleeps with a Mage, she’s going to become a Mage. If she sleeps with a Shifter, she’ll become a Shifter.”
Now we were both pacing in small circles and cursing under our breath. “Why isn’t this common knowledge?” I asked.
“I’d never heard of it until I met the old woman, but some of the ancient ones know about it. There’s always rumors floating around and half of them are bullshit. Or so I thought. The old woman said Potentials come from human parents, and she thought somewhere way up in the line, there must have been a crossover of some extinct species. She was a little batty, so she had a lot of theories I had to listen to.”
“Then maybe she was crazy and—”
“It’s the same mark. It can’t be a coincidence. Do you want to take that chance?”
My stomach turned and I stepped back, gripping the handle to the oven door.
“You’ll have to tell her what she is when she’s older, Lexi. It wouldn’t be fair to her not knowing what she could become, but it has to remain a secret.” Austin placed his hands firmly on my shoulders and backed me against the wall. “No one can know. Not even your mother. There are Breeds that can’t have or make one of their own. She would even be appealing among Shifters or Chitahs because she doesn’t know the rules or how women of that Breed behave, so a deviant man would find her… trainable,” he almost growled.
“I won’t say anything,” I promised. “But can you do me a favor and stop springing all this life-altering shit on me, Austin!” I shrieked.
That was it. I’d finally had more than I could take and flew out of the room to take a shower and curse as I gave myself an angry shampoo.
~ ~ ~
Naya was a gem and agreed to watch Maizy for the day. I actually felt more safe with her over there than in my apartment; McNeal didn’t seem to know about Maizy, so it kept her out of danger. Naya had a day planned of movies, pizza, and shopping.
I drove to Sweet Treats to check on April and see how she was holding out on her own. It was over a hundred degrees outside and I dressed for it in my jean shorts, long T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. When I opened the door, a cool breeze didn’t smack me in the face like it usually did. It was sweltering, and April was on her knees with her hands in a canister, lifting a gooey mess and chucking it into a trash can.
As her eyes floated up, she wiped her brow with her forearm and her lip quivered.
“What happened?” I scanned the room and couldn’t believe the disaster before me. Half the canisters were empty with smears of melted candy on the plastic as well as the floor.
And April, for that matter.
“Charlie didn’t pay the electric bill and they shut it off.”
“What?” I gasped. “Can they even do that?”
“Apparently, they can.” She glanced around and wiped her hand on the apron. “I managed to move some of the candy, but I didn’t have any place to take it. The pizza shop next door didn’t have any cooler space and I couldn’t put them in the car,” she said, throwing her hands up in surrender. April’s stylish hair was streaked with pink and chocolate. It was sticking out on one side and her face was red with sweat dripping down her temple. “Now it’s just a race to get them out of the canisters before they make an even bigger mess for me to clean up.”
“Did you call Charlie?”
“He’s not answering.”
“When did this start?”
April shrugged. “I don’t know. Bridget called in sick, so I came in around noon to open up shop. The store felt like the freaking jungle, so maybe it went out last night?”
I reached around to my back pocket and pulled out a band, tying my hair up in a ponytail. I was going into crisis mode. We had a candy war on our hands and time was of the essence.
“The candy can’t be salvaged,” I said. “He’ll have to take the loss. What you need to do is start ordering more inventory. Tally up how much we need, because we’re going to want to make sure we can quickly restock our supply when the power comes back on. I can’t afford to cover the bill for Charlie, so I’m going to drive to his house and see what’s going on. Leave the candy. Once the air comes back on, we’ll drop the temperature so the candy re-hardens. It’ll be easier to pull it out instead of you contending with ten gallons of taffy.”
April had a bright laugh—like wind chimes—but she was a control-freak and didn’t handle chaos very well. One of the canisters tipped over as she stood up.
“I’ll put a sign on the door and cancel our orders,” she said. “Maybe some of them will reschedule, but I seriously doubt it.”
“I wonder how much those canisters cost,” I murmured, deciding they were probably ruined. “Do me a favor and open up the doors. Put the sign up that we’re closed. Call the girls and tell them we need them on standby. I really don’t want everyone in here dying of a heatstroke, but if it cools down later tonight, we can start cleaning up.”
April got out her phone and a list of contacts she kept under the counter.
“Uh-uh,” I said, taking her wrist. “Change of plans. Lock up the store and go cool down at the pizza place while you make your calls. Order a few glasses of water and do not overwork yourself. Your health is more important than all this.”
After she washed her hands in the bathroom, April closed Sweet Treats and I stood out front and called Austin to inform him of what was going on. He wanted me to keep in touch and let him know where I was because he expected to hear news from Ivan today.
April staggered up the hot sidewalk like a zombie, and I hopped in my car and headed over to Charlie’s house. I’d been there a couple of times for barbecues and had once picked up his mail when he traveled out of town. He lived fifteen minutes away from the shop and when I pulled up to his small, two-bedroom house, something immediately caught my attention.
Several newspapers were scattered across the brown grass.
I picked one up and noticed the date. I began tossing them onto his porch and rang the bell. After a third ring, I walked around the house and peered into the windows, but the drapes were all closed and it was hard to see anything. The garage door was down, so I couldn’t tell if he had gone out of town.
“You lookin’ for Charles?”
A woman in her sixties stood on the edge of the driveway, watering her grass with a green water hose in an attempt to save her dried-up lawn. She had a southern drawl and a scratchy voice that sounded like a cat squalling.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s my boss. Have you seen him?”
A ring of sweat circled beneath the armpits of her blue shirt. She was clearly a woman who didn’t give a damn about wate
r restrictions as she sprayed water on the dirty driveway. She scratched her curly hair, dyed a pale blond, and sprayed another patch of dead grass.
“He’s been sick with cancer. I saw the ambulance here the other night and Lord knows what happened to that man. I don’t think he’s got any family that I know of, except an older woman who came by a few times. I think she’s his sister because her license plate said Ohio. I don’t know who else would drive all the way from Ohio to Hell, unless it was for family.”
Cancer? I knew Charlie hadn’t been feeling well lately, but I had no idea how serious his condition was. “Do you know what kind of cancer? How long has this been going on?”
She pursed her lips. “I reckon a year or two, maybe more. He mentioned it to Daryl once but didn’t say what kind, just that he was getting those treatments. Charles told us his hair was thinning and he bought himself one of those rugs.” She chuckled and sprayed a leaf into the grass. “Ugliest damned thing I ever saw.”
“What hospital?”
“What do I look like, the news channel? I just saw the ambulance come in and drive off. Haven’t seen him since.”
When I got back to my car, I turned down an old Foreigner song and dropped my head against the steering wheel. “Cancer,” I whispered. Had I known, I would have visited him, brought over dinner, and helped Charlie out with any errands he needed done. We were probably stressing him out with work-related calls when he needed someone to take care of him. Charlie didn’t have a family to look after him, and was only in his late fifties.
The rest of the afternoon, I ran errands that were long overdue, including a visit to my mom’s house to check her mail and make sure her bills were taken care of.
I shivered and slid the thermostat up to eighty. No sense in having cold air blowing in an empty house. I grabbed a small bag for Maizy and then stuffed a few of Mom’s clothes into a separate bag. I wasn’t about to prepare for the worst, even though I sat quietly in her bedroom, staring at a picture of us on her dresser.
I packed her root touch-up because she dyed her hair blond and the last time I talked with her, she had mentioned her roots were showing her age again. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She could let her hair go grey and she’d still be the prettiest woman I knew.
