Dark Coven
Page 22
“Let’s head back to Dawson’s Retreat,” Mark said. He and Reece supported Beatrice, who was barely able to stand alone. Casting two major spells had worn her out and she needed to rest.
“You’re sitting on my lap this time,” Kala said to me. “I don’t think I can sit through another ten minutes of sexual tension.” She said it with a grin, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t joking.
“I thought I wasn’t your type,” I smirked.
“You aren’t,” she said dryly. “I like men, not skinny little girls.”
“Little?” I said as I plonked down on her lap and cradled the bowl in both hands. “I’m two inches taller than you,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but you weigh half what I do.”
“I do not!” Outraged by her exaggeration, I was about to defend my weight when Mark huffed out a sigh as he helped Beatrice inside.
“Cut it out,” he ordered us curtly.
“Sorry, Mom,” Kala said contritely. I had to put a hand over my mouth to muffle my snigger.
With his usual withering stare, Mark shut the door then rounded the SUV to the driver’s side. The guys entered from the other side of the SUV. Flynn was stuck in the middle this time.
“You have a bony backside,” Kala whispered too quietly for the humans to hear her.
“I disagree,” Reece said just as quietly. “Lexi’s backside is the perfect size.”
Both Kala and Flynn rolled their eyes in unison while red climbed from my chin to my hairline. That was the first time anyone had ever described any part of my anatomy as perfect.
₪₪₪
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Zeus felt us coming long before we parked in the lot behind the B&B. He emerged from the trees when I climbed off Kala’s lap and left the SUV. I knelt beside him and endured a lick that started at my jaw and ended at my hairline.
“Gross,” Kala complained.
Zeus’s tongue lolled happily when I thumped his side a few times. “We’ll be leaving here soon,” I told him. “You won’t have to hide for much longer.”
“Can he really understand you?” Flynn asked when the Rottweiler woofed and melted back into the trees.
“He can pick up the general gist of what I’m thinking.” Dogs didn’t think the same way we did and it was hard to communicate with him. I’d sent him the sense that we’d be going home. That was a concept he could understand.
I took a side trip to the restroom to wash then headed for the parlor. My father was waiting inside. Nerves hit me just before I entered and I hesitated at the door. The last time he’d seen me, I’d been a hulking monster. I almost wished I could read his mind so I’d know how he felt about me now.
Grasping my courage with mental hands, I entered the room. My father sat beside Beatrice on one of the couches. She was half asleep and I wondered why she hadn’t gone straight to bed.
Unable to delay any longer, I looked into my father’s eyes. For a few long moments, we stared at each other wordlessly. My heart hammered as I waited for his reaction. There was wariness in his eyes that I’d never seen before.
I lifted a hand to push my hair back behind my ear and he almost went for the gun that was hidden in the small of his back. It was only a reflex and he controlled the impulse immediately, but the damage was done. My heart broke when I realized nothing would ever be the same between us again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t kill Mom,” I said in a dull tone. “At least then you’d only have one monster left in the family to be afraid of.”
Sensing my overwhelming grief, Reece reached for me. I knew that if I allowed him to comfort me, that I’d break. I had too much pride to let everyone see me fall apart. I brushed past him and headed for the stairs. Locking myself in my room, I put the bowl with the necklace on the dresser and stripped off.
Slow tears tracked down my face as I took a shower. I wished I could wash away my loneliness and heartache as easily as I washed away the grime. Dressed in fresh clothing, I sat on the bed and stared at the wall. I heard my father packing in the room two doors down from mine.
Leaving his room, his footsteps hesitated outside my door, but he didn’t knock. “I’ll always love you, Alexis,” he said softly, knowing I could hear him. “It’s just going to take time for me to come to terms with your new…identity after seeing what you’ve become.”
More tears welled as he walked away. A sob escaped from my tight control. Reece was at the door even before my father’s footsteps faded. “Open the door, or I’ll break it down,” he said in a low voice.
Almost unable to see through my tears, I left the bed, unlocked the door then was engulfed in his arms. He closed the door then leaned back against it and pulled me in close. His cheek rested on my head as I held onto his shirt tightly and sobbed out my heartache.
“You aren’t alone, Lexi,” he said. “You’ll never be alone again. Mark, Kala, Flynn and I are your family as well now. We’ll never leave you.” I’ll never leave you, he said silently and I believed him.
I sensed his own loneliness and despair and he dropped his shields for me to see the cause of his pain. My breath caught when I saw his earliest memories. He should have been too young to remember it, but he knew he’d once been part of a true werewolf pack. He hadn’t been turned into a shifter like Kala and Flynn had been. He’d been born one.
Something had happened to his parents and he’d been left on his own. His memories were muddled, but his grief was clear. He didn’t know how long he’d been alone before Mark had found him and had taken him under his wing. Kala and Flynn had joined them shortly afterwards and they’d become his new family.
Now he had me. Even though our bond had been forced on us, he was happy. He was no longer a lone wolf. I was his mate and he was content.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I allowed myself to sink into his embrace. What we had wasn’t perfect, but he had accepted our bond and he was willing to make the best of it. I had a choice to make and it was the most important decision of my young life. I could accept our bond and attempt to become his true mate, or I could reject the olive branch that he was extending and ostracize myself from our pack.
In the end, it wasn’t a difficult choice at all. I went onto my tippy toes and kissed him. His hands came up to frame my face and he returned the kiss with a passion that was far more gentle than usual. Eventually, we pulled away, marveling in our mutual surrender to the inevitable. We jumped when a knock came at the door.
“If you two can bear to tear yourselves away from each other, Mark needs us in the parlor,” Kala said and walked away before we could respond. I didn’t have to see her face to know she was smirking.
I spent a few moments in the bathroom to wash my face and to tidy up before I joined the others downstairs. Mark’s expression was serious when I took the spare seat across from him. Beatrice had gone to bed while I’d been falling apart. She was upstairs, sleeping deeply and snoring lightly.
“I’ve just received word that the remains of a body were found on the far side of the woods,” Mark said.
“Do you know what was responsible for the death?” Flynn asked.
“My source believes it was a werewolf,” he replied and a foreboding silence descended.
I turned to Reece and he looked back at me in stunned horror. Any shifters who killed a human were considered to be rogue and were automatically sentenced to death. As far as I knew, we were the only two werewolves in West Virginia.
“No we aren’t,” Reece said in response to my thought. “We sensed another werewolf in the woods, remember?”
I recalled it now and I also remembered that the shifter had been somehow familiar. Reece had met this rogue sometime in his distant and hazy past.
“We have to figure out who they are and find them as soon as possible,” Mark said.
“That’s kind of our job, isn’t it?” I queried. I was unsure why he was so grim about it.
Kala said what they were all thinking. “We have to find ou
t who did it before Reece or you get the blame.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of the possibility that either Reece or I might be blamed for the murder. We might be the bad guys when we turned, but when we were human, we worked for the good guys.
I wasn’t sure how many people in the PIA knew who and what we were, but at least a few of them did. The TAK Squad weren’t the only hunters who worked for the organization. If we couldn’t find the creature responsible, Mark’s superiors might indeed blame us and blow the whistle on our secret. If that happened, we might very well end up facing our colleagues.
Every single one of them were expert hunters and they’d be hell bent on eradicating our squad. While they might be good, we were better. None of them would stand a chance against us. We’d be forced to defend ourselves and we’d leave a swathe of bodies in our wake. It would be a no win situation that we needed to avoid at all costs.
We have to find this guy and put him down, Reece thought to me bleakly. In tune with his mind, I felt how much that thought hurt him. He’d been alone for so long and now he’d finally found someone from his past. There would be no happy reunion for the pair. The other shifter had gone rogue and there was only one possible outcome for him; death.
Titles by J.C. Diem:
(Mortis Series)
Death Beckons
Death Embraces
Death Deceives
Death Devours
Death Betrays
Death Banishes
Death Returns
Death Conquers
Death Reigns
(Shifter Squad Series)
Seven Psychics
Zombie King
Dark Coven
If you would like to be advised of any new releases, please visit my website: www.jcdiem.com and sign up to receive my newsletter.
Coming in May 2015
Rogue Wolf – Shifter Squad: Book Four
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight