Safe with the Keeper. Guarded from the dark.
He swiped the excess ink away from the intricate design. The same intertwining scroll and symbolism that marked his shoulders, back and collarbone—and likely the only thing that had saved his life and sanity in the early days. Had Jade’s and Tate’s parents not guarded him after his brother’s betrayal and marked him with the sacred symbols, the darkness would have consumed him entirely.
“Priest?” Jade pushed to her elbows on the padded table and peered over one shoulder. “Are you done?”
The art was perfect. A sufficient start in hiding her from the threat he sensed closing in. A malevolence he’d first felt with an unexplained summons to the Otherworld. Never since he’d been named high priest had he ever been called there so abruptly. Without warning or purpose.
Priest set his equipment aside and peeled off his latex gloves. As eerie as the memory had been, even if he covered Jade in ink, it wouldn’t feel like enough protection. “For now.”
Jade grinned, swiveled on the padded table, and snagged her blue tank top off the counter next to them. “How does it look?”
The tiny chimes above the front door jingled before he could answer, and Tate stalked through, his hands laden with yet another haul of the fast-food breakfasts Priest detested. The coffee, though—that he could use in abundance.
Through the open door, morning sunshine glinted off the storefronts on Eureka Springs’s Main Street, only a few cars and Harleys motoring down the main drag. Not surprising for a Thursday, but by late tonight or early tomorrow they’d be flooded with tourists and bikers soaking up the spring weather.
Tate kicked the door shut and threw the bolt. The fifties throwback neon clock showed straight up eleven o’clock, only one more hour until the shop opened.
“Tate, check it out.” Jade shifted in front of the full-length mirror behind her and held the blue hand mirror higher for a better angle on Priest’s work. “Mine’s as badass as yours and Priest’s.”
Ignoring Jade, Tate set the orange and white paper bags and cardboard drink holder aside and stalked to the window overlooking the street. “Hey, Priest. Have you got an early gig today?”
A prickling awareness danced across his skin. Not danger or evil. Either of those would have stirred the darkness trapped inside him. Instead, it lay still and dormant like midnight fog. He turned from cleaning up his tools. “First client’s at noon. Finishing up that biker from Fayetteville I started last weekend. Why?”
Tate twisted enough to meet his gaze. “’Cause there’s a little old lady and two people about my age outside in the parking lot. They keep staring up here.”
Jade sidled up beside Priest. “You sure you didn’t schedule an early one?”
Hell yes, he was sure. Appointments before or after hours were only for customers needing more than art. Those needing protection, peace or comfort woven into his coveted designs. “Get away from the window.”
Tate stayed put and studied the parking lot. “Looks like the old lady’s coming in.”
“Get away from the window. Now.” Two weeks he’d waited, petitioning the Keeper as much as he dared for guidance. For some insight into the danger he sensed or Jade’s subsequent terrifying vision. The Keeper’s only answer was a promise that messengers would be sent to guide him, but his instincts screamed to brace and prepare. “Stay behind me. Say nothing until I know who they are.”
“But I locked the door. We’re fine.”
The bolt flipped before Tate finished his argument, the remnants of air Priest used to unlock the mechanism fluttering the paper want ads on the corkboard beside the door.
“I want to know who they are, but I want you out of the line of fire,” Priest said.
Footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs to the shop’s raised patio, a light tread that would have gone unnoticed to someone without the benefit of a predator’s keen hearing.
The door latch clicked and the chimes overhead tinkled as an older woman eased through the door. Her attire seemed more on par with something from Jade’s closet—comfortable cotton pants the color of a robin’s egg and a fitted, white T-shirt. Around her neck hung three charms, each dangling from simple black leather cords.
Charms fashioned in the symbols he’d honored since birth.
His gaze snapped to hers. Deep blue-gray eyes he remembered from his youth stared back at him, the woman’s shoulder-length gray hair framing her delicate face. “Naomi.”
“Eerikki,” she whispered, the emotion behind the sound so deep and fraught with bittersweet memories his knees nearly buckled. Countless nights he’d wondered if she was safe. If she and her children had survived the night his brother murdered so many—Naomi’s mate included.
Before he could shake the surprise that held him rooted in place, she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. “I’d hoped you were alive. I tried to track you through my visions for years, but couldn’t find you until a few weeks ago.”
The messenger he’d been promised.
Finally.
His arms tightened around her, and the solitary weight he’d shouldered since Tate’s and Jade’s parents had died eased a fraction. As if the presence of someone from his own youth altered the gravitational pull around him and soothed his beleaguered soul.
Jade’s and Tate’s quiet footsteps sounded on the tiles behind him, their curious stares a tangible press against his back.
Begrudgingly, Priest released his old friend and stepped aside, bringing his two companions into view.
Naomi studied them. “These are your children?”
By now, he should be used to it. Everyone asked the same question, and yet it still knifed through him. He loved his wards. Would do anything to protect and guide them and never regretted their place in his life, but he craved his own mate. His own children.
A dangerous proposition with the tainted magic trapped inside him.
“No,” he said. “These are Lisana and Rani’s children. Lisana and Rani healed me after my brother’s attack.”
Naomi blanched, but tried to mask her response with a weak smile. He couldn’t blame her for her fear. The mere thought of his brother, Draven, still flayed his insides.
He motioned to his wards. “Naomi Falsen, meet Jade Mitchell and Tate Allen. They’ve lived with me since their mothers passed.”
Hand outstretched, Tate stepped forward first. “Not too many people know Priest’s real name.”
This time her smile was genuine, and her eyes lit with joy the likes of which Priest had long forgotten. She cupped Tate’s hand with both of hers. “I’ve known Eerikki since before the Keeper named him high priest. My mate, Farron, mentored him before his soul quest and afterward served him as warrior primo.”
Tate released her hand and puffed his chest up a little broader than before. “I’m warrior house.”
As soon as the words were out, Tate’s excitement deflated, the reality of Naomi’s information belatedly connecting with Priest’s history lessons. How Priest’s failure to ferret out Draven’s plans before it was too late had cost every house primo their life and countless clan members as well.
Naomi patted Tate’s shoulder, her petite stature compared to Tate’s towering height making the gesture almost comical. “It’s okay, Tate. Let it go. My mate faced his destiny the same way Eerikki and all the rest of us will.”
“You mean Priest,” Tate said.
Naomi swiveled toward Priest and frowned.
“The world’s different now,” Priest said. “Eerikki’s not exactly a name that blends in. Rani started calling me Priest in the seventies.” He shrugged. “It stuck.”
“Ah.” She scanned him head to toe, obviously connecting how the name tied with his image. He might have been an innocent when he’d stepped into his position fifty years ago, but now he reflected the hardened yea
rs in between. “It stuck because it fits. In more ways than one. Though, for your mother’s sake, I’ll use the name she gave you unless we’re outside our clan.”
Decision made, she turned her gaze on Jade and studied her aura. “You’re a seer. Who’s the primo for your house?”
Jade hung her head, and it was all Priest could do to stifle his flinch. “We have no primos,” Priest answered for her. “Our numbers are down. Most from the last generation refused their quests.”
Naomi frowned and opened her mouth as if to share something, then closed it just as fast and dug in her purse. “Give me a minute. There’s someone I want you to meet.” She pulled out her phone and typed out a message fast enough to rival Jade and Tate on a texting frenzy.
The same warning buzz he’d wrestled for weeks surged between his shoulders, both beast and man sensing a shift on the horizon. As though the answers he sought crouched nearby in thick shadow, poised to launch into the light. Whether the change he sensed was good or bad remained to be seen, but the sensation was too big to ignore. An emotional stirring that warned whatever lay ahead would pack a serious punch.
My mate faced his destiny the same way Eerikki and all the rest of us will.
If he remembered right, Naomi and Farron’s son had been eight or nine at the time of Draven’s betrayal. And yet Priest had never been summoned to join his soul quest. “Your family has always led the warrior house. Where’s your son?”
She averted her face and dropped her phone back in her purse. Her aura dimmed, the vibrant gold of the seer house paling as though a cloud had moved across it. “My son and his wife couldn’t come.”
His wife. Not his mate. More evidence her son had shunned his gifts like so many others.
Before he could question her further, the shop door opened and sent the chimes overhead jingling. A tall and oddly familiar looking man with short dirty-blond hair and a beard in the making stepped just inside the entrance, one hand braced on the knob. He scanned the room, his muscled torso locked tight until his gaze snagged on Naomi. “Everything’s safe?”
“It will be now.” Naomi shot the man a relieved smile and waved him in. “Get your sister and come inside.”
Priest tweaked at her choice of words. “Why wouldn’t it be safe?”
The man ducked outside, leaving the door open, and soft voices murmured from the raised porch beyond.
Naomi subtly inclined her head toward Jade and Tate. “I’ll explain later. After you meet my grandchildren.”
Well, that explained the familiarity.
Her grandson strode back through the door and stepped to one side, holding it open for the woman behind him. The second she came into full view, Priest froze.
“Eerikki, this is my grandson, Aleksander, and my beautiful granddaughter, Kateri. Kateri, Alek, this is our clan’s high priest, Eerikki Rahandras. Though, now, he just goes by Priest.”
Granddaughter.
Beautiful.
Kateri.
Some dim corner of his mind registered Naomi had shared more with her lighthearted words, but those were the only three that mattered. Except the woman in front of him wasn’t just beautiful. She was perfect. Dressed in a flowing tan skirt and fine white linen shirt tied at the waist, her willowy body gave the illusion of fragility, but strength beamed from her intelligent blue-gray eyes. Her hair fell well beyond her shoulders, a soft blond the color of endless wheat fields.
But it was her aura that gripped him most. No colors to represent a house, but powerful nonetheless. Shimmering as though the moon shone directly behind her.
My mate.
His beast stirred and scented the air.
“Eerikki?” Naomi’s touch pressed just above his elbow, her fingers light against his skin, but trembling. “Is something wrong?”
Nothing was wrong. Not anymore.
Seventy-seven years he’d been alone, but now she was here. His to win. To protect. To provide for and pleasure.
The darkness rose, and crude, devastatingly vivid images blasted across his mind. Him above her. His cock powering deep and her breasts bouncing with each thrust. Her soft cries filling his ears.
Kateri crept forward and held out her hand. A lifeline and a temptation. “My nanna’s told me a lot about you.”
He should step away. The evil was too close, waking with a devastating hunger and licking the edges of his control. To hurt this woman would be the end of him. The annihilation of his soul. He clasped her hand in his anyway, the contact zinging through him as profound as his connection with the Otherworld. He needed more. Wanted her hands pressed against his chest. Her nails scoring his back and her palm working his shaft.
Tugging gently, he pulled her to him.
She stumbled slightly, but didn’t resist, splaying her free hand above his thrashing heart. She lifted her face to his, her beautiful eyes wide and mouth slightly parted, her soft pink lips ready for his kiss.
His panther chuffed and purred, the uncontainable response rumbling up the back of his throat and filling the room.
Two seconds. No more than that and his mate was ripped from his arms and thrust behind the unknown male, her startled gasp still lingering in the air around him.
“What the hell?” The stranger’s terse voice slashed through the otherwise quiet room.
Priest’s cat screamed and clawed for release. The tingle and burn that came scant seconds before each shift raced beneath his skin, and his breath crept up the back of his throat in a hot hiss. He stalked forward, his prey mirroring each advance with a step backward.
Logic tried to surface, a flicker of knowledge as to the man’s name and who he was clawing at the back of Priest’s mind.
It doesn’t matter who he is, the darkness whispered. He took her from us. Kill him.
Through his beast’s lethal focus a movement registered. A woman blocking him from his target. “Don’t move, Alek. Not so much as a step.”
Priest stopped. He knew that voice. Trusted it. He fought the thickening black haze around the edges of his vision and focused on the woman in front of him.
Naomi.
An innocent.
An elder and a friend.
Her words pierced through the murderous fog, a pinprick at most, and echoing as though she whispered from the depths of a cave. “He’s her sister, Eerikki. Their parents were killed two weeks ago. He wants only to protect her.”
Her brother.
One of his clan.
Safe.
He touched her, the darkness countered.
His cat growled in agreement.
Eliminate him. Take what’s rightfully ours.
Naomi inched closer. “Alek, take your sister to the car. Wait for me there.”
The two shifted for the door, but froze at the warning growl that rumbled up Priest’s throat. “No.”
“He’ll bring her back.” Lowering her voice, Naomi crept within killing distance. “Your companion is angry. Insulted and raw. He doesn’t care that he’s her brother. Only that he’s a stranger he doesn’t know. But you know, Eerikki. Take the time to find your balance. Tate and Jade can go with them. Tate’s a warrior. You can trust him to keep her safe.”
As though she’d summoned him with her words, Tate stole closer to Priest, the wary nature of his coyote obviously sensing Priest barely held his panther in check. He kept his silence, but his watchful amber eyes burned with curiosity and confusion.
Never in all the years they’d been with them had Priest ever lost control. Hadn’t sunk this deep into the darkness in years.
Still braced protectively in front of Kateri, Alek stared Priest down. Such innocent bravery. Clueless of the torture Priest could wield with little more than a thought.
End him. The dark encouragement danced all too enticingly inside his head and sent fire licking down his spine.
&
nbsp; Behind Alek, Kateri watched him with wide eyes. Not afraid. Surprised, yes, and curious given the tilt to her head, but not afraid. She swallowed and flexed the hand clutching her brother’s shoulder.
His panther bristled at the sight, jaws aching to sink its teeth into the usurper who enjoyed her touch.
“Go,” he ordered Tate, not daring to break eye contact with his mate for fear he’d lose what little control he had left. His muscles flexed and strained, blood pulsing with a ferocity that left an aching throb in its wake. Naomi was right. If he didn’t find his balance, he’d slaughter Alek where he stood. “Stay close, but don’t let her out of your sight. No one touches her.” The darkness and his beast coalesced with his own voice and unleashed a feral claim. “She’s mine.”
Chapter Two
It couldn’t be real. None of it. Katy padded down the wooden steps from the tattoo shop, her footsteps nearly silent in comparison to those resonating from the three people behind her. The crisp spring morning temperature kissed her sweat-misted skin and the sun beamed just shy of its zenith. Normal. Safe. The same world she’d grown up in.
Except that the world wasn’t what she’d thought it was. For the last two weeks, her scientist’s mind had insisted that the things Nanna had told her—even shown her—weren’t possible. But that man. Eerikki. Priest. Whatever his name was. Her logic couldn’t ignore that. Had heard the animalistic sounds roll past his lips and felt the power emanating off him. Electric like the snap and tingle that came before a lightning storm. That was no trick of the mind. No figment of her imagination or wishful thinking as she’d tried to explain her grandmother’s foresight and shifting abilities.
And his body...
She shuddered at the memory of the hard muscles she’d felt all too briefly. The heat of him. Between his edgy biker appearance, loose black hair well past his shoulders and deep olive skin, he was every deep, dark fantasy rolled into one. Had her brother not yanked her behind him, she had no doubt she’d have happily pressed herself flush against him and purred like a desperate cat in heat.
Talk about illogical responses.
Healer's Need Page 31
