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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Dothan, AL 36301
Seeing Eye Mate
Copyright © 2006 by Annmarie McKenna
Cover by Scott Carpenter
ISBN: 1-59998-156-4
www.samhainpublishing.com
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2006
Seeing Eye Mate
Annmarie McKenna
Dedication
To my editor, Sasha.
To Maria, Regan, Judy. Thanks for your endless critiques.
To Christine for the final boost of encouragement.
And to my sister, Sharis, who has to go through long dry spells while waiting for the next installment.
Chapter One
“Eight ball, corner pocket.”
Caelan Graham tipped the bottle of Bud Light to his lips and took a long drag as he pointed his cue stick toward his chosen spot. He tried to alleviate some of the tension strumming through his charged body by rolling his head on his shoulders. Tonight was a full moon and he was restless. He needed a good, long fuck and a run through the woods, preferably in that order. Since he’d come here tonight to fill Eli in on the latest pack developments, it didn’t look like either the fuck or the run was going to happen in the immediate future. Instead, he’d settle for winning another round of pool.
He set the bottle on the edge of the table and lined up his shot, rocking the stick three times before striking the cue ball. With a satisfying clack, it careened into the eight ball, knocking it into the pocket.
“I win. Again,” he said flatly. This was getting way too easy.
“Goddamn it!”
Caelan ignored the pissed off shout of his younger-by-two-minutes brother, Eli. Maybe tomorrow night he’d go for a run. The woods around his and Eli’s ranch had been calling to him for days now. Their land sat about an hour outside of St. Louis. It was close enough to the city for practical purposes, yet far enough away from urban sprawl to provide hundreds of acres of wooded area for his kind to roam freely.
The steady flow of jobs at Graham Securities had kept Caelan too busy to even think about shifting lately. Not to mention the ongoing duties as his pack’s Prime.
He held his palm up just in time for Eli to slap a dollar bill into it. They’d long since given up playing for bigger money, or Eli had rather, for the simple fact he lost all the time. Shaking off his longing to slip into wolf form for the moment, Caelan chuckled and scooped up his beer. He headed to one of the few empty tables in the typical-for-a-Friday-night packed bar.
“How’d it go last night?” Eli asked, yanking a chair around. He straddled it and placed his arms along the top of the backrest.
So much for the happy moment. Caelan didn’t even want to think about how the pack meeting went last night. Or how it had ended with a knockdown, drag-out fight. But since Eli had been on another assignment and hadn’t made it to the meeting, Caelan had to inform him of the situation. He cocked his head and leaned closer so they could talk without being overheard. No one seemed to be listening. They were too busy drinking, dancing and having a good time. “Jared Ramsey’s mate was killed two nights ago. She’s the third one in two weeks.”
The Ramsey pack was settled in Junction City, about a hundred miles from the Graham pack. It hadn’t taken long for word to spread about what had befallen the young woman, especially not with Jared being the Prime’s son.
As the Graham Prime, it was Caelan’s duty to protect every member beneath him. So far his pack hadn’t been touched by the brutality of the three attacks.
“What kind of fucking sicko would do that to an innocent woman? Hell, three women.” Eli smacked his hand on the table, making it wobble precariously. Their beers skittered across the top, nearly taking a fatal nosedive off the edge.
Caelan grabbed both sides of the small, round table before it collapsed and made him lose his one drink for the night.
“Shut up, Bro. You want the whole damn place to hear you?” he growled.
“He killed another one of our mates, Cael,” Eli hissed.
Caelan nodded in agreement, understanding the implied “our” encompassed all mates in the shifter community. “I know what he did, E.” Every pack for three states knew what the asshole had done. It was finding out who he was that had them all chasing their tails. Literally. “The elders have asked all the packs to unite so we can pass information and better protect our mates.”
Talking about mates made Caelan suddenly glad he hadn’t found his yet. Yet being the operative word. The pack elders were pressing hard for him to do so and ensure the next generation of Prime. Hell even Eli was nudging him in the same direction. Of course Eli didn’t want the responsibility of Prime, which would be his should anything happen to Caelan.
This situation gave Caelan the ultimate enticement to stay away from women right now. He didn’t need the added responsibility of protecting a mate from the same person he was hunting. His brain knew that; his cock argued every step of the way. The insane growing compulsion to fuck was making Caelan growl and snap at everyone he came across. Especially when one of the elders had suggested to him that his need meant he was getting closer to finding his mate.
Thus the fight outside the pack meeting last night. Everyone’s tempers were already hot with the news of yet another attack. It had only taken a not-so-private conversation he’d picked up on for Caelan’s overloaded nerves to explode.
“Methinks our Prime needs to get laid,” Caelan had overheard.
He ground his fist into his thigh. Damn Michael Hayward to hell and back for being the one shifter in their pack able to pick up on Caelan’s need to get laid. No, that wasn’t entirely true, the elders thought so also, but their flat-out innuendos didn’t piss him off near as much as the bastard Hayward’s did. And leaving a bruise the size of Texas on Hayward’s jaw hadn’t eased the pounding need to fuck a woman either.
“Ooowee. Now that is one fine-looking specimen.”
Caelan snapped his attention back to Eli. God, but the man could change a subject quick. Of course, since Caelan’s mind had been on getting himself a woman too, he couldn’t fault his brother much. Caelan grinned. Having a woman, not keeping her, just having her. For the night. Or two, maybe. Not forever. Not now, anyway. Later.
Eli slapped his hand down on the table again. Caelan snatched his beer and balanced it on his knee while his fool brother stared and slobbered at someone over his shoulder. Caelan didn’t even bother to turn around.
“Cael, brother, I think you’re going to have to find someone else for that job tomorrow morning. I’m gonna be busy with that little filly over there.”
Caelan snorted. Born identical, neither of them ever had trouble attracting the opposite sex. More so for Caelan, being Prime. Females, both human and shifter, were always vying for his attention, but then, the humans didn’t know what he was.
“She’s close to her heat. Hot damn is she gonna be sweet.” Eli rubbed his hands together like a kid at Christmas.
Caelan had to admit a female in heat or even within a few days of it, was nearly
irresistible, wolf or human. Any babies born to a human woman, like he and Eli, were considered special, as they could control their shift and change to their wolf form whenever they chose. A pureblood shifter was forced to deal with their transformation once a month, on the night of the full moon.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you looked at it, the only way to impregnate a human was for her to be your mate. That in itself virtually ensured an offspring.
Despite his desire to avoid women for the foreseeable future, Caelan found himself sniffing the air. The fruity scent of a very alluring woman wafted across his nose, and Caelan froze. The hair on the back of his neck rose and every muscle in his body tightened in response. Including his cock, which stood at attention like every good soldier ought to, demanding to be buried as deep as it could get in the woman’s pussy.
“Son of a bitch,” he said succinctly. He dropped his chin to his chest, closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then he begged whatever god was listening to make this situation a dream instead of the reality he feared it to be.
He didn’t need to open his eyes to know that it wasn’t.
Eli droned on beside him. “Mmm-mmm. It’s gonna be a long night…”
Caelan couldn’t contain the canines that lengthened and sharpened inside his mouth. A low growl emanated from his throat as he listened to his brother continue to talk about the woman Cael had yet to look at. He instinctively knew the woman he smelled and the object of Eli’s current wet dream were one and the same.
“I thought you wanted Nikki,” he snarled.
Caelan glanced up to see a different kind of heated desire cross Eli’s face. A look that changed from I’m-gonna-roll-in-the-sheets-for-fun-tonight to she’s-mine-forever. Caelan wondered if there was more to the story with Nikki than Eli was letting on.
Eli stood, clearly shaking off whatever had been in his head a second ago, ready to swoop in on his prey, a stupid grin splitting his face.
Caelan reached out and grabbed his twin’s arm. “No.”
Eli tried to shake him loose, his smile slipping. “What the hell, Bro?”
“She’s mine.” His voice rumbled out of his chest, and he grimaced. He looked up at Eli, begging with his eyes for his brother to understand.
He did.
“Damn it.” Eli slung himself back into his chair, pouting and jostling the table again. “Ain’t this just the perfect fuckin’ time!”
Caelan had to disagree with him. This was the worst time to finally find his mate.
* * *
Tieran Jones stood just inside the doorway of the packed Cahoots and Boots Country Bar. Line dancers strutted their stuff to the rhythm of the twangy music filling the air, their boots stomping and slapping in perfect timing. There was a full bar to her right, a small pool table area to her left.
She shivered despite the stuffy buildup of heat generated by the multitude of bodies, and cursed herself for having entered the bar in the first place.
Damn her car to hell, too. Stupid thing decided to break down right out front. She’d never had a problem with it before. After sitting most of the day because of her job as a research librarian, Tieran was more than ready to be home. She sighed. So close, yet so far away. She did have to pee pretty badly, might as well go while she was here. At least there hadn’t been a cover charge to get in. Nothing like paying five bucks to use the toilet.
Tieran picked her way through the crowd, carefully dodging the undulating bodies. There were way too many chances for an accidental vision here, something she wasn’t prepared for tonight.
How in the hell did it just so happen to be this place where her car decided to take a last hacking breath?
“It is fate, my dear.”
“Yeah, screw fate, Gramama,” she mumbled under her breath to the woman who’d been dead for going on ten years now. Well, dead to everyone except Tieran, who, as a medium, still conversed with her regularly.
“Do not sass me, young lady.”
Tieran resigned herself to her fate and searched for any sign indicating a bathroom. She really did have to go bad enough her walk might be construed as a waddle.
The bathroom wasn’t any less crowded or less noisy than the main bar. Women were lined up in front of the mirror primping themselves and she wondered what for. In her opinion, men were the scourges of the earth. So what if her world was colored by her one terrible attempt at a serious relationship. It had ended in disaster, thanks to her “gifts”. She was definitely better off without a man.
Tieran stared at the women, itching to blurt out, “They’re not worth it, girls.”
“Some are, my dear.” Her grandmother’s semi-scold came through loud and clear.
Maybe, just maybe, there really was some man out there for her, but Tieran wasn’t inclined to test the theory ever again. Once burned and all that.
By the time she’d done her business, the area had cleared enough so she could safely wash her hands without rubbing shoulders with anyone. She could see it now—bumping into a woman who was wearing a too-short skirt and a barely there top. She’d probably envision said woman getting it on with some gross man she’d just met out at the bar.
Of course, the vision wouldn’t be the worst part. It would be the massive headache and nausea that followed. Occasionally a vision was so powerful she blacked out completely and woke up disoriented some time later.
She looked at her watch. A whopping five minutes had gone by. The towing company had said it would take them about thirty minutes to get to her. She snorted. If she was lucky, they might get here in an hour.
Maybe she’d get a drink since she’d worked through dinner. This place had to be better than sitting outside and waiting in her car. Alone. In the dark.
Along one wall was a row of seats, several of them unoccupied. She chose one, the middle of a group of five, hoping that anybody else who wanted to sit would wisely choose one that wasn’t on top of her. Kind of like those people who park their car way out in the parking lot so it doesn’t get touched. She smiled. She’d always been tempted to kick a tire to see what would happen.
The nape of her neck prickled. Someone was watching her. She gritted her teeth and pursed her lips when the feeling didn’t go away. Years of being laughed at and teased hadn’t developed the thick skin she needed to shield the pain the ridicule had caused. She felt like she was being mentally undressed. The man must have x-ray eyes or something, and was using them to strip her bare, skin and all. She would just take a quick peek. No, a glare. Yeah that’s it, a glare. She’d ensure that he’d never look in her direction again.
And pigs might fly. The way her senses were screaming, she doubted much of anything would make him stop looking at her.
“Be nice, Tullabelle.”
Tieran relaxed at her gramama’s use of her childhood nickname. It was the one thing that could make her smile in an instant, but if she let the woman get the upper hand…
“You be nice! I’m practically chafing here with all these bodies, as if you hadn’t noticed,” she grouched.
“Temper, temper.”
Ooh, that ornery old woman. Even from her grave she still gave Tieran what for. Thank God she was the only dead person Tieran could speak with. Having visions was one thing, but she’d heard about mediums whose brains were constantly filled with buzz from the dead. Worse, she thought, would be the empaths whose entire lives were bombarded with other people’s emotions.
Tieran peeked toward the pool tables, where the stare originated. The only thing she picked up was eyestrain from peering out of the corners of her eyes. Darn it, she’d have to turn her head. On the pretense of popping her neck, she twisted sharply to the left, then back to the right.
Bingo! There he was.
Boy was he ever there. Dark hair, dark eyes, though she couldn’t tell what color in the dim light of the bar. He was sexy as sin and smirking like the devil. Except that she’d already been with the devil and he’d used her and left her with a broken heart
. Asshole.
She glowered at the man, drawing her eyebrows together in hopes it added to her intensity.
Apparently he didn’t take the hint. Some guys really were as dumb as a box of rocks. Her skin tingled in exasperation and…something else. Heat pooled low in her belly. No. No way. Uh-uh. She would not let him make her feel this way.
It was hard to keep up the look when the man had such a scrumptious, I-could-lick-you-all-over body. She tried another tactic, turning on her scowl. This time she raised her eyebrows and sucked her cheeks in, making it clear she wanted no part of what he was offering.
Two sets of matching eyes peered back at her. One pair, the original ones, perused her body, while the other turned her scowl back at her.
Holy shit! Stunning, identical twins.
“Watch your language, Tieran.”
“Shh. Go away, I’ve got a situation. And stop laughing.”
Tieran bolted upright in her chair. Oh my God. Her car hadn’t simply broken down, her grandmother had played a hand. She didn’t know how and she didn’t care. Tieran just wanted to know why her gramama had manipulated things to put her here. “Fate schmate. You did this. You set me up! Why you rotten…of all the low things to do.”
“Ah, ah, ah. That’s no way to talk to your grandmother. Listen to me, Tullabelle. They need your help. Let them come to you. I promise they won’t hurt you, not like that little maggot Peter did.”
Tieran snorted. “Now who needs to watch their language?”
“Tieran, I sense evil here tonight. Be careful, please.”
“First you tell me to let two strangers come to me and then you tell me you sense evil? From who?”
“I don’t know, dear. I only see that you can help.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Help.”
With what? she wondered.
* * *
Caelan turned back from getting his first look at the woman predestined to be his mate. What he’d seen hadn’t been too encouraging. Her dark eyes had practically glittered in the dim light, shooting daggers at him. Then they’d widened as her gaze darted back and forth between him and Eli. He smiled at her obvious shock upon seeing the two of them side by side.
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