Deceiving the Protector

by Dee Tenorio

  “No, but I’m pretty sure I can track him down.” Betha’s effervescence returned full force. “You, on the other hand, have someone you need to meet before you go after him.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Well, that was the other reason I barged in. Jade’s asking for you.”

  “Why would the Alpha’s mate want to meet me?”

  “Probably the same reason the Alpha did.” The feline smile was back and Lia decided, then and there, Betha just enjoyed being trouble. “They want to meet the woman who cracked Jensen Tate.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Well-oiled hinges kept the door from making any kind of sound as it swung open to reveal a simple bedroom. Like the room she’d awakened in, this one was lined in light pine, but with a vast difference—while Lia’s room was primarily lit by the sunlight coming through the window, this one was illuminated by a ball of light floating eerily above the middle of the bed. Sitting cross-legged beneath it, a woman with a bowed head and hair the color of a raven’s wing hummed a warm tune to herself.

  The Alpha’s Sibile.

  The woman’s head lifted, but the eyes that looked at her weren’t what she expected. Light glowed out of them, pure white, just like the orb above her head. The light dimmed instantly, dissipating like fog, leaving behind a pair of gold irises framed by thick black lashes. Her heart-shaped face and features—slightly tilted eyes, straight nose and a full, deep red mouth—could have been a study in femininity.

  “It’s all right,” she said in a husky voice. “I don’t throw lightning bolts or anything.”

  “Huh. That she knows of,” came the snicker from behind Lia.

  “I heard that, Betha.” The woman—Jade Rysen, Lia reminded herself sternly—rolled her head side to side as if she were stretching. “I’m just keeping myself sharp while I’m locked in my tower.”

  “Locked?” The door had opened just fine for Lia. She felt a push at her back and stumbled forward as Betha followed her in, hurriedly swinging said door shut behind them.

  “My mate is…protective,” Jade explained, her lips twisting derisively at one side. “Sometimes it’s just easier to let him think he’s getting his way.”

  “His way is to lock you in your room?”

  Betha giggled. “His way is to wrap her in hazmat protective gear, slather her in impact foam and lock her in a padded biosphere.”

  Jade just smiled, positioning herself against several pillows and the headboard. “There are some very nice benefits to being in padded rooms.”

  Betha nudged Lia with a sharp elbow, muttering, “Please get her to talk about something else. Otherwise, she’s going to get that unfocused happy look and next thing you know, the Alpha’s going to come stomping in and we won’t see either of them for a week.”

  One of Jade’s eyes squinted while Betha gave a reasonably good impression of innocence. Clearly thinking better of arguing, Jade took a deep breath and, playfulness gone, settled that disturbing gaze back on Lia, almost as if she could see into her. Then she blinked and the smile returned. “You have a beautiful signature. Teal. And I think I understand what Tate was talking about.”

  Just like that, Lia’s attention focused, her temper sparking again. “You talked to him? Before he left?”

  “Briefly. Just long enough for him to thank me and tell me a few things about your signature. Ask some questions he thought I might have answers to.”

  “And did you?”

  Those eyes, the strange color more Wolf than human, turned piercing again. “Not a one, but a few things are starting to clear up now that I see you.”

  “Like my wounds did?” My scars…my life… Lia curled her hands, trying not to be angry about that, but her emotions weren’t under the cap they used to be. They flowed like spitting lava through her veins. She had no right to erase my life.

  Jade’s gaze left Lia’s face, instead looking around her, as if something hovered there, an expression almost of awe flickering over her features as she looked across the span of the entire room.

  “Tate was assigned to find you, did he tell you that?” Jade’s words seemed almost as if she were talking to herself.

  Lia nodded.

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “Because there was a killer on the Underground.”

  “That was part of it. But not nearly everything. He was sent to find a treasure.”

  “A treasure?” Okay, so the Alpha’s mate was crazy.

  “I’m not crazy.” Jade sat up straighter, almost affronted.

  Lia’s brows rose, along with the hair on the back of her neck. “You’re a telepath?”

  A heavy sigh from the Sibile and the golden eyes rolled with impatience. “Why does everyone ask that? I’m not a telepath, I’m an empath. A lucescere. I sense emotions, I literally see them surrounding a person. I can touch them, feel them, relive them if they’re strong enough. And yours are strong. They’re actually filling the room as we speak. Tate thought maybe he was able to track you because your signature was stronger than your scent. He’s right, but I don’t think it’s responsible for what he did.” Jade blinked, rubbing at her temple, as if something were hurting her. “You bottle a lot of things in, don’t you?”

  As if that were her business. “There’s not a lot of room for emotions when you live with a psychopath.” Let the woman think what she wanted about that.

  Jade’s brow lifted and she nodded her head in brief concession. “Apologies, you’re right. I’m just trying to understand something. Because as far as any of us know, what Tate did for you is impossible.”

  “You keep saying he did something, but I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Lia frowned, trying to think back. Some of it was still fuzzy. Asher had come. They’d fought. She lost. She could still feel the cold bathroom wall at her back, the fear when she saw Tate standing in the doorway, fighting past the tranquilizer to come to her. There hadn’t been any choice, she’d looked to the lights and…and…

  Jade finally gave her the answer, her tone almost censorious. “You were dead, Lia. It took everything I had, but to be honest, a few seconds more, no amount of healing your body would have brought you back.”

  Lia’s jaw went slack, her own breath growing still on her lips.

  Jade inclined her head to the side, closing her eyes as if she were listening for something. “He called for me, across thousands of miles, to save you. I shouldn’t have felt him, it makes no sense that I did, but he came through as if he were right next to me. As if he were screaming from the depths of his soul.”

  Dead? Her whole body went cold, just at the thought, but there was no repudiation in her. Truth resonated. She’d seen the light fixture and known her own life was the only weapon she had left against Asher. The only way to protect the man she loved. She’d reached for it. All she remembered after that was darkness. And pain. Excruciating pain…

  Wait for me, baby. Just a little longer, wait for me…

  Tate’s voice, the feel of him around her. Holding onto her.

  “I’ve seen amazing things since I came to this pack,” Jade said. “The connections shifters are able to form with their signatures, they’re impenetrable. Those bonds make them all stronger, healthier, faster. I can literally see their energies flowing into each other. But for all of that, it’s unconscious. None of them have actively tried to use that connection before. Not as a psychic conduit.”

  But Tate had. And not just in that hotel room.

  “He thought it was because of you. That your signature might be special, magnified his connection somehow.”

  Lia frowned. “I’m not special.”

  “To him you are. And he clearly is to you. Did he ever try to connect to you?” It didn’t take much to know the Sibile was well aware he had.

  “He’s talked to me, I think.” Lia thought back, trying to describe the experience. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing the sleeves of t
he shirt against her skin absently. “Not as a voice, exactly, not the first time. Just…I knew what he wanted. It almost felt like he was giving me…strength. I know that makes no sense—”

  Jade waved her off. “Who’s to say what makes sense? A century ago, this might have been what everyone could do. The truth is that no one really knows anymore what shifters are supposed to be capable of. We have stories, word of mouth, but a hundred years of death has wiped most of the culture away. The packs broke apart and the strength in numbers disappeared. Maybe they took more secrets with them than we realized.”

  “Imagine if they were bonded,” Betha added, drawing both Lia and Jade’s attention, which took her only a second to grow self-conscious about. “What? Wouldn’t that make their connection stronger? I mean, that would be a good thing, right?”

  Jade’s eyes fixed on Lia again, this time making her decidedly uncomfortable. “Is that what she wants? To be bonded to him? Or is there some other reason why he felt so driven to get as far as possible from his mate?”

  The hair on the back of Lia’s neck rose, apprehension flooding her from all sides. A warning, like a shadow casting a pall, without question from Jade’s side of the room. Neither woman moved, but the sensation of danger grew until it felt like actual weight on her shoulders. She fisted her hands tight, forcing herself to remain calm.

  “I’m grateful for all that you’ve done, but that’s between me and Tate.” Lia kept her tone respectful but raised her chin and dared the other woman to say something about it.

  “If we discover you’re a threat to our pack, that you’ve lied to us or betrayed us in any way, we won’t hesitate to eliminate you.” Such a silky voice to describe what would be a violent and painful lesson. “You must realize that.”

  Lia nodded.

  “Tate knows it too.”

  The implication that he’d fight to protect her should she fail to be approved hit the mark like a laser.

  But Lia wasn’t going to back down quite yet. “I’m no threat to you. Even if I was, there’s no reason to bring Tate into it.”

  “Uh, Lia,” Betha murmured. “I know you haven’t been with a pack before, but that’s the Alpha-female. What you’re doing is a good way to get dead.”

  “It’s all right, Betha,” Jade assured her, outwardly calm as ever. Serene even. Except the gold in her eyes had flared brighter, almost as if they were lit from within. “She’s not challenging me. She’s protecting her mate.”

  “Seriously.” Betha leaned closer. “You don’t have to worry about that. If Jade hasn’t cut him open by now, she’s not going to.”

  Those eyes continued to mesmerize, but Lia refused to be drawn in. Something strange was happening. “Why would you cut him open?”

  “Because he’s a pain in her ass,” Betha answered. “He has Sibile issues.”

  Vayere. Lia held in a sigh. How many ways had she poisoned his life? She could just imagine how he’d rejected his Alpha’s mate, to his own detriment. He was lucky Jade—not to mention his brother—hadn’t turned him inside-out. Was that to be her fate?

  Jade’s stare grew more intense. Reading her. No, she knew that look. She’d seen it a thousand times in the lab. She was being tested. To see what she was able to do with her signature or to test her loyalty to Tate? Lia couldn’t quite decide which purpose either test could serve. She just knew she didn’t like it. Unlike the labs, however, she could do a little testing of her own. Whatever it is you’re doing, you need to stop.

  Jade’s brows rose.

  It was a test. The question was, had she passed or failed?

  “He’s a pain in everyone’s ass, actually.” Betha bumped her shoulder into Lia’s arm conspiratorially, the action hard enough to force Lia to look down at her in irritation. In that instant, the connection between her and Jade broke, leaving Lia wondering exactly what was going on. A fazed second passed, filled with Betha’s voice, seemingly oblivious to the silent byplay. “But since he proved his loyalty before Resurrection ever existed, we’re all kinda stuck with him. We’re just like you, in that respect. He’s got a way of getting under your skin and making you love him, even if he is annoying as shit.”

  “Love might be a strong word for it, but he is family.” Jade’s expression was a cross between frustrated and—oddly enough—amused. “If you haven’t put it together yet, Betha is here because she’s Tate’s ward, therefore she has a say in whether you’ll be accepted among us. She seems to think your loyalty to Tate is unquestionable.” Jade frowned, but the pressure Lia felt earlier didn’t return. “I’m not entirely convinced.”

  “His ward?” That couldn’t possibly mean—

  “Tate’s the one who found and raised me. I told you he taught me to take care of myself.” Betha smiled. With all her teeth. “Guess that makes you my step-mom, huh?”

  “I suppose,” Jade finally said into the stunned silence, “we’ll have to take Tate and Betha’s word on it. All your signature is telling me is that he’s important to you, but that you’d also like to strangle him with your bare hands.”

  The sneaky little rat—Betha had interrupted the stare-down with the efficiency of a razor, breaking whatever mind trick the other woman was playing. But which one of them was she trying to undermine, Lia wasn’t sure.

  “Oh, I bet she wants to strangle a lot of people right now.” Betha laughed. “She almost tore a strip off me because I checked out her tits.”

  This time, the little brat got caught by surprise, Lia’s elbow sending her off balance enough to shove her two whole steps over.

  Lia looked back at Jade, who did very little to hide her laughter. If Lia didn’t know better, she’d actually think there was a slight yellow glow around the Sibile as well. “How have you not killed either one of them?”

  “People come around if you give them time. I’m a very patient person.”

  Subtle, too, Lia thought grumpily. But instead of the tension she’d felt all around before, there was only an energizing sense of peace and welcome. Whatever the other woman had been up to, she at least apologized for it well. “Can you at least tell me what happened to Asher’s body? I know he’s dead, but…” Somehow, part of her couldn’t quite believe it.

  After so long, after wishing to the point that wishes had almost become hollow whispers in the night, it wasn’t so easy to accept that her nightmare was over. Especially not when the only fear left was that Asher hadn’t been lying about Laurel’s fate. A fear she couldn’t quite deal with yet.

  “The man with his throat ripped out?” Before Lia could ask any questions on that detail, Jade’s nose scrunched with what could only be called distaste. “Even dead, he was foul. I disintegrated his remains. Maybe he’ll find peace in the next world.”

  Not if Fate believes in justice, he won’t.

  “I think I’m going to like having you in the pack, Lia,” Jade decreed out of nowhere. “Your honesty is refreshing. Most everyone else who meets me thinks they need to pretend to be nice so I don’t set them on fire.”

  Lia’s breath caught. Tate could have mentioned the Alpha’s mate could do that. Something else she’d have to take up with him once she got her hands on him.

  Betha pouted. “She never sets anyone on fire anymore. Not since she had the baby. She’s turning into the most boring Sibile I’ve ever met.”

  Jade sighed. “I also spend a fortune in ear plugs.”

  That much, Lia had no trouble believing.

  “So now that you belong to Resurrection—” Jade leaned forward, eyes twinkling with interest, “—may I ask what you intend to do with your wayward mate?”

  “You mean besides knock some sense into him?”

  “An event, I admit, I wish I could watch.” Jade’s smile tempted one on Lia’s face as well.

  “Believe me, you aren’t going to want to see this. When I get done with him, Jensen Tate is going to know exactly what hit him.”

  Tate drove, one hand on the wheel, the other rifling through his hair
. Again. He was going to end up furrowing bald stripes into his head if he kept this up. But he couldn’t help doing it one more time.

  He knew he had to leave, but the need to bond had his skin trying to drag him back across the miles. It had only been a few hours but he already missed her so much that the ache in his chest made it hard to breathe. No smart mouth telling him to shut up, no sly grins or saucy looks through golden lashes. No green eyes crackling with mischief or glittering with mirth as she demanded stories. But the thing driving him craziest was missing the scent of her so much that everything else smelled dry, dusty and sour. Musty. Like someone had taken spring away.

  Him.

  Guilt and failure rode him like twin whips across his back. She’d looked so hurt before he left. Angry. Worse, confused. Maybe he should go back. Bring her with him—

  No, she was safer this way. Betha and Pale would make sure she was protected until Pale took both her and Jade back to Resurrection. She might have been out in the world, but she didn’t know anything about surviving in it alone. Pale had promised to fly, which made the most logical sense. The less time either of their mates were out in the open, the better.

  The old highway stretched out ahead, a black ribbon with virtually no traffic, surrounded by sloping hills full of tall grass gone gold in the endless sunshine. No point in checking the navigation screen mounted to his right. He pretty much just had to point the car west until he hit 218 Humboldt Lane, Horton, Iowa.

  She’d remembered that address for a reason and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. If she’d ever gotten free, that was the first place she’d go. Where she and her sister had been trying to get back to. It didn’t matter that there was nothing for them there. Foolish or not, it was all they knew. The only place to start tracking a young girl who could be anywhere. If she was even still alive. One way or another, Lia needed to know.

  If he was able to keep his wits about him, he might even be able to learn something about this Shifter Control Task Force. First thing he’d done after hitting the road had been to call his secretary and get her going on the research. If anyone could do some stealthy computer run-downs, Mari was it. She hadn’t been too thrilled with his request to track down a ninety-five-year-old woman in Horton, Iowa, with only a first name to go by, either, but luckily for him, he’d long ago learned to ignore Mari’s snarls.