by Laura Taylor
“Lee?” He went after her then without a second thought, running on silent feet out of sheer habit. She disappeared around the corner at the far end of the alley, and Alistair rushed after her, wondering what on earth she would be doing wandering about in the dark. “Lee?” he called again, but she seemed completely lost in thought. A car rolled out of the darkness, headlights cutting a path for itself before roaring off into the distance, and by now, Alistair had caught up. But she still hadn’t registered his presence.
“Lee?” he asked one final time, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder -
Alistair felt the bone-jarring impact of his back being abruptly introduced to the concrete pavement before he’d even registered that Lee had moved. She loomed over him, knee pressed into his belly, a wicked-looking knife in her hand poised over his throat -
“Drew!” The knife vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! What are you doing here? I didn’t see you! I’m sorry, let me help you up.” She held out a hand, and then Alistair felt himself hauled to his feet with far more strength than he’d ever expected Lee to possess, based on her slender frame. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“Where the fuck did you learn to do that?” he gasped, still feeling rather winded. Lee tried to pat him down to check for any injuries, but he brushed her aside. Okay, so he wasn’t the most experienced warrior on the estate, but normal people should not be able to put him on the ground like they were swatting a fly.
Lee’s jaw dropped... then she backed away, looking at her own hands like she didn’t quite know what they were. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” She took a shaky breath. “My father. He made sure all of us were taught how to fight. My brothers and sisters and me. It’s not...” She shook her head. “It’s not nearly as altruistic as it sounds. It’s not because he wanted us to be safe when we travel. It’s more that he can’t stand the idea of anyone stealing anything that’s his. And that includes his children.” Lee sighed and took a few paces away from him. “We’re not his family, we’re his possessions. I’ve always known that, but it never really bothered me until now.”
“Is he involved in anything illegal?” Alistair asked abruptly. “You’ve never said much about what he actually does.”
She hesitated, giving him a sideways sort of shrug. “Technically speaking, no, it’s not illegal. But not everything that’s legal is good, and vice versa. A man could design a high-powered machine gun, for example, and sell the design to the government for them to use in their military. Legally, that’s perfectly fine, but in the end, that design is still going to be used to kill people. I suppose that’s how my father’s business works. It’s not illegal, but it’s not...” She looked away, shadows in her eyes as she tried to justify the situation. And from the looks of it, she was failing.
“Why are you out here, wandering around in the dark?” Alistair asked her, toning down his anger a notch. Being attacked like that had really rattled him. He wanted to keep her talking, to find out more about this mysterious father of hers, but she was so edgy that he didn’t think she was going to tell him much more straight out.
“I had a bad day at the office,” Lee said morosely, then abruptly burst out laughing. “Oh god, that’s the most ridiculous understatement. ‘A bad day’.” She muttered something Alistair couldn’t quite make out, and he got the impression she’d just sworn in Chinese.
“Do you want to talk about it? Should we head back to your hotel?” he asked, indicating the way. “It’s cold out, and I’m not sure it’s safe to be wandering the streets like this.” Lee was obviously more than capable of looking after herself, but it wasn’t a hard conclusion to reach that if her father had seen fit to train her to be a martial arts expert, then she had to be dealing with some rather rough types in these so called ‘business’ meetings she kept having to go to. And she was an expert, Alistair knew. He hadn’t had someone throw him around like that since the time he’d asked Andre to train him.
But if things had gone badly for her today, then perhaps someone might come out to express their displeasure with her. Alistair’s protective instincts were kicking in full force, and he wanted nothing more than to get Lee indoors, somewhere warm and safe, and out of the way of lurking thugs bent on revenge.
“We should go back,” Lee agreed, looking once again meek and subdued, much the way she had done the first day they’d met. She easily fell into step beside him, hands shoved in her pockets, shoulders hunched. They walked along in silence for a minute or two, then out of the blue, Lee began to speak. “I found out something today,” she said, her eyes fixed firmly on the pavement. “Have you ever had one of those moments where you find out something and it turns your whole world upside down? Like if someone came to you and told you that trees can talk, and at first, you’re going to think they’re stupid, but then they take you to see a tree, and it does actually talk to you, and... and then what?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Alistair told her sincerely. The day Baron had told him that shape shifters were real had been much like that. His first reaction had been to say oh god, you’re one of those crazy, new age, mystical twits, aren’t you? Baron had reacted with admirable patience, explaining things over again, and then, when Alistair had told him he was full of shit and tried to leave, he’d simply turned into a wolf right there in front of him. “I’ve had one or two days like that in my life, so yeah, I get it.”
Lee nodded, her thoughts turning inwards again. “There are so many things made of wood. Furniture, paper, picture frames, doors, sculptures, pencils, and they’re all made of trees who can talk, and you either have to forget that you know trees can talk, or you have to rearrange your entire life, for the rest of your life, because you can’t eat off a wooden table, and then go outside and talk to a tree in your garden. You can’t do that.”
“I completely understand the degree of turmoil this stuff creates,” Alistair said. His own reaction had been to collapse in a dead faint. The shock had been enough that when he’d come to, he hadn’t even had the energy to be embarrassed about it. “But it’s hard to say anything that might help if you can’t tell me what really happened.”
Lee shook her head. “I can’t tell you.” Then she stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him with a strange expression, as if everything in the world suddenly made sense. “You would, though, wouldn’t you?”
“I would what?”
“You would just want to help. You’d take the day apart, find the important bits, explain the bad bits and then straighten everything out so it made sense.”
Alistair couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is that what I do?”
Lee peered at him, as if she was trying to see straight through into his soul, aided by the light of the quarter moon. She lifted a hand to run gentle fingers over his face, his forehead, his cheek, his jaw. “You are the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. You make me see the world in different ways, and question things, and doubt myself, and I’m supposed to hate all that. Don’t people usually hate it when you shake their world up? But you make it feel more like riding a wave in the ocean. It can be scary, but it’s exhilarating at the same time. How do you do that?”
Alistair shrugged helplessly, captivated by the raw emotions pouring off her. Anger, fear, excitement, determination, and a raw sexual chemistry that he had no idea how to respond to. How did she go from meek girl to this seductress in ten seconds flat?
“Do you want to kiss me?” Lee asked him, and Alistair swayed forward an inch or two before realising that perhaps he shouldn’t be doing that.
“Oh, very much,” he breathed, his voice husky and low. “But last time I suggested that, you said -”
She hushed him with a finger over his lips, and then replaced that fingertip with her own lips. “I didn’t know what I wanted before. I do now.”
But that wasn’t quite going to cut it. “You’ve had a very stressful day,” he pointed out, telling himself he should pull away as she inched c
loser, the heat of her body drawing him in like she’d cast a spell on him. “You’re a very beautiful woman, but I don’t want to do anything you’re going to regret later.”
“I regret not taking you up on the offer the first time you made it,” she said frankly. “And I’ve had plenty of time to think about it since then.” She gave a soft laugh. “You’re almost too much the perfect gentleman. I want this,” she said emphatically. “My father would hate it, and I need something today that’s not under his control.”
That didn’t sound good, and Alistair pulled away. “I’m not going to be a way for you to get revenge on your father.”
Lee shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t mean it that way. It’s not a way to get back at him. It’s just a way for me to finally do something I want to do, the way I want to do it. For me to know I’m more than just his possession.”
“What exactly does your father do?” Alistair asked, not quite able to let that one go.
“He’s a General in the Chinese military,” Lee answered flatly. “And I’m sure you know enough about China’s human rights history and our political system to understand the implications of that.”
Oh. Wow. That was... big.
“So how is he going to react to me sleeping with his daughter?”
“As far as you’re concerned, he’s not going to care. What he’ll care about is me disobeying him. I’m more like a soldier to him than a daughter. But anyway, he’s not going to find out. The only way he would is if I tell him. And I’m certainly not going to.”
Then, as he watched, Lee deliberately loosened her jacket, giving him a hint of bare skin that lay beneath. “Come back to the hotel with me,” she said, stepping closer to him again, her scent seductive, her voice a tantalising whisper of silk on velvet. “We’ll talk. Have a drink. And then, if you don’t want to go any further... you can leave.”
Alistair gave in then. He leaned in to kiss her hard, pulling her body flush against his. “Fine,” he said, knowing it had been a losing battle right from the start. “A chat. A drink. And then we’ll see.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In the nursery on the third floor of the manor, Dee paced the room, rocking a screaming Luke in her arms. He’d been at it for an hour now, and each time Dee had thought he’d been quieting down, he’d paused, taken a deep breath... and then screamed even louder.
Half an hour ago, she’d asked Mark to take Taya into their bedroom, letting her get some rest. Both children were in human form tonight, and everyone in the Den was putting in efforts to help them become accustomed to their new bodies, but until tonight, they’d always slept in wolf form. They’d tried to entice Luke back into that form earlier, Faeydir licking him, curling up on the floor with him, using her fur to keep him warm, but he wasn’t having it. He’d been fed and changed, and for the life of her, Dee couldn’t figure out what the problem was. And the longer it went on, the more frantic her thoughts became. Was he in pain? She couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with him. Was he sick? She couldn’t imagine how he could be. Shifters were immune to almost every disease she could think of. So maybe he was rejecting his human side and going rogue?
The door opened then, and Mark came in, dressed in a pair of pyjama bottoms. “Do you want me to take him for a while?” he offered, but Dee shook her head. “I’m okay. How’s Taya doing?”
“Confused, but otherwise fine. She’s refusing to go to sleep, but she’s quiet and comfortable.”
“They’ve both suddenly chosen tonight to sleep in human form,” Dee said, pointing out the obvious. “I knew they’d have to do it sooner or later, but is it weird that they both did it on the same night?”
“Don’t know,” Mark said laconically, coming over to stroke Luke’s hair. “But if that was the problem, Taya’s usually the one to complain about being human, not Luke.”
It was true. Every day since they’d been converted, either Mark or Dee had taken both pups to lie in the earth den for an hour or so; although Luke showed it less, it was a reasonable guess that he’d be finding all the changes just as stressful as Taya was. They played outside on the grass, spent plenty of time with the other members of the pack in wolf form, and Faeydir had regurgitated food for them to eat. They had sticks and old bones to chew on, and Mark and Dee had made a point of praising both children for shifting, no matter what form they were choosing at the time, or what activity they were interrupting. They needed to understand that changing forms was a positive experience, something that brought rewards, rather than something scary or difficult.
They heard a soft knock at the door, and Mark went to open it. Heron stood on the other side, and despite her determination to get comfortable being a mother, Dee felt a rush of relief to see her there. Heron had seen half a dozen children raised in this house, playing aunt, surrogate mother, and now grandmother to the newest arrivals, and she knew more about how to do it than the rest of the Den combined.
“Do you need a hand?” she asked, no hint of judgement in her tone whatsoever, and Dee managed a wobbly smile.
“Probably,” she admitted. “I just can’t figure out what’s wrong.”
“I assume you’ve done all the obvious things?” Heron asked, holding out her arms to take Luke. “He’s been fed, his nappy’s not wet, he’s not too hot or cold?”
“Everything I can think of,” Dee said. “I don’t know what else he could want.”
“Chances are,” Heron said, rocking Luke gently, “even he doesn’t know what he wants. Babies do this sometimes. They get themselves so worked up that they don’t know what’s wrong, and they’re over-tired, but too upset to sleep.” She gave them a wry, knowing look. “Settle in for plenty more nights like this,” she warned them good-naturedly. “Now, you both could probably do with some sleep. Do you want me to sit with him for a while? You’ve both been running yourselves a little ragged the last week or so.”
Dee looked at Mark, reluctant to admit defeat. She’d turned down his offer to give her a break only two minutes ago. But Mark just smiled at her. “You go to bed,” he told her firmly. “You look exhausted. I’ll stay with Heron and Luke. I put Taya’s bed in the corner by the mirror.”
“Thank you,” Dee said, feeling a nudge from Faeydir, a reminder that in a wolf pack, raising puppies was very much a group effort. “And thank you, as well,” she added, looking at Heron. She gave Mark a kiss on the lips, then suddenly she was in wolf form, Faeydir clearly having something to say. The wolf padded over to Heron and gave a yip, tail wagging, then licked Heron’s hand; her own way of thanking the woman for helping out. Then she bounced up on her hind legs for a moment, and Heron quickly got the hint. She crouched down, and Faeydir eased her nose in towards Luke. She gave him a sniff, then a lick, then a comforting little whine, and within Faeydir’s mind, Dee was quite touched that the wolf would want to say her own goodnight to her son, separate from Dee’s farewell.
“You’re most welcome,” Heron told Faeydir, taking the wolf’s opinion very seriously. “Don’t worry about him for now. He’s had a lot to get used to. Come morning, he’ll be right as rain.”
On wolf paws, they headed back to Dee and Mark’s bedroom, but the moment the door was shut, Dee found herself suddenly back in human form. Despite more than a year of living with her passenger, Faeydir still had more control over the shifter magic than Dee did, and far more power, when she wanted to assert herself.
Dee went straight to Taya, finding her lying on her back in her low bed, wide eyes staring up at Dee. As Mark had said, she was quiet, but refusing to sleep.
“What is it, little sprite-ling?” Dee asked her, reaching down to stroke her hair gently. “Aren’t you tired?” Taya waved her arm at the touch, then stuffed a chubby fist into her mouth, sucking noisily. “And here I thought you were going to be the difficult one,” Dee said wryly, as a particularly loud scream from Luke filtered through the wall. On the whole, the manor was well insulated, but even so, there was little that could stop the crie
s of an angry baby. “Well, don’t let him upset you. Since you’re not crying, I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re okay for the time being. Let me know if anything changes.”
An image appeared in her mind, and Dee slapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. Taya seemed relatively peaceful for the moment, and she didn’t want to do anything to upset that fragile balance. “Well, your wolf-mother thinks you’re going to turn out to be a fine warrior,” Dee said with a grin. “Just don’t let her sway you if you decide you want to be a ballerina instead.”
Within her mind, Faeydir huffed, but said nothing more. The image she’d shown Dee had not been the one she might have expected; a young woman decked out in leather and adorned with guns, knives, or swords. Rather, it had been a toddler, not even a real toddler, but the cartoonish type you might see on television, and Dee made a mental note to keep an eye on what she watched. Faeydir was picking up far too much about modern society from the things she saw on the ‘glowing box’. And the cartoon toddler had had a wooden helmet on her head, a toy wooden sword in hand, and a wooden shield on her arm. A warrior their daughter would be, Faeydir had told her with the simple picture. But the Endless War was a way off for this most innocent member of their pack. First, she must have every opportunity to simply be a child.
Thando waited until the automatic roller door was firmly closed behind the car before opening his door and climbing out. Kathy was still out cold on the back seat, her wrists handcuffed behind her back, her ankles shackled together. He took a moment to check her vital signs – her breathing was regular, her heart rate slow, but even – and then he lifted her out of the car. There was an internal door from the garage into the safe-house, and Liam held it open, and then the second door down into the basement. He’d informed Analisa of their arrival a couple of minutes ago, but neither of them expected to hear from her unless something went wrong with Dr Evans.
