by Leela Ash
Kelly digested this information in silence. She was learning so much so fast about him, and try as she might, she couldn’t hold herself back. The more she knew about him, the more she loved him.
She tenderly laid one hand against his cheek and he turned his head and kissed the inside of her palm. Passion flared, heat sparked, and in seconds, they were a tangle of sheets and limbs, moaning and groaning as they urged each other on with urgent whispers.
“I don’t think I can walk for the next century,” Kelly complained with wry humor several minutes later as she lay in a boneless heap at one corner of the bed.
“Sure, you can,” Derek said, leaning over and giving her ass a tight slap.
Her response was a ladylike sniff of displeasure that made him howl with laughter.
Hi phone rang just then, and he grabbed it and looked at the screen. “Yes?”
Whatever the person on the other end said to him drained the smile from his face. He shot up to a seated position at once. Kelly looked at him, concern etched on her pretty features.
As soon as he hung up, she grabbed his arm in question.
“We need to get out of here. Now!” He was already moving as he tossed out the last part of his sentence.
“To where? Is something wrong?”
“It’s Joshua. He’s taken a turn for the worse. Plus, you should meet everyone.”
She dashed into the bathroom and took a very quick shower. In two minutes, she was racing back into the bedroom. Derek was already dressed and chomping at the bit.
A small meow near her window made her pause and she started for the window, “Don’t do that, Kelly. Get dressed!” Derek snapped.
His tone checked her movement and she looked at him, a question in her eyes.
“It’s a helpless stray,” she reasoned.
“Not in this case, it’s not,” he clipped.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain in the car,” he assured her as he grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor and thrust it at her out of impatience.
Kelly gave him a withering look and reached instead for a fresh sundress. She put it on with lightning speed, and they both dashed downstairs to her truck.
“Drive,” she ordered, tossing him the keys.
He caught them on the fly, and soon, they were barreling toward his home.
When Derek pulled up in front of a huge mountain with no end in sight, Kelly’s eyes widened. He had explained about the strays and the Salem conference and how he thought the stray cats and dogs littering the town were probably faeries on a spy mission. Kelly had barely been able to keep her amusement in check; it sounded so surreal and more than a little paranoid.
But now, when he pulled up in front of the mountain, she stared. How was she supposed to go mountain climbing in a dress? She had been in The Angle for over a week and didn’t even know such a mountain existed.
The moment they alighted from the car, the mountain suddenly seemed to shimmer and disappear, leaving a small pathway.
“What the hell?”
“Humans can only see the mountain; shifters can see home.”
She looked around, seeing the array of beautifully-lined houses opening up into a wild, untamed forest bounding off on one side by what looked like rushing water from a waterfall.
“I see an entire community. Am I a shifter now?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Would you want to be? You’re not a shifter.”
“Then, why can I see everything?”
He shrugged uncomfortably as he led the way, “Maybe because I want you to.”
Kelly studied his averted profile. She was certain there was something he wasn’t saying.
In the next few minutes, her questions were answered.
“Hey, hey, Derek!” a huge man with ash-blonde hair and a choirboy grin called as soon as the door opened.
He slapped a thunderous high-five on Derek’s raised palm and turned his blinding smile on her. Whatever he saw made his engaging grin vanish and he swore viciously, the sound low and furious.
“What’s wrong, Drake,” an old man wheezed from inside.
Derek looked angry as he gave the other man a rough shove. “Get out of the way!”
Kelly looked from one man to another, her heart in her throat. What were they fighting about now? She knew she had something to do with it because the other man had been all smiles until he saw her.
She felt uncomfortable. She hadn’t felt this unwelcome in her entire life; not even the first time she had met Jason’s overbearing mother.
“Come on, Kelly,” Derek said, placing a gentle but firm hand at her back and ushering her past his scowling friend. “The rude one’s Drake,” he added for good measure.
Kelly paled, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her.
“Come in, girl. Any friend of Derek is a friend of ours,” the old man wheezed from his chair.
She walked carefully toward the old man and stopped in front of him with an uncertain smile. She couldn’t help noticing that Derek stubbornly left his arm at her. Three other men were also in the room watching her; she recognized one as Bo.
“Joshua? This is Kelly,” Derek said.
Joshua looked her over, his welcoming smile also dying on his frail lips. Then he turned to Derek, “Did you really have to imprint on her?”
Have to what, now? she wondered.
“I couldn’t stop myself. She’s my soulmate,” Derek said in a hoarse tone.
“What does he mean, imprint on me?” she whispered to Derek.
“Later,” he cautioned.
“She. Is. Human!” one of the other men enunciated in freezing tones.
“Thank you for pointing that out in case it slipped my notice,” Derek shot back with biting sarcasm.
The atmosphere in the room was getting tenser by the second, and even the old man in the chair was looking peaked, as though he were nearing a heart attack.
Anxious to calm everyone down, Kelly stepped away from Derek and grabbed Joshua’s hands before anyone could stop her, as she knelt beside his chair.
“I’m here. Talk to me. What’s the problem?” she asked him.
There was a beat of silence and then, all a sudden, a burst of activity, as Derek hurriedly snatched her from Joshua’s side as though he feared she was going to be burned and then he turned her palm upward to face him, his eyes scanning her hands anxiously.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, flinging off his hands.
“It’s me something is wrong with, Kelly. I have Takun Poison,” Joshua said in a resigned voice. “He’s worried you’ll get it.”
“Takun Poison?”
“The Salem witches have grown more powerful of late. One of them placed a hex on me and I’ve got Takun Poison. It spreads on touch.”
“How would I know if I have it?” Kelly asked.
“You would start foaming at the mouth the instant you got it, and if you were human, you would probably be dead in seconds.”
Her gaze flew to Derek’s, “Tom. You can’t let Jason get him.”
Derek shook her shoulder roughly, “Stop it. You’re fine.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“Cos if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be standing upright asking about it. You would be curled up on the floor in a ball by now.”
“Interesting,” one of the men muttered. “She didn’t get the Poison when she touched you, Joshua. She’s human; her system is meant to be weaker than ours.”
“She’s also Pristinely Ungifted,” Bo announced in a bored voice. “And stuff like Takun Poison are magical. It will have no effect on her.”
Kelly looked around in confusion. All six men were now staring at her in open fascination as though she had grown three heads.
“How can we be sure of this?” Joshua asked, his voice alive with interest.
“I can’t hear her thoughts,” Bo offered. “It’s one of the reasons I didn’t like her much when we met. I had to
resort to studying her expression to glean her thoughts.”
For some reason, everyone found that funny except Kelly. She glared back at the outspoken man and decided she didn’t like him much either!
“Well, I’ll be damned! The chick’s immune!” someone whistled.
Derek motioned to the person who had spoken with his head. “That’s Luke, and the other slack-jawed idiot beside him is Jack. You already know Bo and Drake,” he added, grinning at her like a proud papa whose daughter just won the lottery.
Kelly looked at him in confusion. “Why do you look so happy?”
“You’re immune, Kelly. It means not even Nabradia can harm you.”
“And Nabradia is…?”
“The queen of the Salem Witches,” Bo said, looking so uncharacteristically cheerful he reminded her of a Cheshire cat.
Wolves and bears and Takun Poison and now witches?
“Of course, she is,” Kelly said quietly as though it made perfect sense.
16.
The atmosphere had warmed several degrees by now, with laughter and camaraderie, and she sensed that there had been an unspoken acceptance after everyone found out she had some “gift”, if being totally “ungifted” could be considered a gift. She supposed, in their world, it was.
Snippets of information kept dropping here and there, and before long, Kelly understood just what a threat Nabradia and her Tiara posed to everyone, and she heard about the Elderwood Silken Staff, which could cure Joshua, and about the Archstone rivals of the Weirna Shifters. Derek had even taken her to the Coyana Waters and showed her so many amazing sights humans couldn’t see unless the shifters wanted them to, or rather, unless they were imprinted upon like she was.
She wasn’t surprised to hear that Derek led the Damaged Pack. He was a natural leader; plus, he had several admirable qualities that made everyone just sort of naturally gravitate toward him.
She loved him, she thought, a fond smile drifting across her face as she bent her head and regarded him from underneath her lashes. He was so strong and masculine and so completely male.
She watched as he gave everyone roles. Bo was to figure out why the strays in Weirna had increased; Jack and Luke were to research the Tiara the witch, Nabradia, wanted, and Drake was to work with Derek on finding the Elderwood and curing Joshua.
Joshua kept protesting that “his time had come”, but the young men overrode his protests each time with such single-minded determination and fierceness that her eyes stung. She knew love when she saw it because she had loved Tom for the past seven years and Derek for the past few weeks. She knew love. These men loved Joshua so passionately that she could see he wasn’t just a mentor; he was a father.
She noticed that what killed him most was his inability to touch or hug any of his boys after all these years apart and finally unable to stand the quiet agony in his eyes, she made her way toward him.
All conversation slowed as all eyes followed her progress. She flopped onto the floor at his feet and took one of his hands in hers.
His eyes widened and he started to jerk his hand away. She shook her head firmly, held on tighter and reminded him, “I’m immune, remember? I can’t get the Poison.”
Her eyes communicated the rest of what she didn’t say to him. She knew he was an old man in need of human contact, and she had offered it without question because he was Derek’s father-figure.
She didn’t see the tears that filled every eye in the room, but in that moment, every male in the room slid all the way, once and for all, in love with the little red-haired woman Derek had brought home with him.
***
“I’ll have a Coke,” Kelly called, laughing up at Derek even though she was speaking to the waiter. “He’ll have iced tea,” she added, ordering for Derek without being asked.
The man bowed and walked off.
Derek leaned down and took her lips in a swooping kiss. It was short and sweet, and she tried not to blush as she shoved him away.
“Everyone is watching,” she scolded.
“So?” he quipped, but he turned his attention to the iced tea the waiter was placing in front of them.
“When does Tom arrive?” he asked.
She was supposed to pick her son up from the airport later that night, and Derek seemed to feel he had to go with her. She wanted him along; she was still jumpy about the man she had seen following her a few days ago.
Her days had settled into a happy routine; work, Derek and the Pack, and then a night of serious fucking.
She was happy beyond belief, and in love, and there were no wicked stepmothers in sight. The man she loved, loved her back, and Joshua and the Pack accepted her and seemed to like her a lot now. She’d even heard Joshua call several times to tell Derek not to return if he wasn’t coming with Kelly, and he sounded serious each time.
Derek always dimpled at her and replied to Joshua with a careful, “Yes, sir.”
Kelly was whispering some sweet nothings in his ear when a feminine shriek that was very nail-on-chalkboard made them spring apart.
“Derek Cavanaugh?” shrieked the bleached blonde with fake lashes and boobs that threatened to spill out her tight leather top.
Derek stared at her like a man who had seen a ghost. A dozen questions rose to Kelly’s lips at his expression, but they all died when he said one word, “Marjorie.”
So, this was the Marjorie? She looked nothing like Kelly had envisioned. She had pictured some classy chick with the face of Grace Kelly and the manners of the Queen of England herself for her to have left such a lasting impression on Derek that he had stayed celibate for fifteen years.
This woman looked like a female bouncer who had lived too hard and too fast in a few years. She should be less than thirty, but she looked forty-five!
“Marjorie,” he repeated, rising to his feet in a smooth motion and offering her his palm like a perfect gentleman.
“You recognized me in all this get-up?” Marjorie demanded, laughing. The sound was hard and brittle.
So, it was a get-up then and not her real appearance, Kelly thought, relief streaming through her. It was nice to know Derek hadn’t been attracted to someone who looked like that.
“Marjorie? This is Kelly, my girlfriend,” he said, motioning to Kelly.
The other woman shot Kelly a look of undiluted dislike from surprisingly vivid green eyes.
Then, without as much as a single word, she turned back to Derek, “I heard through the local grapevine that you were back in town, but I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Why didn’t you say something? Try to contact me? Or didn’t Bo tell you I never left town?”
Derek stared at her, his jaw in hard, uncompromising lines of granite. “Why would I want to contact you, Marjorie? We didn’t exactly part as sweethearts.”
She reached up and ripped off the blond hair, revealing short, wispy, blond hair done in tiny, beautiful curls. She was very pretty, Kelly realized in unwelcome surprise.
“No, Derek. You killed my brother and left town! You took the one good thing in my life and you smashed its head into the sidewalk!” she spat.
The imagery was so horrible, Kelly felt in danger of losing her breakfast.
“I didn’t kill Jeremy. He pulled a gun on me and I smacked him,” Derek ground out. “There was an inquiry into it, remember? That case is over and done with. Finished.”
“Maybe to the fucking juvenile courts you bribed. Not to me,” Marjorie spat.
“Kelly? Let’s get out of here,” Derek bit out. His voice was like a whiplash, the only outward sign of his anger.
Kelly followed him out of the bar, careful to give the other woman a wide berth.
Marjorie stormed after them, her beautiful face wreathed with fury as she yelled loud enough to wake the dead. “I’m so glad you’re back, Derek Cavanaugh. I’ve waited fifteen long years for you to return and you’ve come bearing gifts; your very own girlfriend! You’re going to get what’s coming to you, Derek, and so is Mi
ss Lovebird.”
“Sonofabitch!!! Damn it all to hell and back!” Derek swore in anger and then he cursed some more in French and Spanish as he careened, near out of control, down the highway.
Kelly looked at him wide-eyed. “You said Marjorie had a lot of venom to spew, you didn’t say she was a bundle of hate and spite. Derek, she’s burning with a need for vengeance.”
“Then she’s gonna burn for a very long time,” he growled as he sped toward the airport and Tom.
A few minutes later, they had both forgotten all about Marjorie, as Tom Dunes, Kelly’s seven-year-old son, flew into their arms in the crowded airport lobby.
17.
“I’ll take that blooming orange flower,” the old woman whispered, leaning on her cane for total support, her wizened face alive with excitement, like a little girl buying a toy as she pointed at it.
Kelly followed the direction the woman had pointed, a slight frown on her face as she looked at the weird flower she had picked up a few days ago on a whim when she had been hiking a mountain trail with Derek. The flower was incredibly ugly, and its stalks were unappealingly thick but the only reason she had taken it was because it had struck her as having potential if mixed artfully with some other flowers and arranged in a bouquet. It was just striking enough to give a certain unusual artistic flair to whatever flower arrangement it was placed in.
“Oh, are you sure? There are orchids and other, more beautiful, flowers,” Kelly protested.
“I want that one, girl, get it for me,” the woman wheezed. She flashed what might have passed for a smile but all she showed were five rotten and scattered teeth.
It was a most disturbing sight. Kelly looked away. Good thing Tom was at his first day at school. Surely, this woman’s appearance would have frightened him, and he would have woken up for several nights crying about nightmares.
“Well, I’m sure glad you found something you wanted in my shop, ma’am. But, um, what exactly do you want to do with it?”
The woman was silent.
When Kelly turned back with the flower, the old woman chortled with glee and reached for it. As soon as her hands touched it, the flower began to shriek. Kelly’s eyes grew large with alarm and the old woman sighed in exasperation and buried her head in her palm, leaving her staff to fall to the ground.
