by Leela Ash
“Marissa,” he shouted grabbing her shoulders and giving her a slight shake. “I came here for some peace and quiet too, and not to see your face.”
She flung off both his hands. “Don’t you dare touch me ever, you leprous lecher.”
“Do you think I want to touch you?” he queried in a silky tone that said he was barely keeping his temper in check.
“I’m out of here,” Marissa hissed, side-stepping him and stomping off into the forest. “All I wanted was some peace and privacy but I suppose that’s too much to ask. You’ve gone and ruined my day.”
He watched her go for a minute then he frowned. She hadn’t driven here? Nor had she transformed into her shifter form? The forest wasn’t the safest place for a woman, he thought, and started to call out to her but checked himself when he remembered that this was Marissa. She was as self-reliant as she was annoying. She would be fine, he decided and returned his attention to his easel.
Marissa was still muttering to herself as she stalked away. What on earth could that idiot have been thinking? He hadn’t wanted her child or her and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he had seduced her again the moment he laid eyes on her, just to prove that he could. What had he called her, a convenience?
Well, she’d sure behaved like one, she thought with self-loathing. One touch from him and she’d melted into putty in his hands. She’d let him make love to her right there on the floor without any finesse as though she were some common floozy.
She hated him with a hot passion, she decided. And she was very glad that he wanted nothing to do with Caily.
A noise off in the trees and the sudden prickling of her wolf instinct made her feel as though someone was off in the trees watching her. Her eyes narrowed on that section of trees with the accuracy of binocular vision, peculiar to white wolves. Nothing moved in the trees. Nothing even breathed. She listened to the trees; they were silent. The silence was eerie, suspect.
She started to move towards the line of trees to investigate when her cellphone rang. One glance at the Caller ID and her lips curved in a grin.
“Hey Sunshine,” she called.
Caily’s happy giggle came over the phone lines. “Where are you, Babe?” she demanded using Bo’s nickname for her mother. “Grandma isn’t being a good sport about letting me have ice cream for dessert.”
Marissa forgot about the niggling sensation she had had as she focused all her attention on coaxing her daughter into having the healthy fruit smoothie her Grandmother had made.
Behind her, the Silent Watcher tapped one finger beneath her chin rhythmically, deep in thought. Then she gave the lone Archstone warrior with her a nod of approval. This woman would have to be one of their targets because she seemed to be close to one of the Damaged Pack.
She would be useful.
7.
“Tell me again Mommy why I have to go to work with you. It’s a Saturday. Grandma said kids don’t have to do anything at all on Saturday. I want to watch my cartoons.”
Marissa sighed. Caily had been even more of a handful than usual this morning. She’d refused to get out of bed, then she had refused to eat her breakfast, then she had refused to wear the first dress Marissa had picked out for her. Now she was refusing to go to the hospital too, and Marissa was fast losing it.
“Caily, please don’t be difficult right now,” Marissa sighed, lifting her daughter bodily and placing her in the back seat of her car. “I have to go to work and Grandma is going out of town to visit her sister, which means you have to come along with me.”
Caily wrinkled her nose. She was going for furious but she just looked cute as ten buttons.
Marissa slammed the door shut and turned around to the driver’s side of the car. When she got into her seat, she ventured a glance over her shoulder at her daughter, hoping against hope that she had brightened up. No such luck; Caily’s lower lip was poked out in a classic pout.
“Caily,” Marissa sighed.
Silence.
“Honey, you look cute when you’re angry,” Marissa said truthfully, then promptly realized how corny that sounded.
Caily must have realized it too because she shot her mother a startled glance in the rearview mirror and then she burst into laughter.
“Okay Mum, we can go to your hospital. But that means I get to eat a whole hamburger at lunch,” Caily announced.
Marissa grinned. Her daughter, the negotiator: trust Caily to figure out a way to get the best out of any situation.
Sometimes it seemed as though the little tyke was eight going on eighty.
“Done.”
When they reached The Angle West Hospital, Marissa escorted Caily to the Day Care facility the hospital provided exclusively for its staff. She dropped off Caily with lots of snacks and lots of kisses. Then she extracted a promise to be good and left Caily laughing and playing with Dr. Bailey’s kids as she went up to begin her rounds.
Mr. Henley, whose broken bone had developed an infection before it had to be amputated, was mending nicely and as soon as he saw Marissa, he gave a long drawn out whistle. The man was ninety-two and an incorrigible flirt. She’d even caught him flirting with his grand-daughter’s best friend the other day. The girl, a mere twenty year old, had flushed a bright crimson and gotten tongue-tied at his outrageous compliments.
“Hey sexy,” he called as she entered his room, adjusting her stethoscope into its customary position at her neck. “You weren’t here last night so I had to go on a date with someone else. Are you jealous?”
She knew his “date” hadn’t been anything more exciting than offering a few bites of his dinner to whatever nursing staff was on duty. But he expected her to play along and pretend to be jealous and the poor old dear had few joys in life anyway.
“Mortally,” she assured him. Then to get him back, she muttered, “Good thing Caily is in the hospital today. We’ll both have to sleep over here with you. Only way to fend off those women.”
He blanched as though he actually thought she was serious and she dissolved into gales of mirth. The man was terrified of her eight-year old daughter. It was the sweetest thing.
She assessed him with her professional eyes and with the added help from her wolf ability to sense pain and fear. He did seem to be in very good spirits and health this morning, she concluded, as she took his vitals and made small notes in the chart.
His granddaughter, Habiba Henley strode in just then. She was an exotic beauty, thanks to combined traits from her American father and Arabian mother. She was dressed all in black with an abaya and she had on a hijab that covered her hair as well in deference to her Islamic faith.
She gave Marissa a friendly grin as she bent to kiss her grandfather’s cheek, “Hey doc, when can we get our old man home? Dad said to ask. He misses you, Grandfather, even though he would never admit it.”
That was enough to send old Henley into narrations of ancient stories and as she watched them, Marissa felt tears sting at the back of her eyes. Caily would never have this with her father. Luke Summers wanted nothing to do with his own daughter. Scratch that; he wanted nothing to do with any of the kids he had fathered all over the place.
The day he had seen her and Caily at the park in Caily’s school, he had stared at their daughter with such heartbreaking awe and tenderness that, like a fool, she’d almost started to believe he was regretting his actions in turning his back on what they shared. But now, she realized he wanted nothing to do with Caily or her for that matter; all he wanted was a booty call wherever he could find it.
Community dick!
How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she have been so wrong about everything?
Mr. Henley looked up just then and caught a flash of tears in her eyes. He frowned, “Are you alright Doc? Is-Is something wrong with my reports?” he asked hesitantly.
She blinked hastily and straightened, plastering what she hoped was a bright smile onto her face, “Of course not Mr. Henley. Your results are amazing. I’m
going to miss you. Habiba, he’s going to be discharged after you’ve filled out some paperwork at the Nurses’ station.”
“Yippeee,” the girl exulted and took off almost at a run.
Marissa concluded her consultation with Mr. Henley and moved on to other patients. Once she was done with her rounds, she wandered over to Obstetrics, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jeanine. She was rewarded when she spied a mop of curly auburn hair through the blinds. She peeked around the door and Jeanine beamed.
“Marissa!”
“Hey Doll. How are you?” Marissa whispered, crossing the room rapidly to kiss Jeanine’s forehead. Kelly came in right on her heels carrying a small purse. Kelly’s arm was still in a sling yet she looked absolutely delightful with her chin-length red hair complemented by her nude makeup and trendy clothes.
“Hey, Kels,” Marissa greeted with a warm smile before turning to frown at Jeanine as she demanded, “Why are you in bed?”
Jeanine had only been scheduled for a routine examination and nothing more as at last check.
Jeanine shook her head slightly with a wan smile, “Don’t worry about it. Just a bit of high blood pressure.”
Marissa sighed. Only Jeanine could make high blood pressure in pregnancy sound like nothing. That feisty spirit, she thought fondly. She stroked a hand lovingly through her friend’s hair. “Has your doctor explained your condition properly to you?”
Jeanine nodded. Marissa smiled down at her friend and mentally cast about for a topic guaranteed to lift her spirits.
She found one. “So, how’s marriage to Bo?”
Jeanine positively glowed. The transformation was amazing and for a split second Marissa felt something remarkably like jealousy.
“Bo is amazing,” Jeanine allowed, dropping her lashes to hide her eyes.
Kelly laughed, “They’re all amazing; five hot guys with such chivalrous manners that you just wanna buy Joshua a thank-you Lambo. They’ve got different supernatural abilities and— ”
“Kelly!” Jeanine cut in dismay in her voice as she threw Marissa a quick glance hoping she hadn’t heard the supernatural part.
Marissa looked from one to the other. “Are you seriously trying to stop her from revealing that your husband is a shifter bear and hers is a shifter wolf?” she asked, laughing at Jeanine. The other woman went almost white with shock. Marissa grabbed Jeanine’s hands, “I know, okay?”
“You… know?”
Marissa heaved a sigh, “Your husband? The shifters? The witches? I know everything okay? I’m a shifter too.”
Silence.
Then Jeanine blinked, “I don’t believe it.”
“I am too. I just didn’t tell you then about the shifter world because you’re human and I wanted to protect you. But now you’re with Bo, it stands to reason you would know more about shifters right?”
Jeanine stared at her as though in a daze.
“I’m a white wolf, Jeanine,” she offered, watching varying expressions flit across her friend’s face.
Kelly smiled, “Derek never came right out and said so, but I’ve learned to read the signs. I knew you were a shifter.”
Jeanine licked her lips, “I can’t believe I couldn’t really tell you how Nana died because I was protecting you. God, I’m an idiot. I should have guessed, with all of you being friends from childhood.”
Marissa chuckled. Then her smile vanished as she asked, “How did Nana die?”
“Well, Bo and the boys went to check out the Dragon’s Pit where Nana had been trapped with Nabradia. The blast incinerated everything within a two feet radius and all the trees around it were dead.”
Marissa frowned, momentarily distracted, “How had they known to check there?”
Jeanine shook her head, “Drake is a dragon and the magic of the Dragons’ Pit is the only thing that could have destroyed the Tiara of Oistrophe. The moment it was activated, he felt it. He went tearing over there but before he arrived, everywhere had gone silent. Nana was already dead and the cave had sealed itself.”
“Would it open for Drake to get Nana’s body? He’s a dragon, isn’t he?” Kelly asked.
“No, he won’t be able to open it because he doesn’t know how. He’s the last dragon, so the knowledge wasn’t passed on,” Jeanine replied.
Marissa frowned at that, as something niggled at the back of her mind. She tried to pull it up from memory but Jeanine grabbed her hand just then and the thought faded.
“There’s some talk of trouble brewing with Nabradia. Joshua thinks you can help.”
Marissa looked confused. “Me? How could I possibly help?”
“I’m not sure but Joshua seems to think Nabradia is doing something and whatever it is seems to be making humans ill. He thinks you may be able to help, thanks to your qualifications.”
Something flickered in Marissa’s subconscious and she looked at Kelly, “Do you know the symptoms?”
“No, she doesn’t, but I do,” Derek’s familiar voice said from the doorway.
Marissa spun around, her face lighting up as she saw the handsome leader of the Damaged Pack for the first time in years. She smiled at him and he crossed the room and caught her up in a bear hug.
When he released her, she grinned at him, “Are you also going to accuse me for not bringing cookies over since you’ve been back? Jack already did that.”
He laughed, “It’s okay Babe. I’ll let Luke do that this time. He’s the one with the sweet tooth.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach as she looked beyond his broad shoulders to the unsmiling man who had entered the room silently and was now watching her with an unreadable expression in his shimmering gold eyes.
Marissa swallowed. Luke irritated her no end and he never passed up a chance to make her feel like she was lower than the soles of his shoes. So why was it that every time he was near she felt as though she had lost all her bearings? Why did her traitorous heart beat a little faster?
Drawing on a reserve of strength she didn’t even know she possessed, she very deliberately turned her back on him, without any form of acknowledgement whatsoever.
She began to ask Jeanine some low-toned questions and she soon forgot Luke because she was increasingly worried about Jeanine’s responses. If her suspicions were correct, then Jeanine’s human body was having a difficult time carrying the shifter baby in her womb. She wasn’t going to say anything, until she could carry out some more research, she decided.
But if that was the case, she had to beat a hasty retreat before Derek, who saw way too much in her opinion, detected that she was hiding something. Or worse, before Bo walked into the room to check on his wife because he would pick Marissa’s thoughts right out of the air, easy as you please.
She had to leave, otherwise they would all just worry and she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if it turned out she’d worried them needlessly and she was wrong.
She mumbled some excuse, flashed a smile at everyone and fled from the room. She slowed when she reached the corridor, pausing near a vending machine to collect some snacks. A strong pair of arms wrapped like steel bands around her shoulders and before she could react, she had been spun around and pinned against the wall.
Luke! His identity hit her with the force of a punch to the solar plexus. She valiantly hid her surprise and raised her chin as she demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What are you hiding?” he demanded without preamble.
“I thought we both agreed to stay away from each other. You’re in my space,” she intoned angrily.
He lifted both hands to either side of her head against the wall and leaned closer still until she could make out the very irises in his glinting gold eyes.
“Luke,” Marissa protested again. But it sounded weak even to her own ears. She wanted to drink in the scent of him. He had a musky, masculine scent that made her want to wrap her arms around him and beg him never to let go.
His gaze dropped to her lips and he muttered a low curse as
though he couldn’t quite believe it himself. Then he bent forward and melded his lips with hers.
He tasted like chocolate, vanilla and a hint of coffee all at the same time. He tasted like all her dreams rolled into one. But she knew from her experience with him that dreams turned to ashes, she thought. Marissa lifted her hands to his chest to push him away. Her traitorous hands fisted in his shirtfront and hauled him impossibly closer and deepened the kiss.
Luke’s hands wrapped around her midriff, pressing her to his body and Marissa’s wolf growled hungrily low in her throat. She wrenched her mouth away fully intending to drag him into an on-call room when a smattering of applause made them both aware of their audience.
Several nurses and doctors were applauding and emitting wolf-whistles and Luke, drat the man, bowed low in mocking acceptance of the applause.
Marissa could have cheerfully strangled the oaf.
8.
Nabradia was livid. They had sojourned deep into the forest and gone all the way to the Melina Caves only to find the compass gone.
Who could have taken it? According to the records she’d unearthed by a sheer stroke of luck, it had been there for over a thousand years, practically forgotten and relegated to history. Why had it gone missing just now, when she needed it? The compass was the very reason she had come here in the first place. It was her one and only link to Krilce’s Sobriety, an ancient diamond with the tooth of the first shifter imbedded in the very heart of it. It had gone missing years ago from the Isle of the Cursed. If she was to defeat the entire shifter world along with the human race, then she needed that ancient diamond.
She watched Ronan and Chirhiss backslap each other in that way men had, before heading off to their tents and she felt suspicion trickle through her mind. It wasn’t anything new; she had been suspicious from the moment Ronan had announced, stone-faced, that the compass was gone. These men were alpha shifters and not given to meekly following instructions. Plus, they all had the banked fire of rebellion in their eyes. Could they have somehow contrived to steal the compass for themselves?
