by Vella Day
“Stronger?”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t sure he understood, but if she’d want him to know more, she’d have been more explicit. “I’ll be careful.”
Naliana nodded. “I must go. I have so little time on earth, and what time I do have, I want to spend with James. And congratulations on your engagement.”
How did she know? Of course, she was a goddess. “Thank you again.”
That might have been a dumb thing to say, but right now, he was rather tongue-tied, and he didn’t think Jillian had even blinked the whole time the goddess was in front of them.
Naliana turned and floated back down the path and then slowly faded into the night. He faced Jillian. “Can you believe that?”
“No. I mean, it was hard enough to believe James was an immortal, but to meet a goddess was beyond my wildest dreams.” She faced him. “Though in reality, meeting you was even more amazing.”
Her words meant the world to him. “That so? How about we head on home and you can show me just how wonderful it is?”
“Race you to the car!”
He laughed. “You’re on.”
The End
*
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I hope you enjoyed Brian and Jillian’s story. Up next is FREEING HIS TIGER. It’s Dalton and Anna’s story. Here is a sneak peak of the first chapter.
Chapter One
Officer Dalton Garner leaned back in his office chair, worried about Anna Fairchild, the woman who smelled of warm honey kissed by the summer sun. She’d said her therapy was going well, but even after three months of meeting with James, she still seemed skittish—not that he was keeping tabs on her or anything.
Dalton couldn’t blame her for always looking over her shoulder. Hell, if someone had driven him off the road and then dragged him somewhere, tied him up, and beat him, he’d have had a hard time recovering too. Of course, that could never happen since Dalton was too fast to be caught. Being a shifter and a Wendayan had its advantages.
Mine, mate, his tiger growled.
Stop it, he told the persistent animal. So what if he’d had been the one to carry Anna out after her abduction. It didn’t mean she was his—yet. Anna’s not ready he told his tiger.
That was an understatement. Anna had only learned shifters existed that fateful night because his sister had altered her form right in front of her. It didn’t matter the act was needed to kill the man who’d kidnapped her. The shock alone of learning his kind existed would be enough to make Anna scared to be around him and everyone else.
Damn. Dalton wished there was something he could do to help her get over the trauma, but any move on his part might scare her more.
When are you going to tell Anna she’s your mate? his tiger asked.
Dalton didn’t respond this time.
“Garner!” Phil Smythe, his boss at the sheriff’s department, shouted Dalton’s name as he rounded the corner from the hallway containing the department offices. He barreled toward him, his face contorted. The man was as military as they came with his short hair, ramrod posture, and booming voice. Dalton’s partner, Kalan Murdoch, was right behind him, appearing equally serious despite his light brown hair flying behind him.
Dalton sat up straighter. “Yes sir?”
He tossed a piece of paper on his desk. “Crystal Wedgewood was murdered in her home tonight. I want you and Kalan to take the lead. Paramedics responded to the call by the husband, but she was already dead when they arrived. The coroner is there now and I’ve dispatched the crime scene unit. If you hurry, you’ll beat them there.”
Typical Smythe. His discourse was always to the point and with a minimum number of words. Good thing they’d switched shifts with Brant Thompson and Drew Compton. Otherwise, Kalan and he wouldn’t have been given the case.
Dalton stood and then had to rush after his partner who was charging toward the exit, acting as if he’d been told his mate was in trouble. Kalan had lived in Silver Lake his whole life and must have known the victim.
Kalan strode to his vehicle that was parked in front of the building, jumped in, and slammed his door shut before Dalton reached the squad car. He managed to slip into the front seat just as Kalan took off.
“I take it you know the vic?” Dalton asked.
“Yes. She owns the Silver Lake Bookstore,” he answered. From the way, Kalan’s knuckles were clenched on the wheel, he knew her quite well.
“What kind of person would kill a lover of books?”
“Someone with a grudge, I guess. It’s not like she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was murdered in her own house for goddess’s sake.” He slapped the wheel.
Violating the sanctity of one’s own home was the worst. “Could be she didn’t stock some sexy romance novel the killer wanted,” Dalton said trying to lighten the tense mood, but the moment his words escaped, he regretted his inappropriate response. Kalan cared for this woman and Dalton had trivialized his concern. The fact his partner didn’t even glance his way proved it.
“Whatever the reason,” Kalan announced, “I’m going to do my damnedest to find out who killed her.”
Dalton wisely kept quiet. They reached Elkwood Lane six minutes later and didn’t need to check the numbers on the houses because the flashing ambulance lights led them straight to the door. At the end of the drive, Kalan stopped and jammed the vehicle in park, leaving his lights flashing. “How about you talk to the husband while I check the back for a possible entry point?” Kalan asked.
“Can do.” Speaking with a grieving spouse was the worst part of his job, but it might be more difficult for Kalan, especially if he was a friend of the husband.
The neighborhood looked upscale with most homes sitting on at least an acre lot. All were manicured and had long driveways and mature trees. The Wedgewood’s home was a two-story brick mansion with tall pillars at the entranceway, and was possibly the nicest place on the block.
As soon as Dalton entered the foyer, the paramedics were on their way out with their gear. Dalton stopped Trevor Harden, one of the paramedics he played pool with. “What can you tell me?” Dalton asked. He didn’t expect to learn much from them, but paramedics were trained to check their surroundings.
“The wife was dead when we arrived, and the husband is pretty shaken up. Dr. Williams is in there now. He’ll be able to tell you more. Whoever did this was a damned fine shot. The bullet hit her squarely in the chest.”
“Or else he stood close.”
“Always possible. The doc will have to give you that information.”
“Thanks.”
Dalton stepped into the living room and was surprised by the opulence. From the fact Mrs. Wedgewood owned a bookstore, he’d pictured flowered curtains, brown recliners surrounding a wooden coffee table, and antiques crammed onto shelves—kind of like his old fashioned rental. This place couldn’t be farther from his image nor could it be any colder. That might be because Dalton wasn’t a fan of modern. About the only things that weren’t black or white were the beige curtains and a throw rug that had a few splotches of red woven in it.
The coroner and his assistant were working on the body while a man of about forty-five was on the sofa with his head leaned back and his eyes shut. Before speaking with the husband, Dalton glanced around hoping to find a weapon conveniently sitting on a table, but luck wasn’t pointing his way today.
He returned his focus to Mr. Wedgewood. Most middle-aged women would call him handsome in a square-jaw kind of way. His tailored suit looked expensive as did his shoes and silk tie.
Dalton moved closer. “Mr. Wedgewood?”
The man looked up then swiped a hand over his eyes and down his jaw. “Yes?”
“I’m Dalton Garner from the sheriff’s department. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
; “Of course. I’ll tell you what I can. I want my wife’s killer found.”
Even though he sounded sincere, it didn’t mean the man wasn’t guilty. Dalton always asked questions based on the assumption that this person could be the killer. Tonight would be no exception. “We’ll do our best. If you don’t mind, I’d like to record our conversation.” Dalton pulled out his phone.
“Sure, but I don’t know much.”
Husbands were a wealth of information whether they believed it or not. “Can you walk me through what happened?”
Mr. Wedgewood pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Crystal’s shop closes at six on Mondays. She owns the Silver Lake Bookstore.” Dalton nodded. “I usually arrive home before her, but tonight I had to stay late. I was working on a client’s portfolio and didn’t leave until six thirty. When I walked in, I found Crystal…like that.” He swallowed hard.
“Do you own a gun?”
A tic appeared around his left eye. “Yes, but it was stolen about a month ago.”
He’d heard that story a hundred times. “Did you report it?”
“Yes.”
Dalton made a mental note to check that out. “You have blood on your shirt. How did that happen?”
Mr. Wedgewood looked down at the red smears than glanced off to the side. He sniffled. “When I came home and saw Crystal, I thought she might still be alive, so I cradled her in my arms, hoping my body heat would help revive her. When she didn’t moan or respond in any way, I called 911.”
That explained the blood—assuming his story was true. Kalan came in through the front door but didn’t indicate what if anything he’d found. Instead of joining him, Kalan made a beeline toward the coroner and his assistant.
“Does your wife have any enemies?” Dalton asked.
“No. Everyone loved her.”
Someone didn’t. “Do you think one of her employees could have been angry over something? Like not getting a raise or a promotion?”
“I couldn’t say. I really didn’t know them very well. Crystal ran her business and I ran mine.”
How sad. Not that he believed he’d end up with Anna, despite her being his mate, but if he did, he’d want to know everything about her job like how many customers came in that day and who was nice and who wasn’t. At least he knew Anna’s boss well since Elana was Kalan’s mate.
“I realize this is overwhelming, but I’ll need you to come down to the precinct.”
“What? Why? I didn’t kill my wife.” His grief was replaced with disbelief tinged with anger.
Dalton held up his hands. “I’m not accusing you of anything. We need to process your clothes.”
“Why? I told you my wife’s blood is on my suit.” He acted as if he couldn’t believe someone would accuse him of any wrong doing.
“I understand, but it’s procedure.” They’d need to test for gunshot residue too, but he had no intention of telling that to Mr. Wedgewood.
Just then two policemen arrived along with the crime scene unit. Dalton nodded to Will Mathers, one of his coworkers. “Can you help Mr. Wedgewood pack for a few days?”
Wedgewood jumped up, his jaw tight and his hands clenched. “What, so now I can’t even stay in my own home?”
The man was losing it. “Mr. Wedgewood. It will take a day or two to process the scene, which means you can’t be here. Is there anyone you can stay with? A friend, a coworker, or a family member perhaps?”
His breathing calmed as he tried to figure out his options. “Yeah, sure.”
As soon as Will Mathers escorted the husband down the hallway, Kalan joined Dalton. “What did you learn?” Dalton asked.
“Forced entry in the back. I’ll have CSU dust for prints. Doc Williams confirmed she died about an hour ago. The bullet hit her in the chest, but he won’t know how far back the shooter was standing until he gets her to the lab. You?”
“The husband has blood on his shirt. He said he found her on the floor and picked her up in his arms. We’ll take him down to the station and have his clothes and hands processed for gunshot residue.”
“Does he look good for it?”
Dalton shrugged. “He said he was at work until right before he called 911.”
Kalan nodded. “We can follow up on that later. Come on. Let’s let the CSU do their job. We don’t need to be contaminating anything else.”
*
Even though Anna told her therapist she didn’t need to have weekly sessions anymore, James insisted she return one more time. As far as she was concerned, no amount of talking or counseling could erase what happened to her. One thing he said rang true. Her future was up to her. Either she could walk around in fear or embrace the challenges of life and move forward. Anna’s whole life had been one battle after another, and moving forward had always been her motto. First, her parents had given her up at birth, and then her first foster home failed to take care of her properly, putting her back into the system until she was adopted at the age of six. Unfortunately, her new parents were only supportive when it suited them. All in all, she’d been dealt a raw hand. Until a few years ago, she’d allowed self-pity to guide her decisions. If nothing else, James had shown her there was a lot of good in the world, and it was there for the taking—if she had the courage to grab it.
Her thoughts shot to Dalton who personified good. He’d been there for her when she needed him, which was more than she could say for anyone else in her life—except for maybe Elana and Jillian. When she questioned James about Dalton, he just shrugged, claiming he didn’t feel comfortable telling her about another person. James was after all a therapist whose role it was to respect a person’s privacy.
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t in therapy to discuss her lack of a love life anyway. She was there because Frank Whitlaw had kidnapped her. With much work, James had finally convinced her that involvement with the man had been a fluke. Not only had James helped her put the trauma in perspective, he’d been a font of information, especially when it came to what she’d seen the night of her capture. Anna hadn’t wanted to believe that her friend had shifted from a human into a white tiger, or that her boss’s brother Brian had transformed into a bear right in front of her eyes, but apparently they had. For weeks Anna had been positive she’d lost her mind, but James had explained she had been mistaken.
Apparently, people who could shift from an animal into a human were appropriately called shifters. He even went on to say that Silver Lake was full of these shifter-like creatures. Now that was scary. Every time someone came into the flower shop where she worked, she tried to decide if they might be one. Of course, she was unable to detect if they were, but it was interesting to guess nonetheless.
After a week of deep reflection on the topic, Anna dredged up the courage to ask James for more info on shifters. He seemed happy to oblige and explained such concepts as a shifter’s mate, and then what happens after a shifter bites the human he was destined to be with. The whole idea of a fated mate still freaked her out though she did like the concept that when a shifter found his fated mate, he would protect her at all cost and would be totally devoted to her. Now that she could get used to.
Sadly, who was paired with who was not up to the shifter or the person he was mated with. The gods decided it—or rather one goddess in particular did. Talk about another paradigm shift! Because of being in the system, she wasn’t brought up with a religious background. Still, the idea of gods and goddesses was hard to get used to. According to James, she had no control over this part of her destiny. She might be mated with a shifter or she might not.
Regardless of whether she had any control over her fate, she still dreamed of Dalton. Then the underdeveloped rational side of her brain told her the gods wouldn’t be that cruel. They’d never pit someone who was so straight-laced and uptight with someone like her. He’d balk for sure. Anna loved art and all things relating to nature, and she bet Dalton feasted on spreadsheets and logic.
It was silly to even
dream about something like that since she wasn’t buying the concept of a destined mate. However, no harm ever came from a little make believe.
Just in case she was wrong, at the next session she asked James how someone could tell if two people were destined to be together. All he would say was that the answer would be in the shifter’s eyes.
Great. The whole window of his soul thing didn’t help her at all.
Bottom line, she needed to push the whole idea aside and let nature take its course. Truth was, the whole biting stuff scared her, despite having the end result worth it. If a shifter bit his human mate, she’d become a shifter too. Having power like that would go a long way in being able to protect herself.
James did stress that the shifters and Wendayans worked together in Silver Lake, and that the shifters protected their fellow witches. In the end, it didn’t matter if her mate turned out to be a shifter or not. Someone would be there to protect her. Anna got great comfort from that fact.
For weeks after that talk, her head didn’t stop spinning from all the information James had so casually tossed out at her. But weird shit like that wasn’t all they discussed. James and she talked about her life growing up as well as her need to find her birth parents. She’d always believed that knowing why they’d given her up might help heal her belief that she’d somehow been unlovable. James told her that she personally had nothing to do with her parents’ decision. Circumstances might have dictated that they give her up. While probably true, she’d come this far in her search and would like to learn their identities.
So here she was at his house for the last time. Anna had finally put to rest what had happened to her, yet a bit of melancholy had seeped in. She liked talking to the old man. Not only was he was wise and so sure of himself, he possessed an aura of pure knowledge. What she wouldn’t give to unlock what made him tick.
Anna smiled thinking back to the first time she’d arrived at the ancient looking stone house. It had given her the creeps for sure with its dark interior, but after a few weeks she began to feel safe inside. It might have been because James didn’t judge her or because he was the only person she’d never been able to get any kind of reading from when she touched him. No, that wasn’t true. She hadn’t been able to get a reading off of Dalton either. Both of them seemed to be able to block her talents. While she’d never asked James, she wouldn’t be surprised if he too was some kind of Wendayan like Dalton.
