Scions: Revelation

by Patrice Michelle

  Emma stared at his profile as he raised his hand to get the bartender’s attention. Nothing about him looked familiar. She knew she’d never met him in her life, yet his scent evoked something strong within her. Appearing to be in his early thirties, he wasn’t pretty-boy handsome. From his nose, to his square jaw, to black eyebrows over dark eyes, his looks were a bit harsh but intriguing.

  He turned and whispered something to the brunette beside him. The blonde slid her hand along his backside, then wrapped her arm around his waist and tugged him against her. “You have to dance with me next,” she said, rubbing her body on his.

  Emma smirked. You mean he wasn’t already?

  “Here’s your beer.” The bartender interrupted her observation, setting Emma’s drink on the wood bar top, then he turned to the man on her right. “What’ll it be?”

  The dark-haired man glanced at Emma’s imported beer. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  The bartender walked away before she could hand him her money. Emma thrummed her fingers on the bar top and waited for him to return. She refused to look at the guy beside her. Had she imagined him walking inside the club with a redheaded guy? Or maybe the other guy had girls climbing all over him somewhere else in the club.

  Apparently, the brunette didn’t like that the man she hung on had glanced Emma’s way. Emma felt the female’s avid stare as the woman moved to stand in front of him, while the blonde literally crawled all over his back. The bartender returned with another beer and the man handed him a large bill. “That’s for hers, too,” he said, nodding to Emma.

  He had an engaging smile and smelled like sin incarnate, but Emma wasn’t flattered. Handing the bartender her money, she swept her gaze over the two ladies hanging on the man and said, “No thanks. I think they’ve got all your sides covered,” before she walked away.

  Caine stared after the petite woman who’d just slammed him. He was taken aback but amused by her comment. The brunette kissed his jaw and said in a husky voice, “We’ll be right back.”

  The blonde backed away with her friend and waved. “Bathroom break.”

  As he watched the women walk off, he realized he hadn’t learned their names yet, but his mind was on the woman who’d turned down his offer to pay for her beer. She had the most arresting eyes. They were so light brown that the color appeared almost yellow. What was her name? He scanned the crowd, looking for her pageboy hat among the crush of people. She’d disappeared.

  Laird walked up and ran a hand through his short auburn hair. “Better learn to tie a knot. That bathroom line is long.” Frowning, he glanced around the bar area. “How the hell did you manage to lose two women while I was gone?”

  “Talent,” Caine grunted, then took a drink of his beer.

  “Now I know why you weren’t answering your cell.”

  Caine immediately tensed at Landon’s terse tone behind him. He swiveled and met the Alpha’s steady stare. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kaitlyn, Landon’s mate, ordering drinks at the other end of the bar. “Why are you looking for me? Wasn’t kicking me out of the pack enough for you?”

  Landon’s face turned to stone and he crossed his arms over his wide chest. “Leaving was your choice.”

  Resentment churned in Caine’s stomach. Ninety days of loneliness and feeling completely alienated from his own kind fueled his bitter tone. “You didn’t give me an option.”

  Kaitlyn walked up carrying two mugs of Guinness. At the same time, the song ended and the multicolored spotlights around the dance floor were doused, sending the bar into momentary darkness. She gasped and stared at Caine. “Do you see it?” she addressed Landon.

  A new song started up and the colorful lights sprang back to life, reflecting off Landon’s tense jaw. “I do.” Grabbing the drinks from her hands, he set them on the bar. “Let’s go.”

  Laird’s attention pinged between Landon, Caine and Kaitlyn. “Am I missing something?”

  Caine shrugged and took another swig of his beer. “I’m as clueless as you.”

  “More than you realize.” Landon’s cold tone spoke volumes. “Leave immediately and meet me at my office.”

  Caine stiffened, ready to refuse.

  The Alpha got right in his face. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re still a member of my pack and my responsibility. Get your ass moving, wolf.”

  After Landon and Kaitlyn walked off toward the entrance, Laird said, “Where’d the ladies go? Did you find out their names?”

  Caine shook his head. “They went to the bathroom. If the lines are like you say, they’ll be a while.” He set down his beer, wishing he’d gotten the hat girl’s name. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  When they left the club and the heavy doors shut behind them, Caine caught a glimpse of the girl in the hat walking up the road and his pulse raced. “Get the car and meet me around the block,” he called to Laird, then took off in her direction.

  As he headed her way, she pulled her gloves out of her pockets and shrugged into them. Caine briefly stopped to grab the paper she’d dropped. In a matter of seconds, he was just a few feet behind her. “Hey, Hat Girl! Wait up.”

  She gasped and jumped, coming to a halt. “You scared the crap out of me. Don’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “You dropped this.” Caine walked up and handed her the napkin before sliding his hands into his jeans pockets. “You shouldn’t be walking the streets by yourself at night. Let me walk you to wherever you’re going.”

  “Thanks.” She shoved the napkin in her pocket. “Don’t you have other women to attend to?” she said before she continued walking toward a parking deck up ahead.

  Caine chuckled and fell into step beside her. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “So I imagined those two women trying to become your second skin?”

  Touché. “And yet I’m here, talking to you,” he said in a husky tone.

  She shrugged, unimpressed. “Everyone likes a challenge.”

  She was a good six inches shorter than him, but with her thick jacket and her hair tucked up under a black pageboy hat, he couldn’t tell much else about her physically. No earrings swung from her ears or lipstick coated her lips. High cheekbones made her oval face more interesting than beautiful, but she had something about her…something elusive, and damn he liked her snap. “Is that what you would be? A good challenge?”

  Her yellow gaze slanted briefly. “I would be the ultimate challenge.”

  No smug smile, no pretense at all. Just the determined set of her jaw and the way she walked—graceful and self-assured. She exuded the kind of self-confidence some people work all their lives to acquire but never really accomplish, yet she was so young. He’d guess a little over twenty.

  They’d reached the entrance to the parking deck and she stopped. “I can take it from here. Thanks.”

  Caine was stunned to be summarily dismissed. Women, especially those younger than him, were usually drawn in by his smile alone. He searched her face, looking for some kind of clue to her underlying strategy. No artifice reflected in her intriguing eyes. “Will you at least tell me your name?”

  She smiled and his groin hardened and his chest cinched tight in a deep primal response to her natural beauty.

  “Hat Girl will do. Good night.”

  She turned to walk away, but Caine caught her gloved hand. Drawing her fingers to his lips, he said, “I’m glad I met you, Hat Girl.”

  A car horn blew and Caine jerked his gaze to the road behind him. Laird leaned out the car window. “Come on, Caine. Landon’s waiting.”

  Small fingers folded around his, drawing his attention. Her lips were tilted in amusement, a delicate dark eyebrow elevated. “Things aren’t always what they seem?”

  Caine grinned. “Exactly.”

  Pulling her hand from his, she backed away. “It was nice to meet you, Caine. Your friend is waiting.”

  “I’d like to see you again.”

  H
er low laugh made his heart beat faster.

  “I’ll be around.”

  Caine didn’t like her evasive answer. He realized he’d been so caught up in trying to learn more about her that he hadn’t taken the time to catch her scent. He’d be able to track her that way. Something close to panic gripped him at the thought she’d disappear and he’d never see her again. “At least tell me your name or give me your number.”

  “I’ve got to go. I have a long drive ahead of me.”

  “You don’t live in the city then?”

  She shook her head.

  The horn blew again and Caine barked toward the car, “I’m coming, Laird.”

  When he turned back, she was gone.

  “I have to deal with Landon for taking our time getting there. You don’t,” Laird grumbled as Caine climbed into the passenger side.

  Caine shut the door harder than necessary. “He’ll get over it.”

  Laird drove down the road. “Stubborn lone wolf.”

  Caine shrugged off the conflicting emotions that squeezed his chest at Laird’s flippant comment. He never really understood what Landon went through while he’d lived away from the pack on the fringes of Lupreda land for as long as he did…until now. “It doesn’t matter. I’m out of the pack anyway.”

  “It took you two hours to shift back, Caine!” Laird growled and steered the car onto a side street.

  The past few months of solitude in the city, while working double shifts to pay for rent and food, had given Caine plenty of time to think about those two long hours in the woods. Going zerker was not going to happen to him.

  “It’s not the same without you. Landon’s Second should be with the pack. You can’t enjoy delivering packages.”

  Laird’s comment jerked Caine out of his musings. “Second?”

  “Damn straight.” Laird pulled his car into a space on the street in front of Landon’s New York City office. Cutting the engine, he drilled Caine with a steadfast stare. “Everyone knows it. It was only a matter of time before Landon made an official announcement.”

  It was true he’d assumed the role of Second the moment Landon took over as Alpha, but Caine thought Laird would take over once he left. Roman was too laid-back to assume Second responsibilities. All Caine had ever wanted, all he’d ever trained for, was to be Alpha one day. With the threat of turning zerker a very real possibility for him now, he wouldn’t be allowed to enter the annual Alpha run.

  Laird grabbed his arm when he started to get out of the car. “Just put the damned necklace on.”

  Caine’s ingrained loyalty burned within him. Even though Landon had forced him to leave, he still respected Landon more than any wolf, even more than Garius, the head Omega and oldest retired Alpha. “It might’ve been over twenty-five years ago, but I can still feel the weight of the vampires’ damned silver collar around my neck. I refuse to be shackled again.”

  “You can take the chain off with each full moon and run with us as a wolf. Your family wants you to return.”

  Family. The concept both fascinated and frustrated Caine. Unlike Caine and Landon and the wolves before them who were created in a lab by the vampires, Laird’s generation were the first werewolves born into the pack. Caine’s friend knew what it felt like to have siblings and parents. Laird had both pack and family ties. Now that the pack thought he was close to going zerker, Caine felt they’d turned their back on him. What was that human saying, “Blood is thicker than water”? Laird’s parents would never walk away from him, zerker or not.

  Caine shook off the sense of isolation that had consumed his thoughts while he’d been living away from the pack and climbed out of the car. As he walked up the sidewalk beside Laird, he knew the Lupreda were worried about him. Living among humans was his only option. Humans didn’t rile his need to call forth his Musk form for dominance like his fellow pack mates did, like Brian had. They were a safe, if not somewhat boring, race…all except for one, apparently. Hat Girl.

  With the zerker issue breathing down his neck, he felt as if he was losing touch with what little humanity ran through his veins. Maybe that’s why the human appealed to him. She represented something that was slipping away from him as fast as sand through his fingers.

  “Caine. You with me, bud?”

  Caine blinked when he realized he was staring unseeingly in front of him. Landon Rourke Private Investigations came into focus in bold black letters on the door a couple feet away. He smirked. Landon was going to have to change that now that Kaitlyn had left her job as NYPD police detective to join his agency. Tapping on the door, he walked in when Landon called for them to enter.

  “’Bout damn time.” Landon scowled and leaned against his desk which was currently turned on its side.

  “Shit!” Laird stared at the shambles before them.

  Caine’s gaze jerked to Landon. “What happened?”

  “I think it’s obvious,” Landon said in a dry tone.

  Caine walked around the ransacked room. Sniffing the air, he stepped over filing cabinets with drawers wide open. Paperwork was everywhere. Nothing. Not a glimmer of a scent. Knowing Landon’s sense of smell wasn’t as strong as the rest of the wolves in the pack, Caine frowned. “I’m assuming you asked us here to help you scent, but I don’t detect any lingering smells.”

  Laird lifted a turned-over chair. Inhaling near the wood, he shook his head before he set it upright on the floor. “Me neither.”

  Landon stood. “That’s not why I asked you here.”

  Kaitlyn walked into the office from the back entrance, carrying a small hard case. Opening it, she removed a strange-looking flashlight with a green shield in front of it. Handing Caine and Laird each a pair of orange-colored safety-style glasses, she said, “I borrowed this equipment from a friend’s office at the lab.”

  “You borrowed?” Caine grinned and slipped on the glasses.

  “It’ll be back where he left it before work resumes tomorrow morning.” She tucked strands of her shoulder-length red hair behind her ear and walked over to the light switch.

  “You know we can see in the dark, Kaitlyn.” Laird chuckled, then put on his glasses.

  She flipped off the light switch. “Just humor me. I’m hoping this will work.”

  Laird lifted his hands in the air. “See. No difference. Everything looks the same.”

  Kaitlyn turned on her flashlight and swept it past them to the room in general. “What about now?”

  Caine froze as the special flashlight scanned the room. He saw defined sparkling handprints all over the place—on the desk, the filing cabinets, on the paperwork and file folders, even on the chair Laird had just checked.

  Kaitlyn was showing Laird and him what she and Landon had the ability to see without this special equipment. “Damn it to hell!” Caine ground out, then glanced at Laird when Kaitlyn turned the flashlight on him.

  Sparkling handprints covered his friend’s face, his chest, his arms, his hips, even his crotch. “Son of a bitch!” Laird hissed. “Those two girls crawling all over us like a couple of cats were—”

  “Panthers,” Caine finished with a snarl, his gaze snapping to Landon’s. Now he knew why Landon was so furious when the lights went down in the club.

  “I don’t think the panthers have a clue that Kaitlyn and I can see the trail they’re leaving behind,” Landon said.

  “Either that or the Velius don’t give a damn.” Caine walked over and flipped the light switch back on.

  “Velius or panthers. No matter what name we call them, it’s like they’re taunting us.” Laird snorted.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure…” Katilyn retrieved the glasses from Caine and Laird. “You two need to stay away from the club until we can figure out a way for you to detect them.”

  Frustration and anger boiled deep in Caine’s chest. The club was his only connection to the woman he’d met. He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know her scent. “The women don’t know that we know they’re panthers. If Laird and I go b
ack tomorrow night, we could follow the two of them and find out where their pride is located.”

  Landon shook his head. “They know I killed one of their own while trying to protect Kaitlyn’s mom. But they must think we have something more on them or they wouldn’t have tossed my office looking for it. If Kaitlyn and I go back to the club, we’ll tip our hand. If you and Laird go back…” Landon paused and ran a hand through his short, light brown hair. “You can’t see or smell them, Caine. What if the two women weren’t the only panthers there? You could try to follow them and get ambushed.”

  Laird snorted. “We can take out a bunch of cats.”

  Kaitlyn put the flashlight and the glasses back in their case, then faced Laird and Caine. “I’ll go with you two to the club tomorrow night.”

  “Hell no, you won’t!” Landon growled.

  Kaitlyn sighed. “My hybrid status makes it impossible for them to smell me. I’ll wear a wig and glasses or something to make me look different. My heavy coat should mute your mark’s scent, but you’ll have to stay away from me once I take a shower.”

  Landon moved to stand in front of her. “I said no, Kaitie. I can’t be there to protect you. End of discussion.”

  Kaitlyn glanced at Laird and Caine. “I’d like to talk to my mate alone. Caine, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  As he and Laird headed out the door, one thing Caine knew for certain…no matter the outcome of Kaitlyn and Landon’s discussion, he was going back to Squeeze tomorrow night. The club was his only connection to the young human with the intriguing light brown eyes. He didn’t plan to give her up.

  Chapter 2

  A n electric current slid up her arm from the point their fingers touched, making Emma’s stomach tumble. Caine was holding her bare hand. No glove separated them this time. He stood in front of her, and the dark smile on his face made him look both sinful and sexy as hell.