by Seere, Diana
All the ridiculous luxuries was why she was determined to bake something from scratch so she didn’t forget how to live like a normal person.
“That’s such a coincidence! Mocha chip brownies are my favorite.” Molly set down the garment bag and climbed up on a stool of the breakfast counter. She propped her chin in her hands and fluttered her big blue eyes at Sam on the other side. “It’s like we’re sisters after all.”
Sam was no dummy. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Molly her most no-bullshit glare. “Edward told you about me and, er…”
Molly clapped her hands together and nodded like a woodpecker. “I’m so excited! I can’t believe how long it took you two.”
“Please don’t get ahead of yourself. There are issues.”
“Of course there are issues. My God, not only is he a shifter but he’s Asher Stanton.”
“Exactly.”
“Not only is he rich, he’s the richest of them all,” Molly added.
Sam tried to focus on pulling up a recipe from her phone. “And he never forgets it.”
“But even though he seems mean, he’s actually got the deepest heart of anyone I’ve ever seen.” Molly’s tone had turned serious. “And as you know, I can see a lot.”
Last year, as Molly had discovered her blood ties to the shifters, as well as to Lilah and Jess, she’d also learned she had a special sight for the hidden abilities of shifter or part-shifter individuals. By looking at a person, she could see a shadow of their other form—wolf, cat, bear. In one dramatic moment, she’d seen Zach’s ability to help deliver Lilah’s babies during a difficult birth.
As fascinated as Sam was with Asher’s blood, Molly’s interested her even more—at least it had before Asher began turning into a cat. Now she was obsessed with uncovering the reasons for that as soon as possible, which was why she’d taken his sperm without his permission for testing.
Would she have to apologize to Asher as she’d had to apologize to Molly?
“What’s the matter?” Molly said, suddenly concerned enough to jump out of her chair and come around the counter. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have joked about it. I thought you’d be happy. But you look like you’re about to cry!”
“I deserve to cry,” Sam said, taking out the bag of flour. She didn’t have a recipe but she knew it took flour.
“What do you mean? What kind of talk is that? Of course you don’t deserve to cry.”
“I took a sample of Asher’s sperm without his consent and mailed it to LupiNex for testing,” Sam said.
“From what Edward saw, he consented to give you his sperm. Pretty enthusiastically. I don’t think you need to worry about that. In fact, I’d put money on his willingness to do it again. And again. And again. As many samples as you need.” Molly giggled, then tried to hide it behind her hand.
“He didn’t know I was going to study it in the lab,” Sam said. “It’s just like what I did with you. I never thought I would cross that line again.”
Molly looked thoughtful. “Yeah, I was pretty upset about that.”
“I’m amazed you’re willing to even talk to me, let alone”—Sam gestured at the garment bag, her body—“act like a friend.”
“I’m not acting,” Molly said. “I really am.”
“Thanks.” Sam felt her eyes burning. Too much was happening; she couldn’t keep up.
“Asher’s sperm,” Molly said, then paused meaningfully.
Sam cleared her throat. “Yes?”
“Was it just because you’re just curious about him maybe making babies with you someday, or was it—”
“No! Of course not! It was nothing to do with me. He’s got… health issues. He’s asked me to help figure them out. They could be critical for him as well as the rest of the family. Hell, all shifters might be at risk. That’s why I’m here in this lab he built for me.”
“So you’re only doing what he asked you to do,” Molly said.
“In a way, yes. But he didn’t even ask me. He had an army of security goons lock me up right after… Well, without a word.”
“Man, it sounds like you’re doing what he wants you to do,” Molly said. “Don’t apologize. I’d be tempted to let the evidence wash away in a long, hot shower, order room service and a massage, and to hell with the lab, Asher, and Tomas. To hell with all shifters.”
Her support meant more to Sam than she’d expected. “You don’t think I’m an evil scientist?”
Molly shrugged. “Maybe a little. But you’ve got to be a little evil to marry into this family.”
“Hey, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Sam said.
Molly winked. “How about you order those brownies for us from the main house? I’m hungry and I’m not sure yours are going to come out.”
Sam looked down at the bowl of flour she’d been stirring with a carving knife. “Good idea.” She went over to the green button, pressed it, and asked for the Midday Pastry Variety Plate, which she’d sworn to never order again several times since discovering it on her first visit.
“Can I ask you a question?” Molly asked, staring at her intently.
Sam took out a bottle of brandy and put the kettle on. Covering all the bases. “Of course,” she said finally.
“Is there any chance you’ve got shifter blood like we do?” Molly asked. “Surely you’ve tested it. I know scientists are curious.”
Sam took a deep breath and reached up, fiddling with her left earlobe. She had tested her blood, of course, years ago. And with the technology she’d had at the time, she’d found nothing that made her one of their tribe. “I’ve tested it. I’m not a shifter.”
Molly nodded. “I didn’t think so, but…”
Something about the way Molly was looking at her made Sam feel exposed. Painfully, terrifyingly so. For a moment Sam could understand how Molly must’ve felt when she’d learned her blood had been studied.
A violent shudder ran through Sam’s body. “But what?”
“Then why do I see the shadow of a fox on your shoulder?”
Chapter 9
He could count the stones in the massive fireplace against the far wall of his office only so many times before descending into madness. Waiting for Zach to come to this meeting was turning him into a dissatisfied, ridiculously anxious, irritably frustrated mess.
Asher Stanton did not tolerate messes.
Which made him intolerable to himself.
The books were neatly stacked on his desk, lined in perfect queues. The kitchen staff had been warned to be on duty twenty-four seven. Once Zach walked into the room, he was not leaving until Asher had answers.
Answers from centuries past.
Opening the top book, Asher squinted, frowning deeply. Reluctant fingers slid open the wide, shallow drawer in his desk and touched a small oval leather case.
His one concession to age: reading glasses.
“Humph,” he groused as the letters on the page came into sharper focus, the eyeglasses improving his vision dramatically. Useless tools such as spectacles were not required for animal form, of course. Visual acuity remained strong for Asher when he was a wolf.
Alas, literacy and his lupine form did not pair up well. Or at all. As a wolf, he could not read. Not even the old texts.
Humans, he had to admit, were experts at creating tools to help shore up their weaknesses.
Touching the gold rims, he sighed.
And got to work distracting himself with the old legends.
Whereas Zach could read the ancient texts with the fluidity of a native, Asher’s work was more labored. Intentional. Most shifters could pick out rudimentary letters and words. Unlike most, Asher had been tutored in the finer aspects of the old language, one that still had no name.
This was by intent, too. Once you name something, you give it a power.
You also make it a target.
Poring over the words, he found the stories alarmingly ornate yet intricately fascinating. There was no index, no codex, no organizati
onal tool for systematically studying shifter history. These books were a closely guarded secret. Many shifters did not know they existed. In the wrong hands, the texts could be used to study shifters. Understand them.
Destroy them.
Tomas, like Asher, had been tutored as well. The Nagy family were among the four main shifter families, of course. And Tomas had been Asher’s classmate, the two vying constantly for top academic prizes in school.
And in private, as well.
A wave of emotion hit him, Asher’s fingers slipping on the edge of the thick, wood-bound tome he held. Reaching for his smartphone, he pulled up the video Manny had shown him. Surveillance cameras were everywhere on the ranch, of course.
Including the garage.
Samantha had turned her rage at being kept in there into an art form of surgical dismantling. He could not help himself—laughter rumbled inside him as he watched her rip the front panel off the Bugatti, even as it made his teeth ache. Such a fine car.
And poor Edward.
“Ouch,” he winced as he replayed her motorcycle antics, only able to hit replay because Asher knew Samantha was not injured. Edward’s favorite motorcycle was now a twisted assemblage of broken metal.
If Manny had not interrupted her, she would have found a way out.
Of that he was certain.
Nothing would stop her. When her mind was set, that was it.
He closed his eyes and set the phone aside, letting deep breaths take him to a quiet place within. Fighting her was useless, was it not? He was not battling fate. Their single coupling had whetted a dormant appetite in him. The next time he faced her, he would have to touch her.
Have to.
Not need. Not want. Not desire.
Those were mere echoes of what he felt.
Drumming his fingertips on the oak desk, he settled into a slow beat that helped to corral his racing thoughts. Fate had made its decision for him. As a man who did not like being powerless, he was surprisingly fine with this turn of events.
Except for one detail.
Did fate understand who he was?
Who he was becoming?
That vulnerable moment in the garage, the thought stream in his mind, how Tomas had access to his body, his mind—or was it vice versa? The lack of clarity was the hardest part. Becoming a stranger in his own body at the same time that he felt the Beat with Samantha was a cruel irony.
Then again, love was nothing but cruel. Asher understood that truth with a finality that was, above all else, quite clear.
“There it is,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head with an indulgence usually reserved for his siblings. “You fool. You absolute fool. She is inside you. You cannot hide. Your feelings do not factor. This is a matter of shifter survival. She needs to know everything.”
“Talking to ghosts?” Zach said, interrupting Asher’s deep thoughts, making him frown and look up.
“In a way, yes,” Asher conceded, stopping the rhythmic tapping on the desk, moving his hand to a stack of books.
“Learn any new legends? If we eat enough donuts, do we grow wings? If yes, Sophia’s about to fly to the moon,” he added. The man was as tall as Asher and broader, with loose, casual movements that belied his status as a rational, logical lab rat. People who worked in a world where precision mattered should be more economical in their movements, less open in their approach to the world. Zachary Hayden was an oxymoron.
In every sense of the word.
“I have called you here,” Asher began without social niceties, “because you need to provide me with information that is critical to the survival of the shifter world.”
“No pressure,” Zach muttered.
“Are you busy with other ventures? Is this a bad time?” Asher asked, not caring what the answer might be.
Snorting, Zach gave him a wry grin. “I am bored out of my mind. Sophia’s glowing and going crazy with nesting. I’m reading and indexing the books as fast as I can, but I’m just a translator, reading into audio recorders for Sam’s people to track in the database and analyze the data. Give me something to do, Asher. Seriously.”
“Your wife is pregnant. You are now one of us,” Asher began.
Zach straightened at the words, eyes widening with a fierce attentiveness Asher appreciated. He expected no less from the man, who had thus far proven himself to be as strong and committed as any born shifter. A wolf by accident, Zach was a family member by his sister’s bond.
And, perhaps, a brother forged in battle.
Asher was doing everything possible to prevent that. The battle part, at any rate.
“And as one of us, and the father to shifters,” Asher elaborated, his words catching in his throat, emotion impeding him for a split second, “I need you to be exquisitely careful as we read the texts to find answers.”
“What are your questions?” Zach asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the back of an armchair.
“Everything.”
“That’s… broad.”
“I know.” Asher’s nostrils flared as he drank in as much air as his lungs could manage. “I wish I could be more precise.”
Zach peered at him. “You’re telling the truth.”
“Of course I am!”
“But the whole truth this time. None of the half reveals you’re known for.”
“I am known for maintaining the safety of my family. My people.”
“Yes, you are. You’re also known for being ruthless in your quest.”
“Good.”
“And for being an asshole.”
“Is that the word being used for strong? If so, I accept.”
Zach chuckled and opened the first book. “I need more than ‘everything.’ I assume you don’t care about potions? Because there are so many in the books.”
“I do not know. It is possible they hold clues.”
“What about prophecies?” Zach asked, gingerly touching the edge of the thin pages. Asher reached into his desk drawer and handed him a glove, which Zach put on his right hand. He resumed the page flipping, pausing after the fourth turn.
“As midnight bears down upon the Beltane curl, the red stripe shall have her moon spirits seek revenge,” Zach read to Asher, who looked at the words.
If he had translated, the words would have been different, more along the lines of: “Beltane comes before bears at midnight with book in red line with revenge.”
Zach’s words were elegant. Haunting. Read in a cadence that one hundred years of study on Asher’s part could never match.
Samantha’s serum had made this man into a more powerful version of a shifter than anyone had ever seen. Not just physically. Intellectually. What other gifts did Zach possess? Awe was not an emotion Asher felt often. A flicker of it stirred inside his chest as he listened to Zach continue.
“The maiden of the north beckons when her time is twenty-nine days past. To prepare the safe home for babes, drink three green needles steeped in—” Zach flipped back two pages and snorted. “Oh. This is a section on fertility potions.”
“I assure you I am not seeking those,” Asher said drolly, though the thought made his brow furrow. His coupling with Samantha yesterday had been fast. Hot. Sudden and swift, driven by a need that was so overpowering it could be nothing but fate. Humans used birth control in a way shifters did not, for why prevent babies when fates were destined? He never troubled himself to ask about his siblings.
Samantha could conceive as a result of their time together earlier.
God help him, the thought made him hard.
“Prophecies?” Zach asked again.
Closing his eyes, Asher let himself go to an intuitive place, heedless of the risk of attuning to Tomas. “Yes,” he said. “Read them to me.” Placing his hand on top of one stack of books, he felt it.
Felt the connection.
To Samantha, yes.
But so much more.
He knew, from late-night talks with his youngest brother, that
Edward felt a unifying vibration when his bare skin touched the earth. All shifters felt a variation of this when in animal form, but that experience paled in comparison to Edward’s descriptions of his abilities. Modest to a fault, the youngest Stanton sibling had required alcohol and sorrow to pour his truth out into Asher’s ever-listening ears. Before Molly Sloan had entered Edward’s life, the two brothers had lived a solitary life, turning to each other for friendship in small doses. Oddly enough, while his temperament was more in line with Gavin’s, Asher felt a personality kinship with Edward.
Perhaps it was merely the bond of shared grief. Both had lost a mate.
Asher had lost even more.
The room hummed under his splayed palm, the texts practically singing, a high woman’s voice coming through with rhythmic notes. Lost in his thoughts, he only heard the last part of Zach’s sentence. “…and here is one about cats.”
“Tomas is a cat. Please read it.”
“It appears to be a long series of potions involving catnip and other herbs designed to help the soul gain strength through commonality with the—” Zach’s eyes narrowed. Asher knew the man’s eyesight was perfect, unlike his own. This was a holdover gesture from when he was nothing but human.
“The what?”
“The… It’s a symbol I can’t decipher. Doesn’t look like any of the other words. It’s more of a pictograph.” Zach pointed. A series of lines were entwined, like a cluster of snakes, a Celtic knot, a Mobius strip.
Asher recognized it instantly. “There is no word for that. It is simply a feeling. Humans would call it ‘collective unconscious,’ or a universal vibration.”
Zach’s face lit up with emotion. “I feel that vibration. Especially when I’m touching bare dirt. It’s intense. You mean everyone feels it?”
“Shifters do, to varying degrees. But Zach, I’m curious—you cannot read that symbol?” His fingertip scraped the pulped paper, the questions this session with Zach produced more elusive in some ways than the answers he sought.
“Can you?” Zach inquired, the question carrying no judgment.
“It just is. There is no translation for it.”
“But you know the meaning.”
