by Maia Dylan
Smack talk started flowing around the table, and Parris pushed her empty plate away and sat back to enjoy it. She had never really had friends before. In fact, she had only really had Pepper and Melaina in her life. Now it seemed as if the people of Grey River had opened their arms to her. Parris couldn’t wait for the day Pepper was safe and sound here with her and Melaina, too. Surely, after everything the three of them had endured in the past few years, that wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
The sound of a cell phone ringing accompanied the vibration in her back pocket. The phone Melaina had given her was ringing, and if Melaina was using it, then something must have gone wrong. Parris saw everyone’s head turn in her direction, and the talk at the table dropped away to silence. Despite the relaxed nature of the celebration, it appeared that they were all aware of her situation.
Parris quickly reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Not bothering to look at who was calling, she swiped her thumb across the screen to answer the call.
“Melaina.” Parris could hear the tension in her voice.
“Parris, are you safe? Can you talk?”
Melaina’s voice came softly over the line. It was a terrible line for sure, which told Parris that Melaina was calling from somewhere remote, with very little cell phone coverage. But what had Parris’s heart pounding was how tired she sounded, and there was no disguising the pain in Melaina’s tone. If Melaina was asking if she could talk, then perhaps what she was going to say was meant for her ears only.
Parris went to stand up to take to call more privately but was stopped by a hand on her leg. She looked up into Jase’s eyes and noted that they were flashing blue. The shake of his head told her that he wasn’t going to let her get up and leave. Scowling at him, she tried to shove his hand off her leg, but it was impossible. She barely resisted poking her tongue out at him but continued glaring at him. “Yes, Laina, I’m safe and I can talk.”
Melaina’s sighed shakily. “Things haven’t gone quite as I planned, and I—well, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get back to Grey River, at least not anytime soon.”
“Oh God, is it because they think I failed? That I didn’t hit my mark, and now they’re coming for me?” Parris asked, dread obvious in her tone. She ignored the growling from the men beside her and concentrated on the call.
“No, they believe you’re dead. Well done on that, Parris. I’m very proud of you.”
“Laina—” Parris started to beg Melaina to tell her where she was so Parris could get to her, but Melaina interrupted her.
“No, Parris. I don’t have time, and I need you to listen to me. Aristos will send men to Grey River looking for me. They know about the apartment, and you can’t stay there.”
“Should I leave here?”
“No!”
That came from the phone and from the two men on either side of her. Apparently shifters had great hearing.
“I guess you are with your mates, huh?”
Laina knew they were shifters, but she was their mate?
“Good. And it appears that they can hear me. You both need to keep Parris safe, and out of sight. Aristos really does think that you’re dead, Parris, but he is going to go there looking for me, and under no circumstances can he find out that you’re alive. Do you understand? If I am to have any hope of getting Pepper out and to you in Grey River, you need to stay dead. I will get this one last thing done before I finish this completely. I will save her, and you, that I promise you.”
There was movement around her, and Parris got the feeling that everyone at the table was closing in around her. But she couldn’t focus on that right now, not when she was trying to read between the lines. She needed to hear not only what Melaina was saying but also what she wasn’t. In a moment of pure clarity, Parris realized what Melaina planned to do.
“You’re planning on taking on Aristos on your own, aren’t you?” Parris could hear the horror in her voice. Aristos was too powerful, too rich, and too fucking insane to take on alone. “Somehow, you’re going to engage him in a way that will take all his attention and allow you to slip Pepper out unseen. But you aren’t planning on coming back, are you?”
The silence at the end of the phone was all the answer Parris needed. Her heart broke, and a tear slid down her cheek. She could hear Xanthe questioning her mates, Dane and Hunter, about what they could hear the conversation, and a constant growling had started from the two shifters across from her. One wore the uniform of a sheriff’s deputy and the other an EMT uniform.
“Melaina, please,” Parris pleaded, “please, tell me where you are. You told me to come here. You came back to that compound specifically to give Pepper and me the ability to find you here in Grey River, and now you’re just going to leave me here alone? Please, let me come to you and we can end this together. Please, I want to be with you.”
She felt Rhys and Jase both tense beside her, but she would not abandon the woman who had been a sister, a mentor, and, hell, a mother to her for the past fifteen years.
“What happened to you and Pepper is because of my father.” Melaina’s voice came back, stronger than it had been before, bolstered by the rage she harbored against her father. “I couldn’t keep Xanthe safe as a child, but I sure as hell can make it so that her future is protected—hers, yours and Peppers. And I am going to do everything I can to do that. I-I have to go. Lose this phone, Parris. I won’t call it again. I love you, little sister.”
Parris sobbed when the phone call disconnected in her ear. She felt Jase and Rhys lean against her, holding her up against the storm of her grief, and she collapsed against them. She could hear arguing and the sounds of angry men around her.
“Fuck! She’s out there, and she’s fucking hurt! I heard the pain in her voice,” a man was shouting, and his words were garbled.
Pulling her face from where she had pressed it against Jase chest, she looked over at the deputy and the EMT, who had been growling just moments before and were now standing and yelling at each other.
“I don’t give a fuck about the Quickening,” the deputy snarled to the EMT. “I know that woman is ours, Kyle. Hell, I even sensed it when the mating bond snapped into place for her, despite the fact she had no fucking clue what it was. Brother, you need to pull your fucking head out of your ass and get the hell over yourself.”
The EMT, Kyle, ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “If we do this, we do this as a team. No more running away like a fucking pussy like you did before. You need to stand with me, Grant, and not let our fucking father take this away from us.”
Parris stared, unable to take her eyes from the men who stood staring at each other, and Parris knew they were communicating telepathically. She looked around the table and saw all the men staring somberly at the brothers. She didn’t know what the hell was going on or what had happened between them and their father, but Parris felt that whatever decision they were looking to make right now might help bring Melaina back.
After what felt like hours, but was surely only minutes, the two men nodded slightly then turned in her direction. The man in the deputy’s uniform stepped closer and dropped into a crouch so he could look her in the eye.
“Parris, my name is Deputy Grant Snow, and this is my brother, Kyle. We have reason to believe that Melaina Christakos is our mate.”
Parris watched as the deputies eyes flickered blue at the word mate.
“I know that you must have an idea of what that means for us. Jase and Rhys have told us that you are theirs, so you must know what it means for a shifter to find their Fated mate. Hell, you could just look around at the people surrounding you now and know that it is a bond stronger than anything else in the world.
“Parris, we heard the pain and fatigue in our mate’s voice. For the past few days, Kyle and I have been getting more and more anxious, and we think it is because our mate needs us, whether she would allow herself to admit that or not. We heard her tell you that she wants to go in alone and face her fath
er—”
Parris heard Xanthe’s sob despite it being muffled by her mate’s shoulder.
“But we are not going to allow that to happen. We are going to find her, help her, and bring her ass back here. Then we are going to fucking court her until she admits that we’re hers, too. And if any of you bastards want to mess with me right now for using that damn word after swearing I never would, then do so at your own risk. Parris, we can help her, but we are going to need that phone she gave you to help us find a place to start.”
Parris stared into their faces for just a second, before she handed them the phone. There was no missing the sincerity in their voice. They would help Melaina and keep her safe. They just had to find her first. They smiled warmly at her and turned to leave.
“Wait!” a distraught Xanthe called out, stopping them in their tracks. “Salt Lake City. She was near Salt Lake City two days ago. Start your search there.”
“How do you know that?” Parris asked, but she knew the answer even before she had finished the question.
Xanthe sighed and then turned to face her. “My ability is coming back. Nowhere near as strong as it was before, but I can see a few images, and the last one was of a sign Melaina had been thinking about, and it quite clearly read Salt Lake City.”
Well, that made things even worse. As long as Aristos thought that Xanthe was completely without her talent, then she was only useful to him as bait to keep Melaina in line. If he found out that there was a chance of her ability returning, then her value had just increased tenfold.
“Kyle, Grant,” Ty said as he stood up from the table, helped his mate up, and handed her over to his brother, “you have a place to start. Go now, but keep in touch regularly. You are going to need some back up with you when you take that fucker out, so call us before you take him on. The Enforcers will come.”
Parris felt a weird vibe in the air as Ty stared at Kyle and Grant, who both nodded and seemed to tilt their heads slightly before sprinting from the surprisingly empty restaurant. She made a mental note to ask Jase and Rhys about that interaction later.
“The rest of us, we have to keep Xanthe’s secret safe and ensure the latest member of our town remains dead to the outside world. I assume she’s staying with you, Jase?”
Parris’s eyes widened at that. She hadn’t thought about where she would go now that the apartment was no longer safe.
“Yeah, Ty,” Jase said without hesitation. “Parris will be at our place until everything is sorted.”
He turned and stared into her eyes, and Parris felt an odd pulsing sensation within her.
“But we hope to convince her to stay for the rest of our lives.”
“Good, then let’s lock this town down tight, get the information out to the rest of the pack,” Ty crossed his arms, and a growl sounded from within his chest. The air pressure in the room seemed to drop. “I am getting really fucking sick of people thinking they can fuck with my pack, their mates, and their families. After this, I am going to make it a capital fucking offense to piss me off. Trent and I are the head of the goddamn Shifter Council with an army of Enforcers at our disposal that can totally see that enforced.”
“Babe,” Faith said with humor very clear in her voice, “I don’t think you can kill people just for pissing you off.”
“Fuck that, mate of mine.” Ty’s grin turned feral. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Chapter 5
“Sweetness, there is something that I want to ask you,” Rhys said on the car ride home. “You told us that you escaped thirty-six hours before you got here. How did you escape? Seems to me that Aristos would be pretty hard to get away from or Melaina would have got you and Pepper out long before now.”
He held himself still, waiting tensely for her answer. She had been a little quieter than usual after they left the restaurant. Rhys had helped her up into Jase’s truck and then slid in beside her. Despite the fact that it was a dual cab, he didn’t want to sit where he couldn’t protect her easily. And besides, sitting so that she was pressed between him and Jase had the added advantage that she was pressed from shoulder to knee, right up against him.
Parris sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. “Aristos and his men are impossible to get away from, not without there being some serious ramifications on any of those that remained. Aristos fears Melaina’s strength, not just her abilities, which are wicked strong, but her physical and mental strength. When she completed one of the tasks he sent her on a month ago, she never came back. She told him that she would continue to work for him and do what was necessary, but now that she had found Xanthe, she refused to come back.
“Aristos was pissed off, but she threatened to bring a world of pain to his operation if he touched Pepper or me, and he didn’t. That in itself tells me that he is scared shitless of Laina. Aristos would use me to sit in on meetings, ensure a premium was paid or negotiations went his way, sway people’s votes, that kind of thing. Two weeks ago, I suffered the largest seizure I had ever had, and the prognosis was as I told you. The lesions are killing me. The moment I was out of the infirmary, he sent me on another task. It felt wrong from the moment I arrived, so I didn’t follow through with my orders. I stood outside the building I was supposed to enter, and advised I was on target. It was a trap, and had I entered the building, I would have been killed when it was blown to hell and back. I was close enough, however, to get thrown back by the blast.”
Rhys grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. “And then you came here.”
“Yeah, I did. Laina said there were people here that could keep me safe. I didn’t know that coming here would mean she would go after Aristos by herself though. I really wish she would let me go to her.”
Jase growled. Rhys knew he was not overly happy with that comment. “Parris, you have to trust in what Laina told you. There are people her in Grey River who can help you, and Ty will do everything he can to get her back. He considers her pack now.”
“Was Ty telling the truth before?” Parris asked curiously.
Rhys turned slightly so he could look into her beautiful face. “Which part, baby?”
“The part where he admitted to killing someone for pissing him off?” There was no fear or censure in Parris’s voice, just curiosity.
“Ty is the alpha of one of the largest wolf packs in the country,” Jase answered as he deftly steered his truck up the drive that lead to their house. “He and Trent also head the governing body of the shifter realms the Shifter Council. Both roles come with dangers and people who would see harm come to him or one of his people.” Jase brought the truck to a stop right by their front door. Neither of them wanted Parris out in the open for any longer than necessary.
“And that means,” Rhys said, taking over the explanation, “that he has had to make decisions and fight battles that he might not necessarily have wanted to but absolutely had to be had. He has killed to protect his pack and our way of life, just as any of us would.”
They waited for a few moments, curious to see what Parris would make of that. Wolf shifters, in particular, lauded strength and were notorious for their loyalty and a protective streak a mile long.
Then Parris nodded. “Good. I have a feeling that there will be more deaths coming Grey River’s way in the coming months, and the pack will need a leader who knows how to deal with that.”
Rhys had a very strong suspicion that Parris was right. He quickly scouted the area around the house, pulled his wolf close to the surface, and cracked the truck door open slightly. He inhaled deeply, bringing the scents around the house into his lungs. He also pulled in a heavy dose of his mate’s scent, which seemed to be getting stronger by the day, and had to fight his body’s physical reaction to it. If there was danger around the house, he didn’t want to meet it with a fucking hard-on.
Scenting nothing out of the ordinary, he stepped from the truck, pulled Parris gently from the seat, and ushered her into the house. As soon as they were safe indoors, he heard Jase s
tart the truck and turn it around so that it was facing the right way for a quick exit if they needed to make one. Once he had the truck in place, Jase was going to head down to the store and make sure everything was as it should be. He watched from the window beside the front door for a few more minutes, making sure there was nothing suspicious was happening.
“So, this is your house?”
Rhys turned at the sound of Parris’s voice, and his heart swelled at seeing his mate in their home.
“And you live here with your brother?”
Rhys walked over to where Parris was standing in the living room and glanced around the room with a critical eye. When he and Jase had taken over the garage from their fathers, they had decided to build their home on the land toward the back of the property. They built the house with as few internal walls between the communal family areas as possible. The living, dining, and kitchen areas were all open. The upstairs bedroom areas were on a mezzanine floor above them, which meant the living areas had high ceilings with cedar beams and floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
A bifold door opened out onto the back veranda, where a person could sit and enjoy the mountain views. The kitchen was state of the art despite the fact that neither he nor Jase could cook. Their mother had insisted that if they ever found their mate, she would want a quality kitchen.
“Yeah, we built the house five years ago. There’re an office and another smaller lounge just off to the side of the kitchen. We have four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs, and if you’re going to be stuck in the house for a while like I think you might, you are going to love what we have downstairs.” Rhys walked over and gently took Parris’s hand. He smiled when she didn’t shy away from him, and let him lead her over to the door that lead downstairs.
As soon as he opened the door, a very distinctive chemical smell gave away his surprise before they even got downstairs. Parris gasped in surprise, and when he turned to look at her, the smile on her face had him grinning in return.
