Once she left Geoff, she thought that would be the end of it. She should have known better. Trusting that everything was safe for now, she opened her front door and looked around. Unlike the wolves in the area, her sense of smell wasn’t that strong, and she relied on her instincts and hearing more than anything. At the moment, an icy sense of foreboding trickled along her spine, and she wanted to get inside and out of view.
The last time she’d felt this sensation, it was a week after she left Geoff and she had gone to the Toronto office to catch up on some paperwork. It had taken her two hours before she’d realized that her favourite picture of her and her brother was missing from her desk at work. The photo had been taken just before Daniel was promoted to Guardian and went out west for training. She’d pulled apart her entire desk thinking it must have fallen down somewhere. Gordon had helped her look but neither of them had found it. She held out hope when they moved the office that she would find it but they never did. It still bothered her to this day what might have happened to it.
She walked into the kitchen, and the sight that greeted her frightened her so badly the bags slipped from her fingers. The missing photo was lying on her large butcher block cutting board, held there by a hunting arrow. The sharp tip of it had been plunged through her brother’s body at his heart. MINE was written in lipstick across her face.
Jess grabbed a tea towel and pulled out the arrow by the quiver and placed it on the counter next to her. Her hands shook as she tried to fix the rip in the photograph the arrowhead had made.
Tears blurred her vision. She had given up so much to Geoff and had compromised her own choices in favour of his. She’d allowed him to destroy her self-confidence and control her life. Months had passed, and she thought it was finally over and she could get on with her life. This couldn’t go on anymore.
She rushed to the front door and whipped it open. “Come out, asshole!” she screamed into the woods. Her voice echoed around her and the animals in the forest fell silent. “Stop hiding from me, you chickenshit muscle-head!” That’ll get a response.
Silence was the only answer she received. She was going to have to find somewhere else to stay, because Geoff didn’t like to be denied anything he wanted, and he obviously wasn’t done with her yet.
The icy sensation of being watched was gone. That piece of shit had stuck around long enough to know she had found the picture, and then had run away like the coward he was. Certain that he wasn’t around at the moment, she went into the cottage. Other than the picture in the kitchen, everything looked exactly as she had left it this morning.
She called Officer Jake Campbell as she packed. He worked for the Ontario Provincial Police, and this was his district. Jake was also a moose shifter and had lived in Algonquin his entire life. He and her brother Daniel were good friends, but she appreciated the fact that he hadn’t hovered over her since she moved back. If she called Gordon, she would find herself ensconced in his house for a very long time. Jessica wasn’t willing to allow anyone to control her anymore.
“Jessica Tam, you get your ass out of that cottage right now. This guy is escalating and obviously unstable.” Jake yelled the moment she explained what had happened. I should have known he would freak, too. “He’s not here right now, Jake.” She pulled out a bag as she spoke and started throwing some clothes into it. “I’m packing some things and then I’ll head out of here.”
“Where is the arrow now? Do you have it?”
“Yes. I didn’t touch it with my hands. I used a tea towel to pull it out.”
“I wish you had left it as is. I’m going to bring over a couple officers and dust for prints. Don’t touch anything else,” he admonished, but she could hear the concern in his voice. “I should have known something was up when I felt like I was being watched.”
“I thought you said that he wasn’t around.”
Through the phone, she heard the distinct sound of sirens screaming to life and acceleration of the engine in Jake’s cruiser.
“I tried goading him out but he was already gone.” She glanced over at the doorway, half expecting to see Geoff standing there with a hockey mask on.
“Are you nuts? Please tell me that Gordon is there with you or one of the Guardians escorted you home.”
“No time for anyone to get here, this time. I didn’t want my ice cream to melt.” In light of what she came home to, she would rather have one of the Guardians here and never eat ice cream again.
“This time? Goddamn it, Jessie.”
“Don’t call me that!” She couldn’t stand that abbreviated version of her name anymore. The shock of the situation was starting to wear off and her imagination was kicking in. What if he’d been waiting here for me? He could have killed her and no one would have been around to stop him.
“I’m sorry, Jessica.” Jake slipped into his “cop voice,” as she liked to call it. His tone became very formal and the authority radiated from his clipped, monotone words, calming her nerves. She would never tease him about that again. “How many times have you dealt with something like this?”
“There were a couple incidents like this in the city. That’s why I moved back up here. I know Gordon told you about those. Only once before did I think that something happened up here.”
“When?”
“Valentine’s Day. My front door was covered in hearts. In my defense, I didn’t report it because I thought it was a joke until no one owned up to it.”
“You should have called me right away. Do you have any idea what might have happened to you?”
She smiled at his tone. Some women take offence by his overprotective order, but she felt it comforting. He was like an old yenta sometimes. “Yes, Jake.” At this rate, he might suggest covering her in Bubble Wrap. The idea made her grin.
“I’m going to get you a Kevlar vest, and you are going to wear it.”
“Yes, Jake.” He would make a very good yenta.
“Do you have what you need?”
“Almost.” She ran into the bathroom and with one arm swept everything on the counter into a bag.
“I’m going to radio Officer Walker and tell him to get over to your place.”
She liked feeling like she was protected, but she didn’t want to upset anyone else’s life with her drama. “I’ll be gone before he makes it over here. Don’t put anyone out.”
“I’m not putting anyone out, Jessica. You’re part of this melting pot we call a family.”
“I thought you guys called it a gaggle.” Jess darted over to the night table and whipped open the drawer. “Oh no.”
“What is it?”
She was too shocked to lie or be embarrassed before the words fell from her lips. “My vibrator’s gone.”
“Lock that goddamn door. You’re not going anywhere without an escort.”
“Now who’s overreacting?” She tried to make light of the situation, but knowing that her private toys had been touched and her vibrator taken frightened her more then she wanted to admit to anyone, especially herself.
“Jake, where are you?” The small part of this forest that she’d felt safe in had been violated and exposed, and she wanted to kick someone’s ass and then cry. Not necessarily in that order. She shut the night table drawer. She would burn everything in there before touching it again.
“I’m almost there. Listen closely. You should be able to hear me coming by now.”
She concentrated for a moment she heard the distinct sound of Jake’s cruiser. He knew her hearing was sharp enough that she would hear him coming. Additionally, if anyone was still around that should scare them off. “Thanks, Jake.”
“Anytime, and by the way a gaggle is a group of geese, smart-ass. And there are currently no geese-shifters in Ecstasy Lake.”
Chapter Six
“You’re not following the plan, Nyuszikam,” Vencel said as he came out of the front door. Jelani noticed that the other wolf that had been chasing Mai was walking with him.
“Is that wha
t you wanted to tell us? Did you guys get a dog?” The animal bared his teeth and snarled at Marcario.
“Stop that.” Mai waved a finger at the large animal and then fussed at it. “What else do you expect? I told you to stay in the house, but you insisted on coming out to play.”
Jelani was having a hard time keeping up with what was going on. Vencel leaned against the house smirking while Mai continued to talk to the enormous wolf as if it understood her. “Mai, what are you doing?”
She rolled her eyes and looked at him as if he was the dummy. “Talking to Gaspar. I know you can’t hear him, but I can.” She turned her attention back to the wolf. “It would’ve been so much easier to do this my way.”
Vencel looked disgusted. “You wanted us to be posing at the door like trained monkeys,” he commented. “It’s embarrassing. We are fucking alpha wolves, not puppies.”
Mai pointed her finger at her husband and gently poked him in the chest. “You’re not making this easier.” She brushed past and headed into the house.
“Neither of you are making any sense.” Marcario looked back at Jelani, who looked as confused as he felt. They all followed her inside and found her flopped on a couch in the living room.
He and Marcario sat down across from her. Vencel leaned against the door frame, and that big fucking wolf sat down beside her, resting its head against her leg.
“Spit it out, Mai. What’s going on?”
“I’m married to two men.”
“No shit, we were at the wedding. Are you sure you’re okay, Blossom? Maybe you should go lay down. Could this be a pregnancy thing?”
Vencel snorted from behind his hand.
“Why is it everyone thinks that pregnancy is behind everything I do?” Mai’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m tired of keeping everything a secret. I’m proud of you two.” The wolf scrambled out of the way when Mai pushed herself to her feet. She paced back and forth, her voice climbing higher as her arms waved around. “What if I have puppies? That one will be a bit hard to explain you know.”
Jelani tried to placate their sister. “Mai, you’re not going to have puppies. I can promise you that. I took biology, and I know these things.” She, on the other hand, didn’t find him humorous in the least.
Vencel sat down on the couch across from them and pulled a tissue from his pocket. He pressed it into Mai’s hand as she paced past. “Oh, aren’t you the funny one, Jelly.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose before continuing. “Well how about this? My husbands can turn into wolves. They are shape-shifters, so what do you think of that?” She crossed her arms over her belly and glared at him.
I need to check her blood pressure. Hysterics like this can’t be healthy. “I still don’t think that you are going to have puppies.”
“Arrgh.” Mai stamped her foot. “Can you not be serious for a moment?”
“Is she telling the truth?” Marcario looked between the wolf and Vencel, who didn’t look like he was joking. Jelani felt a tight knot of panic form in his chest.
“Yes, she is. Both of us were born into a pack in Hungry about eighty-odd years ago.”
Jelani fisted his hands and tried to moderate his temper. His brother wasn’t as controlled. Marcario jumped to his feet, pulling their sister behind him. “I knew I should have hit you harder the day I met you.”
“Marcario, you let me go!” She tried kicking Marcario in the calves.
Jelani leapt up from his seat at the same time as Vencel did. The three of them stood there glaring at each other while the wolf crouched with his fur standing on end, ready to rip one of them to shreds.
“The only reason we’re not tearing you limb from limb,” Vencel commented from between clenched teeth, “is because it would make our mate unhappy.”
Jelani glared at his sister. “Wolves, Mai? Really? Do you understand what you have gotten yourself into?”
Mai stopped hitting Marcario in the back and looked at him in shock. “Why aren’t you more surprised about this?”
Marcario stepped to the side and replied, “Maibee, we lived in Africa. Do you have any idea what kind of strange fucking shit there is in the rainforests?”
Mai swatted her brother’s arm. “Don’t swear in front of the baby, Marcario.”
His brother sheepishly glanced at her tummy before muttering, “Sorry.”
“It’s not all bad.” Jelani grinned. He had fond memories of being thanked by a woman for helping to heal her younger sister. Their tribe’s shaman had been called away and she came to the clinic pleading for help. She carried him on her back and ran like the wind through the forest. To this day he didn’t know what she was. A course of antibiotics cured her sister, and she insisted on showing her gratitude by crawling into his bed and fucking his brains out. Her stamina was incredible, and he had to enlist Marcario’s help in order to keep up.
Marcario grinned slightly and nodded at him, obviously remembering the same thing. “I’ll grant you that. But Mai, I have seen pack life, and it’s brutal and unforgiving.”
“We don’t live like that here.” Vencel held out his hand and Mai ran toward him. She wrapped her arms around his upper body and turned to stick her tongue out at her brothers.
Jelani watched the wolf next to them carefully. Sure enough, the light looked as though it refracted slightly around him and the air shimmered. In a blink, Gaspar stood in human form, the wolf gone, and said, “Guys, we would never let anything happen to her.”
“Well there was that one time,” Mai commented.
Gaspar frowned slightly at her. “You’re not helping, Angyalom.”
“Oh, yeah.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed Vencel on the cheek. “Come on, you four. Let’s go into the kitchen and talk. You two have questions, they have answers, and I have a bag of peanut butter cookies and a glass of milk calling my name.”
“As long as Gaspar puts on some pants,” Marcario muttered and then stepped up next to him. Jelani paused before following them in. “Do you think she’s really safe with them?” They’d failed their sister so often over the years not being there for her, and now she might have gotten herself into more danger then she realized.
“She’s safer with them than not,” Marcario replied.
“How are we going to get her out of this?” It was one thing to know that these things occur, and completely different when it happened right in front of him. Knowing that his baby sister was married to two shifters and expecting their child scared the hell out of him.
“We are going to talk to them and find out how they are keeping her safe.”
Marcario stepped back and let Jelani enter the house first before following. “This isn’t the rainforest, and I can only hope it’s not as dangerous around here. How many shape-shifters could there be here anyways?”
* * * *
Marcario felt his jaw drop, and then snapped his teeth shut with an audible click. “What do you mean, the entire fucking town?”
“Language!” Mai swatted his arm again and pointed at her tummy.
“Cut me some slack, Maibee.” Marcario rubbed his arm and promised himself he would watch his language better once the little munchkin showed up.
“Ecstasy Lake is like a sanctuary for shifters. We all have found ourselves here under different circumstances, and exactly when we needed it the most. Even if we didn’t realize it at the time.”
“I wanted to tell you both sooner, but it wasn’t something to talk about over the phone.”
“Do you have a formal pack leader?”
“Gordon Roberts. Although, unlike others I met, he doesn’t run the pack like his personal kingdom. We all respect him because he and his wives are the ones who first started encouraging people to live here. They are often the first ones to take care of those who need help.”
“That’s why he came down to get Jess?”
“Yes, she is his assistant, but he thinks of her as a daughter.”
“Is Jessica a shifter, too?”
“That
is something you will have to ask her. It’s a personal question, and not something everyone goes around wearing like a nametag. Even Vencel and I weren’t too sure of it all when we first moved here. We thought we would keep to the outskirts of town and mind our own business.”
“They have a way of pulling you in and accepting you like family. Mai’s human and that didn’t stop everyone from banding together to help protect her.”
Marcario felt a bit better knowing that their sister was so well protected. These people could do a much better job than they had done, and the baby would be raised in a loving home surrounded by a community that would care for them all.
I wonder if we could live here like that with Jess. The thought floated to the forefront of his thoughts, but he pushed it away. He and Jelani couldn’t live here. They would be bored to tears within weeks, and then what would they do? There was no way they could take Jess with them, because they couldn’t protect her the way they needed to.
“I need a beer.”
Gaspar appeared from the kitchen, thankfully wearing a pair of pants, carrying a couple of bottles of beer and a bottle of juice for Mai. She wrinkled her nose at him but took the bottle and sat back against her husband’s chest. He wrapped his hands over her tummy and rubbed gently.
“Are you two going to be okay with all this?”
“We don’t have much choice. From what I understand, being a mate is unbreakable.”
“It is but, it also means that we love your sister more than anything in the world.”
“I love them like that, too, but not only because they are mine. I wanted to tell you all this today and hoped that you wouldn’t be too overwhelmed. It looks like I worried for nothing, which is awesome. Tomorrow is the spring festival. This is my first one, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
“What has that got to do with telling us?”
“Because everyone in town will be there, and when a human is around they all have to be on their best behavior.”
“What if we didn’t take it well?”
Obsessed with Fur [3xtasy Lake 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 6
