“So, what’s your excuse for not marrying me?” Tamara demanded.
Cree flinched slightly, and it was the only opening Jason needed. He lowered his stance and dropped to one knee in front of Cree. The cougar shifter was instantly off balance. Jason used his head to push Cree to one side, away from Luna. Moving rapidly, Jason pinned Cree. “Tap out and get away from my mate,” Jason growled.
Quinn grumbled as he got closer. “Just do it, Cree. Between you and DeShawn, it’s like none of you have any manners anymore.”
“Screw manners. She’s up to something,” Cree said, trying to fight the hold.
“Keep it up, and I’ll wind up breaking something,” Jason grit out.
“Luna?” Quinn looked at her expectantly.
Knowing the proverbial cat was out of the bag, Luna nodded. She sat on the tailgate of Jason’s truck. In a show of solidarity, Tamara instantly joined her.
“Knock it off, Creole,” Tamara ordered.
Cree sighed and tapped out. “Don’t think I’ll forget this.”
Jason lifted a single eyebrow. “Like you challenging my mate?”
Luna cleared her throat. “I am Luna Flowers, a blogger from Portland, Maine. I’ve been blogging for six years about shifters. I haven’t lied to you about that.” Her voice was clear and truthful. Loud enough to carry but spoken only to Jason. “However, I was already looking for a reason to head to North Carolina when Lacey contacted me regarding Melody’s pregnancy.”
“So, you lied.” Cree’s voice was absolute.
“She didn’t lie,” Tamara said, taking Luna’s hand. “She just left a few key things out. It’s not like she knew any of us. How could trust us?”
Luna shared a weak smile with her defender. “It wasn’t really my secret to tell. My grandmother asked me to try and find her husband.”
Tamara gasped and looked at her. Jason stilled, his face firming in expectation of betrayal. Even Quinn drew closer. “And who is your grandfather.”
Luna frowned. Had they all gone mad?
“She’s the granddaughter of Nicholas Lowell,” Cree announced, eyes lighting with recognition. “No wonder you smelled familiar.”
“Who is Nicholas Lowell?” Jason still hadn’t taken his eyes off Luna despite Cree’s suddenly relaxed posture.
“He’s a Vietnam veteran. Leopard shifter. Owner of the Lusty Leopard,” Luna announced. Her words diffused the tension in the small group. “When the story about the fire last summer broke, my readers wanted to know more. So, I did some digging. Found the Lusty Leopard. You have a link on your website that I followed and found a reference to my grandfather.”
“Which explains why you’re so passionate about shifters,” Quinn supplied.
“Are you a shifter, too?” Tamara asked.
Luna was caught, her back against the wall. “According to Nana, when her husband came back from Vietnam, he was changed. Different. The jungles there, what he saw, what he did. It broke him.”
Jason, also a combat veteran grunted. “He hid in his animal, didn’t he?”
“For over fifty years,” Luna confirmed.
“He’s been to see me a few times. Pretty sure he lives around here, and I keep a line shack stocked for him when he shifts,” Cree said. “But yeah, for the most part, he’s reverted to his cat. Even in his human form, he’s more wild animal than not.”
“Are you a shifter?” Jason asked, repeating Tamara’s question.
Luna shrugged. “I can’t shift. Or, if I can, I don’t know how. My mom says she can feel her cat, but I don’t know what that means.”
“I do,” Jason, Cree, and Quinn said in near unison.
“Sure, the first time you say ‘I do’ and it’s not even to your mate.” Tamara giggled and rolled her eyes. Cree approached her and put his hands on her hips before putting his head on her shoulder.
The odd show of vulnerability caught at Luna’s throat. “Do you know where I can find my grandfather?”
Cree exchanged a long look with his fellow shifters. “He’s elusive. No need for money, food, or shelter. Hasn’t even needed a doctor. I’d say the quickest way to bring him out of hiding is to have his mate show up.” Cree nuzzled Tamara’s hair. “No shifter can avoid their mate for long. Especially after fifty years.”
Jason
After Cree and Tamara left, Jason followed Luna into Little Yellow.
A stray wind picked up, and the cabin shook with its force. “Storm coming in?” Luna asked, shivering a little as the air turned cold.
“Could be.” Jason dropped a kiss to her forehead. “Can you clean up the cooler? I want to get my ATV in Quinn’s garage.”
“Should I mention how silly it is that a bear shifter has an oversized pick-i-nick basket?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
Luna only laughed. “Go, I’ll get something set up for dinner.”
Jason looked at her intently. “It’s not food I’m hungry for, Cinderella.”
Luna glanced up through her bangs. “We can do that, too.”
“You aren’t too sore?”
She shook her head. “Even if I were, I still wouldn’t say no.”
Jason closed his eyes, picturing the feel of her under him. Around him. Over him. “I’ll be right back.”
Jason got the truck closed up and secured his four-wheeler in Quinn’s garage. While he was heading back to the cabin, the heavens opened up, and rain fell like buckets.
“Son of a bucket,” Jason muttered before picking up the pace. He leaped up the stairs on the porch and into the small house.
She greeted him with a dry towel and a gentle smile.
“You could have trusted me, Cinderella. I don’t care who your grandfather is.” Jason toweled his hair dry and took off his flannel shirt. His undershirt remained dry, so he kept it on.
“I was afraid. What if Nicholas was a terrible person? I didn’t want you all to hate me. What if you had taken some blood oath to kill anyone who came to look for him?”
Jason snorted. “You’ve watched too many movies.”
“Your code of honor wouldn’t let you protect him if he’d asked?”
“Maybe. If you’d been up to no good. But you’re only looking for your grandfather. Not looking to kill him or anything.”
“You and Quinn didn’t seem to think it was okay earlier,” Luna pointed out as she went into the kitchen. “Both of you got all growly faced at me.”
“We really stay off the radar. There’s big money if private groups can figure out the secret to our DNA splicing. The biggest one is Franklin Biologics, and they’ve sent people looking for us before.”
“You realize everyone will know who you are once my blog goes live at midnight,” Luna pointed out. “Won’t be any hiding from anyone once that happens.”
“Maybe that will be for the best.” Jason shrugged. “We’ll have people on our side, too. We’ll be public figures. Harder to kidnap or do medical testing on public features.”
“It will also crash the door wide open on a secret the military wanted to be kept quiet.” Luna got them each a soda and walked into the living room. Jason joined her on the couch. “I am sorry I couldn’t tell you everything. Nana was afraid if Nicholas found out, he’d go in the wind again. Silver Fells was the first solid lead she ever had.”
“It’s been hard on her?”
“All of my memories of her are sad. The only time she was even remotely content was when she had Mother and I all to herself. Birthday parties were a nightmare. I had to stop inviting people over because it upset her so much.”
“And your dad?”
Luna sighed. “He left after he figured things out. Said he was ashamed of spawning an animal.” She spat the words out as though she’d heard them dozens of times in her life. Jason’s heart ached for her.
“Sounds about right. Hatred is a funny thing like that. Almost makes you want to remind him that humans are animals, too.”
Luna’s grin was only a shadow
of her usual incandescent smile. “Natural born shifters have a different life, I guess. I could run faster than all the other kids. My hearing and eyesight are better. But I can’t feel an animal within me.”
“She’s mourned him every day. And maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad if he had died. There’s closure in death. But having her mate reject her was a knife wound that couldn’t heal.”
They were quiet for a moment, each letting the words float around them. Outside, dusk began to close in on them. “Are you mad at me?” Luna finally asked.
“No. I’m glad it’s out in the open.” He put one hand over his heart and then moved it to hers. “Glad you’re free to love. My biggest worry was that you were married or taken somehow.”
Luna bit her lip and looked at her lap briefly before capturing Jason’s hand in hers. “Did you mean what you said out there?”
Jason frowned. “I always say what I mean.”
“Am I your mate?”
“You can’t feel it?” Jason had been aware of it from the first moment. It spun like a gossamer thread. A rainbow of sparkles shot off it in all direction like stars around a spider’s web.
“There’s been a connection,” Luna said softly. Her fingers played with his as they lay over her heart. “But how do you know it’s a mating bond?”
“Instinct.” The answer was so simple, Jason couldn’t believe Luna didn’t see it.
“So, what happens now? My home is in Maine. Yours is here.”
“My home is wherever you are, Luna.”
Chapter Eight
Luna
Luna woke up shortly before midnight. Jason mumbled in his sleep but kept on snoring. She grimaced slightly when she stooped to find a pair of sleeping pants and a tank top. Jason had proved to be both an energetic and tender lover.
Grabbing her tablet, she snuck into the living room of Little Yellow. This was always the hardest part of releasing a blog. Making sure she had enough people awake, enough people engaged, and enough people to retweet. Midnight Sunday east coast time worked for her audience. Most were still awake, and it was still relatively early across the country. It would give a chance for the news to travel and be prime for the news cycle on Monday morning.
Just as she settled down with a cup of hot tea, Lacey and Quinn knocked on her door. “Hey,” Lacey greeted, placing her finger to her lips. “Jason is still asleep.”
“Not anymore.” His voice was sleep rough, and his beard was dark and shaggy.
Luna smiled at him. “Hey, you.” She wasn’t sure of the protocol of greeting your lover in the middle of the night.
Not seeming to care about protocol or even the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt, Jason approached her and kissed her upturned lips. “Did you really think I’d miss your blog going live?”
One by one, people poured into Little Yellow. Cree and Tamara were next. Then Hunter and Hadley. Daniel and Kimber with their baby Anthony.
“No Melody?” Kimber asked as she found a comfortable spot on her husband’s lap.
“No.” Lacey made a little face like she missed her best friend. “She and Rafe finally went on a small honeymoon to the beach.” Just then, her phone chirped. “Oh! Look at that. She’s online. Okay. We’re all set to tweet and retweet.”
“We all could have stayed at home instead of coming to the Love Shack,” Quinn grumbled but chuckled when his mate pushed his shoulder.
“Beast,” Lacey accused.
“Me? I’m innocent,” Quinn proclaimed, tugging her onto his lap. “Now, come and tame your savage lover.”
“Love Shack. I like that,” Kimber commented as she gently rocked Anthony’s carrier with one toe. “It fits.”
“Oh, how so?” Luna asked, eyes bright with curiosity and excitement as the clock ticked down to midnight.
“We all stayed here at one point or another. It’s how I met Quinn. He only rents the cottages out to other shifters. Mostly to give them a place to rehab or find some quiet. Or explore the mountains in their animal forms.” Lacey twitched lightly on Quinn’s lap. “So, naturally he was a little peeved when I showed up.”
“Not for long,” Quinn returned.
Cree snorted something that sounded distinctly like “bullshit” but no one called him on it.
“That’s so cool! This is going to have to go into my next entry.”
“Lacey is convinced there’s magic in the cabin. That’s why she painted it, decorated it, and renamed it.” Quinn moved his mate’s hair out of the way to place a kiss on her neck.
“Okay, T minus five, four, three, two, and go!” Jason said.
“Okay, it went live.” Luna’s voice was hushed as she waited for the views to rack up. “Okay. I Tweeted it. Now I need you all to comment and retweet.”
One by one, each of them tweeted, retweeted, and tagged senators and congressmen alike.
“I’ve got a hundred views already,” Luna called. “Keep it up.” She bounced up and down in her seat as the comments added up and the retweets went into first the double then the triple digits.
“We’ll give that Kim Kardashian chick a run for her money,” Tamara said as she commented on someone’s post.
“Oh, it looks like Lacey’s dad got it,” Luna said. “He’s tagging a lot of people in it.” She paused. “Holy. Oh my.”
“What’s up?” Jason asked, looking up from tapping another reply.
“I just hit two million retweets, and it hasn’t even been out half an hour.” Luna was stunned as she stared at the number on her tablet. She brought up her blog page. “Oh. Remember how I told you I was hoping for two million followers on my blog once this went live?”
Tamara nodded. “What’s it up to?”
“Past three million! I think I can say I’ve officially gone viral!”
Quinn stirred. “That’s a good thing?”
“That means Father has something to go to his PAC with and show that this is a popular idea. Once we get it out there and normalize it, public opinion will follow,” Lacey said. She stood. “It’s late. We’re going to head to bed. We’ll talk in the morning and get phase two in motion.”
Dan groaned. “Is phase two where several of us make appointments with state senators to show how normal we are?”
“Pfft, you’re a war hero, Dan. You’ll be first up.” Hunter teased.
“Thanks for coming. All of you. It meant the world to me.” Luna hugged her tablet to her chest, hoping her words could convey her thoughts to this new family she’d created.
Hadley hugged Luna on her way out. “You’re doing this for us. The least we can do is volley a few tweets around and answer some questions.”
One by one the assembled group left until only Cree and Tamara hung back. “I’m sorry I was rude,” Cree began. “I’m protective of Tam and the rest of my family here.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to make anyone suspicious. I figured I could poke around, maybe get a lead on where he was.”
Cree and Tamara exchanged a long look. “I know what it’s like to live without my mate. I can only imagine the years of hurt both of your grandparents must be feeling. And I have no idea why Nick would do that to either himself or his mate.”
Luna felt her eyes fill with tears. For so long, she blamed Nicholas Lowell for hurting his wife and mother of his only child. To think maybe he was hurting just as bad was a new concept for her.
“Here. This is the only contact information I have. It’s just a generic email address, but when there’s a problem at the bar, I email him and a week or two later he calls.”
“Thank you,” Luna choked out. She gripped the piece of paper as she and Jason said good night to Cree and Tamara.
“You okay, Cinderella?”
She nodded, her voice too full to speak. It was just an email, but it was a start.
Jason
He didn’t want to doze off without her, but Luna decided she had to call her grandmother about the lead. He couldn’t blame her but, damn. A few hours with her in his
arms and he was hooked.
She opened the door and padded across the hardwood floors. “I talked to her.”
“Did you wake her up?”
“No, she knew about the blog going live tonight. She was still up and part of the Twitter volleyball match we were playing.”
Luna crawled into bed and snuggled into his chest. “You’re so warm.” She nuzzled his chest hair and gave him a gentle bite on his ribcage.
“Careful, there, Cinderella.”
“Or what?” she smiled up at him, a teasing half-grin on her face.
Jason growled and turned, so she was effectively tucked under him and pinned. “Or this.”
Luna snorted. “Like I’m afraid of you being on top of me?”
“For a woman who was a virgin only a few hours ago, you’re a saucy wench, aren’t you?”
“Me?” she blinked innocently.
“Hah. What if I were to pin you down and not make love to you?”
“Think you can hold out all night long?” She reached up and licked his neck before sucking lightly on his earlobe.
Jason laughed, feeling free and alive with his woman by his side. His very capable woman who was never going to let him get lazy or complacent. “What did your gram say?” he asked. He moved off her slightly, so he was no longer pinning her down.
“She’s going to look into a flight south.” Luna bit her lip. “I wanted to tell her about you. About us, but I didn’t. I want her visit to be about finding her mate.”
Jason stilled, feeling a momentary uncertainty. “You don’t want to tell your family about us?”
“Not that I don’t want to. She’ll figure it out in person when we pick her up at the airport.”
Jason grunted and nuzzled her neck. “Damn right she’ll figure it out. Especially once I get a ring on your finger.”
“Oooh. That will make me Luna Fox.” Her eyes lit up. “That’s a sexy name.”
“A sexy name for my sexy mate,” Jason agreed, pulling at her pajama pants. “As long as she stays my Cinderella.”
Interview with her Bear (Shifter Special Forces Book 6) Page 6
