Josh

by Dana Archer

  Devin sighed. “What else? Come on. Think.”

  “Apple pie,” Josh admitted. “I thought I was dying. I smelled apple pie and thought my gran was there to lead me to Heaven. She wasn’t, though.”

  “Someone else came to you.”

  Josh flashed back to that night. The darkness of the unlit lot pressed in on him, but Devin’s words brought another memory forth—music, singing, and someone walking toward him. The dream he kept getting glimpses of every time he closed his eyes was real.

  Josh swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Tell me about the golden light.”

  He hadn’t said anything about it, but the eagerness in Devin’s voice stopped Josh from questioning him as to how Devin knew that was what Josh had seen.

  “It came just like all the near-death victims claim to experience. The world brightened then centered into a single…point.” Golden arms, golden hair, golden… “Eyes. Golden eyes looked down at me. A woman with golden eyes. She was glad I was dying.”

  The swing groaned. A moment later, Devin squeezed his shoulder. “I think you’ve been blessed, my friend.”

  “Blessed? Yeah, right.” He forced a chuckle to stop the hope from rising. “I let my guard down and allowed myself to get hurt then stupidly thought I could handle Zeb on my own.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. There’s a reason the Alexander pride’s Golden goddess is described that way. She’s golden from head to toe with molten yellow eyes…golden eyes.”

  “The Alexander’s goddess won’t come to me. She can only appear to Kade. He’s a pride leader. That’s what I’ve been told. I’m just a human, not a shifter and certainly not a pride leader. That pops your theory.”

  Devin released his shoulder. The floorboards squeaked as he walked across the porch. “No, you’re not a shifter, but that’s why my cats are fascinated with you. You smell like a human. You just don’t feel like one…here.” Devin thumped his chest. “Hard to explain. They just know. My cats can tell many things about people that other shifters’ animals don’t see, but they’ve never been able to rise above their rage to tell me. With Lena, they’re learning.”

  Josh made a noncommittal sound instead of continuing to argue. He just didn’t have the energy to keep it up.

  “Josh.”

  He glanced at Mira’s twin.

  “They want you to stop fighting, to let it happen or else you’re going to die.”

  “Let what happen?”

  Devin shrugged. “Not sure.”

  Great. That didn’t help him. “I thought your animal spirits couldn’t talk to you.”

  Devin inclined his head slightly. “Not in words but mine have needed more attention over the years. I understand how they think, and I know their wants and needs better than my own sometimes. They want you to sleep and embrace the pain before it becomes too great and stops your heart.”

  Josh appreciated Devin’s effort to help him. It didn’t change anything. As far as he was concerned, he needed a doctor because the rapid beat of his heart and the sharp stabbing centered in his chest worried him. A nap wouldn’t help…although he was tired.

  “Sure. I’ll grab a few Z’s before I get ready for work. I want to be there when Mira meets with Micah.”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  Josh bit back his curse. “I don’t need a babysitter.” He motioned toward the house. “I have a gun locked away. I’ll dig it out. I’m good.”

  “I don’t like the idea of leaving you unprotected.”

  “And I don’t like the fact that everyone treats me as if I’m incapable of taking care of myself or protecting Mira and the girls just because I’m human.” He met Devin’s gaze. “Go home to your mate and leave me alone.”

  Devin cursed some more but finally complied. Josh waited until Devin drove past the tree line before slumping in his seat. The sick feeling in his stomach threatened to heave his guts, something he hadn’t done in years.

  “If this is a blessing, I don’t want it.” He hurt.

  Minutes passed as he sat there pondering Devin’s words and everything that had happened to him over the past few days. One thought took root—the golden woman had been glad he was dying. Another surfaced—Royal males tied their mates to them by causing a near-death wound and sharing their cats with them.

  He grabbed his throat and swallowed hard against the sensation of something oily slithering into his gut. It wasn’t blood she’d given him to save his life. She’d kissed him and… Sweet Jesus. Had she gifted him with his own set of cats?

  Impossible, yet…the intense instincts, the ache in his gums, the itch and burn of his fingertips. And the dreams, the unexplainable dreams where he felt as if he was an active participant. Hope flared.

  “Stop being so stubborn, child.” The memory of a woman’s words and a single crooked, talon-tipped finger calling him to the place where he’d get his answers filled his head.

  He ran his tongue along his teeth. No fangs. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. No talons. He let his mind go blank. No images came to him or thoughts from any other soul.

  Not willing to let the hope fizzle, he willed himself to turn into the lion he’d been in his dream. He pictured every detail, imagined what it’d feel like to walk around on all fours and embraced the primitive instincts simmering inside him.

  Nothing happened.

  He peered at his tanned skin and cursed.

  “I’m a fool.” He had to let go of the desperate ideas. Disaster lay ahead if he gave them life.

  He unbent his stiff and achy legs and shuffled inside. After a couple of feet, his knees gave out. He dropped to the hardwood floor and clutched his chest. Bolts of electricity ripped from his heart to his fingers and toes. Pain as he’d never known seized him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t see. A black blanket dropped over him, suffocating him and taking the world away. He toppled forward and whacked his head on the bottom stair.

  He waited for the blessed darkness to take the agony away. Relief never came. The pressure centered in his chest increased. The more he fought it, the greater it became. He would’ve thrashed, screamed, anything to ease the pain. He couldn’t. The balloon puffing his chest kept expanding and locked his muscles.

  A bright spot formed behind his closed eyes, not a golden one. No, this was different, yet familiar. Colors flowed over the undulating surface. Hues of reds to blues. Variations of black and white. They twirled and mixed in an unending flux of…life. Yeah, the description fit. The ball pulsed with life, his life.

  The pulsating flashes of color surrounding him matched the beats of his heart. An echo of each thump reverberated down the white cord connected to him. It fed him strength, but with each passing moment, the rhythm stuttered.

  Another tether, this one a collage of shimmering fall colors, extended from the opposite side of the sphere. Beautiful. He wanted to get lost in the swirling kaleidoscope, but the rope was unraveling before his eyes.

  No! He didn’t want to lose it. He’d never find his way home if it severed, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t grasp it.

  The vortex spun, faster and faster. Agony built with each colorful thread that snapped. Too much. It was unbearable. Any minute the glowing ball would burst.

  “They want you to sleep and embrace the pain before it becomes too great and stops your heart.” Devin’s voice whispered through him.

  Embrace it? Josh had been fighting the agony for days. He didn’t want to accept it. It scared him. He had no room in his life for the weak emotion, not with all the threats surrounding him. Of course, just as with Zeb, he’d thought he could handle everything on his own. He hadn’t been able to pull it off.

  Now he was dying.

  He’d promised Mira he’d make everything right if she trusted him. Tears burned his eyes. Weak. He felt so weak. He was a failure, not fit to be the man Mira needed. She’d be the one to suffer, too. Always and forever.

  “I think you�
�ve been blessed, my friend.” Devin’s words wrapped around him.

  “Stop being so stubborn, child.” Frustration gave a sharp bite to the woman’s voice. The memory of the goddess standing in a sea of nothingness flashed across Josh’s mind. “Accept my gift before it kills you.”

  Blessed. He had been blessed. The answer to all his problems had been right inside of him, and he’d refused to acknowledge it. He’d been too worried about being accepted by the other shifters that he’d forgotten the most important thing—he wasn’t a shifter. He was human and didn’t have to play by their rules. He’d been making his own since he’d taken his first steps.

  He was a leader, not a follower.

  A pride leader.

  He dragged Mira’s image from the inky blackness, held it close, and stopped fighting.

  The pressure gave way with a pop that lifted his body off the floor. A third golden rope sprouted from the glowing ball inside him. Three tethers—white, kaleidoscope, and golden—yanked him in different directions, a tug-of-war he couldn’t control or stop. His body seized, and he screamed, one continuous roar that lasted forever.

  He hung in the middle of nowhere and did the only thing he could.

  He reached out to Mira, felt her love wrap around him, and then he knew no more.

  Chapter 31

  Something alive moved under his skin. Josh knew what it would be, a trio of big cats. At the moment, however, it was a formless entity struggling to understand its host. It wasn’t the only one confused, but he wrapped his metaphysical arms around the blob and sheltered it from the agony still seizing his body.

  The grandfather clock he’d inherited from his gran chimed the hours. Each one that passed frustrated him. He didn’t have time to writhe in pain, not that he had a choice in the matter. Mira needed him. He shared in her growing anxiety, but the changes in his body, along with the terror of the animal spirits he held inside prevented him from going to her.

  At first, he hadn’t been able to make sense of the jumble of feelings they shared with him. With nothing else to do beside roll around in misery on his hallway floor, he’d focused on the whirling emotions whipping through him. They wanted to help him and protect him. They loved him, as crazy as that sounded, and were upset because they couldn’t.

  He closed his eyes and let himself sink deeper into his mind. The three fuzzy shapes forming out of the blob were tied to the bright spot inside him. It…they were still growing, still forming, still changing him, but the longer he watched them take shape, the clearer their thoughts. Actually, they didn’t talk to him, not in words. They sent him pictures, all fuzzy, all black-and-white, all of him and the three cats that belonged to him. He’d focused on the images until he understood what they were trying to show him.

  Finally, their message clicked, and Josh understood why they were so upset. “Well, great.”

  They were trapped forever inside him because his physical body wouldn’t conform to theirs. He was still human…sort of. If they tried to emerge, he’d pop—literally, body and soul.

  “Great gift. Thanks, goddess.” Sarcasm laced his pained voice.

  An image flashed across his mind—him in his lion form at the bar. My dream. Another replaced it—him and Mira as tigers running through a sea of black mist. More snippets danced across his head. In every one, he was a cat.

  “Well, which is it? Can I shift or not?”

  Another memory surfaced—the golden goddess standing in the middle of nowhere, blackness all around her.

  “Come to me, child. Accept me and hear what I have to say.”

  The words he hadn’t been able to hold on to then repeated in his head. Josh grinned.

  “Well, how about that. I’m a doorway—”

  The shrill ring of a phone pierced the air. He pushed to his feet and grabbed the landline from the hall table.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you okay?” Zoe’s voice filled the line.

  He hesitated. Was he?

  “Josh? Answer me. Do you need me to come out there?”

  “No…I’m…fine.” Depending on what he defined as fine, but he was breathing. That was a plus.

  “Then why aren’t you at the bar? Mira will be meeting Micah in less than thirty minutes.”

  Josh ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll be right there.”

  He ended the call and shuffled for the door. The sensation of having his insides ripped apart made each step a lesson in misery but excitement pushed him forward. He didn’t have all the answers, but he had the one that Mira needed to hear.

  The goddesses loved her after all.

  Mira cut the engine and dropped her head against the seat. She panted through the surge of desire. She’d never been so aroused before or wanted to have sex so badly. The tingling sensation along her limbs told her why—she was in heat.

  Royal females weren’t fertile every lunar cycle the way single shifters were once they reached maturity. Yes, Royals could only conceive on the night of the full moon, but it didn’t happen often. Some women tracked them, giving them a better idea of when they needed to seek out their mate, but Mira hadn’t bothered. What was the point when she’d ignored any compulsion to have children?

  At the moment, she wished she had. If she’d known, she never would’ve agreed to a date with Micah. That was all she needed. Go to him, smelling aroused and ready to conceive. He’d take it as an invitation. At least he’d accepted her lame excuse when she’d called him to break their date.

  The only male she wanted to touch while in heat was Josh. She’d meant to drive to his house tonight and wait for him to come home. Instead, she’d come to his bar. For sex. Dirty, raw, and immediate. She felt as if she might die if she didn’t get him inside her.

  It wasn’t as if he could actually get her pregnant, but if he was with her no other male would be able to do so. Was her refusal to accept the goddesses’ blessing selfish? Probably. She didn’t care. She refused to allow her dream to come true. No way did she want to go to Josh while carrying another male’s children. She loved Josh too much to disrespect him that way. Her destiny would just have to wait.

  She scanned the employee parking lot of the Black Widow. Josh’s vehicle sat there with a few others. No humans lingered close by. She blew out a shaky breath and peeked at herself in the rearview mirror. Her flushed cheeks and dilated eyes would clue even the humans in on her state of arousal.

  She couldn’t go in the bar looking as if she were ready for a tumble. They’d descend on her with their hopeful gazes while the shifters would be drawn by her scent. She had no choice. She’d go in through the back.

  The scent of a male lion shifter drifted to her through the cracked car window and killed her excitement over getting her hands on Josh.

  She looked out the front windshield, scanning the parking lot for her enemy. Micah’s gaze from across the lot locked on to hers. Her heart skipped a beat. What was he doing here?

  A grin spread over his too-thin face. She bared her fangs. His answering chuckle reached her and stirred her rage. Anger boiling her blood, she got out.

  Legs spread slightly and hands balled at her sides, she waited for him to make a move. Her instincts urged her to run toward the bar, even though she could easily take on a gang of single shifters. Josh was inside the building behind her. The threat Micah posed should be one Josh should face, not her. He’d insisted he would protect her. She also knew she couldn’t allow that to happen. Death would find Josh soon enough. She refused to lose him too soon, especially to the male who looked so similar to the one who’d ruined her life.

  Besides, she wasn’t completely alone. Kade had confirmed another one of Xander’s pack protectors would watch over her. Just because she hadn’t seen him, didn’t mean he wasn’t close. If her life was endangered, he’d step in. Unless he too had been drugged and restrained.

  Micah approached slowly as if he had all the time in the world. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose, along with her wariness.
She scented his excitement. It mixed with the heavy dose of lust oozing off him. He’d done something to support the confident strut he took, something that angered her cats. She didn’t know what, neither did her inner animals, but her instincts raged with the certainty of it.

  And where exactly was her wolf protector?

  Her muscles tensed as her tigress shoved her head against Mira’s sternum demanding to be set free. The cat wanted to kill Micah. Mira wanted the same, but the humans close by prevented her from going furry. Another accidental exposure wouldn’t be so easily forgiven. Which was probably why Xander’s male hadn’t stepped in yet. She wasn’t in immediate danger. Her displeasure over being close to Micah didn’t count.

  She opened her mouth to demand what he’d done. Muffled screams and the sounds of fighting answered her unspoken question. He’d caused a distraction, one that needed the support of others, which clearly broke Kade’s original requirement that Micah not bring any family members into their territory.

  What other rules would Micah violate? She shoved back the concern and focused on why he’d conveniently stumbled upon her.

  “You followed me here.” It was the only explanation.

  He lifted his lip in a half-smile. The lopsided grin didn’t look endearing or sexy on him the way the gesture did on Josh. On Micah, it made him appear feral.

  “No, sweet Mira. I knew you’d lied about why you wanted to reschedule our date so I had my…friend”—he grinned—“put a tracking device on your car and take out your second protector. As soon as you turned this way, I knew you’d be coming to your human lover. I came to stop it. I won’t share you with him, especially not tonight while you’re ripe.”

  Her heart skipped a beat before she could stop it. Unease settled over her with his unspoken plans for her—mate her by force and get her pregnant—but that wasn’t the only concern plaguing her. Micah knew Josh was her lover. Had Micah sent the human to watch them? And her protector… Oh, gods… if Xander’s pack mate had been killed because of her she’d never forgive herself. Guilt made it hard to breathe.