by Mary Martel
Now what the hell am I supposed to do with that?
*****
It wasn’t until I was dressed and standing in front of the mirror brushing my hair that I realized I could just barely hear them in the other room. I couldn’t make out their words but I could hear their voices.
Being nosey and hoping they wouldn’t notice, I reach out and flip the switch to the fan down, turning it off.
“Can’t stay here for long...”
“I know but what are we going to do about her?”
“What do you mean?”
“It was hard enough when it was just the two of us and now we have her to look after and I think we both know that she—“
“She’s my fucking mate, Riley. It’s not like I can just shut this shit off and walk away from her.”
“Yeah, bro, I get that, but before you were going to stay away from her, no problem. And now…” His voice trailed off.
“I was never planning on staying away from her, Riley. I was going to keep to the shadows making sure she was safe as she lived out a normal life. But I was always, always, going to be near her, even when she did not know I was there. I cannot live my life without her in it. I won’t do it.”
“Okay. So what now?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Maybe you should just wipe her and we can go back to living in the shadows.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we. Where we go we go together, it’s always been that way, so yeah, we.”
“Everything has changed and I don’t think I can stick to the shadows anymore. Besides, now it’s really not safe for her and in no way can she go back there. No fucking way, Ry.”
“We need to come up with a new plan then.”
There are a few moments of silence and then from the same voice, Riley’s voice, “Are you open to suggestions?”
“Riley…”
“Just hear me out, brother.”
“Okay. Fine. Talk.”
“I think that as soon as possible you should start giving her the good old one-two pump, fill her up with your seed—“
He was cut off with an amused sounding Ian, “One-two pump?”
One-two what?
“Keep at it until you knock her up and she’s carrying your heir. And when you’re not doing the dirty we make our way towards home, our real home—“
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Pause. Then: “You are. You would have to be to suggest such things to me,” growls a now not so amused sounding Ian.
I had to admit, I wasn’t very amused either.
“You said it yourself, things have changed now. You said that. I think it’s the perfect time for -”
“That is not how I meant it and you damn well know it.”
“I’m tired of running and hiding, Ian. I’m tired of not being able to be who I really am. I miss my magic and I miss being one with my animal. Months ago when you found her that was a sign. We cannot go on as we have been. Something’s gotta give. We were raised to rule a kingdom, not to run and hide from the man who stole it all from us. Aren’t you tired of this?”
“You know I am but it is not so simple as just waltzing on in there and demanding what’s rightfully ours be returned to us. It doesn’t quite work that way.”
“So we come up with something else. Father was a much loved man and Uncle Roland has never been. We need to find someone from our past life who was close to father, someone we can trust. We need to know what went down after we left. What Uncle Roland told people happened. We need to find out all that has happened since we left. And then we plan. We keep connecting with people we know we can trust, powerful people. Then, when the timing is right, we out that fucker and we take him out, putting your ass on the throne where it belongs.”
“Collette.”
“Collette. Brilliant. I forgot about her. She’s perfect.”
Having heard more than enough I turn on the hair dryer attached to the wall and started in on drying my hair.
Nothing they said makes a whole lotta sense to me. Well, I understood parts of it, unfortunately.
Maybe they’ve escaped from the loony bin? Perhaps that’s where the freak show had come from as well.
It’s not the first time that one or the other brother has referred to me as Ian’s mate. I don’t get it, and frankly it was kind of creeping me out.
I blush thinking of some of the things I had heard Riley say in regards to me. One-two what? I did not think so. And knock me up? I had just met them like two seconds ago and they were already talking about knocking me up? What had I gotten myself into here? Had I been wrong to trust them? God, I hoped not.
The rest of it made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
They had been in hiding? Ian planned on following me for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t have ever known it? Like a stalker? Now, why did that thought not creep me out? It should have sent me running for the hills. Their father had been a king? King of what? What are they running from? Who are they running from?
It must be said that I now have more questions than answers. I didn’t like this. Not one teeny tiny bit.
I was going to be eavesdropping on them any and every chance I got.
I might not have all the answers but I definitely have more information than what I had to start out with. Which was something, to say the least.
I may not understand any of it but I’m a smart girl and if I’m patient and pay close attention I just might be able to figure some of it out. And I could definitely do just that.
So, I’m sticking with them until I figure out what in the hell was going on.
With my mind settled, I finish drying my hair, put the hair dryer back in it’s hook thingy on the wall, give myself one last lingering look in the mirror and head back out into the room.
The only thing on my mind being my new mission - to gain information.
Chapter 7
Ian
We are in the SUV and headed north, Riley’s driving, I’m in the passenger seat and Shayne is in the back, pretending to sleep. We’ve been on the road for hours on end with no real destination in mind just so long as we’re going north.
When she came out of the bathroom this morning after her shower I could tell right away that something was off. She was quiet and withdrawn. She spent her time watching Riley and my every move and pretending like she wasn’t. She’s peaked both Riley and my senses. He keeps stealing glances in the rearview mirror at her every other second, while my mind runs circles over what has brought this change out in her.
However, I firmly push it to the back of my mind. If she wants to talk about whatever it is she’s got eating at her then she will. So far she’s shown she’s got no trouble what so ever expressing her thoughts or feelings. I’m going to let her be until she shows me she wants to talk. And when she does I am going to be all over that. All over it. I can’t wait to get to know my beautiful mate better. I want to know everything about her. I remember the haunted look that crossed over her face when she told me she didn’t have any family or even photographs. I want to know the story behind the haunted look. Hell, I simply want to know her, anything thing she’s willing to give me.
I wanted it badly but I was smart enough not to push it. I plan on waiting for her to tell me. Waiting until she’s comfortable enough with me to give me that. And she would get there, she was my mate, made for me as I was her.
But for now, for whatever reason, she was pretending to sleep in the back seat, ignoring my brother and I. Until she thought we weren’t paying attention, that is.
My mind wanders off to Collette. She is a three hundred year old Vampire and had been one of my fathers most trusted advisors. She had been by his side for as long as I could remember. Only leaving him on holidays to go and be with her own family. My father once told me that she’d been with him since he was a child, his father had handpicked her to be at his sons side. Someone who could be with his son long after he himself had passed.<
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I haven’t let myself think of her in a very long time because it hurt too much to go there. I have no idea what she thinks happened to my brother and I. I have no idea what anyone thinks of my father’s death as well as the absence of my brother and myself. Who knows what kind of lies my vile Uncle has told my people. Likely he’s told them we are dead.
I’m hoping she is happy to see us, that she has missed us. I’m also hoping she will take us in and keep our presence secret until we are ready, until we knew what the fuck it is we are going to do. Or, that’s to say, until I know what the fuck it is I’m going to do.
It shits me to admit it but Riley is right. We can’t keep on going how we have been. Neither one of us deserves to live like this. I’m all for finding a way to change it, as long as it’s safe for Shayne that is. She is my top priority now, even over Riley.
But taking on Uncle Roland? That scares me. I am not afraid for myself, but for my brother and now my mate.
He cut off my father’s head with a sword and he did it while wearing a smile filled with pure glee and malice on his face. You wouldn’t think the two emotions could go so well together, but he seemed to have to problem working the two together. He held his sword and swung it through the air with practiced ease, as if it were something he had done a hundred times before.
This I find to be most distressing. We shifters do not fight one another with weapons. We fight one another in animal form. That is how it’s always been done without exception. To attack your King without issuing a challenge first, to sneak up behind him and cut his head off with a sword, would have been considered high treason. An automatic death sentence.
My family ruled for over eight hundred years because our animals were always the biggest and the strongest, because we are the most powerful with our magic. It is in our blood, something we are born with. Something no other family has ever come close to comparing to.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been people who have challenged us because there have. Every time ended the same, with the challenger being the loser and what they lost was their life. You didn’t throw down a challenge unless you were confident you could walk away victorious… or you were just plain stupid. Whatever the case shifters had tried and they’d always lost. These challenges always took place when both opponents were in animal form. That is how it’s always been done.
Only a man who knew he could not best his King, his fucking brother, would come up behind him and, in human form, cut his head off with a fucking sword.
Only a fucking coward would do such a thing. A coward like my uncle.
The more I allow myself to think about him the angrier I get. And the angrier I get the more I think that maybe Riley is right. Maybe we do need to take that fucker out, make him pay for what he has done.
My main focus since fleeing has always been protecting my brother, keeping him safe. I have never allowed my thoughts to go towards vengeance not once throughout the years. But now that they are I want it just as much as Riley does. Which is stupid because my main focus should now be on keeping two people safe as opposed to just my brother.
The thought of vengeance is like poison to the mind. Spreading and taking root like a fucking cancerous cell. The more thought I gave it the firmer those roots take hold.
I’d been lucky my father was a father first and a King second. He was a kind man. A gentle man. He taught my brother and me many things in the short time we got him for on this earth. He was grooming us both to be able to take his place. He’d also prepared me for anything, and boy do I mean anything. Which is probably why we were able to survive so long amongst humans. He had given me the tools to do so.
We had money, and not a small amount of it, because he had put it in a safe place and only shared its whereabouts with me. He made me repeat the address back to him every day for years.
“Just in case,” he would tell me. “We must always be ready for anything and I need to know that you and your brother will be taken care of.”
Now I wonder if maybe he knew that his brother was going to one day try to fuck him over.
I wonder if he knew that one day his brother would kill him.
We didn’t plan for that.
There was no “just in case” back up plan for his brother cutting off his fucking head while I, unbeknownst to them, watched.
So, I wonder what he would have me do now.
Would he want vengeance?
Would he want the man that killed him to pay for it?
Or, would he want me to keep my focus on my brother and mate, to do everything in my power to keep them safe even if it meant my Uncle got away with his brothers murder?
I think about what I would want from my son. And realize that my father wouldn’t want me to think about what he would want me to do. He raised me to one day take his place as King.
To one day take his place as King.
With stark clarity, I realize that I already have the answer to my questions.
We were going home.
And come hell or high water, I’d be taking my rightful place as King.
But before that, I’m going to kill my Uncle.
Riley is going to watch.
And we are going to enjoy every bloody fucking second of his death.
Chapter 8
Shayne
Someone was gently shaking my shoulder, trying to wake me up. Once again I didn’t remember falling asleep.
“Shayne,” Ian whispers in my ear. “Sweetheart, wake up.”
Slowly I crack open my eyes.
I’m lying across the backseat of the SUV and Ian is leaned over the center consul in the front seat, hovering over me. His eyes are warm, locked on me.
His gaze feels way too intimate for my liking.
Before I can think better of it, I blurt out the first thing I think of, apparently having a momentarily case of diarrhea of the mouth. Regretting the question as soon as it leaves my mouth. What the hell is wrong with me? I had a plan, dammit. What happened to being quiet and listening? Way to go, Shayne!
“Why do you call me your mate?” I blurt out.
His eyes loose the warm look and instantly become guarded.
I hold up my hand before he can feed me some bullshit line I’m uninterested in hearing. “Yeah, yeah. I know. We will talk about it when we get to a safe place. Just forget I asked.” I huff.
He shakes his head and smiles at me. A beautiful, heart stopping smile. I find myself melting at just the sight of it.
I’d never seen a man so heart-stoppingly attractive before.
“I missed this today,” he tells me.
“Missed what?” I ask with genuine confusion.
“Your attitude,” he says, heart melting smile still in place.
“What can I say, you bring out the best in me,” I huff out, sitting up straight in the back seat.
He laughs at that. His laughter is cut off when Riley opens up the drivers’ side door and leans his head in, feet staying planted on the pavement.
“What’s so funny?” He asks.
“Sleeping Beauty,” Ian replies, tipping his head in my direction.
As if.
“You snore,” Riley rudely informs me.
I scowl in response. It’s my only response because I have no clue whether what he says is true or not. Up until last night I’ve never slept in the same bed next to another person before in my whole life.
Still… if I did snore, he was a total dick for pointing it out.
“Leave her be,” Ian tells him.
I look away from a smug Riley to a smiling warmly at me Ian and quietly, self-consciously, ask him, “Do I snore?”
“A little, but I think it’s quite adorable,” he answers me with a sweet smile on his face.
I groan and cover my face with my hands, ridiculously embarrassed by something I have no control over. “Great,” I mutter, “just freaking great.”
Riley laughs at me. “You were right, bro. Sleeping Beauty is a fu
cking riot.”
Har Har.
“Dicks,” I say, removing my hands from my face so they can both see the dirty look I aim their way. “You’re both dicks.”
This makes them laugh harder.
Whatever.
Like I even care.
“Did you get us a room?” Ian asks, all traces of laughter gone. He’s back to being serious and in charge.
“I sure did,” Riley says, proudly waving two key cards around in between his fingers. “I got us a discount because I flirted with the hot guy at the desk. When I was walking out I turned around and caught him checking out my ass.”
Ian lets out a sigh and pulls his long hair back behind his head, holding it there like he can’t stand it hanging in his face. “Just don’t bring him back to our room and traumatize Shayne, okay?”
Riley grins.
I gape, mouth hanging open and all, at them.
“You… you’re…” I stutter out.
”Gay.” Riley says, grinning at me.
I close my mouth and look from him to Ian. He’s studying me closely, watching for my reaction.
I stick my tongue out at him and look back to Riley who is still grinning, “Was he hot?” I ask him.
“Have you seen me?”
“Right,” I mutter, then louder I declare, “He’s hot.”
Ian lets out a breath he must have been holding, drawing my attention back to him. The look on his face tells me he’s relieved. Huh. I realize he must have been worried about what I would think of his brother being gay. It dawns on me just how little we know about each other and yet here I am. On a road trip with virtual strangers – whereabouts unknown.
“Yeah,” Riley says, drawing my attention away from Ian. He’s looking down at me with warmth in his eyes. “He is.”
Geez, had he been worried about my reaction as well?
My stomach picks that moment to start growling and they both laugh at me.
“Let’s get inside our room and we will order something to eat.” Ian says, he looks to Riley, “Sound good to you?”
“Yeah, brother. Sounds good.”
And we do just that.