Furever Loyal

by Riley Storm

  “That wasn’t your question though,” he said, giving her a moment to collect herself. “You aren’t bothered by the fact we go through sweats that quickly, I know it.”

  “No,” she admitted, shaking her head, a ghost of a smile crossing her face. “You’re right. Though it was one of those curious things about the job that I had been wondering about for a long time. Thank you for answering that.”

  He inclined his head. She was stalling, avoiding the topic at hand, whatever it was. Why was she so reluctant to ask it? It couldn’t be that bad.

  “You can ask whatever it is,” he urged. “I can tell you want to know, though I don’t know why you’re so hesitant. I already showed you our biggest secret. There isn’t much that can top that.”

  Kincaid thought about how much of human history was related to shifters and their actions, or their war with the human-born mages that had ravaged the world around them for over a millennium. Okay, maybe there are a few things I shouldn’t share just yet.

  “I was told rather forcefully, over and over again, by my old boss, that I absolutely must not ask questions unless I genuinely needed to know the answer to do my job. It was dangerous, I was told. There were things in this world that I didn’t need to know.”

  She expelled air through her lips. “I’m starting to wonder if maybe he had an inkling of your secret too and was trying to protect me.”

  Kincaid had no idea, he’d never met the previous accountant, so couldn’t say one way or another. There were humans out there that knew he and his kind existed, but they were few and far between. Most of them were mates of full-blooded shifters or relatives of those mates who’d stumbled onto it by accident and been threatened with death if they ever told a soul.

  “I promise you,” he said in a gentle tone, working to earn a bit of her trust. “You can ask, and you won’t get in any trouble. It’s okay.”

  He didn’t expect the overture to work. Haley detested him, and though they were slowly growing more civil with one another, he didn’t doubt that she still harbored a lot of strong feelings about him that were not positive. Trusting him didn’t seem to be high up on the list of things likely to happen anytime soon. Still, it was worth a shot.

  “Why him?”

  “Huh?”

  “Krawll. Why did you have me look him up? What did he do?”

  Ah. Kincaid was silent, contemplating how to explain the situation to her.

  “See, I told you, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s okay, I don’t need to know! Turn right up here.”

  He chuckled softly, following her directions. “It’s not that, Haley. I was just trying to think about how to explain it. I guess to answer that, I need to know how much you know about House Ursa.”

  “About its finances? Lots and lots,” she said quickly. “That’s about it though.”

  “Right. Well, you’re going to need a bit of background to understand I guess.”

  Haley jerked. “No, it’s okay. Seriously, I’m fine. I don’t need more shocking revelations. I’m still trying to accept the fact that you can turn into a bear, and that other people can change into a wolf. I’ve seen it happen, both of them, right in front of me, and I’m still half-convinced it’s not real. So, I’m okay without knowing anything more.”

  “We call ourselves a company for legal reasons only,” he explained, ignoring her protest. She may as well know, it wasn’t going to do any more damage now. In fact, it might help her do a better job, either her own or a better job of looking at him more objectively if she knew the real story. “In fact, we’re organized around certain bloodlines.”

  “Yeah, I get it. House Ursa, Ursa Major the constellation, it’s the bear. Canis, I suppose, is derived from canine, or vice versa. Wolf.”

  “Precisely.” He smiled at her, appreciative of her intellect. True, it wasn’t the most impressive thing in the world to make the connection, but it showed she was actively thinking about it, instead of just freaking out over the whole shifting part of it.

  “Everyone in your House can shift?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Children born to a male shifter have the DNA and will learn to harness their power. I’m not aware of that ever not happening. The children, however, are overwhelmingly male. Females are few and far between, and we have no idea why.”

  Haley nodded. “So, you find human women instead.”

  “Basically.” He didn’t want to go into discussing how mates worked. She didn’t need to know about magic. Not yet. One massive revelation at a time.

  “What does this have to do with Krawll? That’s the restaurant by the way.” She pointed to a place on the corner with a baby-blue sign, sporting big black lettering that simply read: Family Restaurant. There was space in front of it like there should have been another word, but it was blank, just freshly-painted blue, stolen right from the sky.

  He smiled, looking around for a parking spot on the street nearby.

  “Now that you know we’re not actually a company, at least, not in the way we govern ourselves, you should know that our “board” of directors also isn’t elected. The Queen, Kaelyn, rules us. Like a true monarch. She appoints whoever she wants to fill the positions, and anyone else in the House is free to challenge their appointment, either by showing that the person is unfit or by a trial of strength. Recently, I was nominated by her to fill a position.”

  “Strength? Like ritual combat? That sort of thing?” She looked at him now, mildly horrified by what he was saying.

  “Yes. To first blood. It’s not supposed to be anything serious. Not anymore at least.” He fell silent, focusing on parallel parking the big SUV, something he wasn’t particularly good at.

  Haley was nodding now as she followed the logic. “That was a really long-winded way of telling me that Krawll tried to kill you. You could have just told me that and been done with it.”

  Kincaid dropped the transmission into park and gave her a tired glare. “I was trying to give you context,” he said, not bothering to hide his irritation at her shortness with him. “If he just came up to me and tried to kill me, people would be looking into him. But he did it when he wasn’t supposed to, yet in a legal way. That is why I explained it all to you.”

  She shrugged, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Shame he didn’t win.”

  He stared after her as she got out, shocked at the apparent viciousness of her barbs.

  “What the hell did I do?” he asked the empty car, not getting a response.

  16

  A handwritten sign in chalk at about waist level told them to choose their own table. Haley was already headed toward one when she felt Kincaid’s arm slide through hers, guiding her toward a different one.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed, keeping her voice down so they didn’t attract attention to themselves.

  “Better view of the restaurant and the kitchen entrance from over here,” he said in an equally low tone. “Easier to watch everything.”

  “Not that,” she snapped, trying to keep her face neutral. “Why are you touching me?”

  “Oh, that.” He dropped her arm, but only because they were at the table. “Here, let me take your coat, dear.”

  She wanted to glare at him, to eviscerate him with her eyes, for calling her that. The gall in assuming she would just go along with this charade was near appalling. Still, she gave him her coat and let him hang it up on the post that divided the booths from one another.

  “I agreed to come to lunch,” she said, sliding into the booth.

  Thankfully, he didn’t try to sit next to her, easing his way into the other side. Thinking he was done, she surveyed the restaurant, seeing if she could see anything out of place. Her eyes were fixed on the front entrance when she felt warm, slightly rough skin sliding over her hand, holding it tight.

  “Kincaid,” she said, warning.

  “Just play the loving partner,” he urged. “For the next bit, while we’re here in public, okay?”

  “Why?” Abandoning her sur
vey of the place she focused back on him. “You told me you wanted to come here to be seen. To shake the feathers a bit. If I do that, I’m going to be associated with you.”

  “Is that really so bad?” he asked, flashing her only the second or third real smile he’d ever given her.

  It didn’t work.

  “Do you remember what you just told me in the car? Someone is trying to kill you. I don’t particularly want them to try to kill me either.” She pulled her hand back slowly, but he gripped tighter, holding on.

  “I’ll protect you from anything, though trust me, you’ll be fine.”

  She snorted. “I had enough of your protection this morning, thank you very much. I’m not too interested in more, especially if you’re going to fight everyone and get your ass kicked.”

  Kincaid’s mouth opened, then closed again before he finally found his voice. “I did not get my ass kicked. I was trying to avoid beating that guy until I got information out of him.”

  “So, you call getting tossed across the room into a solid metal table winning?”

  “In a matter of speaking. Yes.” His lips flattened into a line. “He just didn’t have anything to say, otherwise, you would have been proud of me.”

  Haley nodded, noting that he still hadn’t removed his hand. Her fingers were starting to warm up, and the skin of his palm was gentle against hers. Different than what she might have expected. It was almost…tender.

  Clamping down on her wayward thoughts, as she’d done in the car earlier, Haley slipped her hand free. Whatever it took to keep her distance from Kincaid and his roguish charm, she would do it. Even if that meant being rude and distant. This was business, and nothing more. She intended to keep it that way, no matter how hard he tried.

  Kincaid noted that, sitting up straight on his own side. Even with the two of them seated, he still towered over her, tall and bulky to the point he mostly blocked out her view behind him. His shoulders and arms more resembled corded steel than anything.

  “May I ask you a question now?”

  The request caught her by surprise. Her first instinct was to say no. To shut him down, and to prevent him from learning anything more about her. He already knew more than she was comfortable with, but there was no taking it back. All she could do was limit any further damage.

  Yet she could only be so rude without starting to feel guilty about it. Kincaid had been quite candid with her, spilling one of the biggest secrets in the world. That was an awful lot of trust he’d shown there, a judgment call that he had to be terrified would come back to haunt him.

  Haley wasn’t in the business of betraying people. She would never purposefully betray his secret of course, but accidents happened. Not telling her would have been the better option, but he’d decided to trust her. Haley supposed she should extend the same trust to him, at least this once.

  “Go ahead,” she told him at last.

  “Earlier, in your office, when I mentioned you’d be great at politics, you got upset with me.”

  Haley looked down at the pattern of the tablecloth. “Saying I’d be a good politician, given the way politicians are looked at these days? That’s not exactly a compliment.”

  Once more, Kincaid reached out and took her hand. This time, he turned it over, pulling one finger across her palm gently until she looked up at him.

  “That’s not it.” He kept stroking. “It’s something else. You were…hurt, Haley. Not because I said you’d be good, but about your decision not to go into it.”

  “Stop that,” she said, looking at her hand.

  “Why? Does it feel bad?”

  “No,” she said. “But stop it.”

  “Answer my question.”

  She looked away. “If I tell you, will you stop touching my hand?”

  Kincaid shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Fine.” She tugged her hand back, trying not to admit to herself that it had felt good. That his touch was…nice.

  “I wanted to go into politics. A lot. But,” she fell silent, trying to get the words out, but they weren’t coming. “But life didn’t work out that way, and that’s all there is to tell about that,” she finished abruptly, closing off, pushing the memory away, her agreement with Kincaid to tell him to be damned. She didn’t want to talk about it.

  To his credit, Kincaid didn’t push. She’d thought he would call her out, or take her hand again, but he just nodded, his eyes filled with something she couldn’t recall seeing from him before. Compassion—directed at her.

  “May I ask why you decided upon an accountant then? It doesn’t seem overly related, is all.”

  “It’s not,” she agreed. “I like it because it has rules. It follows rules. More specifically, numbers have rules. They are either right, or they’re wrong. There’s no ambiguity, no gray area. It…helps.”

  “I see.” Kincaid didn’t sound overly convinced. “Someone who professes to like numbers like that has always struck me as being a little…”

  “If you say different, I’m going to hit you,” she warned.

  “Interesting,” he finished awkwardly, clearly not using the word he’d originally intended.

  “Better.” She felt her stomach rumble. “I was always just naturally decent with them. Even as a kid, it just…made sense.”

  “Right.” As if to answer hers, his stomach made a loud noise, audible to her across the table. “Shall we eat? Maybe we can be a little nicer to one another with food in our stomachs.”

  Haley shook her head. “I doubt it.”

  17

  “This place looks exactly like a restaurant,” he remarked, breaking the silence as he finished the last of his burger.

  Haley glanced at him side-eye. “My word, Watson, you’ve done it again. Your observational skills are off the page.” She bit into her own sandwich, some sort of chicken and barbecue sauce mixture.

  He scrunched up his face. “So much for you being hangry. Turns out you’re actually just a bitch.”

  Her mouth dropped open for a split second in shock, his comment just enough to make her forget she was still chewing a mouthful of food. Then she snapped it closed, her face going bright red at having shown him her half-chewed lunch.

  Kincaid, for his part, was doing his best not to break into great gusts of laughter that would have the entire restaurant looking at them. Haley would never forgive him if he did that, so he kept a hand over his mouth and shook silently, trying to get himself under control.

  “Rude,” she said after not only swallowing but taking a drink of water to wash it down with.

  “I agree. Eating with your mouth open like that is just poor table manners.”

  Glaring fiercely, she took another bite, not rising to his bait any further than that.

  “It’s a bust,” he said, dropping his voice. “I’ve been watching the place this entire time, and not a single thing has stuck out. It’s a restaurant. Maybe it’s a front as well, but it’s certainly a normal, functioning restaurant as well. I haven’t seen a single suspicious character anywhere.

  “A restaurant masquerading as a restaurant,” Haley said slowly. “Now there’s a new one.”

  “You’d be surprised how unlikely it is,” he muttered, unhappy that his suspicion hadn’t panned out. They’d uncovered precisely nothing, except that the food was acceptable, though not anything to brag about.

  “Well, what should we do now? Dessert?”

  Kincaid lifted an eyebrow. “Do I look like I’m made of money?”

  “According to your bank statement, you’ve got a whole bunch of extra money just lying around,” Haley said sweetly.

  His eyebrow dropped heavily, turning into a frown. “That was a low blow.”

  She smiled. “So was acting like you can’t afford a five-dollar dessert.”

  “We never said I was paying. What is this, a date? Are we going back to my house after?”

  Haley started to shake her head, slowed, then stopped outright, staring at him. “This is not a date Kincaid
, so wipe that look off your face.”

  But he barely heard her. That wasn’t what he was thinking about at all. A date with Haley was an outrageous idea certainly, he knew that. “No, not that.”

  Haley had taken up her drink, pausing with the straw in her mouth. “Well, what then? Spit it out. You look like you’ve had an epiphany.”

  Strategically he paused a second or so before replying. “We’re going back to my house.”

  Cola spewed across the table as Haley momentarily choked on her drink. “What? Don’t you think that’s a little fast?”

  He smiled, handing a napkin to her as she wiped up the mess. “So, is that a no?”

  “Damn straight it’s a no.”

  “Too bad,” he said, pulling his wallet out and throwing enough cash on the table to cover whatever the bill might come out to. “We’re doing it anyway. Let’s go.”

  Haley protested—thankfully quietly—following as he headed for the door. “What kind of woman do you take me for? I’m not going to your house just like that.”

  “Oh, relax, will you? This isn’t about some sort of pseudo-sexual conquest. Besides, you’ve been to my house before.”

  “Right. That was before I knew your secret.”

  “Good. Great. Now you can look around and appreciate it for how beautiful it really is. You can understand all the history it encompasses.”

  “And see people getting naked and changing into giant bears all the time too,” she whispered.

  Kincaid snorted. “I have two things to say about that. First and foremost, if my memory of your eyes is correct, you had no objections to the nakedness when you saw it happen this morning, and two, we don’t just get naked and shift willy-nilly.”

  Haley tried to protest, but the bright red flush of her cheeks made it a pointless endeavor and she soon gave it up entirely. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s fine, don’t worry. You’ll have lots of questions, I’m sure. This will give you the chance to look around, understand the truth behind it all, and then you can ask them as well.” He unlocked the SUV as they approached. “The more you know and understand, the easier it will be to keep our secret.”