The Enchanted: Council of Seven Shifter Romance Collection

by Juniper Hart

  “No,” he answered simply.

  “No idea?” she asked sardonically. “This is coming completely out of the blue, huh? Want to make a guess?”

  He considered the question and shook his head. He really couldn’t guess anything anymore.

  “No,” he said again. The cop sighed and led him out of the indoor shopping into a waiting police cruiser on the street nearby. He had no way of knowing that only minutes before, a white Toyota had been parked there to steal off the true culprit.

  “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m arresting you?” she pushed after she secured him in the back and slipped into the driver’s seat.

  “No.”

  “Not much of a talker, eh? Okay, no problem. Something tells me I’m gonna learn everything I need to know when I run your prints, anyway. Unless you want to tell me something now and make it easier on yourself.”

  He eyed her, wanting to ask how many other wolves were on the police force. Wisely, he said nothing. It didn’t seem like the right place to do that. Was he a Lycan, too? Not for the first time, he wondered how he knew anything about the supernatural forces walking among them in the first place.

  “No? Nothing you want to say? Why don’t you tell me the name of the quack extremist group you belong to?”

  Her questions were met with silence as he struggled to understand her vernacular. She was using words he did not comprehend.

  “How about your name? Do you have a name?” The officer tried one last time to pry words from the stranger’s lips. “What can I call you?”

  Through the rear-view mirror, he met her steadfast gaze and offered her a wan half-smile. At least that was an answer he’d been given when he’d woken up one week earlier. Or, at least, that was the name on the gravestone over his head.

  “Dane,” he said softly. “My name is Dane Hawthorne.”

  3

  Vern, Elle, and the other members of the group gathered on the battered plaid sofa, watching the local news on the old-fashioned television set. There were ten of them crammed in the small back room of the office, but the lack of space was hardly noticeable.

  Elle’s eyes widened at the footage showing a man in a cloak, almost identical to the one she had worn, being led from the market in handcuffs. People pelted him with insults and fruit, some of the tangible items hitting him on various parts of his muscular frame, but he seemed unaware by the disturbance, like he had detached himself from reality.

  He’s in shock, Elle thought, upset. He doesn’t know what’s going on. Oh, that poor guy! Shame and disappointment washed through her in a torrent, and she wished she could tear her eyes away from what was happening.

  “What are the chances?” Avery mumbled from the doorway, chewing on a sandwich. “Another poor schmuck wearing almost exactly the same outfit at the same place at the same time. I mean, who the hell goes around wearing a cloak in this day and age?”

  Everyone nodded and muttered a consensus at the remarkable coincidence. Elle leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of the stranger. There was a surreal quality about him, as if he didn’t belong in this century.

  His soul isn’t just old, it’s ancient, she thought, blinking at the conclusion. It was clear he was one of the Enchanted, but she couldn’t easily identify his genus. Is he a fox, too?

  She’d never had a hard time figuring out what class of Enchanted another would be, but she knew that the Enchanted had often had a hard time placing her and her sisters over the years. The notion gave her a fission of excitement. She’d never met another Vulpes outside of her family before, and certainly not an entirely male fox. Even her half-brothers were hybrids.

  His hair was a shining ebony. His skin was clear of any blemishes. Even straining forward to stare at the antiquated television set, Elle could not make out a single pore on his face. She reasoned that it was impossible to tell anything from where she sat, but the more she fixated on the television, the more she realized that there was something very special about this man.

  She watched a stern-faced policewoman herd him into a patrol car and close the door. As the car drove off and the footage cut back to the reporter on scene, Elle was overwhelmed with a sense of loss she could not explain, as if the man in the hooded garment was linked to her soul somehow.

  “Poor bastard,” Vern commented casually, standing to flick off the set. Another murmur of agreement filtered through the room, and everyone rose to follow Vern’s lead, stretching like the day’s entertainment was over.

  “Wait!” Elle cried sharply. Vern paused to stare at her questioningly. The rest of the group eyed her expectantly. “Leave it on,” she continued, gesturing at the set. Vern’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, as though he could read something he didn’t like on Elle’s face, but he obliged, his gaze concentrated on her, not the television screen.

  “Elle—” he started to say.

  “Shh! I’m trying to listen,” Elle cut him off and shooed him away with a wave of her hand. She didn’t see the grimace of disapproval on Vern’s face. She wouldn’t have cared if she had.

  “—suspect has been taken to the fifty-second precinct, where he will be held for questioning. We will update you on this story,” the newscaster concluded. Elle sprung to her feet and hurried toward the door before anyone could react.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Vern demanded, startled by her sudden movement. “You should lay low here for a few hours at least. You know that. Wait ‘til the heat on this dies down some. Then I’ll drive you home.”

  Elle stared at him dubiously. Is he serious right now?

  “I can’t lay low, Vern. I’m going to the station. I can’t let this guy take the fall for something I did!” she told him over her shoulder.

  The air in the room sucked out as everyone inhaled in unison. Bernice was the first to react.

  “Don’t be crazy!” she yelled, reaching out to grab Elle’s arm when she rushed past. “You’ll put our entire cause in jeopardy!”

  “She’s right, Elle!” Vern choked, shaking his head in disbelief. “Your heart is in the right place, but be realistic. They won’t have enough evidence to charge this guy, anyway. They’ll just question him and let him go.”

  His eyes were fraught with worry. Again, the group voiced their agreement, but Elle wasn’t surprised by their consensus in the least. Of course they would always agree with Vern. He was their leader, and if the roles were somehow reversed, she might have said the same thing. This was different, though. She couldn’t let that man sit in a jail cell for a crime he hadn’t committed.

  Elle turned to glare at the lot, her eyes blazing with indignation. “Are all of you done bleating now, you bunch of sheep? Can I speak?”

  Eyes shifted away in embarrassment, but the room was silent as they waited for Elle to say her piece.

  “What if they do charge him? Then what? It wouldn’t be the first time that the cops have created charges based on nothing. This guy is supposed to sit around fermenting in jail until some underpaid public defender sorts it out? I don’t think so. I’m going down there.”

  “Just sit tight and see how it plays out,” Avery told her, polishing off the remainder of his sandwich, crumbs spewing from his mouth as he spoke. His casual tone, usually a stabilizer for Elle, sent her over the edge at that moment.

  “Are you kidding me right now? You guys should be ashamed of yourselves! I’m ashamed of you! This goes against everything we stand for here. Our cause is based on self-responsibility and doing good. How is letting an innocent man spend even one second in a jail cell either one of those things? Or do we only hold ourselves accountable when it benefits us in some way? No, I am going, and there is not a damn thing you can do to stop me!”

  There was a brief silence as her harsh words set in. Elle could see she’d hit a nerve with all of them. Bernice dropped her hand from her arm.

  “You’re right,” she almost whispered, turning her head. Elle turned back to the door, a sudden attack of guilt seizing her when she s
aw Bernice’s stricken face.

  They’re terrified you’re going to sell them out. You have to alleviate their fears.

  On impulse, she turned the handle and spoke again, casting the words out over her shoulder before she left. “Don’t worry. I’ll say I acted alone if it comes down to it. I won’t mention the group, and I’ll use a fake name for myself.”

  She didn’t need to turn around. She could almost feel the collective sighs of relief as a wind at her back, helping her out the door.

  The police station was wrought with sobbing and coughing, and one individual was vomiting in a corner. The stench of old whiskey filled Dane’s head, and not for the first time, he wondered how beautiful fruit could be bastardized in such a way as to create an intoxicant which ruined lives and the social structure attached. He couldn’t reconcile how mortals managed to rape the natural elements of the most miraculous creations the universe provided without a second thought. Nothing was considered sacred where they were concerned.

  Mortals are consumed with self-gratification and nothing else. How did they become like this? They are going to kill their planet and everything on it. Well, not everything, he reasoned. The immortals would remain so long after the mortals had killed themselves off.

  He refocused his energies on his surroundings. The building itself was a sorry, crumbling structure with peeling paint and rickety wood chairs. It was upon one of these where Dane sat, patiently waiting for someone to remove the metal bracelets from around his wrist.

  One cuff hung around his arm. The other was attached to a metal bar on the desk, he assumed, in an attempt to keep him secure.

  Are they so weak as a species that they lack the ability or imagination to detach themselves from such a simplistic confinement? Is this a functional form of containment?

  Yet as Dane remained still, his back in perfect alignment to the back of the chair, he found himself thinking that leaving the site unseen was going to be a challenge. The building was almost as full as the marketplace had been, and he sat openly in the center of that hub. He had been in the stationhouse for well over an hour, all of it spent waiting.

  Dane suspected that this was a part of the interrogation technique, but it was of no consequence to him. He would have sat there, unperturbed for days if it had been necessary. He had been spat upon, catcalled, and one woman had open hand slapped him while being escorted through the maze of scarred desks for reasons unknown.

  Still, Dane remained stoic, merely biding his time. Finally, the policewoman returned, a can of soda in her hand.

  “I brought you a drink. Are you thirsty?” she asked. Dane was dehydrated, but he did not want the sugar-based substance she was holding out for him to take.

  “No.”

  She is attempting to gain my trust, he realized, nodding at the understanding. The woman’s brow furrowed, confused by the head bob.

  “You don’t want a drink or you do?”

  “No,” Dane answered again. Sighing heavily, she sat down at the desk and picked up a form. There was a nameplate off to the side of the wooden platform reading “Officer Justina Andretti.”

  “Okay, Dane. Your name is Dane, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you spell that for me?”

  “Yes,” he answered. She stared at him expectantly.

  “Well?” she snapped impatiently, her fingers posed over the keyboard.

  “D-A-N-E.”

  “Last name?”

  “Hawthorne.”

  “It’s spelled the way it sounds?” she asked, her attention fully on the screen. Dane had to think about that. He tried to remember how it had been written on the headstone.

  “Yes,” he agreed. Officer Andretti frowned deeply but didn’t push the issue.

  “Address?” He shook his head. “You don’t have a home?” There was a note of compassion in her tone that hadn’t been there before, and Dane noticed her face soften slightly.

  “No.”

  “How about a date of birth?” she pressed.

  “No.” Her grimace deepened, and she eyed him warily, trying to decide if he was purposely being difficult or honestly didn’t know.

  “Fine. Can you tell me what you were doing at the market today, Dane?” she asked, exasperated.

  “No,” he replied truthfully. “I… I just felt like I needed to go there.”

  She studied his face silently for a long moment and cocked her head to the side. “Do you often go to the market on Saturdays?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, but before Justine Andretti could ask another question, a voice yelled out from the front of the station, causing Dane to turn his head in amazement.

  “Hey, you! Lady cop!”

  Instinctively, Justine and the rest of her co-workers turned to look at who was yelling. A stunning redheaded woman stood at the counter, several officers rushing to address her loud tone. She was staring directly at Officer Andretti.

  “A-are you talking to me?” Justine sputtered in amazement, rising to her feet. Without looking down, she held up her hand at Dane. “I’ll be right back, Dane,” she told him, walking toward the ethereal beauty who was now being chastised and restrained by two other officers. “Are you calling me?” Justine asked again, parting the swinging doors and drawing closer to the woman.

  Dane had one ear on the women, but his mind was working on something else entirely.

  “Are you the cop that arrested that guy? You look like the one I saw on television.”

  Justine nodded slowly and ordered the two policemen away from the petite woman, although she was sure they were lingering more to check out the tall, shapely beauty than out of duty. Obligingly, they left the two alone but remained in earshot.

  “Yes, I am. My name is Officer Andretti. You are?”

  “I’m the one to tell you that you have the wrong guy,” the beautiful redhead said passionately. “I was there today, and I saw the person. It wasn’t even a guy. You need to let him go.”

  Justine nodded understandingly. “Okay, do you think you can give a description? Because other witnesses are pretty sure he’s our guy. Some of them got up close and personal.”

  “Your other witnesses are idiots,” the redhead retorted, straining to look over Justine’s shoulder, but Dane was just out of her view from the position of her tall, lean body. Dane could tell the Lycan cop had done it intentionally. “I was right there. It wasn’t him,” the younger woman insisted. “You need to let that guy go.”

  Dane could feel his heart beginning to pound as he heard the emotion in the newcomer’s voice. Why is she trying so hard to get me out of here? Who is she? Instinctively, he knew she was someone incredibly special and important to him. Is she why I was drawn to the market today? Did I go there for her?

  “You seem awfully sure of that,” Officer Andretti commented casually.

  “I am one hundred and ten percent sure of it,” she growled.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Justine said amiably, holding the swinging door open to allow the woman into the bull pen, but she didn’t move.

  Instead, the redhead’s gaze met Dane’s. A slow smile formed on Dane’s lips as he bowed his head, his hand slipping from the cuff around his wrist without issue. The woman’s eyes widened, and her mouth, too, curled into a smile, realizing that he didn’t need her help after all.

  Reluctantly breaking his hold on her eyes, he slid away from the desk while the woman kept Justine distracted. Dane knew he’d see her again soon.

  4

  It took Elle over half an hour to return to the headquarters, but she welcomed the walk. It gave her a chance to think about the man who had been arrested and how he pertained to her. She had no doubt that they were inherently connected, but how and why, she had yet to figure out.

  When she arrived back, she was met with the anxiety-ridden group, who swarmed her as soon as she stepped in the door.

  “Oh, thank God!” Vern stepped forward as she crossed the threshold and emb
raced her in a warm hug. The motion shocked Elle. He had never touched her previously, not once. If the gesture had come a day earlier, she probably would have been speechless and encouraged him by returning the embrace. But that afternoon, her mind was jumbled from the day’s events, and she pushed him away gently. It wasn’t his arms she wanted around her.

  Vern looked surprised but quickly released her.

  “What happened?” Bernice pressed, sitting forward in her chair. “Did they charge him? What did they say to you? What did you tell them?”

  Elle shook her glorious crown of hair but couldn’t find her voice to replay the strange occurrence from the stationhouse. She had been fully prepared to turn herself in when she saw the stranger sitting handcuffed to the table, even though she knew she’d be in a world of trouble. While she and Officer Andretti had conversed, Elle had carefully watched the attractive being from clear across the room, hoping to get a better look at him.

  He was just as gorgeous as he’d appeared to her on the news. His hair shone like a black halo, and even from the distance between them, she could see eyes as green as chlorophyll piercing into nothingness. His generous mouth was closed but relaxed, completely unfazed by the circumstances surrounding his arrest. He looked so at ease, almost meditative, and Elle couldn’t look away, as if his easy façade were hypnotic.

  Then, he’d looked up at her, and Elle had felt time hang in the balance. A feeling of warmth overwhelmed her, and suddenly, she thought she was intoxicated. The next thing Elle remembered was the officer trying to usher her into the inner part of the station, looking back over at the enigmatic man and him being gone. She sobered up in seconds, hightailing it out of the station before she got herself and the group under scrutiny.

  Her heart was hammering harder than it had been after she had released the tear gas that morning. The man had not even been within earshot of her conversation, and yet he had some trancelike effect upon her, as if they had known each other on some cosmic level.