by Mia Taylor
He smiled and Fallon found herself searching his mouth for fangs as she did so often with so many others.
“I’m a lawyer,” he replied.
“Oh.”
She turned her attention back to the pastor who tapped on the mic.
“Are we ready to get started?” Pastor Rogers asked.
“I specialize in adoption law.”
Fallon whipped her head around and stared at him, a combination of terror and excitement coursing through her.
I’m sitting in a church, mourning the loss of my sons and an adoption lawyer strikes up a conversation with me. If this isn’t a sign from above, I don’t know what is.
“Adoption?” she whispered. “You can look into adoption records?”
Kevin’s brow furrowed and he shrugged.
“Well, that depends,” he said slowly, shooting her a worried look. “I mean, it depends on a lot of things.”
But Fallon was barely listening after that, her eyes trained on his lips as they moved, her mind whirling with possibilities.
An adoption lawyer could help her find the boys. An adoption lawyer could open doors she had never dreamed of in the way of locating her sons.
“Sorry,” Kevin breathed as the pastor began his sermon. “I’ve bored you to tears.”
She shook her now blonde head, her dark eyes sparkling as she studied his face, listening to what her gut was telling her.
When Beatrice had reappeared in her life, her sixth sense had warned Fallon and she had ignored it but there was nothing about this man which screamed a warning.
I’m going to have to trust someone sometime if I ever aspire to see my boys again.
“Just ignore me,” Kevin mumbled, his face flushing with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
He turned his head away but Fallon reached out to touch his arm, a warm energy moving between them. He looked at her pensively, his cerulean eyes widening at the unexpected touch.
“No, you didn’t bore me and you’re not bothering me,” she replied softly. “You’ve just given me hope for the first time in a decade.”
She waited for the warning bells to sound, the ring of terror to echo through her head but there was nothing. She cast Kevin a sidelong look, her pulse racing with apprehension and elation.
This is it. I’m going to find my sons.
Chapter Five
Present Day: Briar
“We should have another one.”
Briar spat his orange juice all over the table and began to choke as Berlin scowled at him.
“Or not,” she muttered. “You don’t have to be so melodramatic.”
Still coughing, he held up a hand and shook his head, one finger up to indicate she wait.
“Dad, are you okay?” Stella demanded as he struggled to regain his composure.
He nodded and tried to smile through his hacking fit.
“Oh, come on,” Berlin snapped at him and he finally managed to inhale a deep breath without lapsing into a spasm.
“It went down the wrong tube,” he gasped. “I wasn’t being dramatic.”
“Uh huh.”
“What do you want another one of, Mom?” Stella asked and Briar grinned wickedly at his wife.
“Yeah, Mom. What did you have in mind?”
Berlin’s frown deepened. “Stella, go do your homework.”
“It’s Sunday. I don’t have any.”
“Go read a book then,” Berlin retorted. “Go jump on the stupidly expensive trampoline your father bought you for your birthday that you never use.”
“Can I play on the iPad?”
“N-yes, you can.”
Briar eyed Berlin in shock. Usually it was him who caved to his daughter’s wishes but Berlin seemed very businesslike as she sat at the kitchen island and drew her head closer to him.
“You’ve got baby fever since the shower, huh?” he teased. “Not that I’m opposed to trying but you have to admit, we’re not skimping on the love-making, are we?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that Chloe is pregnant?”
“Not this again,” Briar begged, sighing. “I don’t know why it happened but it did. You know better than anyone how something like this might have occurred.”
“But I don’t. I know you are one of the Original Forsaken. I know there are four of you but no one can give us any information about where you’ve come from, Briar. It bothers me because…”
She trailed off and bit on her lower lip. Briar tensed slightly.
“Because what?”
“Because I don’t know what’s in Stella’s DNA.”
“She is growing normally,” Briar said defensively. “There’s no indication that there’s anything to worry about.”
“One of these days, we’re going to have to sit her down and tell her what to expect in puberty.”
“Oh God. She’s seven!” Briar was mortified by the thought. His daughter was always going to be his blonde, blue-eyed baby, no matter how old she got.
“What have you learned about Ryker now? Why is he so difficult to find now that we know where he is?”
“I still don’t know how Vivian managed to find him,” Briar said, shaking his head. “I’ve been looking through old documents, shifting through government sites—the same way I did for Vaughan. He was living on a damn mountain and I found him.”
“She tripped over the information when she was investigating a lead on something else,” Berlin reminded him but Briar wasn’t so sure. He was convinced that Vivian had never stopped investigating the shifters since she had accidentally broken the story about Kodiak and met Vaughan.
I shouldn’t be cynical. She’s family. She has no reason to harm any of us now.
Still, her curiosity troubled him, partially because he didn’t know either Vivian or Vaughan well.
“He’s not in Miami anymore,” Briar told her. “He seems to have vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Well, he testified against his sister and some other key players in the mob and then he fell off the face of the earth. My guess is that he’s in witness protection but finding out the details on that is not going to be easy. If I hack their mainframe, it will trigger all kinds of alarms and I really am not in the market for a prison sentence.”
Berlin stared at him, tilting her head pensively to the side.
“Really?” she asked slowly. “That’s why you won’t do it?”
“That’s not a good enough reason for you?” he chuckled. “And I thought you loved me.”
Berlin opened her mouth to respond but slowly closed it again. Briar was grateful she didn’t push the issue.
He didn’t know how to tell her that he found the whole thing exhausting. The endless searching, the whispers about who they were and where they had come from.
Our mother threw us away. I have a set of great parents. I have Alex. I have a wife and daughter who adore me. Why do I need to run around chasing ghosts?
It wasn’t that Briar wasn’t happy they had found Vaughan but he was also a man of few words, one who preferred his peace to that of the endless speculation that swam around them.
Ryker was barely out of infancy when we were given up. He doesn’t remember us at all, if he even knows he’s adopted. Now he’s in witness protection. The last thing he’s going to want is some face from his past appearing on his doorstep. Who knows how he’ll react?
No, Briar was not risking anything else to find the outstanding members of his family. If Vivian and Cypher wanted to continue, that was on them but Briar was not putting himself or his family at risk again.
“So, about that other thing,” he continued lightly, rising from his stool. “Are you still looking for a baby or was that just a conversation starter?”
He slipped around the counter and pulled her to her feet, gently tugging on her hands as he led the way to the back stairs.
“We’ll have to be very quiet,” he warned, winking over his shoulder. “Kids have supersonic h
earing.”
“I can be quiet,” she replied lightly. “As long as you don’t do that thing with your tongue…”
“I make no promises,” he teased, guiding her into their shared bedroom. She was every bit as beautiful as the day he had first seen her at their triplex.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her. “I can’t remember what my life was like before you.”
“It was probably dismal as hell,” Berlin replied tauntingly. She raised onto her tiptoes and kissed him sweetly, instantly igniting a now-familiar fire in him.
How does she manage to do that after all this time? It was an idle thought, one quickly overpowered by his desire for her as he lifted her in his arms, laying her on the bedspread.
“I love you, babe,” Berlin murmured as his lips explored the crevices of her throat, relishing the explosion of goosebumps along her skin.
“I love you.”
His fingers worked skilfully to disrobe her, his palms running over the taut skin of her nipples before his mouth moved over them. Berlin sighed and arched her back, her own fingers curling into his mass of dark hair, bringing him fully atop her.
Suddenly, she rolled him onto his back, her naked form blocking the ceiling fan above, the light casting a halo around her stunning blonde head of hair.
His hands reached up to cup her breasts and she smiled down at him.
“I have never been happier in my life,” she told him, working off his pants with surprising ease. “I hope you know that.”
“I had a suspicion.”
Her mouth crushed back to his and the feel of Berlin’s skin against his drove him as wild as it ever had.
Their tongues played and when they joined together, Briar knew everything was right in the world.
He bucked upward, driving himself fully inside her and Berlin gasped with pleasure, rocking her hips in rhythm.
“Oh…” she moaned and her cries only infused his passion. His fingers dug into the meat of her perfectly sculpted rear and together they rounded upward into the passion they were feeling.
“Are you ready?” he gasped and she nodded, her blue-grey eyes glazing over as she hit her climax at precisely the same point as him.
Berlin fell forward, her body trembling as she stroked his hair, catching her breath.
“How do we always manage to do that?” she chuckled and he snorted.
“I think that has something to do with the fact that we’re fated to be together.”
“You think so?” She raised her head and grinned at him. “Do you think that made us a baby?”
“Well,” Briar chuckled, “I certainly put all my baby-making energies into it so it damn well better have.”
“Stella wants a little brother.”
“Stella wants a pony, too,” Briar reminded her and they laughed.
“Yeah, she needs a sibling,” he conceded. “Or else we might end up buying her a pony.”
“Well, at least she’ll have a cousin to play with soon.”
There was something in her tone which made Briar feel alarm but he dismissed it.
Forget about everyone else. Life is so much simpler when it’s just us. That’s why my search is over for Ryker and my biological mother.
Chapter Six
Twenty-Three Years Ago: Fallon
Being with Kevin was nothing like Fallon had ever known. It had taken her a year to accept that he was not Daniel, that he wasn’t out to harm her in any way and yet at night, when she slept at his side, she could not help but wonder what had driven him to fall for her.
In the back of her mind, she would always be the stray whom Beatrice had picked up, not out of pity, but through vulnerability, and she knew she had nothing to offer this man who was kind and sweet. Kevin Davies had no ulterior motives to speak of.
He loved Leah Danvers and she was sure she loved him in the warped way she knew how to love—cautiously.
“I need to go shopping,” Kevin sighed, looking in the fridge, peering through the lenses of his glasses. “Should we go out for breakfast?”
Fallon shook her still-blonde head.
“I want to talk to you about something,” she told him quietly. “If you’ll hear me out.”
He turned and stared at her, detecting the serious note in her voice.
“Is everything okay, Leah?” he asked, slipping away from the kitchen toward where she sat in the breakfast nook. “You sound upset.”
You have been together for two years. You’ve built roots in Dalhousie now. Beatrice had surely stopped looking for you. Now is the time to come clean, to tell him that you’re not who you’ve claimed to be this entire time.
It was difficult to gauge how he would react. He had always been so calm, so dependable. Would he raise his voice? Threaten to turn her in?
“Leah, you can tell me anything,” he promised her. “I won’t judge you. That is only for God. My job is to support and love you.”
And he does love me… I think. He must. For two years he has been by my side.
“Leah?” Kevin slipped into the chair next to her and reached for her hands. She permitted him to take her long fingers and squeeze gently.
“My name isn’t Leah Danvers.”
Kevin stared at her, blinking several times as he tried to register what she had said.
“Of course it is,” he laughed uncertainly after several seconds of silence. “What else would it be?”
“I’ve been lying to you, Kevin. I…” She paused, suddenly unsure if she was making the right decision by telling him everything on her mind.
Kevin inhaled a hiss of air and nodded slowly.
“Why?” he asked, the smile fading from his lips. “Why have you been lying to me?”
Fallon shook her head miserably and lowered her eyes. “I was afraid.”
“Of me?” He sounded dumbfounded at the idea but she shook her head quickly.
“No!” she replied hotly. “You are the only person I haven’t feared in a long time.”
“You better start at the beginning, Leah.”
“My name is Fallon,” she murmured. “Fallon Wexley.”
If he recognized the name, he didn’t show it, and it gave Fallon the motivation she needed to continue.
“Why… why are you telling me now?” he asked, his face paling. “Why after all this time?”
Fallon’s chin quivered slightly and she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “There were a hundred times I wanted to tell you but… I…”
She couldn’t finish her sentence, tears welling in her eyes as she forced herself to maintain her composure. She dissolved into a round of sobs and to her surprise, Kevin embraced her.
“It’s okay, Lea—uh, Fallon,” he murmured, stroking her long hair. “Everything will be all right, I promise.”
“No,” she moaned. “It won’t. It won’t be all right.”
Kevin pressed her chin into his forefinger and thumb and arched her head up toward him.
“It will be. No matter what it is, God will protect us.”
Fallon chewed on the insides of her cheeks. She didn’t want to scream but it was bubbling inside her chest, the words that were brewing.
What God? The God who would put me in such a position? The God who would make me lose the only things in the world that were important to me?
“Tell me who you’re running from,” Kevin said gently.
“My husband,” she muttered, darting her tear-soaked eyes away.
“You’re married?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Fallon confessed. “He probably went through with a divorce already.”
“Fallon, how could you hide this for so long?”
Guilt flooded her and she stared into his kind, sad irises.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I-I’m not sure if I’m safe.”
“You are safe,” he growled. “I won’t let anything happen to you. How could you doubt that?”
She inhaled deeply. “Kevin, my husband… h
e’s dangerous. He won’t stop coming for me until he knows where I’ve hidden our children.”
“What?” Kevin eyed her in disbelief. “What do you mean?”
“I-I had to protect my kids from him. He’s dangerous and he wanted to do horrible things to them.”
“Fallon, you should report him to the police! Where are your children now?”
She shrugged miserably and shook her head.
“I have no idea,” she murmured. “I… I sent them to a convent twelve years ago. They must have been adopted by now.”
“A convent? Where?” His voice was sharper than she expected and suddenly, gooseflesh exploded over her arms.
“What does it matter?” she asked slowly, jerking her head out of his hands. “They’re gone now.”
“You might still be able to find them, Fallon. Tell me where you took them.”
She had never heard his voice sound so hard. He had always been so mild-mannered, so easy-going. The look on his face was not reminiscent of the church-going man she had allowed into her life.
Fallon rose from the chair and backed away.
“Why do you care so much?” she demanded. “Why are you asking me about the children and not about what happened to make me leave?”
Oh God. Oh, not again. Tell me I didn’t spend two years under the thumb of Beatrice and Daniel when I was sure I had escaped.
She thought about how much confidence she’d gained in Dalhousie, living under her new name.
They only wanted to lull you into a false sense of security. You’ve never escaped them. They have always been after you.
“I-I just want to reunite you with the boys. Don’t you want that? I’m an adoption lawyer, remember?”
In that moment, Fallon had all the confirmation she needed.
“How did you know they were boys?”
Kevin gaped at her as Fallon continued to back away, putting as much distance between her and the imposter who had pretended to love her.
“Y-you told me they were boys.”
“No,” she replied quietly. “I didn’t.”
She whirled and ran from the house, her feet beating along the sidewalk, bare and cold against the icy pavement, but she didn’t feel anything but the fear enshrouding her.