Damn, she was a confusing woman.
The instant she disconnected the call, she said, “You’ve hardly come dressed for war, Caden.”
“I prefer to spill blood with words rather than my hands, Mother. You know that.”
Her lips twitched. “That’s what makes you a damned good lawyer.”
He accepted her praise as was his right. He was a damned good lawyer. “I want to know why you put Lia on the fourth floor.”
Eloise’s only reaction was to blink. Not in surprise or shock or concern, just a natural blink. Nature’s way of keeping her eyes moist. The woman had no shame. “It’s my right to house guests wherever I see fit. I don’t have to listen to my son’s wishes when I do just that.”
She wasn’t a liar, that was one good thing he could say about her. “You think it’s appropriate to put my mate, the mother of your grandchildren, in the servants’ quarters? Rooms not fit for anyone, least of all my woman.”
“We’ve yet to discern if I am to be the grandmother of the child she spawns.”
“Spawns?” he spat out the verb. Could she have chosen a more insulting word? His stomach started its incessant churn, as his Lion reacted to the offense. “She told me about your request for a blood test. Could you have been more obvious?” he hissed.
“She didn’t understand what I was asking of her. And it’s my duty to safeguard this family. Our name is too highly regarded to smear it even deeper through the dirt than you already have done by mating with a Mansk.”
He flinched at her curse word. Mansk was a horrible way of saying human in the old tongue. “You disrespect her, you disrespect me.”
She pursed her lips, then casually shrugged. “I’ve made my point. You can move down to your old quarters. I’ll have the maids see to it.”
“You will not. If that shithole is good enough for my mate in your eyes, then it’s good enough for me.” When her eyes flashed, he smiled. “I’ve told you, I won’t stand for it anymore. And after your meddling, I should think you’d be backing out of my life, not forcing yourself into it. Christ, the woman you tried to match me with fucking drugged me, Mom.”
“That was regrettable.”
“You’re damned right it was.” He glowered at her. “The instant you get those test results back, we’re heading to the city.”
At that, she stiffened. “You can’t do that! If it comes back positive, then you can’t leave Anchor.”
“Having doubts, are we?” he taunted, watching and enjoying her flush of discomfort. “Let me guess, the doctor told you about her reaction to the needle.” When her mouth pursed, he knew he’d hit pay dirt. Lounging against the wall, he commented, “Yeah, Lia told me how she’d lost control of her body when she located her scruff.”
“That isn’t a conclusive test.”
“Bullshit. It’s a tick in the box before her blood is even tested. Only shifters have scruffs in human form.” And it was their Achilles’ heel.
Shifted, it was the space where their mothers had once bitten down to carry them from place to place as cubs. In their human skins, it was a weak point on their bodies. A place where nerves joined, and once prodded, sent all their limbs into haywire.
“I prefer to split my bets,” was all Eloise said.
“Because you’re a coward?”
“I was a fool to let you leave Anchor and head into the human world. You go too far with your insults, Caden.”
“I don’t go far enough. I’ve pissed around for the last two years, trying to stay on the fence, hoping you’d come around. Well now, I don’t care if you accept her or not. Know this, if you don’t stop abusing my mate’s good nature, if you don’t stop disrespecting her, then I will stop you from seeing our cub.”
“You can’t do that,” she snapped.
“I can do anything I damn well want. I live in Manhattan, Mother. In a flat I bought and paid for with my own money. You can’t find leverage to manipulate me anymore.”
“I always knew I’d regret giving you freedom.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Just why did you?”
She turned away from him and fiddled with a bottle on her dressing table. He could see her reflection in the mirror, though. “I don’t know,” she eventually remarked, lifting the bottle’s cap to dab some of the essence on her wrist.
“Bull. You never do anything without a reason,” he snapped, refusing to let her drop this.
She glared at him through the mirror. “Do you know how irritating it is to always lay down the law? To have a man question how high when you tell him to jump?” Her chin jerked up. “I wasn’t going to let any son of mine be a yes-man.”
He blinked at her reasoning. Not once, not in a million years would he have said that was the reason for her guiding him down a path that would eventually take him out of Anchor.
“Then why the hell do you try to change me? This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
She grunted. “To a point. I wanted you to have a voice, not to be constantly challenging me.”
“A case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’” he derided. When she just glowered at him, he shook his head and used the formal word for mother in the Pride. “Stop pushing me, Dam. You will regret it, I promise you. I will take Lia and our cub away if you don’t stop treating her cruelly.”
“Why would you deny your child your heritage?”
“Because I don’t particularly like my heritage, Mother. Haven’t you learned that yet? You said it yourself, father is a yes-man. Why should I appreciate a society that has my sire walking around like a docile housecat? Why should I appreciate having no voice? As one-sided as human culture is, even women do have a say now. We’re about two hundred years behind them! Men can’t even vote yet!”
“You can’t seriously tell me you wouldn’t raise your children with the knowledge of who and what they are.”
The horror in her voice did nothing more than firm his resolve. “If I had a choice in the matter, I wouldn’t tell them. But the Lion will do the telling for me.” He shook his head. “You’ll see the error of your ways when those test results come back.”
He turned away, not waiting to hear her reply. There was nothing she had to say that he wanted to even hear now. And he wanted out of her room before he said something he truly would regret.
Chapter Eight
With a big stretch and a jaw-cracking yawn, Lia woke to twilight. The sun was just sliding into the clouds to disappear and a big fat moon was on its way to replacing it. Behind her, there was a human furnace burning away. She was tucked into Caden’s arms. Her back to his chest, her feet pressed against his calves.
It was a good feeling to be so close to him.
After that first night, she hadn’t slept on the hospital bed with him. The pair of them had both awoken stiff and cranky, and she’d taken to sleeping upright in the armchair. This was probably the best nap she’d had in four days, and fatigue had caught up with her after that nuclear explosion of an orgasm.
That was another reason for the smile on her face.
She was warm, sated, happy. Caden was healthy. Toxicology reports had confirmed he’d been dosed with ketamine, and such an amount that had bordered on a lethal dose, but they were out of his system now. He was drug-free.
When she’d told Caden about the conversation in the clothes shop, where she’d overheard Laura and Chessie discussing Chloë Gilbert’s plot to entice Caden back into her arms, he’d laughed. Actually laughed.
That still made her frown even now.
She told him a woman had tried to pull some kind of date-rape stunt on his ass, and the man chuckled?
Weird or what?
Still, Caden’s sense of humor was quirky. And being raised in a freaky-ass town like Anchor more than explained that. Shit, she’d thought the Bronx had been tough. Not going out after dark, always keeping your head down, and never making eye contact with other folk...that was nothing on this place. She was still the center of attention wherever she
went. Be it to the clinic’s bathroom or the dining hall. Everyone gawked, everyone stared and whispered about her.
For a place to take such note of an outsider’s presence, the town had to be incestuous, right?
Either that, or part of some kind of cult.
The thought made her shiver, but she shrugged it away when Caden yawned sleepily against her ear. “You awake?” he mumbled, his voice like sandpaper over silk.
“If I wasn’t, you blowing in my ear would have done the trick,” she teased.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay. I was awake anyway.”
“You slept long and hard, baby.”
“After my send off, is it any wonder?”
His chuckle made her pussy tingle. Christ, she was whipped. That is, if a woman can be cock-whipped. Lia hid a grin at the thought. “How’s the butt?” he asked.
She wriggled it against his hips, felt his hard cock, and grinned into the darkness. “Doesn’t hurt. Although that hard-on of yours feels pretty damn painful.”
“It’ll stay that way, too,” he stated, matter-of-factly.
Lia pouted. “Why?”
When he pressed his face against her nape and bit down on the tendon bridging her shoulder, she whimpered. “Because I said so. I fucked you hard, baby. Too hard.”
“You didn’t hear me complaining, did you?”
“You never complain.”
“Well then,” she groused, rocking her hips back into the cradle of his.
He tutted and bit down again, this time, aiming higher up. His teeth began to pepper little bites over her nape and she started to tingle. Not in a good way, but in a “my nerves are starting to freak out” kind of way. When he reached a certain point and nibbled, she cried out. It was where the doctor had extracted her blood. He froze behind her at her cry, but his teeth remained in the vicinity.
Those fangs were a threat. One she couldn’t understand. She didn’t move away, didn’t budge an inch but her heart rate suddenly shot through the roof, and her lungs just couldn’t seem to suck in enough air. Then, out of nowhere, his hand was between her legs. His fingers held flat against her clit. Before she had time to blink, he bit down. Hard enough she was sure to draw blood, but she didn’t care about that. Her body was suddenly gushing with an orgasm that had hit out of nowhere. That seemed to have shot through the stratosphere to punch her in the belly.
Her muscles were no more. Nothing but hot mush. Her cunt was a greedy, grasping mouth. Desperately needing his cock but far too busy with its own supernova-like implosion to do too much complaining. And her eyes, shit, they were having trouble focusing. They felt like they were too busy rattling around her eye sockets.
When he held the bite, she started to cry. Her sobs were loud, racking as the pleasure didn’t stop. His fingers started to move, gently rubbing the upper curve of her clit, and that sensitive slide of the digits had her legs crossing, trapping his hand between her thighs.
Her stomach muscles were undergoing a Mexican wave, and the rest of her muscular system had started to judder. Then, his teeth let go, and where nerves had been tingling, suddenly, they were on fire as blood seemed to rush back into her body, setting every part of her alight.
By the time she started to come down, her cheeks were drenched with tears, and the pillow underneath her felt soaked through. Behind her, Caden was humming to her, gently rocking her in his embrace. He lulled her into a strange state of peace.
“Consider yourself claimed, baby,” he whispered into her ear when he thought she was asleep, but she heard him, and was too exhausted to ponder it.
Close to him, safe and warm, her senses decimated by what he’d just done, she relaxed and, in a way she couldn’t understand yet, submitted to her mate’s inner beast.
* * * *
The next morning, Lia was filled with energy. An energy she felt like she’d been missing ever since she’d learned of her pregnancy. Now, however, there was a bounce to her step, and she fully intended to make the most of it before she used all of her reserves.
Not even showering in the grimy cubicle dampened her mood as she washed, then dressed for breakfast. Caden had disappeared, but that wasn’t unusual. She rarely awoke with him beside her. He was one of those nutcases who liked to work out in the morning. A six-mile run before breakfast was not her idea of fun. In fairness, six miles was never her idea of entertainment. She was a yoga type of gal. At seven o’clock, after work, the eager stretch and play of her muscles were welcome after a day at the office.
It was a relief to know that he felt well enough to go running. While the doctor had given him the all clear, Caden’s behavior spoke even louder than that. There were no ramifications from that psycho drugging him.
A part of her wondered what Caden would do with the information that Chloë had planned to drug him just to get him back to Anchor. As it was, there had been no police at the hospital. While they might have come to the house, she’d been with Caden all the time, even when Eloise visited, and she’d made no mention of a visit from the law.
That meant the bitch was going to get away with it. It didn’t seem right, and she made a mental note to discuss it with Caden. A woman who could do something like that needed some kind of help. Be it an intervention by a cop or a psychotherapist!
Grunting at the thought, and determined to shrug it off before it spoiled her mood, Lia dressed, wearing the skirt she’d bought at the boutique in Anchor and one of Caden’s shirts he’d nabbed from his old bedroom. It was at least three sizes too big for her, but it was comfy and smelled just like him, aka perfect.
She hummed as she descended the floors via the elevator and moved down the hall to the breakfast room that overlooked the pool in the backyard. It was unfortunate, but Eloise was sat there, eating a grapefruit as she perused her mail.
The last thing she wanted to do was break bread with the M-I-L from H-E-L-L but, she didn’t have much of an alternative.
Her mood plummeting, she mumbled, “Morning,” to the room at large.
Unsurprisingly, Eloise didn’t reply. Lia tried to shrug off yet another insult, but it was hard going. She didn’t want a fight, not at this time of the morning—hell, not at any time today. Eloise was one of those women you just couldn’t beat. Nothing you did or said would ever make her concede defeat. She was tireless in her wrath against Caden’s choice for a wife. She was tireless in making that ire known.
Lia had been raised in a rough neighborhood, had encountered drug dealers, almost been raped once, mugged at gun and knife point, and each and every time violence encountered her, she dealt with it like Tommy had taught her. A sharp jab to the nose, a kick between the legs, and bam. Your attacker was down if you were quick enough, and Tommy had trained her well enough to ensure her speed was high.
With Eloise however, in the war of words not fists, where violence didn’t reign, Lia just couldn’t seem to get her bearings.
Sighing at the thought, she prepared her breakfast plate. Grapefruit wasn’t her style, neither was the selection of pastries. She felt uncouth for grabbing a bowl and filling it with cereal, but she recognized Caden’s favorite brand so didn’t feel too bad. The kitchen staff must have bought a box especially for him.
She smiled at the idea, because Caden was like that. People did stuff for him. They always did, and she was just as bad. When someone exuded kindness, it was second nature to want to respond to that, to want to show appreciation.
Caden was shown a lot of appreciation by a lot of different people.
Damn, she was a lucky bitch.
Smiling to herself and mentally saluting the Cap’n, she took a seat opposite Eloise at the head of the table. It wasn’t a move she made lightly, and from the periphery of her vision, she saw the other woman stiffen at her presumption.
As she ate her cereal, she looked around a breakfast room that probably surpassed royalty’s. Definitely Art Deco in style, everything from the table to the coffee pot Eloise used to serv
e her breakfast beverage held a hint of the twenties. Considering that era was her favorite, it was no hardship to look around each well-cared-for piece. She took her time, not wanting the other woman to know she felt pressured to leave, and on her last bite, the phone rang.
For some reason, fate or destiny, at the sound of the ringtone, both of them looked one another straight in the eye. At that moment, Lia understand the whole, “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee,” thing. It was like being on the edge of a cliff, knowing that you were balancing on the cusp, unable to save yourself because your fate had already been decided.
That phone call was either a gust of wind throwing her over the cliff or it would save her.
From what, Lia didn’t know, she just knew it counted.
Eloise reached for the phone, looked at the caller ID, and smirked. Actually smirked. Lia frowned at seeing this, wondering if it was the doctor with her test results, but she didn’t butt in, just remained silent as her mother-in-law spoke to whoever was on the other end of the line.
And when her face turned a nasty shade of green—yup, Lia wouldn’t have believed it either if she’d seen it—and horror froze her features, Lia knew that someone had just saved her from a tumble down to the rocky cliff base.
* * * *
Shit, it was good to be back in Anchor.
As much as he hated to admit it, Anchor was a town that ran in the blood. His ancestors had been here since the Mayflower had docked. It was one of the earliest settlements of that era, and the crazy thing was, nobody knew that.
The local council and the countless Leonas who had served as the head had done their best to preserve a shield of secrecy over the town. They’d done a bang-up job too. Until the Internet had been invented and fucked the whole right to privacy in the ass.
As it was, more people knew about Anchor than twenty years ago, it was even on Google, but, the council constantly worked to contain the town and to curtail as much access as possible without any federal agencies taking note of that restricted access. It came in the form of limited admittance. People who wanted to fly into Anchor had to use the heliport in the next town. And if they wanted to use a cab or limo service, those firms were owned by the Pride. So, each person landing was verified as being allowed access. The only reason the Pride had allowed Lia entry was because of his emergency shuttle into the clinic.
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