The conversation is out of left field, but I remain silent and wait, giving her time if that’s what she needs.
“Then one day my aunt came. She isn’t close to us or anything, but she was concerned and rightly so. The mortgage was paid off and Dad had taken care of money for the taxes and such, but we had nothing else, no other income. I was working at Bess’s and trying to graduate, and by the time I did, it was so bad. So, uh, my aunt came, and she saw the empty cupboards and fridge and saw Mom, and she said we had to sell the house and get Mom into care because it wasn’t up to me to look after her when I had my whole life ahead of me.”
My heart breaks for her, the memory of that broken woman creeping into my head. I can’t imagine what it must be like to see someone who is supposed to be strong for you fall apart at the seams. Mom loves my dad, but I know that she’d never expect us to pick her up. She would follow him, that’s accepted in the shifter world, but she would never let us see her break like that.
“I didn’t realize that Mom must have been aware enough to hear, I mean she never heard anything, hardly moved. But she must have because a while later I was standing in the pantry, trying to convince myself that there was food on those bare shelves, and I turned around to see her standing in the doorway with Dad’s old gun,” she whispers, her tears silent as they leak onto my chest.
I feel helpless just lying here holding her because I know that I can’t fix what has happened with her mom, and even if I could, what is the use. That woman will never be the same again. I got her to laugh a few times and smile, but as soon as I mentioned Meek, she shut down and closed me off.
She’ll be okay for a while yet, if the therapies work, but I know in my heart that it’s not a cure. She’s given up, and nothing will bring her back from the brink.
“I was so scared. I thought she was going to raise that gun and blow her brains out right in front of me and there was nothing I could do to stop her. That moment is one that will live with me forever because I thought it was over, this is the last time I will see my mom because she’s going to die. But that wasn’t her intention.”
“Jesus, lenia—”
“She looked me right in the eye and raised that gun and told me that no one would take Dad away from her. She wanted to sleep in his bed and be where they were happy, I think, and when I made the decision to sell, it was too much for her. I don’t know what I thought she would do. I mean, I was terrified but so shocked. I still don’t know how I dodged that bullet, but I did, and by the time I’d wrestled the gun away and the cops arrived because the neighbors called them, it was all over. I couldn’t do anything else but have her put away, and I haven’t trusted anything since. But I do trust you, Bear, and I want more for me, for us, and the only way to get that is to stand in front of you and trust that you won’t pull the trigger.”
“Christ! Mika, baby, I would never hurt you, never again. I love you. I know I fucked up monumentally, and I don’t deserve for you to even be here, but I can’t lose you. I fought it hard, and even when I stayed with Hannah and refused to think about us together, it was a struggle not to come to you and just give in. You’re mine, whether Fated or because I love you, it doesn’t matter. It just is. I will spend my life showing you that I can be more than that asshole who hurt you over and over, and I promise you this, I won’t ever betray the trust you’ve given me.”
I tell her everything, the words pouring out of me from a place I have only recently opened and accepted, and I know that from this day on, I won’t have control or freedom, but I don’t care.
She’s mine and every single part of me belongs to her completely. Always.
Mika sniffles, burrowing deeper into my chest, and I hold her there with nothing more than our hearts beating together and my vow lying between us.
I’m so relaxed I’m about to drift off when I feel her slap my chest and rear up, her face a mask of anger.
“That’s it? You’re not going to expect my love in return or tell me that I should forgive you?” she demands, her eyes flashing a darker blue as her anger rises.
“Lenia—”
“No! I’ve walked around for how long now with this inside me, just waiting for you to say the words, and you don’t’ even care that I love you?”
I grin, my heart lifting with joy when she glares at me and curls her lip.
“Lenia, my heart and soul already know that. I was just happy that you would let me have a part of you.”
“But how?”
“You think I don’t know that giving me a chance was your way of telling me what you feel? You think that being with me at all wasn’t proof enough? I know you love me, Mika. I was just waiting for you to stop hating me too.”
# # # #
Meek
Well shit.
“I didn’t hate you,” I mumble, looking down at my hand where I frown for a second over the absence of a ring.
Soon, I tell myself, planning something big and pricey to punish him for making me wait this long.
“Yeah, you did, and I don’t blame you. Just yesterday I had to tell Hannah to stop hanging around and trying to contact me because I was getting so desperate about not telling you, but I could still sense that last little kernel of anger in you, and I didn’t want to rock the boat that was on unsettled waters.”
I curl my lip at his clever little foray, as if he can just slot that into the conversation and I’ll forget about it. Oh baby, I never forget, I think silently while considering my options.
Now is not the time to argue but later, another day when I need to win an argument…
“Well, let’s rock that boat a little. You may be an asshole and you may deserve a kick to the balls, but I love you, Bear, faults and all, and if I expect so much from you, please don’t treat me like glass and keep me from returning the favor. I love you, as much now as I did the day you made love to me for the first time. I want to marry you and be with you and have a family, but I can’t do any of that unless we talk and demand what we need. Now, for the last time and so that you can’t forget,” I say, leaning in until our lips brush softly. “I love you. Please be mine.”
He laughs, kissing me and rolling me to the bed, his body coming up and into mine with a groan of acceptance and love.
“I always was your lenia, my very heart. I always will be.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Logan
I stare out at the silent night surrounding me and take a deep breath of air as I lean back against the porch rocker and try to unwind from a double shift that almost killed me.
It’s been two months since Mika left and moved in with Bear, and every night that I come home or every morning that I walk into an empty house I feel another piece of myself grow colder and accept that I have no one.
I love my family and Mika and everyone that I consider a friend, but they all have their own lives and loves, and I am always on the outside looking in.
Tonight, I feel as if I’m not even looking in anymore and I am out in the wilderness where nothing can touch me. Maudlin and silly but it’s what I feel as I pretend to sit here enjoying the bite of the coming winter in the air and smell the cake that Mika left for me as a surprise sitting on the kitchen counter.
I’m so tired I don’t know how I am still awake, but I can’t sleep, not knowing that the attacks that have stopped aren’t fully over. Not knowing that poor Jules is out there somewhere, constantly moving until we can catch these shifters and find out what their goal is.
So instead of sleeping, like I need to after almost thirty-six hours of non-stop moving, I think about what I can do to move things along and ensure that a woman I think of as a sister is safe and will remain so because I intend to catch the fucks who are after her.
“You up for some company?”
Banner lopes onto the porch carrying a bottle of whiskey and an easy smile, and I nod, shifting to make room for him on the glider.
“What’s eating you, man? Still thinking about the case?”
“What else?” I ask, not wanting to admit that I’m sitting out here pitying myself because I’m alone and lonely.
“Well, I don’t think you should focus on it all the time. You’re getting too close to look at it objectively, Logan, and that ain’t helping, nor is running yourself ragged, hardly eating and only sleeping every other day. It’s not healthy, man. Even Nick looks better than you do.”
I go to answer only to hear my phone blow up right before Ban’s. I answer fast, my heart pumping when I see Bear’s number and pray that nothing has happened to Jules.
“Barbie Kendall is gone, and her house looks like a bomb hit it. I need you.”
“Fuck.”
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
Logan
I run as fast as my legs can carry me, my heart beating in my chest, as Banner takes his place beside me and keeps his pace even with mine. I don’t know what to do or how to feel, but the urgency inside me is such that my heart feels like it is liable to burst inside me.
Barbie Kendall is a female I have known since I was a pup and too small to understand the difference between males and females. For God’s sake, the female was with me the night I got trashed and made the monumentally stupid decision to sleep with Hannah Seers, my Fated ex-bitch.
She’s always been a part of my life in one way or the other, no matter where we both were in our lives or what we were doing. She was there when Mom went through her change of life and sat with her for hours to settle her and stop the old bat from killing anyone who came near her.
She was there for me when Bear and Hannah got engaged, and she was there for me after Mika and Gretchen got out of the hospital and everyone was on their own mission, leaving me at loose ends.
We talk, go out, and drink together, and more importantly, I talk to her. She is the only female in my life—besides my mother—who listens to what I have to say and doesn’t judge or try to tell me what to do.
And now she’s gone, and I hate that I wasn’t there for her. I should have been, but lately, every time she’s called I can’t work up the energy to go out or get together with her.
She called me last night and asked me to come over, said that she had something important to tell me and needed my ear to figure out, but I was so pissed that I had to respond to a disturbance call at Lone Wolf, the local bar, instead of tracking the western boundary, that I blew her off with a vague promise to call her today.
I never did.
The disturbance at the bar ended up being a drunk and disorderly that involved Hannah and her cousin Elsie. The females were wasted and throwing around nasty comments, as if picking a fight.
I had to haul their asses down to Nick’s cells and lock them in there, so they could yell and cuss and finally sleep it off. That led to a ruckus from Lync, who is never easy to deal with, even on a good day, which patently was not the case with him, so I had to tranquilize the poor male and restrain him—just to keep him from hurting himself.
After that, I went to talk to Nick and suggested that he either move Lync to seclusion or figure out something else for the holding cells, because having females anywhere near the male was no good.
It was a reasonable request, seeing as ninety-nine times out of a hundred I am the one taking care of Lync. Not that I mind, it’s just that the male doesn’t need that shit right now.
He’s been in that cell for years, pacing and snarling, doing God knows what and clawing at the walls savagely. I don’t think he needs to have to deal with scenting females that close, especially not in his feral state. Nick shrugged it off and reminded me that we get very few females down there and said that he’s not putting resources into another holding area for one night’s worth of drinking.
Pissed me off, but my Alpha is not to be questioned.
That’s why, instead on calling Barbie, I took another shift and searched the woods, shifting near the shore line of Whitefish Lake, where our last scent marker was.
I found nothing, again, and eventually went home to brood and drink and tell myself that it’s all going to be fine.
“Dammit, get out of your head and concentrate!” Banner yells, when I realize I have stopped and am just staring off into the distance. “Barbie doesn’t need this shit from you, Logan. Either male up and start getting into it—or go home. You’ve been so out of it lately, it’s a wonder Nick hasn’t booted your ass on suspension.”
I grunt, loping beside him, and disagree entirely. Nick wouldn’t dream of suspending me after I found his daughter-in-law, Mika, and the pregnant female, Gretchen, after they escaped their kidnappers—and we all know it.
The hero mantle doesn’t fit my shoulders all that well, but it gives me an advantage I won’t complain about. I can do and say what I want and not fear a dressing down.
Nowadays, the most shit I get from Nick is a firm no. Something I may not like, but it is better than most punishments. And trust me, with my attitude and love for a good fight, I’ve had my fair share.
We reach Barbie’s house to see Bear standing on the porch, yelling into his phone, and Nick, his dark hair mussed on top of his head, as if he’s been pulling at it, is right beside him, staring down at the floor.
I leap onto the porch beside Banner and immediately sniff, trying to detect any scent. What I get makes me frown, and I see Banner’s own confusion before Nick turns to me and sighs.
“You smell it, too?” he asks.
“Yeah. I don’t understand. There is no fear in her scent, and yet, I know the other scent we’re picking up is like the other masked scents we’ve been tracking since the invasions started.”
Bear snarls, his anger spiking, because I recognize at least some of the scent as belonging to one of the males who took Mika and Gretchen a few months ago.
It’s strange and not easy to explain because it’s true that the scents are masked somehow, but as masked as they are, there is still an identifying marker that makes it unique in its strangeness.
“Yeah, and that is weird in and of itself because I expected at least some fear. From the state of her home, it looks as if she fought—and yet no fear,” he says again, his frown creasing his brow.
I sniff again, attempting to pick up something, but all I smell is Barbie’s natural scent and the homemade lotion that Mika, Bear’s mate, makes for Barbie.
The scent is pleasant, the faint smell of flowers muted by the coconut and vanilla she uses, but not strong enough to mask emotion, and after walking into the little house and seeing the chaos and mess, I know I should be smelling at least a hint of fear.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
“I don’t know, son, but whatever it is, it’s more than getting on my fucking nerves. Prissy was the one who came over and found this place turned upside down. I had to sedate her when she started shifting between her wolf and human so fast it made my head spin. The stress is getting to her,” he says and snarls, his wolf getting antsy while he talks about their mate.
“We all are, Dad. Mika isn’t happy about staying at home all the time, and Noble is having trouble with her as it is. She goes to the grocery store and starts fights with Bronwyn for God’s sake. Yesterday, she cried because she says she misses seeing Hannah in town!”
We all grin at that because it’s Mika’s code for “I am so fucking tired of this I would be happy to see that whore and have a conversation with her.”
Yeah, things are that bad that Bear’s mate is willing to put up with his ex to have some freedom.
“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Banner asks, walking out of the house where he’s been looking around.
His eyes flash, the golden-brown bear vying for supremacy over his wolf and making him unusually volatile. Banner is my half-brother, a wolf-bear mix. That is not a good combination in males. The wolf and bear in him are always at odds, one or the other fighting for dominance.
On any given day, the male keeps himself steady with regular shifts and running in the woods, but sinc
e the attacks, we’ve had almost no time to fully shift and run off any frustration. That leaves us all volatile and aggressive, but for Banner, it’s worse because he’s not just fighting his wolf—but his bear as well.
“Find out who is doing this? Find Barbie? Kill a lot of people to get answers?” Bear suggests, his own emotions making his grey eyes turn silver.
“That would be nice, if we could. I’ve been over the boundaries a thousand fucking times, and so far, I have nothing new. What little scent there was to work with is long gone. The cave where Mika and Gretchen was kept is deserted and obviously scrubbed clean, and the lack of movement for the last while suggests that it should be over, even if I know it’s not. All we have to go on is that these people are looking for Jules, which makes sense, because Bear was right, as was Mika, the attack path suggests they were making their way to your place, Alpha.”
The three males growl back in answer, and Nick snarls before stomping into the house to look down at something. We follow, and I groan when I see Barbie’s bobble head collection shattered and in pieces on the floor.
She’s going to shit a brick when she sees this. If she sees it. Please God, spare her, I pray, my chest aching with the thought of Barbie being harmed.
The little wolf-cougar shifter is a tiny little thing with pretty blue eyes, big blonde hair the color of snow, and a personality that takes a lot of getting used to. Once you love her though, that is it, she’s in there.
And I do love her. She is the sister I never had, a female with balls and more courage than her stature suggests, and not having her in my life would be like ripping off a limb.
We will get her back, I promise myself, leaning down to pick up one of the ridiculous pink bows she likes to wear in her big hair, the reminder of the loss cutting me deeply.
“I don’t smell anything, and I even let my bear out enough to take a whiff. It’s the same as all the other times. There’s something there, but for whatever reason, it’s masked very well,” Banner hisses, stomping towards the bedroom and back again. “There’s nothing. Any witnesses? Anything to go on?”
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