Keefe took Meadow’s hand and shook it firmly. “You look like your father.” He approved of the fact that she didn’t back away from a firm handshake. He turned to his son, crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“You want to know why I didn’t tell you who she was,” Killian supplied without further prompting.
“Smart boy,” Keefe growled quietly. He looked back at Meadow and nodded. “Takes after his sire,” he added dryly and grinned.
“Just wanted to see the look on your face, Dad.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Oh yeah.”
They laughed and Keefe clapped his son on the back. They turned back to Meadow. “I’ve got reservations for lunch for the three of us at La Scallia,” Keefe told them affably then fixed Meadow with an exacting look. “And don’t tell me you’re one of those self-conscious women who eats like a bird, because I won’t believe it for a second, young lady. This place has got the best pasta in town and I expect to see that flat belly rounded out and happy after lunch.”
Meadow and Killian exchanged an amused glance. Killian shrugged, “Well, I did warn you he’s an Alpha.”
Laughing, Keefe laid his big hand on the back of his son’s neck and squeezed affectionately. He held open the door for Meadow with his other hand and followed the two of them out of his office.
Chapter Three
Meadow tipped her head back and smiled as the spring sunshine warmed her face. She was sitting in the backseat of Keefe’s massive slider and the top was down. Keefe directed the luxurious transporter off the main guide-rail, switching it from electric to solar power and turned up a little-used side road. It glided along quietly on six, rubberized rollers. Killian was sitting up front with his father, talking about people she didn’t know. She settled back into the plush, cream-colored leather and took advantage of the relative peace and quiet of the drive back to their house to de-stress. Exams were coming up in a few weeks. After, she’d start her summer job in the legal department of her father’s company. Last summer it had been finance, the mailroom the year before that. She and Killian hadn’t made any plans to spend time together and if previous summers were any indicator, they wouldn’t this year either. Especially now that their pack status had cemented. Killian was a great guy, one of her best friends, but she just didn’t see their relationship progressing beyond that. That was the reason she’d accepted his invitation to spend the long weekend at his place. She could sense the chasm forming between them. She needed to know if it could be fixed, or if the time was right for her to move on.
In any pack the lowest members, socially, were often the sweetest, most easy-going people. They just got along with everybody because they submitted to everybody. They let other people make the decisions and slept better because of it. They worked hard, played hard, and didn’t worry about much else.
Killian had evolved into middle-pack status. They were the most populous and had varying degrees of personal rank within the group. Some were simply competent workers who were comfortable with some autonomy, but not much. Others took on more responsibility, more decision making.
Killian would never be her equal.
Meadow set her worries aside and leaned back. She liked this slider. Who wouldn’t? She liked the throaty purr of the engine, even though it was a hybrid. She liked the tremendous harnessed power, the wide and high bodied, luxurious decadence of it and wondered why her father had never bought one for himself.
Marcus Quinlan was a four-wheel drive, mud-on-the-driveshaft kind of guy through and through. Maybe it was because he had three high-octane sons, one of whom was an Alpha, just like him. Maybe they kept part of him grounded in the recklessness of youth.
“Is it too windy back there for you, Meadow?”
Speak of the devil.
“No,” Meadow called out brightly and met the reflection of Keefe’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror. “It’s perfect. The sun’s warm and I’m not thinking about finals.”
“Good girl. Someday I’ll be able to tell everyone I sent Meadow Quinlan back to school fat and sunburnt.”
“Oh that’s a challenge if I ever heard one. I’ll just have to make a point of digging up some dirt on you this weekend, Mister Rand,” Meadow shot back, teasing, and liked the way his eyes lit up in response.
“Challenge accepted, Meadow. And it’s Keefe.”
“Keefe it is,” Meadow accepted affably then let her head drift back and her eyes close languidly.
The Rands’ home was a bungalow set close to the ground and full of long, horizontal lines. The bottom third of the building was covered in cut stone with wood sheathing above that. They drove up a curved, cobblestone laneway to the front door. Considering Keefe Rand’s status, the place was unassuming, though inviting because of it. Meadow remembered with a pang that Killian’s mother had died before he was two. The house was built when she and Keefe were young, designed so that wings and a second story could be added as their family grew, turning it into an overblown showplace like the one her parents lived in. But that family had never grown and neither had the house.
She forced a bright smile when Killian opened her door and held her hand while she stepped out of his father’s slider.
About twenty minutes later, Keefe watched with quiet approval as Meadow dove off the end of the diving board and into his pool. Well, his son’s pool, technically. When he was a kid, Killian had spent entire summers in the thing. Keefe had built it to keep the boy out of the lake about fifty meters behind the house. Their housekeeper at the time had complained that she couldn’t keep an eye on Killian from that distance, and kept yelling at the boy that she’d kill him if he went and drowned himself.
Killian and his friends had spent hours in the pool when they were young. Now, although Keefe took a dip in it now and then at the end of the day, it wasn’t much more than landscaping.
Meadow’s long body was sleek and powerful and the sun caught and sparkled in the water streaming down her legs and in her thatch as she climbed out of the pool and back onto the board. She was naked, but then so were he and his son. Clothing on Eupanoria was always optional in adult company, depending on the climate, although just about everybody wore clothes while they were working. It helped differentiate work time from personal time.
Keefe took a sip of the ale in his glass then set it down on the table between his lounge chair and his son’s. He found himself envying Marcus Quinlan and there weren’t many people he envied. Meadow was a daughter any man would be proud of. Any mate she’d bring into her father’s pack would be an exceptional man. Too bad Keefe was pretty sure that man wasn’t going to be his son.
He’d loved their time together over lunch, even more than he’d loved the oxeni flank steak, and that was saying something. Both Meadow and Killian had sharp, informed minds. Their conversation challenged each other and him. They talked passionately about de-privatization of the deprivatization of the roadway infrastructure and how that would affect the corporate bottom line. They talked about nepotism filling the ranks of the smelters’ union and the consequent lessening of a talented workforce.
He’d eventually seen all too clearly that Meadow was far too much woman for a man like his son.
“Meadow’s…um…” The words died in Keefe’s throat. He’d wanted to say something complimentary, noncommittal, like the fact that she seemed like a nice girl, that she was smart, but that would be trite and his son knew him too well to buy it.
“Meadow’s strong,” Killian finished sadly, picked up his beer glass and wiped the condensation off the glass-top table with his free hand. “We used to be…better together. I’m not…you know.” He took a long drink, then set his glass back down.
Keefe looked over at the body and face that were so like his own, yet not. Killian had never known the deprivation, the hardships and the cruel, manual labor that Keefe had. Not a day went by that Keefe wasn’t grateful that his son had been spared that. Killian was strong and young and beautiful, not sca
rred like him. Killian didn’t have a knee that creaked ominously whenever he got up in the middle of the night. He didn’t have nightmares about cave-ins and men’s screams dying in the dark behind him, while he clawed his way back into the light.
“You’re my son and I couldn’t be prouder of you, Killian,” Keefe said with quiet surety. “You’re smart. You care about people—think about them before you think about yourself. I envy you that. In some ways, you’re a better man than I.” He looked back at the beautiful young woman swimming lengths in his pool, the sure strength of her arm movements, the way her long, slender legs popped out of the water at the end of each length, flipping her body effortlessly then pushing off.
“I’m not in her league,” Killian continued and pushed his dark brown hair off his forehead. “We didn’t know when we first started hanging out.” He grinned wryly. “It was awkward at first, being in the same classes as Marcus Quinlan’s daughter. But you’ve seen how smart and funny she is. We get along really well. She keeps me on my toes mentally. I do the same for her. It’s just that in the last six months or so, we’ve…we’ve grown. And it hasn’t been in the same direction.”
It wasn’t until their late teens that Eupanorian status within the pack became evident. Killian had grown into middle-status. Meadow was Alpha. Neither was ready to hurt the other and end a good relationship that was now better suited to friendship than love.
“Then why did you bring her?” Keefe asked calmly, challenging his son like he’d challenge any member of his pack to face a hard decision. A decision that needed to be made.
Killian grinned humorlessly and held his cool glass against his forehead. “Because you’re my dad. And my Alpha. And I…need a push. To help me decide if it’s better if we end it. Or if I try to be more. For her.
“And because she’s Marcus Quinlan’s daughter and just about one of the most extraordinary women I’ve ever met. I wanted to give you a chance to meet her too,” Killian admitted, maybe more to himself than his father. “No matter what happens, she’s my best friend. I know you and her dad are in constant competition, but I figured you deserved a chance to see that there’s got to be something decent about Quinlan for him to have a daughter like her.”
Quinlan and Rand were two of the biggest names in the silver-mining industry in the northern hemisphere. Their families were wealthy, powerful and fierce rivals.
Keefe laughed flatly. “I respect her father. Don’t assume I don’t. He’s a formidable businessman and I admire that. But you’re right. I am comfortably smug hanging on to my, um, uncharitable and admittedly uninformed personal opinions about the man.” Keefe snorted indignantly. “Thanks a lot, kid.”
Killian touched the rim of his glass to his father’s then finished his beer, got up and trotted over to the pool with a towel in his hand. He touched Meadow’s dark-gold head before she settled into her next turn. She stopped, held onto the edge of the pool and smiled up at him with her bright, sparkling green eyes. He touched the edge of the towel to her face, drying it. “Would you like a beer? Or something else?”
“What is it with the Rand men, anyway?” Meadow grouched good-naturedly. “Do you have a bet going to see who can fill me up with the most calories in one day?” She walked over to the stairs.
“So, do you want one?” Killian asked with a grin.
“You bet,” Meadow laughed then stood on tiptoe after she walked out of the water. She pressed her body lightly against Killian’s, kissed his mouth then sank back down on her feet.
Keefe looked at his son and the young woman walking beside him, holding his hand. She really was spectacularly beautiful. The lines of her body were perfectly proportioned. Her breasts were firm and not too small, not too big. She pushed her water-darkened hair back and ran a towel over it. Her breasts swayed lightly with the movement and Keefe remembered it had been a long time since he’d had a woman. And that he had no business looking at her like a potential sexual partner in his pack.
“Beer?” he asked in his best friendly-guy voice as he stood and walked over to the outdoor kitchen set up to one side of the pool. He liked to barbecue out here when the weather was good. Liked it even better when it was cold. His management team loved it when he held meetings here instead of in one of the conference rooms back at the office. Keefe grabbed a bottle of light ale out of the mini refrigerator, snapped off the top and poured it into a chilled glass for Meadow. He smiled, almost indifferently, as she thanked him then followed Killian back to the row of lounge chairs.
But he couldn’t keep his eyes off her round, twitching and very pert ass.
Keefe blinked. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Bright sunlight reflected off the water trailing down from her hair. But he could swear there was a small, dark patch on her back, dead center, maybe an inch above the crack in her ass. Keefe felt his eyes narrow with suspicion. The girl had a furshoat. A tiny triangle of hair no more than two centimeters from edge to edge. Short and sparse, it was a miniscule reflection of the golden thatch in front.
He himself had never seen a furshoat. And he’d known a lot of women. Hell, there were people who thought they were fiction, though Keefe wasn’t sure he wasn’t one of them. A furshoat was a genetic marker like vocalization. Only the most powerful females had them. True Alphas.
Keefe turned his head to hide his snort of dismissal from his son and the girl. He’d never met an Alpha female. Ones that were equivalent to Beta males certainly, like Meadow, but never a true Alpha. Like many others, he was inclined to think they were myth or wishful thinking. His own Delphinia had been a remarkable woman, a strong woman, but nowhere near his league. She hadn’t needed to be. She was simply the strongest woman he’d ever met up to that point. Certainly the strongest in his pack as it evolved. He’d loved her of course, but had made her his Mate and bred with her primarily because she’d been the strongest of the bunch.
Keefe also knew that hair implants were rising in popularity. Doctors removed plugs of hair from a woman’s thatch and created fake furshoats. If furshoats existed, they grew over one of the most erogenous places on a woman’s body. That tiny patch of skin was loaded with nerve endings that translated every touch, every lick and bit of sensation directly to her sex organs. That part, at least, was truth and Keefe could testify to it. Fake furshoats had gained in popularity in landmarking a major hotspot on a woman’s body. They were, apparently, fashionable.
His opinion of Meadow, which until then had been rising exponentially, plummeted. For the sake of his son, he let his manners override his disgust, grabbed fresh beers for himself and Killian and joined them in the sun.
Early Saturday evening, Keefe, Meadow and Killian were sitting in the Rand’s living room watching the setting sun turn the rippled surface of the lake, gold, cobalt and crimson. The sky had darkened from pale lavender to purple. The breeze died and the soft hum from the white, decorative flowers landscaping his land fell silent. Thick, dark-green trees stopped swaying and their pale orange and pink leaves lay still.
They’d spent the afternoon at Jenny’s house and Meadow had enjoyed meeting members of Killian’s pack. Jenny was just too sociable for her five-three frame to contain. Only she could turn a get-together for a drink and some reminiscing into a full-blown pool party.
Meadow met a few of the major players at the Rand Mining Concilium. She being a Quinlan, they’d been nervous and reserved at first, but had warmed up when they realized how bright and friendly she was and knew more about the silver industry than some of them.
Keefe was watching her dab lowel gel on Killian’s sun-brightened back. They were still both naked, only for some reason it was starting to annoy him. His son was ambivalent about the girl at best. She was…she was just too damn sexy to be sitting around his living room without a stitch of clothing on, making him feel like she was unobtainable just because she was fucking his son. He was Alpha—every woman in his pack was obtainable.
Even if he hardly ever took advantage of that privilege.
After the three of them got back to his place, he’d barbecued steaks for dinner, very rare, and served them with potatoes and foil packets of baby esper leaves, green mollet, onions and a few dollops of canned cream of eregon soup. It might not be up to La Scallia’s standards, but it was one of Killian’s favorites.
As he watched the two moons rise over the lake, he found himself thinking about last night. Meadow was sleeping in Killian’s room and Keefe really hadn’t expected her to sleep anywhere else. After a time, he’d been aware of their pheromones coming through the ventilation system, carried from his son’s room to his. He could even have sworn he could hear bedsprings squeaking but was sure it was just his restlessness driving his imagination.
That morning, he’d smelled them on each other even though they’d showered. He’d seen the tiny puncture marks on the back of his son’s neck—the sign that a dominant partner had bitten him and held him during foreplay. There were no such marks on the back of Meadow’s neck. He could smell his son’s semen on Meadow, could smell it coming from inside her like he’d smelled that faint trace of blood. Keefe understood why his son was dithering about breaking up with this girl. What man would give up the smell of his seed between her legs?
But that was just the Alpha in him talking and he deliberately hadn’t thought about it again. Until now.
“I know it’s none of my business but I’m not sure about these transplants,” Keefe growled in annoyance and glanced over at Meadow. Damn. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about that furshoat of hers? There had been a bitchy tone in his voice but this was his house and a man was entitled to his opinions.
Meadow leveled a smile at him that was void of humor. “I sense another challenge, Keefe.” She grabbed a tissue and wiped the excess gel off her fingers with it. “Whenever a man starts off with the words ‘I know it’s none of my business,’ he’s working up to something he knows is better left unsaid.”
Seduced by Silver Page 2