by Ann Mayburn
Though Nadia hadn’t gone through her transformation yet, he was betting she would become Synthia’s Beta. Nadia was too dominant to be an Enforcer, and he was going to have a hell of a time asserting his authority over her. She was a pain in his ass now, he could only imagine what Nadia was going to be like as a territorial male.
They ducked into a waiting cab and Nadia gave the address to the cabby before leaning back and letting out a long breath. Prickles raced up Nevoj’s spine and he opened his mouth, sampling the air. Something had altered in Nadia’s scent.
“You smell different.”
Looking out the window, Nadia swallowed then said, “I think the change has started.”
“Just now?”
“She touched me, right here on my cheek, and I could feel her hyena Queen calling me.”
“Fuck. This is shit timing.”
“I know, I know. Look, as long as I avoid direct contact with Syn I should be okay at least until you get back.” Nadia looked away, her gaze scanning the ever-changing crowd around them. “You’ll get the raven’s support, I’ll make sure Synthia stays safe, and everything should work out fine.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at the false cheery tone of Nadia’s voice. “Right.”
“Nonetheless, we need to haul ass if we’re going to make that meeting with Ted and McGregor.”
They soon arrived at the large townhome that served as the bear’s embassy in Washington D.C., and Nevoj cracked his neck as he willed himself to be calm. Thanks to his psychotic mother, Queen Talia, he had a lot of practice pretending to be unaffected by his surroundings. When he’d been born with a male soul and female body, his power-hungry Queen mother had been overjoyed. Talia envisioned Nevoj being bonded to some powerful Queen that she could control through him. Unfortunately for his mother, he had no interest in her schemes and had rejected her every effort to mate him with a Queen of her choice. Since he was her only surviving child, and she was barren, Talia had no choice but to let him live despite his rebellion.
That didn’t mean she didn’t try to break him. Fortunately, all her planning and scheming couldn’t force a bond to happen between Nevoj and her pet Queens. He thought about what it would have been like to be mated to some of the vile bitches his mother paraded him around. Thank the Mother Goddess she’d given him a Queen worth serving. True, Synthia was very young and inexperienced, but he would help her become a force to be reckoned with.
One of the most important steps in that goal was the meeting he was about to have with the bears.
Next to him, Nadia quickly got out of the taxi and together they made their way to the guarded, wrought iron gates. Two female and two male bear shifters protected the main entrance, and even though Nevoj made the average human male look like a weakling, these shifters were flat out massive. The two women approached them, the friendly smiles on their faces set off by the clear warning in their scent.
Both had dark hair, but the female on the left dressed in a dark green suit with a blue silk scarf seemed to be in charge.
Stepping forward, she held out her hands in greeting. “Welcome Mr. Bissonette and Ms Tanner. We’re honored to have you as our welcome guests. If you’ll please follow me, I’ll take you to meet with Clan Leader McGregor.”
The scent of bears was nearly overpowering as they walked into the building, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Just different from the spicier fragrance of hyenas. Their arrival drew a few glances, but for the most part everyone in the building seemed busy. He wasn’t surprised, bears prided themselves on their efficiency, cooperation, and organization. The hyenas could definitely learn a thing or two from them.
Their escort let them into a room on the second level with a smile. “Have a good day.”
Nadia muttered something behind them, but Nevoj’s gaze was focused on Clan Leader McGregor and Ted. Both men were in their late two hundreds, though they looked to be in their late fifties. McGregor was a bit of a living legend, a leader of a shifters only unit during World Wars I and II that saved hundreds of thousands of lives. His hair was almost fully silver now, but his dark eyes were as shrewd as ever. Once again Nevoj wondered why McGregor seemed so eager to make a deal. He knew the benefits Synthia would receive from their future open alliance, but he couldn’t figure out why the bears seemed so eager. What did they have to gain by protecting a foundling hyena Queen?
Ted stood and smoothed down his teal blue polo shirt over his still flat belly before he walked over to them with a smile. “Nevoj, thank you for joining us.”
“Good to see you, Ted.”
Smiling, Ted shook his head. “Still can’t get over seeing you in your true form. And Nadia, it’s been years since we last met. Still raising horses?”
Shaking hands with Ted, Nadia smiled. “Yep. My nieces and nephews run the family ranches in Texas and Wyoming now, but I go out and visit as much as I can.”
“Let’s have a seat,” McGregor said, gesturing to the group of cream and red leather chairs seated around a small dark wood table. “I’d like to keep this as short as possible so Nevoj’s shadows don’t get too suspicious.”
Once they were all seated in the high backed deep red chairs around the low table, McGregor sat back and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, his unreadable gaze going from Nevoj to Nadia.
“I’ve heard you’ve had some trouble with your aunts. Got more than a few of their men and women following you around my city. They’re really obvious, so why haven’t you gotten rid of them yet?”
Nevoj sighed. “If I chase them off, new ones just appear. I’d rather have my aunt’s incompetent spies watching me than strangers I don’t know, whose moves I can’t predict.”
“Good point. They can’t be too happy with your goodwill campaign. I heard they threw a real shit fit at the way the Bissonette legacy is being dismantled.”
“It’s not a goodwill campaign and I’m not dismantling anything,” Nevoj growled. “I’m doing the right thing. Those objects belong to the people my mother stole them from. I’m simply returning them to their rightful owners.”
“Objects,” Ted chuckled. “You mean treasures? You’ve returned some fancy, expensive, and powerful artifacts to a lot of shifters.”
“I may not have been able to stop my mother when she was alive, despite my best efforts, so the very least I can do is make things right now that she’s finally gone.”
“I thought that bitch was never going to die. A little over four hundred years? She had to be the oldest shifter I’d ever heard of. I can’t believe she survived so many battles and assassination attempts.” Nadia cracked her knuckles, spikes of anger hanging in the air like mace. “Only to be killed off by something as simple as a cave in at a mining site she was inspecting.”
He kept his mouth shut, not wanting to admit that he’d tried to kill his own mother plenty of times. Yet each and every time, despite his careful planning, he failed. Nevoj didn’t know if it was his mother’s secret gift or what, but she somehow knew what to do in order to avoid traps she could have no knowledge of. He agreed that she should have suffered more, but Talia being killed by her element had a poetic justice to it. The very earth itself had betrayed her.
“You know, it’s curious,” McGregor said as he studied Nevoj, the blue sparks in his eyes gleaming beneath his bushy white eyebrows. “Some people, when raised in an environment like Talia’s court, would turn out just like her. Vain, selfish, greedy, and just about the most self-absorbed person I’ve ever met. Everything was about her, and most of her court was the same way.”
“Your point?”
McGregor cracked his thick neck. “My point is you turned out the opposite. Like you saw the decadent horror you were born into, and rather than succumbing to the temptation to be selfish, you went the opposite way. Rather than using everyone and everything for your own gain, you always put your people and your honor first.”
Uncomfortable with the praise, he shrugged. “Once again, what’s your point?”
&
nbsp; “Not every man could resist getting caught up in Talia’s madness. Good, brave men who were strong enough to stare death in the face couldn’t have withstood her corrupting influence.”
Frustrated, he glanced over at Nadia. “Is this making any sense to you?”
“Old men ramble, you know how it is. Nothin’ they love better than sitting around the fire and spinning a yarn for the young ones to listen to. Makes them feel relevant.”
Ted grunted, “If you shut up and listen to your elders you might learn a thing or two.”
Hard won patience had Nevoj swallowing his protests, but Nadia muttered some rather creative curses beneath her breath.
“How much do you know about Synthia’s father?” McGregor asked as he clasped his hands together on his lap, his gold wedding ring gleaming.
The unexpected question had Nevoj frowning. “Not much. Just what was available online. He was an insurance agent who died of a stroke when Synthia was thirteen or fourteen, correct?”
Ted grimaced and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not quite.”
Leaning forward, Nadia said in a low voice, “What do you mean, not quite?”
“What I’m about to tell you…” McGregor shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “…is strictly between us. If anyone else were to find out, especially Synthia, it would result in her death. Am I clear?”
“Yes,” Nevoj said quickly, placing a hand on Nadia’s shoulder to keep her quiet. “Please continue.”
“Synthia’s father may have died with the name Paul Rowley, but he was born with a different one. We’re going to continue to call him Paul for the purposes of this story. He was a good friend of mine, and Ted’s from way back. We were all in the army together and fought during World War I and II. During the invasion of Normandy, he saved my whole battalion’s lives by sacrificing himself to enemy fire. I guess the Goddess was with Paul that day, because she honored his sacrifice with a blessing. His greatest wish.”
Ted cleared his throat. “You have to understand, Paul could foretell the future in his dreams. Said he dreamed about the daughter and wife fate intended him to have. He never did tell me what exactly the dream was about, but I know from that day on he had a new purpose. A hidden drive that directed his every thought and move. It was as if he was trying to will time to pass as quickly as possible so he could find his mate. Or at least we thought he was searching for his mate. Little did we know he was instead searching for his wife.”
“Paul comes from a very long line of powerful Queens,” McGregor continued. “And he was the only male left so his Queen mother wanted to breed him. While she could force him to perform through spells and potions, his seed never took root. After a while she became discouraged and focused on her eldest born daughter instead. Seeing a chance to escape, Paul fled to the United States and joined the shifter division of the US military back in the late 1800s.”
“That’s where we met,” Ted said with a fond smile. “We all happened to enlist at around the same time. Some of the best years of my life.”
“Don’t give me that ‘it was the best of times’ crap,” McGregor laughed. “I remember you crying about the twenty-mile morning runs we did.”
“No, your old mind is confused and wandering, you were the one always crying about blisters on your delicate little feet.”
Before the men could get too distracted by the past, Nevoj cleared his throat. “If Paul was born a shifter, how did he die a human?”
“He was blessed by the Mother Goddess, of course,” McGregor scoffed. “What do ya think happened? He rubbed a lamp and a genie popped out? Made a wish at a magic well? Won the lucky split on the turkey’s wishbone?”
Nevoj wanted to flip the other man off, but the change in Ted’s scent distracted him. Sorrow wrapped around him like a humid mist, uncomfortable on Nevoj’s skin. He was, unfortunately, very familiar with the scent and braced himself for whatever Ted was about to say.
“We were deployed with Paul,” Ted’s dark eyes were haunted as he stared over Nevoj’s shoulder. “World War II was the worst thing I’ve ever seen…I pray to the Mother Goddess every day that my children will never have to experience something like that. Shifters and witches were being slaughtered in the millions, as were any and every human that was considered impure. All of us knew what we were fighting for, who we were fighting to save, but I won’t lie when I say I’ve never been so scared in my life. We were pinned down by enemy fire, someone had to take out the gun turrets, but we all knew it would be a suicide mission. Before I could even think of volunteering, Paul was sprinting across that blood-soaked field, leaping over the dying, and getting shot up repeatedly, but he didn’t stop until he was close enough to lob grenades into two of the turrets.”
“By the time we reached him, we knew it was too late. The damage was too great, but the battle was still raging so we had to leave him behind to die alone on the battlefield.” McGregor’s voice cracked, and he rubbed his face briskly. “It wasn’t until a few days later, when Paul showed up at our new base, that we even knew he’d survived. It may sound callous, but we didn’t go back and look for his body. You have to understand, there were so many dead…you could go for months before you knew if a buddy lived or died. In the meantime, you’re onto the next desperate battle for your life.”
“But Paul should have died, make no mistake about it,” Ted exchanged a look with McGregor, then continued. “Much like his daughter, Paul was rewarded for his sacrifice. He was given a new life as a human. He was no longer a shifter, his animal spirit had returned to the Goddess, and Paul was free for the first time to live as he wished. The Goddess promised him that someday he’d meet Synthia’s mother and he’d finally have the family from his dreams. Paul disappeared after that, but years later in the 1990s he contacted me out of the blue. Said he had a dream that I’d be important to his future daughter’s life, and that we should move our clan up to Virginia.”
Laughing, McGregor shook his head. “Cheeky bastard. Vanishes on us for decades then turns up asking us to be his neighbors.”
“Heck of it is, we did as he asked. I was old enough by this point to see fate, and respect where it was leading. Everything just…fell into place. Damndest things too, like the old Clan Leader of the territory down near Culpeper that I wanted choking to death on a chicken bone.”
“And I just happened to get offered a promotion, a larger territory to rule that practically fell into my lap.”
“Let me guess,” Nadia said with a smile. “Washington D.C.?”
“Yeah, just happened to work out that way.” McGregor nodded in his direction. “Kinda how you two just happened to be there on the night of Synthia’s twenty-fifth birthday.”
He exchanged a knowing look with Nadia. They’d already discussed the series of chances and coincidences that had led them both to Synthia. The day she’d stumbled into his arms, his world had changed forever. At first he thought she was just some clumsy human, but the more she talked the more she started to give off hints of the most delicious cinnamon scent. At the time he’d been too distracted by last minute details for the exhibition, but thinking back now, on some level he’d known who she was right away. It wasn’t like he normally drove for hours to drop off a book for a human he barely knew, yet that night he’d made the journey from D.C. to Fairfax, hoping to see her again.
“Good point,” Nadia cleared her throat. “Now back to Paul?”
“Next part’s not easy,” McGregor sighed. “Like I was saying, everything worked out perfectly for us. Our families adjusted quickly, and soon we could never imagine living anywhere but here. Being a Regional Clan Leader I didn’t have a lot of free time to visit Paul, but when I did it was clear that he was exactly where he wanted to be. After all the bullshit we’d survived I was glad he had that, genuinely happy for the man. But even then, when all seemed right with the world, I worried about his mother finding him. Paul assured me that he’d covered his tracks well so it would never be an issue. Hell, he barely re
sembled his old self. When the Goddess made him human, she changed his features and darkened his skin, giving him a perfect disguise. When the years continued to roll by, peaceful and filled with family and friends, we all kind of forgot to be afraid. To be aware. We forgot about his mate.”
“His mate? You mean Synthia’s mother?”
“No, I mean the woman he’d been intended for when he was a shifter. The one that would have twisted a young, good man into a monster.” Ted stared right at Nevoj, and his stomach sank, a sickening idea lurching through his thoughts. “He wasn’t strong, like you were, Nevoj.”
“Paul was supposed to mate with Talia?” Nadia gasped. “That’s impossible.”
“No, not Talia, her second in command. Drusilla.”
Nevoj swallowed back a growl at the mention of his mother’s ultimate lackey. The woman had been utterly devoted to Talia, willing to do anything and everything to make her Queen happy. On her own Drusilla was a sadist and a bully, but with the power Talia had given her Drusilla became a nightmare. She was Talia’s torture master and had helped his mother try to break Nevoj when he was young. He hated her and would have happily killed her given a chance, but Drusilla had managed to escape his every attempt to find her. She’d never mated, but she’d had a long line of equally cruel and malicious men in her life.
“You’re sure of this?” he asked as he tried to push back his violent memories of Drusilla.
“Yes, very sure. Paul told me one night, drunk off our asses, that when he was sixteen he dreamed about Drusilla and their life together. While Paul wouldn’t go into details, he wept as he tried to explain that she’d made him into a monster. He said he probably would have gone insane knowing what he was going to become, but the Mother Goddess sent him another dream a few nights later, this one about Carol and Synthia. From that moment on he made it his mission to find his human wife, and abandon the life of a shifter so he’d never become Drusilla and Talia’s pawn.”