by Sara M Zerig
“You were flirting with that guy!” the young man accused.
“I told you, he asked about Chloe. That’s all.” The redhead sounded as though she was tired of repeating herself. She attempted to move on. “Come on, let’s try that new martini place, Olive’s.”
“Sure, maybe your roomie and that punk can meet us there later, since she’s the one he’s interested in,” her companion sulked.
Ah, roommate, Aaron thought, perfect.
The Earthen girl threw her hands up in exasperation. “Tad, he asked about Chloe. If you don’t believe me, I’ll call a cab.”
Tad came around. “Don’t be like that, Nikki. I’m sorry, OK? We can go to Olive’s.”
Nikki, Aaron made a mental note of the name. Short for Nicole, probably. Nikki sized Tad up a moment, as if debating whether or not she wanted to go anywhere with him now. Aaron suppressed a chuckle. Poor Tad. He was putty in her hands.
Nikki ultimately agreed to go on with Tad, and Aaron followed them from the liberated car. Two hours later, she was dropped off at a red-brick townhome in an upscale neighborhood, right in the heart of the area Abby had defined. Directly across the street was a well-maintained, spacious park bordered by mature trees.
Tad accompanied Nikki up the tall flight of stamped concrete steps leading to the front door. He attempted to kiss her, but Nikki turned her head. He wasn’t invited in.
Aaron stayed in his car as her jilted date drove away, weighing out his options. He could knock on the door and introduce himself, but he doubted Nikki would be as forthcoming as the girl from the parking lot had been the night before. It would be best to wait for her to go to bed and then transfer inside and snoop while she slept. Chloe might even be in there now.
He left the car, patting the cloaking stone in his pocket to make sure it was still there. A lamppost illuminated the walkway, but there were enough shadows and trees on the side of the end-unit that he might glean some intelligence through the windows without being seen.
He wasn’t ten feet from the front steps when he sensed it. Magic. It was weak, but it was there, surrounding the very unit he intended to access.
Aaron moved back to the car. He skipped his father and called to Wyatt Kincade through the scrying mirror. The glow of transfer would be too conspicuous outside; he needed Wyatt to transfer directly into the car. Moments later, a soft glow appeared in the passenger seat. When the older warlock fully materialized, Aaron stepped out of the car, and Wyatt followed suit.
Wyatt’s wild blue-black eyes darted about. “Where are we?”
“Chloe is said to live there with a human roommate,” Aaron said, inclining his head toward the home across the way, “but I do not know if she is there now.”
Wyatt was no doubt about to question why Aaron had called him there when he jerked his head back to the structure.
“That is why I called you,” Aaron explained.
“Is this a joke?”
“It would seem this is the best our realmless foe can do.”
“And that they are closely watching our Chloe,” Wyatt gathered.
“Or were, at one point,” Aaron supposed out loud.
“What are we waiting for?”
“For the lights to go out. Her roommate just came home from a date.” If the realmless was keeping watch over Chloe’s home, then Nikki could also be in danger. Aaron didn’t want to leave Nikki vulnerable, and Wyatt had the protector ability to shield others from attack.
“Then we wait.”
Chapter Eleven
Ritt retired with Chloe to a guest room at Nathan’s ranch that he had slept in many times before. He kept some of his clothes in the black dresser across from the bed. The black and white floral print bedding wouldn’t have been Ritt’s first choice, but Nathan’s mate had full creative control over every room in the house.
It was the middle of the night, and Chloe was dressed for bed in her pajama shorts and T-shirt. She lay beside Ritt in the bed but couldn’t sleep. He figured she would have questions.
“Does it hurt?”
Ritt didn’t have to ask what she meant. “No. The first few times I shifted were awkward but not anymore. It’s more uncomfortable if I go too long between shifting. The cat needs to come out to run and hunt.”
“You say the cat like it isn’t you.”
Yeah, he had always looked at the cat as a subset of his own personality. Regular shifting and an even temper, for a shifter, kept Ritt’s human mind in the driver seat. Going too long without letting the cat out to hunt could shift that balance.
“I can’t not shift. If I don’t initiate the change regularly—at least a few times a month—the cat could take over and come out on his own.”
“When the moon is full?”
“The full moon thing is fiction; the moon doesn’t dictate when we shift. But, the max a shifter could go without shifting is about 30 days, so maybe that’s where the notion came from.”
“The cat could just take over in the middle of the day?”
“It could happen. That’s why Nathan has this ranch and we police the borders for poachers. It’s the safest place to shift.”
“But you’ve been in the Springs for months.”
“I made a lot of midnight trips to the mountains.”
Chloe rolled to her stomach. “Do you have night vision? Like cats do?”
“Night vision, cat-hearing, a cat’s sense of smell—in both forms.”
“Cat hearing … you could hear me talking to Noah?”
Ritt nodded.
“Are you immortal?”
“I think that’s just vampires.”
“There are vampires?”
“I hope not.”
Chloe blushed. “Well, I don’t know! All of this is new to me.”
He chuckled. “I’ve heard that some of us live longer than humans—have to move about and start over every so often.”
“But you don’t know if you and Kimi will live that long?”
“Kent provides information on a need-to-know basis. So, either we won’t live longer than humans or even Kent doesn’t know for sure yet.”
Chloe mulled that over a bit. “Did you really know I was your mate right away?”
Ritt nodded again, slowly. “It was killing me.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Chloe, I can smell your attraction to me. I can hear your heartbeat. I knew you felt the same way, but I couldn’t tell you all that.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “And you kept trying to push me to the friend-zone.”
She blushed again. “I didn’t know.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I know. You’re forgiven. Don’t ever torment me like that again.”
Chloe laughed softly. Then she hit him with, “What’s a marking?”
Ritt winced, knowing the conversation was inevitable but not knowing how she would handle the crucial bit of information he had left out. He sat up, and Chloe sat up with him. “It’s a shifter thing. Think of it as the shifter equivalent of a wedding ring. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“A marking is a … ritual. And once it’s done, the female is …” Ritt racked his brain for words Chloe wouldn’t object to but came up short.
“The female is what?”
Ritt sighed. “Once a female is marked, all other shifters can scent it. She cannot be claimed by any other for as long as her mate lives.”
Chloe gave a short laugh. “Are you serious?”
When Ritt didn’t also laugh, she turned incredulous. “Females are claimed?”
“Shifters are territorial,” he admitted.
“And what about males? Are they claimed by their female mates?”
“Not traditionally, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it.” He grinned. “It’s instinct, Chloe. It’s taken every ounce of my willpower to keep from marking you as mine for this long.”
That seemed to take some of the righteous indignation out of her. “And how is it that you shifters leave your
mark? You aren’t going to pee on me, are you?”
Ritt laughed. She was taking this better than he thought she would. “Very funny.”
“A tattoo?”
“No tattoos. Unless you want one. It could be ‘if found, return to Ritt Carter’ across your wrist.”
That earned him a smirk. He moved behind her. Taking her shoulders into his hands to rub them, he lowered his mouth to her ear. “It’s a bite.”
“Bite?” She glanced back.
“Mm-hm,” he hummed, his hands massaging out her tense muscles. “It leaves a slight physical mark, but other shifters can sense the difference between females that have been claimed and those that haven’t. It formalizes the mating and completes the bond.”
“Like … marriage?”
“In the sense that the shifter community acknowledges it, yes, it’s like marriage. But it’s more than that. Bonded mates will tell you they feel closer after the marking.”
“A bite …” Chloe said again, unsure.
“It won’t hurt. Or maybe just for a moment.” Nuzzling at her neck, he went on, “Like getting your ears pierced … or losing your virginity.”
Ritt lifted her pale blonde hair into one hand, wrapping it around his fist as his mouth moved down the slender column of her neck. Chloe shivered. His jaw throbbed and shifted slightly to accommodate his teeth as they lengthened and sharpened, becoming too large for his human mouth.
The cat was long overdue for staking its claim. Ritt was gentle as he could be, sinking his teeth into his mate. Chloe gasped then relaxed beneath him, and his mind went blank, all other senses taking over: the feel of her tender flesh in his teeth, the taste of her skin, salty and sweet, the sound of her breathing reverberating in his ears. Her emotions flooded him—apprehension, hope, love.
Although Ritt intimately knew every inch of her, Chloe was new to him again. Future moments flashed through his brain too quickly to make sense of any single image. But the certainty that his life’s course had shifted to a destiny inextricable from hers took hold of him.
He could feel the cat within him puff with pride and satisfaction. Their bonding was complete. Chloe was thoroughly and irreversibly his mate. Retracting his teeth, Ritt licked the wound clean. He dropped her silken hair back about her shoulders. Chloe leaned back against him, shaky.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know …” She yawned. “Tired.”
Tired? Ritt was invigorated. He could make love all night, but Chloe was out within seconds. Was that normal? Maybe it was different for females than it was for males. He had never asked. Or maybe it was different for Chloe because she wasn’t a shifter.
Ritt tucked her under the covers, remembering that he and Chloe were only half done here. The elders’ response to Chloe suggested they knew something. In the morning, they would scent that he had marked her. Ritt hoped that would be enough for them to share whatever they knew.
It should be comforting that they might have some answers. It wasn’t, though, because what she was and what that meant for them were two different things. Everything had just changed for Chloe by virtue of knowing who Ritt was. She was sworn to protect their secret. She was marked as his mate. There was no going back to her old life now. What would change for them when they learned who she was?
Aidan sat at his desk with Cara standing by his side. His study was filled with concerned clan members. Only three burgundy damask chairs sat across from the intricately carved walnut desk, but there was plenty of standing room for this meeting.
Abby stood comfortably curved into the side of her husband, Micah, forming a yin-yang symbol where their skin met. Neither handsome nor unpleasant looking, Micah’s features were as plain as Abby’s were striking. Several inches taller and fifty years older than Abby, Micah’s jet-black hair was a stark contrast to his ivory skin. While the physical differences between the pair were remarkable, they were essentially of the same mind and demeanor: sharp and serious.
Serena Kincade sat in one of the chairs; her son, Will, stood behind her. Unlike Abby and Micah, Serena and Wyatt Kincade could not be more opposite in personality. Where Wyatt was considered something of a wildcard and ever vocal, Serena was ever reserved. Wyatt kept his blond hair a bit long for a warlock, brushing the uneven layers away from the rugged features of his infrequently shaven face. Serena was always perfectly coifed.
The Kincade offspring looked much like their parents but were also opposites. Will was a protector with exceptional strength, and Delia had yet to discover her witch’s talent at twenty-three. Delia was helping at the Caterra household tonight, and the Caterras needed that help. The adults were outnumbered three-to-one by children.
Wyatt stood front and center with Aaron as the pair gave their account of the evening’s events. They had found Chloe’s home in the area Abby said Chloe had been, but Chloe was not there now. The home had been encircled by a mild spell, meant to protect and disguise its inhabitants. The spell was greater than a human affirmation, Wyatt explained, but laughable for a pureblood. Both Aaron and Wyatt were certain the roommate, Nikki, was human. There was no telling when the realmless had last been there or if Chloe even knew who they were.
“She could be working with the realmless to keep track of Chloe,” Abby suggested, referring to Nikki.
“Or she could be innocent and in need of protection,” Serena batted back.
Wyatt nodded. “I cast a temporary protective spell around her just in case. A realmless will not be able to get within ten feet of her.”
“We know this is Chloe’s residence, but we do not know where she is now or how long she will be away,” Aaron told Abby.
Abby nodded. “She was there recently enough that she cannot have gone far. I will re-cast for neighboring areas and broaden the search until we find her again.”
“Could this be the remnants of a spell cast two decades ago?” Micah asked, returning to the issue of the weak spell around the home.
Aaron shook his head. “The home looks to be a newer build, so it would have had to have been cast in the past few years.”
“Then the realmless may still be nearby,” Aidan asserted. “I am not taking any chances where my daughter is concerned.”
Ingenuity sparked in Wyatt’s deep blue-black eyes. “I have an idea.”
Chapter Twelve
Lee had never met Julie personally, yet her story resonated deeply with him. A misfit even among misfits, Julie had not felt at home within James’ band of realmless, but she had been well into her forties when she finally struck out on her own. Seth said he had checked up on her from time to time, visiting the small French village where she lived, but she always insisted she was fine on her own.
On his last visit, about a year ago, Seth learned that Julie’s body had been found on a dirt road below a cliff. Julie was a recluse, and the townspeople were uncertain if she had accidentally fallen to her death or if she had taken her own life. The community took up an offering to bury her in the local cemetery with a crude wood cross as a marker instead of a headstone.
Like Lee, Julie had no family and no real friends. Lee surprised himself when he had asked Seth if he had a photograph of her. Seth did one better and brought him a copy of the funeral program, too.
The service program was a single sheet of white paper with black print folded into four parts. It said almost nothing, but Lee re-read it often. He’d be holding it now, but he had left it behind as a clue for the elders instead, along with Julie’s picture. There was a subtle sadness to her photo, a lost look in her eye. Hers was a kindred spirit he wished he had known in this life. But it was too late for that.
They would be here soon, he thought, lying atop the ground where Julie’s body had been laid to rest. Lee couldn’t put it off much longer. He suffered some remorse for dragging the innocent realmless into his scheme. But life was for the living, and if this worked, there would be no cause for further inquiry. Seth would
be safe. If Lee accomplished nothing more with his miserable excuse of a life, he could at least do this for his son.
“Julie,” Lee said, hoping his words would reach her soul, “forgive me.”
Seth bolted upright in the motel bed. His father was dead. He did not know how, but he knew he was gone.
“Seth?” The girl mumbled beside him, half asleep. Was it Valentina or Valeria? Violeta, maybe.
“Go back to sleep, baby,” he said gently. Baby was universal.
It was early, and the sun wasn’t up yet. He maneuvered nimbly through the darkness of the small room to the bathroom sink and splashed cool water on his face. There was no A/C, and even the nights in Mexico were hot this time of year.
Seth had negotiated a contract to construct luxury vacation villas. Construct them—not stay in them. After overseeing a crew of realmless working with the finest of materials all day, they retired to a motel that was sub-par, even by economy standards. Not much better than the cave his father lived in.
Had Lee died alone in his cave? It had been months since Seth had seen him. Lee checked in on Seth a few times a year. Sometimes, they would talk for nearly an hour, primarily about Seth’s life as a realmless. Every now and again, Seth got the feeling his father envied his realmless life.
Had it been a nightmare? Another splash of water yielded no change. The feeling remained: his father was gone. He didn’t know how he could be so sure; Seth could never sense Lee as his relative the way Lee could sense him. But he was sure.
As much as Seth had wished Lee would have raised him in the Shifter Realm, he understood why Lee never took him in. Seth could travel to and from the Shifter and Elven Realms like a pureblood and was sensed by others as a shifter. To look at him, though, anyone who knew of the magic realms knew he was not a shifter of the Shifter Realm; he was barely 6’ tall, and the average Shifter Realm shifter was 7’ tall. And Seth could only partially shift; he could produce the claws and fangs of a wolf but nothing more.