Soaring Eagle looked straight into Adriana’s eyes. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
And then all hell broke loose—along with maybe a little purgatory.
“My God! That’s it, isn’t it!” Adriana yelled. “This is what you’ve been hiding!”
“I wasn’t hiding it, Adriana. Not the way that you mean. I was fighting it. From the second my memory came back. And I was wrong.”
Adriana stood up and calmly walked over. She stopped right in front of him, reached up, and slapped him across the face. Hard.
Richard stood up and wrapped his arms around his mate, gently subduing her from behind.
SE tried again. “Look, it happened when I had the amnesia. But even if I knew who she was at the time, I couldn’t have fought it. You know that!”
A low growl came from Richard. “Yell at her like that again, and you won’t have to worry about getting slapped.”
SE took a deep breath. Adriana’s slap had taken him way off guard. She was such a gentle female. “I apologize. Look, she risked her life to save me, to help a friend. It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s left Toltec. Deserted.”
Reyn stood up and threw his hands in the air. “What, did she just tell you that? How do you know she’s not lying? She’s a spy for Christ’s sake!”
SE was just about to answer when Ana’s voice came from behind him.
“Who did it sound like on the tip line yesterday?”
Reyn’s head snapped in the direction of the doorway. “You,” he said cautiously. “It sounded like—”
“That’s because it was her, Reyn. She called us with the information. I freaked out on Diesel last night because I knew something was wrong. I found her at D’s penthouse. She’d been burned in the fire at the warehouse.”
“Lies! It’s all lies!” Adriana tore from the room, pushing past Ana.
“Adriana, wait,” SE called.
“Nice work,” said Richard , starting after his mate.
SE looked down at the floor and shook his head. “Dammit.”
“She’s angry and pregnant, SE,” Ana said. “I’m sorry. Maybe I should have stayed upstairs, but we have no right to ask them to accept this. It’s only been a few months since they found out why I was really at the compound in Mexico.”
SE suddenly realized Reyn hadn’t said anything else. He was almost afraid to hope. “Reyn?”
“It really was you on the phone yesterday, wasn’t it?” Reyn asked.
Ana nodded. “Yes. SE hadn’t accepted our mating, but I decided to desert from Toltec anyway. I figured you guys were my best shot at taking out a bunch of mutants on my way out. So, I found their location and called it in. By the time I noticed the C-4, it was too late.”
SE pulled her close. God, this was it. This was so fucking it. He didn’t give a damn if his brothers accepted them or not. He wouldn’t be separated from his female again.
Ever.
“Wait,” Ana began. “SE, there’s more. When I first came to you at the penthouse, there was something I needed to tell you.”
SE bowed his head. What he wouldn’t do to forget that night. He was going to make it up to her if it took him the rest of his goddamn life.
Reyn slid a chain from around his neck. “Does it have to do with this?”
Ana gasped. “Yes! Where did you get that?”
“SE took it off a Toltec shifter.”
“Oh, God, SE… what she’s doing,” Ana said. The pain in her voice made SE wince.
He rubbed her arms. “Shh, it’s okay. Take your time.”
She took a deep breath. “The vials are, I don’t know, spelled or cursed or something. When they let a mutant take all of a shifter’s k’ul, they steal the nagual. I saw it, SE. They took an owl. I could see it!”
“So, it’s true. Victrixa is the aj k’o’ol.”
Ana looked up into his eyes. “Yes. But how did you know that word?”
“It came to me in a dream and X looked it up for me. I put it together with what you told me on the phone.”
“I knew you’d figure it out!” She threw her arms around her mate’s neck and for a moment he totally forgot Reyn was even in the room.
Reyn cleared his throat. “Okay, guys, look. Honestly, if it were under different circumstances, I would be okay with her living here as your mate. But it’s a lot of stress for Adriana and—”
“No, Reyn, it’s okay. The baby has to come first,” Ana said.
Soaring Eagle nodded. “I agree. I’ll pack my stuff up. We’ll be gone by morning.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?”
“What else can I do, Reyn? Tell me what you would do in my place. She’s my mate and she’s in danger because she helped us. I have no choice.”
Dimitri poked his head in the doorway. “What if I have Diesel and X wire the penthouse? It needs to be done anyway; I’ve just been putting it off. With your permission, Reyn, they can both stay there. After baby New Breed is born, we can reassess the sitch.”
Reyn shrugged. “It’s fine by me if it’s okay with you two.”
“What do you think?” SE asked.
Ana nodded. “It’s a good compromise. You’ll be able to continue to be part of the Order and I won’t get in the way.”
“No.”
SE whipped around at the sound of Adriana’s voice. She was standing just behind Dimitri.
Reyn looked at her. “Adriana?”
“I won’t be the reason SE has to leave the house. I don’t trust her and I don’t know if I ever will, but the Goddess doesn’t make mistakes. The Order needs SE here. Not just part-time. They can stay. I’ll be fine.”
And with that, Adriana turned and walked away.
“Seriously,” SE said to his mate as he threw a tube of toothpaste into a half-full box. “You own no jeans?”
“Seriously.”
“So, if you went to, like, Cleveland Circle to catch a movie…you’d just wear your leathers?”
She laughed. “Can you picture me at the movies?”
“Good point.” He scanned the room. “Well, that looks like everything. I can’t believe your whole life fits into two boxes.”
“Well, I had to be ready to pick up and go on short notice. Besides, how many boxes did you have with you when I found you in that alley?”
SE held up the first box and Ana put the second on top of it. Actually, he had a truckload of shit in the attic at the mansion. Richard had been kind enough to store it for him. He was so looking forward to going through that. Yeah, like a freaking root canal.
He smiled at his mate. “Why do I have a feeling I’m never going to win an argument with you?”
Ana leaned up, kissed her mate on the cheek and they gleamed back to the compound.
As he set the boxes on the bed, his mind wandered to how amazing it was going to be to have her in his bed, their bed—
“Can we deal with this in the morning?” she asked. “I’m beat.”
“Yeah, I’ll put these in the walk–in for now.” He opened the door to the closet. “Hey, ihkweea, you know what we’re missing?”
“What?”
SE walked back into the bedroom. “Your own cabinet for your weapons.”
Ana squealed and ran at him, jumping up into his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist.
He grinned. “I thought you might like that. I’ll talk to Diesel in the morning.”
“Hey, what does ihkweea mean?”
“In Kikapu it means female.”
“You mean like, I’m your female.”
“Yes, you are.” SE kissed his mate’s mouth as he took them to right where they both wanted to be—their bed.
James walked quickly down the main street of his quiet suburban town and tried to keep warm with just his hoodie and jean jacket. It had snowed then rained, a southern New England specialty, and the light mist was beginning to turn into fog. Normally, he would have been back to home sweet high school by now, eating a snack and doing homework in the
lab, but he had stayed late at the town’s library. It amazed to him that after three months of sleeping in the locker room, no one had figured it out. But he was careful. He had to be if he wanted to graduate and play hoops for Duke. Besides, he’d be damned if he was going to be just another homeless shifter kid tossed out because his parents were bigoted a-holes.
Luckily, school was only a twenty minute walk from the center of town. As he turned off Main Street and headed down a shortcut that was mostly farmland mixed with cookie-cutter colonials, he heard a car coming up behind him. There were no sidewalks and the banked snow gave him nowhere to go, so he stopped walking and waited for the van to pass.
But it didn’t.
It slowed down as it came closer and stopped completely when it was next to him. He expected to be asked for directions, but no window came down. The back doors of the van opened, and two men dressed in black hopped out. Unable to control his adrenaline response, James phased into Brown Bear, but they were ready for him. They plugged him full of tranquilizers. As he felt his heavy weight fall to the ground, his last thought was that he would never play for Duke.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Are you ready yet, female? It’s not wise to let food hang out down there too long.”
“Um, yeah, I’m ready,” Ana called from the bathroom.
SE poked his head in. “Holy—”
She turned. “What? Do I look okay?” Ana bit her lip, looked back into the full-length mirror and patted down her new skinny jeans. She fought in skin tight leathers, but jeans were a national crisis? She sighed. God, it’s been ages since I’ve worn jeans. Maybe that was it.
When SE had suggested she ask Geoffrey and Mary to pick out some clothes for her, she thought he’d totally lost his shit. But by some miracle, the head butler and his mate had shown up at their room that afternoon with several things. There were a few pairs of perfect size jeans, some T-shirts, a few sweaters, and even socks. There was also an assortment of lacy bras and panties that had made her blush when she unwrapped them. The sweater she’d picked out was lightweight black cotton that had a vintage feel to it. Her own black boots added a little edge to the mix.
“You look amazing.”
The look on her mate’s face definitely told her he wasn’t lying.
He walked up behind her and playfully grabbed her ass. “Do you think maybe you could walk backwards the rest of the day?” he asked, pulling her around and using his powerful body to pin her against the counter.
“Hey!”
He took her hands in his and smiled. “Don’t be so nervous. You’re going to be great.”
Oh, God, when she looked at that smile she wanted to believe anything was possible. “They’re all going to be judging me, SE.”
“They’d do that even if you were never part of Toltec. It’ll be okay.”
He kept hold of her hand all the way down to the main dining room, where he guided her over to the opposite end of the table from Richard and Adriana. Ana sat on her hands so the brothers wouldn’t see them shake. What had she been thinking? They definitely should have stayed at the penthouse.
Troy wandered in just as they were about to start eating. “Don’t all get up at once. I’m not stayin’. I just wanted to stop by and congratulate SE and Ana.”
SE gave a quick nod. “Thanks, man. You sure you won’t stay?”
“Nah. I gotta jet.”
“We’ll see you at meeting then,” Reyn said.
“No worries. I’ll be there.” And he gleamed out.
“Oh,” X said to no one in particular. “Diesel’s running a little late. He said we should start without him.”
Pax barked a laugh. “Diesel’s missing a meal? Is it the frigging zombie apocalypse?”
X slapped him in the back of the head. “Be cool, asshat.”
SE shook his head. “Oh, my God.”
After dinner, they all filed into the drawing room for a quick meeting before duty started. SE rubbed Ana’s shoulders. He could feel her body tremble slightly under his touch, and he suddenly wondered if he had done the right thing. She was a warrior. She wasn’t easily rattled. Maybe he was being selfish by wanting her to live at the compound.
Reyn took his place in front of the brothers. “Okay. First things first. I’ve asked Ana to be at our meeting tonight so she can explain what we’re up against. Ana?”
And then something amazing happened.
Soaring Eagle watched his mate’s shoulders straighten as she walked to the front of the room. Yep, she was in warrior mode. He recognized it immediately. She turned to face the brothers and they all fell silent. Holy Jesus. SE was pretty sure they wouldn’t have made a sound if it was the zombie apocalypse.
Ana held out a glass vial that was identical to the one SE had found. “This is what you’re up against. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s the key to Victrixa’s new program. It’s called the Initiative. It’s being kept so secret that the only shifters that know about it are the one hundred recruits that were hand-picked by Victrixa herself. She’s using the mutants to drain civilians of all their life energy, which releases both of their souls. The shifter then opens the vial and the civilian’s second soul is stolen. I’ve only seen a nagual taken once, but it’s the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen.”
SE looked around at his brothers as they shifted uncomfortably.
“I have no doubt the Order will be able to at least slow the program down,” she continued. “But there’s another issue. I don’t know why Victrixa wants the naguals. I found the location of the warehouse den in a set of papers she had hidden in her office. The entire file is in Yucatec Mayan. I have roughly a third of it translated. I’ll continue to work on it here. I’m very sure what’s left will be important, but there’s no way to tell whether or not it contains that particular information. As I work on the translation, X will work on the vials to try and figure out how the spell works.”
Ana walked over to X, handed him her vial, and walked back to SE. She turned and leaned back against him, her body softening immediately as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“We’re used to fighting mainly hellions,” Reyn said, “with maybe one or two Toltec shifters to every twenty mutants. Fighters for the Initiative move in pairs, one mutant to drain the civilian and one shifter to collect the nagual. In that sense, it’ll be very easy to spot our new targets. Our goal is to take down the mutants so that the civilian won’t be drained. If that’s not possible, we’ll take down the shifter and release the nagual. We’ll go with this in the short term. I’m sure once Victrixa knows we’re on to her, she’ll change her strategy. Hopefully, Ana’s information will give us a good head start, though. That’s all.”
As SE and Ana walked out of the room, X jogged by on his way down to the compound. “Ana, you and me downstairs for research tomorrow morning, you dig?”
She smiled. “I’ll be there.”
SE took her hand in his as they started up the stairs. “Are you going to be okay with just research for now?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Besides, I’m not a member of the Order. I’m not sure they’ll ever let me fight. I guess I’d better get used to it.”
Nothing brought out Dr. Supportive and Mr. Possessive A-hole like thinking of Ana in the field. Half of him wanted her to be able to fight. Fighting was a big part of who she was. She wouldn’t be happy any other way. But the protective instinct made him want to lock her in their room and throw away the fucking key. And didn’t that make him a total douche.
SE squeezed her hand. “I’m not a member either, technically. I haven’t been initiated yet.”
“When does that happen?”
“New Breeds are usually initiated after the second month. I think it makes sense to wait though. There’s no point if we don’t end up staying.”
It took about five seconds for him to figure out he’d said the wrong thing. Damn it. She dropped his hand as they walked into their room. He waited as she stood at the window with h
er back turned toward him.
“I can’t do this, SE. I can’t be the reason you have to leave.”
“Hey, hold on. We don’t even know if that’s going to happen yet. And you and I both know our mating comes first. Nature makes us that way. I can’t say no to you, and I wouldn’t if I could.”
“I just don’t want you to have to be like me. You belong somewhere. I don’t. I never have.”
“Whoa. I don’t ever want to fucking hear that again.” He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Look at me. Ana, look at me. ”
She turned around and looked up into his eyes.
“You belong with me. You and I, we’re our family. Hey, come here.” He took her hand, led her into the closet and flicked on the light.
She sucked in her breath. “What…”
“You see those two weapons cabinets? One’s mine and one’s yours. No matter where we live, it’ll always be that way. But for the time being, it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere.”
Ana slowly approached the cabinet on the right and opened it. Her crescent knives were safely hanging at the center, with the rest of her knives placed artfully around them. Her handgun was fastened at the top.
“Who?” she asked.
“Diesel. That’s why he missed dinner. And believe me—he won’t miss dinner for much.”
She touched one crescent blade lightly. “He sharpened everything.”
SE laughed. “He’s our weapons guy. He probably couldn’t stand putting them in any other way.” He took down one of the knives to admire Diesel’s handiwork. “You know, you never told me, why the crescents?”
“I guess I’ve never really thought about it. I love everything about them—their beauty, their efficiency.”
He was on her in seconds. “Fuck, I love you.” His hands went straight down the back of her jeans as his mouth took hers.
“Shit, wait,” she said breathlessly, “Aren’t you on duty?”
“Not for half an hour,” he answered against her mouth.
“Mm. Plenty of time.”
Richard wandered through the living room and into the bedroom. Adriana was stretched out on the bed, but her usual book was nowhere in sight. She looked deep in thought. “Hey, female. How’re you holding up?”
Forbidden Call (New Breed Novels, Book 1) Page 11