Unleashed

by Sara Humphreys

  Malcolm Drew was the last in his family’s branch of the Eagle Clan. His family was one of ten animal clans among the Amoveo, a powerful, ancient race of magical shapeshifters. Malcolm was a Golden Eagle, and more than anything he wanted to keep his clan’s bloodline running, but he could only do that with his mate. Without her, he was doomed to a painful, solitary existence, and eventually death. Malcolm had heard stories about those who went unmated. He shuddered at the images those nightmarish tales conjured up.

  Finding female company was not a problem. He’d had many women before, but they were merely a momentary amusement that left him unsatisfied and lonely. Like all Amoveo, his uncommonly large eyes were his most striking feature. The women he dallied with always seemed to comment on them. His were an unusually light brown, and in the right light gleamed yellow. He never worried himself too much with his appearance. He considered clothing an annoying necessity and barely ran a brush through his long, shaggy hair.

  He felt anxious, not just for her arrival, but for her safety. For generations his people had been hunted by the Caedo family, a fanatical group of humans who had discovered their existence. They had not lost anyone to a hunter in many years, but the threat always loomed. He shook his head in frustration and stood with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. So many obstacles lay before them.

  His thoughts wandered to his parents. The story of their courtship and mating had been the stuff made of legends. Growing up he’d observed their obvious love for one another with intense curiosity. Given that mates among their people were predestined he often wondered if the love grew over time, or was it a lightning bolt, an instantaneous connection? They claimed that the bonding was immediate, but secretly he had always doubted it. He scoffed audibly at the very idea of it with no one but the gulls to hear him. He’d encountered several females, both human and Amoveo, but he never came close to feeling anything that resembled love. Lust? Sure. Love? Not a chance.

  However, that all changed in a flash the second he found Samantha. His body warmed at the mere memory of that moment, and he closed his eyes in an effort to recapture it. Last night’s connection in the dream realm had helped solidify their bond even further. However, his brow furrowed, and tension rippled up his back as one intruding thought returned. What if she refused him? His eyes snapped open, and he let out a low growl at the one thought that nagged at him relentlessly. Malcolm had heard that occasionally, a female would refuse the match. He shook his head at the futility of refusing. Why refuse what was imbedded in their souls? His skin suddenly felt two sizes too small as that question continued to beg at the back of his mind. His human form had become a prison from which he abruptly required release. He needed to fly. He stretched his arms wide, tilted his face to the twilight sky, and visualized his eagle form. Silently, he uttered the ancient word “verto” and shifted.

  Instantly, he soared high over the crashing sea. He loved the feel of the salt air along his feathered body. His binocular vision spotted schools of fish as they moved through the waters below. The cool, early morning air caressed him and carried him along. His mind, body, and spirit relaxed. His tense muscles loosened to some extent. Malcolm closed his bright yellow eyes and reveled in the freedom and simplicity of the moment. He extended his wings to almost the brink of pain and rode the current with practiced ease. The image of his mate slipped into his mind and warmed his heart.

  All too soon, he was torn from his revelry as an enormous muscle spasm tore through his feathered body. He wobbled midflight and struggled for control as his energy began to slip away. His body shuddered, and he knew the shift was coming. He struggled to maintain his clan form and immediately turned back toward his house. Malcolm strained against the shift and flapped his leaden wings with every ounce of energy he had. In a blinding flash of pain and frustration, Malcolm shifted just before he got to the deck of his home. He gritted his teeth, and in a flailing mass of arms and legs, he landed with an audible thud on the wooden planks. He lay there for a moment in a heap. Nice, he thought, very dignified.

  Breathing heavily with sweat trickling down his spine, he stood and straightened out his clothing, thinking how nice it would be to have all of his abilities back. At full strength, he could shift smoothly and easily. He had recently passed his thirty-second birthday and was losing strength by the day. There was only one thing that could help him rejuvenate—being with his mate. Samantha. He had known who she was for many years. He’d dreamed of her since his adolescence. Under normal mating circumstances, she would’ve dreamed of him as well. The mate connection was always made in the dream plane first. If she had been a typical Amoveo female, she would’ve been looking for him as well. She would’ve recognized him the instant their dreams connected. His mate, however, was anything but ordinary.

  Samantha was a hybrid and the first of her kind. Her mother had been a human. Her father had been the last of the Gray Wolf Clan, and they had been almost completely exterminated. Now that he was gone, she was the last. The most difficult part was that she didn’t know it.

  ***

  After a record long good-bye with Gunther, Sam hopped the “4” train and picked up the “R,” which took her right into her Park Slope neighborhood. Well, according to her it was Park Slope, but there were many people who would’ve debated her on that. Once she moved to Brooklyn, Sam learned that the neighborhood lines were up for discussion. Where Sam lived was known by locals as anything from Park Slope to South Slope or Sunset Park or Windsor Terrace. In other words, it depended on which realtor you spoke to, but Sam didn’t care. She loved the neighborhood and would miss it—but not enough to stay.

  She took her time walking back to her apartment on Prospect Avenue. After all, this was the last time she’d be doing it. Tomorrow she was going home. Back to Nonie and the beach.

  Home.

  The very idea of it made her smile. Sam fished the keys out of the side pocket of her pack, lost in her own reverie. As a result she didn’t see what was waiting for her on the building steps. Startled, she found herself face-to-face with what was quickly becoming the biggest mistake of her life.

  “I’ve been waiting here for a God damned hour!” Roger’s contemptuous tone brought her to a screeching halt. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Roger Van Dousen, a trust fund baby who never grew up, was the ex-boyfriend from hell. They had only dated for about a month and had been broken up for about as long, but apparently Roger didn’t get that memo.

  He seemed like quite the catch at first. Wealthy, educated, polite, and handsome. However, his true nature became glaringly clear after just a few short weeks. Roger was a controlling, self-indulgent asshole with an overblown sense of entitlement. He should be the poster child for how-not-to-raise-your-child-if-you-have-lots-of-money. Essentially, he was a forty-year-old toddler.

  His face, almost purple with anger, was covered in sweat. His perfectly coiffed salt and pepper hair was slicked back against his head. Sweat had seeped through his starched shirt, and his hands were stuffed into the pockets of his dark suit pants. She had heard the expression seething with anger but had never actually witnessed it until just this moment.

  Sam removed the ear buds of her iPhone and looked him up and down through narrow eyes.

  “Well, Roger. I’m really sorry to hear that,” she said in the most calm and condescending tone she could muster. “I’m not quite sure how you can be upset about waiting for me since I didn’t even know you were coming over. Besides, we broke up over a month ago.”

  He made a loud scoffing noise and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh really? What about our conversation last night? I told you I was coming to see you and that this breaking up nonsense had to stop.”

  Sam cocked her head slightly and rolled her eyes. “What the hell are you talking about? Our conversation consisted of me hanging up on you after telling you—for the one hundredth time—that I never want to see you again.”

  He loomed over her and moved down one step c
loser in a clear effort to intimidate her. He blocked her path up to the door of her building, and his face, quivering lips and all, was just inches from hers. She couldn’t believe that she’d ever been remotely attracted to him. Oh, he was handsome. No one would argue with that. The guy looked like he just stepped out of a Tommy Hilfiger ad. Perfect clothes, strong jawline, suntanned, and well-manicured from head to toe. However, his short fuse and sense of entitlement had quickly made him the most unattractive man she’d ever met.

  Sam wanted nothing more than to back away and put some physical space between them. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and the sweat trickling down her back was no longer from the heat. She stood her ground. He’d never hit her, but Sam suspected it was only a matter of time before he did. If people really could smell fear, she probably stunk to high heaven.

  Sam didn’t take her big blue eyes off of his. She swallowed hard before she spoke and prayed her voice wouldn’t quiver and betray her growing fear. He was a bully, plain and simple. The worst thing she could do would be to let him know that he scared her. Like all bullies, fear only fanned the flames of his perceived power.

  “Get out of my way, Roger,” she said in a low and surprisingly deadly tone. “You and I are over, and if you don’t stop harassing me, I’m going to file a restraining order.”

  Mustering up her last shred of courage, Sam attempted to shoulder past him to her door. Before she could get by and make an escape into her building, he grabbed her arm and yanked her against him. His fingers dug mercilessly into her bicep, and his alcohol-stained breath blew hotly on her cheek. Sam winced away from him.

  “Don’t you dare try and walk away from me,” he seethed. “You think you can get a restraining order against me? A Van Dousen? My family is hooked into everything in this city.”

  She glanced around, frantically hoping to spot someone, anyone, who might be walking by but only the occasional car sped past. Her predicament going completely unnoticed was a cold, hard reality of this city. Another thing she would not be missing.

  He shook her again, hard enough to make her teeth rattle. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you. I know that you plan on moving back home.”

  Her shocked eyes darted back to his face, and he grinned.

  “You can’t hack it here in the city, so you’re going to move back home with your old Grandma? You’ve failed here in New York. No one wanted your art. Your ridiculous attempts at showing in the galleries failed miserably.”

  The truth of his words stung. She had failed to make it as a real artist. The critics had said her work lacked imagination and soul. Too realistic and not enough heart—that was the quote that haunted her. But it was from her heart, and that’s what hurt so much. Having her work criticized like that was too much, more than she could stand. How could she paint things that were so personal, so intimately a part of her, but no one else could see it? She could paint a picture with the same precision as a digital camera, but who the hell wanted a painting of something that they could get from a photograph? Tears of humiliation and failure stung the back of her eyes. She blinked them back, refusing to allow this son of a bitch to see her cry.

  “You’re pathetic. You know that? Do you really think you’ll do better than me?” His incredulous tone matched the look of disgust twisted into his features. “You’re just a waitress.” Sam cringed. He said the word waitress as if it were something filthy he’d just stepped in. “You’re not an artist. You serve people. You’re ‘the help.’” He laughed cruelly and continued his tirade. “In fact, you should be down on your fucking hands and knees, thanking your lucky stars that I picked you. You could be with me in a penthouse overlooking Central Park, but you choose to stay here.” He nodded his head toward her building. He spun her violently and grabbed her with both hands. “We’re not over unless I say we’re over. I decide. Not you,” he screamed. “Not you!”

  Pain flashed hotly up her arms and into her shoulders as his fingers dug deeper into her. Sam fought to keep the tears at bay. Her face burned with a potent combination of fear, embarrassment, and anger. However, the fear that he might actually hit her was overtaken by raw anger. How dare he treat her this way? She wasn’t a piece of meat or something he could just order out of a catalog. He didn’t own her, and she didn’t owe this rat bastard anything. This selfish bully represented every sleazy art dealer, salesman, and bar patron she had been forced to endure over the last eight years.

  No more.

  Her existence was hers and no one else’s. Her life, her successes, and her failures were all hers. She belonged to nobody but herself.

  “You would rather stay in this hovel or go live with some pathetic old woman than be with me?”

  Nonie? This bastard had the audacity to call her grandmother pathetic? The moment he dragged Nonie into his venomous tirade, something dormant inside of her sparked to life.

  A low rumbling noise seemed to come out of nowhere and surround them. Samantha’s eyes tingled, and the rumbling grew louder. The sound vibrated through her chest and radiated throughout the rest of her body. Somewhere in the back of her mind she rationalized that a subway must be going by at a most opportune moment.

  Okay. One point for NYC.

  “Don’t you dare talk about my grandmother that way,” she ground out. Her voice sounded so odd, almost like a growl. If she didn’t feel her lips moving, she wouldn’t even believe that she was the one speaking. “Now, you take your filthy hands off of me.”

  Roger’s eyes grew as big as saucers, and his face went ashen. He snatched his hands back from her arm as if she’d burned him. He shook his head furiously and mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out. She watched with smug satisfaction as he half ran, half stumbled down the steps away from her. The rumbling subsided as Roger disappeared around the corner.

  “And don’t come back,” she shouted victoriously in a voice she actually recognized. Sam did a little happy dance as she slipped the key into the door of her soon-to-be former building. Time to throw out the rest of the trash.

  ***

  Roger didn’t stop running until he reached the limo. He threw the door open and dove inside, slamming it shut quickly and locking it behind him. He opened the small refrigerator, grabbed the bottle of single malt Scotch, and proceeded to swig directly from the bottle.

  His driver, Rudolph, who didn’t even have time to get out and open the door for him, braced himself for the tongue lashing that was sure to come next.

  “I’m so sorry, sir. It won’t ever happen again, Mr. Van Dousen.” He sat perfectly still, braced for impact. However, no temper tantrum came. Rudolph glanced into the rearview reluctantly. “Will your girlfriend be joining us, sir?” He hated to ask anything about this artist chick because it always seemed to send him over the edge.

  “Her eyes,” he hissed. “Her eyes. You should’ve seen her eyes.” Roger leaned forward and pointed at Rudolph with the bottle of Scotch still firmly in his grip. He rocked back and forth and continued mumbling to himself.

  Rudolph cleared his throat to stifle the laugh that began to bubble up. If it came out within earshot of his employer, it would lead directly to the unemployment line.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Van Dousen. I’ll just give you some privacy for the ride home, sir.”

  He hit the button for the privacy divider and held back on his laughter until it closed with an audible thump. The Golden Boy had finally lost it.

  Chapter 2

  Sleep eluded Malcolm consistently, until the early morning sun began to crest outside his bedroom and rise above the rippling ocean. It cast fiery glints along the waves below. He was brimming with anticipation of what lay ahead. He couldn’t wait to set eyes on his mate. See her in the flesh. He’d been waiting a lifetime to have her with him, and the day was finally here. He showered quickly and readied himself for the day. Staring out over the crashing waves, he ran various scenarios over and over. Exactly how was he going to tell Samantha who she really was? The right way escaped h
im. He ran his hands over his face, rubbed his tired eyes, and cursed quietly under his breath. A rap at his bedroom door ripped him from his mental exile. “Come in, Davis,” he said with slight exasperation.

  Davis entered, carrying a tray of fresh coffee and toast. He was a slightly stooped over British gentleman who in his youth had likely been a rather imposing figure. While time had robbed him of much of his strength he was always impeccably dressed and had a constant twinkle in his eye. Davis was the family butler for years and a member of the Vasullus family. Generation after generation of his family served the Amoveo. They were the only branch of humans that knew of their existence, other than the Caedo. They lived to protect the Amoveo people from harm or discovery.

  “Davis, why do you even bother knocking? It’s just the two of us here.”

  “Well, sir, I wanted to be sure you were prepared for visitors this morning. I know it’s a big day today, what with Ms. Samantha arriving back and all. I thought you might be feeling a bit nervous and didn’t want to give you a fright,” he said with a quiet smile. Gently, he placed the tray onto the enormous mahogany nightstand. It looked small in comparison to the looming four-poster bed it stood next to.

  “Why on earth would I be nervous? I’m her mate. She is mine. Period,” he growled. He stepped into his cavernous walk-in closet and haphazardly threw on a rumpled polo and khaki pants.

  “Somehow, I don’t think it’s quite that simple, sir. She doesn’t even know she’s an Amoveo. That alone is a bit of a pill to swallow.” He poured a fresh cup of coffee and handed it to Malcolm. “Besides, her own grandmother doesn’t even know. Now she’s a right saucy dish that Nonie.” He winked.

  Malcolm shot Davis an irritated glare and took a sip of his coffee, but stopped abruptly at the sound of a car crunching its way into the neighboring driveway. He passed the clattering cup and saucer back to Davis, brushed past him, and ran down the sweeping stairway to the bay windows. He stood at the edge of the window taking great care not to let her see him. He didn’t want Samantha to see him just yet. Malcolm, his body rigid with expectation, gently pulled back the thick drapery and stared at the little red car in the driveway below.