“Good. One hour, Superman.” He nodded towards the door and Cymbeline followed him out, closing the door behind her. “I apologize for that. Evan is exuberant.”
“You seem to know him well,” Cymbeline said, walking alongside Jeremiah, intrigued by the silent soldier.
“I was assigned to his family as an Escort after his father died. Evan latched on to me during the journey and I’ve taken it upon myself to make sure his family is settled.” Cymbeline was familiar with the term. Escorts were men and women highly skilled in defense combat, essentially bodyguards. But Cymbeline had never heard of an Escort being assigned to a family before. They were usually reserved for human diplomats.
“How long have they lived here?”
“Three years.”
“And they’re still not settled?”
Jeremiah glanced her way with a pensive look before seemingly coming to some decision about her and continuing. “Lottie, you met her, our head physician, is Evan’s mother and has had a difficult time adjusting to her mate’s death. She was eight months pregnant with twin boys when he died.” Jeremiah turned towards an area she had not yet visited. It was a long corridor with wide-open, glassless arches in place of windows. They were on the ground floor now and heading towards the large gym she had observed on her four-day stakeout. It was a blessing to feel the wind on her skin after holing herself up in Kerrick’s room for so long. “Luckily, she is such a well-trained physician, the Alphar made her head physician of The Mansion. That has been able to keep her mind occupied for a while, along with raising her exuberant children.” Something in his voice told her that the distraction of playing doctor wasn’t going to last a whole lot longer for Lottie.
“I did meet Lottie, when I woke from the Vryk poisoning,” she said, trying to detach her emotions from the regret she felt for the small boy who kept his comics in Kerrick’s room and away from his brothers’ sticky fingers.
He stopped at the entrance to the gym, looking back at her. “Evan liked you. Contrary to how he acted earlier, Evan is an extreme introvert. If it’s not a topic he wishes to speak about, such as his comics, he is all but silent to those outside his family circle. I would ask a favor of you.”
“Aren’t you already asking me a favor by having me instruct your recruits?”
His shoulders squared but he was not swayed. “I will owe twice, then.”
She breathed in deeply, letting the crisp, fresh air cleanse her mind. Cymbeline had to admit she liked this silent soldier. “You do not owe me anything. Of course I am glad to help train the abysmal men I fought the other day. They were hopeless.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, taking her cuffed wrists and programming them so she would be able to fight the recruits without repercussions.
“Positively horrific form.”
“I saw that.”
“They were more focused on insulting me than actually watching for any threats. I could have pulled a gun and shot them all in each testicle before they even realized I was a danger. Truly pathetic.”
Jeremiah’s expression was slightly out of character as he looked off behind her shoulder. She could have been mistaken, but the corners of his lips seemed to be quirking into a slight smile. Cymbeline turned to see the door to the gym wide open. The entire squadron of front gate guards, plus an extra twenty or so new recruits, stood glaring at her.
Something within her clicked back into place. Two days of sexual frustration and helplessness flew out the window at the present Jeremiah had given her by asking her to instruct these soldiers. Her own personal gaggle of punching bags. It would be good to let off some steam. Cymbeline curled her lips in what Irisi sometimes called her “psycho serial killer smile”.
“Ladies? Gentleman?” They quickly lost all traces of affronted bravery and took a nervous step back. “Who thinks they shall be laughing when I say I am the Incendiary once we are through?”
Behind her she could hear Jeremiah muttering, “Perhaps I should have thought this through…”
“My pack’ll follow you, whatever you decide,” Mac, the alpha of the Cougar pack in southern Oregon said after a long debate, weighing the pros and cons of how to attack the Vryks.
“We go to war. It has been made painfully clear to me over the past few years that our territory cannot be shared. From what I gather, Riddan rolled over onto his back and showed Mara and her Vrykolakas his belly every chance he got.” There were multiple growls and one annoyed squawk from the various projected frames of his alphas’ faces. “The seat of power for Were society needs its own territory, and while we have made it clear we are friendly to all other species, Vryks included, Mara has become hostile and left us with little choice. If we do not attack—”
“Then we are weak,” Leah, the Gator alpha from the only Gator pack remaining in the states said with a definitive nod. Even though the meeting was mandatory only for the West Coast alphas, he’d extended a special invite to her as two of the shifters who’d been murdered were Gators. It made the act that much harder to bear since Gators were so rare and their numbers had been on a steady decline the past century.
“The Gator pack supports our Alphar. I will be sending my best warriors to you within the day to avenge our fallen. Myself included.” She gave a quick nod and signed off, leaving no room for argument from the other alphas.
A few more questions on logistics and the alphas began to sign off. Daniella had a parting request for her son to call her before her screen went blank. One face was left. Kerrick withheld his groan, knowing what this was going to be about. Was it impossible for his mating, a mating that was nowhere near set in stone, to be kept secret for any amount of time? He straightened and pressed a button on his own console to bring the image of his mother to the center of his screen.
“Hello, Kerrick,” she said quietly, no smile lighting her face at the sight of her estranged son.
“Did I invite you to this meeting?”
“No. Your nosy cousins did. And yes, I see you sneaking away back there, Aaron. Way to be a snitch, even if it was for my benefit!”
Kerrick turned to see Aaron with the door half open and a guilty look on his face. “Go check on the security at the gate,” Kerrick growled before turning back to his mother. She waited until Rhiannon, Aaron and Zach had left the room before continuing.
His mother was lovely and Kerrick was clearly made in her likeness. She had the same black wavy hair and dark eyes. She finally smiled at him, a smile that he rarely returned no matter how much he wanted to.
“Darling, is there something you wish to tell me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“The most important information I had today was what I discussed with my alphas during the meeting. A meeting you were not required to attend, as you are not an alpha.” He withheld any emotion from his voice, wanting to keep the conversation as professional as he had with his alphas.
“I kept my screen hidden from the others.”
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you were seen or not. I know why you hitchhiked the meeting and I don’t have anything to say about it.”
She huffed, clearly annoyed. “Kerrick, did you really think I would just sit idly by while rumors of my son’s mating are flying around like mad?”
“It is my business.”
“I am your mother.”
“That doesn’t make it any more your business. Leave it be, Isabelle.”
He saw the hurt in her eyes before that false smile brightened farther. “Stubborn boy. Like your father.”
“I’m not a boy anymore, Isabelle,” he said, tired of this constant back and forth he had with his mother. No matter how old Kerrick was, he couldn’t seem to help but devolve into his teenage self, bringing him back to the moment he heard his mother had mated with another man, a betrayal he’d felt deep in his bones. “My father has been dead a long time…” He didn’t have time to
argue with her today. “I’m sorry, Isabelle, but today is not the day to discuss this.”
Her voice sharpened. “You’re my child, Kerrick, no matter how hard it is for you to hear that. You’re not Grace’s child.” His mother was as confounding as she was beautiful. After mating with Liam she’d had three more children, Kerrick’s half siblings. He’d requested over and over again to get to know them, but his mother had never allowed it, wanting to keep him separate from her new life. And yet continued to claim that she was his mother, that she was supposed to hold some sway over his life when she’d given him up upon learning he was a potential and cut him off from her new family.
“I’m sorry, but you heard the situation the territory is in right now. I have to go.”
“Kerrick—”
“Goodbye, Isabelle.”
He turned off his camera but not the video screen. She couldn’t see him, but he saw the smile fade and the lines of frustration form on her face. His relationship with his mother had always been strained. It was hard to reconcile how easy it was for her to essentially give away her first-born son to be raised in another country by strangers. She always said she hadn’t had a choice but she did. She could have kept him, even though that meant he would not have learned the proper magic to fulfill his potential and become an Alphar. Potential Alphars had become rare in recent centuries, so the moment a hint of power was detected in a child, said child was to be trained by another Alphar. But it wasn’t law. His mother could have chosen to keep him. As a surly teenager he’d felt she’d done the easy thing when faced with a child who might have been too much for her to handle on her own. In truth, he wanted to be the Alphar and would not have appreciated a life deprived of this chance. But the fact that she mated with a man he had never met just a few months after his departure, then proceeded to have a family he never even knew about until his late teen years, was where the true resentment was born.
His mother had not been mated to his father. They loved each other, married like humans, and bore a child together. Kerrick’s father, George Masterson, died in the Civil War. As a child, Kerrick thought his mother’s mating was disrespectful to his father’s memory. Now an adult, he would not wish her to live the rest of her life alone especially if her mate was out there and she could be happy. But there would always be that part of him, that teenager, who was bitter for being kept in the dark about half siblings. She had made it clear he wasn’t a part of that family and it would be an abuse of his power to demand to see them, so he let it be.
“Kerrick! Kerrick!” He shut her image off and turned away from the screen to see Lottie’s enthusiastic son, Evan, running into the room, shouting his name and jumping up and down. Kerrick picked the kid up over his head and seated him on his shoulders. He loved and cared for all the children residing in the Mansion, whether temporary or not. But there was a special place in Kerrick’s heart for Lottie’s rambunctious sons. Evan was only five when Kerrick, with Jeremiah’s help, had delivered the twins. It had been a long and agonizing birth for Lottie and Evan had planted himself immediately outside the delivery room, insisting his mother might need his help. Evan may act reserved to those outside his inner circle, but Kerrick knew an introverted and reserved nature did not mean he would grow to be a submissive. He felt the strength and dominance in the boy waiting to expand and shape his being. There was also some other facet to Evan’s nature that Kerrick couldn’t quite put his finger on, something important that was just beyond his reach, hidden from sight.
“What are you doing here, Superman? Your mom’s going to be worried.” Kerrick duck-walked out of the room so Evan wouldn’t hit his head on the doorframe. As he turned in the direction of the family quarters, Evan stopped him with a tap to his forehead.
“No, you want to go that way, Kerrick. I know I told Jeremiah I wouldn’t watch but I couldn’t not watch, so go that way.”
“To the gym?” Kerrick asked, following the direction of Evan’s pointing. “And watch what?”
“No, they were in the gym first and then she wanted to go outside. She’s amazing, Kerrick. Like Superwoman but better.” Evan’s little hands gripped Kerrick’s hair in his enthusiasm.
“You were watching the training session Cymbeline was helping with?” He groaned but turned in that direction anyway. “Your mother will geld me if she finds out you’re watching more training.”
“I can’t help it if I’m a natural fighter.”
Kerrick laughed, enjoying when Evan was open and talkative. “Yeah well, don’t use those natural fighting abilities too soon, all right, kid? Why did they move out of the gym?”
“Your woman—”
He pinched the kid’s thigh in reprimand. “Treat her with respect, Evan.”
“Sorry. Cymbeline said she wanted to kick their asses in fresh air.”
“Don’t. Just please—really don’t repeat that to your mother, understand?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
Kerrick took the long way down to the practice field. He enjoyed his time with Evan. The kid didn’t get enough moments to himself just to relax and be a child. His mother was also pressed for moments of peace between acting as The Mansion’s head physician and the mother of three boys, of which two were exceedingly riotous twins who didn’t seem to have an off button. But no matter what he and Evan discussed in their time together, he never spoke of Lottie’s fading strength. He would never burden the eight-year-old with that knowledge.
Upon reaching the field, Kerrick stopped short at the entertaining, yet terrifying, sight in front of him. It was a feat of pure insanity. There must have been twenty-five new and weathered soldiers facing off against the single woman in the center of the circle. Her short hair was tucked behind her ears and a mad grin lit her face. Christmas had come early for the Incendiary. Kerrick figured it was that grin that kept most of the soldiers at a distance. The grin was freaky as hell, even for him.
She flipped them, punched them, clawed them. It was a no-holds-barred brawl and Cymbeline was undoubtedly kicking their asses. It was embarrassing. Jeremiah stood off to the side with a frown on his face. He looked equally embarrassed by the sorry state of his soldiers. These new recruits were supposed to be the strongest of their age group, volunteering from packs around the territory. If they couldn’t overpower one Were, how could they face a clan of Vryks?
After another ten minutes of the brutal beating, Cymbeline raised her bloody fists with a triumphant grin and commanded. “Yield!”
“We yield,” was heard around the field from his battered and trampled soldiers. Jeremiah would require them to work overtime just to make up for that humiliation.
Cymbeline’s look of triumph faded to one of smugness as she spotted Kerrick and Evan on the sidelines.
“Care to take a spin with me, Alphar?”
“Not in front of the children, dear.” Kerrick laughed, setting Evan down on the ground.
“Ass,” she grumbled, turning her back on him, amazingly, to help the fallen soldiers up and give them tips on how they could each improve. She hadn’t only fought them, she’d studied them and learned their moves within a matter of seconds. His mate was remarkable.
“Hmm,” Jeremiah grunted from off to the side, his gaze on the nearest entrance to The Mansion.
Kerrick followed his disgruntled expression and muttered, “Crap.”
Evan was the last to chip in after he spotted his irate mother walking towards them, “You guys are gettin’ castrated.”
Chapter Nine
“Evan!” Lottie growled, tromping barefooted across the field toward the guilty-looking boy. “Evan, what the—” She shook her head, the frizzy curls flying about her ears and her eyes glowing amber as the Bobcat rose within her. Again Cymbeline observed how skinny she was…too skinny for a woman she now knew had birthed three sons. Lottie looked even more frazzled than when Cymbeline had first met her. She caught the corners
of Jeremiah’s mouth tighten as the angry woman approached.
“Evan, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She dropped to her knees in front of the boy and grasped his shoulders. “You can’t just run off like that all the time, you’re gonna give me a heart attack!”
“It was my fault, ma’am,” Cymbeline volunteered when she saw Jeremiah stepping forward to take the fall. She liked the man. Jeremiah was transparently honorable and cared for the progress of his soldiers. She would also have to be blind to not see the glow in his eyes as he’d talked about Evan’s mother earlier. “Evan found me reading his comics in the Alphar’s room and we got to talking about them. I brought him out here to observe a training session since he seemed so interested in the—”
“In the fighting, Evan?” Lottie said, looking beyond exhausted. “What did I tell you? Becoming a soldier is not for you, sweetie.”
“But, Ma, I swear, I’m really good at it.”
“I know, baby.” She stroked his red-tinged cheeks and pulled him into a hug, lifting him off his feet and cradling him close. “You’re just not at the height limit yet, okay? Promise me. You always said you’d keep your promises, remember? That’s important.”
“I promise.” He clenched his little fists in her oversized sweater and leaned his head against her shoulder. The moment tugged at something in Cymbeline’s heart. Seeing the little boy cling to his mother’s shirt reminded her of how hard it had been for her to do that with Irisi the first time—let her barriers fall just enough to give a small girl comfort. Irisi. The girl needed her. It was time for Cymbeline to go home, no matter how badly she wanted to stay with Kerrick. The Alphar. She had responsibilities that didn’t allow for personal happiness, and one involved a sickly girl she’d promised to protect. As Lottie said, it was important to keep a promise.
“Lottie,” Jeremiah said, making his presence known. “I am sorry, I should have brought him home when I found him in Kerrick’s room with Cymbeline. It is my fault.”
To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 Page 13