by Abigail Owen
He had to walk away. All of his logical reasons against pursuing his feelings still stood. But how could he let her go?
****
Tieryn sat in numb silence, holding her father’s hand and listening to the soft beeping of the machines hooked up to him. His heart was failing. She hadn’t allowed JoLynn to touch him, knowing the Healer would only delay the inevitable and possibly prolong his pain. But his will was strong.
She tried not to allow herself to hope that maybe he could pull out of this. Her father had always been larger than life, an unstoppable force, but she didn’t need a Seer to tell her his fate. The Healer in her already knew.
“I’ll make sure his soul is taken care of in the best possible way.”
She didn’t even jump when Neah suddenly appeared at the bedside, nor did she remove her gaze from her father’s face. “You can do that?”
“To a certain extent.”
That vagueness again. “Thank you.”
Neah grabbed a chair from the wall and dragged it over to sit in front of Tieryn. Her mother took the hand that was handcuffed to the sidebar of her father’s bed. “Was that really necessary?”
Tieryn shrugged.
“I have something for you.”
“Oh?”
“Information that might be of interest to a certain person.”
Tieryn frowned. “Stop being so—” Realization had her finally turning her gaze to Neah, eyes wide. “You found out?”
Neah nodded. “Daje—I mean Mac—knew.”
She hadn’t seen the man, even during the mission against the castle in the Mojave Desert, although she’d been told he and George had been critical to getting her father and the others out. “How?”
“He was once a mountain lion shifter.” At Tieryn’s astonished look, she smiled softly. “I told you, we look after our own.”
She knew her mother couldn’t tell her more than that, so she didn’t ask. “What did he say to you?”
Neah pressed a piece of paper into her hands. “It’s all there. Do with it what you feel is best.” Before Tieryn could thank her, she leaned forward, cradling Tieryn’s face in her hands. “I have to go now.”
“No,” Tieryn choked out.
Misery darkened her mother’s eyes to a deep brown. “I’m being summoned. I’ll always be with you. Always be watching.”
Tieryn gulped and nodded.
“When you feel the warmth of a southern breeze across your face, that will be me.”
Tieryn closed her eyes, but she didn’t let herself cry.
“I love you,” her mother whispered.
“I love you, too,” Tieryn whispered back. But no response came. She opened her eyes to find Neah already gone. Raising her eyes heavenward, she sent a prayer to whatever deity that controlled her mother that he would release her, let her live her life in peace.
For the fourth time in as many days, the monitor on her father flat lined, alarms going off with a terrible clang.
Tieryn turned back to her father as JoLynn rushed into the room. She held his hand as the other woman scurried about, turning off the alarms before putting her hands over him, listening to his heart. Unlike the other three times, however, this time it didn’t start back up. The Healer gave him a long time, but eventually she called it. “Time of death: 11:32 a.m.”
Tieryn already knew. He’d gone with her mother.
JoLynn flipped off all the machines, leaving total silence in their wake. “I’ll leave you alone with him.” She squeezed her shoulder.
Tieryn sat there, memorizing the lines of her father’s face one last time. Strong arms picked her up. Her handcuffs clanged against the metal sidebar, but Shane was careful not to pull her too far. He simply lifted her, sat back down with her across his lap and wrapped himself around her, offering silent comfort. Tears that she’d held at bay until this moment burst from the dam. She buried her face in his neck, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of his skin, and sobbed out her sorrow.
Despite the man holding her now, she’d never felt so alone.
****
“I figured I’d find you here.”
Tieryn froze at the sound of Shane’s voice, but resumed her packing. “Can I help you?”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced up to find him leaning in the doorway watching her with that intense stare. The one that always made her insides clench.
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”
“Checking that you’re okay.”
Disappointment was becoming a familiar sensation. She turned back to her task. “As you can see, I’m fine.”
A long moment of silence greeted that statement, and she knew he was studying her.
He took her by the elbow and turned her toward him. “So…I hear you’re heading home tomorrow?”
An odd sense of déjà vu overcame her. Hadn’t they had this conversation already? The first time she tried to go home?
Only she wasn’t going home, but she didn’t intend to tell him that, so she gave him a noncommittal shrug. Maybe she was learning the art of being vague from her mother now.
“When will you be married?” The question seemed almost dragged from him.
She wasn’t marrying Gage either, not that she’d tell Shane. “We’re still figuring that out.”
He released her arm and stepped back. “I see.”
Now that he’d let her go, she contrarily wanted his touch back. “When do you leave?” she asked to keep herself from being reduced to begging.
“Tomorrow.”
“I see,” she echoed his response. “Back to the Reynolds Dare?”
“Yes.”
Tieryn meant to turn back to her packing, meant to send Shane on his way.
“Before you go…”
He raised his eyebrows.
She gazed up at him intently, trying to impart the importance of what she was about to say. “When I healed your ear I discovered something inside you. Something…”
“Not good?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “No. There’s a darkness inside you. It’s eating your soul alive.”
Rather than acting shocked or concerned, he crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you think it is?”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
He lifted a single eyebrow.
“I see…” She glanced down at the folded shirt in her hands. “You already know.”
He ran a hand through his hair, the first visible sign that he wasn’t entirely happy about it. “I have a guess.”
“What is it?”
He glanced over at her suitcase and then back to her upturned face. “I suspect what you’re seeing is a promise I made the day my wife died.”
She put her hand on his chest, ignoring how he stiffened at her touch, and closed her eyes. She probed the darkness that surrounded his heart, tried to force her light into it, tried to dispel it, but the black would not budge. His grunt of pain stopped her, though she kept her eyes closed a moment longer as she got her emotions under control. It had been worth a final try.
She shook her head and looked up to find that tractor-beam gaze trained on her face. “You want revenge,” she said heavily.
“Yes.” He stepped back. “Well, it’s time for me to go.” He turned to leave.
“Shane.”
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
“Don’t do it.”
He swung his head forward. “I have to. I promised Brenna.”
“For me?” she pleaded. Pride was nothing if letting go saved his life.
He whipped around to stare at her, frowning. She crossed the room and took his face in her hands. “I love you.” He jerked in her grasp, grunted as though in pain again, but she didn’t let him go. “And I think you love me, too. Or you could, except for the hate you hold in your heart. It’s a hate I can’t heal. You have to do that.”
She watched as a multitude of emotions chased their way across his face: denial, need, and finally, star
k, aching pain. “I can’t.”
He pulled out of her hands and stepped back, finality in his eyes. “Go home. Marry Gage.”
Tieryn closed her eyes against the raw agony that speared through her. When she opened them again, Shane was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A soft knock at the door had Tieryn’s heart picking up speed. She opened it, and her stomach dropped with her disappointment.
“Hi, Gage.” She opened the door wider to let her fiancé in, closing it behind him.
“Time to go.”
“Right.” She wandered to the couch, picked up the remote, and turned off the TV, which had been on more for noise than because she cared to watch anything. “How long?”
“About fifteen minutes.” He tipped his head, giving her a strange stare.
“What?”
“You thought I was him, didn’t you?”
She grimaced, hating that her ridiculous hopes had been that obvious. “Yes.”
“You love him.” It wasn’t a question.
She shrugged.
“Is there any chance—?”
“No.”
“You could still marry me.” They’d had this conversation already. She gazed up into his strong, earnest face. Gage would treat her well. As his wife and the Kuharte, she would continue to have purpose. But he didn’t need her anymore. Not really. He’d proved himself worthy through the years, and their dare had already agreed to his taking the role of Alpha, effective immediately.
She smiled but shook her head.
“Even so, your home is always with my dare.”
“I’m your Healer, of course it is.”
“And I can’t talk you out of this crazy idea?”
“No.”
He surprised her by wrapping her up in a big bear hug. “I didn’t think so. You stay safe,” he murmured into her hair.
She squeezed him back. “I will.”
She’d miss Gage. Even when he’d been her shadow all through college, he’d still been her friend. “Do you mind taking my suitcase out?” she asked. “There’s something I need to do first.”
“Sure.” He hefted the large case. “See you out there.”
As soon as he was gone, Tieryn made a quick phone call before leaving her room with purpose giving every step strength.
****
“Not going to say goodbye?”
Shane didn’t even look up from the coffee he was nursing—much needed after a heavy night trying to drown his doubts in whiskey. Sarai stood next to the table where he sat in the dining hall.
“No.”
If she had any sense, she’d realize he wasn’t in a mood to talk and leave, but she didn’t. Instead, she pulled out a chair, the metal squealing against the tile floor, and making his pounding head protest.
“You’re going to let your Fated Mate go?”
He stared into the black steaming liquid in his cup. “Brenna was my Fated Mate.”
“Who told you that?”
He didn’t answer.
“I know I didn’t. Did another Seer contact you?”
What the hell was she getting at? Sarai reached over and placed a hand over his. “Fated Mates are a mystical bond that only Seers can identify. None of us know quite why or how. I’m sure you loved your wife very much, but she wasn’t your Fated.”
Nausea made his gut clench, but not from his hangover. “Does Tieryn know?”
“Her mother told her.”
And she’d let him push her away anyway. Still…avenging his wife’s death, regardless, was a promise he couldn’t break.
“Damn stubborn shifter,” Sarai muttered at his side. “Tieryn asked me to give you this.” She placed a piece of paper in his hand.
He unfolded it. At the top of a list of names were Duncan and Keith, the two men he’d already identified as being part of the group responsible for Brenna’s murder. He scanned the rest of the list and found his mother’s and stepfather’s names there.
“How’d she get this?”
“I don’t even know what it is. She made me promise not to read it. She only said higher powers provided her some information and to tell you to do what you felt was best.”
God that woman must love him. To help him even as she walked away, knowing he was her Fated Mate and that he was the reason they were parting.
“She’s not going back to Florida by the way.”
He jerked his gaze from the paper in his hands to her face. “What do you mean?”
“She’s going to the Mojave Desert—”
He leapt to his feet, his chair tipped over in his haste. Without a word to Sarai, he ran out of the room.
****
Tieryn stood on the steps at the front of the compound giving her new friends hugs goodbye. The helicopter on the lawn, ready to go, would take them first to the nearest airport to drop off Gage, who would fly the rest of the way to Florida. It would then take her on to the Mojave Desert where she intended to knock on the front door of a magical sand castle and ask to be the guest of a woman who she wasn’t entirely sure was sane or trustworthy.
Shane wasn’t there. He didn’t even bother to come say goodbye.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or so hurt that she was numb, the pain held at bay until some moment, when she was totally unsuspecting, she’d crumple under the weight of it. But she’d known this moment was coming, and she was a big girl. She plastered a smile on her face and said her goodbyes.
“Are you sure about this?” Andie asked, as they hugged.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know.”
“Ready?” Gage reached out a hand to her.
She took it, and they started across the lawn. With every step, the glass around her heart, holding back the pain, cracked a little more. The pilot waited while they got seated and strapped down, headsets on to cut noise and allow conversation. Then he started up the engine, which gave a high-pitched whine that bled into the thump, thump, thump of the rotor blades as they started to spin with greater speed.
They were starting to lift off the ground when Gage muttered through the headset. “About damn time.”
She’d been watching the pilot’s manipulation of the controls, but turned to frown at Gage. “What?” she called over the noise.
He shook his head. “Set it back down,” he instructed the pilot.
“What? Why?”
Gage pointed across Tieryn’s shoulder. She turned to follow his gaze, and she gasped to find Shane outside, waving frantically and yelling. Her heart leapt at the sight of him, crazy, impossible hope warring with disbelief.
She whipped back around to face Gage as the helicopter touched down.
He smiled down at her and nodded at the door. “Go.” He reached out to unclip her seatbelt and remove her headset, then leaned in, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
She gave him a tremulous smile in return. Before she could do anything else, the door beside her was jerked open. A scowling Shane grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her from the chopper—dragged more like—and out from under the blades.
“You can’t go!” he yelled.
At least, she thought that’s what he said. She wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t willing to make a fool of herself, yet again, by making assumptions. “What?” she yelled back.
“You can’t leave me!” he yelled again. Only this time she heard him because the roar of the engine dropped when the pilot shut down the helicopter.
Shane didn’t even glance away as the noise quieted. His entire, intense focus was all for her. Only for her.
She licked her lips. “Why?”
“Because I need you.”
“For what?” If he offered her an affair again, she was getting back in that helicopter this minute.
He stepped in closer, reached up to touch her but stopped and dropped his hand to his side, as though he’d thought better of it. “I need you to be mine.”
Not the answer she needed. She crossed her arms, althoug
h the defensive action was as much to keep from touching him as to indicate her skepticism. “In what way?’
He winced. “I deserved that.”
She held firm.
“I need you to be my mate, my wife…my life.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she didn’t relent.
Seeing that, Shane ran a hand around the back of his neck. “How can I show you?”
“Give up your plans for revenge.”
He froze.
“If you want to start a new life with me, you have to let go of the hate inside you. It’s the only way.”
He clenched his hands. “You want me to let my wife’s murderers get away with it?” He seemed more confused than angry.
She shook her head. “No. Hunt them down, then hand them over to Andie for punishment.”
He spun away from her. He heaved in breaths and she knew he was struggling with her demand. When he didn’t turn back to her, the tears that had started out as joy escaped her eyes now as sorrow and chased each other down her cheeks.
“I thought so,” she murmured.
The glass that had been protecting her heart shattered. Overwhelming pain weighed down every step as she turned away from him.
“No you don’t.”
Tieryn found herself lifted up and into a strong pair of arms. She squealed her surprise even as she clung to his neck. “Shane! What are you doing?” she demanded as he started across the lawn toward the compound.
“I agree.”
“What?”
“I already handed Andie the list.”
The air whooshed right out of her lungs. “Oh.”
He kept walking. Right past the gathering of friends, all of whom were grinning at them like idiots.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To mate you.”
How very caveman of him. But after it took him such a long time to figure things out, being claimed in this way was…appropriate. She smiled smugly. “I hate to tell you this, but we already had sex,” she pointed out.
He stopped with a jerk and looked down at her, jaw rock hard, lips a flat line. “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about mating. About making you mine and me yours. And I need you to tell me now that you’re good with that plan, because once I get you in my bedroom, I’m not going to be able to stop.”
“I’m good with it,” she rushed to assure him.