by Nancy Gideon
“It was a mistake,” Cale growled defensively.
“It could have been your last one. What were you doing in a place like that?”
“I have a problem, all right? It got me in trouble. That’s why I had to leave Nevada. That’s why I didn’t want to go back to it, to the Kick. I like it too much.” He turned away, posture rigid as he confessed with enough truth to be convincing, “So much, it owns me.”
A light touch brushed his shoulder. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I can help you control it. Just promise you’ll never go to such places again. Their product could kill you. I’ll see you have what you need, when you need it.” A pause then a fierce, “You were lucky.”
Cale glanced his way. “How’s that?”
“Did you think Dwight was just being friendly? You’re his biggest competition. It was no accident you nearly overdosed.”
Shock and anger flashed across his expression then Cale was stoic once more. “Why?”
A faint smile. “You’re not sparring with a band of brothers. These are cold, deadly killers who want what winning will bring them. He not only wanted you kicked off the circuit, he didn’t want you to survive.” His smile spread when that lethal glow began to burn in the other’s eyes. “You’ll have your chance to settle things with Dwight. This evening. Until then, here’s something safe to take the edge off.”
The capsule disappeared from Lee’s soft palm. Just to keep him safe around others. That’s what Cale told himself.
“Thank you, for both things.”
Moved by his sincerity, Casper put a hand to Cale’s face, tracing his bone structure with fingertips, his lips with his thumb. “I would be very good to you,” he vowed. He let his hand drop. “Consider your options, Mr. Terry. It’s your choice.”
Cale strode from the bar, focus sharp, nerves steady. As he brushed past Silas, he said, “I’m going up to talk to my brothers and pack. Tell the missus you’ll have a new roommate.”
“That’s going to go over well.”
Cale didn’t comment or pause. As the elevator carried him upward, he had one thing only on his mind. Finding out who had betrayed him to Casper Lee where Kendra was concerned.
*
Kendra woke wrapped in the warmth of Cale’s shirt and scent if not his arms.
She hadn’t been able to sleep alone in the strange bed, in the huge silent house, until she’d found the soft, pre-worn knit tee among the items he’d left behind, and slipped it on to hug close in lieu of his presence beside her. But waking without him, without having heard from him, she found it a poor substitute.
Since Brigit was a notorious late sleeper, the sound of female voices surprised Kendra as she came downstairs. They drew her through the large dining room out onto the veranda where Tina Babineau sat chatting with Helen, the housekeeper she’d briefly met the previous day. With the detective’s wife, the dour faced woman was all fond smiles, but her professional manner returned the instant she spotted their new guest. She quickly got up from the glass-topped wicker table where they’d been sharing coffee to say, “Good morning, Mrs. Terriot. May I fix you some breakfast?”
She eyed the fluffy omelet on Tina’s plate. “That looks wonderful. Coffee with cream and sugar. Thank you. And please, it’s Kendra.”
With a stiff smile and a nod, Helen withdrew.
Kendra bent to quickly embrace her sister-in-law, catching onto her similar melancholy as Tina said, “Alain told me you were staying here. Oscar wouldn’t give me a minute’s peace until I brought him out to see Giles. They’re in that car museum of a garage with their heads under a hood.”
“Did Alain come with you?”
No mistaking the evasion in her dark eyes. “No. He got in late, and had things to do this morning, so we came alone.” After a hesitation, Tina added, “He was out with Cale and one of his brothers. He didn’t say where.”
An equal suspicion crept up on Kendra. “Do you know what they were doing? Was it business?”
“He said it wasn’t.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
A pause then a quiet, “No. He’s hiding something from me, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Join the club. “Something dangerous?”
“Isn’t it always? Has Cale said anything to you?”
“He was too busy getting me out of the way so I wouldn’t have the chance to ask him.”
They commiserated silently as Helen returned with the lovely breakfast Kendra no longer wanted to eat. As soon as she withdrew, Tina ventured, “Does Silas know what they’re up to?”
“He wouldn’t tell me if he did. And I’m getting sick and tired of all this for our own good bull.” Kendra covered her sister-in-law’s hand for a bonding squeeze. “How are we supposed to help them if they won’t talk to us?” She studied the other female for an intuitive moment then added gently, “You can talk to me, Tina. I don’t know if it’ll help, but it couldn’t hurt.”
Those dark, tormented eyes lifted. “I lied to him, Kendra, and he’ll never forgive me. Never.”
“About what?” What could be so terrible as to come between such an obviously perfect for one another pair? That question had her wondering on a deeper level about her own relationship with Cale. Nothing was perfect.
“He thought I was the woman of his dreams, and I turned out to be a nightmare.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“He didn’t know you were Shape-shifters?”
“I didn’t know we were Shape-shifters! I didn’t know my parents had adopted me when I was a baby. They raised me like I was their own. We were a military family, always moving around. I was always the outsider. I didn’t realize it was because I wasn’t like anyone else at school or church or in our neighborhood.”
“How did you meet Oscar’s father? You don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal.”
A bitter laugh. “There’s nothing to tell. I don’t remember ever meeting him.” She went on to tell Kendra about her one youthful rebellion, when during a shopping trip in Chicago, she’d been lured away from her mother by a group of teens with whom she shared an instant compelling kinship. And how she’d woken up days later on a park bench with only two reminders of where she’d been: a gorgeous string of pearls left about her neck and a child growing within her womb.
“My parents said I’d been abducted and raped. I couldn’t tell them anything different because I had no memory of what had happened. I’d just turned fifteen. I’d never even kissed a boy.” She dashed the wetness from her cheeks almost angrily. “When I started to show, we came here to New Orleans to see my parents’ friend Father Furness. They decided it would be best for me to stay with him then go out of the country on a mission trip after Oscar was born. I didn’t return until he was almost eight years old. We went back to living at Father Furness’s parish church, St. Bart’s, under a new last name with all new paperwork that added two years to my age. I thought it was because my father was afraid of the scandal.”
“But he was trying to protect you from the truth.”
Tina nodded miserably.
“So how did you meet Alain?”
“Father Furness introduced us. He said Alain was the type of young man I could feel safe with.”
“Someone who could protect you,” Kendra surmised.
Again, Tina nodded, her expression softening. “He was everything I could have hoped for. Polite, gentle, good with Oscar. And so dreamy I couldn’t believe my luck. I don’t know what the father told him, but it was months before he even tried to kiss me, and by then, if he hadn’t, I was ready to throw myself at him.”
Kendra smiled at that, familiar with the feeling.
“I was crazy in love with him and so thrilled when he asked to marry me. He was perfect. Our life was perfect.”
“What happened?”
“My parents were killed. It was supposed to look like a home invasion, but they’d been tortured.”
“To get information about you.” Horror r
ose cold and shivery within Kendra chest.
“To find Christina MacCreedy Terriot and her son, son of Rollo Moytes and brother to Max Savoie. Shape-shifter royalty to them, but a monster to the man who’d married her.”
“But you didn’t know. How could he blame you?”
“It didn’t matter, Kendra. We both knew there was something different about Oscar that kept him from bonding with the kids at school and with Alain, the way he did with Max and Silas and now Cale. He says he doesn’t blame us, but he can’t look past the truth that was hidden from him when he gave us his heart and his name. That we’re abominations.”
Kendra pulled her into a tight embrace, whispering fiercely, “You know that’s not true. It’s not.”
“Then why is he so determined to push us away. Why does he want to send us to become someone else’s burden?”
“Family is never a burden, Tina.”
“Cale wants to make us his, and I’m running out of reasons to object.”
*
The venue was a rundown gym that had closed for the evening, bags stilled, empty ring in heavy shadow. Strong odors of sweat and liniment held a strange note of expensive perfume. Cale, Silas, and Nica followed the diminutive O’Leary into a surprisingly clean locker room where a tall, slender woman with severe face and clothes waited with a smiling Casper Lee. Her laser blue eyes cut between Silas and Cale in question then settled upon the smaller man.
Without a word or introduction, she stepped up to Cale, taking his chin in a surprising strong grip so she could examine his eyes, ears and even his teeth. “Strip,” she ordered crisply.
Jacket, tee shirt, boots, socks, and jeans were discarded until he stood in snug knit briefs under the harsh glare of ceiling lights.
“Everything,” she insisted, tone impatient.
“What if I’m bashful?”
“Then I’m wasting my time here. Don’t speak unless you’re asked a question.”
Cale peeled off his underwear and endured their inspection, the woman’s clinically critical, Lee’s intimately detailed. He tried to pretend Silas and Nica had suddenly been struck blind.
The woman circled him, chilly fingers testing muscle, tracing the scars on his back, particularly the low trio of knife wounds. She noted the band on his upper arm.
“Are you injured?”
“No.”
She rolled down the band to examine the art it covered. “What’s this?”
“A tattoo.”
“What does it mean?”
“That I had too much to drink.”
She gave the back of his arm a vicious pinch. “Don’t attempt to be clever. The significance?”
“What I wanted to become, but never could be.”
“I know this mark. Terriot. You are one of them?”
“Not enough of one to be of any value.”
The bitter bite of his words satisfied her. She moved to stand in front of him, startling a quick inhalation as she boldly cupped his genitals.
“Are you virile?”
“I’ve had no complaints.”
“There’s that not so clever mouth again.” This time her pinch was harder to ignore. He sucked a breath but didn’t wince. “Any offspring?”
“None that I know of.” And if she didn’t stop twisting, perhaps none ever. His posture relaxed only slightly when she finally released him. “Can I get dressed?”
“Not yet.” Under Lee’s caressing stare, Cale waited for her to open the medical bag resting on the bench beside them, withdrawing vials and a syringe. “I’d like to take some samples first.” She tied tubing about his bicep, twisting his arm palm up. “Nice veins.”
“Thank you. What’s this for?”
“Things that don’t concern you and won’t be of use to me unless your performance is as impressive.” She drew several vials, storing them carefully.
Cale grabbed for his clothing, tugging it on briskly. “Can we get on with things now?”
“I have everything I need. We’ll talk later. Depending.”
On whether or not he was still alive.
“What was that about?” he demanded of Lee when the female had left the locker room.
“As I told you, different benefactors have different interests. You don’t need to trouble yourself with what they might be. Not when you have to concentrate on the next hour. You need to be ready.”
“Can I get a minute?”
Casper smiled and handed him another capsule. “Take this. You won’t need a minute.”
The almost eager way he capitulated embarrassed him more than baring his all moments earlier. Cale swallowed down the drug and in the time it took to draw another breath that glassy heat sluiced through his system, bringing all his nerve endings prickling to life. He rolled his shoulders, reveling in the surge of power flushing away every weakness, every flaw. Making him the perfect instrument of destruction.
“A collar’s been requested in case she decides she has use for both of you.”
“No.” He had no intention of letting the Mahogany Mauler walk away. Vengeance boiled through him, heating his brain, hardening his heart, narrowing his intent to just one. Killing the man who’d tried to do the same to him.
“Not an option. You may have to take care of your personal business another time. Win and the options are all yours,” he added with extra emphasis. “I’ll leave you to collect yourself. Good luck, Mr. Terry. Stay alive.”
“That’s my plan.”
After Lee left, Cale faced Silas MacCreedy with a slice and dice glare. “Some comment just dying to get out?”
“Not a one. How are you holding together?”
He glanced at the mirrors over the row of sinks, catching a glimpse of his solid black stare, of the taut guywire tension making veins and tendons bulge. “I’m fine.”
“Can you take him?”
“I’m gonna tear him to fucking pieces,” was the low promise made to his reflection. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Nica caught Silas’s arm. When he tried to object, she tugged him from the room, leaving Cale with his savage likeness. Where he saw nothing his mate could ever love.
His breaths deepened into rumbles. The black holes of his stare ringed with unholy fire as lips drew back from sharp teeth. He gripped the sink with massive claws. This was what he was. What he always had been.
With a roar, he ripped the sink from the wall, sending water spurting all around him. His fist smashing into the mirror, fragmenting his image the way the fury inside him shattered his self-control.
He stalked out of the locker room. Terriot pride and prowess didn’t fuel his aggressive brawler’s stride. It was payback, pure and simple and soon to be fatal.
Dwight waited in the ring, leaning back against the corner ropes, his body gleaming darkly, his smile a wide goading flash of white beckoning him forward. Cale paused to let them place the collar about his neck. He barely felt its weight, unconcerned by its purpose. No electrodes would deter him. No silver spikes were going to interfere with his plans.
He could feel Nica and Silas on either side of him but didn’t acknowledge their presence. He saw the icy doctor seated at ringside in the company of several hulking males and the dapper Casper Lee, but he wasted no more than a second on them. His lungs burned. Each exhale jetted flame. His muscles knotted, coiled, until they shook with fiery anticipation, scarcely restrained, eager to unleash hell upon his mocking rival. His every function simplified to a primitive state of rage until nothing existed beyond his targeted prey.
Silas spoke to him, but words couldn’t penetrate the sound of fury flooding through him. Beyond talk, beyond rules, he only recognized action and result.
He strode to the ring, a storm of power and deadly force. Effortlessly, he vaulted the ropes. Ready to rumble and roar.
No fanfare, no announcer, just Lee’s calm command.
“Gentlemen, you may begin.”
Before Dwight could move away from the ropes, Cale’s spin kick sm
acked the side of his head, his other leg hooking about the thick neck as his body torqued, hauling his opponent to the canvas like a felled tree. After quick, hard strikes from fists and heels to face and solar plexus, Cale rolled to his feet, letting his human appearance drop like a disguising cloak.
The rapid expansion of chest and shoulders ripped through his shirt. Before a dazed Dwight could stagger to his feet, Cale had completely transformed to a deadly and determined foe.
“You’re fast, little man,” Dwight conceded with a grin. “Let’s see how long it takes you to die.”
The big man crouched and lunged, shifting as he hit Cale like a linebacker, driving him to the mat with near crippling force. Soon as he found his breath, Cale was all elbows, knees, and butting head levering some distance between them. Enough for him to fracture ribs with a short, hammering blow and follow through with a raking move that almost tore the mocking grin from the other’s face. He shoved his way free and tumbled to his feet, en garde and in search of another opening.
Dwight mopped the blood from his face. He’d lost an ear but none of his motivation. A quick swipe of his leg dropped Cale on his back, the breath kicked from his lungs. Dwight’s huge hand darted out, planning to snatch them through his ribcage before they could fill with air.
His knuckles met empty canvas. Cale tossed to one side, twisted and rolled up onto his knees, delivering a crushing punch to the other’s scrotum. The big man staggered, crumpling to his knees, howling. Cale leapt on his back, teeth latched into his shoulder, shredding muscle and crunching bone. His legs knotted about the writhing male’s waist and hips, pinning him, wrestling him onto his side where Cale tugged his head to one side, releasing the savaged shoulder to go for bared throat.
“Separate them.”
Shocks of electricity jolted through the collar, stunning Cale, but only for a moment. His bite closed about the thick, corded throat, jetting hot blood into his mouth.
“Stop him!”
A circle of sharp silver needles pierced Cale’s neck, the pain excruciating. Instead of deterring him, it enraged him that much more. Clawed fingers drove into the heaving sternum of his adversary, digging deep, curling and yanking with enough force to break his chest open like a crayfish shell. At the same time, Cale whipped his head back to rip away the side of his neck.