One True Mate 4: Shifter's Innocent

by Lisa Ladew

  When they quieted, he went on. “We didn’t call you because you couldn’t help. He was only over for a moment, and you all have your jobs here to do. I’ve said many times that we are gearing up for something, and what he did today only proves it, although it does change our focus slightly.”

  Trevor spoke up. “What exactly did he do?”

  Mac swore and shook his head, snarling his words. “Fucker materialized inside a prison and made a foxen prisoner disappear. Poof.” Foxen were shiften who could shift into foxes, and who wolven, bearen, and felen did not quite trust, mostly because their origins were suspect. They were not part of the original creation story, and some shiften thought they could be fathered by Khain.

  The mood around the table changed, and Beckett watched Crew’s face closely. He had been on a honeymoon of sorts for the last six weeks, but that was over now.

  Wade held up his hands again. “I hate to say it, but that’s not the worst of what I have to tell you this evening. Jaggar has finally been able to decode about half of the messages found in Ella’s aunt’s basement.”

  Beckett sat up straighter. He hadn’t heard this yet. He’d spent his day sitting in a prison cell, babysitting a different foxen inmate and praying Khain chose him to abduct next. Rhen knew Beckett could use a good battle with Khain. Anything to break up the monotony of work without Crew around.

  Wade cleared his throat and glanced at Jaggar before continuing. “I’ll let Jaggar tell you exactly what he’s been able to discover so far, but now we know why he had such a hard time decoding the messages. They are based on languages, but different languages. Jaggar has cracked two of them so far, and once he figures out what languages the other ones are based on, he’ll be able to crack them, too.”

  Wade stopped talking and looked to Jaggar to tell the rest of the story. Jaggar swallowed and glanced down at his plate. After a moment, Trevor broke in, speaking softly. “How did you figure that out, Jaggar?” His tone implied what a feat it had been.

  Jaggar shook his head and pulled at his collar, but finally spoke. “That’s not important. What’s important is what they said. He wrote each page in a different code language, so I was only able to translate every fourth or fifth page, but what I did translate is scary.” He looked up and met Trevor’s eyes. “And sick.”

  “Wait.” Beckett held up a hand. “Who’s this he that we are talking about?”

  Jaggar raised his eyebrows. “Grey Deatherage.” Beckett swore and pushed his plate away. He’d lost his appetite for dessert.

  Wade looked at him pointedly and motioned for Jaggar to continue.

  “First thing I can say for certain, is that Grey lived in that house for many years. He…” Jaggar swallowed audibly, his throat clicking dryly. “He, ah, dated Ella’s grandmother first and believes he fathered both her children. He then had, ah, relationships with those children. No offspring ever resulted from his relationship with Patricia Carmi, but Linda Carmi had one child who he believed was his. Shay Carmi, Ella’s older sister.”

  Beckett looked around the table and could tell most of them already had heard this information. Trevor looked murderous, Ella queasy, but Dahlia’s hand over her mouth and Mac’s slow head-shake spoke volumes.

  Crew spoke up. “Flowers in the Attic, shiften-style.”

  Mac snorted. “Sorry your granddad is such a dick, Ella.”

  Ella turned her head away and dropped both hands to her belly. Trevor rubbed the back of her neck and she shot him a grateful look.

  Jaggar’s two-toned face went stony, but he pushed on. “Judging from Linda Carmi’s disappearance from Serenity during that pregnancy, until she got sick and had to return, we are guessing Grey’s attentions were unwelcome. We’ve put out an APB for him, but Chicago PD has already been looking for him, and unable to find him for months, since he stopped showing up to work.”

  He picked up some papers on the table and riffled through them, found what he was looking for, then went on.

  “From what I’ve been able to piece together, Grey and the angel who fathered the one true mates…” He broke off and looked through his papers again. “The angel-we know him as Azerbaizan-but Grey calls him Azer, they were friends. Grey might even have known about his plan to father the one true mates before he did it. Grey may have had some say in the making of the pendants and what kind of powers they would have. We’re theorizing that’s why the angel started with Linda Carmi, because of the connection she and Grey had. We also think Grey didn’t know this, maybe still doesn’t know it.”

  Jaggar looked around the table at the stunned expressions, then spoke in a rush. “He also might have at least one of those pendants and he seems to think it has the ability to summon Khain.”

  Beckett snorted. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants. Summon Khain and then what? Kill him? Imprison him? Could that possibly be something that all the one true mates together could do? He remembered the ripped-up forest and thrown trees outside.

  Jaggar waited until Wade was able to quell the outbursts that had erupted in response to what he had said, then continued. “His notes are rambling and incoherent, clearly the work of a crazy male, but it seems that Azerbaizan told him even he couldn’t control what the pendants did, only that they would complement the one true mate’s individual powers and possibly serve as beacons of some sort, but Grey didn’t believe him.” Jaggar’s voice lowered and his eyes dropped to the table. “Besides that, everything I was able to translate leads me to believe that Grey has been working directly against our core mission for thirty or forty years now, and that he may be responsible for some of the acts we have attributed to Khain in the past.”

  The table erupted in talk again and Beckett pushed his hat up on his head, rubbing the scar over his right ear. It wasn’t something he did often, but this conversation had him remembering that night so many years ago when he’d lost his father and brother. He’d seen Grey that day, been abused by him.

  Wade held up his hands. “Everybody quiet down. We need to talk this out, and you all need to be aware of exactly what we’re up against here. If Jaggar is right, and I’ve no reason to believe that he is not, it could mean that Grey has suddenly become even more dangerous to us than Khain is.”

  Trevor dropped a hand heavily to the table. “What do you mean, against our mission? Our only mission is to protect the humans from Khain and get rid of him if we can. That mission?”

  Jaggar nodded, his voice sick. “I’ll need to translate more of the languages to be sure, but it seems that Grey believes if Khain dies, Rhen dies, and therefore his main goal for the last thirty years has been to keep Khain alive, protect and help him.”

  Beckett swallowed over the lump in his throat. Rhen was their deae, their goddess, the being who had created all shiften as warriors in the fight against Khain. Her body currently resided under the police department of Serenity, too weak from the act of creation for her spirit to command.

  “Protect how?” Beckett asked, suspicion leveling him.

  “By killing anybody who has the power to harm him. By running interference between us and him. By trying to disrupt the very concept of us finding mates again.”

  Everybody at the table looked dumbfounded. Trevor finally spoke. “But why?”

  Wade sighed heavily. “I do believe that Grey is insane, as Jaggar has said. I could go so far as to say he is moonstruck beyond hope of return. And if he believes that killing Khain will also kill Rhen, then he will never allow it, because threaded through his writings and ramblings is evidence that he is in love with Rhen, as much as the angel Azer is.”

  Nobody at the table had anything to say to that. Beckett felt sick to his stomach. A wolfen in love with their goddess? A moonstruck wolfen? Which meant he was so crazy he could not be made right again, could not be cured with a run or a healing touch. No, Grey was not just a wolfen, Grey was a Citlali. The most powerful of all wolven, with powers the rest of them did not have, like the ability to stop other wolfen with just a touch,
bind them from moving or breathing.

  Beckett seethed. He had always thought Grey was dangerous, but this proved it. For some reason, Wade was staring at him. Beckett met his eyes questioningly.

  “Beckett, most of the people at this table don’t know the story of how you lost your father and brother.” His voice was gentle, but it did nothing to untwist the knife in Beckett’s chest. “Are you able to share that story? It could be important.”

  It took Beckett a moment to realize why Wade wanted him to tell everyone how his father and brother had been killed. And when he understood, he couldn’t say a word. His throat closed and utter rage pulsed through him. Grey couldn’t have been responsible for that.

  He pushed away from the table, refusing Crew’s hand of support, fleeing from the cabin, from the question that made him want to rip off his clothes, shift, and run until he dropped.

  Chapter 6

  Cerise sat just outside the closet, watching as Kaci’s chest rose and fell evenly. Kaci had fallen asleep a few hours before, still sitting up in the corner, staring at the little TV.

  Cerise had laid her down, turned off the TV, put their only blanket under her head, and covered her with Myles’s old sweatshirts, what they both used as blankets. They had no bed. They slept on the floor every night, what did it matter if it was half-in, half-out of the closet?

  Cerise wanted to sleep, but she was too keyed up. Their entire future rested on what happened in the morning. She stood and looked at the window, noting the utter blackness of the night. Morning would not be coming for hours yet.

  She walked to the door and eased it open, heading out into the trailer to try to make a decision. On the other side of the trailer, in the only other bedroom, she could hear Myles snoring. She tiptoed close and peeked in, counting empty beer cans. Fifteen empties and two jars of moonshine. Perfect.

  She gazed at his wrinkled, sour face. Just die already. Guilt filled her at the thought. She shouldn’t think that about her own father, but she beat it back. She’d suffered more at his hands than she’d ever gained. Negative thoughts were a natural consequence of that.

  Cerise left the doorway to his room and stared at the front door, trying to make her decision, then passed it by. She went back into the room with Kaci and dug her book out of their hidey-hole. She stood next to the window and tried to read by moonlight, but her legs kept wanting to walk, her toes to tap, her body to move. Finally, she gave up reading. She was too antsy to sleep or even stay still.

  Again, she gazed outside. She should ride Zeus one last time, because after tomorrow, she might never see him again. She looked around the room, knowing there was no paper to leave a note for Kaci. She wasn’t sure Kaci could read anyway, because she’d been so resistant to learning. Not that Cerise was any good at teaching something she’d only recently pieced together herself.

  Instead, she dug through the bag they were taking with them and found Kaci’s old stuffed animal that had been in her hand when Myles had first brought her to the car, when he’d stolen her away from her real parents. Fittingly, it was a stuffed horse, the body brown, the mane white. Zeus was the opposite, with a light tan body and a dark brown mane. They still didn’t know where he’d come from. He just showed up one day, woefully underweight for a horse, and providing Kaci and Cerise with a project they sorely needed. An object for their love and attention that let them forget about the negligence and abuse they normally suffered.

  Cerise stared at the frayed toy, at its threadbare skin and cotton popping out in places. She tucked it into Kaci’s hand and hoped if Kaci woke up, she would understand that Cerise would be back soon and would not worry.

  Cerise headed outside through the back door, hooked an apple out of the shed, and stood in the backyard, watching the forest behind it for some sign of Zeus. He normally stayed close by. Movement caught her eye and she turned that way, seeing Zeus clomp toward her, head raising and lowering. He stayed quiet, knowing better than to whinny or neigh this close to the trailer. Myles would chase him away if he ever saw him, or maybe shoot him with buckshot for fun, because Myles was an asshole.

  Cerise held the apple out to Zeus, then patted his neck and flank as she whispered to him. “We’re leaving soon, Zeus. I wish we knew who you belonged to, so we could get you back to him or her. We’re going to miss you so much.”

  Tears threatened but she held them back, remembering that day they’d first seen him, a little over a year ago, pacing them in the forest, watching them with wary eyes. He’d been scrawny and thirsty. They never did know where he came from, but he’d let them ride on his back and listened when they told him not to come too close to the trailer. They filled the trough for him in the woods to drink water from, even in the winter and stole hay from the neighbor’s fenced pasture to feed him.

  “What do you say, Zeus? Are you up for one last ride?” Her whisper carried in the cold night air.

  Zeus nickered softly, pushing his velvety nose against her.

  Cerise bit her lip hard. He’d been a lifesaver, literally, pulling Kaci back from the brink of depression after Sandra had disappeared and Myles had been quicker with his fists than usual. Cerise had done her best to take the blows so Kaci didn’t get many, but Cerise had been still recovering from her long illness, and was not always able to move fast enough. When Zeus showed up, Kaci had smiled again, laughed again. Healed at least a little.

  Cerise grabbed his mane with one hand and swung herself up, a move she was extremely proud of and had spent weeks perfecting. She leaned forward. “One last ride,” she whispered into his ear.

  Zeus took off at once, into the trees. Cerise closed her eyes, feeling the wind whip through her hair, letting her fear about what would come fall away, letting Zeus pick the path they took. Everything would work out. It had to. California was Kaci’s future, and maybe Cerise’s also.

  Cerise kept her eyes closed even when Zeus burst out of the forest to cross a meadow. She could tell he had because the wind grew colder and the scent of evergreen fell away. She opened her eyes and looked around, wondering why Zeus hadn’t circled around and re-entered another trail. Normally he preferred to stay in the woods, and so did she.

  Too late, she realized where Zeus was headed. To the house with the blue and white mailbox that looked like a barn. The house with the tunnel.

  Zeus slowed and Cerise sat up straighter, watching the house as they neared it. No lights were on, it looked as empty as it had been the last time they’d been there. Her thoughts flew to the man at the end of the tunnel they’d found in the basement. The man she’d thought about every day since then.

  What was his name? What did he do? Was he a nice man? A trustworthy man? Or a man like Myles? She winced. No way, he couldn’t be that bad.

  Zeus stopped in front of the gate and stomped his foot as if to say, see, I brought you here. I know this is where you wanted to go.

  Cerise stared at the house for a long time before she slipped off Zeus’s back and walked down the driveway exactly as she had before. Stupid!

  She continued to yell at herself, but still her feet did not stop. She found the window she had broken before, still stuffed with cardboard exactly as she’d left it. With luck, the owner wouldn’t discover it until summer.

  Without thinking, she dropped to her knees, pushed the cardboard out, opened the window, and slid into the basement.

  ***

  Stupid!

  Cerise stood in the tunnels, staring at the door that led to the man she couldn’t stop thinking about. She’d opened the door once, but stood outside as his scent, that strong, clean outdoorsy man scent had washed over her. Was she really going to do this?

  You’re never going to see him again.

  But you’re risking everything. If you get caught, Kaci is doomed.

  Still, she couldn’t stop herself. She pushed her eye up close to the little plastic square again, waited for the beep, then entered his basement and made her way up the stairs, as if in a dream.

 
; Once inside the kitchen, she turned to the living room. Immediately she noticed that the large picture of the city was gone, the one she’d been so fascinated with. Only an empty spot where it had been stared at her.

  Without knowing exactly how she got there, she stopped in front of the empty square of wall and touched it, running her fingers over the inert tan paint, realizing she’d been looking forward to seeing that picture again. She wanted to go to whatever city was depicted in it, for real. Wanted to see those skyscrapers, maybe go in an elevator to the top floor. All new experiences for her. She wanted to live, not just exist any longer.

  She wondered about the man, upstairs sleeping. She could feel him so clearly, almost outline his body in her mind. Who had he given the picture to? A woman? Why? Had he been the photographer? Had he been in a plane?

  Again, her awareness of him peaked. She could feel him, like a pulse in her own body. He called to her, and she was unable to resist. Her feet carried her to the stairs, unconsciously avoiding all the squeaks she’d triggered last time.

  At the top, she froze as a noise came from his bedroom. A light moan. Like he was in pain. Another nightmare? The thought of him hurting bothered her.

  She made her way to his room on trembling feet, barely able to believe she was there again. She was an intruder. But then she saw him and her thoughts fell away. He looked exactly as he had the last time. Strong. Handsome. Kind? Was she imagining that? How could a person look kind in their sleep? Again, a camouflage cap sat on the pillow next to him, and she smiled gently at the sight of it. The room smelled like beer, though, and she frowned at that.

  His hands fisted on the sheet and pulled at it, raising it to chest level. He spoke, his voice a low rasp. “No, not him! Please.”

  Cerise went to the bed quickly, and touched his elbow, holding her fingers there. Immediately, his face relaxed, and the sheet dropped to his body again.

  She stared at his lips, red, and thick, with a cupid’s bow rounding the top one, and wondered what it was like to kiss a man. This man.