Brilliant Heart (Dark Wing Series Book 2)

by Ellie Pond

“Phillip, you’re missing the point. I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want to be with anyone. I want to do my project. And well, that’s it.” She wasn’t capable of focusing on her research and having a personal life. She owed it to Dr. Lila.

  “You’re not happy.”

  “I am. And making me leave here is not going to make me happy, it will make YOU happy. It’s been over for a while, Phillip. Actually, it wasn’t anything to begin with. It’s harsh, but I need you to understand.”

  Elizabeth looked up and Anna was staring at her supportively. Elizabeth paced the two steps the room would allow. Her left hand hugged her elbow across her body.

  “Beth, if we talk this out in person, you’ll see things differently.”

  He knew she hated that name. Did he think using it would win him her affection?

  “Phillip, you need to stop. I will not change my mind.”

  “You’ll see.”

  “NO. I won’t. Don’t call me again.” She pushed the disconnect button and turned her phone off. “That went better than I thought it would.”

  “How did you think it would go?” Anna’s thin left eyebrow arched in question.

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Horrid.”

  “He’ll show up at some point.”

  “You think?” He would. But she hoped that he wouldn’t.

  “Oh, you are going to need an exterminator.” Anna looked at her watch. “But let’s not worry about that now. You’ve done your teaching, research, ordering, and now, we’re going out . . .”

  Elizabeth pointed to her microscope and the tray full of slides. “I can’t. I have too much to do.”

  “Not all day—I get that. But out on deck for lunch. See the sun. Thirty minutes.”

  “You can’t doctor a doctor.”

  “Watch me.” Anna pushed on Elizabeth.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll come. Let me clean up the lab first. Thirty minutes.”

  “Ten.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.” Anna squeezed past her and sashayed out of the lab and down the hall, singing ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me.’ Elizabeth shook her head. Anna’s friendship meant a lot to her.

  3

  A New Start

  Tad scanned the dining room again. Only thirteen more nights of eating dinner with his family and the strangers assigned to their table. Gunnar held court; his gregarious cousin had their tablemate laughing already. He glanced over the top of his Cabernet to the dining room entrance.

  Why he was here still confounded him. The answer? Like the last eighteen months of his life: his mother. She convinced him to come on this cruise. As she’d convinced him to leave his business in New York to help smooth over the pack’s lack of a mated-alpha pair. Now he sat at a group dining table in a restaurant called The Hoard. Everything around them was covered in gold paint. The columns, the chair legs, even the servers’ uniforms—all were gold.

  “Are you okay?” his blonde tablemate next to him asked. “Michele.” She nodded at him.

  His wolf perked up and he pushed it down. No need to get riled up even if the woman setting next him exemplified his taste in females. Long hair, blonde, on the short side with curves he could hang on to while he took her hard. And left quickly after they were both satisfied. A scent across the room turned his head again. He’d picked up on it earlier and the fragrance tortured his cock.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I thought I saw someone I know over there. But I can’t find them . . .” He absently scanned the room.

  “What do they look like? Maybe I could help.” Her cornflower blue eyes flashed at him in an I’m trouble kind of way, with a smirk to back it up.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Right. That’s odd. How can you think you saw someone you know but not know what they look like?” Michele laughed, her long blonde hair waving around her face as she moved.

  “That’s our cousin for you. Odd.” Gunnar leaned in closer to Michele while the waitress, a tall, stunning, leggy platinum blonde, delivered Michele’s meal.

  “Thank you, Naomi,” Tad read off her name tag. He shrugged off Michele’s question. Humans could be weird about shifter senses and he didn’t want to get into it. His eyes followed the waitress back to her station, uncertain as to what he was searching for. His libido was working overdrive. He shook it off and pushed away from lusting after the waitress.

  Michele laughed, looking back and forth between Tad and Gunnar. “Are you sure you’re not brothers? You have the same blue eyes. Light brown, sun-kissed hair. Everything, really.”

  “I can assure you we don’t have the same everything.” Gunnar pivoted towards Michelle more. “That is one thing we can agree on, cousin. You really think we’re similar?”

  “Yes, like twins.” Michele said.

  This was an ongoing joke in their family. Even their mothers got confused with their baby pictures. His mother would buy him and Gunnar matching clothes and force them to take pictures together, like she did with his sisters who were twins.

  “Get to know us a little and you’ll change your mind.”

  His hair on the back of his neck stood up. The aroma danced from the entryway of the dining room. He’d picked up on it earlier as he wandered the ship around the lobby. And again on the pool deck where he’d grabbed an amazing slice of pizza and berated Aurora for her behavior—she didn’t have to mate Spencer, but if she wasn’t going to tell him that, she couldn’t rub herself all over Duncan.

  He told himself he was learning the ship as he wandered around, not following the scent. On deck three it overpowered him, but a crew member found him and escorted him out of the crew-only area he’d wandered into. The scent in the elevator lobby had almost kept him from coming into the dining room. But the knowledge that Duncan and Aurora were walking a fine line had made him come in. Damn that promise to his mother. She knew that Duncan would get himself into trouble this vacation. He turned towards the lobby but couldn’t see anyone out there.

  “What in the hell are you looking at?” Gunnar wrung his hand on the corner of Tad’s chair and looked behind them.

  “He’s looking for someone he doesn’t know. He said it a minute ago—weren’t you listening?” Michele’s voice rang out, and she took another bite of her salad.

  “Really, no, I tend not to listen to him. When you listen to him, he goes on and on about things I don't care anything the hell about. It’s always about work. I’m not sure he’s capable of talking about anything interesting. Now, where are you from, sweetheart? You have the cutest little accent. Are you from western Pennsylvania too?”

  “Why, isn't that kind of you. I’ve lived most of my life in Erie. Originally I’m from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, of course—can’t you tell that?”

  “He can’t, but if you listened, Gunnar, you could tell that she doesn’t have a diphthong on her ‘ou’ sound like you do.” Tad crossed his arms over his chest.

  Gunnar set his glass down hard on the table. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. No, I did not hear the . . . what did you call it again?” Tad shook his head. This routine of Gunnar’s of playing dumb got him into a lot of beds and even more trouble.

  “Diphthong.” Michele smacked her lips.

  “No diphthong, only a beautiful melody.”

  “You are so full of shit. Both of you. They're not bothering you, are they, Michele?” Officer Laurit spoke firmly but quietly. The First Officer was the biggest shifter Tad ever met, not only in height but breadth. His arms were the size of Tad’s own large muscular legs. Laurit’s hair, uncharacteristically for a ship’s officer, hit the collar of his uniform, and he wore a two-month-old beard. If he let it, his wolf would have kowtowed to the male.

  “No. I don’t have any siblings, so this banter is all quite amusing.”

  “See, Tad? I’m amusing.” He ripped a piece of crusty bread in two.

  “Amusing isn’t a good thing here, Gunnar.” Tad took a long drink from his beer. Only a trace of the scent remained
. Whatever perfume it was, he wanted to roll in it.

  “Are you okay?” First Officer Laurit squinted at him from across the table.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I just keep smelling something. And I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. It’s like cherry blossoms and meatloaf. It’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled,” Tad blurted out, instantly regretting it.

  “Meatloaf?” Michele said.

  “You mean like a mate?” Laurit asked.

  “What? No. A mate?” Tad flinched.

  “You’ll have to forgive him, Officer Laurit. Tad here doesn’t believe in mates. Not fated ones, anyway,” Gunnar said.

  “It’s Luca, and how do you not believe in fated mates?”

  “You do? I believe in science.” Tad leaned back in his chair.

  Luca’s slicked-back hair brushed his collar. He paused and leaned back in his chair too. “Why can’t fated mates be science?” Luca stared at Tad.

  “I find it hard to believe that biology would only want us to find that one special person. Don’t you?” Tad pushed the food around on his plate. The food was delicious, but he wasn’t hungry.

  “No.” Luca cut off a large bite of his steak and stabbed it with his fork. “Look at the four of us at this table: we’re walking magic. I can turn into a bear who is a good thousand pounds bigger than my current weight. That’s not science; it’s magic.” He shoved another bite—the other half of the steak—into his mouth. “And I’m telling you that sounds like you scented your mate.” He waved his fork at Tad.

  “I highly doubt that, Luca. Tad there is too old to find his mate,” Gunnar said. “Forty. Ancient.”

  “Yes, but I’m better-looking than you.” Tad didn’t glance at his cousin.

  “I read that the oldest newly fated mate pair were in their sixties. While thirty-two is the average that shifters have met their fated mate by, that doesn’t mean there aren’t outliers.” Michele sipped her wine. Her hair cascaded over her shoulder. Damn. A woman that quoted statistics was sexy.

  “Yeah, I read that too—definitely a one-off by the press. Another one I read said if you haven’t found your mate by thirty-two, you’re not going to. And that sixty-year-old couple was making shifters miss out on mating altogether. Not taking a love match while they waited for a fated mate that might not exist. Shifters as a species might suffer a decline in numbers.” Luca ate another slice of bread in one bite.

  Tad glanced at Duncan and Spencer. Hopefully they were both too busy moping to be listening to the rest of the table. He would need to do even more damage control to get Spencer off of this foolish pact with Aurora.

  Gunnar reached around Michele and smacked Tad’s head. “He’s going to be alone forever.”

  “That’s fine with me. I didn’t scent a mate. Probably some good-tasting dessert. I like to think of magic as science we don’t understand yet, but we will, one day.” Mates, and especially fated ones, weren’t for him. He didn’t know how to care for anything else but money and science.

  “Meatloaf as dessert?” Michele shrugged.

  “You would get along with our doctor. Doc is digging deep into a research project of why widowed fated mates die early. As if there is science to a broken heart,” Luca said.

  “I’m sure with time we can find a correlation. Believing in something has been shown to make it happen,” Michele smirked.

  “There you go, getting him going.” Gunnar touched Michele’s arm. His eyes flashed at Tad.

  She looked up and smiled at him. “I guess he’s right; I get carried away. Love—it’s not rational.”

  “Love isn’t something I need or want. It’s a time and soul sucker.” Tad finished his plate. His parents weren’t fated mates; he wasn’t even sure they loved each other. From what he remembered, they were good friends. He hated needy people. Take me here, buy me this—that’s what his short relationships amounted to.

  “Everyone needs love.” Michele smiled.

  “Not Tad—he just needs a debate.” Gunnar focused on Michele.

  “Nothing wrong with a good debate.” Luca raised his fork, the last bite of steak on it.

  Tad noticed Aurora coming before either Duncan or Spencer did. Tension hugged the table.

  “Hey, princess, I saved you a seat across from me.” Gunnar patted the table across from Gunnar but next to Duncan.

  This was not going to end well. Duncan needed to back away from Aurora or let her know his feelings. And he needed to have a long conversation with Spencer about calling off this childish pact. Both Duncan and Spencer had hardly said a word since they sat down. Even though Michele kept batting her eyes at Duncan and laughing at the few things he said, Duncan didn’t take any notice. As was usual when Aurora was around.

  Aurora babbled on about something with Michele. The scent was back again, and a nagging desire to stand up and track it pulsed in him. His wolf urged him to get up. Fighting his urges was something that Tad prided himself on, and he pulled himself back to the moment. He rarely shifted and only when it became necessary. It was going on a year since he’d been in fur. He didn’t see the need—he controlled his wolf, not the other way around.

  Naomi, the waitress, dropped off a copious amount of food for Aurora. Tad smiled at the blonde, but she rolled her eyes, her gold pants singing like corduroys on the first day of school as he watched her strut away.

  Gunnar dug into the food, eating off of Aurora’s plate, ignoring the low-pitched growls from both Duncan and Spencer. Duncan was going to get hurt physically, by his alpha brother or emotionally by Aurora for sure. Spencer sat with his jaw clenched.

  “I see that you signed up for a cage match.” Spencer motioned to Duncan.

  “Yup.”

  “Were you going to tell me about it?”

  “Didn’t think I would have to. You’re my alpha, not my mom.” The entire table went quiet.

  “Correct. Yet that response makes me want to remind you what alpha means.”

  “It’s a cage match, not a challenge match. It’s not to the death. It means nothing, Spencer. Don’t worry about it.” He spat out each sentence.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be a family dinner without an argument, would it? Right, Tad?” Gunnar reached across Michele and smacked Tad’s head again.

  “That seems to be how I remember last Thanksgiving.” Tad put his napkin on his plate. While he had made a promise to his mom, Michele, an innocent, was in the middle of this. “Well, I’ll be there to cheer you on, cousin.” Tad stood up and patted Duncan on his shoulder. “Care to join me for a drink, Michele?” He held out his hand for Michele to take.

  “That sounds like a great idea.” Michele stood up, but walked next to him without touching. “Good luck, Aurora. I’ll tell Lauren to look for you. Officer Laurit, thanks for the introduction to my tablemates.

  “The pleasure was all mine. Have a good evening.” He shook everyone's hand. “I’ll see you all around the ship.” He left the dining room through the kitchen.

  By the time Michele and Tad had reached the front door, Gunnar called after them, “Tad, Michele, wait for me.”

  Tad sighed. Getting rid of Gunnar had been too easy. “We should have walked faster.”

  Michele laughed, her hands on her hips. Her long blond hair swept around her curves. Her head came only to his shoulders.

  “Let’s get a drink.” Gunnar linked arms with Michele on the opposite side from where Tad stood.

  “That sounds like a lot of fun. Where to?”

  The Bjørn Bar loomed across from the lobby of the dining room; the sign’s golden letters in an old-world font stood above the door. Dark wooden paneling gleamed with polish, and the heavy oak doors held a large brass bear’s head in the middle of each door.

  “Convenience is king, and this place looks like fun.” Gunnar pulled open the door and a loud mixture of voices and Scottish music pushed at them. “Ladies first, or should I say lasses?”

  Michele curtsied first to Gunnar and then to Tad. “Why, thank yo
u, gentlemen.”

  The bar was full. Couples snuggled in the corners, while a sizable group of people were dancing to three fiddlers. Performers sang a haunting duet on the raised platform stage. He became so focused on the singers he didn't notice Michele and Gunnar taking stools on the other side of the enormous oak bar. He squatted near an older couple, also enraptured by the song.

  “Here, honey, plop half a cheek down on the chair with me.” The older woman beckoned him over.

  “I’m fine.” Tad eyed her companion, who took no notice. “I squat all day with my students at school.” Being a teacher for the last year was an easier starter to a conversation. Everyone had a family member who was a teacher and they were happy to tell you about them. When he said, ‘I own a bio tech advising company for hedge managers worth 2.5 billion, but currently work as a high school English teacher,’ he got way too many questions. He now led with teacher, Kunyon ball coach, or even EMT. He had recently started volunteering with the Hundsburg fire department.

  “A teacher. I can see that.” She eyed him and he wondered what led her to that conclusion. He was wearing clothes left over from days in the city. His shoes cost more than a lot of people’s home mortgage payments. And his watch cost more than the bill for both rooms on the fourteen-day cruise. While Aurora had won a free cruise, the charges for the rest of them were anything but free.

  The song finished and the couple at the table behind them got up and left.

  “Pull up a chair and join us properly,” the male said.

  “Thanks, I will.” The chair squealed along the floor as the music started up again. Tad glanced over to Gunnar and Michele at the bar.

  “I think you’ve lost your gal. But you're welcome to hang with us. Gretchen. And this is Harold, my mate.”

  Tad looked over at the bar. Michele laughed at something Gunnar said. It didn’t matter. He had lost a few to Gunnar, but he won as many as he lost. Ten years older than Gunnar, they had the same tastes in females. Her high regard for love put him off anyway. And Michele wasn’t the first to ask if they were twins. And Gunnar wasn’t the dumb-ass he presented to the world. But that was not for him to judge. He didn’t love the guy any less for acting like a buffoon. “Theodore, but you can call me Tad.” Tad shook hands with them both and settled into the oak captain’s chair.