Chapter Four
Macey locked the front door and then dutifully made the rounds of the cottage to ensure all the windows were shut. She shook her head at herself as she did so, but there had been something so compelling about Sasha as he urged her to do so. The man was clearly deluded, but it wouldn’t hurt to indulge him. Besides, keeping everything locked down tight would hopefully also ensure that Kenny stayed put, should he sleepwalk again.
He usually didn’t do it more than once in one night, but the episodes were getting closer again. If only she knew what triggered them, but she daren’t take him to the doctor again. They asked too many awkward questions that she couldn’t explain, least of which was her nephew’s unusual blood type. Macey was no microbiologist, but having animal components in your bloodstream was certainly not the norm.
Fortunately, it had been put down to contamination of the blood sample, and thanks to Macey’s far-from-ethical replacing of the new sample with another one from one of her little patients at the hospital, nothing further had been done. A grim smile kicked up her lips as she looked in on her nephew. Peacefully sleeping now, he looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world, but she knew that was just an illusion. Something was very wrong with her precious boy, and someone out there meant him harm.
After the incident of having to swap the sample, Macey knew she had to move. Somewhere far away from Glasgow and the shadow of her sister’s connections to the criminal underbelly, and somewhere where no one knew them.
As far as the police was concerned, her sister had died of a self-inflicted drug overdose, but Macey had never believed that. As fucked-up as her sister was, she wouldn’t have injected in front of Kenny, and the police had found him hiding under his bed after a neighbor had alerted them due to the bad smell coming from her sister’s apartment.
Macey swallowed the rising bile down and pushed those thoughts firmly back into the compartment in her mind marked don’t even go there. As Kenny’s only living relative, Macey had taken custody of the traumatized little boy. He was slowly coming out of his shell, nightmares and sleepwalking notwithstanding, but after the second incident of someone trying to break into her flat, Macey knew she had to get out of Dodge, so to speak.
A fresh start, that’s what they’d needed, and when the position in Whitehaven had come up, Macey had jumped at the chance. It had meant a pay cut, but she hadn’t minded. She had some money saved up, after all. They’d stopped at a bed-and-breakfast for a little while and, on one of her aimless drives through the Cumbrian countryside, had happened upon the secluded cottage.
Kenny had visibly brightened and bounced around the place, and on impulse, Macey had rung the number on the faded sign. Before she could even think to question her unusual hastiness, she’d been shown around and fallen hopelessly in love with the little cottage. It had come fully furnished and much reduced in price for a quick sale, due to the owner having left the country, and Macey had jumped at the chance to own her place.
On impulse, she walked into the small room she’d set up as her office, though calling it that was rather an exaggeration at this point. The room had been devoid of anything when she’d bought the place and was now filled with all the boxes that held her precious collection of books. In time, she wanted to have the walls filled with book cases, a mini library of sorts, and her mood lifted instantly at the thought. Yawning, she powered up her laptop set on the desk by the window and searched for the local paper. Middle Brook had to have one, and sure enough, it came up more or less straight away. Going through the archives, she went back a year to the time Bridget, her oh-so-helpful estate agent, claimed the owner of this cottage had left the country. What she found made her blood run cold.
There was talk of a serial killer on the loose. Several tourists had gone missing, and the paper was full of various articles. Several of them featured Sasha, surrounded by two equally imposing prime specimens of men, and one slender-looking female. They seemed to form part of the local council, together with an old woman. Leaning heavily on her walking stick, her expressive eyes conveyed intelligence, and Macey spent ages just staring at her picture. Mrs. Henry Hastings, the paper said. There was an article about a successful summer fete, the wedding of one Ronan Bernhard to Tina Snowdon, followed by a birth announcement of twins to that couple. Another long-haired blond guy in the pictures, Leon Friars, could be seen proudly holding up a pink bundle while his wife looked on lovingly in another birth announcement.
Then there was a brief announcement of the appointment of one Ronan Bernhard to deputy head of Middle Brook Primary, and Macey spent some time checking out that school. Small, as it was, it had excellent Ofsted reports, and just as Sasha had indicated, it had recently opened a daycare center for three- to five-year-olds. Macey had to laugh at the image of this Ronan. Heavily inked, just like Sasha was, he didn’t look the type to look after children, but the school clearly thrived under his tutelage. Maybe she would go and check it out. Kenny would no doubt benefit from contact with local children, even if the thought of leaving him here when she was miles away at work filled her with dread.
She spent the next hour researching Middle Brook, and felt happier about her impulsive decision to move here. She’d purposely stayed away from the neighboring village, mindful of her need to stay hidden, but it had been weeks now and nothing untoward had happened, so maybe she had left whatever trouble had followed her sister successfully behind in Glasgow. Then again, she had done everything in her power to hide her trail. She’d only left a PO Box as her forwarding address when leaving her job in Glasgow, and as far as her new employer was concerned, she was still living at the B&B in Whitehaven.
Maybe she was just being paranoid, but better to be safe than sorry. Of course, if someone really wanted to find her, they would, but Macey shoved that disturbing thought away, too.
She had no grounds for her suspicion after all, just a gut feeling, the very same emotion that had led her to this cottage and had stopped her from researching the history too closely. The screen became blurry and she rubbed her tired eyes and yawned. It was three in the morning and Kenny would no doubt be up in a few short hours, bouncing and ready to play. At least she had a few days off now before her next shift pattern so she could catch up on her sleep and make new childcare arrangements.
Before she clicked off, a news report that popped up at the bottom of her screen caught her attention. The image it showed was that of her cottage, and the title made her shriek.
Mysterious disappearance of the owner of Round Tree Cottage. Interior shows signs of struggle, yet no further evidence of foul play found. Local police is baffled by the disappearance of Ronald Norton.
Macey swore under her breath. As far as she had been told by Bridget, Ronald Norton had left the country and his remaining family had wanted a quick sale of the cottage. She’d certainly held all the deeds, so Macey knew she was indeed the owner of this place, but which version was the truth? Bridget’s or this newspaper article?
Unbidden, Sasha’s deep, compelling voice echoed around her brain.
“You never know, darling.”
She was going to give herself a headache trying to figure this out, and there seemed to be no more information concerning the cottage, so maybe it was all just some sort of misunderstanding. Either way, she was not going to get the bottom of this tonight, so Macey shut off her computer. After checking once more on Kenny and having gone through her bed time ablutions, she sank into her comfy bed with a sigh.
Sleep, that’s what she needed.
* * * *
Sleep was foremost on Sasha’s brain, too, as he pulled up outside of Ronan’s cottage, turned off his Harley, and rolled his shoulders to get the kinks out of his neck. It had been one hell of a long night with him circling Macey’s property.
The lady in question seemed to have an unsettled night, too. It had been ages before she’d switched out all the lights, and even then Sasha had sensed her moving about in the cottage. His boy, at le
ast, had slept soundly, and he grinned to himself as he recalled Macey’s groan when the little fellow had woken her up. Sasha had caught a brief glimpse of his son’s mass of black curls at Macey’s bedroom window, as the first rays of the sun had peered over the horizon, and while he hadn’t been able to see what was going on, he could imagine it just fine. The bed springs had creaked as though Kenny had bounced on top of it, and Macey’s sleep-laden voice had made him so hard he was sure he could have pounded concrete with his dick.
Satisfied that his mate and son were safe until nightfall, at least, he’d shifted back and hot-footed it over to Ronan’s. The ride had deflated his wood somewhat, but thoughts of her made that unruly body part of his press painfully against his jeans again. Sasha swore under his breath and, stiff-legged, walked up to knock on Ronan’s door. He managed to pull his T-shirt out of his waist band to cover the evidence of his current blue-balls syndrome just in time before the door opened.
Ronan Bernhard held one of his squirming toddlers under his arm and made a grab for the other fast-crawling and half-shifted bear cub that tried to get out of the front door.
“Oh, no you don’t, junior.” The little boy giggled and squirmed as his father held him up by one foot, and turned completely human again. Ronan flung this one over his shoulder, and gave Sasha the once-over through narrowed eyes.
“Wanna tell me why you show up on my doorstop smelling like death? Tina will have my hide if I let you come in like that.”
Sasha bowed his head and held his hands up in a wary act of surrender.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important, Ronan, so put your claws away and let me in, will you? I need your help.” He ground the words out through clenched teeth, and Ronan leaned in to sniff him. His bear growled low in his throat and, turning, he put his twins on the floor.
“Go find Mama, guys.”
The speed with which the boy and girl crawled away giggling and up the stairs was something else. Ronan watched their progress while he stepped to one side to let Sasha in, and then gestured for him to step into the living room.
“This had better be good, Sasha. I gotta tell you, though, I’m sick and tired of cleaning up your mess. Clearly this involves a woman, as per usual. Whose wife have you fucked this time?”
Sasha winced at the implied criticism, and ran a hand through his straggly hair. Ronan pulled a face and stepped away.
“Keep your fucking arms down, pussy cat, you reek. You do know what a shower is, right?”
Sasha chose to ignore the inherent insult and flipped the bear shifter the finger. He was too fucking tired for more of a response, and Ronan smirked and stared Sasha down. Arms crossed over his impressive chest, he was a formidable presence.
“I didn’t get a chance to shower. I spent all night patrolling Round Tree Cottage.”
That got Ronan’s attention, and his bear flashed behind his eyes.
“We got new vamps I don’t know about?” he asked, and visibly relaxed when Sasha shook his head.
“No, I didn’t sense any.”
“Well, that’s something, but why the hell are you patrolling an empty cottage? What aren’t you telling me?”
Sasha’s panther snarled at the bear shifter, and Ronan’s eyebrows rose to his hairline.
“I didn’t say it was empty. It has a new owner, and I was protecting her.”
“You, protecting someone of your own free will?” Ronan laughed so hard the floorboards shook, and Tina, his wife, stuck her head round the corner.
“Everything all right in here?” she asked, and crinkled her nose when she took in Sasha. “I hope you’ve not brought trouble to our door, Sasha, though, guessing by my husband’s reaction, you didn’t.”
Sasha shook his head and smiled at the human.
“No, ma’am, I didn’t.”
Her eyes widened at his address, and in truth he’d surprised himself by that, but he did like Tina, and besides, she was human like Macey and he got the distinct feeling that Macey would need her to make sense of everything. He didn’t look forward to revealing who he truly was, but he also knew that he would have to do so sooner or later, if he was to stand any chance of winning Macey over.
“Are you feeling all right, Sasha?” she asked, and threw her husband a glance. Sasha caught Ronan’s shrug of his shoulders out of the corner of his eyes and willed his agitated panther to stand down. Guess he’d just had to come out and say it.
“Yeah, I guess. How did you feel when you realized you had a mate…and son?”
Stunned silence filled the room, and Tina’s eyes grew wide as saucers as she looked between Sasha and Ronan.
“That’s not funny, pussy cat.” Ronan’s voice held the distinct growl of his bear, and Tina blanched.
“I don’t think he’s joking, Sir.” Her soft voice soothed the churning in Sasha’s gut somewhat, and he offered her a tentative smile. “Look at him. He’s not normally this disheveled.” She took a breath in and wrinkled her nose. “I’m going to leave you two to discuss this, and go and make some breakfast. Sasha, you’re welcome to eat with us, once you’ve had a shower and borrowed some fresh clothes of Ronan’s. You’ll put the twins off their food otherwise.”
She grinned at Ronan’s growl in answer and left the room.
“Okay, pussy cat, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you better start at the beginning and tell me what the fuck is going on. How can you be a father?”
By the time Sasha had filled Ronan in on the limited amount he knew, the bear shifter had grown thoughtful.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I guess that explains why none of us knew that cottage was occupied. I would have known, had she come into the village at any point, and the sale was handled by an outside agency. She has no clue her nephew shifts, you say?”
Sasha shook his head.
“I don’t think so. I’m sure she senses there is something, but she doesn’t know what it is, and she’s afraid, Ronan. I don’t like it. She’s hiding something and I like that even less, and she definitely doesn’t know about the cottage’s history.”
Ronan rubbed his jaw and nodded.
“That’s not surprising. We made sure that all kept quiet and died a death, after all, and you can bet your fucking ass that the estate agent wouldn’t have told her.”
Ronan started to pace the confines of his living room and Sasha’s hackles rose.
“I’ll ask Mrs. H to renew her protection spells on that area, and I’ll put the Mongrels on patrol. She’ll never know the wolves are there, but I reckon it’s necessary until we know more.”
A grim smile lit up Ronan’s harsh features when Sasha huffed out a breath of sheer relief.
“You sure that boy is yours?” he asked, and took a step back when Sasha’s beast came to the surface, hissing and snarling. “Yeah, dumb question, of course you’re sure. And she’s the sister, you say. Hmm, I suppose that might explain why you managed to impregnate the boy’s mother when she wasn’t your destined mate, but this is fucked up, for sure.”
“Tell me about it.” Sasha had to agree with that assessment and winced when Ronan punched him in the shoulder.
“Go and have a shower, and then join us in the kitchen. After that, you best grab some sleep. You look dead on your feet, and besides, it’ll take a few hours until we can arrange to have that new door delivered. You’re right, of course. Protection spells or not, she’ll need a decent front door.” He chuckled to himself as though he found the fact that Sasha had kicked her old door in most amusing.
“Just as well. I’ve got some favors to pull in. You’re gonna need all the help you can get. Human mates are…well, let’s just say you’ll have your hands full.”
“I heard that, Sir.”
Ronan grinned from ear to ear as Tina mock-glared at him, one toddler on each hip.
“And I’m going to have to meet this mate of yours once you’re ready to introduce her, cause, ya know, I reckon she’ll need all the help she can get dealing with you
. After all, I know what you Dom-ly shifter types are like.”
She stuck her tongue out Ronan, and he grinned at Sasha.
“Yeah, see what I mean. Never a dull moment.”
Sasha groaned under his breath and took the stairs three at a time. A shower sounded heavenly right now, and the smells coming from the kitchen made his stomach rumble. At least Ronan hadn’t laughed him out of here. He was pretty sure that Leon and Eva wouldn’t be quite so lenient. He had months of piss take from his fellow Protectors in front of him, of that he was sure, but it would be worth it to ensure Macey and Kenny were safe and an accepted part of their shifter community.
‘Cause he couldn’t shake the feeling that Macey would not welcome any of this news, and if whatever trouble she was in came to find her…they would get one hell of a fucking surprise.
Chapter Five
Macey laughed as Kenny’s spoon scraped along the bottom of his bowl and, abandoning the utensil, the little boy stuck his head inside to lick the last remaining cookie dough off the container.
“I think you’ve got it all now, baby,” she said, and Kenny re-emerged with the chocolate mixture smeared all over his face. He grinned, licked his lips and then swiped over his mouth with his sleeve, leaving a chocolate-and-bogie-filled mess behind on his long-sleeved T-shirt.
Macey rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair. As per usual, the little dirt magnet had a runny nose and of course, using a tissue was beyond the rascal. He looked at his sleeve, shrugged his little shoulders, and hopped off the stepstool he stood on to be at the right height to help with the baking.
“Sorry, Mama Macey,” he said, and Macey’s heart filled with painful joy like it always did when he called her that. She ought to correct him, and had done so in the beginning, but he seemed to derive as much comfort from calling her Mama as she did from hearing him call her that, and by adding the Macey, he seemed to make that all-important distinction in his little head.
Her Panther Protector [The Protectors 5] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 4