by Maia Dylan
“Holy shit,” Grant Snow murmured. “Who in the hell is that?”
“Melaina,” Xanthe whispered, her voice filled with longing.
“It’s her!” Faith called excitedly as she jumped up and down in Trent’s arms and pointed at the screen. “Oh, my God! I can’t believe it. I looked for her forever after I saw her in the bookstore. Okay, so she thinks I am a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but she wouldn’t be the first or the last. I know that woman. And Grant—” Faith spun to point at the deputy who had yet to take his eyes from the woman on the screen. “You’ve seen her and you felt something. I knew you would. I just knew it. Wait until I tell Angel. She is going to absolutely—”
A piercing whistle filled the room, and all the shifters groaned at the same time.
“Shit! Sorry, guys,” Xanthe apologized as she lowered her hands. “Faith, how do you know my sister? When did you meet her?”
“It was the day that Bear took Noah and Angel. I was in the bookstore and saw that woman in the café talking with Angel. She had said she was here to see a sick family member. Oh, snap!” Faith gasped and she snapped her fingers. “That must have been you, Xanthe! She told Angel she had been spending time with you in the hospital.”
Dane felt the joy and sadness that Xanthe felt at those words, ebbing toward him down their bond. He could understand that. She had thought her sister was lost to her, but Melaina had been there with her when Xanthe had needed her most. She must have visited her in the hospital.
Wait.
“Hunter and I were with you every day. We would have smelled if someone else had been in that room with you.” Dane frowned as he turned back to the camera.
“And despite seeing that good-looking honey on that screen,” Zane said as he crossed his arms across his chest, “there is no scent in that yard except for Hunter and Xanthe.”
“So, what?” Maurice said as he pushed away from the wall where he had been leaning. “This woman has no scent, can move without being seen, and has a hard-on for her sister’s mates? Who is this bitch?”
A growl throbbed through the room, and the essence of pure dominance filled the room. All eyes flew to the wolf that had lowered himself to a fighting stance. “Don’t call her bitch.” Grant Snow was one dangerous shifter, and as Dane had suspected, dominant as fuck if the waves of aggression rolling off him were anything to go by.
Then Grant frowned and relaxed, the air pressure lifting as the dominance was lifted and he shook his head. “Sorry, man. Not sure where that came from.”
“I do!” Faith squealed as she raised her hand. Trent gently lowered her arm and spoke in her ear.
“Melaina took Hunter,” Xanthe said as she turned toward Dane and pressed her face into his chest. “Why would she do that?”
Everyone froze when the jingle of a phone sounded in the room. Dane guessed the person on the other end of the line held all the answers to their questions. He hoped she would be reasonable and return their mate. Anything else would be unacceptable to him and his lion.
* * * *
Xanthe gasped when she realized it was her own cell phone. Pulling it from her back pocket, she looked at the number that came up, not recognizing it. She answered with a breathless, “Hello?”
“Xanthe.” The sound of Melaina’s voice on the other end of the phone had Xanthe closing her eyes against the sting of tears. “I need to speak with you, little sister. Face to face.”
“I want that, too. Tell me where you are. Is Hunter okay? Why the hell did you take him? Why didn’t you come inside and talk with me?” Xanthe knew she was speaking quickly and no doubt sounded a little unhinged, but fuck it. She was talking to the sister she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years, about her mate whom she just kidnapped. That would be enough to unhinge anyone.
Dane ran a hand down her back in a firm and calming gesture.
“I’m not sure you know who this man is. He’s dangerous, Xanthe. You shouldn’t be anywhere near this man or the big blond guy he runs with.”
“Melaina, I know exactly who he is and what he is, and he’s mine. Both of them are mine, and if you hurt one hair on his head, you and I aren’t going to have the reunion I have hoped and prayed for over the years.”
There was silence for a moment then. “You know what he is, Xanthe?” Melaina’s voice was soft and hesitant, making Xanthe frown.
“Of course I know what he is.” Xanthe paused, then played a hunch. “Do you?”
“Oh, God!” Melaina cried over the phone. “He is like the other one, isn’t he? He turns into a fucking lion like the blond fucker I shot this afternoon. Jesus, Xanthe! I have spent most of my life trying to keep you out of the line of fire. To keep you safe. And you walk right into the fucking lion’s den. Jesus, I might not have given him enough. He’ll come around sooner than I had hoped.”
“You shot Dane?” Xanthe shrieked and she heard Dane growl from beside her. “What in the hell is wrong with you? And what are you keeping me safe from? Talk to me, Melaina. I need to understand what the hell is going on here. And we want our Hunter back!.Melaina must have taken the phone away from her ear and muffled her voice with her hand. Then she launched into a barrage of curses so blue that Xanthe flinched. Half of them were in English, some in Greek, and others she had absolutely no clue as to their origin.
When she had run out of steam, Melaina took a couple of deep breaths.
“All right, Xanthe. I am going to do something so completely stupid that I know it’s going to come back on me and bite me in the ass.” Melaina sighed and Xanthe could hear the frustration in her voice. “The two ladies who have been helping you at your store have left for the day. Meet me there. Now. Come alone.”
“Hell, no!” Dane roared from beside her, obviously having heard every word of their conversation. “Look, Melaina. You don’t know me, but your sister and the man you have with you are the most important people in my life. You don’t trust me because I’m a shifter, and I don’t trust you because you are entirely too fucking trigger-happy for my liking. But know this: If you want to speak to Xanthe, it is going to be with me right beside her. End of story.”
“Dane,” Xanthe admonished automatically.
“Baby, she shot me in the shoulder. And worse, took out a fifteen-hundred-dollar tire on my truck and that shit is not covered by my insurance, so yeah. I am a little distrustful.” Dane glared at the phone as if Melaina could actually see him. “So I will come with my mate to meet you, and we will all have a friendly little chat. Nice and civilized-like.”
“And you’ll keep from flipping out and going all growly feline, biting lion on me?” Melaina asked. “I’ve seen the impossible happen this afternoon when a lion burst from within you. Know that if you do lose it and go furry, I will to anything … anything to protect my sister. She is the most important person in my life and I will not allow any harm to come to her.”
Dane’s expression softened slightly. “We have a deal. Xanthe and I will meet you and Hunter at Lotions and Potions.”
There was a slight pause from Melaina. “Oh, I won’t be bringing the other lion with me. I think I’ll hold onto him for a while. A little insurance policy. I know that you have a team of highly trained men in that house with you, and no doubt more throughout this town. Well, I have some friends of my own, so have them follow you to Xanthe’s shop at their own risk. You have ten minutes.”
The phone call ended with a click and Xanthe froze for a short moment, and then started making her way to the door.
“Wait, baby.” Dane placed a hand on her arm. “We need to have a plan.”
“We have a plan, Dane.” Xanthe pulled her arm free and grabbed her keys from the bowl on her sideboard. “We go the shop, talk with my sister, and get Hunter back. Then we find out what sort of trouble she’s in and kill it. Any questions?”
Dane grinned and shook his head. “Nope. Sounds about right.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as fast as Xanthe had hoped. Dane had had to convince
his team to stand down for an hour, and Xanthe talked Faith into waiting there and not at Coffee and Quills. Ty, however, was heading over to Rowena’s store, not wanting to be too far from the action, and at least that way he could feed information back to the ever-nosy Faith. It was closer to fifteen minutes by the time they got out of the house and made their way to the shop.
Xanthe’s whole body shook as she waited for Dane to unlock the door. He wouldn’t let her do it, nor was she allowed to walk out from behind him. They stepped into the store with Xanthe acting like his shadow, and once they cleared the doorway, Dane started to growl, a low ominous sound that had Xanthe shivering,
“You don’t need the gun, Melaina.” Dane’s voice was slightly slurred, a sure sign that his lion was close. “We came as you asked. We’re alone and unarmed, so put the gun down and talk with your sister.”
The lights came on in the store and Xanthe peeked around Dane’s arm and sobbed at the sight of her older sister. She stood sideways, firearm raised in Dane’s direction, and didn’t waver. Despite the fact her eyes slightly flickered at Xanthe’s distressed sound, she never took her gaze from Dane.
“I think I’m just going to keep it pointed where it is for now,” Melaina countered. “But I can talk at the same time. I’m amazingly multi-talented like that.”
“Melaina.” Xanthe’s voice trembled, and her body shook with the need to run to her sister. Dane must have sensed that within her, because his hold on her arm tightened slightly. “Please. Don’t shoot him again. Talk to me. What the hell is going on? Is it the Chemist? Is he coming here?”
Melaina frowned. “Who the hell is the Chemist?”
“The man you would show me in your visions. The one who took you, and wore the lab coat.”
“You mean Drake. No, he’s not coming. He died about eight years ago. Pancreatic cancer. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
Dane had moved further into the store, and Melaina mirrored his movements to maintain the same distance between them.
“What?” Xanthe stepped out from behind Dane as much as he would allow and glared at her sister. “Then why the hell didn’t you come to me when you were finally free? Jesus, Melaina, I have been hiding from that man all this time.”
“Xanthe, Drake was a bastard, there is no doubt about that. He kidnapped me and held other girls prisoner as well. We were all trained as soldiers, learning anything and everything about being an operative in his own lethal army. His currency and trading resources of choice were drugs and guns. Experimenting on all of us, and perfecting what Aristos started with me back in that compound.”
“It worked? You can tell when someone is lying?” Xanthe asked and she felt Dane tense in front of her.
“Yep,” Melaina replied nonchalantly. “I’m a walking, talking lie detector. That, and a couple of other little improvements, and I am as valuable at the negotiation table as I am a weapon. All the girls he took are. When he died, we thought we were free. But my freedom came with a price tag, and I am paying for it. It was … difficult to fit in a world we didn’t know, and that is another story for another time”
Xanthe’s heart clenched at the thought of young girls being experimented on, and raised knowing they were going to be used as weapons and tools.
“Who are you hoping to draw out?” Dane’s voice was normal. “You suddenly planted clues and trails that led to Melaina Christakos, in the hope of flushing someone out. And you made it very obvious that you were heading here. Who is it, if it’s not this Drake person?”
Xanthe saw Melaina pale and suddenly did not want to know the answer to that question.
“Aristos.”
Chapter 14
Hunter felt some of the anger he had been harboring toward the woman who had shot his ass full of drugs and then threw him in the trunk of a car dissipate as she spoke. It was hard to remain angry with the woman when he listened to her talk dispassionately about her past. Hell, the poor woman had been kidnapped at a young age, and held against her will by some asshole intent on training her as a soldier.
Hell, Melaina had referred to herself as a weapon and an operative. That sent flags up for Hunter. Then when the prick hopefully died a painful death, she and the other girls who had been in the same position had been cut free. He and Dane knew what that was like. How disorienting it could be when you were basically untethered to everything you had ever known.
Then at some point discovering that the monster who had started you and your sister on this journey was still alive? Damn.
Hunter had come to as his kidnapper had stopped the car. He listened as they slipped almost silently from the car, and despite Hunter’s need to shred his way out and make his displeasure known to the person who had taken him, he waited until he was sure he could get out without alerting the bastard.
Partially shifting, he had used his claws to slice through the locking mechanism of the trunk and climbed from the car. He had been amazed to find himself beside Xanthe’s store, and even more shocked when he discovered that the person who had captured him was his mate’s missing sister.
Hunter had made his way silently into the back of the store to wait and see what happened, and was pleased when a few minutes later, he smelled his mates in the store. Ty had entered from the same entrance he had used around about the same time. He made eye contact with Ty and indicated that he was going in. It was time to join the family reunion.
He slipped silently out into the store and heard Xanthe’s swift gasp of surprise at seeing him. Melaina read it too and spun so that she had eyes on him as well as Dane and Xanthe. In the same move she pulled a second weapon from the back of her jeans, and leveled it at him. Damn, for someone who wasn’t a shifter, this woman was fast.
“Hunter!” Xanthe cried out, and Hunter’s heart clenched at the joy and relief in her voice. His baby had been worried.
“I’m okay, love.” He turned to glare at Melaina. “Didn’t your psychotic kidnapper ever tell you that it’s rude to shoot people with darts?”
“Or fucking bullets?” Dane added grumpily, and Hunter saw Melaina’s lips quirk as if she were amused.
“Not really. Drake would have been more likely to chastise me for using a drug on you instead of a live round. He would sure as hell have made me pay for only hitting you in the shoulder,” Melaina said with a shrug.
“Can we go back to the part where you tell me that Dad’s alive?” Xanthe asked quietly as she stepped out a little more from behind Dane.
“No!” Melaina snapped, her eyes flashing with anger. “We never had a father, Xanthe. That bastard was no more our father than I am mother Theresa. Don’t give him a title he never fucking deserved.” Hunter had to agree. Aristos was a narcissistic egomaniac who, now that Hunter knew the fucker was still breathing, had just moved to the top of his must-die list.
Xanthe smiled sadly but nodded. “True, and I won’t give him the honor of that title again. But he is still alive?” Xanthe exhaled loudly when Melaina nodded. Hunter reached for Xanthe down their link, but pulled back, frustrated when the link was still a black void. Fucking Jax.
Speaking of which.
“Where in the hell did you get the Jax from, Melaina?”
“Since seeing the blond one explode into a lion today, I’ve been asking a few questions to some people in the know. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would have found it difficult to believe that there were shifters in this world. Then to find out that, for all intents and purposes, I had walked into wolf shifter central, I asked around for an appropriate neutralizer.” Melaina shrugged. “Jax came highly recommended.” She tilted her head as she looked between him and Dane. “You two are lion shifters. And one of you is mated to my sister, right?”
“Yes. And no,” Hunter replied. “Yes, we are lion shifters, but we are both mates to your sister. And to each other.”
Melaina’s eyes widened and her gaze flew to Xanthe’s. Their mate stood there grinning as her sister’s jaw dropped. “Both of
them?” Melaina’s voice was little more than a squeak.
“Yep. I am one side of a kinky lion-shifter love triangle and wouldn’t have it any other way,” Xanthe said with a huge smile on her face.
“And … to each other?” Melaina’s voice was hesitant and Hunter found himself slightly nervous as to how she would take that.
“Oh, hell, yes, and it’s as hot as you think it is.” Xanthe winked at her sister and Hunter felt slightly uncomfortable when Melaina ran her gaze over first Dane and then him.
“Da-yum.” Melaina grinned back at her sister and there was no missing the fact that the two were sisters.
“Okay, as fun as it isn’t having your sister-in-law imagining you naked”—Dane’s expression clearly said that it was about as much fun as a fucking root canal—”do you think you can lower the weapon, and we can have a conversation without threat of having our heads blown off? Hmm?”
There was a slight pause before Melaina nodded. She flicked the safety on the very tidy Glock she was carrying and shoved it into the back waistband of her jeans. As soon as the gun was away, Xanthe broke free of Dane and ran for her sister. It was a pretty emotional reunion for the two sisters, and Hunter almost felt like he shouldn’t be watching.
He turned toward Dane, who walked toward him. Despite the grin he wore, Hunter could see the remnants of stress and concern his kidnapping had taken on Dane. As soon as he was close enough, Hunter pulled Dane into his arms, pressing a hard kiss to his lips. Dane must have sensed Hunter’s frustration and pent-up aggression over what had happened as he softened against him and let Hunter take control almost immediately.
“Dayum, you were right, adelfί.” Melaina’s tear-soaked voice penetrated the roaring in Hunter’s ears and had him cutting the kiss a lot shorter than he would have liked, and looking in the direction of the two women. “That is really fucking hot.”