by Maia Dylan
“I know, right.” Xanthe sighed. “And they’re mine so keep your eyes to yourself.”
Hunter wanted to laugh and roar at the same time. He was back with his mates, the sister they had been trying to reunite their Xanthe with was right by her side, and everything should be right with the world. But there was still the little matter of Aristos Christakos. He was alive and Hunter couldn’t have been more pleased. He had longed for the chance to flay the fucker with his own claws and the Fates had given him that chance.
“Is Aristos on his way here?” Hunter couldn’t hide the hope or anticipation in his tone, and shrugged when Dane thumped him in the stomach with the back of his hand. “What? You can’t tell me that you aren’t looking forward to catching up with the fucker.”
“You know I am.” Dane rolled his eyes, but Hunter could clearly see the grin he was trying to suppress.
“Me too,” Ty growled as he walked out from the back of the store, hands out at his sides. To her credit, Melaina didn’t reach for her gun or any weapon as far as Hunter could see. But when Hunter returned his gaze to Ty, he appeared to have frozen in place. Hunter watched as the wolf shifter’s relaxed expression morphed quickly into one that clearly said what-the-fuck, then his eyes changed to the arctic blue of his kind. A constant growl rumbled through his chest.
Hunter shot his gaze back to Melaina and he saw her eyes had darkened to almost black, as if her pupils had dilated to cover the entire iris.
“Melaina!” Xanthe snapped. “This is Ty. He is the Grey River Pack alpha, and a friend! He is not a threat.”
“I beg to differ,” Ty growled from where he was obviously fighting to move against whatever force Melaina held him in. Hunter was about to step forward to break Melaina’s view, but Ty suddenly turned his head to glare at her, and Melaina paled.
“Theé mou!” Melaina whispered. Moments later, Ty was able to move at will and he turned to face the woman who had somehow managed to turn him into a living statue. With a low growl he dropped into a fighter’s stance.
“Ty, wait.” Hunter stepped forward to stand between him and Melaina. “She was feeling threatened. Calm the fuck down.”
“Hunter, I’m not a damn idiot.” Ty’s voice was less growl now, but no less angry. “I fucking know that. What I don’t know was how the hell that woman had me standing completely frozen, like every single muscle in my body was not my own. That was fucked up and my wolf is going crazy with the need to make sure that never happens again. Ever.”
Hunter turned to Melaina, who still looked a little pale. She stood tall between her sister and Dane, refusing to back down despite being obviously shaken by the whole thing.
“No one has ever been able to shake me off like that,” Melaina said quietly and stepped forward. “As I said before, and you no doubt heard, Drake finished the experiments Aristos started when I was a child. I can tell when a person is lying. But there were other talents he was able to foster in a few of us. For me, this is my strongest ability. I can press into your mind and take control of your physical self. Basically, I reroute everything so that even though your brain is telling you to step forward, the message can’t get through. It doesn’t always work, but I had a strong hold on you, and you were able to move.”
“I’m an alpha,” Ty said as if that were a given, but Hunter knew better. Ty was one scarily strong son of a bitch. “Now, don’t do that again and you and I are going to get along just fine. And if you even think about trying that with my mate? Well, let’s just say she won’t be as forgiving as me.” Melaina dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Tell us when Aristos is coming so we can plan the party. My pack and I have had to plan a shitload of welcome parties lately for crazy-ass fuckwits coming into my town, thinking they can hurt me and mine. We are getting really good at hiding the bodies.”
Hunter and his mates grinned at Ty’s words, completely used to the way he said what he wanted, when he wanted, and fuck anyone who thought he should do otherwise. Melaina simply frowned, obviously still a little unsure of how to take the enigma that was Ty Jamieson. Still grinning, Hunter moved toward Xanthe and sighed in relief when he finally had her in his arms.
“He’s coming for me. I refused to complete a … task he had given me, and he’s a little pissed.” Melaina leaned against the counter. “He’s coming here to get Xanthe, so he can control me.”
“What?” Xanthe frowned. “Why would he do that?”
“Leverage,” Ty answered and Melaina nodded her head. “He’s been threatening to hurt Xanthe to get you to complete these, what did you call them again? Tasks?”
“Yeah, he has, but he never threatened to hurt her. He threatened to recruit her and train her for the kind of work he has been blackmailing me to do for the past fifteen years, and that is something I simply will not allow.” Melaina looked at Xanthe with such fierce determination that Hunter knew she would kill their father to protect her little sister. Fuck, so would Hunter or Dane.
“You’ve been protecting me for that long?” Xanthe asked quietly.
“I will always protect you. That’s my job,” Melaina said with a shrug.
“But you don’t have to do it alone from now on, Mel. Hunter and I will kill anyone who dares threaten our mate. Including her father,” Dane said as he reached out a hand and placed it gently on Melaina’s shoulder. “And we can protect you too, Mel.”
“We all can,” Ty said. He looked over his shoulder as five men piled into the room. Jack and Maurice Casey were the beta pair in their team, and second in command to Hunter and Dane. Zane and Riley Harrison walked in behind them, and Hunter was not surprised at all to see deputy Grant Snow walk in. He was smelling the air and frowning.
Hunter grinned at his team, all of them geared up for war.
“Hey boss, glad to see you escaped. Must have been terrible.” Riley grinned at him, and Hunter shook his head. Yeah, he was going to be ribbed about that for a long time to come.
“The Reyes brothers have the back and the Lloyds are out the front.” Jack gave him the sit rep as he walked in and flanked the front window, giving himself the best vantage point in the room. “We figured we’d head on in and get the story so we know what we’re dealing with.”
“We’re dealing with their batshit crazy father. Apparently the prick has been blackmailing Melaina here for a while and is gonna come for her since she told him to fuck off. We’re just talking about the fact that we have a whole town of wolf shifters, a couple of huge-ass lions, some bears, and a few off-the-charts-talented psychic women and we figured here is the best place to lay a trap for the piece of shit,” Ty summarized as only Ty could and Hunter couldn’t stop his grin.
“Lions, and wolves, and bears, oh my,” Dane said with a grin and the room groaned at his joke. Hunter looked around the room, and his gaze stopped on Grant Snow. He was staring at Melaina with heat in his gaze, his eyes flickering arctic blue. Grant’s hands were clenched at his sides, and Hunter had the feeling he was clamping down on his dominant nature. Hunter knew the wolf was crazy strong and hugely dominant, so it must be almost painful.
When he looked over at Melaina, he caught her returning Grant’s stare with one of her own before she started bringing the rest of them up to date with what she had been telling them.
“The look they shared was quite intense, wasn’t it?” Xanthe said down their link and Hunter closed his eyes with relief that it was back.
“I reckon if you tried to step between them and break that stare, you might actually burst into flames.” Dane’s amused voice came next and Hunter grinned.
“If either of you are going to spontaneously combust,” Hunter replied, filling their link with heat and sexual promise he watched the eyes of both his mates darken, “it’s going to be because of what I’m doing to you, or potentially what I’m not.”
“Why is it that you have no scent?” Grant asked, his voice harsh. Hunter had been wondering that himself. Melaina didn’t answer straight away, just looked at Grant quiz
zically.
“I wouldn’t be the weapon I am if I could be so easily traced,” was the reply she eventually gave. It didn’t really answer Grant’s question, but he nodded all the same.
Over the next hour, they brought their team up to date with what and who was coming, and put plans into place to keep the sisters safe. Grey River would be made aware of the threat that was coming, and Aristos was “added to the list of fuckers we need to eliminate” in order to protect the pack women, according to Ty. It went against everything in him to sit and wait for the threat to come to them. Hunter was exactly what his name said he was. He was a predator who hunted prey and he now, more than ever, wanted to head out and hunt the fucker down.
Melaina recommended against that idea. Apparently Aristos had spent the last twenty years amassing more wealth and resource. It would be best to wait so Aristos came to them, giving them the home advantage. Made sense, but that didn’t mean Hunter had to like it.
“So, Aristos comes to Grey River, and we do what we do best.” Ty said with a smile that had nothing to do with humor. “We make the fucker sorry he ever fucked with my pack. We are strong alone, but stronger together. Hunter”—Ty turned to point at him—”you and your mates planning on staying here and shacking up?”
“We are mated, you fuck,” Hunter snarled, not liking the reference of the most important relationships in his life being referred to as “shacking up”. “But because I know that you sometimes have difficulty with foot in mouth, I will rephrase your question. You are asking if we have decided that Grey River is worthy of us, and would we like to raise our family here. The answer to that question is yes.”
“Good,” the bastard shot him a grin. “Then I assume you’ll all be pledging to Trent and I in the near future?”
“Yeah,” Hunter narrowed his eyes, somehow getting the feeling that Ty had maneuvered him into making that promise. Sneaky bastard.
“Excellent! With Trent and I leading the Shifter Council now, it makes sense for a team of Enforcers to pledge and live here. If any of your team wishes to also pledge, I would be willing to hear them.” Ty turned to leave the room, but paused at the doorway. The air pressure in the room built as it filled with the essence of an alpha. All the shifters in the room twitched nervously as Ty’s dominance filled every spare space within the store. He turned back to the room, and glared with eyes that flickered arctic blue at the Casey brothers. “You bastards, on the other hand, will need someone else’s approval and invitation before you have a chance in hell of being accepted by me or my pack.” Ty glared for a minute more before he turned and walked out.
“That is one scary son of a bitch.” Zane exhaled as the tension in the room faded.
Hunter hoped that his team would decide to stay. But even if they didn’t, this was home for him and his mates. This was where they would, love, work, and play for the rest of their lives. It was the loving and the playing that he had every intention of getting started on. Tonight.
Chapter 15
“Melaina, are you going to be able to come over for dinner tomorrow?” Xanthe asked into the phone she had tucked under her chin as she finished labeling the lotion she had made the day before. “We are both in the same town now, and I feel like I haven’t spent half as much time with you as I want to.”
“I know. Me, too.” Melaina’s sigh came down the phone line, and Xanthe could hear her frustration. “There are a couple of loose ends I need to… go get in order to move on the way I want to.”
Melaina still didn’t trust that her phone lines hadn’t been tapped, so she didn’t go into too much detail. But in the few times they had managed to get together over the past month, Melaina had told her about the loose ends. They were a couple of girls she had lived with and protected since Aristos took her back. Parris and Pepper were both younger than Melaina and had triggered her protective instincts from the very beginning. Xanthe wasn’t sure what it would take for Melaina to “go get” them, but she had no doubt her sister would do just that.
“Have you heard from him?” Xanthe asked quietly. She was still deathly afraid for her sister, and knowing that she was being manipulated by that prick made her skin crawl. Before she could listen to Melaina’s answer, Xanthe’s head began to buzz, and she felt lightheaded.
“By him?” A familiar voice came from the front door to the store and had her dropping the bottle of lotion to the counter, smashing it open, sending the scent of rose water and cinnamon into the air, and her entire body filling with fear. “Do you mean me?”
Xanthe’s heart raced as she lifted her gaze to the man in front of her. He looked the same as he had sixteen years ago. His hair was streaked with silver at the temples, and there were hard lines that bracketed his mouth and eyes signaling the passing of time, but he was very much the same man. She could see that in his soulless eyes. How had he made it past the guards outside?
“Xanthe!” Melaina’s voice came from the phone that now lay on the counter, but Xanthe couldn’t take her eyes off the man that she had thought was dead up until a month ago. When her mind filled with memories of the atrocities she had faced because of this asshole, her fear was quickly overcome by her rage.
“Aristos,” Xanthe sneered, pleased that her voice was cold. “How dare you walk into my store like you’re my long-lost father just coming for a fucking visit? Did you think there would be no price to pay for being a heartless bastard? My mates are looking forward to meeting you, so why don’t I call them and make the introductions?”
Xanthe reached for the bond that connected her to her mates, and froze when she felt nothing beyond a black curtain that seemed to have fallen over it.
Aristos laughed, and the smug smile on his face had her shivering. “No, I don’t think so, daughter, you ungrateful bitch. After you left me there to die that day, I realized that I had left myself vulnerable by not enhancing myself as I should. So, in the years immediately after your betrayal, I took those treatments myself. I now have a psychic ability of my own. You will find that the link you have to your two Enforcers has been cut—and I wouldn’t be waiting on whoever is watching the surveillance cameras in this shop to come either. They seem to be experiencing technical difficulties.
“And those, two who were outside, have run to investigate the screams of a woman they could hear in the forest out back. Heroes, so fucking easy to distract.”
Xanthe’s eyes narrowed, and she felt an inner strength born of suppressed anger sweep through her. This fucker had messed with her when she was a child, and although he hadn’t been responsible for Melaina being taken, he was most certainly responsible for what was happening to her now. Then there was whatever the bastard had done to those two girls, Pepper and Parris.
Xanthe stepped out from the counter and moved to stand closer to Aristos, and she had to fight the fist pump she wanted to do when she saw him step back in shock. Yeah you prick, I’m not sixteen anymore. “What the hell do you want with me, Aristos? Do you think you can take me from here and my mates, and the others in this town wouldn’t come for me? Not going to happen. My men are hunters, and you are just one in a long line of criminal assholes they would track and take down. And knowing what they do about you, I can assure you that whatever they leave behind will not be recognizable as you.”
Aristos grinned smugly again, and Xanthe longed to wipe that grin off his face. “How very vain of you, Xanthe, dearest? You think it is you that I am after? I have seen the medical reports. I know that you have lost your ability, and that means you are no longer worth anything to me.” Despite the fact she hated the man, he was still her father, and hearing those words had the last part of the little girl insider her that longed for her daddy’s love, crying. “It is Melaina that I need, and it is Melaina that will remain doing the tasks I set her, for as long as I need her to. And it is because of you, and her love for my other two little pets that will keep her compliant.
“Xanthe, I drove into town this afternoon, pulled up right outside your store,
and walked in. With my powers, no one stopped me, and your pitiful shifter security measures were a fucking joke. I walked in here, as I can at any time. I could kill you in seconds, walk back out, and be out of town before anyone is the wiser. Melaina now knows that I can get to you whenever I want to. That is the only reason I came here.”
In a shitty way, that made a sick kind of sense. Xanthe stepped forward with a growl. She didn’t know what she would do once she got to him, but the smug bastard’s smile had her seeing red. She took two steps, then froze. Everything within her set like stone, and her eyes widened at the sensation. Obviously Aristos had obtained abilities similar to Melaina’s. When Xanthe managed to clench her fists, she realized that he was nowhere near as strong as her sister.
“You were always the more emotional of my subjects,” Aristo’s sneered. “Always the first to break down when the treatments were lifted a level. Such a disappointment. Give this note to your sister.” Aristos stepped forward, pulled a note from the inside pocket of his jacket, and tucked it into the pocket of the shirt she was wearing. “She has three days to get it done, or Parris pays for her disobedience.”
Then, he spun on his heel and walked out of the store. Xanthe’s distress rose when she realized she was still locked into place. She tried to move with everything she had, but couldn’t. She was still like that a minute later when the door to the store was almost ripped off its hinges.
“Fuck, Xanthe!” Dane growled as he ran into the store, a fully grown, growling lion right on his heels. “That fucking bastard. I am going to rip his intestines out through his fucking nose.” Dane rushed to her and pulled her into his arms as Hunter began to scent the room. Hunter began to pace back and forward, roaring so loud, the store windows cracked. “Hunter! Cut that shit out. Change back and help our mate. She is tensed up completely, crying, and could be hurt.”
Hunter shifted in a shimmering burst of magic, and was soon standing on her other side, pressed against her. “We’re here, baby. Damn, I am so sorry he got to you. That fucker had Jack and Maurice hearing a woman screaming for help in the forest. Once they realized it was a trick, they raced back and are tracking him now. We came as soon as the cameras failed. I am so sorry. We will hunt that fucker and rip him to shreds!”