by Abigail Owen
Besides, Zac had seen the back of her more often than he’d seen her face. How he knew the color of her eyes so well since they were rarely the part of her he could see was a bit of a mystery to him. Not one he cared to examine too closely. Still, he had to wonder why she ran from him.
It also didn’t bode well for what was coming.
Catching the direction of Sarai’s glance, Andie said, “It’s okay. Zac has agreed to be part of the plan.”
She looked at Zac fully, holding his gaze steadily for the first time since she’d met him. “So you’re aware of the threat I face from Kyle Carstairs?”
He gave her a single, solemn nod. “I know he is after you. As a Seer, you would be a powerful weapon in the wrong hands. Andie explained that Kyle wants to mate you, for you to bear his cubs, so he can have Seer children fully under his control. That about it?” His words had been perfunctory, delivered without any hint of his opinion of the situation.
Sarai grimaced. “You got most of it, but you left out the bit about Kyle killing me once I provide that child. Then there’s the part where I’ve seen that if I go back to the newly claimed Reynolds Dare, he’ll find me and take me. I’m not safe there.” Zac looked to Andie, whose grim expression confirmed Sarai’s story. He clenched his teeth against the dark anger thrumming through him. How could anyone put this woman through hell like that? For an insane moment, he fought the urge to wrap her in his arms, to hold the world at bay for her.
Sarai shifted her attention back to Andie. She drummed her fingers on her thigh, a nervous habit he’d noticed she had.
“I’m still not clear on what the plan is. Did you use the negotiations with Zac as leverage to get permission to have two Kuharte at the Keller Dare? One with each Alpha or something?” she asked, hope evident in her voice. A Kuharte was a shifter with additional, special powers. Jaxon’s dare already had one in residence—JoLynn, a Healer.
Andie shook her head. “There was no way they would ever let us do that. No dare gets to have more than one Kuharte. They’re already not all that thrilled about two Alphas living in the same dare, even with my father acting in my stead.”
Sarai didn’t look too surprised to hear that.
Andie continued. “But we figured out another way for you.”
Andie paused and three sets of expectant eyes watched Sarai closely in the silence that lingered. She looked back and forth at them with her eyebrows raised. “What?”
“No visions yet?” Andie asked.
Sarai flinched a little. Zac didn’t think the others even caught the slight movement, but he had. “No.”
She was lying. He was sure of it. What was she holding back?
“Hmmm…” Andie frowned. He knew she’d expected this option to change Sarai’s future. “We are having you assigned to Zac’s Timik.”
Sarai’s fingers picked up the pace, tapping a restless rhythm. “I thought it might be something like that.”
Andie looked pleased with herself. “We had it written into the treaty with Zac’s Timik of polar bear shifters that a Shadowcat Nation representative would be assigned to live with him and his people as a sign of faith and the bond between our nations. As an added show of confidence, we made that person one of our Kuharte…You.”
“I see,” she said slowly.
“Something wrong?” Andie asked, her head tipped to the side.
“No. Just taking it all in. So how does this work exactly?”
“We think it best that—”
“You’ll need to stay with me at all times.” Zac’s deep tones pulled Sarai’s gaze to where he stood beside the fireplace.
She tipped her head. “Can you be more specific?”
“You go where I go.”
“Why can’t I just stay with your Timik regardless of where you are?”
“I will be spending a great deal of time with the Keller Dare, and I assume you’ll want to be there as much as possible. Also, given the danger following you, I plan to keep you with me and only put my Timik at risk when I’m there to help defend them.”
She gave him what appeared to be a forced smile. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Do you see Kyle finding you there?” Jaxon asked.
Once again, Sarai flinched slightly. “No. I don’t see him finding me there.”
Zac frowned. Something was off. He could feel it is his bones. What is she hiding?
CHAPTER 5
Sarai stood up, trying to hide her shaky legs. So far she didn’t think any of them had picked up on her internal panic. “I know you both took risks setting this up for me. I really appreciate it.”
“Our pleasure.” Andie reached out and squeezed her hands.
“So when does this arrangement start?”
“Immediately,” Jaxon said.
Zac levered himself off the wall he’d been leaning against, catching her attention. “The plan is to leave today.”
“Today?” Sarai raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t seen that part coming. She thought she’d have more time to make a decision.
Andie stood and gave Sarai a hug. “I’m sorry for the short notice. We got final agreement from the other Alphas the day before our wedding, so we didn’t have time to set things in motion till now.”
“I understand,” Sarai said faintly.
“His schedule will be yours moving forward. Unless you have a vision that requires you to take action of some kind. Let him know when that happens. When you’re here, we’ve set up a suite of rooms for you, sharing a common living space between you.”
“Not that we don’t trust our people, but—”
Sarai interrupted Jaxon’s caveat. “—But we’re a bunch of cougar shifters. Playing for the team was never a strong suit?”
Jaxon huffed a laugh. “Something like that.”
“We just want to make sure we do everything we can to make you safe. Giving you a polar bear as a twenty-four/seven bodyguard seemed like the best way.”
Looking down at her feet, Sarai nodded. “Smart.” She took a deep breath as she looked back up. “Guess I’d better go get packed. What time do we leave?” She addressed the question to a spot somewhere over Zac’s left shoulder.
“By noon would be my preference. Can you be ready by then?”
“Sure.” A headache started to throb behind her eyes. She resisted the urge to rub her temples.
“I’ll see you again when you leave,” Andie said as they all walked to the door.
Sarai gave her a small smile before she headed down the hall to her own room, trying hard not to look like she was running away.
What the hell was she going to do?
****
Three hours later, Sarai dragged a suitcase she borrowed from Andie out to the front of the building where the circular drive was located. There she found several tan SUVs, windows tinted darkly, waiting with drivers ready. Andie and Jaxon said quick goodbyes.
“We’re in this car,” Zac said, pulling her attention to him.
Silently, Sarai followed him, then climbed in ahead of him when he opened the door for her. As she scooted across the pale leather seats, the pounding in her head worsened with each little move. Visions like the one she’d had today always ended up with her feeling as though her head were splitting open. Pain meds had done nothing to put a dent in the throbbing. She leaned her head back against the seat. Vaguely she was aware of Zac, still outside with some of Jaxon’s men. She couldn’t hear what they were discussing. At this point, she really didn’t care.
She didn’t hear Zac move. Her only clue he was getting in the car with her was the dip in the seat. Sarai cracked an eye only to shut it again, wishing she hadn’t bothered. She could feel the heat radiating from his body as he moved to sit beside her.
As their car crunched down the gravel drive, Sarai glanced back to where Andie stood with Jaxon’s arm wrapped around her. She felt a twinge of jealousy. Oh, to be loved like that.
As she turned to face forward, she caught Zac’s gaze on her. Ab
ruptly she leaned back and closed her eyes again. But she couldn’t ignore his presence beside her. He filled the space, making the large car seem cramped. For just a moment, she was distracted from the pain in her head by a mental image of how he’d look when he was in his polar bear form. She’d seen him in visions. In person, she’d bet he was impressive.
Stop thinking like that, dummy, she instructed herself.
She couldn’t afford to find him impressive or attractive or heart-stoppingly sexy. Right now, suffocating was all he was to her. She couldn’t breathe with him this close, taking up her air. Especially not when his scent filled every breath. Pine and a spicy aftershave.
Sarai felt the thrumming in her brain start to loosen up. Good. Maybe meds were working this time. She carefully opened her eyes. When she didn’t feel like vomiting, Sarai looked outside, trying to distract herself with the lovely views. Greens, blues, and browns blurred as they sped past the mountainous landscape. She didn’t see any of it.
“Talkative little thing, aren’t you?” Zac’s deep rumble interrupted her thinking.
Sarai winced before she realized no spike of pain had accompanied the sound of his voice. In fact…there was no pain at all. She frowned. She should have been miserable most of the rest of the day. Maybe longer given the travel. Strange.
Realizing Zac was still expecting an answer, Sarai glanced around his way. A moment of mischief crept up on her. She held out a slender hand to shake. “Hello, Mr. Pot. My name is Ms. Kettle.”
Zac didn’t laugh, but his mouth twitched slightly. She held back a grin, feeling triumphant that she’d pulled even that much of a reaction from the restrained shifter.
“Would you like to know where we’re going?” he asked.
Sarai blinked. “We’re not going to your Timik?”
Zac settled back and stretched out his long legs, crowding into her space a bit to gain more room. He crossed his arms over his chest. Sarai got the distinct impression he did that when he thought an argument might be coming his way. She eyed him warily.
“We’ll get there eventually. First, I have several things that need doing for my Timik I’ve been putting off.”
“Where?”
“New York.”
Sarai’s eyes grew wide. “As in City?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Our Timik has owned land, and eventually property, in that area for a very long time. For that reason, and because our financial advisors are based there, I periodically go to New York for business.”
Vague, Sarai thought. But I’d bet that’s a lot of explanation for him. She wondered why he bothered to tell her. He could just have kept it to a cryptic “business” and she’d have gotten the hint.
She looked back out at the scenery without responding. Now she was distracted by thoughts of their destination. She started running through scenarios in her mind. New York possibly gave her different options in terms of getting away. Although she still needed to decide if she was leaving Zac’s protection or risking his life by staying, hoping like hell she could change the future fate had in store for him.
“You’re not going to argue with me?” Zac interrupted her mental manipulations.
She glanced his way again and raised a slim shoulder. “Why bother? I have no home, nowhere to go…and no business other than seeing the future. New York’s as good as anywhere else for that.”
“You don’t like being a Seer?”
Sarai narrowed her eyes. Very few people realized that about her. She shifted in her seat to face him more fully. At the same time, she tried her best not to touch him, but the way he was angled, her entire right thigh was now plastered up against him. She ignored the sensations the contact was causing.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Your tone of voice right then. Sounds like you resent your gift.”
She gave him a little half smile. “Not at all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She turned back to the window, determined to stay that way this time. “I can’t help what you believe.”
“If you ever want to talk about it—”
“I don’t.”
After a beat, he said quietly, “—I can be a good listener.”
Eager to end the conversation, she said, “Wouldn’t know it by this conversation. I didn’t take you for such a talker.”
Another long pause. Sarai bit her lip, feeling a little guilty. He was only trying to be kind. She just couldn’t encourage a relationship with this man. Not with the way it was destined to end.
“Believe it or not, I used to talk a lot. My parents called me a chatterbox.”
Suddenly, Sarai was in the middle of a rare look into the past. She didn’t get them often, but it was known to happen. She saw Zac as a little boy, nattering away to his parents, who listened with half-amused, half-exasperated smiles. He was the spitting image of his dad. Suddenly, as she watched, his father tossed his head back and laughed long and loud. A great billowing sound which made Zac and his mother laugh with him.
With a blink she forced herself out of the image. She hadn’t needed that personal look into Zac’s life. She was trying to keep her distance. Zac’s parents were dead now. Killed by the same pack of wolf shifters who’d killed Andie’s mother. She knew that much about him.
“Your father had a great laugh,” she murmured. With great effort, she kept her face turned away.
Her words seemed to drop into a void.
“How would you know that?” He sounded merely curious. “You can see the past?”
Sarai gave a tiny nod. “Sometimes. Just glimpses. Memories, I think. You must’ve been thinking about them.”
“He did have a great laugh,” he said after a moment. Even more softly, he murmured, “I used to laugh more. When they were alive.”
Sarai jerked her head around, turning wide eyes his way, astonished he’d opened up to share something that personal. She felt a sudden, unwanted connection with the lost, lonely boy who’d had to become a man much too fast.
As though he were embarrassed by his statement, Zac laid his head back against his seat and closed his eyes, settling in for a nap and effectively tuning her out.
Sarai watched him for a moment, before she too pulled her gaze away. After a long time, she murmured, “Me too.”
She’d once been full of laughter and happy chatter herself. Being a Seer, particularly in the Carstairs Dare, had sucked any trace of humor, or pleasure in life, right out of her.
Sarai was just about to turn her eyes away from Zac when something outside in the woods caught her attention. She bolted upright, whipping around to try to see it again, but there was nothing there. Sarai searched the woods for a sign of anything else, waiting for a vision to hit, a warning of some kind. Still, nothing.
“What’s wrong?” Zac asked. So he wasn’t asleep.
“Nothing,” she mumbled.
“That was not nothing.”
Sarai sighed as she sat back. “I thought…I thought I saw Kyle Carstairs.”
Zac’s body seemed to freeze. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, since he actually didn’t move at all, but she could.
Without another word, Zac pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. In seconds one of the cars traveling with them pulled away, turning to go back.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Embarrassment stung. “Sometimes I think I see him watching me, but he’s not really there.”
Zac watched her for a long, tense moment. “Often?”
Sarai shrugged.
“Is he ever actually there?”
Now she bit her lip. “When I was still with the Carstairs Dare, sometimes. Yes. Not since.”
He gave her a brusque nod. “Then it’s still worth checking out.”
Sarai pushed away the warmth stealing through her at the notion of feeling protected. The sensation was insidious—and potentially addictive.
One she couldn’t afford.
Not wi
th this man.
CHAPTER 6
Zac watched with a certain amount of envy as Sarai stood up in the aisle of the plane and stretched. His muscles had started to protest somewhere over Ohio, but there was no point to his trying to work out the kinks now, since he wouldn’t be able to stand to his full height. He’d just have to wait to get off the plane before he could work out the kinks of being cramped up so long.
From the compound, they’d driven a few hours to the nearest large city of Helena, Montana, where they’d caught a flight east. After a layover in Chicago, they’d finally arrived at Newark Airport. The full day of travel had been long, to say the least.
For the hundredth time in just a few hours, he wondered what the hell had gotten into him. Sharing all that stuff with Sarai in the car. Best he could figure, she’d tapped into something when she’d mentioned his parents. It had been a long time since he’d remembered the good times they’d all had together before they’d been killed. Mostly he just thought of their deaths if he allowed himself to think of them at all.
Funny that only twenty minutes in the presence of the Seer, and he’d been spilling his guts like a wuss. He hadn’t done that with the other Seer he knew though. Damn. He’d known Sarai would be trouble. The woman practically had the word tattooed across her forehead in neon. He’d only taken her on for Andie’s sake. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Sarai reached up to get her bag out of the overhead compartment. As she did, her white blouse inched up, showing a swath of pale, toned skin above the band of her navy skirt. Zac looked away, focusing on the faded blue cloth covering the seat back in front of him, although the image of her cute little belly button wouldn’t leave him alone now. It joined the image of her smooth legs, which she’d crossed and uncrossed throughout the flight. All of that, along with the subtle but seductive scent of vanilla that seemed to cling to her skin, filling his lungs with each inhalation, had Zac even more uncomfortable than cramped muscles would dictate.
Shifting slightly, he willed his body to stop reacting to her. His job was protection only. Based on her reticence thus far, even friendship seemed like a stretch. He doubted she’d appreciate his ogling her body…or his reaction.