The Shifter's Mate

by Eden Cole

  Serenity picked up her step to hurry down the hall. She’d phoned Jon to tell him she was on her way, but he didn’t answer. When she reached his office, it was to find his back to her and his fingers pushed into his hair, head lowered. She grinned and tiptoed toward him to press herself to his back. “Hey, you,” she said in a husky tone in his ear. “Wanna come out to play?”

  Jon didn’t look up. “Serenity, shut the door please.”

  Confused, she did what he asked and moved to sit in the guest chair beside his desk. Jon’s face when she saw it at last held sadness. Serenity’s heart began to race from fear now instead of excitement. “What’s wrong?”

  He reached for her hand and held her fingers between his. Jon’s hand was ice cold, and Serenity couldn’t identify the odd vibe she caught coming off him. Her emotions were in a jumble. Yet, she waited with all the patience she could muster for him to explain.

  He breathed deep and blew out a breath. “I’m leaving the United States,” he announced.

  Serenity blinked at him. “Say again?”

  “I’m sorry, baby, but it’s not going to work between us. In fact, I think the best thing for us both is that I go back to the U.K.”

  Serenity jerked her hand from his and jumped to her feet. “What are you saying? I don’t understand this.” She paced to the other side of his tiny office, stared at his posters of cute little pooches on the walls with no comprehension of what she was seeing. After a minute, she turned around to face him. “How can you tell me this when you said you love me? When you said I am your mate? Was that all a lie to get me to sleep with you? Damn it, I made it clear that’s what I wanted too. I didn’t need the song and dance, Jon.”

  Tears sprang from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She scrubbed at her face, knowing she was smearing her liner.

  “Baby—”

  “Don’t call me baby!” she screamed near hysteria.

  Jon stood up to come to her, but she took a step back and crashed into some type of monitor. It rolled a few inches and banged against the wall. Behind the door, Becky called out, “Everything okay in there?” They both ignored her.

  She shook her head, searching her mind for an answer to why this was happening. “It’s the witch thing, isn’t it?” she asked. “You couldn’t come to terms with it.”

  “Witch thing?”

  She looked up. His face was a mask of confusion, like he had no clue of the fact that she’d shared with him her biggest secret, that she was a witch. “That I’m…” she began and stopped. Jon waited with expectation in his expression. Serenity narrowed her eyes at him. An idea occurred to her. She tried dispelling any charm cast on Jon, but nothing happened.

  Was there a spell, or was he just being obtuse because he wanted out of the relationship? Tentatively, she approached him. He watched her in concern as if she was the one who’d lost her mind. Serenity laid a hand on his chest, and all the emotions she always felt for him flooded her senses, but she did her best to block them out. This was no time to give in to the longing she felt for Jon.

  She bowed her head, and Jon wrapped his arms around her to comfort her. Let him think she’d broken down—which was what she wanted to do right now, but if someone was blocking Jon’s memory of how he felt for her, she would find out for sure. Concentrating hard, she tried to calm herself and listen with her spiritual ear, with the magic that had been a part of her all her life.

  Then she sensed it, a binding spell, with a level of magic she could not begin to reach in her twenty-six years. This was a power she wondered if even her mother had obtained before she lost her physical presence. Serenity tried uttering a phrase for release, but nothing happened. Jon was still bound. She tried for almost half an hour before Jon put her from him.

  “That’s enough, Serenity. Don’t cry anymore. I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry. You’re a very special person. You don’t deserve this, and I’ve been standing here trying to figure out why I wouldn’t fall for a woman like you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “All I feel is a compulsion to go back home, to forget I ever came to the States.”

  “No, Jon, it’s a trick,” she blurted, but then couldn’t think how to explain it to him without him thinking she was nuts. She suspected Jon was so heavy under this other witch’s spell that even if Serenity cast a spell before his eyes, he wouldn’t see it. “I mean. If you’ll give me some time…”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ve already given Becky her notice.”

  Serenity’s eyes widened. “But she looked so happy when I came in.”

  “I gave her a generous severance package, and I secured another, higher-paying position for her with a vet friend of mine.”

  “That fast?” she said with bitterness.

  “I’m sorry.”

  In disbelief, Serenity stood there looking at him, waiting, hoping that he would say that it was all a joke, that he didn’t mean it. When Jon didn’t say more, only directed those sad eyes which put her in mind of the black panther he could change into, she spun on her heel and marched out of the office.

  She made it to her car with her composure intact. She made it through the drive home fine. However, when she walked into her home, the unusual silence pressed in on her. Her keys slipped from numb fingers to clang on the floor with her purse following. Serenity threw her head back and screamed as loud as she could. “Mother!”

  Over and over, she yelled, unsure if her mother was even in the area. A thump on the stairs made Serenity look up and remember that this was the night of a full moon. With fluid grace, her mother descended wearing a baby doll nightie that was too sheer for Serenity’s comfort.

  “Darling, there’s no need to shout like that. I couldn’t zip on down through the ceiling like usual.” She waved a hand over her head. “A physical body is wonderful, but in that respect not. What’s all the hullabaloo?”

  Serenity cupped a hand over her eyes. “Mom, please put something more on, for Pete’s sake.”

  Her mother sighed and snapped her fingers. A robe settled on her shoulders, and she knotted it around her waist. “Is this better, Ms. Priss? Honestly, you interrupted my fun with Dabney. He’s scrumptious. You have to see him.”

  “Why, Mom, why?” Serenity sobbed, no longer able to contain her emotions. “Why did you put the spell on Jon? I…I love him, and you took him away. Why would you do that? Do you hate us being happy that much?”

  Her mother grew serious. “A spell? I didn’t cast a spell on your little kitten, Serenity, and to insinuate that I don’t want my daughters to be happy is insulting.”

  “Kitten?” Serenity gasped. “You knew? You knew that he…”

  “That he’s a shape shifter? Yes, my young innocent.” Her mother sighed and took her hand. “Come with me. No matter how unhappy we are, there’s never a reason to look a mess. Your makeup is atrocious.”

  They moved to the bathroom off the hall, and when Serenity’s face was clean, she followed her mother to the sitting room. At last they were seated, and Serenity explained everything. If she thought her mother didn’t care about anything or anyone but herself, but she was wrong. Her mother surged to her feet and began pacing from the fireplace to the door, all the time grumbling under her breath.

  “It must be her,” she announced.

  “Who?” Serenity was unaware of any her. All of her mother’s friends were men, all the contacts, all the investigators. She loved to be surrounded by them, to manipulate them, and to humiliate them when the mood struck her.

  “Your grandmother.”

  Serenity gasped. “I have a grandmother? I never knew. I mean I knew we had family who disowned us, but for some reason I pictured aunts and uncles, relations twice removed. That kind of thing.”

  Her mother’s eyes flashed. “Oh you have a grandmother all right. And if ever you thought I drove you crazy, she’s worse. I believed you knew how much I love you girls. But her—she is the epitome of…of…well, I like to say Evil Incarnate.”

>   “Mom, you’re exaggerating.” As usual.

  “She’s more powerful than you can imagine. I suspect she’s more than one hundred thirty, but I can’t be sure. Darling, if she put a spell on Jon, neither you nor I can break it.”

  Serenity felt her breath constrict, and her mother rushed to her side to pull her into her arms. “Don’t start that again, sweetie. I’ll think of something. I promise I will. You’ll have your shifter.” Her mother leaned back and grinned. “After all, he’s not an ordinary human, right?” She chuckled.

  “So that’s why you haven’t harassed us and why you didn’t come down to his country home to interrupt our time alone.”

  Her mother raised an index finger. “Make no mistake that I will do what I need to, to protect my babies. I did come by the lake because something was bothering me about that boy.”

  Serenity’s eyes widened. “The lake?”

  “Yes, the lake. I remembered that he broke my spell over you with a bite.” Her mother shook her head. “Before you ask, yes, I mean a bite. I thought that was strange, so I came down there to have another look. He could see me in my spirit form. That’s not unusual for some humans, but I wasn’t satisfied, so I had a friend check his background. Didn’t take much to learn his secret, and then I decided to let you two explore the relationship to see where it went. I told your sisters to steer clear as well. My friend told me if Jon had chosen you, then that meant you were his fated mate. That could not be changed even with a meddling mother.”

  Serenity choked off a sob. “But fate never met Grandma.”

  The Shifter's Mate

  The Shifter's Mate

  Chapter Eleven

  Jon sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. He tried to relax, but all the muscles in his body were tight, and his head was pounding. At least the insane need to get out of the United States had eased. He had no idea what had come over him. Even Mordecai couldn’t explain it, but his elder wanted to meet with him the moment he got to London. Jon wanted to put it off, tired of explaining himself. Every person he’d met while running his practice over the last three years demanded to know what bee had gotten in his bonnet to drive him away.

  Serenity sprang to his mind again and again. Every time he thought of her, he felt an unexplainable ache. Yet, no matter how many times he searched his heart, she was just not there. He didn’t love her, and he didn’t understand why he’d been with her if he didn’t feel that way. Jon had never gotten serious with a woman. A mutual satisfying of their desires was all it had ever amounted to, because all he’d wanted all of his adult life was to find his mate. Why in the world would he delay that by getting serious with Serenity?

  “A mistake,” he muttered and opened his eyes to look out the window. That’s the only way to explain it.

  Her beautiful face seemed to form in the clouds. He grumbled. A book would dismiss her from his mind. After searching his carryon bag, he found a medical murder mystery—his favorite—and cracked it open at the dog-eared page he’d left to mark his place. The words blurred before his eyes. Damn it!

  This was no use. She was someone special. He might not be able to figure out why, but she was, and something odd was going on to make him think she wasn’t important. The minute his plane set down in London, he would search out the real truth if it drove him insane. Hell, thoughts of Serenity were already sending him there. He needed to work fast.

  * * * *

  “Mother!” Arabella called out. “Mother, I know you hear me! Answer!”

  The elderly witch appeared before Arabella, and although she hadn’t seen her mother in more than thirty years, her mother looked exactly the same—hard eyes that bore into her to capture every secret she would even dare to hide, straight back, good figure, and a presence that could bring a lesser person literally to their knees. Arabella resisted the pressure to bow. She hated her mother. She’d once been proud of the lineage she derived from, but now, she wanted nothing to do with any of them, least of all this witch in front of her.

  The twitch from her mother’s mouth and a raised eyebrow meant her mother had delved into her thoughts and knew what Arabella thought of her. Let her look. She was glad the old woman knew the truth. Turning her back on Arabella just because she’d loved her daughters’ father was unforgivable.

  “I know it was you,” Arabella spat. “I know you cast a spell over the man Serenity had been dating, and I want to know why. You never interfered with us before. Why now? Why him?”

  “Stupid,” her mother groused in anger. “I’ve never stopped watching all of you, to be sure you don’t bring shame to the family. A lot of good that did with you at your age sleeping with anything with a penis.”

  Arabella rested her hands on her hips. “I could try a vagina if it would piss you off.”

  The slap across her face made her draw back and cover her cheek. She’d never seen her mother move and still wasn’t sure she had since the woman stood there with both hands atop a cane, outfitted in a long dress that must be from the early twentieth century.

  “You watch your mouth, miss,” her mother answered. “She will not marry an animal. It’s beneath us.”

  “You disowned us all,” Arabella shouted. “That was enough. They’re blood is already tainted by a lesser being according to you. Her life has nothing to do with you, Mother. He believes she’s his mate as fate would have it. You can’t interfere with fate.”

  What seemed like a self-satisfied smile creased her mother’s porcelain face. “If it’s fate, then nothing I do will change it, will it? His kind lives by fate. We live by magic, a substance that is in our veins, in the air we breathe. Let’s see which is more powerful, shall we? Besides, I have put fate in its place before. I’m doing so again.”

  Arabella gasped. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Have I not always said you are stupid, Arabella? How I wish I had not given in to weakness and married the more handsome candidate rather than the smarter one. What’s done is done.” She tapped her cane on the floor once. “Remember that I am watching you, and though you’ve suffered a lot, I think you haven’t suffered enough with all the debauchery you’ve engaged in. My patience grows thin, Arabella. Do not call me again.”

  With that statement, her mother disappeared. Arabella sank down on the floor crying. She’d done nothing to help Serenity, and the last thing she wanted was for any of her daughters to go through what she went through every day. She pretended that life was one big party, but in truth, she desperately longed for her husband. Even after so many years, the pain of his loss hadn’t lessened an inch. Each man she slept with, she hoped it would wash away the anguish, but nothing worked. Serenity couldn’t go through that. There had to be a way to reach Jon’s memories of his love for her—before he disappeared like Arabella’s husband had.

  * * * *

  Serenity stood in the airport holding her ticket and wondering if this was such a good idea. She’d wrapped up all her work, referred new clients to another restorer, and closed her house. Then she had packed what she would need to travel to London and arranged for anything else to be shipped.

  Her stomach fluttering, she went to the ladies room to throw some water on her face. A glance in the mirror showed that the short black hair and green eyes made her look radically different. Changing her appearance and her ID might be a shot in the dark, but she was willing to try anything. Her mother had said she was attempting to locate an elder in the magical community who could counter her grandmother’s spell, one willing to go against her grandmother, but Serenity didn’t want to sit still and wait for that. It might never happen. So she’d taken matters into her own hands.

  When she got hold of herself, Serenity left the bathroom and returned to the boarding area where her flight was due to take off. While she waited, other passengers from a flight just arriving began disembarking. Serenity gasped upon spotting Jon. What in the world was he doing back in the United States?

  She rushed across to him without thinking and gr
abbed his arm. “Jon, what are you doing here?”

  He turned to face her with a blank look. “Do I know you?”

  Serenity had a moment of terror thinking his memory had grown considerably worse, but then she remembered her appearance. She’d been thinking she could somehow woo him into falling in love with her as another person. Now, standing here looking him in the eyes, she realized it would never have worked. All she wanted to do was cry and cling to him. What man would fall for a woman like that?

  She thought fast. “It’s Katrina…ah…from school. Fancy seeing you here in the United States after so many years. You look just the same.” Knowing Jon for the polite man he was socially, she figured he wouldn’t tell a woman he didn’t remember her. He smiled and asked how she’d been and inquired for her family. Serenity linked arms with him and turned to continue the direction he was going. Somewhere overhead, she heard the call for passengers to begin boarding her flight to London. Serenity ignored it. “So why don’t we have lunch and catch up?” she offered.

  “Well I needed to meet with someone…” He trailed off staring at her. “Something about you feels familiar.” He looked sheepish. “School, I know, but something else. I can’t put my finger on it. Ah, well it will come to me. Why not? I can spare time for lunch.”

  At first Serenity thought the man she loved was blowing the real her off if she was what he was back for, but then she began to wonder if somehow the fated mates thing he’d told her was true. Would he be drawn to her even if she looked different? Would Jon’s inner panther sense she was the one he sought even if his mind was clouded? She was pretty sure it wasn’t his sense of smell this time, because she had specifically formulated a masking spell. Jon should not be able to tell it was her in anyway except on a spiritual level, if that was possible.

  Forgetting her luggage, her trip, everything but Jon, she left the airport with him, and they found a nice quiet seafood restaurant where they could talk. Sitting across from Jon, Serenity wondered what he thought of her, if he thought this woman before him was strange to have gone with him spur of the moment. She’d quickly hidden her ticket and let him assume she’d just flown in as well.