by Desiree Holt
As she raced up to the stop, a bus appeared in the distance and she tapped her foot, anxious to be away. But when it stopped and the door opened with a whoosh, she changed her mind. What if a neighbor saw her get on? He’d ask them if they’d seen her. And maybe one of them didn’t know he was in jail for assault and attempted murder and might say they’d seen her get on a bus. Then he’d track down the driver and ask where she got off. Her breathing shortened, and she struggled to stay calm enough to wave the city bus off.
Even now, he could be out. The caller’s veracity was questionable due to the company he kept. Wouldn’t they all love it if she raced outside right into his arms. This time he’d kill her. He promised. And he always kept his promises.
It was the only thing giving him a shot at not ending up in Hell. Although the bad far outweighed not fibbing.
If she couldn’t use her stamina to run a few miles, she was a shame to the endangered Bears of Epirus. Both the shifter and animal variety. Walking casually until she rounded the corner, she sped up again, determined to get to the station before he found her. The warm humidity of the early fall evening had her perspiring in moments, but she didn’t slow her steps. Not until she sank into the very back row of what had to be Greyhound’s oldest bus did she allow herself to remember the night that led to her mate’s—her ex mate’s—arrest.
“Where are you, you bitch?” His roar shook the walls of her workshop in the backyard of the little house in Shreveport. Cerberus, her mate of less than one year had moved her six thousand miles from home in order to make her life a living hell. But she’d thought him happily ensconced at that horrible bear dive, a bar in the backyard of one of his buddies way out in the country. Thought she could spend the night refinishing a rocking chair she’d found on the curb on trash day.
She flicked the switch on the table lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and fell to the floor. If she could crawl to the door and wait at one side then slip out when he entered, maybe she could get away. At least for the night. He’d make her pay, but she’d learned to take respites where she could.
Her pulse racing, she crouched there, watching his immense shadow stretch across the floor in the light from the back porch, only feet away. He smelled of whiskey and sweat. “I know you’re in here. Come make me dinner.” He slammed his fist into the door. “If I have to come in after you, I’ll punish you. And this time I won’t be easy on you. I am not feeling forgiving.”
Punish…easy on her. If she didn’t have the ability to shift and heal, she’d be dead by now with all the broken bones and bruising and internal damage he’d inflicted. He wanted to hurt her. No matter what she did, it would be deserving of “a little correction.”
Chapter 1
“Her life is on the line.” The vampire, a true, ancient creature, tried to give him the look guaranteed to make any simple human obey his will.
Warren wasn’t a simple human. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking, Jon.” The bear shifter and nightclub entrepreneur pushed back from the antique partner’s desk in their Crossroads office and slipped his arm through the strap of his travel pack. “Animals is a great place, sure, and we take care of each other, but it’s not exactly where someone can hide long term.”
“It’s over fifteen hundred miles from here in the Superstition Mountains. Certainly better than our little club right here in the same state.”
“Animals is a club, just like Crossroads is. Sure, few humans find their way there, and those who do somehow think it’s a structure built for us, like a theme park, rather than the actual best preserved cliff dwelling in the world. One inhabited by a species of bear shifter long since extinct.”
“And one perfect for providing shelter to the last female of breeding age of another group about to blink out.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “It’s not a long-term solution. We don’t have half the security you do here. It’s a cave…a giant cave with buildings in it.”
“It would buy us time. We have some local shifters watching the place. It’s a new jail right on the bayou intended for the lowest of the low, and the gators go out there to swim anyway. With any luck, he won’t make it more than a few yards outside the gate. And he won’t have any idea where to look for her.”
“Shifters are worse gossips than humans. Anyone she’s talked to or does talk to will tell a friend. And there are fewer than seven degrees of separation among any in the continental US. More like three.” He took a hopeful step toward the door. “No, it’s a bad idea. Besides, you’ve managed to provide a safe haven for Rob right here in New Orleans.”
“Rob’s enemies are international. Delia’s are here in Louisiana.” Jonathan rose to his feet, a finger to his lips. The ancient vampire, in his tailored suit, not one dark hair out of place, moved toward the door and opened it. He held out an arm and caught the tall, curvy brunette who fell inside. “Ear to the door, my dear?” He smiled down at her, a hint of fang protruding from his lips. “Warren Ursa, may I introduce Delia Constanopoulos, the young shifter I was telling you about.” He stood her on her feet, straightened her oversized Crossroads T-shirt, and brushed a lock of hair off her forehead.
Warren eyed her from the top of her head to the toes of her sneakers. Ragged jeans beneath the shirt, either bought that way to be fashionable or from a rag bag somewhere, he couldn’t tell. She wore no makeup, and her olive skin held a rosy glow of health that reassured him. From the stories Jon had told, she’d had a hard road to get there. Still walked one. Her glossy brown hair was pulled back in a severe bun.
“Miss Constanopoulos, I’m afraid I can’t—” He stumbled back as the energetic bundle launched into his arms. “Oof.”
“Thank you for your kindness. I won’t stay long, I promise.” She snuggled close, sniffling into his shirt, and he winced. Her fragrance of sage and heirloom roses wafted toward him and when Karma hugged him at the airport, she’d have questions. Setting her away from him he parted his lips to continue his denial.
How could he endanger his customers, his employees…his mate by bringing a complete stranger home with him? One whose ex was about to get out of jail on a technicality. Someone handling the chain of evidence had misplaced the weapon he’d tried to kill her with.
What kind of bastard would kill a woman like this?
She trembled in his grip, and he wavered, but images of his Karma supplanted the woman he’d just met. Sure, he wanted to protect someone in trouble, but Jon had taken her on. He hadn’t. And if the vampire couldn’t protect her, why did he think Warren could do better?
“Miss Consta…Delia. I know you’re in trouble, but we’re not set up to hide someone out in the desert. I think you’d be better off downstairs here, where you’d be secure.”
She blinked and tears sparkled on the thick lashes fringing her Aegean blue eyes. Damn, he was a sucker for female tears. “I…I understand, but….” Her voice dissolved into a hiccupping sob, and Jon came to her side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“But Delia has already been staying with me for nearly a week, and she’s been pining for sunlight. Unlike some of us, she requires it for her well-being. The only truly secure place here is downstairs.”
“And you’re sending her to a cave?” Logic didn’t seem to trouble the ancient ones. Warren looked her up and down. Despite her feminine curves, she stood almost as tall as the vampire and probably outweighed him. He sniffed the air but couldn’t confirm his suspicions. “What kind of shifter are you?”
“Why, Mr. Ursa, really you can’t tell?” She blinked away the tears, and her trembling lips lifted into a semblance of a smile. “Would you like me to show you?”
He knew she was a bear, but Jon mentioned some kind of endangered group…. “No, I—”
Jon stepped back. “Oh, do. Wait, let me call Roberto; he hasn’t seen her other form yet, and he’s been begging her.” He opened the door and stepped out for a moment then returned, his muscular, Bolivian partner by his
side. “Proceed.”
“I haven’t been up to it.” Her chin tilted up in defiance. “But, perhaps, if it will convince Mr. Ursa…?” Dropping to all fours, she squeezed her eyes shut and a haze shimmered around her, blurring the results of her change until a huge brown bear rose, roaring toward the ceiling.
“You see, Roberto? Isn’t she spectacular?” Jon looked as pleased as if he’d created her himself. “Warren, you have the honor of standing in the presence of one of the brown bears of Epirus. I can recall when they populated the hillsides, but now, aside from some elders and the one we are protecting her from, Delia is it.” Sadness replaced his glee. “Delia, meet Warren Ursa. The owner of Animals, our sister club in Arizona.”
Stunned speechless, he took in the magnificence before him. Her luxurious coat, long claws, and gleaming eyes held a challenge, and he reached toward her before catching himself. “I thought they were all gone.” A few highly endangered animals remained in the region, some of the last European bears, but the shifter version? “She’s so beautiful.”
He fought the urge to shift, to join her and rampage madly around the room in a bear celebration. Jonathan’s chuckle drew him back to himself. “All but Delia, and her ex, so far as we know—at least of breeding age.” They all waited while she shifted back to her human self and faced them. “Roberto, take our girl for a sandwich or something in the kitchen please. We’ll call you back when things are settled.”
The maned wolf shifter held out a hand to Delia and led her out of the room. When they’d disappeared into the hallway, Warren exhaled sharply. “What’s the story? I can’t risk my group without knowing what we’re getting into.”
“She’d never have mated him, if not for the pressure from the elders to reproduce. Then, instead of staying in Greece and raising the family they all wanted, he brought her here and used her as a punching bag. He cracked her skull and knifed her a few times and a neighbor called the police. The human authorities have him in jail, but something happened to the evidence holding him there and word has it he’ll be out anytime.”
“And you don’t think the underground here is the best place to disappear?”
“Well, I did think it was.” Jonathan moved toward the window and gazed out at the French Quarter. Warren joined him, watching crowds moving along the streets carrying colorful rum hurricanes in tall glasses and bags of souvenirs. So soon after dark, families mingled with early partiers. Soon all strollers would clear away and chattering schoolchildren would be tucked in their beds. Those remaining would be well into their cups. A typical night in the Quarter.
“But?”
“But she can’t tolerate our version of safety. The sunlight thing and loneliness. Roberto and I were not enough company for her. We couldn’t tell anyone else she was here. If she doesn’t leave with you, she’ll have to head downstairs in a few minutes before the staff starts to arrive for the evening.” He sighed. “Once he’s actually freed—tomorrow, maybe—I don’t even feel comfortable letting her be up here during the day. She suggested we should just hand her over, to face her fate.”
“A bear will track his mate to the ends of the Earth.”
“I am aware. But it’s a temporary fix while we put together a long-term fix.” Jonathan pressed his forehead against the window and closed his eyes. “And who says she’s his mate?”
Was the vampire right? She hadn’t smelled mated. If she was, he should not have been able to scent her very much at all.
“Fine. Have her grab her things and we’re out of here. We’ll take a cab in case your car is followed. Someone disappeared her ex’s evidence, so he’s not alone in this world, even if she just about is. I so didn’t need this,” he growled.
Jonathan raised one straight black eyebrow. “I don’t want you to feel as if we’re forcing you. If you don’t want to do this, we will make do.”
He parted his lips to say great, it’s settled, then, but his bear grumbled inside him, protective of anyone it regarded as part of their little clan. He’d avoided naming it before, but despite all their differences, Animals, its owners, employees, and many of the clients were family—were clan. He couldn’t use the term sleuth because they were not all bears.
From his reaction, his bear seemed to believe Delia belonged.
“She is one of ours. Not sure why, but she is. We will keep her safe.”
Jonathan slapped the table. “I have no doubt you will, my friend.”
Warren glanced at his phone and followed his partner through the door. He had just enough time to get to the airport and buy another ticket—please let one be available—before standing in line. He doubted his traveling companion had the TSA Pre status that would allow her to take the short line through security, so everything would be slowed down. He could call Karma from the gate.
Heaven knew what she’d have to say.
Chapter 2
Delia tried to focus on some ridiculous TV reality show until the small screen blinked off as the jet approached Sky Harbor International Airport.
“We are still some miles out.” Warren Ursa, the alpha of the Superstitions Clan as they’d begun to call themselves, reached past her to push up the plastic window cover to let in bright desert sunshine. “But if you look way off there, see those reddish mountains?”
She narrowed her eyes into the glare, just making out hazy shapes in the far distance. The plane’s nose dropped at a steeper angle, and the mountains disappeared. “The Superstitions? I have read about them. They are said to be very mystical.”
Warren settled back in his seat. “The local Native Americans have many legends about them, but our club is in ruins so ancient even they have forgotten them.”
“Our elders speak of such places,” she murmured, watching the green and brown squares of the landscape in and around the desert city pass under the jet, cloud shadows crossing them at the same time. “But isn’t it, I can’t think of the word…sacrilegious…to have a nightclub in one? To damage the past?”
“No, we are very careful to protect our heritage.” He tipped back his glass, downing the last half inch of twenty-year-old scotch and handing it to the smiling flight attendant. If he’d shown the slightest interest, the aging blonde with the nametag reading Cindy, Here to Serve You would have thrown herself across his lap. As it was, she’d danced attendance on him the entire way across the country. First class, fine, but surely she could go ten minutes without asking if he needed something. To his credit, he’d been no more than courteous. And made sure Delia got service, too, because she was apparently invisible.
But something was off about that woman, behind her gleaming white teeth and perfect makeup. Something that chilled Delia’s bones. She interspersed the offers of beverages and snacks with too many personal questions. The sooner they debarked, the better.
She turned her thoughts back to their destination as the wheels touched down and the craft taxied down the tarmac toward the gates. They’d be off the jet in a few minutes, and she’d have to meet a whole new group of shifters who didn’t know her from Lilith. Would they like her? Accept her?
Be willing to hide her from the bear who would sacrifice anyone who got in the way of what he wanted? Why would they? Her mouth dried, and she regretted turning down the last shot at a beverage offered her by Cindy Stewardess. She’d get a bottle of water in the terminal.
“Delia? We’re at the gate.” Warren’s low voice in her ear jerked her out of her thoughts, and she scooped up her purse, prepared to get the heck out of the cabin and into the relative safety of anywhere else.
As they moved toward the hatch, Cindy smiled at them. “Thanks for flying with us. Have a nice day.” Her eyes—they were the coldest gray she’d ever seen, silver flecks sparking in them. They should have been pretty, but, to Delia, they were terrifying. She just couldn’t pin down why. Her bear hated the woman and had some good ideas about cuffing her into next week.
Delia preceded Warren into the jetway and paused to wait for him to catch u
p. He joined her, crumpling a piece of paper in his hand.
“What’s that?” she asked, but she knew.
“The flight attendant gave it to me.” He chuckled, tossing the paper into the first trash can they came to. “I think it was her phone number. Lucky Karma wasn’t here. She’d have taken her apart piece by piece for the fun of it.”
They paced up the slope, side by side. “I thought your mate was human?”
“The operative word is ‘mate,’” he muttered. “Human or shifter, doesn’t seem to matter where mates are concerned. Beware all who tread on her skirts. Or something like that.”
“It is funny,” she replied, as they headed out of the gate area and toward baggage, “that I never felt that way.”
“Sounds like your ex did.” He took her arm in the crowd, guiding her along with him in a gentlemanly way that made her regret he was taken. “He sure seems upset that you left him.”
She sighed and stepped onto the escalator in front of him. “You could call it that.”
Below them, the crowd swirled, a multitude of colors and shapes that blurred before her tired eyes. Noise, so much noise. She’d go back to Greece, to the mountains and oceans she loved, if she could. She hadn’t left by choice. Any more than she’d been mated by her choice. And the money she’d managed to save wouldn’t get her far if she spent so much on a plane ticket. So far, every dime remained intact, save what she’d spent on the bus fare. Her protectors had insisted on paying for everything.
“Warren! Warren!” A curvy young woman with a long black braid that swung by her hips bounced up and down at the foot of the escalator. And she really did bounce. Where Delia was actually on the thin side for her people, even with her large breasts and broad hips, this woman would make the hearts of the village elders sing. She resembled the ideal of beauty admired by their sleuth for generations.