Prince of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  It was late. It took some time for his knock to be answered, and then the anguish came pouring out of him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  He sank with grateful weariness into the embrace offered him, shuddering with dispirited sorrow when he felt the soft kiss on his brow and heard the tender welcome. “Come inside, baby. You’re safe here.”

  Cale slept long and hard, scrunched up on the couch beneath a blanket that held the comforting scent of his childhood. A bright stripe of close-to-midday edged between the drapes to slant across his face, making him mutter and squint his eyes open. Instead of getting up, he balled up tighter into the familiar warmth, trying to sink back into blissful oblivion, in no hurry to meet the new day.

  Voices from the kitchen slowly seeped into his awareness. Recognizing them, Cale flopped onto his back, groaning, “Oh, hell. Just somebody fuckin’ kill me.” At the sound of footsteps, he pulled the covers over his head, wishing he were that superhero from his youth with the power of invisibility.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Go away.”

  “I have coffee.”

  He wasn’t sure which enticed him out, the scent of the roasted beans or the fragrance of the female who would never love him. He peered sullenly over the edge of the blanket. “What are you doing here? Did my momma call you?” The traitor.

  “No,” Kendra answered quietly, forcing room for herself to sit at his waist. She set the nose-teasing cup down on the table. “I called her. I was worried.”

  A snort of a laugh escaped him. “You should have saved yourself the trip.”

  She smiled, not discouraged, irritating the hell out of him as she said too cheerfully, “You’re grouchy today.”

  “Yes, I am. Now go the fuck away.” He sat up, bumping her hip off the cushions as he bundled the blanket around him in a pridefully self-defensive cocoon. She settled back beside him as if she deserved to be in that spot.

  “I brought you a change of clothes. And this.”

  Kendra felt him recoil when she fitted her palms to his rough cheeks. Before he could untangle his arms to push her away, she leaned in to touch her lips to his. He sucked in a breath and went still. She lifted away to find him staring at her with glowering intensity.

  “You’re supposed to close your eyes,” she told him gently, hoping the tease of remembrance would break through his reserve.

  “Why? So I can pretend I’m with someone else, like you do?”

  He grabbed her up for a sudden, tongue-thrusting kiss that had her returning it desperately until he intoned with gruff passion, “Oh, Syl-baby, I want you so bad.” When her eyes snapped open, he mocked, “How does that make you feel? All warm and appreciated?” When she shoved away, he smiled bitterly. “Thanks. I’ll stick with the coffee.” He picked up the cup and sipped carefully, ignoring her.

  It took Kendra a moment to recover from the tumble of emotions. Then she touched his knee, saying his name.

  Coffee sloshed from his cup as he slammed it down on the table and bolted to his feet. “Stop. Just stop. No more games, Kendra. I don’t want to play.”

  “I’m not playing,” she said softly.

  “What do you want? You don’t love me. You don’t know me. You barely even like me. What’s this about? Afraid of losing your life insurance policy? Is that it?”

  She stood and slipped her arms tightly about him, refusing to be disheartened when he remained tense and unresponsive. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she continued with quiet candor. “You surprised me. You never told me what you meant.”

  A lengthy pause, then a low “When?”

  “When you put out your hand to me. ‘Take my hand and my heart’? I didn’t know you meant that literally. I didn’t know you were in love with me.”

  He made a gruff, denying sound as he wriggled out of her arms. “You shouldn’t take anything a guy tells you after sex seriously. That’s just a grateful dick talking.”

  “I’ll believe that if you sit down and drink your coffee.”

  He debated for a beat, then dropped down on the couch to hunch over his cup. The hard, expressionless mask was back, but worse was the emptiness in his eyes. She sat, too, but kept a careful distance. Finally, he asked, “How did you get here?”

  “Tony brought me.” At Cale’s wince, she added, “I told him you asked him to, that he didn’t have to wait because I’d be riding back with you.”

  The line of his shoulders relaxed slightly. She wanted to put her hand there but didn’t dare. “Cale, we need to talk about some things. I was going to bring them up to you last night, but . . . we got distracted.”

  His jaw worked silently for a second before he asked, “What things?” without looking at her.

  “I went to talk to Sadie yesterday about why her mate might have wanted to kill you.”

  He stared at her, eyes wide and then squinting. “How could you do such a foolish thing?”

  His sharp tone made her spine stiffen. Her own reply was clipped. “Do you want to know what I found out or not?”

  “What?” he grumbled reluctantly.

  “Drugging the water wasn’t his idea. One of your other brothers came to him with it.”

  “Which brother?”

  “Sadie didn’t know. And he didn’t know it was poison. He thought it was a sedative to stop you, but not permanently.”

  “That’s why he wasn’t afraid to drink it himself.” He put his hands over his face, scrubbing fiercely. “Taking me out is one thing, but sacrificing that kid to do it. Sonofabitch.”

  She did reach out then, placing her hand on his arm. “Cale, I think it was Wesley.”

  He turned to her, disbelief and objection stark in his features. “Why would you think that?”

  “He’s the next obvious choice for the throne. His mother and sister both have access to toxins. I’m sorry. I know he’s your friend.”

  Cale’s expression locked down. “Someone in my position doesn’t have friends. I want you to stay here, Kendra.”

  Instead of grabbing at the offer, she argued, “It’s not like they won’t notice I’m gone. What will you tell your father?”

  “That I’ve marked you and completed our bond, then sent you here for safety until I know if you’ve conceived.” He spat that out as if it left a bad taste. “He’ll believe it because he’ll want to think I’m man enough to take care of the business he sent me to do.”

  Bram had sent him to break his word to her.

  “Cale, stay here with me. Tell him we’re on a honeymoon.”

  A wry smile. “That he won’t believe.”

  “Then tell him you’re staying so you can take me every hour until you’re sure you’ve seeded an heir. He’ll believe that. He knows how thorough you are.”

  “I shouldn’t be here at all.” He took a sharp frustrated breath. “I have to go back. That isn’t negotiable. And it’s not my choice. Why do you think I stayed when my momma left? Because I wanted to? Because I couldn’t wait to become exactly what he is? I stayed because if I didn’t, he would have punished or killed everyone I cared for. Everyone. And do you know why I believed him? Because he proved it to me, Kendra. He gave me a lesson he knew I’d never forget. And I haven’t. Not ever.”

  Cale glanced at her, just for an instant, but she knew that anguished stare. She remembered it as if she were even now peering terrified through the slats in her parents’ closet door into his huge glazed eyes. The strong scent of cedar that had permeated that small, dark place filled her nose, swirling in sickening accompaniment to her mother’s favorite perfume. She had to look away as nausea threatened. Because of him . . .

  He’d said enough. More than enough. Cale gripped his cup and, without another word, carried it into the kitchen. The sight of his mother seated at the table, her face wet with tears, stopped him like a high-powered bullet. She’d heard everything.

  “You did it for me. To protect me. All these years I thought it was because you wanted that life,
because you wanted to step into his shoes. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He knelt beside her chair, clutching her cold hands in his. “What would you have done if I’d come to you, Momma? You would have confronted him, and he would have—” Cale took a quick gulping breath. “I didn’t do it so I could be him. I did it so I could stop him. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m strong enough now, and there’s nothing he can do to hurt me except through you and Kendra. If anything happens to either of you, I’ll just fucking die.”

  He laid his head on her shoulder and lost himself in her embrace, smiling slightly when she murmured, “Watch your language in my house.”

  “I love you, Momma.”

  She stroked his hair gently. “And Kendra? Are the two of you together now?”

  “I don’t know what we are.”

  “She called, scared out of her mind, came all the way out here in the middle of the night. She never said what happened, only that she’d done something she was sorry for.”

  He didn’t want to hear about Kendra. He didn’t want to think about her or look at her. Suddenly, he was aware that the scent of them together was all over him. A reminder of what she was willing to sacrifice for those she did love.

  Had she taken that call from Silas? He was afraid to ask. Afraid of what she would . . . or wouldn’t tell him.

  “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’ve got to go.”

  “Is Kendra going with you?”

  “Only if I can’t stop her.”

  The last thing Kendra wanted to do was return to the Terriot compound. If there were a way to remain in the peaceful embrace of Vera’s home, she would have chosen to walk barefoot on these warm tiled floors, to rinse dishes looking out over the manicured lawns, to stretch out on comfy patio furniture and fall asleep with a book on her lap. Relaxed, normal things that hadn’t been a part of her life in years and years. She would have given up everything for this selfish slice of serenity . . . everything except Cale.

  He was going back, so she would go with him. She couldn’t let him leave alone with that haunted, hollow look in his eyes that had been there the first time she met him, that empty look of being crushed and discarded. She’d hated his family for that then, and she hated herself for it now.

  She glanced up when his mother joined her.

  “There’s something I should show you,” Vera began carefully, her gaze on the hallway in case Cale should appear. “I’ve never told him. I didn’t want him to know. I wanted him to be able to make his own choices, but now he may not have one.”

  Slowly, she reached for the neckline of her sweater and drew it aside. Kendra gasped at the sight of the deep grooved scars. The sign of her bonding with a Shifter male.

  “Of all his many mates, I’m the one Bram Terriot chose. Cale is his undisputed heir. He was a different man then, Cale’s father. He was strong and hard, though he could be kind, too. That changed after Cale was born. He became someone I didn’t know, someone I was afraid of, suspicious of everything I did, not trusting anything I said. But he loved Cale.”

  The first thing that surfaced in Kendra was anger. “You let your son struggle and live in fear, be beaten nearly to death time and time again, when he had nothing to prove?”

  Her outrage shamed the other woman, but only briefly. Vera’s expression firmed with a conviction Kendra didn’t know if she’d ever have the courage to maintain. “I did what I thought best for him. He wouldn’t leave with me. He was just a little boy, no match for the rest of them. I thought he’d be safer without becoming a target. They would have found a way to kill him if they thought he was a threat. I wanted to protect him. And I wanted him to think he was free to leave, to come back to me. He never did.” She drew a shaky breath and brushed at her eyes before continuing. “Bram promised me he’d be taken care of, that I’d have no reason to worry. We agreed that he wouldn’t be told about us. I think Bram was certain Cale would disappoint him, and then he’d be able to pass his crown to one of the more deserving others. I prayed that would happen. I prayed every night for my son to fail. I had no idea what he was going through. He never said a word to me, and then I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t bear to know because there was nothing I could do for him. I let that monster hurt my baby after he promised to keep him safe. What kind of mother lets that happen to her child?”

  Kendra placed a hand on Vera’s arm for a squeeze. “You both underestimated him. He must have gotten that determination and strength from you, to make you proud.”

  Vera smiled slightly. “No. If he’s been pushing himself to succeed all this time, it wasn’t for me, for his father’s attention, or for the throne. It was so he’d feel worthy of you.”

  That was what Tony had said and Cale had confirmed with his own words. The weight of it hung upon her heart.

  Vera opened a drawer beneath that photo shrine and passed Kendra another picture, probably the first taken that day she and Cale had arrived together. He had his head turned away from the lens, his face angled so he could look over at Kendra with such aching anguish. Oh, Cale, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.

  And then Kendra studied herself in that telling photo, and what she saw shocked her. Tenderness softened her features, making her eyes dewy and her lips slightly part. Her arms were around him in a gesture that was sheltering as well as supportive.

  She’d never fallen out of love with her Terriot prince.

  Vera pressed her hand and left her to her thoughts.

  Why hadn’t she realized it sooner? How had it come as such a surprise? I love you, Katy. I’ve loved you forever.

  Of course she’d known. She’d always known. That was why his sudden abandonment had broken her heart. Why she hadn’t looked at her phone to see who was calling.

  Kendra picked up the blanket he’d let drop to the floor and held it to her face, inhaling his scent, aroused by the fact that hers entwined with it for a deliciously earthy fragrance. An unrealized instinct stirred deep inside her with a fierce, lusty growl. He’s yours. Take him.

  Agitated by those compelling urges, she paced the small cozy living room, wanting desperately to hide within its safety. Why was she even considering going back to that place of pain and fear and isolation? Let him take care of his family’s politics, let him assume that role he so desired. She’d only get in his way, handicapping him with his worry over her.

  And then all she could see was the look on his face when he’d noticed her at the Shifter arena.

  You’re still here.

  Amazed, humbled, because no one had ever chosen to be by his side. Until now. Until her.

  Cale emerged from the hallway, showered and dressed in the clingy gray sweater she’d brought for him, the floral trace of soap and shampoo a glaring contrast to his rough masculinity. He regarded her briefly, unblinkingly, then turned to his mother. “Gotta go.” He relaxed into her embrace. “Call me if you need me. Even if you don’t.”

  She kissed his cheek, promising, “I will. Stay safe.”

  By then Kendra had her coat on and was waiting at the door. He said nothing as he put on his own jacket and strode past her out into the bright late morning, leaving her to follow.

  eighteen

  They wound up into the mountains, sparse scrub replaced by lush pines, the air cooling as Kendra’s temperature grew hot.

  It was the feel of Cale between her knees.

  She was in love with him.

  Her palms clutched the tops of his hard thighs, her thumbs buried in the crease of his jeans as the bike’s vibrations echoed to her core.

  He’s yours. Yours to have. Yours to enjoy. What are you waiting for? You know you want him.

  Her need grew as sharp as the cutting wind.

  The road narrowed into a winding two-lane, a sheer drop-off on one side, thick forest on the other. As they rounded a curve, Kendra tapped Cale’s helmet and gestured to a two-track veering deep into the trees between dirty piles of leftover early snow. He downshifted and guided t
hem onto that bumpy path until they were well out of sight of any passersby.

  He straddled the motorcycle, keeping it at an idle while she slipped from the seat, then he lifted off his helmet as she did the same. His expression was tight and controlled as he raked his fingers through his hair and gave his shoulders a roll.

  “Aren’t you coming with me?” she asked.

  He frowned at her. “You don’t need me with you to pee.”

  “No, but I need you with me to have sex.”

  She turned and started into the woods, not exhaling until she heard him shut off the engine.

  Scant sunlight penetrated the canopy of firs. The partially frozen ground was springy with needles. So deep and quiet. And then he was behind her, his hands at her waist, his breath pulsing hot against her ear. She revolved in his grasp, at first startled by the intensity of his features, then so unbearably thrilled that she stretched up for his lips. His head tilted back so that her eager mouth caught his jaw. She kissed her way along that harsh line, moving down to the heat of his throat, an urgent moan rising in her own.

  She yanked open his coat and pushed it off his shoulders, then reached for the fastening to his jeans, pulling roughly at the zipper until he intercepted her for his own safety. The instant he freed himself, her hands were on him, stroking, tugging, while he backed her up against the trunk of a massive pine. He didn’t ask if she was sure. He didn’t ask if she was ready. He took those things for granted from the way she kicked off her shoes and wriggled out of her leggings.

  The kiss of cool mountain air on her bare legs made her all the more aware of the heat bubbling over at their junction. His hands clamped on to her thighs, lifting her so her knees hooked over his hip bones to hug him tight between them. She had his face clasped in her palms, wanting his mouth so desperately, but he ducked his head, resting his brow on her shoulder.

  And then she wasn’t thinking about kissing.

  One hard thrust buried him deep inside her, forcing the breath from her lungs with a shocked oomph. Then pain, burning, splintering, splitting pain that brought tears to her eyes and had her biting her lip to contain the cry. Her nails sank into his neck and shoulder as he began to move in swift, powerful lunges. She clung to him, shaking, about to beg him to stop, when the discomfort eased, then expanded into something very different. Something amazing.