Prince of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  Cale kissed her again, once, twice, a leisurely, luscious third time, then lifted Kendra off him. They washed up at the same sink, Cale gently tending her torn neck and shoulder. Dressing in silence, they were about to leave the room when Kendra tugged him to a halt. “My diamond. I want it now. And that explanation later.”

  Cale eased it from his swollen ear and slipped it back in hers. “Now you hold all of my love and loyalty.”

  Silas was waiting in the foyer, his expression tense as he took in his cousin’s appearance. Until she flung her arms around him to whisper, “Wish me well.”

  “I always have.”

  She gave him a quick squeeze and returned to the enveloping curl of Cale’s arm as the two males exchanged stiff nods. Silas stepped forward to open the door for them, then followed behind into the great hall.

  Bram was seated in his chair with Bull at his back. His sons were lined up before him, still and silent. Their king’s waxy features turned florid when Cale approached, his stride full of confident swagger, his attire ferociously utilitarian, his female clutched with unmistakable protectiveness. Even if the princess hadn’t been leaning in to him, her expression both dreamy and defiant, the shoulder of her pristine sweater showing a dark telling stain as the thick pheromonal scent of primal sex swirled about her, none could miss the dangerously territorial edge to their brother’s manner—as cuttingly sharp as the diamond returned to his mate’s ear. They were bonded.

  “My king, forgive my tardiness. I was claiming my future with due diligence.”

  Bram, nearly purple with rage, struggled to control his jerking breaths. Finally, he seethed, “How dare you approach me with such disrespect, with such disregard for my commands. On your knees!”

  When Kendra began to drop, Cale’s grip on her arm tightened, keeping her upright at his side. His soft reply echoed like a shot. “No.”

  “No?” Bram blinked, aware that his other sons had taken a startled step back and waited with keen attention to see what he would do.

  Cale’s voice strengthened with unwavering authority. “I am a prince in the House of Terriot. I do not kneel. Nor will my queen. I’ve come for the throne I was promised. Give it to me.”

  For a long moment, no one breathed.

  “You arrogant boy! I’ll give you what you deserve.” Bram gestured to Bull. “Kill them where they stand. Then find his mother and kill that bitch, too.”

  Cale snapped into a lethal defense pose, the brace of his arm pushing Kendra behind him. The orderly line of princes was broken as Rico, Kip, Colin, and Turow moved to stand with him. There was nothing to defend against.

  Bram looked up at the immobile figure behind him. “Did you hear me? Do as I say!”

  Bull’s focus was on Cale. “I await orders from my king.”

  First crisis averted, Cale expelled a shaky breath, hugging Kendra close and turning to his brothers. “It’s time to stop fighting our own kind. Our vanity, our greed, our refusal to compromise is more dangerous than any enemy.”

  “So, boy,” Bram sneered. “You won’t kneel to your rightful king, but you would crawl to Savoie and Guedry in weakness. A Terriot doesn’t crawl like a coward.”

  “A Terriot doesn’t let his line die because he’s a fool. I mean to give away nothing and gain everything. But first, you will step down so I can lead.”

  “Never.” Shrewdly, Bram took the measure of his sons, a few standing bold and proud, the others hanging back, conflicted or unconvinced. He laughed. “As your first act, you would divide your brothers with infighting so outsiders can come in and crush us all? Look around. They won’t follow you. Without them, you won’t stand a chance.”

  Kendra spoke up firmly, head high, posture defiant. “The friends of my family will follow my prince. They are many, and they are loyal.” She looked to Silas.

  All cool contempt, Silas echoed, “New Orleans recognizes Cale Terriot as the leader of his clan and will deal only with him. Those who oppose him, we’ll deal with at his side.”

  Bram wheezed, grasping the arms of his chair. “Only I can appoint my successor. This treason won’t be tolerated!”

  “It will,” Kendra assured him with a thin smile. “By your own decision. When you made Vera your bonded mate, Cale became your only recognized heir.” While Cale stared at her, as shocked as the others, Kendra funneled her outrage at Bram. “His mother told me. I saw the marks. Dare to deny it. Tell him the truth!”

  Breathing heavily, Bram watched the confusion in Cale’s face settle into deadly calm and saw the tide turn. It was scramble to catch it or be swept away. “It’s true. I said nothing because he needed to prove himself worthy. I made a weak boy into a powerful king.”

  Cale shook his head. “You did nothing.” He took Kendra’s hand and proclaimed, “I owe everything to my queen.” To her, he added, “You and my momma owe me one hell of an explanation.”

  “You made your choice.” She squeezed his fingers, pride and love steeped in that acknowledgment. “We’ll stand by it.”

  “Who follows me?” Cale demanded of his brothers. One by one, each took a knee. Cale strode to Bram, leaning close to command, “Stand down or I will crush you.”

  “I am your father!”

  “That’s why you’re not dead, as justice demands.”

  Very slowly, Bram Terriot rose up, tipping his head at a haughty angle. “You will regret this.”

  “I regret many things, but this will not be one of them.” To Bull, Cale said, “Take my father to his new accommodations in Reno. I have a suite ready in my hotel where he can live out his retirement in fitting comfort.” And in well-guarded captivity.

  “Cale.” Suddenly, Bram Terriot was just an old man who’d fueled the ambitions of a boy with a single word of praise.

  “Good-bye, Father.” Then, softly, respectfully, “My king.”

  Once Bram was escorted from the room, Cale looked among his submissive brothers and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Get up. I don’t know about all of you, but I sure as hell could use a drink. The Pub’s open.”

  twenty-four

  Once again the warm paneled walls of the lower level were filled with the princes of the House of Terriot, along with their mates and families. Cale held his first unofficial court sitting on the bar, a cold beer dangling from his hand, his mate—his queen—seated on a barstool between his knees.

  As he spoke to the gathering, he couldn’t stop touching her to assure himself that she was really there, his knuckles rubbing against her smooth check, his fingers sifting through her hair, toying with the hefty diamond in her ear.

  “Our father kept us weak so he could rule as he saw fit, not so our clan could be strong. Our strength should be in our brotherhood, something I didn’t understand until recently.” He nodded to Colin and Turow. “How can we demand respect when we show none to our own family? Our clan is our family, our responsibility. We serve them. We owe it to them to stay strong, to make alliances that protect our boundaries, our kind, and their future. Not to exploit them. Or poison them.” His stare fixed on James for a long beat.

  “We should be more than thugs in fancy suits. We should do more than take what we can for our own comfort and security and say to hell with the rest of our people. I’ve seen pride move mountains that fear can’t climb. Where’s our pride in who we are and what we stand for? What are we made of that we’d stand by silently and let atrocities be done in the name of our House because we were too afraid to speak up and say it was wrong?”

  Silas was behind the bar, topping off his drink, when Cale turned and said solemnly, “It was wrong, what we did.” Startled by the gesture, Silas accepted it with an incremental nod. To Kendra, Cale said with a hitch in his voice, “It was wrong. I’m so sorry.”

  Her eyes filled as she whispered back, “I forgive your family. Justice is done. Thank you, my king.”

  He squeezed her hand tightly, then addressed the others once more. “Brothers, do we stand together for our clan, or do we fall
alone out of our own self-interests?”

  “What good is a king who can’t produce an heir?” James’s silky challenge caught Cale off guard but didn’t rock him.

  “If there is no heir to continue my line within five years, I’ll defer my crown to Wesley, so our legacy will continue, and I’ll proudly serve him.” A faint smile at his stunned brother. “That’s one way to push him into monogamy.”

  Wesley laughed. “I expect you to continue with that due diligence so I’ll be off the hook.”

  Cale chuckled along with him, though his gaze lingered once again on James until his older brother rose from his seat to go to the back of the room, where he spoke to a grim-faced Sylvia.

  Seeing her onetime nemesis slip out, Kendra decided it was time to get some answers as the House of Terriot’s new queen. When she twisted to look up at Cale and excuse herself, his hands captured her face as he bent to take her lips with a slow, heated passion. The intensity of her response—a quick, fiery surge of need so desperate and desire-drenched that if he hadn’t broken away, she would have been straddling his lap in front of all his family—left her gasping. Her eyes fluttered open to meet his equally dazed stare.

  Cale took an uneven breath and blinked. “Oh. My. That’s new.” His grin flashed wide. “I like it.”

  “I—I’ll be back in a minute.” She was panting lightly, her senses supercharged and shivering.

  “Get out of my reach quickly, or you’ll be crowning your king right here, right now.”

  She couldn’t resist stretching up for his all too delicious mouth once more, savoring the possibilities. “Make that your last beer, my king,” she whispered huskily between the devastating thrusts of his tongue. “We have pictures to hang.”

  With a lusty grin, he pushed her away. “As you command.”

  As she made her way across the room, Kendra glanced back to see her mate in conversation with Rico. His gaze followed her, so hotly intense that she was immediately breathless.

  So this was bonded bliss. She liked it.

  When Kendra turned back to her intended purpose—cornering Sylvia for a little private conversation that could escalate into unpleasantness that she looked forward to—James caught her arm in a careful but unbreakable grasp. “My queen. Congratulations. You seem happy with your choice.”

  Feeling safe under Cale’s watchful eye, Kendra confronted him. “You should have made better ones, James.”

  He smiled, pretending to be perplexed. “What do you mean?”

  “I asked my cousin why you ordered her killed. She saw you and Martine together. She blew it off as interrupting an inappropriate affair, but it was a business meeting, wasn’t it? The two of you have been scheming together. Cale thought it was you, but it was Martine behind it all, wasn’t it?”

  James gave a laugh. “I always thought you possessed a superior mind, but your cleverness is spinning pure fantasy.”

  “She developed the Kick, didn’t she? She’s been testing it for years on Bram and Cale, making them think it was harmless, that she was helping them. And what a spectacular poster boy Cale became in Reno. That’s why Sylvia told him Michael’s friends would be there, so he’d rip them apart in front of all those potential customers. He couldn’t stop himself, and you two couldn’t have been happier.”

  James abandoned the pretense to gloat. “Fine marketing strategy. Who better a spokesman than their new king?”

  “Did you juice Michael up and send him out to claim me? Did you use Derrick in order to eliminate Cale because his guilt wouldn’t leave him alone?”

  “You give me too much credit. That was Martine. Now, there’s a hard woman. She’d been slowly poisoning the man who refused to make her queen while her daughter was addicting his son so she could control him when he took the throne. Very clever, until you showed up and pulled Cale out from under them. So I guess you’re to blame for Michael and Derrick. And Cale.”

  Kendra refused to accept that blame. “Her plan changed to make her drug-dealing partner king, marrying him to her daughter.”

  “The woman is tenacious about having that crown in the family. She found out about Vera and Bram. A woman scorned is nothing to take lightly. Cale had to go. Michael, Derrick, even our father failed to do the job. For me, it was just business.”

  Martine, who’d tried to help her mother. Had the pregnant Gemma Terriot been an obstacle? Her death accidental, self-induced, or murder?

  James smiled grudgingly, his gaze going to his brother. “He never did know when to stay down. He’ll make a better king than I would have. He has you to thank for that. So,” he mused, regarding her with that faint smile, “what next? Can I expect to have Bull pay me a visit in the night, or should I pack to make that move of shame with my father?”

  “I don’t know.” Kendra’s tender heart softened toward him. “He’s your brother, James. Talk to him. Tell him the truth.”

  “And it will set me free? I kinda doubt that. I know Cale better than you do.” He blew out a big breath. “Well, I’d better get this over with while he’s in a good mood. Walk with me, my queen. Maybe you can blunt his temper with your smile.”

  When he took her arm, Kendra felt a leap of alarm, fearing the Terriot prince meant to use her as a shield, but James quickly released her, allowing her to walk ahead of him to where Cale was watching their approach through hooded eyes.

  “My king.” James bowed his head briefly. “You deserve to rule long and well. You and your gracious queen are exactly what our people need to inspire them. Well done.”

  Cale tendered a slight smile as Kendra moved to stand next to him on the side opposite, where Silas leaned with surprisingly companionable ease. “Thank you, Jamie.” Cale’s hand curled about his mate’s, holding it tightly. “Is there more you have to say to me? Now would be the time.”

  “A great deal, I’m afraid. But I haven’t toasted your success yet. Get you another beer?”

  Cale lifted Kendra’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss there as he winked. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough.”

  When James went around the bar behind him, Cale raised his brows in question at Kendra. She squeezed his hand and murmured, “Be fair. But remember, trusting and stupid aren’t the same thing.”

  He smiled grimly at the reference.

  James took a long drink of his beer and set it down with a resigned sigh. “There’s something I have to do. It’ll only take a minute. Then we’ll have that talk.” He placed a hand on Cale’s shoulder, leaning close to say, “It was never anything personal, brother.” He gave Cale’s back several firm pats and wound his way out of the room.

  Blinking rapidly, Cale gripped Silas’s arm, saying suddenly, “Protect my queen.”

  The strain in his voice alerted Kendra. “Cale?” Her hands covered his as they clutched her shoulders. He swayed, his head bobbing forward until their brows touched, his gaze on hers.“I love you, Katy.” His words came with difficulty, his breaths light and fast. “I’m sorry, baby. Go with Silas. Now.”

  When he started to collapse, Kendra’s arms instinctively went around him. She drew one of them back to stare blankly at the slick red stain on her palm, looking to Silas for an explanation her mind couldn’t comprehend.

  “Oh, shit!” Silas was up and over the bar, easing Cale down to the counter on his side. Very carefully, he pulled up his T-shirt to expose the three puncture wounds in his back, made low beneath his ribs.

  As her cousin was busy folding bar towels to stanch the blood flow, Kendra tried to shake herself from shock. This wasn’t happening. They’d be going home soon to celebrate in private, to share a meal, a bottle of champagne, and a bath before doing all those wonderfully wicked things they enjoyed doing with and to each other. And they’d sleep together, wrapped in each other’s arms, on this night and every one to follow, just as Cale had promised. For as long as they lived.

  “No.” The sound moaned from her. She touched trembling fingertips to his paling face as his eyes rolled back and close
d. “Cale, don’t do this. Cale!”

  His brothers were crowding close, causing her to struggle to stay with him. Turow bent down, asking, “What do you need?”

  When she realized he’d spoken to her, Kendra focused. “Find James. Bring him back. Alive.”

  “Be here,” Turow commanded of Cale, then was gone.

  Kip appeared at her elbow. “James did this? Why? Is Cale going to be all right?” His wide stare flooded up with the same dazed fear that blanked Kendra’s mind. Seeing his uncertain terror grounded her. They were in danger here. Her first duty was to protect her king.

  Cale was gravely wounded, his grip on the crown tenuous at best. Half of his brothers could be swayed easily back to the familiar path they’d abandoned to follow him if they thought he could no longer lead. If Bram returned to power, she, Cale, Vera, and probably Silas would die. Bram would show no mercy to those who betrayed him. She could testify to that.

  Kendra forced a calming smile and placed a bloodied hand to Kip’s cheek. “This is Cale Terriot. He doesn’t know how to stay down. He’ll be fine.” She widened her attention to the rest of his family, lifting her voice. “As your queen, I call for the swift capture of James, Martine, and Sylvia Terriot. Alive! Look to Wesley until Cale recovers from this cowardly attack. Hold to your convictions and stay together. Your king will thank you when he’s able. Until then . . .” Her voice faltered but returned even stronger. “Until then, I thank you, my brothers.”

  By nightfall, the strength that had served Kendra as the Terriot queen was nearly crushed by her anguish as a heartbroken mate. While the physician whom Colin had found examined a fever-wracked and rapidly weakening Cale in an upstairs guest room, Silas expelled Kendra from his side, saying he’d bring her any news. She remained outside the door that separated her from the man she loved, sitting stiff and stoic in Sadie Terriot’s arms. Derrick’s young widow offered no words, just unspoken support and sympathy.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kendra glanced up at the shaky plea to see Rosie kneeling beside her, her pretty face twisted with sorrow.