by Skylar Faye
Chapter Seven
Because I love you. I can’t see you hurt because of me. I don’t have a choice in this. Teri’s final words to him almost a month ago continued to haunt Seth. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t work on his manuscript, which was now overdue and both his agent and his editor were upset with him. He didn’t care about them. He didn’t care about anything. And he was hell to be around.
He stood by the line shack, which had become the only place he could find a second’s peace. Somehow he felt closer to Teri here, since it was where he’d last seen her. The fool in him kept hoping she’d come back. But she hadn’t and he hadn’t heard a word from her. He had a hundred questions—beginning and ending with what the hell was she? How could she have simply vanished into thin air? He had no way of tracking her down.
Frustrated, he tossed the coffee cup he’d been sipping from across the field. It landed with a barely noticeable sound in the high grass, which frustrated him even more. He wanted to punch something, someone, anything. He wanted to roar out his pain. He desperately needed to shift, but he refused to allow himself that relief. Part of him still believed that she’d left him because of what he was.
“Just do it.”
Seth spun around to see Walker slowly approaching on foot. How had he not heard the man? “What are you talking about? And why the hell are you here?”
Walker didn’t look the least bit intimidated by Seth’s anger. He continued walking closer. “I’m here because my best friend—okay, only friend—in the world is making himself crazy.”
He was taken aback a bit by Walker’s humble admission. Only friend. And he’d been treating Walker and the others like shit lately. “I’m not fit to be around right now. Sorry.”
“Okay, reluctant apology accepted.” Walker stopped a few feet away, grim-faced and determined. “The way I see it two things need to happen. First, you need to shift and release the beast inside you.” When Seth started to speak, Walker held up his hand. “Second, you need to stop moping around here and find Teri.”
Seth’s hands were curled at his sides, nails ready to lengthen any second. He fought down the need to change with every last ounce of inner strength within him. “What do you mean shift? What beast?” There was no way his friend could know about him. Right?
Again Walker surprised him. “I’ve encountered a lot of strange things in my life. Even had a run-in once with vampire. And before you ask, no, I wasn’t bitten.”
Seth listened, stunned, uncertain what to say.
“I met a couple of warlocks, too, a dozen years back. Damn scary men.” Walker looked Seth straight in the eye. “I saw you shift one time up here. Yes, I know. I wasn’t supposed to have come here, but I did.”
Seth didn’t know what to say about that either, but relief snaked through him. His friend knew about him and clearly wasn’t horrified. He hadn’t given away Seth’s secret. Or had he?
As if he’d read Seth’s mind, Walker shook his head. “Every man on this ranch has his own secrets to deal with. Me included. Yours is a bit stranger than most, but it doesn’t bother me.”
“Why not?” Curious, he had to ask the question.
“You’ve never caused problems to anyone around here. And the people in town think a lot of you.”
They studied each other for a few minutes, Seth trying to come to terms with the change in his situation. His secret was out, at least to Walker and Teri. Teri. Depression swamped him again. He attempted to shift the focus off what he was. “Warlocks, huh?”
Walker nodded with a shrug. “Back to what I said. You need to go after that little gal. It’s plain to all of us that you love her…and we kind of liked her, too.”
Seth turned to look at the trees by the end of the field. Pain wrenched his heart, as it had since she’d left him. His ego still felt bruised. “She left me.”
“Yeah, so? Women do all sorts of illogical things. But it was clear as ice that she loved you, too.”
“I can’t go after her. I can’t track her at all.” He blew out a breath and ground his jaw. Trampled-on ego or not, he would hunt her down if he could. He’d even considered contacting his old pack to see if they’d help him. They probably would, but what could they do? Even they wouldn’t be able to track her. There was nothing to track.
“Why not? She had to have left some of tracks, some kind of trail behind.”
“She didn’t just drive off in that truck I gave her. You know that since the truck is still there. She didn’t take any of her belongings with her…not her few clothes, not her cameras.”
He faced his friend, who seemed okay with knowing he was a shifter. Something that still amazed him. Maybe Walker could handle the strangeness about Teri as well. “She vanished. Poof. Like a puff of smoke, right in front of me.”
Walker’s eyes widened. “No shit?”
“Disappeared. Vanished. Smoke.” He had thought about it a thousand times, didn’t understand what had happened. One second she was talking about leaving him, the next she was gone.
“Well, now that’s damn interesting.” Walker looked impressed. “Life around here is getting more fascinating every day.”
“You seem awful accepting of these weird things…my being a werewolf. Teri being a…hell, I don’t know what she is.” He didn’t care what she was. All he knew was that he wanted her back with him.
“Werewolf? Really? Like in the movies?”
Seth rolled his eyes. “Forget the movies. All that is a bunch of crap made up by Hollywood writers who don’t know squat about the shifters of this world. And there are a damn lot of us.”
He sucked in a breath, tamped down his irritation. “I don’t know what kind of special being Teri is and I don’t care. But I want her…here…with me.”
Walker remained quiet a few seconds and then he said, “What about that Tyrone character? Didn’t you say she’d originally come to Templeton in a car loaned to her by a friend of hers? Tyrone?”
“I’ve never met him and she really never talked about him. Besides, the car was gone, too. Evidently vanished just like Teri did.” He grumbled a curse under his breath. “Too many damn magical beings around here lately.”
One of Walker’s eyebrows had shot up. “You think this Tyrone is magical, too? I swear I ain’t never leaving this ranch. Too many out of the ordinary things happening here.”
“No, you’re not leaving here. Fact is, I’m planning to make you a partner.” Seth glanced at his friend, stunned that he’d told him that so bluntly.
Walker grinned, one of the first real smiles he’d ever seen on the life-hardened man. “You for real?”
Relieved that another one of his problems was out in the open and hadn’t turned into a disaster, Seth nodded. “If you believe you can be partners with a wolf shifter.”
“Damn straight I can.” Walker’s shoulders straightened. “I’d be more than proud to be your partner.”
Seth studied his friend, felt guilty for having waited this long to deal with the subject. Walker was a good, dependable man. This would all work out. Now…if he just figure out how to find Teri.
“I guess it’s time to head back home. I’m not doing anyone any good by hiding out here.” Including himself. She clearly wasn’t just going to pop back here. He had to forget that crazy idea.
“I’ll meet you back there.” Walker started striding off in the direction he’d come from. “I left my truck at the bottom of the hill.”
Seth stood there a few more minutes, staring at the trees, no longer wanting to shift and run free. He wanted Teri so much he hurt, but he’d have to accept that she was gone. He’d have to move on with his life. What other choice did he have?
* * *
Teri paced her bedroom in the Grand Palace, going from one end of the enormous, extravagantly furnished room to the other. She hated it. She missed Seth’s ranch house, which wasn’t small either, but nothing like this place. It was a house, a home. This palace had never been and never would be a “ho
me” where she would feel comfortable.
She stopped to glance out the window that stretched from floor to ceiling at least twenty feet high. Her room overlooked the expansive back lawn with its many flower gardens. More flowers than she even knew the names of, gardens busy with flower faeries flitting about all times of the day and night. They had their tasks, as did the woodland faeries and the water faeries, and the… Well, every faery in this kingdom had responsibilities, including her sisters Gabriella and Sabrina. But she, Princess Terianna, had nothing to do. Nobody seemed to know what to do with her now that she’d returned. She didn’t belong here. Everyone knew it but didn’t want to admit it. Certainly not her mother.
Her mother, an impossible woman. Apparently she’d become heartless, too, over the years. She barely tolerated the faery men Teri’s sisters had become engaged to, refused to allow their marriages until…nobody knew when “until” would be. But neither Gabriella nor Sabrina would challenge their mother. No backbone. But then, where was hers? Why was she still here? She loved someone, Seth. Yet she’d given him up without any kind of fight, with him or her mother. By now he’d probably forgotten her. He hadn’t even wanted her there at the ranch to begin with.
“No. He won’t have forgotten me. Not yet.”
“Oh dear, you’re talking to yourself again,” Sabrina said pityingly as she walked into the room. “Maybe I should call the Royal Physician once more. He must have missed something when he examined you.”
Teri heaved an annoyed sigh. Her sisters, her mother, the servants…everyone in the palace seemed to think that it was perfectly all right for them to just walk into her room. She had no privacy. She felt like she existed under a microscope and was constantly examined for any changes. After all, she’d lived amongst mortals for years and years. She had to have been horribly affected by their influence, or so she’d heard in loud whispers from nearly everyone here.
She’d never raised her voice to her sisters, even her mother, but she was tired of playing nicey-nice with these irritating people. She faced Sabrina and allowed her frustration to come out in her tone. “You will knock before entering my room from now on, do you understand? You will show me some respect.”
Sabrina blinked in surprise, paled. “Still not quite yourself, I see.” She started to back out of the room. “Mother just wanted me to check on you. I’ll let her know--”
“Let her know what? That I’m ‘not quite myself’…whatever that’s supposed to mean. That I’m not like milk toast, like you and Gabriella. That I refuse to live under Mother’s thumb any longer.”
Her sister’s eyes widened. “How can you talk about Mother in such a way? She’s the Queen. She’s…”
Teri felt bad about basically attacking her sister, but it was time her sister looked at her life a bit differently. “Yes, she is the Queen here. But she is also your mother. She should want you to be happy, want you to have a life of your own. Just because she and Father had a loveless marriage—okay, almost hated each other—doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t find happiness with someone.”
She’d had a taste of it with Seth and the weight of the loss of it had nearly killed her spirit. She was tired of crying herself to sleep each night, tired of aching for him all the hours she was awake.
Sabrina lowered her voice almost as if she feared someone would overhear her. “You really love that…that werewolf?” She said werewolf as if he had to be the most despicable creature in the world.
Teri’s eyes misted and she fought the pain that clutched at her heart. “More than anything.”
“Then why are you here? Why did you come back where you obviously don’t want to be?” Sabrina met her gaze, confused, clearly envious, too. “If I were as strong as you…I would marry Geoffrey even without Mother’s permission.”
“You really think such awful things of me? Both of you?”
Sabrina gasped and nearly fainted at hearing their mother behind her in the doorway. “I…I…”
“I love you, Mother, I really do,” Teri said placatingly. “But I love Seth, too. Not necessarily more, but at least as much. I want to be with him. Forever.” And she did.
To her surprise, her mother smiled. “I was wrong about your wolf…your man. I thought him not worthy of you and I didn’t want you hurt, like I was. But I’ve learned a lot about him and I’ve been watching over him since you left him. I’ve never seen a man more devastated. He mourns for you as if you’d died.”
Tears slid down Teri’s face, she trembled. “He mourns for me?” She’d feared that he’d been glad to see the last of her. Now her heart swelled with hope. And she didn’t want him to suffer…she was tired of suffering.
Sadness moved over her mother’s face. “I only wanted to see you again, but I went about it all wrong…ordering you home. Ordering you here. This kingdom is no longer your home, Seth Stevenson’s ranch is. I know that now.”
She raised her regal head and said firmly, “You will return there, today. I am tired of watching your wolf…your man…mope around. Such behavior is not right for an alpha former pack leader.” She hesitated, then added, “But you will return once a year for a visit.” She sighed and added more quietly, “Will you please return once a year for a visit? You may bring your mate with you, of course.”
Teri rushed across the room and threw her arms around her mother, startling both her mother and her sister. Hugging hadn’t been allowed between them. Or maybe their mother just hadn’t known how to show such heartfelt emotion. It took a second, but finally her mother hugged her back.
When her mother stepped away, her eyes were shining and she was smiling. She glanced toward a stunned Sabrina and commanded, “You will bring Geoffrey to see me tomorrow. It is long past time you two got married.”
Uncertainly, Sabrina took a step toward her mother, glancing at Teri for support. Then their mother opened her arms and huffed, “Are you going to come hug me or not? I do not have all day for this silliness, daughter.”
Teri giggled in delight, feeling happy for the first time here in what felt like all of her life. She was going to miss her family. But not as much as she missed Seth. She faded to spirit form to leave once again, but called out, “I love you both.”
* * *
“She’s miserable without you, wolf.”
Seth’s heart pounded and he spun around in his bedroom to find a stocky man who stood little higher than waist-tall to him. His skin was green, his ears pointed, as were his teeth. Instinctively he knew who the curious little man was: Teri’s friend. “Tyrone, right?”
“Yes.” Tyrone wandered toward Seth’s dresser and began fingering the various items he found there. He picked up Seth’s father’s old pocket watch and grinned. “Nice. Can I have this?”
“No. Put it down.” Seth had just come from the shower and was naked, but that didn’t bother him. All that mattered was what this strange creature could tell him about Teri. “Where is she?”
Tyrone glanced at Seth, his odd yellowish eyes looking amused. “Even in that semi-erect state, you’re darn impressive. I don’t know how our girl could have left you.”
Seth fought down the urge to cover his dick with his hands. He chose to ignore the man’s comment. “Where is she? Why did she leave? What was with her saying she had to protect me?”
“Rubbed you wrong, didn’t it? A tough shifter man like you hearing a little bit of a woman say she had to protect you.” Tyrone chuckled and wandered around the room, touching things and moving on. “But she was right.”
“You’re really annoying me.” Seth strode into his closet and pulled on the first pair of jeans he found. When he walked back into the bedroom, he glowered at his visitor now sitting on the edge of his bed. “Get off of there.”
Tyrone didn’t move, didn’t flinch at Seth’s growled order. “Queen Mama—Queen Arabella that is—ordered Teri home. She’s looking to pass on the throne to one of her daughters. She decided she’d had enough of Teri’s rebellion and being too independen
t. Queen Baby likes to be in full control.” He looked puzzled for a second. “I honestly don’t understand why she has let Teri run about in this mortal world all these years. Of course, she’s had royal guards keeping watch over her youngest daughter.”
Seth’s head was starting to hurt. Being a shifter, he was well aware there were many kinds of special beings in the world. Even Walker had talked about some he’d run into. But he didn’t understand what this peculiar little man was talking about. Teri is royalty? From where?
He rubbed his forehead and leaned against the dresser. “Explain. All of it.”
Tyrone slid off the bed and shook his head. “Not my place to do so. I just thought you should know why Teri left you. You’re the only man I think she has really loved in all of these centuries. She deserves to be happy.” He scowled. “But Queen Meanie threatened you if Teri didn’t go home. She felt she had no choice.”
Seth stiffened; fury tightened his hands into fists. “Will she come back?” God, he hoped so.
“I don’t know. It depends on if Teri thinks she can take on her mother and win. She won’t risk your life.” He sighed, then pursed his lips in irritation. “I’ve got to go. Someone is calling me. I’m a very busy gremlin.”
Gremlin? Before Seth could speak again, the somewhat ugly man disappeared. Poof. Just like Teri. He was getting damn tired of people popping in and out of his life. Okay, he desperately wanted Teri to pop back. He just didn’t think it would happen.
* * *
Teri hovered in the air in Seth’s bedroom, still invisible, slightly chicken. It had taken her longer to leave the palace than she’d hoped. There were friends to tell good-bye, to make sure they understood that she wasn’t abandoning her rightful world this time. She would return now and then. In the end, it had been hard to say a good-bye to what would have been her kingdom to rule. Her mother told her in private that she’d wanted her to be the next ruler all along. She was Arabella’s only daughter with enough strength of will to handle it all, to rule with fairness and calmness. But Teri had convinced her mother that given a little more time she believed Sabrina would prove her ability to take over. Her sister loved the kingdom more than Teri ever would and had plans for some changes that would be good for their people. She just needed time to adjust to the stronger, more independent woman that Teri had convinced her she could become.