by Amelia Jade
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” she shouted, but her friend had thrown herself back into the mix. Another crew had shown up with tables and chairs, and she was busy directing them as well.
It wasn’t going to be a large celebration, she noted. No more than perhaps two dozen people. Three rectangular folding tables with four chairs on each side were quickly set up and then covered with cloths of a black and white swirl. White seat covers went on to the chairs, making them appear fancier than they were.
Kelly took a break, not wanting to work herself too hard. During that time she regarded the volunteers. They were all members of the same family, plus Harden, Erika’s mate.
“How’s it going today, Kel?” one of them asked as he walked by, casually carrying an entire barbecue and tank in one hand as if it were just a bunch of feathers.
“Good, Gavin,” she said, addressing the middle Koche brother. “She roped all of you into this as well?”
“Sort of,” he grumbled. “She talked to the women. After that, it was game over as far as us trying to avoid helping,” the big shifter complained, but there was a large smile on his face, indicating he wasn’t really bothered by having to help.
Kelly laughed. Lena, his mate, was a lovely woman, and she definitely would have been all over him to help, ensuring he had no way out.
“Where is she now?”
“Inside, somewhere, with the others. Doing something important I’m sure,” he said, his tone indicating he thought otherwise.”
“Maybe I’ll have to find my way in there as well,” she joked.
Gavin just shook his head and moved off.
Kelly smiled. Erika moved up next to her, breathing heavily and trying to calm herself down.
“Take it easy,” she urged. “You don’t want to go into labor early.”
“I know,” Erika said, hands on her hips as she surveyed the grounds.
Kelly saw her head turn out of the corner of her eye, watching her now instead of the work going on.
“Things sure have changed since we first arrived in Cloud Lake, haven’t they?” Erika asked thoughtfully.
“Just a bit,” Kelly said with a laugh. “We came here two hopeless pregnant women, victims of a scam that resulted in us getting knocked up. Now you’ve found a mate, he’s building you this gorgeous house, and you’ve made some good friends too,” she said, referring to the Koche brothers, five shifters who had taken Erika and Harden under their wing and helped them set up a life outside of what Cadia wanted.
“True. I have to admit, it feels good not to be under the control of Cadia anymore,” Erika said.
Kelly smiled tightly, since she couldn’t say the same. She understood though. Harden Archer, Erika’s mate, was from another shifter territory, one called Kronum. It had been destroyed by the ruthless human corporation known colloquially as The Institute. He and several others had been the only survivors, rescued by the Koche brothers from an Institute facility in the nick of time.
The five survivors—the last known Kronum shifters—had been brought to Cadia for recovery, and to be allowed to live out their lives there, as they no longer had a home to go to. Politics had changed, however, and Harden had soon found himself under assault, simply because of where he’d come from. There were others who still supported his cause, but they were unable to help.
Together with Andrew, the Cadian envoy to Cloud Lake, the Koche brothers had secreted Erika and Harden away to a little community they were building on the far side of the human town, away from prying eyes. Where they could be safe. Hence the winding driveway that obscured the property from the street. The Koche brothers weren’t supposed to be here either, so secrecy was their best friend.
“Your turn will come,” Erika said, sensing Kelly’s thoughts. “You just have to open yourself up to the possibility.
“I know,” she said. They’d been over this territory many times before. “I’m just not interested at the moment. I want to focus on my child, to ensure that he or she gets the best out of me, out of life. That they have an upbringing I didn’t.”
She looked away, unwilling to let even her best friend see the look that haunted her face as she said those words. Erika knew a lot about her, but she didn’t know everything.
“When is this party for things I’m not allowed to know about supposed to go down?” she asked, letting her curiosity overwhelm the other, more negative emotions that were swirling through her.
“Should be shortly,” Erika confessed. “Hence the rushing around and such. I don’t have an exact timetable; it’s kind of a mess that way, unfortunately. If all went well though, within the next half hour.”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “If what all went well?”
“Things,” Erika said with a grin as the others all came outside, the Koche brothers and their mates.
“They’ll be here shortly,” one of them called over to Erika.
“Thank you, Maximus!” she said with a wave, then turned to her friend. “Come on, time to do one last check of everything. Have to make sure it’s perfect.”
Kelly shook her head, but allowed herself to be dragged from table to table, admiring the assortment of food and drink that was set out for them. Cheese dips with a dozen types of crackers, slices of cheese and meats as well. Several platters of various seafood things. Kelly hated seafood, and besides shrimp, would have been hard-pressed to tell anyone what was there. But they all smelled disgusting, so she knew it was seafood. There were breads and butters as well, along with an entire table dedicated to various types of sandwiches.
It was a feast, plain and simple. Which was only normal considering the way shifters ate. Although Erika had moved out here, Kelly had still spent plenty of time with her friend, and she’d learned to appreciate just how much intake a shifter needed to keep their body going with all its supernatural powers and the like. It was…impressive.
The drink table was no less awe-inspiring. The table itself had several bottles of various wines and a bucket of ice with coolers in it for the women who weren’t pregnant, along with all sorts of tasty and sugar-filled non-alcoholic drinks. Plus there were tubs of beer at the foot of the table for the shifters themselves. They were big tubs.
“You certainly know how to throw a party, my dear,” she said, wrapping one of her arms through Erika’s.
The sound of tires rumbling on asphalt reached her ears, and the two of them turned as a white passenger van rumbled up to the top of the driveway, stopping just short of the area that had been set aside for the celebration. Kelly watched as the driver killed the engine and the side door opened.
Four men she’d never seen before spilled out, looking around the crowd. A tall, athletically muscular male with buzzed hair approached them, arms out wide.
“He’s been looking forward to this ever since Andrew announced the mission,” Erika said, clutching Kelly’s left arm tight to her. “I’m not even sure he slept last night, to be honest with you.”
“Oh,” Kelly said, realizing who it was emerging from the van. “Those are his friends from Kronum?”
Erika nodded. “Yeah, the rescue mission was sent for them last night. It just got back now.”
Kelly’s tongue worked against the inside of her lips. “Now I understand why you wouldn’t tell me what this was all about,” she said, irritated.
“What are you talking about?” Erika asked, trying to sound innocent.
“Don’t play that game with me,” she said as the five men all exchanged hugs and back slaps before Harden started calling the Koche brothers forward and performing what looked like introductions. “I know who was sent to rescue them, Erika. How many times have I told you, I’m not interested!”
The driver’s door to the van opened, and a tall man emerged, his bright blue eyes surveying the gathering, a smile on his face. A smile that froze the instant he locked gazes with Kelly. He stopped all motion, only halfway done dismounting from the van, his attention fixated purely on her. The smile grew la
rger, radiating a genuine warmth that seemed to cross the distance between them with ease.
He was attractive, she had to admit. His looks had never been the issue. Hell, neither had his personality. The problem didn’t lie with him. It was within her. Because every time Kelly saw Gray, she was overcome with an instinctive urge to flee. Just like she was now.
Slipping her arm from Erika’s, she turned to run back into the house.
Chapter Three
Gray
Kelly was there. She was really truly there. She’d come to the celebration!
The moment his eyes locked on hers, his heart had soared, tugging his lips upward until the grin that was plastered on his face made his cheeks ache. It didn’t matter that she looked at him with a face full of horror, or that she tried to flee.
He said tried, because Erika locked her friend’s arm down and forced her to stand with them. She wasn’t going anywhere this time. Gray knew that Erika was on his side, that she was pushing the two of them to spend some time together, even just to talk. Erika would hold Kelly there, but the rest was up to him. He had to go over there. He had to talk to her, to strike up a conversation, to show her that he wasn’t anyone worth running away from. Inhaling deeply, he took a step toward her, the first step. The biggest step.
And he fell flat on the ground, forgetting he’d been hanging halfway out of the van at the time. The step toward her had been off the rail of the vehicle and into nothingness, resulting in him falling forward. He slammed his head off the door so hard it dented it, and then he landed on his back, one foot still inside the vehicle.
What an entrance. She’s going to be so impressed with you now.
Gray cursed. Why was it that he always turned into a pile of useless flesh around her? He’d never had this problem before. No other woman had ever had such an effect on him, and there had been a few in his life. He wasn’t a prude. Only Kelly could turn him into an awkward teenager again. There was just something about her that robbed him of all his smoothness and charm, and all of his normal bodily control.
“Get up,” he snarled at himself, his vision momentarily obscured by the door. Sitting up, he yanked his booted foot from the van and got to his feet. “You can do this. You rescued those four out from under the noses of nearly two dozen guards. You can handle one human female.”
He set his shoulders, not entirely believing the last sentence, and stepped out from around the door, determined to walk over to Kelly and say hello, no matter what. He was ready. He could do this. She was stuck in place by Erika, so she couldn’t leave. This was it, his one opportunity, one moment. He needed to seize it, to capture everything he wanted. He couldn’t just let it slip away. Lifting his head, he took a real first step, and then came to a screeching halt.
She was gone.
Cursing himself, he set a smile on his face and said some brief hellos to the others who were there. Then he moved off to the side with Andrew, his boss. Gray was a guard assigned to the Cadian embassy within Cloud Lake, and more specifically, to Andrew himself. The two had become fast friends as well as coworkers, and when Andrew had brought up the idea of rescuing the Kronum shifters, Gray hadn’t hesitated to volunteer. It was an illegal mission, but frankly, the way some elements back home were behaving, he no longer cared.
“How did it go?” Andrew asked.
“Not bad,” Gray replied, his eyes sweeping the grounds, trying to find either Erika or Kelly. “I knew I should have eaten more.” He explained how his stomach had literally given them away.
Andrew laughed. “Now there’s something you don’t hear every day. Betrayed by stomach growls.”
“Yeah. But there may be a problem down the line.”
“Such as?”
“The guards weren’t new. But they weren’t Green Bearet either.”
Andrew frowned, and Gray could almost read his friend’s thoughts. The Green Bearets were the military arm, the official combat-trained bear shifters of Cadia. The guards hadn’t been members of them. Combined with the fact that they hadn’t been newbies, this meant that someone was training up a force inside of Cadia, a force that could stand apart from the Green Bearets.
“I’ll report it to the commandant,” Andrew said. “I’m on good terms with him. I doubt they’ll ever have the numbers to pose a significant threat, but just the fact that they exist means that the situation back home is getting worse.”
Gray nodded. Telling the head of the Green Bearets was the best bet; let them handle it internally. He didn’t want to get involved if he could avoid it. Life in Cloud Lake was perhaps not peaceful, but definitely what he would call uncomplicated, and he enjoyed it that way.
“Let’s enjoy the celebration for now,” Andrew said. “If you don’t have anything else urgent to report, shall we get a beer?”
Gray started to nod, but just then two figures emerged from the house. They were leaning in toward each other, their mouths moving, emphasized by sharp movements of their upper bodies, almost as if they were arguing. He didn’t want to interrupt, but neither of them had seen him yet. This could be his shot, his chance.
“Sorry, gotta go,” he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder and moving past him, headed up the stone walkway toward the house on an intercept course.
The two women saw him coming, but by the time they looked up from their argument with each other it was too late. He was too close, and any attempt to flee now could only be construed as rude.
“Gray!” Erika said excitedly. “Kelly, you remember Gray, don’t you?”
The lovely woman with wavy brown hair hanging down to her shoulders smiled tightly at him. “Of course I do. How could I forget the night we met? He fought the guys trying to kill your mate and then walked us to the embassy.”
There was no enthusiasm in her voice. Gray didn’t quite remember it that way. The facts were correct, but for him, it truly was a night he couldn’t forget, and one he wouldn’t want to, even if he tried. Kelly, he suspected, was in the opposite camp, wishing she could forget it all.
There was nothing that could make him forget the first time he’d seen her. She had been emerging from Erika’s old unit, framed in the doorway by the light from behind, like an angel descending toward him. Her hair had bounced wildly as she descended the steps, her eyes focusing on him, the orange flecks in the brown drawing his attention in and holding it firm.
She’d been wearing a gray tank-top and black pants, along with white shoes. The first view he’d had of her was seared into his memory. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t forget it, that’s how powerfully it stuck with him. It had been over a month ago, and he could still remember it like it was yesterday.
He looked at her now, wishing that he could just reach out and touch her face. To feel the slimness of it, the fragile-looking cheekbones begging to be caressed by his hands just moments before he would lower himself to her, covering her mouth with his in a blistering moment of ecstasy as they shared their very first kiss.
“Hello, Gray?”
A hand waved in front of his face. He blinked.
“Pardon?”
“I asked, do you remember Kelly?”
Dammit. He’d been caught up in himself again, his imagination running wild while he stood there dumbly just staring at the two of them like some sort of creep.
You’re still staring awkwardly. You still haven’t said anything. You should probably do that.
She looked beautiful, wearing a flattering summer dress made out of some lightweight material. It fell to just above her ankles, all soft colors of orange, brown, and red, giving an almost fall theme to the late summer day. It was perfect. Although it bared no skin, it was tight around her bust, giving some shape to her few curves.
Her hair was down, parted on the left side, the waves sort of bobbing as she shifted back and forth from one foot to the other. The tint of her skin suggested a European descent of some sort, with the sort of built-in light shade of brown that tends to come naturally to some of
the more southern climes.
“Are you going to say anything?”’
Kelly’s voice reached out and slapped him across his senses. It hadn’t been an overly polite tone, but it didn’t matter one to lick to him. It had sounded melodic, like a songbird singing to its lover in the early morning light after a fresh rain. It reached out to Gray and ensnared him, compelling him to do as it asked.
“Yes,” he said bluntly. “Yes of course I remember you,” he said with a shake of his head, his finger-length, average-brown hair bouncing wildly as he did. “I haven’t seen much of you since then, though I have seen Erika on many different occasions.”
It was a subtle jab at her for avoiding him, which he’d known she was doing. Erika had tried multiple times to set them up, but each time Kelly somehow seemed to sense that he was nearby and she’d fled before he could corner her. Eventually he’d told Erika to stop trying. The last thing he wanted to do was become a creep, despite getting the go-ahead from her best friend. It was a tentative line, and he didn’t want to cross it.
This was different though, and he had no hesitation about calling her out.
“I know,” Kelly said, as behind her Erika slipped away silently, leaving the two of them to talk.
Gray almost looked after her, but realized at the last moment that if he did, Kelly would notice, and likely go after her friend. So instead he kept his attention focused on Kelly, watching her lips move as she spoke, admiring the way the pale rose-colored flesh moved.
“You do?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Erika has been trying to set us up ever since that night.”
“Oh.”
Gray was confused. Had Kelly not gotten his jab? Or did she think that he wasn’t aware of Erika’s attempts? That he’d been kept in the dark? It had to be that, he realized. There was nothing else it could be. Keeping his tone carefully calm, he decided to play along.
“She has? I see. How come I haven’t seen you then?”
Kelly nodded. “Yes. And, truth be told, I’ve been avoiding it.”