by Leela Ash
The warriors shuffled their feet but said nothing. They all looked very uncomfortable, a little angry and a lot uncertain.
Their reaction made her wonder and in a heartbeat she saw what she had done wrong: she’d actually been so relieved that all the Salem witches were gone, so she had genuinely smiled at the warriors and thanked them. They knew Nabradia enough to know she would never stoop to appreciate ‘lowly warriors’ with a heartfelt smile, no matter the circumstances.
She licked her lip to hide her own uncertainty and then she drew Nabradia’s personality around her like a cloak. She etched an expression of regal disdain onto her face and stared down her nose at the gathered Archstone shifters, “Get back to your tents. Meeting’s over.”
The crowd dispersed at once, leaving only the main leaders of the Archstone Warriors. There were five of them in all; Ronan Veer, Jake Riley, Sam Vanderbilt, Robin Krossings and Chirhiss Rolaj. They were all tall, dark, sinfully handsome men; well-formed with thick sinewy muscled limbs. They were alike, in their gorgeous masculine appeal, she thought, looking them over with the detached appreciation of a connoisseur of fine wine. They were also united in their hatred for the Weirna shifters.
The real Nabradia had been onto something, she thought, pursing her lips in thought. Who better to help her keep the Weirna shifters off her back than a group of well-trained shifter-killers who hated their guts?
She arched her brow at the men and purred, “Well boys, we have got work to do.”
“What work?” Ronan grated, his voice positively arctic.
She studied him. He seemed to be the new leader of the warriors now that Henry Xanthier and Zak — the former head of the warriors and the former head of the Tribe respectively— had been destroyed by Nabradia. She would have to watch him, because if he had an eye on leading the Archstone Tribe, he would see her as his only obstacle.
“I need something from the Melina Caves, and you’re going to help me get it, fast,” she began. “It’s a special compass that leads to a treasure.”
“What sort of treasure?” Ronan demanded.
Nabradia’s eyes flicked up to his and she hid a grimace. This man was fast becoming a pain in the ass.
“A treasure that could turn the Archstone Shifters into the most powerful Shifters on the face of the earth,” she lied baldly. “This treasure will bring other shifters, especially the Weirna shifters, to their knees before you,” she said, pressing home her advantage. The bitter rivalry between the Archstone Tribe and the Weirna shifters had spanned several centuries and several generations and she was certain each tribe would do just about anything to one-up the other.
To her grim surprise, the men exchanged a glance and then they faced her with identical expressions on their faces. A tingle of unease raced down her spine.
“About that, we’ve actually been thinking it’s high time we bury the hatchet,” Ronan ventured.
“He’s right,” Chirhiss told her. “Ever since Joshua and his boys started leading the Weirna Shifters, they’ve kept clear of our territory and they haven’t even tried to avenge Joseph’s death.”
Joseph? She searched Nabradia’s memory and came up with the answer. Oh, Joseph had been the sixth member of the Damaged Pack until he had been killed by the Archstone Tribe most gruesomely some fifteen years or so ago.
Now they wanted to make peace? Over her dead body, she thought with grim determination.
She narrowed her eyes as she hissed, “Who’s this ‘we’ that has been doing all this thinking?”
Robin Krossings walked up to her, his eyes shooting blue fire at her. “Look, we have an agreement with you, thanks to Zak. We’re keeping it. But this feud concerns the future of Archstone. We don’t want our kids to be born into a senseless feud which we can end now.”
Back down now, fight later, her subconscious whispered. She forced a smile, “I understand.”
Then she looked around, encompassing all five men, “The compass has other more important uses and you did swear fealty to me. We leave for the caves tomorrow. Be ready.”
Then with regal ease, she turned around and sauntered off towards Nabradia’s tent. But her calm mien was a façade. Her thoughts were racing as she frantically considered her options. It was in her best interest for the feud between the two most powerful shifter Tribes in the world to continue. If they reconciled now, just when she was devising a clever plan to destroy both Tribes, make all other shifters her slaves, and depopulate the human world, it would be bad for her.
Well, they wanted to reconcile because the Weirna shifters had been peaceful right? She would just have to make sure she gave them something else to fight about with the Weirna shifters.
She would cause such hatred between the shifter Tribes that it would make their present feud look like child’s play.
4.
“Doctor?” Derek cried, shooting to his feet as Dr. Nolan Whiskey came into the waiting area.
Dr. Nolan was all smiles as he offered Derek a handshake, “Congrats man, your wife is out of the woods.”
Luke didn’t hear anything else. He was so relieved he could weep. It had been heart-wrenching watching Derek weep like a baby when Kelly passed out from blood loss. He’d always known that Derek loved the woman but he didn’t think he’d ever realized how much, until today. Seeing Kelly get shot had been very traumatizing for all of them but the experience had damn near driven Derek out of his mind.
Luke was just thankful that Tom had been away at school.
Oh no, Tom.
“Derek, I think I should go get Tom from school,” Luke offered.
Derek’s eyes widened in tortured dismay and it was apparent that in his distress, he’d forgotten all about the little boy he’d adopted after marrying his mother.
Derek started to speak but Luke shook his head and interrupted with a firm, “It’s okay, man. You’ve got a lot going on. You would have remembered eventually; don’t beat yourself up.”
Derek nodded while Joshua clapped a comforting hand onto his shoulder. Luke felt a pang of sympathy as he watched Derek follow the doctor inside to see Kelly. Derek had always been a proud, somewhat arrogant man, but today he seemed incredibly humble. He seemed as if he were barely holding it together.
The mental image stayed with Luke as he made his way out to the hospital car park and he ground his teeth. He’d once been a fool in love, but Marissa had quickly set him straight and taught him a lesson he could never forget. Love made a man weak.
If only he could have found a way to communicate that to his brothers, maybe they would have protected themselves better. Maybe none of them would have fallen in love. Maybe Derek wouldn’t be a wreck now because Kelly had been shot; Bo wouldn’t be acting like a testy sonofabitch because Jeanine had been crying endlessly since her grandma died, and Jack wouldn’t be fetching and carrying for his new fiancée because she was pregnant.
Luke sighed as he inserted the key in his ignition and started his truck his agile mind already charting a course towards Tom’s school. It had been fifteen years since he’d had cause to be anywhere near that part of town but in all that time, he was certain little had changed. Weirna was a small community, with a population of less than 6,000 people.
“Yo, Luke,” someone yelled. Luke stepped on the brakes immediately, his brows knitting in a frown as Drake jogged into view.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, his heart thudding in his chest. Had something else happened with Derek and Kelly?
Drake opened the passenger side of the car and bounded in easily, “Nothing man, I just needed to get away from all that for a bit. Punch it.”
Luke could see how anyone would want to get away from the depressing atmosphere of the hospital. He’d never liked hospitals himself. But honestly, Drake had always wanted to tag along, even when they were kids.
He wouldn’t admit it to anyone but he felt closer to Drake than to any of the others, which was just as well, because his calm, almost placid demeanor complemented D
rake’s volcanic temperament.
“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” Luke laughed.
Drake threw him a disgusted look, tugged his cowboy hat low over his forehead until it covered his eyes and leaned back to get some sleep. Luke let his eyes trail lovingly over his brother’s prone form; yep, Drake did tag along after him a lot. He was the only one of all the brothers who loved cowboy hats and lately Drake had picked up the same habit. Now they looked like a pair of cowboys out of some Western movie.
With a wry grin, Luke jerked his own hat off his head and tossed it in the backseat of his truck.
They arrived at Tom’s school in record time and Drake bounded from the car again in an excess of energy. He’d barely taken two steps before he dashed back to the truck with his charming smile etched onto his features as he looked in through the passenger window at Luke.
“You can wait in the car. I’ll go get the tyke,” he offered.
“Like hell you will. I want to get him,” Luke insisted, clambering out of the car.
Drake sighed and started to say something when his gaze shifted to someone or something beyond Luke’s shoulder and he whistled, “Check out the ass on that chick.”
Luke sighed. Drake was simply a man with an excess of everything; height, testosterone, energy, charm and fondness for the ladies. Against his better judgment, he turned to see the latest woman that had caught Drake’s interest for a whole minute and everything in him stilled.
She was bending over getting something from the backseat of her car so all he could see was a pair of firm, well-toned buttocks encased in jeans so tight it seemed as though she had been poured into them. But even from that angle and despite the distance, he felt an unwanted jolt of recognition. That was Marissa! He could always recognize…well, the effect she produced in him whether he wanted it or not.
She straightened, and then sort of hesitated, as though she felt his gaze on her. Then she slowly turned her head and looked over her shoulder straight at him, resignation stamped onto her features.
Their gazes clashed and held and Luke felt his heart constrict almost painfully in his chest. It felt as though every fiber of his being suddenly stilled. It was as though he were afraid to breathe or blink or she would vanish.
Before he could dissect that totally unwanted and unwelcome reaction, Drake had called out an enthusiastic greeting and gone loping towards Marissa with long, graceful strides.
She smiled shakily and tucked her ash-blonde hair behind her ears. Drake caught her up in a bear hug and whirled her around saying something indecipherable. As though in a daze, Luke saw himself moving towards the pair.
He reached them just as Drake was putting her back on her feet and saying, “You’ve been a very naughty girl, Marissa. Why haven’t you come to visit since we’ve been home? And what about your famous cookies? Bo’s been bragging about them and he swears they’ve helped him grow big and strong, yet the rest of us haven’t had so much as one crumb and we’ve been home for almost four months.”
Marissa shook her head, laughing as she tried to get a word in edgewise. Drake wasn’t having any of it, he mowed down her half-hearted attempts and kept talking right over her.
“You have blossomed into a heart-wrenching beauty Marissa. If I knew you would be this pretty I would have come home several years ago. Why didn’t you write and inform me?” he continued outrageously. “Seems you don’t love me anymore,” he finished affecting a mock-hurt expression on his face.
She smiled uncertainly at that one. Then she flicked a reluctant glance towards Luke, “Hi Luke.”
Two simple words, yet they slammed into him as powerfully as a sledge-hammer. His mouth twisted as he stared back at her, his features oozing contempt as he let her see how much he detested her. She swallowed uncomfortably and looked away.
“What are you doing here?” Drake demanded.
She offered a small smile, and gestured towards the backseat of the car, “I came to pick up, um, Caily.”
Her eyes flicked nervously towards Luke and then fled when she caught him watching her steadily. Was she afraid of what he would think when he learned about her kid? She obviously knew now that he had known about her little affair for years.
Caily. So that was the name of her kid, he thought, raw pain slashing through him again. That was the name of her lover’s kid; the kid of the man she had used him to cheat on. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d sent her mother to pay him off to buy his silence.
He took a step back averting his gaze. Suddenly he didn’t want to meet the little girl. He wanted to hate her for being a reminder of how he had been used and deceived by the only woman he’d ever loved. He’d thought Marissa Stanley was his mate; he’d thought she shared his values and mated for life like most shifters. Finding out that she preferred humans and hated shifters just like her mother, had pulled the rug out from under his feet.
It was over eight years since they had been intimate but her touch had so branded him that he hadn’t been able to love anyone else.
His hands were clenched into fists at his side as he stared at the top of her head. There had been a time when he had thought Marissa Stanley was the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful woman to walk the earth. But now, when he looked at her, all he saw was a cheap, lying bitch who thought nothing of leading a man on, toying with his emotions and kicking him when he was down.
“I would like to meet Caily. Where is she?” Drake asked eagerly, oblivious to his brother’s rising anger.
Marissa bit her lip, stealing a glance at Luke from beneath her lashes. He looked mad enough to spit nails. “She’s in back,” she whispered motioning towards the tinted glass of the back of the car.
She opened the door and the most beautiful little girl Luke had ever seen looked up at them from the storybook in her lap, her pigtails dancing on either side of her little head. She had little pink ribbons in her hair and she was dressed in a cute pink and blue stripped pinafore over a white shirt. She grinned so beatifically, it actually brought tears to his eyes.
“Hello,” she called, staring up at both men with smiling, wide-eyed innocence.
She was so pretty it was almost surreal.
Luke felt his throat dry. He continued to watch her in absolute silence as she was charmed by Drake’s witty jokes.
He started to say something when he heard her voice, clear as bells, “Uncle Drake, why doesn’t your brother speak?”
Luke jerked himself out of his reverie as he smiled back at the golden-haired little girl who looked just like an angel. She had two very deep-set dimples in both cheeks, chubby cheeks from baby fat and grey eyes tinged with surprising flecks of pure gold. She was cute as a button.
“I’m Luke,” he said, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again, “Luke Summers. Your, um, Mum and I go way back.”
“Uncle Luke,” she announced, grinning like a queen who had just bestowed knighthood.
He felt his heart squeeze in his chest until he was almost afraid he wouldn’t be able to breathe, and, just like that, against his wishes, Luke toppled all the way in love with Caily. Only Tom had ever called him ‘Uncle Luke’ and he’d gotten to like it; and now Marissa’s little girl thought he should be ‘Uncle Luke’ too.
He had never counted himself as the sappy sort, it was true, but one look into Caily’s wide eyes and he had fallen in love with her. She was everything he had hoped his own kid would be someday. She was everything he would never have. Tears of painful regret at what he had lost stung the back of his eyes and jerkily, he stepped back from the car and growled, “I’ll go get Tom.”
Without waiting for any response, he headed towards the school, his long legs easily eating up the distance.
Tom’s class was, happily, easy to locate after a janitor pointed the way. He entered the class and spied a smallish woman hunched over the teacher’s desk as she frowned down at some reports. He looked around the class; it was empty.
Luke squelched a spurt of alarm as he
smiled down at the woman looking up at him with wide inquiring eyes with a hint of interest in their chocolate depths. “Hi. I’m Luke Summers. I’m Tom’s uncle.”
She nodded, straightening to her full height. “I know who you are. I’m Tracie Stephens,” she added, flushing.
Luke quirked an eyebrow, “Have we met?”
Tracie shook her head, smiling, as she reddened even more, “No, we haven’t been introduced. But everyone knows Joshua Cox’s boys, of course.”
He nodded, “Small town, huh? Uh, where’s Tom?”
“He had to go to the restroom,” she said faintly, looking everywhere else but at him.
He nodded. “He hasn’t been any trouble lately, has he?”
Her eyes bounced back to his, “Oh no, he’s an absolute joy; smart and eager to learn.”
She looked uncomfortable, he realized. He started to ask if she was okay when he suddenly realized she was uncomfortable in that way women usually were when they were attracted to a man and didn’t want him to know about it.
Alarm bells went off in his head and he retreated behind his invisible wall of aloofness. He liked women just fine, but after his shattering experience with Marissa over eight years ago, he had lost all interest in women, except for the occasional one-night stand. This woman with her hair wrapped in a bun, her slim body swathed in calf-length skirts and a wide cardigan looked like a veritable innocent. He was willing to bet she wasn’t the one-night stand, no-strings-attached type. Heck, she was probably a vestal virgin, by her appearance. If he encouraged her attraction to him, he would definitely break her heart. He might not care much about women but he certainly didn’t want anyone’s broken heart on his conscience, because he knew what it felt like.
“You’re not the one who recently got married are you?” she asked smiling coyly at him and flicking him a sly glance from beneath her lashes. He stared in surprise; suddenly she didn’t seem so innocent. She was obviously fishing for information about his marital status because even a blind man couldn’t mistake him for Bo.