Therian Prey

by Cyndi Friberg

  “We both know it’s the dark, dangerous scoundrels who make a woman’s blood boil, but they’re seldom the sort of men who make good mates in the long run. I just thought Ian was a better choice.”

  “Not for me.” Finality rang through her soul, surprising her as much as Erin.

  “Are you in sync with Quinn? I can’t believe Ian gave up without a fight.”

  “They both said something like that. But I haven’t even slept with Quinn, so how could it have happened?”

  “The stronger the attraction, the faster the couple syncs.” Erin’s gaze gleamed with hidden knowledge, revealing how much she wasn’t saying.

  Refusing to be swept up in Erin’s enigmatic mood, Carissa said, “I’m just taking each day as it comes.”

  “That’s probably wise. Now let’s take a look at your shoulder.” Carissa pushed to her feet and unbuttoning her blouse, she uncovered her left shoulder. Erin gently touched the newly healed skin, obviously shocked by the smooth surface. “The wound had closed when I left, but this is astonishing. What about internally? Is there stiffness? How’s your range of motion?”

  Carissa carefully raised her arm and rolled her shoulder. “Range of motion is pretty good, but the muscles are still pissed off.”

  The phrase made Erin smile. “I’d be pissed off too. You didn’t see the size of the bullet I pulled out of you. You’re extremely lucky to be alive.”

  She caught Erin’s hand and waited until their gazes locked before she said, “Thank you. I’m still trying to absorb all this, but I sure as hell wasn’t ready to die.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Erin winked. “I’ve got big plans for you.” Before Carissa could respond to this announcement, Erin went on. “I don’t usually say this so soon after such a serious injury, but don’t baby it. As long as the pain isn’t sharp, you don’t want to lose that range of motion.” She raised the blouse back into place and Carissa refastened the buttons. “Ian has a hot tub. Soak for a while before Quinn spirits you back to his cabin.”

  “Is that safe? A hot tub is out in the open. Anyone could—”

  “Ian and Quinn have combed every inch of this valley.” Erin gently squeezed her hand. “There is no one nearby. Besides, Kyle sent over some of his men to patrol the woods. You’re perfectly safe.”

  Carissa ignored the dull throb in her shoulder that said otherwise and formed a weak smile. “What makes you think Quinn will spirit me away?”

  “As I said, Therian men are possessive. He won’t want Ian anywhere near you until the bond is solidified.”

  Which meant he’d want to finish what they started last night. The thought didn’t bother her nearly as much as it should have. It would be a whole lot easier to regain control of her life if she had control of her body. The nasal spray was less effective each time she used it. She was running out of time.

  But what if Quinn couldn’t find enough control to stabilize her heat without defining her? Was she ready to sever her ties with the human world and free her Therian nature? And was she sure she wanted Quinn to be her guide?

  After tucking the blouse into her jeans, Carissa asked, “Why do those two hate each other? Do you know what started the feud?”

  “If Quinn wants you to know, he’ll tell you. But remember, some things are best left in the past.”

  Carissa nodded, yet her curious mind wasn’t satisfied with the answer. It had something to do with Quinn’s ability. He must have used it on someone close to Ian. “Quinn didn’t trigger my heat, and he didn’t pressure me last night. I don’t know why everyone immediately thinks the worst of him.”

  “I apologize.” Amusement twinkled in Erin’s eyes though Carissa didn’t quite understand the cause. “He’s obviously made quite an impression on you.”

  “If I decided to bond with him—and I’m not saying I will—would he be accepted back into the feline network?”

  “The ban would be lifted. Whether or not people would accept him is anyone’s guess. Tight societies like ours tend to create people with long memories.” Erin patted her hand and smiled. “I brought you some more clothes and some other things you might enjoy. Do you have plans for the morning?”

  “Except for an eventual soak in the hot tub, I’m entirely at your disposal.”

  They returned to the kitchen and found Quinn gone and Ian doing dishes.

  “Quick, grab my phone. I want a picture of this,” Erin teased. “I knew you could cook, but I always assumed you used paper plates.”

  He shot her a playful glower. “Not for guests.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Erin nodded toward the coffeepot on the counter. “Why don’t you pour me a cup of coffee?”

  Ian flipped open the appropriate cupboard as Carissa approached and she smiled at him. “Thanks.”

  “Sugar’s on the table. Cream’s in the fridge.” Without so much as an inappropriate glance, he returned to his chore. It felt odd to be completely ignored after having men threaten to kill each other over her mere days before.

  A low rumble of laughter sounded before he turned around. “It’s only fair to warn you that I’m empathic.”

  “You can read my mind?” Heat blossomed across her cheeks and she swallowed hard.

  “No.” He leaned against the counter and tossed the dishcloth over his shoulder, looking more bartender than dishwasher. “I can sense your frustration that I’m behaving myself for the first time since we met. You’re in sync with Quinn for the rest of this reproductive cycle. You’ll only have eyes for him, so no one with any sense will bother trying to attract your attention. The average cycle lasts three months. Once your body resets—unless Quinn claims you—you’ll go back on the market.”

  She snorted. “You make me sound like a foreclosure.”

  “I’m sorry.” He grinned. “I almost said ‘open for business’.”

  His smile was infectious. She could see why Erin liked him so much. Quickly filling two mugs with coffee, she crossed to the table and sat.

  Erin returned a few minutes later with a shopping bag and two photo albums. “The clothes are Devon’s. She’s off somewhere tormenting her brother, so she won’t miss them.” She sat across from Carissa and reached for the sugar bowl.

  “Devon’s your daughter?”

  “Yeah. She’s three years younger than Kyle, and she’s spent most of her life challenging one authority figure or another.”

  “She’s still missing?” Ian walked across the kitchen but didn’t sit down. “I thought Kyle found her last Friday.”

  “It was another false trail.” Erin shrugged, but her hand shook as she pushed the sugar bowl back to the middle of the table. “She still won’t answer her phone, but she sends me text messages every day or so to let me know she’s okay. She’s having a ball at Kyle’s expense.”

  The grooves in Ian’s forehead didn’t relax. “Anyone can send a text, Erin. Are you sure she’s the one laying the false trails?”

  Erin’s face paled as she stared back at him. “If anything were seriously wrong, I’d sense it.”

  “Sorry.” He raised his hands, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “I’ll go tidy the bedrooms or something.”

  Erin snorted. “Smartass.”

  Their interaction fascinated Carissa. They seemed part married couple and part best friends. “How long have you known Ian?” She waited until he’d left the room to ask.

  “A very long time,” Erin said with a secretive smile.

  “Are you two…”

  “Oh God no. He’s like a son to me, or maybe a younger brother.”

  “Is he younger than you? At first glance, I put him somewhere in his thirties, but there’s something in his eyes that makes me think he’s older. Maybe much older.” Erin’s eyebrows arched but she didn’t confirm or dispute Carissa’s conclusion. “How long do Therians live?”

  “It varies greatly by clan. Some clans are far more powerful than others.”

  Carissa leaned against the back of her chair and glanced in
to her coffee. “I have so many questions. I’m not even sure where to start. How many clans are there? How many different kinds of Therians? Where do they live? Do any humans know about them…er…us? Wait. Before we even start this, Quinn keeps insisting that there is no news about my sister. What has Kyle told you?”

  “He told me she’s on the run. Osric’s men had her for a couple of hours, but she climbed out a window and has been two steps ahead of them ever since. Unfortunately, she’s been a step and a half ahead of Kyle too. Your mother taught you well. Probably too well for this particular situation.”

  “Is she still in Colorado? Where are they looking?”

  “It’s easier to hide when you know the area, so they think she hasn’t gone far. You said she wouldn’t endanger either of your employees. Do you know anyone else who might be helping her?”

  Carissa sighed and set down her mug. Just thinking about Ava tied her stomach in knots. Having her world redefined had left Carissa overwhelmed and shaken, and she’d had people to help her every step of the way. Ava was all alone, dealing with this threat the only way she knew how. Run and hide.

  “Employees are as close as we get to having friends.” Carissa shook her head. “Our childhood was…unconventional, and running a business is time consuming.”

  Erin paused for a several sips of coffee while she studied Carissa. “Don’t over analyze this question, just answer from your gut. Do you think Ava’s okay?”

  Carissa searched her heart for only a moment before she responded, “I feel like I would be a lot more upset if she were in real danger.”

  “Your instincts will sharpen, and once your animal nature is defined an entirely different world will open to you, but you are Therian. If the person closest to you in the world were in serious trouble, you would sense it.”

  “It was like that with our mother. Ava and I both knew something horrible had happened long before we were told about the accident.”

  “Then Ava is all right.”

  At least for now. Neither of them spoke the words, but the fact hung in the air between them. “She’s out there, alone and on the run. She must be terrified.”

  “Kyle will find her. He won’t stop looking until he does. And even if Osric finds her first, Kyle won’t let her be sold off like ‘so much chattel’.”

  Carissa hid her smile with her mug, feeling foolish. “I shouldn’t cast judgment on things I don’t understand.” She looked at Erin over the rim of her mug then set it down and rested her hands on the table. “Will you continue my education?”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Erin reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Let’s take your questions one at a time. The Therian nation is divided into clans, which are scattered all over North America.”

  “Just North America? Aren’t there Therians in other parts of the world?”

  “There are, and we interact with them at times, but let’s focus on North America for right now.”

  Erin was right. She needed to narrow the scope of her curiosity or she would never understand any of it. “Sorry. Please go on.”

  “There are hundreds of clans and each has its own alpha. The twelve most powerful alphas make up the Alpha Council. The clans are also organized into networks—Rocky Mountain Feline Network, Southern Feline Network, Canine Network, and what I affectionately call the Others.” She laughed. “They’ve changed the name of their network so many times I’ve stopped trying to keep track of it.”

  “Why do cats get two different networks?”

  “Because we outnumber all other shifters one hundred to one. Wolf packs—they refuse to call them clans like everybody else—are next in number, but the ratio is still about ten to one.”

  “I see.” She hadn’t expected anything so organized. “So Ian would fall into this ‘other’ category?”

  An almost maternal pride shaped Erin’s expression as she said, “Ian is Raptor clan alpha. He’s also his network’s Prime.”

  Carissa wished she had a pencil and paper so she could draw a diagram. She’d always been a visual learner. “Then there are four network Primes?” Erin nodded. “Is there some sort of Prime Council?”

  Erin chuckled. “You catch on fast. Issues that aren’t settled at the clan level go to the Alpha Council. Anything that isn’t settled by the Alpha Council is ruled on by the Prime Council. When a Prime or an alpha brings forth an issue, he doesn’t vote. That way the councils never end up deadlocked.”

  “And all this goes on without human interference?” Erin had said Therians were scattered all over the world. Carissa was still struggling to believe they’d been hiding in her backyard. She’d gone almost twenty-five years with an incredibly narrow concept of reality.

  “There are two basic strategies—seclusion and blending in. The most common is a combination of the two. Most of the cat clans have settled in small, isolated communities, at times taking over entire towns. It’s not forbidden for anyone to choose a different lifestyle, but it is forbidden for anything they do to endanger other Therians.”

  “What about the government?”

  “They know shapeshifters are real. There have been too many of us taken to emergency rooms and morgues for them to ignore the evidence. Yet there has never been a public announcement, not a legitimate one anyway. So it must serve their purposes better for the general public not to know the truth.”

  “Do Therians ever work for them as soldiers or whatever?”

  “It’s not forbidden, but it’s generally an individual choice as opposed to a clan-sanctioned activity.” Erin’s smile was suddenly tight and not quite humorous. “Why don’t you ask Quinn about that? He has personal experience with the concept.”

  Not wanting to overload her mind with facts and statistics, she motioned toward the photo albums. “What’s with the show and tell?”

  Erin pulled the first album in front of her and folded her hands on top of the leather cover. “There is supposed to be a position above Prime, but there hasn’t been one since the sixties.”

  “Why not?”

  “Unlike alpha or Prime, which are achieved through feats of strength and aggression, an Omni Prime must possess a rare combination of Therian abilities.”

  A hushed reverence crept into Erin’s tone, piquing Carissa’s curiosity. What did the photo albums have to do with this? “All right, I’m intrigued.”

  “If you believe our legends, and I happen to, Cleopatra seized control from the male leaders of her time and became the first Omni Prime. She established the council structure still in existence today and ruled the Therian nation for many years.”

  “Most of the Egyptian deities were part human and part animal. Are you inferring they were really Therians masquerading as gods?”

  “I believe ancient Therians frequently preyed on the superstitions of humans, even setting themselves above them. Cleopatra challenged some of the most powerful humans in existence in an age when females were treated like property.”

  “It’s a fascinating concept, but what does it have to do with me?”

  Erin fiddled with the photo album, running her thumb along the edge then ruffling the pages. “A woman named Maggie was our last Omni Prime. She was remarkable, by far the most powerful Therian alive, yet her abilities barely qualified her for the position.”

  Opening the album, she slid it toward Carissa and pointed to a picture near the middle of the page. Two smiling men had their arms wrapped around the slender blonde woman standing between them. All three were dressed in tie-dye tops and low-slung jeans.

  “Maggie had three mates and she could shift into the animal nature of each,” Erin told her.

  “She was defined three times?” Carissa shuddered. The idea of going through the ritual once had her squirming with dread and anticipation. But how had Maggie survived a three-peat of something so intensely savage?

  “Definition is a one-time thing. Maggie absorbed all three animal natures at the same time.”

  Eyes wide with under
standing, Carissa tried not to look scandalized. “That must have been some wedding night.”

  “Don’t confuse definition with sex. In Maggie’s case she was defined by her lovers, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

  Carissa’s heart was pounding and she wasn’t sure why. There had to be a reason for this history lesson. The situation was too dire for fun facts about the Therian nation.

  “The man on her left is her first mate, Horst. He allowed her to manifest as a cougar.”

  “A cougar?” She couldn’t help but smile. Hollywood had forever altered the meaning of the word. “She doesn’t look old enough to be a cougar.”

  Ignoring her attempt at humor, Erin went on. “This was the sixties, so no one thought twice about a woman having more than one lover. The feline network was basically a commune back then.”

  A certain wistfulness in Erin’s tone made Carissa wonder if her new friend missed the free-love era. “Who’s the other man?”

  “Simon, her wolf mate. Horst and Simon were also lovers. Her third mate was a falcon-shifter named William and he was only intimate with Maggie. In fact William preferred not to have the other men around when he and Maggie had sex. He insisted he wasn’t jealous, but his actions said otherwise.”

  “So, Maggie could shift into a cougar, a wolf and a falcon. Why did that qualify her to lead the entire Therian nation?”

  “It wasn’t just the variety of shapes she could manifest. In human form, Maggie was stronger, faster and more creative than anyone I’d ever known.”

  “You knew her personally?”

  “I was sixteen when she died. I don’t know her exact age, but she was at least three hundred.”

  “Okay, I’m impressed. But I still don’t see how this…” She pulled the album toward her and studied the image with new interest. If she ignored the clothes and shortened Maggie’s hair… “She looks like my mother.”

  “That’s not surprising. Maggie was your grandmother.”

  Carissa slumped back in her chair and blew out a shaky breath. “This is why everyone is hunting us. Osric wants… What exactly does Osric want?”