She trailed off and Hunter glanced at Neri, a spark of something mischievous flashing in her eyes. And within seconds, Neri finished her sentence.
“You want to meet my new immortal family? I would love that. Do you have time now?”
Thalia’s eyes widened and her look implied she would refuse.
“They would love to meet you, so would baby Silas. He’s only a year and seven months old, but he’s brilliant,” Hunter said.
After that, Thalia agreed. They piled into the SUV and headed for Kai’s. He called to give him a heads up. Not that they needed one.
“Yeah.”
“Neri’s mom is coming to meet everyone.”
Kai didn’t say goodbye and hung up on Hunter, which made him laugh.
When they arrived, the entire group were standing outside, trying to look nonchalant and failing.
“This is… all of them?”
Hunter nodded. “Yeah, this is our family. They mean well, but if you feel overwhelmed, let me know and I’ll take you back home. This is Kai and Liv’s place, they are vampires. Hand me your cell and I’ll put all the numbers and addresses in your phone.”
Thalia nodded, passing the phone to him, as she opened the back door and stepped out. As they had done with Neri, Liv was the first to welcome Thalia and invite her into the house before the rest followed. Hunter exited the driver’s side and rushed to open the door for Neri, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her lips.
Neri sighed, yet when she pulled away, she had a smile on her face. She needed to talk, so he waited next to her as she leaned back against the hood of the SUV. His smile grew when Neri burrowed herself against his side and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I found my mother again, and she doesn’t hate me.” Neri’s voice filled with wonder.
“Angel, I’m sure no one can hate you.”
Neri lifted her head to protest, but Hunter cut her off. “Okay, scratch that, any sane person, because Zahava is not sane.”
“But I hurt her.”
Hunter pulled Neri close and lifted her chin until she looked him in the eye.
“Pain reminds us of what we have to lose and makes us stronger when we make it through. You’re alive and healthy and Thalia’s thrilled. The past four years couldn’t matter less to her. She didn’t blink an eye when you told her you’re an immortal because that doesn’t matter to her. I doubt it will ever matter to her,” Hunter said.
Neri nodded and Hunter smiled, receiving a smile back. They walked into the house hand-in-hand and stopped inside the entrance to see the assassins gathered around the living room, all staring at Thalia, who was bouncing Silas up and down on her leg as he laughed in delight.
“When Neri was twelve, she decided she was old enough to run away because she didn’t trust the fact she had a home, a forever home with me. The year she stayed with me, we had so many silent face-off’s. They came whenever I asked her to do something for me like set the table for dinner, or make her bed, or pick the towels up from the bathroom floor. I believed she thought if she was too quiet, or stubborn, or contradictory I would give up on her. But Neri was the first child I wanted to keep from the moment I saw her.
“So when she walked out the front door, I grabbed my purse and my coat and followed her. About a mile away from the house, she turned in a huff and stomped her foot down and asked me why I was following her. I knew she struggled with her past. Every kid in the system faces abuse. Sometimes it’s emotional, other times physical. But there was such determination in her brown eyes I knew she would be okay even if she didn’t live with me. But I fell in love with her and already saw her as my daughter, so I told her we were family. So that meant where ever she goes, I go,” Thalia said.
Hunter noticed the rapt attention of the group of assassins in the room as Thalia told the story, but he realized why she stopped when both Liv and Jade wiped the tears from their eyes.
Thalia held Silas up in front of her and blew raspberries on his stomach, laughing with delight when he squealed and wriggled in her arms. When she brought him close and tucked him against her side after he gasped for breath. Silas then leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
“Thank you. That was fun,” Silas said.
Neri gasped, never having heard Silas speak aloud before, but Thalia laughed and kissed him back.
“You are perfect, moró, just perfect.”
“What does… that mean?” Silas asked.
“Moró?”
Silas nodded.
“It means baby in Greek. I call my Neri moró korítsi or baby girl.”
Hunter spoke up, wanting her to finish her story. “Did Neri go back home with you?”
Thalia laughed and pressed another kiss to Silas’s cheek.
“She did not. She stood there as the sun sank down in the horizon and the crickets chirped as night descended, thinking. I knew logic wouldn’t convince her because her emotions were so raw, even after a year of living with me. So I told her—”
“Trust comes in time and I would have to stick around long enough to earn yours,” Neri finished.
“And you did, Neri. Each day after that, you took nothing for granted. You even stayed with me after I got sick. After that day, your strength and thoughts of you pushed me through the rest of chemo. It also helped when I badgered Detective Cortez about your case. Which reminds me, should I tell him I found you?”
“Do you trust him?” Kai asked.
“Kai, right?”
When the stunned vampire nodded, she continued.
“I wouldn’t have anyone I didn’t trust working on Neri’s case. He investigated Dr. Stevens, but he found no one by that name worked at any of the hospitals. I don’t think we even thought about Standard Biotech because the information Dr. Stevens gave me when he knocked on my door.”
“You wouldn’t have found him, anyway. Standard has a way of erasing information they don’t want leaked,” Xander said.
“Yeah, I think you should tell him I’m alive and well. We don’t have to tell him about the immortals, unless you want to, mamá?”
Thalia blushed and Hunter’s gaze shot to Neri, who had a sly smile, and Hunter understood.
“Xander? Can you do a background on Detective Cortez?”
Xander nodded, and he pulled his laptop close before his fingers flew over the keyboard.
“I trust her judgment,” Neri said.
Hunter chuckled. “Oh, I do too. I would never cross your mother because she’s too smart to put up with bullshit, but it never hurts to check.”
“Detective Tajo Cortez, born October 25, 1985. He started as a beat cop when he was twenty-one after he graduated from the University of Denver where he majored in criminology. He worked his way through the Snowfall Police Department through vice and missing persons before being assigned to homicide as a detective. He never married, has a perfect credit score, owns his own house, and has a chocolate labrador named Lucy, who turned two last month. His partner is Jack O’Connor. His record is clean.”
“Well, thank you Mr. Snoopy pants.” Thalia sighed as she looked around the room, her gaze affectionate.
Xander winked at Thalia.
“Anything for family.”
“Well, well, isn’t this a lovely scene?”
The new voice, one Hunter hadn’t heard before, quieted the room. He stepped closer to Neri, Thalia, and Silas when spotted Neri’s gaze move to the top stairs. Standing there was the same woman who had hidden in the trees his first night with his mate.
The assassins, relaxed a second before, all moved to strategic positions around the first floor. But when Jade and Noah moved toward the stairs, a cold, high-pitched laugh stopped them in their tracks.
“Nuh uh, Jade. I know you want to kill me for sending you and your hunky mate on a wild goose chase and feeding you false information about your past, but we were having a little fun. Weren’t we? I wouldn’t want one of my shifters to kill you.”
“I’d like to see them tr
y, human.” Jade growled every word.
Instead of instigating anything, the crazy bitch threw her head back and laughed. The sound cut off abruptly, freaking him out before she snapped her head back, glaring at Jade.
“Holy fuck, this woman is off her rocker.” Axel mumbled under his breath.
Neri turned and glared at the lion shifter before she faced Zahava, not wanting to turn her back on the enemy. “You thought I was fucking with you.”
“No, but there’s normal crazy and then there’s bat-shit crazy. She’s bat-shit crazy.”
“You look at my mate like that one more time, I’ll rip off your fucking head and feed it to one of your pets,” Noah threatened.
Instead of answering Noah, Zahava searched the room and landed on Frost. Xander moved the moment Zahava’s voice echoed through Kai’s house, but now he stepped in front of Frost and looked ready to launch himself at the enemy. And no one in the house believed anything else.
“Well, well, the freak who killed my mate.”
“Was he? Your mate I mean. Because from what I can see, he didn’t claim you. There are no visible marks and you’re still human. Were you the best he could do because he couldn’t have me? That’s just sad.”
Frost’s mocking voice almost had him cracking a smile. But he spotted movement and heard footsteps in the upstairs bedroom and he bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to kill them. Instead of an army, six shifters appeared from a bedroom and flanked their leader.
There’s something wrong with them. All of their eyes are the same color, a dull hazel color and their skin is sallow.
What does that mean? Neri’s voice sounded strong, but confused.
They’ve been fucking with genetics. When I worked there, there was a genetics department. Maybe that’s how she can create so many shifters that survive the transition. She has someone working with her with that knowledge, maybe a scientist from Standard.
“Are you even paying attention?”
“Nope. Now if you wouldn’t mind fucking off and taking your lackeys with you. We were in the middle of something,” Neri snarled.
“No, you’re going to fucking listen!”
“Would you stop screeching!”
The room went still and silent. All eyes were on Neri.
“For fuck’s sake, you’re inside, use your indoor voice, Zahava. How many times have I reminded you of that? You’re a fucking adult, act like it.”
At her stunned silence, Neri’s brows drew down in concentration.
Axel, Gunnar, Ghost, and Hunter, move closer. When I nod, grab my arm. Ara and Jade, can you protect Silas and Thalia?
Both women made a microscopic movement in agreement as the three other men crowded closer to her.
We’re going up there and take them out. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of this bullshit.
Got it.
Yep, let’s do this.
Gunnar and Ghost responded, and she knew Hunter was already with her. Neri moved her gaze to Axel to see him smiling at her.
Anything for you, gray eyes.
Before they could execute their plan, Zahava snapped her fingers and all six shifters closed in on her position. One of them grabbed Zahava and before Hunter blinked, they disappeared.
“Now!”
They flashed up to the second floor landing and separated to search each room. Hunter opened the closet doors, looked underneath the bed, searched through the wardrobe in the corner, and checking the locks on the windows, finding nothing. He walked out into the hallway and Hunter knew he had the same disappointed look that mirrored theirs. But Ghost nodded as he walked out of the room on the corner.
“There is a ladder door in this room leading to the attic. There’s a hinged roof window. It’s not alarmed and you can jump onto the tall evergreen next to the house.”
“Another fucking vulnerability in my security system, great,” Kai growled.
“Everyone safe?” Ghost asked.
“Yeah, I locked down the house and turned on the perimeter alarms. I’ll add another alarm to the window and then place motion sensors on the room and on each balcony. It would be great if we can find that fucking woman and kill her and everyone associated with her, soon,” Kai grunted before he walked away.
“Now what?” Neri asked.
Ghost growled. “We plan. We gather as much information as possible, find their location, find out what they want, and destroy them.”
Hunter agreed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NERI
For the past hour, Neri helped the others as they covered each inch of Kai’s house as they checked the functionality of the cameras, the motion sensors, and the perimeter alarms. She flashed to each sensor, remembering their placement after she almost tripped over them, twice. The first time when she ran from the house. The second, the night of Hunter’s attack.
To make sure they worked, she walked past them before Silas, who sat in the control center filled with monitors and lights, most of which Neri had no clue what they showed, told her the sensor was working. Silas’s thoughts were the only one who could reach her miles out from the house.
She finished her last sensor and smiled when Hunter appeared from behind a tree and into view.
“Alarms working?” she asked.
“Yep. I hid more and rearranged the trip alarms so they’d have to search for them if they come back. I pushed others further out for a quicker alert.”
Neri chewed her bottom lip and Hunter wrapped his arms around her waist.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… brought her here. She wants to destroy us and she stayed in the shadows, happy to fuck with things behind the scenes, until you found me. The way she looked at us, with such hatred… I don’t understand.”
Hunter kissed her forehead.
“Angel, you’ll never understand the motivations of people. I’ll give you she’s a good strategist, messing with things while staying hidden from us takes talent, but she’s exposed. We suspect her motivations, well two at least. One, she wants revenge and two, she wants power and money. Those two things come with taking over Dark Company, which has been her main goal for years. And there were modifications to the shifter’s genetic code.
“Answers will come in time, but we shouldn’t worry about when she’ll come after us. We’ll take care of the problem when we learn more or she attacks. Either way, we have time to kill before dinner so what do you say, we shift and go for a run around the mountains?”
Neri blew out a breath, relieved Hunter understood her need to relieve her nervous energy, but she never thought to ask him to shift. But because he brought it up, she jumped up and down on the balls of her feet clapping her hands as she gave him a huge smile.
“Can I see you shift?”
Her eyes grew wide when Hunter purred.
“Please?”
Hunter nodded and closed his eyes.
Neri remembered the weird tingling throughout her body as her body shifted on instinct. She forced herself not to blink as Hunter transformed from his human form.
With no expectations, excitement sizzled through her as her gaze roamed over the panther in front of her. He was gorgeous. There was no other color than black anywhere on his body, but she found she was wrong the minute Hunter opened his eyes and the familiar piercing green made her smile.
“You… wow. Wow.”
Her hand drifted from her side and when her fingers slid through the fur around his neck, she relaxed her shoulders and sighed. The fur grew silkier the further it was from the root, but when she bent her fingers and inched around Hunter’s neck, his head burrowed against her stomach and purred in contentment.
That’s so good.
She laughed. Instead of moving her hand away, her left hand joined in and soon she became mesmerized by his fur as she scratched forward, moving toward the crown of his head. For several minutes, she lost herself in the rhythm and enjoyed the sound of Hunter’s purrs as they grew louder. Her mouth op
ened in protest as he lifted his head, but as he stepped back, his body shook out his fur in waves as she watched.
Ready to go for a run?
“Um… I don’t remember how I changed before.”
Close your eyes and relax.
Neri did as he asked.
Picture your form, the white fur, the pink pads on your feet.
Before he finished, Neri sensed a tingle, this time on the top of her head. It didn’t spread throughout her body so when she blinked her eyes open; she expected half of her to be a panther and the other half human. But her enhanced eyesight proved her wrong. She had transformed even faster than she had before.
Holy shit that was fast.
Hunter huffed and as she glanced up and into the familiar green eyes that stood out against his black fur.
I’m not surprised. You seem to excel at everything you try.
Neri was glad her blush wouldn’t show in this form as she took her first steps as a panther. Her front paw was huge, and she almost tripped over herself as the momentum of her body carried her forward before she righted herself. Her gaze dropped down, and she stood mesmerized by her toes.
Soon, she had the hang of walking on four legs, but she turned around to see what her tail looked like and face planted into some dead pine needles covering the ground. Embarrassed, she closed her eyes and imagined standing on all fours back where Hunter stood and flashed to his side.
I’m not laughing at you.
Why don’t I believe you?
Hunter relented. Okay, a chuckle might have escaped but in this form, it sounds like a huff. I didn’t have to share that tidbit with you, but I wanted to be honest.
Neri pressed her forehead against his shoulder. I appreciate it. Wanna try this again and I’ll not become distracted by my feet or my tail again?
This time, she heard Hunter’s laughter reverberate in her head as his panther huffed and huffed.
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