What would people make of Reece and Troy having burgers on a “date night” like Saturday?
Given Kaleb Quinn’s womanizing reputation, Reece feared to imagine the rumors that might circulate as a result of this poorly thought out outing…
“And for the lady?” Angel asked after Troy had confirmed her guess that he’d have the usual.
“A burger, please,” she said. “Medium rare. Hold the onions.”
“Fries?”
“A mountain of them,” she requested and felt Troy flash a guarded grin. “What? I’m hungry.”
“I believe you.”
When Angel started off for the kitchen, Reece noticed Troy’s right hand was balled, not so much in a white-knuckle fist, but around something.
“What do you have there?” she asked, referring to his hand.
He opened his palm, showing her a purple stone. It was round, but not perfectly so. It looked like it had been softened, shaped by water rather than man. And if she wasn’t mistaken, she guessed it was an amethyst.
“It’s beautiful,” she marveled, leaning in. “Where did you get it?” she asked. Thanks to his tattoos, rugged clothing, and black unkempt hair, he didn’t exactly fit the description of someone who would seek out rare crystals and nurse them in the palm of his hand.
“From my grandmother,” he said, eyeing the stone. “I saw her this morning.”
“May I?” she asked.
Troy held his hand forward and she carefully scooped the amethyst up, her fingertips brushing the warm palm of his hand.
Upon contact, skin against skin, what felt like a lightning bolt of electricity zinged through her and her brain buzzed with the flash of a vision in her mind’s eye. It only lasted a split second, maybe even less than that, but Reece saw herself careening through a dark night into the even darker blur of a beast. Her nightmare… it was just like that dream she’d gotten tangled in, the one with the dark wolf… It felt just the same. But this time, the wolf-beast enveloped her in a protective embrace. It felt like a premonition, and as quickly as it overtook her, it was gone.
“Reece?” asked Troy, staring at her.
She blinked away the hard haze that had trapped her, her eyesight sharpening.
“You okay?”
“Hmm? Yes,” she said quickly. “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t.
As she turned the crystal over in her hands, studying it, she decided that dreams and visions and nightmares were just that—creative imaginings, the mind’s clever way to escape boredom and entertain. She would find a way to work it into her novel instead of worrying about what had truly just come over her.
Little did Reece know, that in the very moment she’d been sucked into the revealing premonition, Troy Quinn had also seen a flash of his future, and it had intrigued as well as scared him just as badly.
***
The quaint, one-story cottage was aglow in the distance. In contrast to the waning moon, the cool blue light it cast that kissed the bluestem grass wavering in the breeze, the cottage looked as warm as an amber fire.
He could smell them inside, even from across the acreage of the backyard. Lilacs and roses mixed with the fresh, breathing scent of raw earth—the feminine and masculine. Reece and Troy.
Troy Quinn was a joke. He wasn’t a natural born leader. He was practically still a pup. Ill-equipped to protect the pack. He hadn’t even acquired the gift of foresight, and he wouldn’t, not if the monstrous creature lurking at the far edge of Reece Gladstone’s property line had anything to do with it.
Not only had the Ancient hunched in those shadows failed to turn fully wolf from the pull of the full moon that had felt icy-hot and violent, but tonight as the moon’s edge softened in its waning state, he was struggling to regain his completely human form. He felt deformed. Beastly. But looks could be deceiving, couldn’t they?
He had everything that the late pack leader, Xavier, had in terms of prowess and powers. He had been blessed with the gift of foresight, himself, no true mate required. He had the heightened senses—the sense of smell that could pick up the smallest drop of blood from a mile away, eyesight as sharp as an eagle’s that was laser-focused even in the dark shadows of night, hearing that could pick up a mouse rustling within the rotted-out base of a mighty oak tree from distances that rivaled ocean whales. But most importantly, he had the heart of an alpha werewolf.
And Troy Quinn had inherited the throne?
The fact that he had was mere politics. Corrupt and shameless. Sure, all of the Quinn brothers had crafted the same lie. Their mother, Nikita, had probably instructed the conspiracy—convince the pack that they’d each been visited by the ghost of Xavier Quinn, tell everyone the werewolf king had passed the torch to his eldest son, and lie, lie, lie. Selfishly motivated, that’s what he thought of Nikita Quinn. She’d had a job to do, a duty to respect the bloodline, and she’d squirmed out of it by all means necessary.
As the reigning queen of the werewolves, Nikita should have wed the next in line for the throne. Not her own son, of course. But the fact of the matter was that Troy was not the next in line.
He was. By blood, he was. And Sasha knew it, as well.
That was what her so-called virtuous vow of silence was all about, and he knew it. She wanted—no, she needed—to keep her mouth shut so that no one would be the wiser. So that no one would ever find out that he, himself, and no one else was destined to inherited the throne as the next werewolf king of Devil’s Fist, Wyoming.
And here he was. Lurking. Salivating for the power he’d been denied. Hiding like a boogie-man in the shadows, like the real devil of the Fist, when he ought to be leading the pack towards salvation. Troy couldn’t see that Sheriff Abernathy was about to stumble upon evidence of the entire werewolf pack’s existence. Troy couldn’t smell that once the sheriff uncovered that kind of information that he’d stop at nothing to drive every last werewolf out of his town. Troy Quinn was too busy playing house with a girl who wouldn’t have needed his protection had Troy never taken a fancy to her in the first place.
Patience had gotten him this far, he reminded himself.
He would bide his time, wait for her to wander off, and snatch her.
She might be destined to become Troy’s one true mate, but as destiny tended to have a dark sense of humor, so long as she was robbed of this world, the bonds of fate could be broken. Without Reece Gladstone, Troy would be nothing. Easily killed himself. And once Troy was, the half-man half-wolf could continue on, plucking off each Quinn one after the next, until no one but himself was left.
With that in mind, he leapt from the bluestem grass and tore through the acreage, sprinting towards the little cottage and determined to destroy everything that stood between himself and the werewolf throne that so rightfully belonged to him.
***
Reece had changed into a pair of purple stretch pants that were flattering enough that she didn’t feel like a frump in her own home. The top she wore, a soft gray sweatshirt with a loose neckline and three-quarter sleeves, was one she affectionately referred to in her head as her Flashdance sweats since it was a dead-ringer match for the one the main character was wearing in that sultry pose on the jacket cover. She’d taken her red glasses off and left them in her bedroom, which might not have been her wisest decision. Her vision wasn’t great, but she’d reasoned that the living room TV wasn’t that far from the couch.
Having popped a full bowl’s worth of popcorn on the stove, she padded barefoot into the kitchen and set it on the coffee table in front of Troy.
“Help yourself,” she offered as she plucked the remote control from the end table nearest her side of the couch and pushed the Play button.
The snarl on Troy’s face told her that her buttery popcorn looked far from appetizing.
“You don’t like popcorn?”
“I don’t like anything in the plant kingdom.”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked with a laugh as she wrapped her mind aro
und his statement. “You don’t eat anything in the entire plant kingdom? That can’t be healthy.”
“That’s what they tell me,” he allowed, cutting his dark eyes to her without turning his head. There had been an edge of dark humor in his tone, but she knew he was dead-serious.
She pushed Pause before the wartime DVD she’d selected for them to watch could get going. She had questions. Many, many questions.
“Let me get this straight—”
“Are you sure you need to? You seem to grasp the concept already.”
“But I can’t believe it,” she maintained. “You don’t eat vegetables?”
He scrunched his nose and she could almost see the six-year old boy he’d once been.
“Indigestible garbage,” he told her.
“Vegetables are indigestible garbage?” she questioned, astonished.
“That’s literally the definition of fiber,” he explained, which she would’ve agreed with except for his use of the word garbage.
“So, what do you eat?”
“The original human diet,” he stated as though it should’ve been common knowledge.
“Saber-toothed lions?”
“Meat. I prefer gamey meat. I hunt and eat what I kill. But I don’t mind the burgers and steak at Angel’s Food, hold the bun, lettuce, tomato, onions, condiments, and fries.”
“Wow.” She had a think on that, then pointed out, “But you drink coffee.”
“Well, I’m not a monster, Reece.”
She had to laugh at that as she found the Play button on the remote control and resumed the DVD, mentioning, “I don’t believe you’ve seen this one. It’s about the Trojan War, so it’s more animated than the others. I can’t stand that blood and gore stuff, so this one is more my speed.”
He sank back into the couch, getting comfortable, spreading his legs and draping his arm over the couch back near her. She stole glances from the corner of her eye at his muscular physique. He was wearing a simple black tee-shirt that hugged his frame and exposed the wealth of dark, textured tattoos that covered his arms. His jeans fit him well, and she couldn’t help but feel a thrilled twinge of nerves knot up in her stomach just having him here.
Which was probably why she placed the large popcorn bowl in her lap and began nervously munching as the narrator one the TV set the stage, describing the extreme beauty of Helen of Troy.
“I always wondered what she looked like,” Reece commented in a whisper in case Troy was one of those guys who really didn’t appreciate commentary during a movie. “Helen of Troy. She set off the entire war. So she must have been exceptionally beautiful.”
“It wasn’t her looks,” he said, keeping his eyes on the screen as a map of Athens appeared. “It was her value, what she represented.”
Impressed, Reece asked, “How do you know that?”
Troy glanced over at her, but didn’t respond. As he held her gaze, she felt another sting of nerves pierce her stomach and her chest swelled with the kind of warmth that preluded a kiss.
But he didn’t kiss her. He just responded, “No man is complete without a woman. If his woman is stolen, it cuts right down to his very soul. Then his ego surges up. Ignite a man’s ego and you can wage a war.”
“Hmm,” she pondered. It was kind of romantic the way Troy put it. But also a little sexist.
“So Helen was just some stolen property,” she surmised.
“Watch the movie, Reece.”
She piped down and did just that, eating her popcorn as quietly as possible and wondering if she could get away with shifting her weight in his direction so that their shoulders might brush.
There was no way to tell if Helen of Troy had been happy to belong to King Menelaus.
But she was starting to feel like Reece might be smitten to belong to Troy.
Reece of Troy.
How about that?
Kind of had a ring to it.
Chapter Nine
TROY
Last night had been a sweet form of torture, if ever Troy had experienced such a thing.
Sitting close to Reece—close enough to smell the heat of her natural scent rising through that flowery shampoo she used—had been an exercise in self control. She’d kept shifting from where she sat, inching closer to him with her every adjustment, until finally she’d gotten bold and crossed her legs. When her slender knee had lowered onto his thigh, their bodies brushing lightly, he’d had to evoke every shred of will-power not to leap on her.
This had been years in the making, this growing feeling inside of him for her. She was a bright light in his dark world. But where light met darkness, came an edge of danger.
He recalled what his Grandmother Sasha had spoken directly into his mind, that the girl with red glasses would light his way. Reece had been all along, he believed. She’d brightened his world, at least. Over the years, she’d become his favorite fantasy, though he’d fought the constant urge to let his thoughts wander in that direction. But now that he was spending his evenings with her, he was losing confidence that he would be able to hold himself back much longer.
How would she light his way? he wondered as he stole glances at her from across the red, vinyl booth inside Angel’s Food, as she perused the giant, laminated menu in her slender hands. Why would Grandmother Sasha have said that to him? What could Reece possibly know about a Younger gone rogue? Or perhaps Sasha had been speaking much more esoterically than that. Maybe Reece would become Troy’s inspiration and ignite in him the drive to hunt down whatever creature had been threatening the Fist.
He couldn’t say, couldn’t tell, and the brief, flashing vision he’d received the last time they’d sat in the diner hadn’t done much to clarify the situation. Well, not other than clarifying the fact that Troy quite liked the brush of her fingertips across his palm, and when that soft knee of hers had touched down onto his leg… He quite enjoyed that, as well.
“So what does a hot-blooded carnivore like yourself tend to order in the diner for breakfast?” she asked him with a little quirk of her eyebrow as she lifted her green eyes from behind her menu.
Lifting her eyebrow like that had caused her red-frame glasses to slip down her button nose, so she pushed them back into place and gave him an expectant smile.
“Eggs.”
“That’s it?”
“Sausage,” he added, but not because it was true. In fact, Troy preferred to go all day without a bite of food, and then devour a 16-oz steak after sundown.
“I’d die without my carbs,” she commented, folding the giant menu and resting it on the table to the side. “I run on muffins, pancakes, sugary sweets and treats, pasta, pizza—”
“Is that all?” he teased.
“I wasn’t finished,” she teased right back before she went on to list various brands one could find in the cereal aisle. “I like to cook and bake, and I even made ice cream one time, but I wasn’t patient enough to let it solidify.”
“So, you drank some sweet cream and called it a day?”
“Called it a night, but yeah.”
“So, what I’m hearing is… you don’t care much for vegetables either.”
“Ha!” she blurted, caught. “You got me on that one, I guess. Alright, one for team Quinn.”
“We’re on the same team,” he told her, dead-serious about it.
The smile slowly faded from her pretty face as her green eyes brightened with a flattered twinkle behind those goofy glasses of hers. “We are?”
“Angel isn’t running the diner right now,” he noticed, glancing around, which explained why she hadn’t briskly padded up to their table to take their breakfast order. Reece seemed in no rush, but that didn’t mean that if she didn’t overload her delicate system with a diabetic’s worth of carbohydrates she wouldn’t get a tad snappish.
Lucy Cooper was flitting about, topping off coffee in her customers’ mugs and sweating a bit at the brow.
At the tender age of twenty-four, Lucy resembled a woodland pixie displac
ed from its natural habitat. She was a slender 5’6” with long, flowing blonde hair, and a distinct edge of darkness behind her sparkling blue eyes. There’d been a time, a handful of years back, when Troy had questioned whether young Lucy might be destined to be his one true mate, but it had been a superficial inquiry. She looked the part. Ethereal. And there was something about how she bumbled through life that called into question whether or not she belonged in a place like the Fist and not on some distant planet. But Troy hadn’t felt the pull towards her. Not once. Not in the way he did towards Reece.
Not only did Lucy work as a waitress at Angel’s Food, she also happened to live in the apartment above it. It was no secret that she was close friends with the Sheriff’s daughter, Whitney Abernathy, and as their friendship had developed over the years, Lucy began volunteering with the National Park Service on her days off as a trail runner who would walk the various trails in Yellowstone and report back any areas that would need to be cleaned up. Whitney had inspired her and gotten her involved, since Whitney was fully employed at Yellowstone as a corral. She was in charge of running the stables, tending to the horses, and leading horseback riding tours.
There was something about Lucy’s frazzled nature this morning that told Troy something had disturbed the young waitress. Or if it hadn’t, something was on the horizon that was bound to.
Troy was tempted to holler at her but got lucky catching her eye and Lucy hustled on over, a steaming coffee pot in one hand and her order pad tucked under her armpit. The blue, button-front uniform she wore was already stained heavily, which indicated she’d already had quite a morning.
“Apologies, apologies,” she groveled as she turned their empty mugs right-side-up and proceeded to pour their coffees. “I’m all by my lonesome, here, and it was supposed to be my day off.”
“Where’s Angel?” Reece asked, suddenly concerned.
“That’s the thing of it,” she breathed as she pulled her order pad from her armpit and found a bent pen in her uniform pocket. “No one knows. The line cook up and called me a little after six this morning because Angel hadn’t shown up. At first I thought, well I’ll be, that Jack Quagmire’d finally done it!” Lucy let out a little laugh that soon turned grim. “But when I rushed in, Jack was the first call I made and he hadn’t taken her home or so much as seen her since the dinner service last night.”
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