Blaze: Queen’s Birds of Prey: Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Queen's Birds of Prey Book 2)

by Kathi S. Barton

  “Yes. You’re just lucky that I’m with you and not her. She hates you more than I do.” She scared Curt a bit more than he liked to admit. “I want you to leave town, Curt. You might just live longer if you do.”

  “And how the hell do you figure that’s going to happen when I don’t have any fucking money?” Bryson just walked away. “You’d better be paying up, son. I’d really hate to have to tell some stories on you to that wife of yours.”

  Bryson just flipped him off. Just as he was walking away, his boy raised his hand over his head and flipped him off. What a horrible way to treat the man that raised you, Curt thought. Just terrible. The world was going to pot, and there wasn’t a damn thing people could do about it anymore. Which reminded him, he needed some pot to get him through this shit. But he really needed cash to make that happen. Damn his kids.

  Chapter 7

  Ellen didn’t know what to do with all this wealth that surrounded her in Bryson’s home. And to say that it was tastefully done in the house would have been a gross understatement. Everything was beautiful. The wood shone like it had been waxed only this morning. Both Bryson and Blaze had welcomed her with open arms, and set her up in a luxurious room that made her think of old movies and bed and breakfasts. Tonight she was going to get to see Clara…or Dawn. Either way, she was nervous about that too.

  “Do you need anything, Mrs. Foster?” Ellen smiled and told Blaze that it was a lovely room. “We’re just getting started on getting things set up here. Your room, I think, is the only one with pictures on the wall so far.”

  “They’re very good paintings. I could almost step into the one where the water is tumbling off the mountain and take a long soak. My goodness. I bet the painter was right there when they painted it.” Blaze said that she had been. “You painted that? Oh my. Beauty and talent. Bryson is a very lucky young man.”

  “It’s me that’s lucky. I didn’t think that I’d ever meet anyone like Joel, my sister’s husband. They’re so in love that you can almost taste it in the air around them.” Ellen said that’s what she felt when she was around Bryson and Blaze. “Thank you very much. It was love at first sight.”

  Ellen was led to the large living room. The furniture in this room wasn’t wood, but it looked just as beautiful. The colors were of the deepest of earth tones—reds that defied a name, and so many browns and blues that they seemed to blend into each other on every piece. Standing next to the fireplace, Ellen peeked out into the back yard. It was gorgeous too. The pool, an enormous thing, looked like you could park several semis in it and still have a place to swim.

  “I guess you know how we got the kids. I didn’t stick around long after Dawn was brought to the house. It was hard enough for me to raise Bryson knowing that his mother and father were dead.” Blaze told her that they’d made a connection with Bryson’s grandparents. “I had no idea they were alive. Why didn’t they take them? Never mind. I have a feeling that I know. Bryson wasn’t given to Curt to raise when they passed away, was he?”

  “No. Did you know about the house?” Ellen didn’t, so Blaze told her about the poker game and him winning not just the house that they’d lived in, but also Bryson. “Dawn, she was gotten because her parents had something Curt wanted. Money. It seems to always boil down to money when it comes to him.”

  “Did he have anything to do with the death of Bryson’s parents?” Blaze told her that in a misdirected way, he had. “I thought so. It just didn’t seem right to me the story that Curt told me. They were druggies, he told me. Just barely making it. I found it hard to believe, but I had Bryson. Then I read about the murder suicide thing in the paper. It was after that that I started to doubt anything that Curt told me. I had for a long time, but it was harder to sweep under the rug after that.”

  “He did kill Dawn’s parents. They were both witches, and he did it to get their magic and their money. Little did he know that they’d given all their magic to Dawn before he killed them both. I wondered why he’d never killed her instead of raising her like he did.”

  Ellen told her that might have been her fault. “I wanted another child. I can’t have them, so I guess he went out and stole me one. But you see, I knew that he’d killed them, her parents. I was thinking that was the reason that Clara didn’t speak when she was brought to me. The trauma, I thought.”

  “We’ve come to the conclusion that it was more than likely getting all the magic that she did. Her body and mind would have had to adjust to that sort of double dose of powerful magic.”

  “I used to not believe in that sort of thing, magic and witches. But when I moved to Texas, I found out all sorts of things that I had no idea about before. My second husband was a wolf shifter. He was the pack leader too. Up until he had a massive stoke, he was always there for me. He had two children of his own that I helped raise when I went out there. You might say that I was married for the first time with the amount of love I had for the man.”

  “I’m so glad that you were able to find happiness after Curt. He’s not a good man, is he?” Ellen said that she didn’t know the half of it. “That’s what we were hoping you could help us find out. And now that you’re here, stay with us for a while. We have plenty of room.”

  “I don’t know, Blaze. I just don’t feel right barging into your lives right now. You two just got married and all. No. You don’t need an old woman here that is going to be in the way.” Blaze laughed. She didn’t know if it was at the situation or her. Either way, she wasn’t all that thrilled and stood up. “You see. We’re already at odds with each other.”

  “I’m not at odds with you, Ellen. But you saying that you’re old is funny to me. I’m way older than you. Hell, I’m order than this town, this state, and not to mention, I’m older than this country. I was a bird a long time ago.” Blaze sat down when Ellen’s knees just simply gave out on her. “My sisters and I were made, created, because a queen that we worked for needed protection. Being a woman, she knew that at any time she could have been made to marry a man for her lands. And she had a great many of them. So, using her considerable magic, she turned a falcon, eagle, phoenix, vulture, an owl, and me, a hawk, into something that would work for her and not try and take over her kingdom. We were loyal and very good for her.”

  “I’m not saying that I believe you. But what happened after that? It’s a fantastic story. It’s just a little too much for me to believe or even to take in.”

  “I understand. What happened is just what she had predicted. She was ordered to marry the king of a land that was dying. Even his castle was in so much disrepair that it was hardly worth trying to fix. But, being her, she wouldn’t because she’d seen what men of his ilk would do to people that were a part of their kingdom. So in order to save those hundreds of people in her care, she devised a plan to not marry, but most importantly, to not marry a tyrant.”

  “Why did you marry Bryson?” Blaze told her that she loved him with all her heart. “Good. Then I don’t care what you are or what you did in the past. I might have left him with Curt, but I loved that little boy very much. And he’s turned out to be very smart with a sweet disposition, completely opposite of what Curt more than likely tried to raise him as.”

  “Curt has done some terrible things.” Ellen nodded. “I’m betting that you know a few more. Perhaps things that might be provable to the police.”

  “How much do you have now?” Blaze told her what they knew about Bryson and Dawn’s parents. Also, they knew how he’d swindled Bryson’s parents, and that he’d killed Dawn’s parents for her magic. “Yes, I understand now. You know this but have no proof. I might be able to help you with that. What else?”

  “He thinks to claim the house that was a part of the plot that got Bryson’s parents killed. By the way, if you’d like it, Bryson and Dawn will turn it over to you. Don’t say no just yet until you hear me out. They’ll either have the house destroyed or they’ll sell it off, beca
use it would piss Curt off royally. Before you arrived here, they found out how it had come to be the one you lived in. They want nothing to do with it now.” Ellen thought of having the house for a moment and told her that she’d take it. “Good for you. Everything that is in the house now is yours as well if you want it. If not, then we’ll help you get something more to your liking.”

  “I have nothing.” Blaze just nodded the one time. “I guess you had me investigated. I don’t blame you. Had I the money, I might well have done the same thing. But my husband, Bishop Wolf, his children got everything in the will and I was to get the house. Neither of them cared for that and had a slick attorney toss me out. After I spent the last twenty years raising them, taking care of them, they did this to me. Not to mention, staying with their dad when he was hurt so badly from his first stoke.”

  “I heard. If it makes you feel any better, Esy is looking into things about the will and the children. She saw some things in the will that looked like they’d been changed—not legally. She’ll find it better than anyone else could.” Ellen told her that she didn’t have to do that. “Bryson asked her to. And since they all love my husband very much, they’ll search it for him.”

  “I thank you. But as I said, they had money and the house, and I had nothing by the time they were finished with me.” Blaze said that she was sorry. Changing the subject, Ellen said she didn’t want to think about those kids right now. “I have a safety deposit box here in this town. I have paid on it every quarter since I took one out after leaving Curt. It holds receipts for some of the things that Curt purchased and said that he didn’t. Not much in that, but I also have the receipts from when he resold both items he received after claiming he didn’t. Also, names and dates of people that he dealt with during his drug runs. That was a very profitable project of his. Bryson and I never saw any of that money. There was never any food in the house.”

  “How old was Bryson when you left?” Ellen had to think about it. “I thought he was just a baby.”

  “He was just a little boy, about seven, or maybe as old as nine, I think. Dawn, she was already older than that when Curt brought her home to us. I stayed a year after that.” Ellen thought of the day she’d left. “We’d had a huge fight, Curt and I. It was about money—always about the money with him. But he’d been gone for about a week then. Dawn had been so difficult to care for. And I resented her a little because she was taking more time and food from Bryson and me. Curt wanted yet another child, but I knew what that meant. He was going to kill someone else’s parents so that I could have another child to take care of without food or money. I left them both there. I hated that most of all, leaving them there. In my defense, I thought that he’d not kill anyone else if he had those two without me there to help him out. But I just couldn’t stand to think that another family would be broken apart. Parents murdered trying to protect what was theirs. So, I left.”

  “You were never married to Curt. Did you know that?” Ellen told her that she’d figured it out after she’d tried to get a divorce from him. “The license, if there ever was one, wasn’t filed.”

  “When I stop and think of all the shit that he piled on me while we were together, I want to cry. Just crawl into a corner and sob my heart out. Then I met Bishop, and I thought, here is a man that I can spend the rest of my life with.” Ellen wiped at the tears with a tissue from the box beside of her. “I’d had such a shitty life. I worked so hard to get my shit together and just be a little happy. I was for a time. I really was. Then his children ruined even that for me. I didn’t want it all, just a place that I could call my own and a home that I could live out the rest of my days in.”

  “Bryson made that happen for you.” She nodded, unable to say anything due to the lump in her throat. “I’m going to let you rest for a while, Ellen. My sisters are coming over for dinner tonight to meet you. Bryson should be finished working by then. He’s been working on this project with Joel, my brother-in-law, for two weeks now, and it’s going well.”

  After Blaze left her alone, Ellen did lie on the bed. Her heart was heavy. She couldn’t believe how much she’d told the other woman, how easy it had been to talk to her. That was something else that she’d never had. A friend, a woman friend that she could just talk to about everything and nothing at all.

  Ellen closed her eyes, trying her best to simply take a nap, rest up. Instead, she got up and found the key to the safety deposit box. Writing down the bank number of the container and putting the key with it, she felt better and laid down once again. Bryson had always been a wonderful little boy. Someone that grew up to be a good man. She was ever so happy that she got to talk to him again. And to see how he’d turned out.

  ~*~

  Curt waited at the end of the driveway of a home that he wanted to get into. He needed cash, and he figured that the old people that lived in this house would have plenty just laying around, waiting for someone to take. When they turned off the light at the front door, he knew that meant they were in for the night.

  Going in through the garage, where he’d unlocked the door earlier today, he paused by the nice set of wheels that he was going to borrow too. Rubbing his hands over the hood of the nice big car, he made his way to the house to go and have a look around.

  Pausing just a few minutes, Curt gave them time to go to their bedroom and close up for the night. In his experience, old people like these would turn in as soon as it was dark outside. He had a feeling that these two would do the same. He was going to use that to his advantage.

  Opening the door to what he thought was the kitchen, he nearly tumbled down the stairs to the basement. The huge yawning hole was big enough to take a fridge down—sideways, he thought. Turning to his left, he saw the small light over the stove and smiled. This is what he’d been hoping to find.

  He figured that he could get in and out of the house after tossing it in less time than he’d been able to work out which house to rob. Picking a knife from the block on the counter, Curt put it in his back pocket, blade up. He walked through the kitchen to the fridge. Putting his hand over the light, just in case they didn’t close their bedroom door, he pulled out the pizza box and ate the last three pieces standing there at the counter. Even cold it was like having a steak dinner. Curt put his face under the faucet in the sink and drank directly from it, and felt better than he had in some time. Leaving the empty pizza box on the counter, he walked to the living room to see what might be lying around.

  There wasn’t a television worth pawning, he saw. Nor was the furniture worth much. It was like what his grandma had in her house before she’d died. He did notice there were plenty of old frames around the room. No computer in this room, he noticed.

  Looking down the long hallway, he saw four doors. Having thought that the place had only one or two, Curt didn’t know how he was going to figure out which room the couple might be in.

  “Damn it.” He’d nearly forgotten where he was for a moment, and slapped his hand over his mouth. That’s a good way to get caught, he thought with a laugh, just talk loud enough for someone to hear you.

  Deciding to take a chance, he opened the first door on his left. It was the bathroom. He didn’t close the door again, but went inside to use it. He’d been waiting outside for hours, he thought, and had to piss like a racehorse. When he was finished, he moved to the sink to wash up and saw the little antique mirror and brush set. Picking it up, he put it into the pillowcase that he’d brought just for this occasion.

  The next door was a linen closet. He thought about taking a couple of towels, but he didn’t have any idea how much loot he was going to find, so left them there. Maybe when he was finished, if he had the room, he’d come back for some.

  The next door was a bedroom. The thing was huge. Going deeper into the room, he was rummaging around, finding all kinds of cool stuff to take, when someone screamed. Christ almighty, he thought for sure that a banshee had run up on him.
The kid in the bed was still screaming her head off when the light came on.

  The gunshot nearly took his leg off. The second shot hit just inches above his head. The old man was reloading when Curt tried his best to get out of the room with his bag. He got no further than the linen closet when he was fired upon again. These people were insane.

  The buckshot hit him in his ass. Christ almighty, he felt like they’d set his ass aflame. Holding his ass and his bag, he slipped twice in the kitchen trying to get away when he was shot a third time. This one hit him in the back of his legs, as well as his ass again.

  Running and limping, he was out the door when he realized that at some point he’d dropped his bag. Turning back to get it, he heard the snap of the gun being loaded again. Heard the man scream at someone named Betsy to call the police for him. Turning around again, he decided that there was nothing worth what it was going to cost him to get someone to dig the buckshot out of his ass.

  Limping back to his hotel, he was stopped by the hotel manager. He didn’t have time for this shit and told him that. As he was turning to leave him standing there, the man started screaming. Whatever he saw around his buttocks area, it was making the manager green with sickness. Curt ran up to his room as best he could with all the pain taking his breath away.

  Turning on the bathtub faucets, Curt stripped off his clothing. He needed to cool his ass off right now. Sitting down in the almost cold water, he cried out when it felt like he was being shot up again. Where the hell had that old man gotten that shotgun?

  Sitting in the now pink water, he thought about what he’d just failed at. No goods to trade off. No cash to put anything down on the sure thing he’d seen at the racetrack listings. And nothing at all to get his butt cleaned out and stitched together. They were going to have to stitch him up, Curt just knew it. Because as badly as he hurt right now, he was sure that it was going to take major surgery to get himself better.