Blown Away (Rogues Shifter Series Book 4) (22 page)

Sinlae's skin pinked up in a blush. She crossed her arms and glared at Brina. “You are no lady.”

Brina continued to tease her. “Do you know that Lord Liam spends half his day with Jackie in the human world?”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Does he truly, Jah Kee?”

“Yes. He‘s a close friend of my mate, Garrett.”

Her eyes widened to match her mouth. “Handsome Garrett vampirelord is your mate?”

I was laughing now. “Yes. But please don't ever call him that to his face. His head would swell and I'd have to kill him." I grinned so the little one would know that I was kidding.

“I must tell my
sisters. Good day to you all. Except you Brina big mouth.” She flew out the window so fast that I could barely see the blur of her shimmering wings.

Lord Argon approached me with his lovely consort, Lady Tereza. He spoke with a thick fae accent, but his emotions were easy to read. “Thank you for healing our daughter, Jacqueline. We are in your debt.” He placed his hand on his heart and nodded, sending me a delicious wash of fae magic, an honor, coming from an Elder.

“Brina and Kaera helped to find me when I was kidnapped, Lord Argon, and Kaera saved my life after the explosion. You owe me nothing. I hope that your daughters will help our team again in the future, because we always have need of strong warriors.” I looked at the two of them, one a rich dark beauty with a more serious nature and the other, light haired, light spirited and just as lovely. Both of them deadly: a perfect balance. They’d become my friends and I was fortunate to have them in my life.

I left soon after and slept like a log in my own bed with Samson curled up near my feet. Gabriel had left with Aaron, so Samson was mine once more, officially relieved of werewolf guard duty.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

After a light breakfast I went for a run. I’d slept well and felt that I needed the exercise, so I’d run along the coastline, chased occasionally by a stray dog and a few giggling children out with their dad. Crescent City was such a lovely place to live with its rocky beaches and bay populated by pleasure boats and fishing rigs. In the nearby mountains, redwood forests transported you back in time to ancient days when dinosaurs roamed the western states. Crisscrossed by rivers and valleys, brown hills and green parks, flower gardens and sand dunes, Crescent City was the perfect place for a population with eclectic tastes.

A drawback for some was the weather. Temperatures were cooler compared to most of the other California
coastline cities and it rained—a lot. And then there was the fog, which rolled in occasionally and smothered the community with a cool choke hold. The weather never bothered me and the shifter/werewolf community seemed to like the cooler climes, probably because lush forests covered so much of the nearby terrain. It was prime hunting ground. Vampires adapted to any environment, as long as there was blood nearby, and the fae resided in their lovely Faerie dimension and so weren't concerned with how we chose to live. I felt at home here with my mate and my friends and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

When I got close to home, I decided to materialize behind a tree so Liam and Samson wouldn’t notice me as they
trained together on the patio. He was working on hand signals: stay, sit, come, speak, etc… Samson was getting them right every time and Liam looked like a very proud parent.

“We both know that you’re there.” He smiled in my direction. “We smell your cheetah. Traveling the lines comes easy to you
, I see.”

“Easy? It definitely wasn’t easy at first.” I must have looked annoyed as I thought back to the first excruciating pain of immersing myself in the burning magic of the lines, all the while pressured to learn the skill before Kennett returned to torture me. In the end, I hadn't learned quickly enough to avoid the torture, but the lines had indeed become my means of escape.

“Jacqueline, I know what you went through.” I turned away, too embarrassed to look at him. He noticed and sent Samson back into the house, closing the door behind him. “Let’s walk.”

I nodded my head and we struck off into the woods, walking silently along a familiar path. He took my hand and we were instantly on a low hill overlooking the sea. It wasn’t my imaginary cliff, a mental vision I used to focus my powers and find peace, sometimes with Garrett by my side. It was a real place I remembered passing on my way north into the mountains. There was a narrow trail that led down to the beach so we followed it to the bottom, Liam leading the way, and then sat on an outcropping of rock, taking our shoes off and letting our feet dangle in the salty spray.

I decided to forge ahead rather than waste time on small talk. “Did I ever properly thank you for what you did? I’m sure it was horrible for you.”

“As your friend, it was hard to see what he did to you and be unable to help. It wa
s harder for me because he is fae: one of my own race. It’s amazing that you can trust any of us.”

“Most of the fae I've met are nothing
like Kennet."

"I wish that were true. We
in our Cascade Sidhe work very hard not to be like the reptiles we left behind at court." He looked at me again. "Did you feel me there with you?"

"Yes. A part of me knew you were protecting me, so even though everything was the same, even the pain, I knew that I'd be safe in the end. Since I’ve been back, I’ve wondered
so often what it was like for you.”

He took off his shirt and laid back in the sunshine, stretching out on the smooth rock in a very human way, staring at the clouds drifting overhead on this unusually warm July day in Northern Cal. I crossed my legs into a pretzel and turned toward him, eager to listen. “It w
as extreme, but in the end, I suppose, cathartic. I was almost overwhelmed by the intensity of your feelings and thoughts and, because I’d left my own ego behind, as I’d intended, I could only travel with you and not influence your actions in any way. So I sent you suggestions to calm your mind and keep it from sustaining the trauma a second time."

He grinned. "Some of what I saw was actually entertaining. The way you dealt with Isaiah was extraordinary. You stood up to a demon and bargained your way to freedom. Your mind was always working on finding a way out. You never sat
back and accepted your fate." His warm smile made me feel a little less embarrassed.

“When I decided to take this step with you, I thought that I would be your primary anchor to the reality that awaited you when you escaped: knowledge that your friends and your mate continued to support you no matter what happened with Kennet. But you already had your anchor and he never left you, not even during the height of the torture. He may have been hidden in your subconscious, but you could call him up to comfort you, and you did, often. Feeling the power of your love for each other firsthand was the wake-up call that I needed.”

He sighed, a long slow breath. "I’ve given up my indulgent little fantasy, which you and Garrett have been kind enough to ignore. You’ve trusted me, which is no small thing for a fae. We are as aliens to most supernatural groups, a nation to be feared and avoided.”

He sat up to look me directly in the eye. “You trusted me to keep my honor intact and never do anything to destroy our friendship or our alliance. But I don’t want secrets between us. There
were times—moments when I thought about taking you with me to Faerie: when I almost did. But then I would have lost your trust and friendship and my honor.”

He noticed my slightly shocked expression, sighing and turning away to look out at the ocean. “You’re the one person in my life who understands what it means to be a warrior and a healer both. I'm no longer alone with this
burden. Garrett is my friend, actually he's more like a brother, as close as Aedus is to me. To betray your trust would have been worse than anything that Kennet did to you.

"My people do not think the same way regarding other races, especially when it comes to our species' survival. Throughout the centuries, we've taken what and who we needed. I grew up believing this was normal. What Kennet proposed was only against th
e law because you are an ally, and therefore off limits."

“Liam, I've never once felt that I was in danger around you. You've never even flirted with me. I mean, hav
e you seen how Sasha behaves?” We both laughed, cutting through some of the tension. I knew what this confession had cost him, so I reached out to him with my heart. “I feel the same connection with you, and like it or not, I’ll still be bending your ear when I need advice.”

"I'll be peeved if you don't." He smiled so charmingly, his amazing purple eyes sparkling in the golden sunshine, his features even more handsome than usual, as we enjoyed an afternoon away from
the stress of our hectic lives. I remembered him loaning me his belt and then strapping his dagger onto it on the evening of my duel and what he'd said about not doing anything to come between Garrett and me.

A
s I watched him watching me, probably wondering how I'd take this confession of his, I realized we both knew the truth. I could have loved this man and been happy with him, if I hadn’t been fated to give my love and my heart to Garrett. Liam had so many of the same qualities that I loved in my mate. We smiled at each other in understanding, accepting that today, sitting together on this sunny ledge, that truth would be put aside forever.

He stared at the horizon where the sun was starting to sink lower, a hint of pink and gold tinting the sky. “I’m rededicating myself to my relationship with
Kellaine. I’ve loved her for centuries: my lovely redhead as you referred to her. We were chosen for each other by the elders for political reasons. The human in me balked at the idea of not choosing my own mate, and yet, I do love her. I’ve tried many times to convince myself that it can’t work as a permanent bond because I didn’t choose her for myself. I’ve been acting like an idiot around her for five hundred years and she’s been extremely patient with me. I hope that I can be her anchor the way Garrett is yours.”

“From the way she looks at you, I’d say you already are.”

He smiled and lay back down to look up again at the clouds. “Did you know that my father kidnapped my mother and took her to Faerie against her will?”

“What? No, I didn’t. But Lady Erin seems so happy.” I must have sounded shocked because he grinned at me.

“She’s very happy. She loves him wholeheartedly as he does her, but at first, she was terribly unhappy. Her young husband had died tragically in a fishing boat accident only a few months before, so she was a perfect candidate for a human wife. My father didn’t mistreat her in any way other than forbidding her to leave Faerie or contact anyone in the human world. She was given luxurious accommodations and anything she could ask for was hers.”

“I can see why h
e chose her. She is very lovely and very different from Lady Silvus. I don’t mean to say that Lady Silvus isn't beautiful, she is, but she…”

“Yes, she is reserved,
as are most fae ladies of her age. They are trained to be so. My father loves them both with all of his heart. He wooed my mother with tender care and after a short while she grew to love him deeply. Vampires have their glamour and sometimes their seductive powers, but the fae have powerful magic that can work exactly the same way. Kidnapping a human female to produce a child is not against the fae laws, although we will not force a woman to bed us. We simply use our magic to make them want to stay with us, and somehow we justify this as being in their best interest. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. 1500 years ago my father wanted another child and my stepmother couldn’t give him one, so he went on a quest to find a human that he could love. The fae are used to getting what they want, even if it means stepping on the toes of another race. This is our way and we make no excuses."

"Kennet kidnapped me."

“Kidnapping an ally, is very definitely against our laws. And he tortured you.”

I had an interesting thought. “Do fae women leave Faerie to kidnap human males?”

“Well, a female fae wouldn’t really need to kidnap a human male. Unmated females can just go out and have sex until they are with child and then return to Faerie to deliver. Still, it doesn’t happen often because it’s more difficult to hide what we are for an extended period of time. It’s not likely that she’d get pregnant quickly, it could take twenty years or more, and so she’d have to keep rearranging their memories. She’d need several partners because the humans would age and she would not. But that isn't unusual for us." I must have looked curious, because he continued, "It's not unusual for a fae male or female to have more than one lover."

I decided to skip over that subject. “And would a mated female go out to find a human male?”

“It’s practically unheard of for a bound female to do this. Fae males are not particularly keen on sharing their lovers with other races, although we do share with other 'approved' fae males in the hopes of conceiving of course.”

"Apparently, my grandmother has many consorts."

"I'm not surprised. Females are dominant in the demon realm. And I'm sure that her consorts are faithful only to her. At least if they want to live long lives."

"You have a queen."

"Yes, and she is our supreme ruler, but we at Cascade choose to live differently than the fae at court, following the laws set by our Council. Kennet disagreed with many of our laws."