“My daughter.” His stern voice broke and his eyes grew wet. “I’ve waited so long to find you.”
Andrea swallowed. “I think I believe you.”
Fionn raised his manacled wrists. “Then will you have pity on your poor old dad?”
“Oh.” Andrea turned to Glory. “The key?”
Glory had her arms folded, her expression forbidding. “There is no key.”
“Then what are these for?” Andrea held up her hands. “No, please don’t tell me. Sean, can you help?”
The handcuffs were ordinary steel, the same as the police used on human captives, but they would be no match for the strength of a Shifter. Sean sheathed his sword, worked his fingers between the cuff and Fionn’s gloved wrist, and twisted one handcuff open. He did the same with the other, and Fionn quickly stripped off his gloves.
“Let me see,” Andrea said.
Fionn held out his hands. Below the tunic he wore under his mail shirt, his bare wrists held red marks in the exact shape of the cuffs. The metal had burned him right through the gloves.
Andrea brushed her thumbs over the wounds and closed her eyes, reaching for her healing magic. She saw the tangle of threads around Fionn’s hurt skin, blackened and burned, but the aura of the rest of his body was amazing. He was like silver and light, shimmering strength.
She’d seen some of that glittering silver in her own body. As she touched the threads of Fionn’s being, they wrapped around her, familiar, loving, welcoming.
She also sensed Sean beside her, as she had when she’d healed Ely. Tall and strong, like a bright fire, Goddess blessed. The magic of his sword ran through him, and she reached for it and for Sean, who was bound to her now through the mate blessing.
It was real, this mate blessing, she realized. Not just words spoken by the clan leader in a social agreement. The Father God had been in the words and in the sun kissing their skin. She saw the bond between herself and Sean, gold and strong. Real.
Under her hands, Fionn’s wounds closed. When she opened her eyes, Fionn’s wrists were whole and unblemished, and he was watching her with an amazed expression.
The silver threads of his being still wrapped Andrea, seeking her own. “I see it, the substance of your aura in mine,” she said. “Yours and my mother’s.”
Fionn’s eyes were fathomless. “Well, yes, child. ’Tis only natural.”
He was part of her, and she of him. Andrea had been conceived by this battle-hardened, proud warrior, and a gentle and loving Shifter woman.
Tears trickled from her eyes. At last, after years of shame and fear and withdrawing into herself, Andrea knew who she was. She belonged, both to the Fae holding her hands and to the Shifter at her back who’d just made her his mate, bound to her body and soul.
M
y mate. Mine.
Sean shuddered with release in the darkness, surrounded by the feel, the scent, the warmth of Andrea. Her lips, her hands, her breath, touching his skin. She gasped along with him, her sexy little noises making him wild.
He kissed her face, her hair, her mouth. He’d lost his power of speech, and he kept silent, simply kissing and touching, arching his body to drive himself deeper inside her.
Her lips were soft with desire, as were her eyes, which were silver-gray in the moonlight. Fionn had looked at Sean with the same kind of determined arrogance Sean had so often seen on Andrea’s face. They were related, all right.
Andrea was so elegant, and Sean felt nothing but brutal frenzy. He’d spilled his seed but was hard again, ready, still inside where she could squeeze him.
Andrea touched his cheek, her fingers featherlight. “Sean,” she murmured. “You all right?”
Sean let the growl come, and with it, his words returned. “I’m buried inside my sweet, hot little mate. How are you thinking I am?”
“Horny. A mate-frenzied male.”
“You bet.”
“Now you sound like Ellison.”
Sean thrust again. “Don’t mention that Lupine idiot while I’m making love to you.”
Andrea laughed, the little beauty who teased him raw. “You’re so easy, Sean.”
“You’re
mine
. Mate blessed. Which means we get to screw until we both can’t walk.”
“Half mate blessed.” Andrea’s smile was languid as she ran fingers down his back. “I saw it, you know. While I was healing my father. The bond between you and me.”
Sean stopped, heart thumping. “The mate bond?”
“I don’t know. But I saw it. The blessing isn’t simply words and traditions. It’s real, the Father God binding us together.”
“Is it, now?”
Andrea smoothed his hair. “It is, now.”
“Are you going to become a true believer, like those Shifters who wear white and meditate in stone circles all the livelong day?”
Andrea’s foot caressed his bare calf. “I wasn’t thinking I would. I have plenty to do right here.”
“We do. Connor’s not going to be happy unless we tell him tomorrow that a cub is on its way.”
“Do you want children, Sean?” Andrea’s voice was hesitant. “I’m not Feline. The child will be born human, and we won’t know which animal it will become until later. Plus it will have Fae blood.”
“I know. It will be—entertaining—to see what our child will be.” He nuzzled her, finding her beautiful scent. “But, yes, I want cubs. With you.”
But pregnancy meant risk for Shifter women. Fear caught in Sean’s heart, so hard he couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. His logical mind told him that a female’s odds for survival were so much better now that they had access to medicine and doctors, and besides that, Andrea had healing magic. But Sean had seen too many females die bearing cubs or just after, sometimes the cubs dying as well, to be completely worry-free.
“I’ll be all right.” Andrea traced his cheek, sensing his fears. “We’re safe here, and I have so many people to look after me now.”
Sean knew the mating frenzy was pouring dire scenarios into his head, making him fear, so that he’d stay with Andrea and rut her all night and on into the next day. And the next night.
A biological drive, Liam had speculated once. Making the Shifter
need
to make cubs, giving him any excuse to have his woman under him. In the wild, Shifters had simply given in to it. Civilized Shifters felt the same mating frenzy,
But we ponder about it a bit more,
Liam had said
.
From what Sean had observed, Liam and Kim didn’t ponder about it much.
Sean touched her Collar. Liam wanted to try removing it, but Sean didn’t want him to now. Liam’s curiosity could put Andrea at far too much risk.
The smile Andrea gave him heated his blood. “So what do you want to do next, Sean? You’re my first, but I’m not innocent. I’ve heard about all kinds of interesting things we can do.”
Sean’s already fast pulse sped. A sudden vision flashed through his mind: Andrea on her hands and knees in the woods, he coming behind her, folding down over her while he drove inside her. The feel of her soft backside against his groin, smelling the fine silk of her hair, tasting her neck.
“Goddess, you make me want to do things to you,” he whispered. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m Shifter. I’m resilient.”
“You’re also Fae.” He touched her wrist, slim and dwarfed by his hand. “Smaller than most Shifter women.”
“Fae are pretty kick-ass too.” To demonstrate, she hooked her legs around his and rolled, landing on top of him. “See?”
Sean had let her do that. Not that he minded having his beautiful mate on top of him, her breasts pressing his chest, her smile wide in the evening light. “Aren’t you the wicked one?”
Sean traced Andrea’s Collar again, letting his fingers drift down her chest. Would risking Andrea be worth getting all Shifters free?
No
. She was his mate, in all ways, and his instinct was to protect her with everything he had. Even if every other Shifter in the world had to die, it didn’t matter, so long as Andrea was safe. To a mate-frenzied, dominant Shifter male, that was
right
.
Sean growled. His fingers became claws, which he retracted before he could scratch her. Andrea’s growl answered. She leaned down and licked his throat.
The snarl that came out was pure feral. Reason, concern for all Shifters, even romance, went right out of Sean’s brain. He dragged her down to him, rolled over her, and entered her again with one swift thrust.
Andrea’s answering growls made him crazy. He thrust into her again and again, her arms and legs encircling him, pulling him into her warmth. She started to shift and came back, her smile wide, her gray eyes beautiful. She didn’t shift
all
the way back. Sean felt wolf claws on his back, which pushed him into madness. The world went a little black, but it was all right because his mate was under him to guide him and keep him safe. The mate bond locked around him, the mate frenzy drove him on, and Andrea’s sweet smile broke his heart.
“I
know you don’t much want to see to me,” Glory said on the porch next door. “But the air in my house is crackling. Your son is noisy, Dylan.”
Dylan, lounging on a chair in the shadows, didn’t answer. Liam sat with his arm around Kim on the porch swing, and the Feline called Eric Warden sat with a beer on another chair, his long legs stretched out. He was a handsome devil, that Feline. His hair was a rich dark brown with little highlights that told Glory that he spent much time in the sun. Maybe with the sun kissing him all over? And his eyes—the color of jade with the intensity of fire.
Liam chuckled in response to Glory’s comment. “You’re always welcome, Glory. The noise, it runs in the family, I think.”
“Tell me all about that,” Connor said from his perch on the porch railing. “I have to wear earplugs every night.”
“Your time will come, lad,” Dylan said.
“And then we’ll be making fun of you,” Liam put in.
Glory wished Dylan’s voice didn’t make her long for him so much. She missed him with every breath. Dylan was the best of lovers, alternately fierce and gentle, whatever his mood and the situation. And not only did she miss him in bed, she missed
him
. Dylan was the only one who truly listened to her. She wasn’t top of her pack, didn’t have the power someone like Dylan deserved, and Dylan didn’t seem to care.
She crossed her legs, noting that she’d chipped paint off one toenail. Damn the Fae who’d made her charge across the yard in open-toed shoes to Andrea’s rescue. Fionn, the bastard, had gone back to Faerie. Glory was sorry Andrea had let him out of the handcuffs.
“I was talking to Wade today,” Glory said. “He thinks Callum’s plan was idiotic but says he wouldn’t mind if all Felines take each other out. Then Lupines would have the edge.”
Liam listened with a calm expression. “Aye, he would say that.”
“Don’t underestimate Callum,” Dylan said, his voice quiet. “His clan’s protecting him, meaning we can’t touch him, but who knows when they’ll try to turn it into a clan war.”
“Aye, Dad, and if that happens, we’ll fight them.”
Dylan’s eyes glittered in the darkness, but he went silent. Glory thought she understood. Dylan wouldn’t lecture Liam in front of the others, even if he thought Liam wrong. The first few years a Shifter took over his pride or clan were the toughest; others would test his power again and again until the new leader either fell or proved he couldn’t be moved. Callum’s rebellion was one such probe. If Dylan protected Liam too much, guided him too closely, the other Shifters would never respect and obey Liam.
Of course, Glory wasn’t high enough in the hierarchy to tell Liam this. She could only listen, bring him intelligence, and let Liam make his decisions.
And I wanted Dylan to be impressed with me for finding out that Callum had put the humans up to the shootings,
she thought in disgust.
How pathetic am I?
“So tell me, Feline from Las Vegas,” she said, to stop herself from looking too much at Dylan. “What’s your interest in our problems?”
She made her voice go a little throaty, casting a suggestive look at him. Yes, she did it just to annoy Dylan, and she resisted glancing at Dylan to see how he took it.
“I don’t mind helping out,” Eric said.
Eric was here to learn about Collars, Glory knew. They’d trusted Glory with the information, and she’d kept her silence. Did Dylan remember that? Admire her for her discretion?
Goddess, I might gag.
Glory fidgeted and crossed her legs the other direction. “How do we know Eric won’t tell our fractious Felines all about what you’re doing?”
“I gave my word.” Eric sounded surprised. “Swore on the sun and moon.”
“He won’t tell,” Liam said.
“No,” Dylan added with finality.
Damn, but Glory missed his voice. She missed that deep baritone whispering sexy things to her deep in the night, missed his tender nips on her skin as they made love. If she sat in Dylan’s presence any longer, she’d burst into tears or something, making a complete idiot of herself.
Glory jumped up. “I’m off. For a walk. It will be a while before those two back off enough to let me sleep.”
No one rose with her except Kim. Shifters didn’t stand when a woman did; they stayed put and watched for danger. Kim, human, said she found this rude, but it seemed natural to Glory that males waited so they could spring on an enemy if necessary. How humans had survived this long with their strange customs, Glory had no idea.
Kim came to Glory and gave her a quick hug. “Thanks, Glory. Good night.”
Glory hugged her back. She’d grown to like Kim, especially now that Kim had erased the sorrow in Liam’s eyes. Andrea was busy erasing the same kind of sorrow in Sean. Now if only Dylan would let Glory try with him.
Time to leave.
“Good night.” Glory gave Kim a kiss on the cheek, squeezed the hand Eric held out to her, patted Connor on the shoulder, and descended the porch stairs. She put a little wiggle in her hips, hoping that Dylan noticed.
I so need a run.
West of town lay hills that folded along the river, wild spaces where Shifters could pretend they were free. Glory drove there, parked her car well off the road, stripped off her clothes, shifted to her wolf, and started to run.