[Southern Arcana 3.0] Deadlock

Dedication

This is dedicated to all of our Twitter peeps, who get us through the day with name suggestions, informal polls and laughter. And to all of Alec’s fans, who’ve waited so patiently for his well-deserved happily-ever-after.

Chapter One

Alec wrenched himself out of the path of a flying fist and acknowledged, for the first time in his increasingly long life, that he might be getting old.

It didn’t help that his opponent was a young, strong wolf. Andrew might still be adjusting to the new power inside him, but Alec had no doubts where the man would stand once he’d acclimated to life as a shapeshifter. Age would give the boy experience. Training would give him confidence.

Alec’s days as the strongest wolf in New Orleans were numbered.

Instinct rebelled at the treacherous thought, and Alec threw a little something extra into his next swing, catching Andrew with a fast, brutal jab that landed on the younger man’s chin and snapped his head around. Alec pressed the advantage out of habit, spilling his opponent to the thick mats lining the dojo floor.

All right, maybe his
years
were numbered.

Andrew lay on his back and blew out a long breath before rolling to his knees. “That won’t happen again.” It sounded more like a promise than a boast or threat.

That won’t happen again.
It was a promise Alec had heard plenty of times over the last six months, quiet and focused and always accomplished. He’d been told that surviving the transformation from human to wolf was like being born again, forced to navigate a body beyond one’s control and instincts that were anything but human. In his lifetime Alec had mentored a dozen transformed wolves, but none of them had been like Andrew.

He held out his hand. “You’re doing fine.”

The third person in the room laughed, her rich voice echoing off the mirrored walls. Zola was dark, dark skin and dark hair and gorgeous chocolate eyes, a dangerous woman who moved with a grace that never failed to put Alec’s instincts on high alert.

She prowled toward the center of the room as if she owned the place—which Alec supposed she did. The dojo was her home and her life, and though the rare shapeshifting cats in the area tended to be uninterested in the strict hierarchy under which the wolves thrived, she never passed up an opportunity to remind Alec that him being the top wolf in town didn’t mean much to a lion.

Like now. “You are not doing fine like you could be,” she declared. “Not if you are letting an old man like Alec beat you. You watch with your mind still, thinking too much. With humans, with other wolves like you, you can waste time thinking. Not with shapeshifters born. Alec does not think. Alec does not need to think, and so Alec wins.”

Andrew smiled a little. “Then I guess I need to learn how not to think.”

“Yes.” After a moment, Zola unbent enough to return Andrew’s smile. “You are good at learning. Alec can teach you to be a wolf, but soon he will be done. You will come to me, three days a week. My mate and I will teach you to fight like a lion.”

She didn’t wait for a response, as if she couldn’t imagine a person turning down an offer of private lessons. Instead she pivoted and deigned to catch Alec’s gaze. “I will be having a lesson in this room in one hour. You may stay until that time.”

Alec nodded his thanks and waited until she strode past him and reached the stairs before turning his attention back to Andrew. “I’d think pretty seriously about taking her up on those lessons. She doesn’t offer them often, and her man might be the only person in New Orleans more scary than she is.”

“I know. I’ve asked…before.” His eyes clouded for a moment, then he shook his head. “She turned me down flat. Guess I’m more interesting now.”

“Times are more interesting now.” Alec stretched slowly and could console himself, at least, with a lack of nagging aches. Damn impressive for a forty-four-year-old man who’d spent the last hour sparring with a man nearly two decades his junior. “If it helps, I don’t think it’s being a shifter that made the difference. Plenty of those get turned down too.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Not surprising. As far as Alec knew there was only one other person receiving Zola’s exclusive, private tutelage at the moment, and he was too old and too jaded to believe it was a coincidence that Zola had offered the same to Andrew. Not considering who that other student was.

Following that train of thought would lead to a headache and an emotional quagmire Alec had no intention of stepping into this afternoon. Instead he gestured to the middle of the floor. “Ready for another go?”

Andrew answered with a quick right and left. Neither punch landed, but too late Alec realized they were meant to distract him. The other man came in low, hit him in the solar plexus, and knocked him onto the edge of the mat. “Yep. Ready.”

Zola had one thing right—Andrew learned fast.

By the end of their practice, Andrew had dumped Alec on the floor twice, something that would have bruised Alec’s ego a little more if he hadn’t set the boy on his ass a round dozen times. He was extending his hand to help Andrew up from the latest fall when a creak on the stairs reminded him that he had very good reason to hustle them out of the room before Zola’s other private student showed up—the one person Andrew didn’t need to see.

Of course, the soft footsteps meant it was already too late. Even if he hadn’t recognized that too-familiar tread, he couldn’t miss the distinctive scent: hazelnut, vanilla and cinnamon, a combination that made his secretary—and therefore his office—smell like a bakery more often than not.

Alec dragged Andrew to his feet and turned in time to see Kat pause on the landing, her blue eyes widening a fraction before she hastily schooled her features. She lifted a hand and ran it through her hair in a newly acquired nervous gesture; the shorter, spiky haircut was just as recent, as were the wild streaks of color that made her look like she’d barely survived a fight with a set of finger-paints.

A lot had changed about Kat in the past year, but her gaze still snapped straight to Andrew whenever she walked into a room, even though nothing lay between them anymore but bruised feelings and broken hearts. Kat stared at him for one painful second and looked away. Andrew went tense, his usual unflappable reserve shaken.

It hurt, watching them hurt, so Alec cleared his throat and broke the tense silence. “Hey, Kat, you here for your lesson?”

“Yeah.” She stepped into the room and sidled to one side, keeping close to the mirrors, as if she needed the walls at her back. “Zola bumped me up from three to five times a week. Lucky me.”

“We’ll get out of your way.” Andrew tossed a towel over his shoulder and lifted his gym bag, pausing only to flash Kat a tight smile before heading down the stairs.

Her face closed off, and Alec hated it. Even more, he hated that some predatory instinct inside him whispered a warning every time her eyes went cold. Six months ago, he’d seen the proof of how dangerous Kat could be. He’d had to deal with the two mindless, drooling husks that had remained after she’d focused her rage and pain as a weapon and used her empathic gifts like a scythe.

She’d destroyed two powerful shapeshifters with a thought, and only knowing it had killed something inside her made it possible for Alec to check his wariness and treat her the same way he always had—like a hapless young woman too sweet for the big, bad supernatural world.

The fierce look in Kat’s eyes softened, leaving him wondering how much of his inner turmoil she could sense. She didn’t enlighten him, just smiled wearily and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s okay. He and Anna have been fucking like rabbits for months now, and I’m dating. I’ve got a date tonight. A hot, hot date, and if I go on enough of them I’m going to find someone else. Who the hell ends up with the first person they ever fell in love with, anyway?”

He had—for a while—and look how well it had gone. “Who’s your date with?”

“None of your business.”

“Jesus. You’re touchy.”

Kat dropped her gym bag and bent over to retrieve a handful of hair clips from it. “Yeah, because the overprotective assholes I work with keep abusing their private-investigator skills to terrorize my dates.”

Alec grinned, pleased to see some of her humor returning. “Everyone’s gotta have a hobby.”

“What the hell ever, Alec. Get lost. I don’t like getting humiliated in front of an audience.”

He obeyed, still smiling. Downstairs, he found Andrew talking quietly with Zola as she flipped through a leather-bound schedule.

The blond man’s tension hadn’t faded. If anything, he looked like he wanted to bolt from the building. “Mornings would be best, honestly.”

Mornings, which would presumably eliminate any chance of him running into Kat.

If Zola had drawn the same conclusion, she gave no indication. “For mornings, you will have to be arriving early. Before my beginners. Seven?”

“That’s fine. I’ll come in before work.”

“Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

“Got it. Thanks, Zola.” Andrew tugged on a T-shirt and avoided Alec’s gaze. “How’s Kat?”

“Got a hot date tonight.”

Alec had expected some sort of reaction, but clearly Andrew’s momentary lapse was past. He showed no emotion as he replied, “That’s nice.”

“Yeah.”
Don’t poke him, don’t fucking do it.
“She told me no one ends up with the first person they fall in love with.”

Andrew hesitated, then exhaled on a quiet sigh. “I know you think I’m doing the wrong thing by Kat, and I don’t blame you. But don’t you think you’ve smacked me around enough for one day?”

Guilt and annoyance and frustration formed a sickening knot in Alec’s gut, reminding him of all the reasons he did his best to avoid thinking overly long about Andrew and Kat. His instincts didn’t know which way to jump, who to blame and who to protect—probably because there
was
no answer.

Except Andrew had no one else who could understand, so Alec made an effort. “I know you’re doing your best, but I know the truth too. I saw you the day you rose from the ground as a new wolf, and you only needed one thing. You needed her, and needing her that hard, in the shape you were in…you had to let her go. One slip and she’d be dead, or you would be, because she’d turned your brain to pulp, and she’d never survive that.” He dragged in a breath. “I know all of it, Andrew, and I still want to kill you some days because you made that girl cry until her heart broke, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

Andrew stared at him for a long moment and nodded. He hefted his bag again and patted the counter in front of Zola. “I’ll see you Monday.”

Then he walked out.

Zola tilted her head to the side and regarded Alec from those darkly exotic eyes. “My English has been learned many places, from many people. It is not always…precise. But when I am arriving in New Orleans, I have heard one thing again and again, until I finally asked what these words mean.”

“Don’t suppose it was
Mind your own business
?”

“Alec Jacobson is a jackass.”

Imprecise though her English might be, Zola had no trouble landing a verbal blow. Alec refused to give her the satisfaction of a reaction. “Nice to be popular.”

Zola shook her head. “Wolves have no subtlety. Why speak words that hurt without purpose?”

“He needed to know.”

“Even I am seeing that he knows. Only a fool would be thinking he doesn’t know.”

The woman was starting to get on his nerves. “Fine. I’m a fool.”

Zola smiled and walked from behind the counter. “No, you are maybe something else, something you want no one to make comments about. I am thinking you are a romantic. You want a happy ending for Andrew and Katherine?”

Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have been an insult. Once upon a time, he’d been young and stupid, had told his rich, snotty family to go fuck themselves and had married his one true love, a no-name human who had roused everything good and protective inside him. She’d made him a man, made him a lover, made him whole.

In return, his family had made her disappear. One night, one bullet…

Once upon a time, he’d thought the pain would fade with the passage of years and the comfort of his vicious revenge. He
was
a fool.

Andrew wasn’t, so he would do the one thing Alec hadn’t. He’d keep the woman he loved alive. Kat would heal from a broken heart, but she’d never survive a life chained to the violence of Andrew’s new world.

Zola had paused at the foot of the stairs, her eyebrows pulled together and an uncertain frown curving her lips. “Alec?”

The press of her sudden sympathy was unbearable. Alec snatched up his bag and strode toward the door. “I’m not interested in happy endings.” A lie, but only a little one. After all, his happy ending had died and forgotten to take him with it.

Chapter Two

Carmen picked up the last chart and rubbed her eyes. “I haven’t gotten used to Franklin’s handwriting yet.”

Tara, the clinic’s senior nurse, snorted. “Yours isn’t much better. You came from a hospital with electronic charting.” It wasn’t a question.

“Busted. Vanderbilt’s ER even has a computerized whiteboard.”