Hour of the Lion

Under the light of the full moon, the yard seemed very empty. Maybe he’d return to bed and try to sleep.

As he stepped inside the kitchen, someone pounded on his door. His mouth tightened. No good news arrived in the wee hours of the night. Then again, nothing could be that bad-his worst fears had already come to pass.

After winding his way through the dark house, he opened the door and saw Alec’s face in the tree-dappled moonlight. “Alec. Is something wrong?”

“We need to talk to you, Thorson. Can we come in?”

We? Thorson stepped aside. Alec walked in, followed by Calum and the brown-haired human. Alec led the way into the living room and even presumed to toss another log on the dying embers in the fireplace.

“What’s all this about?” Thorson let the irritation show in his voice, but giving the female the respect due her, he censored the profanity.

Calum pulled her to the couch near the fire, and then he and Alec sat down beside her, one on each side like unmatched bookends.

Or guard dogs.

Thorson crossed the room to stand before the mantle, putting his features in shadow and theirs in the light. Alec smiled, and oddly enough, he saw the same understanding of the technique on the human’s face. “Well?” he asked.

“Victoria has a story to tell us,” Calum said. He turned to put his hand on the female’s forearm and not in a particularly friendly way.

Alec leaned forward. “Joe. We just heard this ourselves. Vicki was with Lachlan when he died.”

The words clawed deep into Thorson’s chest, and he choked on a breath. “She-she was the female who disappeared?”

“Aye.” Alec laid a hand on her other arm.

Thorson frowned. She looked more trapped between the two than supported by them. He wasn’t drunk, and he had an aversion to females being manhandled. “Are you here of your own volition or not?”

Her gaze dropped to one restrained arm, then the other, and a wry smile graced her face. “Pretty much. I’d been trying to figure out how to talk with you anyway-without a fight this time.”

The realization that he himself had kept her from his door was galling and turned his voice thick and bitter. “You’re here now. Tell me.”

“It’s not a pretty story,” she warned. His jaw clenched, but he gave her the nod she waited for. “All right, then. I was walking down a street in Seattle when I heard a scream…”

As Victoria’s tale continued, Calum watched her. She talked about her brutal captors, and her face darkened with anger. When she spoke of how Joe’s grandson had died, she blinked back tears. Obviously, Lachlan’s death had hurt her badly. Some of Calum’s worry eased. And she’d known about the Daonain for weeks and hadn’t betrayed the knowledge.

She’d come here to honor her promise to a young man, the actions of an honorable person. A touch of guilt made him frown. He’d been harsh with her tonight.

Then again, she had been sneaking around, following them.

She finished her recounting with, “…and I slipped out the back door, jumped the fence, and found a place to hole up for the night. I arrived here the next day.” With a scowl at each brother, she pulled her arms free and wrapped them around herself. Calum could see Alec’s desire to comfort her. He felt the same.

Instead, he considered her story. “They deliberately threw you into Lachlan and didn’t leave until he bit you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Trying to make more shifters,” Alec murmured. “Won’t work.”

“Lachlan said that.” She pushed hair out of her face. “So what happens now?”

“We’ll investigate further,” Calum said. She didn’t need to know more than that.

“Right. But what happens to me?”

Calum caught Alec’s worried gaze. She did bring out a male’s protective instincts, didn’t she? “How many people have you told about us?”

“Nobody.”

“Why not?”

“I promised Lachlan I wouldn’t.”

“And if we’d scared you?” Calum trapped her gaze, waiting for her answer.

She said reluctantly, “If I thought you were dangerous, I’m not sure what I’d do.”

“Do you think we’re dangerous?” Alec asked and tugged on her hair.

She snorted. “You guys are damned scary. And I have to wonder, if I’d just blundered into you in the forest, what would you have done?”

“Would Alec have slit your throat, you mean?” Calum asked.

“Ah, yeah, something like that.”

Thorson’s eyebrows went up. They hadn’t mentioned the events in the clearing.

Calum studied the little human for a minute. Her hands had gripped together so tightly her knuckles were white. More worried than she wanted them to realize. And so he answered in greater detail than he had planned. “A Cosantir has the ability to blur a person’s memory of the previous few hours. This has been our primary defense for generation upon generation. We are usually careful that a human doesn’t discover us,” he added with a hard stare at Alec who gave him a rueful look.

“A messed up memory would be horrible,” Victoria said slowly, “but at least you’re not murdering people.”

Calum tilted his head without answering-for death could indeed be a penalty. A shifter whose actions exposed the clan was killed, either at the hand of his Cosantir or a cahir like Alec.

Her brows drew together. “I’ve known about shifters for longer than a few hours. How would you deal with me-if I wasn’t such a nice person and all?”

Awkward question. The mind-wipe ability was called that for a reason. Reluctantly, Calum said, “Then a longer period of time is…destroyed. As far back as is necessary.”

“Leaving big holes in a person’s mind, and they wouldn’t know why?” She shuddered. “I’d rather die.”

“Well, you are not dead,” Calum said, “but you do look exhausted.” And still worried. An edge of pity slid under his defenses, and he ran his knuckles down her soft cheek. “You acted honorably, Victoria. Your memories are yours to keep.”

However, the rest of their discussion should be conducted without a human in attendance. Rising, he held his hand out to her. “I’ll escort you home so you can sleep.”

* * *

Calum wasn’t his usual smooth self this evening, Vic thought, as he paced silently beside her. He tried to hide it, but ever since he’d heard how Lachlan died, anger had simmered inside him. When a streetlight illumined his face, she saw his pupils had gone back to black. Must be some shifter thing, although no one else seemed to change their eye color like that.

He caught her look and smiled slightly, setting his hand on her back below the edge of her coat. Funny how he could terrify her one moment and make her feel so safe the next. If Alec was like a comrade in arms, Calum was the best kind of officer, one who took to heart any harm to the ones under his command.

His warmth, his nearness was both comforting…and disconcertingly arousing.

He walked up onto the porch with her. After she’d unlocked her door, he lifted her chin to study her face in the moonlight. “Will you be all right tonight?” he asked softly.

“No problem.” Her voice came out uneven. The feel of his warm fingers, the sure way he touched her sent her insides into quivers.

His eyes lightened to a silvery gray. “Never admit to any worries, do you, little human?”

Human? Little? The insult lost its sting under his affectionate tone. He stood close enough she could feel the heat of his body, and his scent surrounded her, brisk and clean and wild, like the wind from the mountaintops. “Um.” What had he asked? “No.”