Hour of the Lion

Neither man had mentioned marriage anyway. Why would they? If shifters didn’t care who fathered babies, then guys probably ran wild when single. Vic realized her jaw had clenched again. She sat back and told her muscles to relax. She wasn’t jealous of the guys-not really. She just didn’t want to see bitch one and two get their claws in them. Not possessive, merely competitive.

When Alec walked into the living room, she frowned at the paleness of his face. “Want some hot chocolate?”

“Thank you, cariad, but I’m not hungry.” He dropped onto the couch across from her chair. The laughter that always lurked in his eyes had disappeared completely.

He’d called her cariad. Darling. She hugged the knowledge to herself. “Alec, you’re exhausted. I can wait.”

With an attempted smile, he shook his head. “I won’t be able to sleep for a while, and I’d enjoy your company. Calum said you had questions and weren’t happy with his answers?”

Her anger rose again. “He wasn’t making any sense at all.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Why isn’t someone tracking this…feral person? I asked him to loan me a rifle, and he said no. And that he wasn’t sending a hunting party out.”

“Ah.” Alec scrubbed his face with his hands. “Some of our traditions come down from the Fae.”

Here we go with the traditions again. “And?”

“The Fae used bows and arrows only when hunting game.” He moved his shoulders. “Sometimes humans too.”

“I’m not getting this.”

“Fae fought other Fae hand-to-hand or with knives. Bow and arrows-basically, long-distance weapons-were only used on animals.”

“Oh.” Vic frowned. “So shifters don’t use guns or arrows on other shifters.”

“Exactly.”

“And a hunting party? You don’t do that either?”

“If needed. But cahirs only.”

Another fucking new word. She glared at him.

His lips twitched. “Sorry. We still use some bastardized Gaelic and Welsh from the old days.” He gazed at the woodstove. Behind the glass door, a salamander, scales brilliant as the flames, spun in circles. “Cahir are those chosen to defend the clan. You’d say maybe warrior? Protector?”

Soldier. And Calum had said to Alec, “I’m sorry, cahir.” Alec was a cahir. “Your God supposedly gave Calum power-powers-whatever. Does a cahir get anything?” she asked only half-sarcastically, for she’d felt that power in Calum, as if a fucking current of electricity had hummed through him.

“Anything?” Alec’s finger traced the blue-tinted scar high on his left cheekbone. “A couple more inches in height, muscle, strength. All at once. I was a cop and in good shape, but I spent the next twenty-four hours puking my guts up and trying not to scream like a girl.” Despite his light tone, his eyes held the memory of some serious agony.

Nasty. “Are you the only cahir around?”

“We have four in the North Cascades since we’re fairly isolated. Rainier is fighting hellhounds and have seven or eight.”

Hellhounds. Not gonna visit that subject right now. As she studied Alec, her mouth tightened. She’d already known, there in Helen’s house. The blood on him hadn’t come from hunting any deer. She’d recognized that soul-weary look; she’d seen it in her own mirror. “You killed the feral, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

That’s why Helen had thanked him. “So the attacker is a shifter who went crazy. And you can’t…uh, treat them or something?”

“No. There’s no return once the door is shut.”

“Door?”

“At the cabin, we told you about a portal in your mind-the one you open to trawsfur.” In the lantern light, his eyes shone the green of deep forest.

“Well”-she smiled in relief-“there’s no door in my head.”

“Close your eyes and look around. It’s kinda in the back somewhere. Glows just a tad.” His expression held a challenge she couldn’t refuse.

She shut her eyes. Yeah, okay, it was dark. Everything was black. She pretended her gaze turned in a circle, from the front around to the… Oh, shit. Her spine stiffened like someone had yelled, Attention!

“Yeah. Thought so,” Alec murmured.

“Oh. My. God.” Her eyes opened and she glared. “There is a fucking door-thing in my brain.”

He tried to smile, but she could see how much of an effort it was.

Another realization twisted her guts. “Did you know him? The feral?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “Fergus taught me to hunt when I was growing up.”

Oh, God, there was no comfort to be offered here. ‘To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned.’ Vic moved to sit beside him, taking his hand between hers. “He was older?”

His fingers curled around hers as if to a lifeline. “About Aaron’s age. He’d never lifemated anyone, and his only family, a littermate, died last week.”

“Are you saying he wasn’t mentally ill? Depression made him go feral?”

Alec kissed her fingers and enfolded her hand in his. “If a shifter has no loved ones or family, no ties to pull him back to the human side, then some turn, and unfortunately, loneliness and grief warps them, driving them to mindlessly attack.”

Holy fuck. Fear shot straight to her insides and clung there, claws digging in deep. She didn’t have any family. No loved ones. So if she shifted, she might not come back. Helen must have known Fergus too-and he’d savaged the sweet woman. She shivered.

“Vicki, it’s not really-”

“Oh hey,” she said. “I’m supposed to help Heather make cookies.” She rose and smiled down at him, her heart aching as if she’d already decided. “I’ll bring you back some sweets.”

* * *

After helping Heather bake, Vic had been dragged away by Jamie to play cut-throat Monopoly with her friends. Vic had gone bankrupt, and she wasn’t sure if she was pissed-off at losing so badly or proud of the munchkin for doing so well. “You have a head for business, kid,” she told Jamie on the way back to Aaron’s.

“I know.” She gave Vic a smug look. “Daddy’s teaching me to do the books for the tavern.”

“Ugh. Better you than me.” She’d rather fight a nice bloody battle any day. In the house, she stopped, staring across the room.

Sarah sat beside Alec on the small couch-where he and Vic had talked earlier. Cleavage was snuggled up to him so closely she was almost on his lap. Her dark head rested on his shoulder as they talked together in low voices.

Vic swallowed and followed Jamie to the kitchen where Aaron had his hands deep in bread dough.

“Where’s Daddy?” Jamie asked, snatching a tiny piece of dough and stuffing it into her mouth.

Aaron pulled the ball of dough closer to him and continued kneading. “Gretchen came to get him a while back. They haven’t returned.”

Vic’s lungs weren’t getting enough air, and her hands felt colder now than they had outside. “Why don’t you stay and help Aaron, Jamie? I’m going to take a break.”

“Sure.”

Vic ruffled Jamie’s hair and left the room. Okay then. Apparently that was that. Her decision was made.