Seven Years

ear. “But you’re still the only bitch I want coming in my bed.”

Two seconds later, all hell was about to break loose when Austin’s car roared around the corner.

He didn’t bother to shut his door, just ate up the lawn with one hell of a stride. Made me want to curl up beside him.

I knew that look on Austin’s face and he wasn’t about to have words with Church. He was about to break bones.

These were two alphas, and I didn’t know the rules when it came to fistfights.

“Evening, Cole,” Lorenzo greeted him. “Still mad about Winnie, I see. She made a great bitch, but I had to pass her off to one of my packmates. Turns out she wasn’t up to my speed.”

So that’s what it was about. Bad blood my ass; Cole hated Lorenzo because of girl trouble.

Austin took my left hand and held it tight as Lorenzo posed a question.

“You have no official claim on her, Cole. So tell me what your intention is?”

I looked up expectantly.

“She’s always been my pack,” Austin said in slow, threatening words. He surprised me. I thought he’d pull a Beckett and go at Lorenzo with fists flying. But he maintained his composure and stayed in control, which made him even scarier.

Lorenzo brushed his long, straight hair away from his eyes. “Tell me why a Shifter was living with a human family.”

“That’s why I’d like to find my father,” I interrupted. “Only he knows where I came from.”

Some of that fire extinguished from Lorenzo’s eyes and they skimmed over me. “You don’t know your real parents?”

I shook my head. Austin inched so close I could feel his body heat.

“How old are you?” Lorenzo asked.

“Twenty-seven.”

Lorenzo reached in his shirt pocket and lifted a box of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting the end with a red plastic lighter. “That’s interesting.”

Austin picked up on it too. The way Lorenzo said it wasn’t conversational; it was the way you sound when you know something.

“What’s interesting, Church? She’s not yours.”

He chuckled and savored another drag of his smoke. “Perhaps she is, more than you know.”

I yanked my hand free and stepped forward, feeling Austin hook his arm around my waist. “What do you mean by that?”

Lorenzo nodded, staring at the stars with a contemplative look on his face. “My uncle was a Packmaster years ago. There’s a family secret we kept for a long time, but he’s dead now so it doesn’t matter. My aunt had a baby and then a few weeks later, she was murdered and the baby went missing. There were territorial disputes over a large piece of property at the time and two names were on the deed—my uncle’s and an old friend of his. We were told the baby was found dead and my uncle buried her on that property, where our pack belonged.” Lorenzo drew in a deep breath and sighed, tossing the cigarette in the grass. “One night, I overheard my father talking and found out that my aunt had been cheating on her husband—the Packmaster. The baby was not his. To add further insult, the father was a drifter from up north—not one of our people.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” I said, hoping he’d get to the point.

“My father suspected he had hired someone to take out his wife and baby, then pinned it on the neighboring pack. Two problems solved. No more cheating wife and no infant to remind him of the affair, and an end to a dispute which had been going on for decades. My uncle challenged and killed that Packmaster, reclaiming his property. We sniffed around that land over the years. Never picked up the scent of a dead baby.”

His eyes lowered and memorized me on the way back up.

“Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “You think that was me?”

“Little Talulah, all grown up.”

I gasped, and Austin pulled me tight against his chest.

“She’s a grown woman. I don’t need to remind you of that,” Austin warned.

“Alexia is ours.”

“You mean… you’re my cousin?”

The horror. Oh, God. I’d been felt up by my cousin.

Lorenzo laughed. “By family and pack, but not by blood. My father and uncle were blood relations. My aunt —your mother—was married in from another pack. She had a baby by a nobody, which makes us related, but not related.”

My face heated and I looked away. Maybe we weren’t really related by blood, but it still felt wrong in all kinds of daytime-talk-show ways.

“Hang on to her as tight as you want, Cole, but just remember she’s a Shifter of free will until she signs with a pack. If she wants to come to my bed… then I’m not going to stop her. Goodnight, Alexia,” he said with a soft growl.

I turned to Austin. “What’s a Mage?”

Chapter 19

When Austin found out about the Mage who had threatened me, he crashed on my couch. I received a brief education on some of the Breeds that lived in our world, and the Mage that was after my father had the ability to manipulate energy. Dangerous didn’t even begin to describe their kind. All this was difficult to process and sometimes when you become so overwhelmed, you just learn to accept truth without explanation. What other choice is there?

Austin called Reno to review the video and apparently, he knew a guy who could do a facial-recognition scan.

Whatever that meant.

Needless to say, Austin wasn’t happy when I told him I wanted the cameras out of my apartment because it was invasive. The last thing I needed was for Austin to get a call while he was having a beer, detailing how I was making out with someone. That was the downside, because thinking about a houseful of men sitting around a computer and watching me dry hump someone on the sofa was too much.

Not that I dry humped my dates, but a girl has to put her foot down when it comes to her privacy.

I woke up on the bathroom floor because I’d been afraid to sleep in the same room with Maizy. I was certain my wolf wouldn’t materialize, but Austin had me paranoid about it.

“Why do you got all those marks on your arms?” I heard Maizy ask.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and dragged myself into the kitchen, where I poured a short glass of cranberry juice and greeted my guests with a sizeable yawn. Maizy sat on the cabinet wearing her pink unicorn nightgown, watching Austin make pancakes.

“Because I like to doodle,” Austin said in a teasing voice.

Maizy giggled and I leaned over the stove. “What is that?” I glared at the misshapen batter.

“These,” he said, flipping one over carefully, “are my specialty flapjacks.”

“He’s making me a kitty,” Maizy explained excitedly.

I glanced at the batter again and noticed the tail. “Very sweet.”

“Looks better than your dragon.”

I narrowed my eyes and shoved his arm. “Austin Cole, you leave my dragon alone. I was five when I made that cup and you’re how old? I think my artistic abilities excel in comparison.” I leaned over the pan and touched the ear. “It’s all crooked.”

He snatched my wrist. “It’s a work of art. Why don’t you put on some clothes?”

There it was again—that husky morning voice oozing with sex. It made me want to snuggle against him. Sometimes I wondered if there was a power in his voice because he was an alpha.