Hour of the Lion, Cherise Sinclair [good story books to read TXT] 📗

gaze. A second later, she realized she didn‘t have to lie at all. The lump in her stomach disappeared. "I was looking for shifters."

Behind her, Alec stopped breathing.

"Were you now?" The icy menace in Calum‘s voice made her shiver. Dammit. He continued as if he hadn‘t noticed, "How exactly did we catch your attention?"

"A boy named Lachlan died in my arms." Just saying the words tightened her throat.

Failure. Grief. She blinked furiously and took in a long, controlled breath.

Alec said incredulously, " You were the female with him?"

"Yes. I-I was there." Her voice cracked.

Calum paced away from her then back. Having seen him shift, she recognized where that graceful prowl had originated, but the overwhelming confidence?—oh, that was all his own.

"Why didn‘t you tell anyone?"

"Tell someone?" The knife no longer pressed against her neck. She rubbed the burning slice, letting the pain anchor her. "Oh, sure, like I‘m going to walk up to you and ask, „Hey, are you one of those people who turn into cats?" Get real."

A glint of humor touched his eyes. "Ah, no, that wasn‘t what I meant. Why haven‘t you told anyone about Lachlan?"

She scrubbed her face with her hands, stalling for time. It would be better to escape this emotion-ridden location, achieve a stand-down. Knowing how the kid died wasn‘t going to make a shifter feel very kindly toward a human, even a woman. "Listen, can we discuss this somewhere else? My knee can‘t take kneeling for long. And I‘m bleeding."

Alec grunted as if she‘d hit him.

Calum hesitated, then nodded. "Lachlan‘s grandfather needs to hear this." He gave her an assessing look. "Unless there is a reason he should not be present?"

Oh, great. "It‘s not a pretty story, but he‘s the reason I‘m here." She had two men who now hated her guts, one of whom she‘d slept with, and next would talk with an old man who‘d tried to kill her. The night just kept getting better and better.

*

A lonely beer sat on the small patio table beside him, only half-empty. Thorson had lost his taste for drowning his sorrows after trying to kill the little brown-headed human. A female.

He shook his head, still shocked— appalled—at how uncontrolled he‘d acted that night.

Neither grief nor anger could excuse such behavior. She wasn‘t even that bad of a human, he‘d realized. She‘d choose her books and leave quietly. No silly blather, all business. And she was a good waitress according to his friends. He admired competence, no matter the species.

He glanced up the hill at the dimmed light of the Wild Hunt. There‘d been a time he‘d never missed a Gathering, but he‘d grown old and needed his sleep.

Not that he slept very long these days. He tended to get up and prowl around the house, avoiding the rooms where grief lay like dust in the corners. Sometimes the boy would join him out here in the back. They‘d lean back, put their feet up on the deck railing, and watch the clouds attempt to dominate the sky.

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,