Chapter 2
Intrigued, Gavin followed his Alpha into the big corner office of the Kinkaid business headquarters.
This was the heart of the Kinkaid empire, both for the many businesses they owned and for the Clan.
Everyone who worked on the executive floor was a member of the Clan and either a shifter of some kind or married to one.
The Clan was made up predominantly of lions and selkies.
A strange artifact of young love between an Irish lad and an African princess hundreds of years ago.
Unwelcome in both their native lands, they fled to the New World and brought up their many children in their new homeland.
The Clan had prospered in America, but it wasn’t until Sam had taken over and put his business degree to good use that they’d achieved the billions they commanded today.
Sam was a visionary, and one of the most powerful men in the world.
Only other shifters knew his true nature, and only a few knew that he was the de facto leader of all lion shifters.
Decades of bloody wars in Africa had decimated the lion shifter population there until only one white lion was left in the world. Sam Kinkaid.
Shifters believed that his white fur was a sign from the Mother of All that he was meant to lead.
Just as the tigers had their white tiger king, so the lions had taken the white lion as their leader.
Only, all the white lions in Africa had been killed in war.
They didn’t like it, but they’d come to Sam and asked him to take up the mantle of Alpha over all lions.
He hadn’t been too thrilled by the idea either, but he’d done his best to take the lions in hand and help them prosper.
Sam went to his desk and opened the file drawer, pausing a moment to find the right file. He pulled it out and straightened, handing the file to Gavin.
“I’ve been gathering intel on the Rollinses for a while.
It’s not much, but there are a few things in there that might help.
In particular, there’s a younger member of the family who has been seen rarely.
Her name is Marigold. I don’t know what it is with the Rollinses and the flower names for their females. ” Sam shook his head.
“I know what you mean,” Gavin agreed. “I know of her existence, but haven’t been able to find out much about her.
The little I have observed doesn’t look good.
They barely let her out of the house, and when she is seen in public, she’s always accompanied by relatives or retainers, and she never looks happy. ”
“There is the possibility that she’s being kept under lock and key because she won’t cooperate with the family’s evil agenda.
In that file, you’ll find a copy of the police report on her parents’ deaths.
The case was never solved, but I have my suspicions that they were killed by their own family because they were somewhat vocal about not being in line with the late Patriarch’s goals.
They were church-goers, in fact, and they took their young daughter with them.
They lived apart from the rest of the family, and it wasn’t until their deaths that young Marigold was taken into the custody of her grandfather.
After that, she disappears for a few years.
She was homeschooled, and there’s barely any record of her until she reached adulthood.
She doesn’t even have a driver’s license.
It’s almost as if they were keeping her secluded at best, and at worst, she’s being held prisoner. ”
Something about her story bothered Gavin on visceral level.
He’d seen photos of the woman, and they’d always made him pause.
There was something so vulnerable about her expression in every one of the rare photos he’d seen of her.
Something that called out to some hidden part of his soul that he didn’t fully understand.
He couldn’t trust it. She had magic blood, even if she wasn’t a powerful witch like the others in her family.
He didn’t really know what she could do, if anything.
She hadn’t been in line with the other mages of the family to summon demons at the backyard gathering they’d broken up when Colt had come to town.
Gavin wasn’t even sure she’d been on site that day.
So many had fled, turning tail on their family and saving themselves.
He didn’t know if she’d been among that number or had been absent entirely.
That was something he would probably have to find out. Somehow.
“So, is she friend or foe?” Gavin wondered aloud.
Sam shook his head. “I have no idea. There’s not enough information about her to say one way or the other. I just wanted you to be aware. I’d hate to punish an innocent, if that’s what she really is, just for being born into the wrong family. As we know, there are a few good Rollinses out there.”
Gavin sighed heavily, tapping the closed folder on the desk. “Do you need this back, or can I keep it in my office for the time being?”
“Keep it. You know my policy. Only keep paper records for as long as you need them, then burn. We might lose a little data that way, but we won’t be hacked, and I dare anyone to try to get past us to snoop in our offices anytime of the day or night.
” A feral grin passed briefly over the Alpha’s face.
He was right, of course. Nobody would get past the Clan’s security.
Not when full-grown lions roamed the halls at night and the Clan bustled through the building during the day.
Every one of their employees who worked in this building had been vetted, and nobody gained access without express permission of the Clan.
Meetings with outsiders were held off-site or in the annex building that was the public-facing presence of Kinkaid Industries.
Nothing important was kept in that building, and that’s where the majority of the human workforce did their thing.
Gavin thanked his Alpha again and retreated to his own office, farther down the hall.
He worked out of the headquarters building, as did most of the Clan who worked in the business, but he didn’t have much to do with the day-to-day running of the various businesses.
His role was in security, but it had more to do with the security of the overall Clan, rather than just the business locations.
Gavin was basically a troubleshooter that Sam could send on almost any kind of mission.
His background as a soldier of fortune meant he had contacts all over the world, and not just in the business sector.
He also had a nose for magic due to his mixed heritage.
He might be on the young side when compared to the other special operators the Clan had in its ranks, but he was good at his job and had already proven himself to the Alpha and the others who were above him in the Clan’s hierarchy.
He’d even been instrumental in forging bonds with the three Kinkaid brothers who had been estranged from the Clan all their lives.
Gavin had helped two of them during critical missions and had even traveled with Billy, the middle brother, to and from the fey realm.
Nobody else in the Clan had ever been to faerie. At least nobody that was living today.
His wide experience, international and interdimensional contacts, his fighting skill and ability to think strategically had helped him overcome the stigma of having a magical parent in a Clan full of shifters.
His new assignment, however, might bring him back in touch with his latent magical side.
Hunting down Rollins mages was proving to be trickier than he’d anticipated, but maybe he’d refocus and work on the case of the mysterious Marigold Rollins.
Her name intrigued him. Her photo enchanted him. She was beautiful in an almost fey way, but she also looked scared and frail in a way that reached out to him from the surface of the glossy photo that was clipped to the first page of the file Sam had given him.
Gavin sat in his office and perused the file, taking in every last detail while his eyes kept going back to the photo he’d placed on his desk.
It was clearly a surveillance photo that had been taken from a distance with a high-powered lens.
A bit grainy, the image was still clear enough to show her delicate features and the haunted look in her deep-set eyes.
Her hips were too round for her to be called a waif, but her eyes held the kind of sorrow and fear that called out to his protective instincts.
It could all be a ruse, of course. A cleverly designed look meant to achieve a desired result.
Gavin had to be wary of being suckered by a pretty girl with pleading eyes.
It could all be an elaborate act to catch the unwary.
Or not. Gavin would have to find out for himself. One way or another.
*
Three Days Earlier
Marigold Rollins was not a happy camper.
Of course, she hadn’t been happy for many long years.
Not since her parents were put to death by their own family.
Mom and Dad hadn’t agreed with the direction the Patriarch was taking the family in toward the dark arts and black magic.
They’d been good people with noble ideals that didn’t match with the rest of the family, and they’d paid for their beliefs with their lives.
Marigold would’ve died that day as well, if not for her power. As the daughter of two middle-level mages, she had won the genetic lottery and come out with a very high-level power. Only, after the trauma she had suffered, she couldn’t access it.
She’d been just a child when her parents had been killed right in front of her, struck down by the darkest of magic, their power stolen along with their lives.
Sacrifices to the greed of the Rollins dynasty.
That single traumatic event had scarred her for life, locking her own magic away, making it inaccessible, except in times of utmost duress.
When she was in pain or fear of her life, then the magic would come out, but it had been channeled in ways she didn’t consent to, or like, since she’d been a child.
The remaining family had siphoned off her personal power.
They’d used her like a battery cell to fuel their own magical workings.
They’d kept her off balance and under lock and key, only taking her out when they needed her power to fuel some evil they had devised.
She was essentially a prisoner. A prisoner in a gilded cage, kept in the luxury of the Rollins mansion, with only the appearance of freedom. Nobody talked to her unless they wanted something from her. Nobody befriended her. Nobody really gave a damn about her except when they needed her power.
Her education, such as it was, had been achieved over the Internet with tutors the family paid to make sure she could at least read and write and hold a decent conversation, if necessary.
After all, they wouldn’t allow a Rollins to appear as an imbecile in public, on the rare occasions they had to take her out and display her like a trinket.
On those rare occasions, she was threatened into behaving.
One of her aunts might take her to the mall to buy clothes when she outgrew what she had. That had happened a few times over the years, and they were some of her most cherished memories. Seeing how other people lived in the real world, and not just over the television, was wondrous.
Eating food from the mall food court was a sensory explosion. Not that she wasn’t fed well by the Rollins family retainers, but fast food was never on the menu. Simple fare like cheeseburgers and French fries weren’t something that was ever served at a Rollins table.
But those memories, cherished as they were, were few and far between.
Her most recent outing into the real world had been both a nightmare and a revelation.
She’d been taken to an estate outside of Houston, where they had planned to use her power to fuel some diabolical strategy involving the summoning of as many demons as they could muster.
Marigold hadn’t wanted to participate, but she never had any choice in the matter.
Luckily, they hadn’t gotten around to needing her power before the group of Rollinses were attacked.
She’d thought maybe she could make a run for it, but her Aunt Petunia put the kibosh on that fledgling thought.
Aunt Petty, supreme bitch that she was, had grabbed Marigold by the arm and hustled her into the back of a car before speeding away, leaving the rest of the family in the lurch.
Marigold’s small hope of finding help among the attackers faded as she watched out the back window of the vehicle speeding down the driveway.
Only the finger-shaped bruise marks on her arm remained to remind her, for at least a few days, of the sight of the Rollins family under fire.
Marigold had smiled in satisfaction even as they drove away, seeing the evil plan destroyed before her eyes.
“What are you smiling at, girl?” Aunt Petty had scolded her as they drove away, the chauffeur speeding onto the highway as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. After what the Rollins family had tried to do in the estate’s sweeping backyard, they very well might be.
Marigold knew enough not to answer. Talking back didn’t help her case and usually got her a smack in the face for her troubles. Still, she couldn’t help the little smile that kept wanting to peek through. The plan to summon demons had been disrupted in the most striking way possible.
She’d seen the horrors that had been conjured in the summoning circle. Then, she’d seen a small woman commanding spears of lightning to smite them all where they stood. That woman, whoever she was, was an inspiration to Marigold. She had stood against demons and come out the clear victor.
If she could do that, all on her own, using her own magical power, then maybe there was a chance for Marigold someday.
If she could get control of her own inner magic, she might be able to stand up to her captors and free herself.
All she had to do was overpower the guards and get herself off the estate, somehow.
She had tried any number of times over the years, but never with much success.
Then again, she hadn’t really believed it was possible for one person to stand against so many with so much power.
Then, she’d seen that one woman slay demons without breaking a sweat. So, maybe it was possible, after all.
Everybody had always said Marigold had more power than most of the Rollins mages. If that was really true, and she could access it for her own purposes, then she might just be able to get herself out of this terrible situation, once and for all. Seeing the Demon Slayer at work gave her hope.