Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
Griff: What did the wave say to the surfer?
Shae: Uh, why am I part of this text chain?
Cal: *cue evil laughter* You’re one of us now! *chants* One of us! One of us!
Shae: Excuse me while I go hitch a ride on the 405…
Griff: Have a swell time! Get it?
Ruby: Okay, that one’s better. Nice work, Griff.
Shae: Why isn’t Emma suffering through this?
Ruby: She refused to have her number added.
Shae: Clearly, she’s smarter than me.
Dallas: How do cats say 10/10?
Shae: Seriously, what the hell is happening right now? Are you guys high?
Ruby: Don’t fight it. Just give in. It never stops.
Dallas: Purrfect!
Griff: Hahahaha! That’s a good one, Cap!
Cal: I actually have a cat joke too!
Ruby: If it involves the word ‘pussy’ in any way, forget about it. *cracks knuckles*
Cal: *pouts* You’re no fun.
Harper: Now we know why you can’t get a date.
Ruby: *high five*
—MEOW Squad Group Text Thread
Griffin
Once everyone has finished their food, we get down to brass tacks.
“I know this is probably a difficult subject, but we do need to ask you a bit about your background and who may come after you in order to better protect you while you’re with us,” Dallas says as he hands Shae a steaming mug of hot cocoa.
Shae wraps his hands around the warm mug and shivers. “Where should I start?”
“Wherever you feel comfortable.” I reach to put a hand on his back but pause with a question in my eyes.
He only stiffens for a moment, then gives me a slight nod and relaxes into my touch. Definitely a win. If my suspicions are correct, my mate hasn’t experienced a lot of affectionate touch in his life. It makes me want to howl with outrage and rip someone to shreds, but I tamp down the impulse. Right now is about his needs. I amp up my output of soothing pheromones to help him stay calm while he talks with us. While I’ve done this for other people we’ve rescued before, it means so much more when I can use my power to help my mate.
Shae sighs, melting into my touch, and his eyes get hazy as he stares out the wall of windows as if seeing something we can’t. “As I told Cal earlier, I’m half-siren. My mother, Tempest, was part of the Silverstorm siren sept. As far as I understand it, she met my father while she was in college. According to her, he was?—”
Shae’s voice cuts out for a moment and we wait.
He clears his throat. “He was supposedly her fated mate.”
My senses go on high alert and my hand on his back freezes.
“My father is human, and he isn’t exactly open-minded when it comes to Otherkind. He doesn’t believe in things like fated mates. So even though he was drawn to my mother, he refused to accept the magical bond between them.”
A pained whine escapes me when Shae carefully pulls away from me, but I don’t follow. No matter how hard it is, I’ll give him the space he needs.
Even without touching him, my magic can sense the jumble of conflicted emotions in him. I focus on emitting my special pheromones to diminish his psychological pain, even if only a little.
“But your mother stayed with him?” Harper asks, although his tone suggests he knows the answer.
Shae nods his head sadly. “She loved him and believed she’d be able to convince him of their bond one day. When she became pregnant with me, she thought it was a sign that their union was blessed and that soon my father would see it too.” Shae stiffens and his voice becomes more matter-of-fact. “They stayed together, but after I was born, my father wasn’t very interested in being involved in my life. He didn’t take pains to hide his disgust for his half-Otherkind progeny. It became clear to me early on that he didn’t love me, but my mom was a good buffer and kept me away from him. Her love was all I needed anyway.”
He stops and takes a sip of his cocoa. I notice his hands faintly trembling.
“May I?” I ask, reaching a hesitant hand toward him.
He studies me for a long moment, his blue eyes unreadable, and then gives a terse nod.
Sighing with relief, I touch him again and strive to convey my affection as I rub circles on his back. His rigid muscles soon relax into my rhythmic caresses, making my tail thump against the back of the couch.
“Everything changed when I was ten. Looking back, I can see where problems had been brewing for a long time. Things happened that I didn’t understand as a child, but they make so much more sense to me now. My parents argued a lot. My father spent a lot of time away and my mother found out he was seeing someone else.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Finally, my mom had enough. She told my father she was going to take me and move back with the Silverstorm sept to raise me without him.” He looks down at his mug. “If only it had gone smoothly.”
“Are you sure you want to tell this part?” Emma asks, her brow creasing.
Shae nods. “Thanks, Em. I’m okay.” He clutches his mug tightly. “I was young so I don’t remember all of the details, but we were getting ready to leave when my parents got into a fight. My father got really angry and grabbed a heavy vase off a table. He started beating my mother with it until… she stopped moving.” Shae’s voice cracks and a tear slides down his cheek. “I tried to stop him. I kicked and punched and screamed, but he was so much bigger and stronger. I couldn’t do anything.”
Throughout his horrific account, Shae’s mental trauma hits me like a tidal wave I’m not ready for. It leaves me reeling and scrambling to resurrect some of my emotional defenses. I left myself too open to my mate and wasn’t prepared for how much anguish he feels inside.
Tears stream down my cheeks and I don’t try to stop them. I focus all of my SCSS mojo on sending love and protective energy his way.
I stop breathing when, with a crooked smile, Shae extends a hand toward me and wipes away my tears. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re weird, Wolf Boy?”
“Everyone,” Cal snarks affectionately.
I sniffle and stick my tongue out at him.
“What happened next?” Dallas asks, trying to keep things going.
Shae swallows convulsively. “He carried my mother’s body to his car in the garage and put her in the trunk. Then he locked me in a closet and drove off. When he came back, my mom wasn’t with him.”
“Oh, Shae. I’m so sorry. You never should have witnessed that,” Ruby says, sniffling.
By now, I have Shae wrapped in my arms and I’m stroking his hair. The fact that he’s letting me, and seems to be enjoying it, fills me with relief and pride.
“That was only the beginning though,” Shae continues. “I don’t think my father knew what to do with me. After all, I was a witness to his crime. But it seems he drew the line at murdering a child. Or perhaps he feared it would draw too much attention to suddenly no longer have me or my mother around. I don’t know. He took me out of school and claimed I was being home-schooled. However, no schooling was involved. I was just confined to my bedroom and he boarded up the one window to prevent me from escaping.” He lets out a bitter chuckle. “He kept threatening to do to me what he’d done to my mother if I ever told anyone. And me being young, dumb, and scared as shit, I believed him.”
“You were only a child,” I protest in outrage.
Get your act together, Griffin McIntyre!
Losing my cool won’t help my mate.
I focus instead on covering him in my scent and enveloping him in all the soothing vibes I can muster.
“After a few weeks, my dad moved a new woman into the house. Six months later, they got married. But Margaret wasn’t solo when she joined our household. She brought her eight-year-old daughter with her.”
“Ugh. Bitchface Bella,” Emma says from her seat next to Ruby.
Shae smirks at Emma’s groan of disgust. “Margaret was apparently a major Twilight fan around the time her daughter was born, hence the name. Anyway, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Bella. I honestly don’t know who was worse to me sometimes, her or her mother.”
“Were they always awful to you?” I can’t help but ask.
Shae nods. “They hated me from the start. I don’t know all the reasons why, but Margaret made it evident that my half-siren nature disgusted her. Soon, she convinced my father I needed to be hidden from view. My life became even more confined, but I at least had Haku with me, so I wasn’t alone. They brought me meals three times a day, but I was a prisoner for all intents and purposes.”
“How did you end up with a drake?” Cal asks, curiosity gleaming in his gray eyes.
Shae reaches up and pets Haku, who nuzzles into his neck and then gives me a smug look.
I growl.
He hisses.
Am I seriously going to have to duke it out with a drake for access to my mate?
Shae continues, ignoring us both. “Haku was a gift from my mother for my tenth birthday. Most sirens are gifted a protective guardian at that age. Our sept apparently has a longstanding magical agreement with a tribe of drakes.”
Haku rears up on his hind legs and flaps his mini-dragon wings. “We protect the Silverstorm sept and they protect us.”
“You’re so freaking cute!” I coo at him.
He snarls and shoots fire at me that I have to bat away.
So feisty and fierce. I bet Haku could become a member of our team. He’d fit right in. Just like I know Shae will too.
“Anyone who attempts to kill Haku or break the magical bond between us will be cursed. That’s the only reason we’re still together. If my stepmonster could have used him against me, she would have.”
“She’s evil incarnate,” Haku grumbles.
“So your drake functions very much like a familiar would for a mage?” Cal asks, leaning forward eagerly.
Shae considers this. “Maybe? I don’t know much about mages.”
My heart aches. Shae has been closed off and isolated from the rest of Otherkind for most of his life. It’s not fair.
Haku gives a mini-roar that’s absolutely precious and I can’t help but grin.
“My tribe is linked magically to the Silverstorms. When we bond with a member of the tribe, we help our companions regulate their magic and can help boost their powers when necessary.”
Cal nods eagerly and strokes his chin. “Fascinating.”
Haku noticeably slumps. “But I haven’t been able to help Master Shae much because the collar dysregulated his magic.”
“It’s not your fault, Haku,” Shae says.
Cal’s eyes gleam with excitement. “Now that we’ve got that abomination off your neck, we’ll have to work on helping you learn to use your powers.”
Shae gives a tentative smile. “I’d like that.”
“Let’s get back to Shae’s story,” Dallas says, bringing us back.
“Right.” Shae winces. “A few months before my eighteenth birthday, when I came into my full powers, I began to experience the need to use sirensong. It’s not uncommon among my kind. However, sirensong has the ability to allure, seduce, even hypnotize humans in some cases. Margaret discovered it one day when I was alone in my room, singing to myself. Or so I thought. I hadn’t known she’d installed hidden cameras. Immediately, she intuited that this was something she could exploit and profit from.”
My hand stops rubbing his back when he tenses up again and I redouble my efforts in sending my soothing mojo his way until he relaxes back into my touch. SCSS for the win!
“Margaret hatched a plan with my father and stepsister. They would use my voice to launch a music career for Bella and make a fortune. No one would ever have to know that I was the real voice behind the scenes. But in order to make this plan work, they needed to be able to subjugate me and force me to do their bidding. Thus, they acquired the collar that enslaved me for the next seven years.”
Shae shakes his head, shame written all over his face. “I didn’t know their plan until it was too late. They attacked me while I was sleeping. Guards held me down and a mage fought Haku while Margaret put the collar on me.” He shudders. “It was over in a flash. The mage tried to use a killing attack on Haku and became a victim of the curse, losing his life in the process. I don’t know what happened to his body, just that the guards removed it when everything was over.”
“Fuck,” Cal mutters, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Before long, I was moved to an annex at the back of the estate. It was essentially a more secure prison, guarded and monitored twenty-four seven. If my life before was bad, it became ten times worse. My father, who’d made perfunctory visits when I was younger, stopped coming to see me at all, and Margaret had total control over me. I was a tool to help her achieve fame and fortune for her daughter.”
Ruby holds up a hand. “Wait a minute. You said your stepmom is Margaret and your stepsister is Bella? You can’t possibly mean?—”
Shae grimaces. “Yes—Margaret and Bella Divine.”
Harper’s dark eyes flash with understanding. “Now that’s a provocative twist.”
I look around the table in confusion. “Uh, what am I missing? Who are they?”
Everyone stares at me like I’ve suddenly sprouted a second head. Or maybe bear ears.
“Griff isn’t exactly up on a lot of current pop culture,” Cal explains to Shae while shaking his head at me.
I turn my gaze to Shae and find him studying me like I’m some interesting but disturbing bug under a microscope.
“You seriously don’t know about Divine Beauty or the pop star Bella Divine?”
“Nope.”
Ruby pulls out her cell phone and brings something up on the screen, handing it to me. “Let’s get you up to speed, Sunshine.”
I stare at the phone and then gape at my mate. “You’re the voice behind those songs I hear on the radio?”
Shae nods.
My mate’s even more epic and amazing than I thought.
“This could be more difficult than we anticipated,” Harper says, setting down his now empty wineglass.
I watch Shae’s throat bob as he swallows convulsively.
“Margaret’s money and power are far-reaching. There’s no way she’s going to let me go without a fight. I’m a cash cow for her and the source of her daughter’s rise to fame. They’ll have people looking for me and scouring the streets of Los Angeles twenty-four seven.” Shae’s expression turns bleak. “I may have simply exchanged one prison for another. If this is the only place I’m safe, then I’m trapped here now.”