Chapter 4
Ben found his clothes where he’d left them beside the pond in Marlana”s backyard. He had just finished his round of Guardian duty, patrolling the grounds as a mountain lion. All was quiet. The only trouble they’d had recently was a year ago. The vampires. And, given that it was only four o”clock in the afternoon on a summer day, Ben didn”t really see vampires being a problem. After tugging on his pants and shirt, he made his way to the house to report to Marlana.
The massive sliding door was unlocked as always and he let himself in to the giant house. Marlana and her husband, Jeff, lived well. The furniture was that kind of unstated comfortable only achieved with a hefty price tag, and the mansion had enough space to house over thirty mountain lion shifters should they all need to stay together for some reason. During the problems with the vampires, they had been on lockdown more than once.
He fucking hated vampires.
But not all vampires. He knew that now. He had learned his lesson, well and truly.
Voices came from upstairs, probably Marlana’s office. He made his way forward, inhaling, trying to scent the air to guess who she was talking to.
Ben didn”t like surprises.
He thought he smelled one of the Rhees brothers. He hoped it was Dristan and not Fraze. After making his way to the top of the stairs, he peeked into Marlana”s office.
Shit, it was Fraze who stood tall in front of Marlana’s desk. His dark blond hair was fashioned with messy spikes, and a beard hid his mouth and jaw.
Ben froze in the doorway, wishing he could come back another time.
”Yes, Ben.” Marlana”s tone was even and friendly enough, for an alpha. ”Anything to report?”
Ben straightened up and stepped into the office. ”Nothing. It”s all quiet out there.”
Her usually wild, tawny hair was up in a tight bun and it barely moved as she nodded. ”Just what I like to hear. Quiet. Peace. Nothing upsetting the status quo.”
Ben took a chance. ”Hey, Fraze.”
Fraze nodded, but didn”t say anything.
Progress, Ben thought wryly. ”Marlana, if you don”t need anything else?”
”Not today,” she said, eyeing him coolly with her ice-blue eyes. ”Sometime this week, though, we’ll have a meeting with Viviana. I”d like to run through some new Guardian schematics and involve our soon-to-be alpha.”
”Sounds good.” Ben turned to go.
”Have you heard from that brother of yours?” Marlana asked.
If it wasn”t so fucking sad, it would be funny how grief could sneak up on you and whap you upside the head. For a second, Ben thought that Marlana was talking about Chase. Then he realized she meant Doug.
”Talked to him yesterday. He”s bored.”
Marlana smiled. ”Bored is good. It means there”s no trouble with the Rock Creek Clan. Next time you talk to him, give him my regards.”
”Will do.” Ben nodded and left. He knew exactly where Doug would think Marlana should stuff her regards. There was no love lost between those two.
Ben tried to turn his brain off as he drove back to his place. Too many thoughts. Too many voices. He turned up the stereo, blared Lagwagon. Nineties punk helped, sometimes.
When he pulled into his driveway, he was surprised to see a car already sitting there.
Ben hated surprises.
A familiar woman leaned against the door of the little sedan. Sleeves of tattoos going up each arm. A nose piercing with a tiny diamond. She eyed him as he drove up and parked.
As he got out of his truck and walked over to her, he realized where he”d seen her before. It was the blond woman who’d come out of Pawndemonium yesterday. Still attractive, still looking tired as hell, like she hadn”t been taking care of herself. She carried a sweet scent that he vaguely recognized but couldn”t quite place.
“Oh, I know you,” she said, her face registering surprise. “You were in Maxon yesterday, right? At that little strip mall with the taqueria?”
He nodded. His first impulse was to ask her what the fuck she was doing here, but then he remembered he was trying to be nicer. ”Can I help you with something?” he asked.
”Yeah.” She stood up straight and unfolded her inked-up arms. ”I need to talk to Chase.”
There was that sneaky fucker grief, again. This time it didn”t whap him on the head, it kicked him straight in the gut.
”You can”t,” he said. ”Sorry.”
She had gorgeous, deep brown eyes. She tilted her head and narrowed them at him. ”That”s not an acceptable answer.”
He knew he should just come out with the bad news, but once he did, this entire dynamic would change. Messed-up as it was, he liked the challenge of interacting with her.
”It is how it is,” he said.
She smiled, and the tiny diamond in her nose twinkled. ”Look, mister,” she said. ”I don”t have a lot of time. Especially not for your bullshit. I can see from the color of your hair that you”re related to Chase. So tell me where I can find him, and I”ll get out of your way.”
He was too tired and sad to lead her on anymore. ”Can you come inside? Sit down?”
”No, I can”t do that. Would you please just tell me where to find Chase?”
He didn”t want to tell her like this. He didn”t want to tell her at all. Obviously, finding Chase was important to her. Unfortunately, finding Chase was impossible.
She”d given him no choice. In a heavy voice, he said, ”Chase is dead.”
She took a step back and bumped into her car. ”What? Chase is—dead? No. No.”
”Yeah, he is. Sorry.” Sorry didn”t seem like enough. Sorry wasn”t enough. That was a lesson Ben had been learning over and over for the past year.
”When? How?” Her eyes filled with tears. They were now beautiful brown pools of shock and sorrow.
”Last summer. In an accident.” Ben didn”t elaborate. This woman was clearly human, and vampires weren”t publicly out. Neither were shifters, or anything else supernatural. She would never get to know the truth.
She shook her head in disbelief. ”This isn”t at all how I imagined this going.”
Ben nodded. He could relate. He hated surprises too.
”Okay. Okay,” she said, mostly to herself. ”Okay, well, mister, whatever Chase was to you, I”m sorry for your loss.”
Tears were flowing freely down her face now. Clearly, Chase had meant something to her. But if he had been that important, why had she waited all this time to reach out? Ben wasn”t sure how to ask that question, so he kept quiet. Keeping quiet was usually the best tactic to take.
The woman opened her car door and started to get inside. Suddenly, a baby”s wail cut through the silence.
”Shit,” the woman said. ”I mean, shoot.” She looked over at Ben. ”Do you mind if I nurse her here? I”ll just be in your driveway for ten minutes, tops.”
She didn”t wait for his permission before opening the back door and pulling out a baby.
He remembered seeing her with the baby yesterday, but he had forgotten all about that little detail. He didn”t like loud noises. He didn”t like small, screamy things.
So this was the first time he really looked at the baby. And what he saw nearly made him fall over.
The baby had short auburn curls. The baby had Chase’s bluish-green eyes.
If Ben were to get closer, he knew the baby would carry the unmistakable scent of a mountain lion shifter. This must have been the wild scent he’d caught outside Pawndemonium and the taqueria yesterday, the shifter scent he’d disregarded because there wasn’t a problem.
Well, this was a problem—a big-ass problem in a tiny package.
Ben pointed at the baby. ”That”s—that”s...”
He couldn”t finish the sentence. Swear words jumbled together in his head, crowding out all rational thought. He shook them away. This human woman was raising a mountain lion shifter, and she didn”t even know it.
The woman turned to look at him, and in one swift movement yanked down her tank top, exposing a breast.
Ben looked away. He was used to nudity, but not from humans.
”I hope my boobs don”t offend you,” she said in a dry voice. ”At first I tried one of those nursing blankets, but it”s such a freaking hassle. And I figure, nobody”s making people look at my tatas. It”s a free world, and there”s plenty else to look at.”
Ben mumbled, ”No, the boobs are fine. But that”s—that”s Chase”s baby.”
”Yeah.” Her voice was soft. ”Yeah, I was bringing her here to meet her daddy today. Turns out, she doesn”t have a daddy.”
This changed everything. The woman had no idea, but her life was about to get a hell of a lot more complicated. Other than having heightened senses, the kid would be mostly normal until about puberty. Then she”d have her first change and transform into a mountain lion. Obviously, someone was gonna have to tell the mother.
Ben sure as fuck did not want to be that someone.
The woman stroked the baby’s curls, then looked up at Ben. ”You know, you don”t have to hang around and keep me company or anything.”
”Do you want me to leave?” he asked.
She shrugged a single shoulder, and her tats lifted up and down. The designs on her skin were mesmerizing—it looked like a starry night scene covering her arms. Ben forced himself to look away.
He took a few paces back and sat on the concrete front stoop of his house. The Corona Pride was going to need to stay in touch with this woman. They would need to be involved in the baby”s life. The baby would grow up as one of them, and it was just a matter of breaking the news to this woman. Fuck, this was so far out of the Guardian wheelhouse, Ben had no idea what to do.
He would have to call Marlana, tell her everything. But he would need a way to find this woman again.
He said across the driveway, ”So, you don”t live in Belnedge?”
”No, I”m over in Maxon.”
He nodded. ”We should keep in touch.”
She gave him a sharp look. ”Why?”
He scrambled for a good reason, a reason a human would understand. ”Well, Chase was my brother. Which makes me the uncle.”
Wow, that was weird. His other siblings hadn”t had babies yet. He didn”t have any nieces or nephews. Or at least he hadn”t, until little while ago.
”How old is it anyway?” he asked.
Her sharp look got sharper. ”It is a she. And she is three months old.”
He was fucking this up. He couldn”t fuck this up. If she refused to give him her phone number, the pride would stay in contact in other ways, without her permission. It wouldn”t be fair of them to invade her privacy.
”She seems like a lot of fun.” It was a lie, but the woman wasn”t a shifter, so she wouldn”t know. ”What are your names, anyway?”
The woman switched the baby from one breast to the other. ”I”m Delilah Jones, and this is McKenzie Ashlyn Jones.”
He liked the names. Maybe he should say so. He didn”t want to sound too much like he was kissing her ass, though.
”So?” he said. “About keeping in touch?”
”I guess.” She didn”t look convinced, but she rattled off her phone number and Ben plugged it into his phone.
Hadn’t Marlana said something about being glad it was so quiet, with nothing upsetting the status quo? Wait until she heard about this.