Dark Refuge (35 page)

He was big and hard and fit her perfectly. He was funny and sweet, brave and powerful, and so beautiful he made her ache.

A perfect man.

Just not a perfect mate.

At least not for Sunny Daye.

• • •

After a really nice dinner they’d ended up back at his apartment, which was a good thing, especially since Star still hadn’t recalled her date’s name. She finally spotted it on a framed diploma on the wall. Haydon. His name was Haydon Smith. She finally recalled meeting him in one of the libraries on campus.

Another good thing about ending up at Haydon’s apartment was that it was his place, not hers. She hated having to ask a man to leave after sex, but she had sex with a lot of guys and she didn’t want them hanging around afterward, especially when they never managed to leave her satisfied.

This guy hadn’t even tried very hard, but he’d certainly managed to find his own satisfaction. More than once. Now he slept soundly, so she carefully lifted his arm off of her breasts and slid out from beneath him. As she turned away to get out of the bed, that same arm snaked around her waist.

“Leaving, Star?”

Well, crap.
“Uh, yeah. I need to get home.” She glanced over her shoulder and realized he was wide awake, glaring at her for whatever reason.

“What if I don’t want you to go yet?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s late. I had a good time, but I really have to leave.”

His grasp around her waist tightened. He was a lot bigger than her, and he pulled her back across the bed and roughly nuzzled her neck. “Mmmmm. You smell good.” He bit her earlobe hard enough for it to hurt, but she refused to react.

He was really starting to piss her off.

“You know what the guys call you?” He tightened his hold around her waist. “The Ballbuster. Word is you can go all night and then walk away like it was nothing.” His voice dropped to a low, threatening growl. “I haven’t had all night yet, Star. You can walk away when I say you can walk. Not before.”

Now this was a first. She tried to break free of his grasp but he merely held on tighter. His breath was hot as he spoke directly into her ear. “I think you owe me the rest of the night, don’t you, Star? That was a really expensive dinner.”

She’d managed almost fourteen years of world travel, college, and grad school without guys acting anything but grateful after a night of sex. Plus, not a single man had ever guessed she wasn’t human. Though the world knew shapeshifters existed among them, she’d chosen to guard her Chanku origins and keep her abilities secret from all but a select few on campus.

Maybe this jerk was a sign. Maybe Mom was right—it was time to go home. And she wasn’t thinking of merely going back to her apartment.

She shifted. Even though the wolf came most naturally, she chose her cougar form, twisting her strong, sinuous body out of his grasp as her date suddenly screamed like a little girl and scrambled across the bed so fast he fell off the other side.

Star merely stretched out over the bed, hooked her claws deep into the mattress until the fabric ripped, hung her head over the edge and stared at him. Eyes wide, he stared back at her. She stretched one broad paw toward him and further unsheathed her long, curved nails.

Babbling, he scrambled backward on all fours until he hit the wall, so she crouched on the edge of the mattress and raised her hindquarters as if to leap. Snarling, she let a bit of saliva drip from her open jaws and flexed her muscles.

An acrid stench filled her sensitive nostrils as a pool of urine stained the carpet between his legs. Star chuffed, which was the closest her puma could get to laughter, spun about on the bed and shifted once more.

She didn’t even look his way as she snagged her clothes off the floor and quickly dressed. Grabbing the door handle, she glanced over her shoulder. He was still sitting in a soggy, stinking heap on the floor across the room. She gave him her most disdainful look. “Don’t ever pull that stunt on a woman again or I will hunt you down.”

Then she walked out of his room and headed back to her apartment.

Not quite the way she’d expected her night to end, but at least it hadn’t been boring. And, if nothing else, it had helped make up her mind about the doctoral program.

Her mom was right. She had enough letters after her name, and she’d played the coward long enough. It was time to return to the pack, even if it meant finally having it out with her spirit guide. Igmutaka had been running her life for far too long. The fact she’d not felt comfortable returning home was proof she’d given him more control over her life than he deserved.

The fact he didn’t love her was on him, and it was his loss, not hers. It was time for Star to move forward.

It was early morning when she finally reached her own apartment—still much too early to call Montana. She showered, grabbed something to eat, and gave her folks until six before she finally called home. Her father answered and she almost broke down and cried when his beautiful face flashed on the screen. There was something so elemental about him with his dark skin and strong Lakota Sioux and Hispanic features, an innate power that few men wore as well. Only Igmutaka came close. She missed her dad. Missed her mom, missed her other dad AJ just as much.

“What’s up, sweetie? Mom said she talked to you last night. Is everything okay?”

She thought about that and realized that yes, it was absolutely wonderful. Finally. “Everything’s good, Dad. I’ve decided to come home, though not right away. I’m hoping for a chance to spend some time alone once I leave Connecticut. Is the cabin at Lassen free? I thought I’d go there for a week or so.”

“We’ll make sure it’s available. When do you need it?”

She loved that about her parents. No questions. They just did what they could to make her life easier. “It’s going to take me at least a week to get my stuff packed up and shipped, and probably another week to make the drive. If I can’t get out of my lease, I’ll have to sublet the apartment, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a great location.”

“It’s going to be cold at the cabin. No one’s been there for a while. I’ll have it stocked for you. Will you be flying to California or driving?”

“Driving. And Dad? Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mikaela Star. I’ve missed you. We’ve all missed you. Be safe. Come home to us as quickly as you can.”

• • •

Mik grabbed his coffee and walked out onto the deck. AJ and Tala still slept, but he’d had a feeling his daughter might call this morning. The connection between them had always been strong, but lately he’d felt her yearning for something she wasn’t finding in her stuffy academic world of New Haven, Connecticut.

Of course, anyone with half a brain would realize that what she really wanted, what she needed, was right here in Montana. In fact, it appeared that his daughter’s fate was strolling up the path to the house on four huge paws at this very moment.

Mik stepped back inside the house and poured another cup of coffee. It was waiting when the huge puma leapt up on the deck and shifted. Mik handed the cup to Igmutaka, who took it without a word and sat in the Adirondack chair beside Mik’s.

The two men sipped their coffee in silence, and Mik couldn’t help but think of his grandfather and the council meetings among the elders, when the old men would sit around the fire at night and make decisions concerning the tribe.

The man beside him, though definitely Native American, didn’t look like an elder. No, he was a beautiful man who appeared to be in his early thirties, even though he was technically older than any living thing, as far as Mik knew.

Right now, Ig merely looked conflicted.

Mik knew exactly what was bothering him, but he wasn’t about to make this easy. Not for any man interested in courting his daughter, and certainly not for the spirit guide whose job it was to protect Mikaela Star, not bed her.

Igmutaka sighed and sat quietly for a few minutes. Then he set the mug aside and faced Mik. “You know why I’m here,” he said.

Mik nodded. “Tell me.”

Ig raised one dark eyebrow. “I should have known you’d give me a hard time.”

Shaking his head, Mik chuckled softly. “It’s too important to make it easy. A decision such as yours, the prize you seek, is not something to take lightly. Tell me what it is you want.”

Nodding slowly, Ig agreed. “As you know, I have watched over your line for time beyond memory, always serving the firstborn male until the next generation is conceived. I guided your grandfather’s grandfather and his father, and all the men before him. I watched over your grandfather, and when his only issue was a daughter, I waited for the next male. Her son. That was you.”

Mik nodded. He remembered a time when he’d doubted his spirit guide’s existence, when he’d languished in prison and wondered if the presence he’d felt beside him truly existed, and if he did, why he’d allowed Mik to end up in a prison cell.

But that cell was the place where he had met AJ and had fallen in love. Where Ulrich Mason had found both men and helped them find their true heritage as Chanku shapeshifters. Had Igmutaka had a part in that? Mik had never asked.

He glanced up and realized Ig was smiling at him. “I did,” he said. “At least as much as I was able. So did your goddess. Years later, when you called me to help your packmates and I once again felt the warmth of living flesh, I found it impossible to remain a creature of spirit.”

Mik chuckled. “So you’re going to blame me for all of your problems?”

This time Igmutaka laughed out loud. “If I was going to blame anyone, it would have to be Mei and Oliver. It was their inability to mate because they couldn’t shift into compatible creatures that called me forth in the first place. I like them both, and I like my life as a man too much to complain. No, I’m merely stating the facts, that I was content as spirit until you and your people reminded me what joy could be had in a living, breathing body. But I still watched over you. And I was prepared to watch over your firstborn.”

“Even though you knew my firstborn would be female?”

Shrugging, Ig leaned back in his chair. “That threw me off at first. What did I know about watching over a female child? But the gods and your goddess decreed, and I obeyed. And then she spoke to me. Still in the womb, as yet unformed, and she spoke in my mind. Do you have any idea how amazing your daughter is, Miguel? How perfect?”

Mik turned and gazed out across the big meadow and remembered Star as a mere toddler, shifting into a wolf cub and then later that same day becoming a cougar. She truly was amazing. Brilliant, beautiful, and right now terribly unhappy.

If Igmutaka could make her happy, Mik wouldn’t stand in the man’s way. “Mikaela Star is special. She’s always been special.”

Igmutaka sighed—the sound of a frustrated male. “But why did she leave? I don’t understand everything of modern ways. Why did she force me out of her life?”

At least this was a question Mik could answer. He had, after all, mated his own very independent woman. “You watched over her too closely, my friend. Star has a mind of her own—a brilliant mind. She is an independent woman. A strong woman. You didn’t allow her to test herself. To take risks.”

Ig bowed his head. “I was so afraid for her. Afraid she’d be hurt, afraid she would be unhappy . . .”

“Afraid of losing her?”

“That too, and yet that is exactly what happened. I pushed her away, and I lost her.” He raised his head and faced Mik, green eyes sparkling with tears. Mik’s heart went out to him—never before had he seen Igmutaka show vulnerability. The man could be stoic and strong, fun-loving, even silly if the occasion called for it.

But not this. Never had he looked so completely lost.

Igmutaka nodded, silently admitting the power Mik’s daughter held over him. “I want the chance to try and win her back. To win her love. When she was young, I fought against that need, the need of a man for a woman. She was my charge, just a young girl, not a woman to warm my bed, and yet it took her leaving me to realize that was exactly what I wanted. What I need.

“A partner. A lover. A mate. One who can not only stand up to me but stand beside me. This could be my only chance. I sense that she has chosen to return and I would like your permission to court her. To show her that I’ve learned, that I can stand beside her, not expect her to follow me, but to be my partner.”

Igmutaka was a strong, proud man. Mik wondered how much it cost him to speak the words in his heart. “You don’t need my permission, Ig, though I’m honored you would ask. Mikaela Star is her own woman.”

The spirit guide laughed. “You’re wrong, my friend. I want your permission, so that if I am successful and she chooses me as her mate, you will not have cause to disapprove.”

Mik had known this day was coming since Tala pushed his daughter out of her womb directly into the spirit guide’s capable hands, but he’d never imagined what it would feel like, to sit here and sense the desperation in the man’s voice, to realize how important this moment was to all of them.

Not merely to his daughter, to Mik, to AJ and Tala, but to everyone. They were more than family. They were pack.

He reached for Igmutaka’s right arm and grasped him about the forearm. Ig’s fingers closed tightly around his arm, and Mik stared at the link they made. Finally, he nodded and raised his head. “I’ve believed since the beginning that you were destined for my daughter. You have my permission to court her. You do not have my permission to hurt her, to use your powers as her spirit guide to force her feelings or her decision, or to do anything at all that goes against her free will.”

Ig let out a huge breath of air. “Thank you. I would never hurt Mikaela Star. She was my charge, the one I watched over.”

Mik chuckled. “Except when she told you to get lost.”

Suddenly agitated, Ig shoved both hands through his hair. Then he tilted his head and stared directly at Mik. “She did more than that. I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Miguel. When she sent me away, she severed our spiritual tie. I don’t think she understood the power of her words, but my destined role as her spirit guide ended at that moment. I still watch over her from afar, but I am no longer truly her guide.” Again, he sighed. “I’ve not admitted that to anyone, and hardly to myself. I didn’t want to accept the truth.”