Fierce Dancer (Sierra Pride Book 5) (7 page)

“Tyler keeps his truck behind the barn,” Cora said. “Keys…sometimes he leaves his keys in it.”

Emma wondered if Cora knew how much Tyler had helped them. It had seemed like Tyler really cared, but then why wouldn’t he want to come with them while they freed Cora?

Cora’s light brown hair was up in a ponytail. Her face was heart shaped, but she looked too thin, like she hadn’t been eating. Emma didn’t blame her—being held like this would stress her the hell out; Emma wouldn’t have had an appetite, either.

“Hi,” Emma said, as they walked. “I’m Emma.”

“Are you Quentin’s mate?” Cora asked. “You’re not a shifter.”

“Yes, she’s my mate,” Quentin said.

Emma stopped walking. “I’m—wait, I’m what?”

“Well, obviously you have a choice in the matter,” Quentin said with a hesitant smile, “but I don’t. Something about you—it’s like I can’t ever belong to anyone else. My parents had this. They were only for each other and they were wrapped up in love until their deaths.”

“This is pretty fast,” Emma said.

Cora patted her shoulder. “I know it sounds scary to humans, but it’s actually quite normal for us.”

A large, beat-up Dodge truck squatted in the weeds. Emma tried the door and climbed in. “I’ll drive so you two can talk,” she said.

Quentin grinned at her. “Only if I can sit by you.”

Quentin sat in the middle of the bench seat. Although Cora leaned against him, she was quiet. As Emma peeked around Quentin from time to time, Cora’s eyes would fill with tears and she’d turn to stare out the window. It would be a long while before she got over her ordeal.

epilogue

One month later

“Emma,” Quentin growled, “are you going to get out of the car on your own, or do you need help?”

“I can do it,” she said, her eyes on the Fourniers’ ranch home in front of them.

The place looked just as he remembered it—cheerful blue siding and crisp white trim. Big picture window in the living room on the lower level. A patio off to the side, coming from the kitchen and living room. The furniture on the patio was new—he guessed Maverick and Cora had been busy with their carpentry hobby.

He focused on Emma again, watched her fiddle with her hair, pulling it up in a ponytail. She straightened her blouse, giving him a playful flash of the teal bra she was wearing. Which he knew, for a fact, matched her panties.

If she hadn’t been waiting all month for the chance to come to the Fournier ranch to see Hera and meet the new twins, June and Jasper, Quentin might have started the truck back up and driven farther down the drive to where Gabe had said a cabin was waiting for him and Emma. His cabin. Because this was his territory now.

The Sierra Pride—it was his pride, too. His and Emma’s.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Stop looking at me like you’re going to push me against the truck and do me.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” he drawled.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She took one deep breath, then another.

“Why are you so nervous?” he asked. “You and Hera have talked. There are no more secrets between you two.”

“I know, I know. It’s just hard. It hasn’t been that long since I saw her, but it feels like twenty years.”

He climbed out of the truck and came around to open her door. “I’ll be right here with you,” he said.

The front door of the house opened, and a petite brunette barreled out toward them. She snatched Emma out of his arms and pulled her into a hug. The two of them made such high-pitched noises of glee that Quentin thought about covering his ears.

“Come on, come inside,” Hera said. She turned to look over her shoulder at Quentin. “And you must be Quentin. Hi!”

He followed them, amused, as they walked into the house together. Emma gushed over Hera’s newborn twins, and Quentin watched her with a tenderness that, a little over a month ago, he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of. This woman had turned his life completely upside down. Everything was better, thanks to her.

He shook hands with Gabe and Blake, and met Gabe’s mate, Miranda—a tall, black-haired woman whose eyes sparkled with mischief every time she swiped Gabe’s beer. They moved out to the patio to talk about the upcoming ceremony where Quentin and Emma would be formally welcomed into the pride.

“Where’s Cora?” Emma asked.

“She’s out,” Gabe said. “She was excited that you were coming, though, so we’ll see her soon, I expect.”

Quentin watched Emma and Hera talk and laugh while Hera nursed Jasper. He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but he overheard Hera saying, “I’m so glad you’ve come back to me.”

Blake was already holding June, but Hera needed to grab some food, so she passed Jasper over to Emma. Emma held the baby close to her face and cooed to him, “Who has the handsomest eyes, huh, mister? Do you? Do you?”

“I know I do,” Quentin said, coming up behind her. He pressed himself along her back, breathing in the vanilla scent of her red hair.

“Rowr,” she said, laughing. “You don’t have much of an ego, do you?”

He laughed and helped her make funny faces at Jasper, who simply gazed back at them with wide gray eyes.

A few minutes later, Cora approached from the woods. Her hair was mussed and she smelled strongly of pine; Quentin suspected she was just returning from a run. She greeted everyone and remained quiet, but smiling. According to Gabe, it had been hard for her when she first came back, and she had to spend a lot of time roaming around as a cougar. Eventually, though, she’d fallen into a routine and grown comfortable with her family again. She and Emma had grown close, too, and in between Emma’s training and auditions for a new company, they exchanged lots of texts and phone calls.

Emma’s phone buzzed, and she took it from her back pocket. Her jaw fell, and she showed the caller ID display to Quentin.

Knightwood Ballet Company
. It was the company in Las Vegas where Emma had just auditioned.

“Answer it,” Quentin said.

“I can’t.”

The phone buzzed again.

“I’ll do it,” Hera said. She snatched the phone and swiped to accept the call. “Yes, this is Emma,” she said, in a pretty good impression of Emma’s voice. “Of course. Of course. Yes, thank you. Email is best.” She ended the call and smiled widely at Emma. “You made it! You freaking made it!”

“I…I did?” Emma’s face was a mixture of disbelief and hope.

“Yes! They’re going to email you the practice and tour schedule.”

Emma hugged Hera and then turned to Quentin. “This means we’re going to be on the road a lot.”

“Congratulations.” He pulled her into a fierce embrace. He loved this woman with everything in him, and he’d follow her anywhere. “I can’t wait.”

The two of them would travel as often as Emma’s new company demanded, sampling the sights, tastes, and entertainments of cities all over the United States and Canada.

Wherever they went, though, they’d be together. And whenever they felt like spending time somewhere they could call home, they had a place here with the Sierra Pride, and their cabin on acres of their very own.

free story

An exclusive short story featuring Ava and Jude from
Fierce Heartbreaker
is now available! Visit
Liza's free book page
for details: https://lizastreet.wordpress.com/free-book/

Sneak Preview of
Fierce Informer

Book 6 of The Sierra Pride

Coming October 2016

While the breeze blew the scent of Montana springtime in through the lodge windows, Justine tapped out a series of coded notes on her phone. If the Coronas ever got into her files somehow, they wouldn’t be able to make sense of the words.

Nobody would, actually. The only other person who knew this code was Nan, and she was dead.

Justine paused, waiting for a flash of pain, or relief, or happiness at the thought of Nan’s death. Nan had died three years ago, and Justine still didn’t know how to feel about it.

She didn’t know why she even continued taking the notes—she’d learned exactly nothing in her years with the Coronas, nothing except they were well-off, private, and affectionate amongst the family. Still, the routine was there, marking down who visited them, where they traveled, any large purchases or strange behavior.

She snorted. With Rafe, there was always strange behavior to report. Or maybe “obnoxious” was a better word for it.

Footsteps in the hall approached the guest services desk where Justine sat. She closed her note-taking app and shoved her phone deep into the pocket of her dark blue Corona Mountain Resort sweatshirt.

Gloria Corona and her son, Rafe, ambled into the room. “I have to get Barrett’s room ready,” Gloria said, “so I’ll need you to review last week’s expenses.”

Rafe opened his mouth to say something—to protest, most likely—but Gloria held up one hand, and with the other, she pointed Rafe to the resort office, which was directly behind Justine.

“Oh, hello Justine. I didn’t realize we have guests arriving today.” Without waiting for a response, Gloria was already behind the counter and pulling up the reservations file on the computer.

“No, sorry,” Justine said. “I just needed a quiet moment to write down some thoughts.”

It wasn’t a lie, and Justine was always careful to tell the truth. Popular lore stated that shapeshifters could scent a lie on the air at the same moment it moved from a speaker’s lips, but it was more complicated than that. There were telltale quavers in the voice, sweating, and an increase in heart rate—all physiological signs which a shifter’s senses were keen to pick up.

“Well, since nobody’s arriving today, why don’t you finish your clean-up duties early, and take the afternoon off?” Gloria suggested.

A subtle reminder that Justine was supposed to be working, not “writing down thoughts.” That was the beauty of Gloria, though—she worked Justine hard, but in a gentle way. Justine wasn’t sure how much of that was Gloria’s nature versus how much of it was about keeping the mountain lion prides from thinking she worked her Exchanges too hard.

“Thank you,” Justine said. “Oh, the SenchaCorp party is going to be hiking to the south face of the mountain tomorrow.”

Gloria nodded. “I’ll let Julian and Mateo know.”

“Mateo?” Rafe asked, his dark brows pulling together.

“Yes,” Gloria said. “He should be showing up in a few hours. I want him here for when Barrett arrives.”

Her large brown eyes teared up at the mention of Barrett. Justine smiled and patted her hand. Gloria had been trying to get pregnant with another kitten for years. Finally they’d been successful not in conceiving, but in finding a mountain lion shifter child for adoption. Justine’s only regret was that the owner of the adoption company was a skeevy-looking man with slimy hair and a fake smile, and he’d been around twice in the past couple of weeks, finalizing arrangements.

Rafe brushed past Justine on his way to the office, grumbling. Gloria swished up the staircase leading toward the family apartments, and Justine smiled again, this time to herself. If Rafe was using the computer, Justine might be able to see the password.

She’d been through every paper file the Coronas kept, and she’d searched the depths of the reservations and booking computer at the front desk. But the office computer wasn’t on a network and Justine had never been able to get into it. Over time she’d picked up a few of the things Gloria typed into the fourteen-digit password, but many years ago, a former Exchange had stolen financial information from the Coronas. Gloria guarded the password jealously, and Justine hadn’t been able to piece it together yet.

Rafe, however, didn’t seem to share Gloria’s suspicions. He was obedient enough that he would never give the password to Justine, but he also wasn’t going to be sending her out of the room while he typed it in.

Justine grabbed a rag and a bottle of dust cleaner from the narrow supply closet next to the office, and followed him inside. He sat staring at the computer, as if willing the tedious job of reviewing expenses to go away.

“Will it bother you if I clean while you’re in here?” she asked.

“No,” he said, turning to grin at her. “Welcome distraction.”

He wasn’t bad looking at all. Decent smile and teeth, soft brown eyes like his mother’s, a head of dark hair like his father’s. He was muscular, like most shapeshifters who spent so much time in their animal forms, running and hunting and exercising. Beneath his and the family’s notice, she’d slept with lonely male guests to scratch the itch, and Rafe was just as handsome as any of those men.

So why did it feel wrong to flirt with him? Well, nothing for it. She’d at least try to see more of the password.

Justine dusted the bookshelves. The strong scent of the dusting spray clogged her nostrils. On the pretext of grabbing a tissue, she turned to face Rafe and the computer. He looked up, caught—his eyes had been on her ass. He gave her a slow smile.

Then his face clouded. “Things are good the way they are. I don’t see why that shithead has to come back here.”

No talking, idiot. Type in the password
. She tried not to let her irritation show on her face. “Well, maybe if you hurry up with your work, and I hurry up with mine, we can go for a run and miss the shithead altogether.”

“Now
that
is a great idea,” he said, turning back to the computer. Justine watched as he typed, slowly, his fingers hitting each key precisely. He wasn’t a touch typist, like Gloria.

This was freaking perfect.

She memorized the password, matching it up easily to the few letters, numbers, and symbols she’d figured out from quick peeks at Gloria’s turns at the computer.

Now, of course, she had to clean as slowly as possible so she could avoid shifting and running with Rafe. He was nothing like her brothers—he got too close, sniffed around her too much. It was as if in mountain lion form, he thought he was exempt from common courtesies of personal space. Yes, it was true, Exchanges often came to different prides in the hopes of marrying into one of the pride’s families, and that was the reason Nan given the Coronas for offering Justine as an Exchange. But Justine was really here to find out what had happened to Starla, her sister who’d disappeared eighteen years ago.