One True Mate 1: Shifter's Sacrifice (15 page)

Trevor glanced over at her and Mac’s eyes followed the glance. He said something to Trevor and for the first time Trevor’s response became heated. He placed his body in between Ella and Mac so she couldn’t see his face anymore, but his body told plenty of the story. The two men were about to fight and it was going to be a bad one. Troy whined and Ella did the only thing she could think of. She opened the back door to let him out. Troy and Trent swarmed out, both of them running straight to Mac and jumping up, putting their big paws on his chest and their snarling snouts in his face. Ella gasped.

“Still using your mutts to do your dirty work,” Mac said, and then he turned and walked away, knocking the two dogs to the ground. They paced, their angry energy obvious in the set of their bodies.

Trevor loaded the water and food into Mac’s trunk, then slammed it and headed back to the truck to a shocked Ella. “Done,” he said. “Want to go out for dinner, or get something on the way?”

Like absolutely nothing had happened.

Early the next morning, Trevor opened one eye and watched Ella sleep in the chair across from him, the
wolven
at her feet. He hated that she was sleeping in the chair again, and if he had any guts at all he would put her in the bed, but he didn’t. He felt like a full-fledged chicken at the moment. She was scrambling all his brain circuits, swiping all his nerve. One disappointed or pained look from her and he would crumble.

The only good thing about her being in the chair was it made him feel like he could stay in the room. Like they weren’t actually sleeping so it wasn’t completely inappropriate for him to be there. The door was open, the other officers had stuck their heads in a couple of times through the night. His sleep was light enough that he had heard them coming and waved at them, pretending that he was just watching over a victim, keeping her safe. Everything totally on the up and up. He was not watching her sleep and wondering what her skin would feel like under his fingers. He certainly was
not
memorizing her features or imagining how her curves met under her clothes.

Trevor shifted in the chair and closed his eyes but a buzzing in his pocket brought him to full alertness. A text from Wade.

I want that safe house shut down today. Unless something more happens, you can’t keep that girl there tonight.

Trevor couldn’t believe what he was reading.

Khain was in her house.
What if he comes back?

He won’t, as long as she’s with you. He smells wolven, he stays away. You can’t keep her forever.

Trevor bared his teeth. Risky business, leaving her alone to see if Khain would come back.
He sent another text.

What if she’s a one true mate?

Is she?

Trevor thought for a long time. He wanted her to be. But that meant nothing.

I don’t know. She could be.

So question her. Eliminate it or confirm it. Today. If she is one, I want her in my office asap.

There was an
echo
at her house. Housecat. It mirrored Troy.

Wade didn’t send anything back for several moments and Trevor knew he had rattled him.
Echoes
meant serious business.

Any message?

Nothing yet.

It could be a coincidence. You know what you have to do. See you in two hours.

Ah, right. The funeral. Trevor let his eyes slip closed, his phone held loosely in his hand. He didn’t want to leave…

One hour and a half later, Trevor came awake with a start. Trent was nudging him.

Funeral.

Trevor stood and rushed out of the room. He’d overslept and he’d have to go looking like he did. He had a dark jacket in his truck.

“Are you leaving?” Ella’s voice drifted out to him. He froze, then turned back to her. She was standing on the other side of the bed, her hands clenched.

“Yeah, there’s a funeral today…”

“Oh no.” Her sad face broke him. “Someone close to you?”

“Yeah, a cop I knew.”

Her face lit up with alarm. “A cop died? What happened?”

“That incident on 15
th
that I told you about two days ago, there was an explosion. He got caught in it. He didn’t have a chance, really.”

Ella’s face lost all its color. “Oh no,” she moaned. She collapsed onto the ground and buried her face in her hands. Trevor could hear her sobbing. He rushed to her, but the wolves surrounded her, licking her and whining to get her attention, blocking him completely. She held on to them tightly, but would not lift her face.

“Ella, what, what is wrong?” he asked gently, crouching down next to her.

She shook her head and continued to cry. He watched as she pulled herself together forcibly, with a great effort of will. When she looked up at him, her face was streaked with tears and her eyes were red. “I, ah, Trevor, I have to tell you something. And if you have to take me to jail, I completely understand.”

“Take you to jail?”

“Trevor, I lied to you. I was there. During the explosion. I was in that store. I-I can’t tell you exactly what─” She buried her face in her hands again and began to cry softly.

Trevor just stared, unable to process what she had said. If she had been there, that meant she had seen Khain. Could that be why he had gone to her house the next day? Trevor knew he could mark humans. But why?

“How did you escape?”

She looked up at him again, actively sobbing, as the two
wolven
whined and rubbed their heads on her. She took their comfort gladly, wrapping her arms around each of them, then shook her head. “I have to tell you something else first, so maybe you’ll understand. I-I’m crazy.”

Trevor smiled until he saw the emotion on her face.

“It’s true. If I’m not totally there yet I’m heading there. I hear voices. I black out sometimes, just lose my grip on what’s going on and when I come back, it’s minutes or one time, hours later.” She scrambled to her feet, Trent and Troy jumping out of her way as if they knew it was coming. She eased past Trevor to the other side of the room, then paced. “I’ve started sleepwalking. Doing weird things in my sleep. I painted something on the side of my house.”

She stopped and stared at Trevor, her face crumpling. “I think I hurt your friend. The cop who died.”

Trevor shook his head. “That wasn’t you.”

“You don’t know that! I did something. I─ There was another man. He came in the place and he was scary and big and I saw his face change─ that’s part of the going crazy, I know, and when he came after me I did something.”

“What?”

She threw her hands in the air and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know!” She dropped her hands and stared at him. “I think I caused the explosion.”

“How could you possibly─?”

She shook her head and tears dripped off her face. “I don’t know. Maybe I… made a bomb in my sleep or something.”

Trevor stepped to her, not quite daring to touch her. He hovered his right hand over her shoulder but dropped it and tried to catch her eye instead. “Listen to me. That… man who was there? We know who he is. He’s done this before. He’s the one who killed the officer. I recognize his handiwork. Believe me, Ella, it was not you.”

Ella sobbed again and dropped her face into her hands, although in relief or disbelief, he couldn’t tell.

“The funeral starts in a few minutes. You should come with me.”

Her tears dried up, leaving only sniffles, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “But I lied to you. Don’t you have to arrest me for obstruction of justice or something?”

“No. No way. I know you had a good reason. And you’ve told me now. I’ll need to hear the whole story but I don’t want you to be so upset. Would you like to be hypnotized?”

She looked at him then. “Really? You can do that?”

“Not me, but I have a co-worker who does it often. It will keep you calm. Help you remember everything.”

Something dark passed over her face that he couldn’t decipher but she pushed it away. “Yes,” she said firmly. “I do want that.”

Trevor stared at her, even as his phone started to go off. He was late, but what he wanted to know was the only thing more important than the funeral. He had to know if she knew. “Ella, I have to ask you. The man who broke into your house, was he the same man at the store, where the explosion happened?”

She nodded slowly, absolute terror in her eyes. Trevor nodded back.

He would have no problems getting her to come back to the safe house after the funeral.

***

Ella slid out of Trevor’s truck at the cemetery, not surprised at the sea of blue she saw. It looked like the entire police force had turned out for the funeral, most of them in their dress uniforms. She hated that she was dressed in ordinary, everyday clothes, and not something befitting of a funeral, but they hadn’t had time to get her different clothes. She pulled her jacket tighter around her, dismayed that the day was unseasonably warm for fall. The sun beat on her hair and her shoulders and she could already feel the heat of it, but she would deal with it.

Trevor and the dogs came around to her side of the truck. “We’ll stay towards the back,” he told her, motioning for her to walk towards the crowd.

She did, and they arrived on the edge of it just as a police officer was finishing his speech. “That’s Deputy Chief Lombard,” Trevor whispered. “My boss.”

Ella looked him over. An older man with just-beginning-to-gray hair and a kind face. He looked wise and thoughtful.

“… Officer Pickett will be much missed, but his spirit and dedication will live on forever in his memorial. We have lost many brave males to this fight, but the fight is not lost, because of the braveness of those who have gone, and those still on this earth. If I could say one thing to Bardron Kato Pickett, it would be this. We remember you standing tall and true, brother. We watch you as you go into the Light and we envy you your peace. May your fight be forever over, and may your image forever walk with us, in friendship.”

Ella felt tears threaten for this man she didn’t know as the crowd moved and began to break apart. She clung hard to the hope that Trevor had given her, that she couldn’t possibly be the one responsible for his death. She heard the sighing of the crowd and looked around, surprised that she didn’t see any women. Well, one maybe, up at the very front, staring at the deputy chief, as the men around her stared at her with something like awe, like she was a celebrity. She turned to Trevor to ask him who she was, but Trevor’s face held a sadness that made her forget everything but him. A small tear ran down one cheek to his chin.

Ella reached up and laid her hand on his shoulder, not realizing her life would change when she did so. The touch rocketed through her body, starting in her fingertips and almost shooting out her toes and the top of her head, like a wave of soft pressure rippling through her. A wave that brought clarity and calm emotion flowing after it.

Trevor Burbank was not just some cop doing his job, keeping her safe. He was the answer to everything that was wrong and off in her life. He was her other half, and now that they were together, she was ok. The slow crumbling of her mind would stop and reverse. He was for her, she was for him, and together, they would build something good, pure, and unbreakable.

She stared at him, unable to speak, or look away, even when his eyes met hers and she could see that he was feeling everything she was.

***

Contentment and joy swept through Trevor like a cold fire, burning away everything that had been there before. He turned his eyes to Ella. His
renqua
burned with her touch, even though her hand was on his other shoulder, but somehow he knew that she was causing it. The burn was soothing, and it brought a message. But did he dare hope the message was true?

He reached up and took her hand from his shoulder, lacing his fingers into hers, not caring that his whole world could see them if it just turned around. This was their moment. It belonged to no one but them and he wasn’t going to miss it─

“Trevor, your eyes…”

“What?”

“They’re yellow.”

Trevor pulled his hand out of hers and grabbed his phone, turning on the camera and pointing it at himself.

But no, his eyes were the same color he saw every day when he looked in the mirror. He looked down at Trent and Troy and they both shook their head slightly. They hadn’t seen it.

You smelled different, but only for a second,
Troy sent.
Actually, you both did.

Ella frowned and looked down at the dog and for a moment, Trevor had to wonder if she had caught any of that. But no, how could she? Only a few
wolven
could communicate telepathically with other
wolven
they were especially close to, and no humans could that they knew of, and she was not
wolven
, was she?

A thought hit him. What if she was a half-breed? That would explain his attraction to her.

He grabbed her hand again, but the sensations did not return.

Harlan coming
, Trent warned a split second before Harlan called out to him.

“Trev,” Harlan’s deep voice called from behind him. Trevor whirled around, dropping Ella’s hand and positioning himself between Ella and Harlan.

“The
felen
have hit up dispatch. We’ve got a disturbance.”

A week ago, Trevor would have been thrilled to hear such news, would have taken off like a rocket towards it, even though it didn’t make sense. Now though, all he wanted to do was stay with Ella. “What do you mean, a disturbance?”

Harlan drew close, tall and big, like all of the KSRT, but not quite as tall as Trevor. He peeked over Trevor’s shoulder at Ella. Trevor tolerated it, but barely. He eyed Harlan’s jugular and lifted his lip, feeling his fangs try to grow.

Harlan spoke softly. “They think he’s trying to cross over.”

“Trying?” He turned to Ella and gave her an apologetic look. “Will you excuse me for a second?” She nodded and looked around nervously. Trent and Troy drew close to her sides and she threaded her hands in their fur, relief strong on her face.