Unleashed by Shadows (By Moonlight Book 10) (32 page)

“You have no idea what I’m used to.” With that flat remark, Colin moved into the living room, pausing at the entertainment system to lift the portrait of a dark-haired woman. “This her?”

“Your sister? Yes. You haven’t met her?”

“Not yet. She’s beautiful,” he mused with a slight smile. “I like the boy. A nice family. You must be proud.”

“Yeah, a regular flag waver.”

The moment of softness disappeared. A hard edge returned to his company. “I kinda resent that tone.”

“I don’t think you have the right to feel one way or another about it.” Alcohol fueling his contentiousness, Alain took the picture from him to replace it sloppily on the shelf.

“You’d be wrong. Someone insults my family, they insult me. Do I look like the kind of fellow who takes that lightly?”

“I don’t care if you take it with cream and sugar. They belong to me. You’ve never even met her.”

“We share relatives. That makes her mine whether I know her or not. My clan is put together like Pick Up Sticks with all sorts of pieces crossing where they fall. If we touch in one spot anywhere along the line, we’re family.”

“Must be expensive at the holidays,” Babineau mumbled. He found his bottle and put it to his lips, only to have it confiscated.

“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” Colin tipped it and took the rest in two swallows. “So,” he began as he placed the empty on the coffee table, “Where, in the middle of the night, is this family that belongs to you?”

“Out at Savoie’s. He’s the boy’s brother. One of those crossing sticks you were talking about.”

Colin studied him for a beat, hoisting a brow. “That pisses you off, does it?”

Babineau scowled. “Why would it?”

“I don’t know.  Why does it? They run off or something? Something to do with the way you can’t seem to find the floor with both feet?”

“What would you possibly know about losing family, seeing as how you have to wade through them to take a leak?”

“I helped release the souls of two of my brothers just before Cale took his crown. I watched my mother weep over my step-father and their two sons. I might have been able to save them but I couldn’t join them because I was one of the Twelve of the House of Terriot. My mother and step-sisters resent the fact I’m alive. I know a thing or two.”

Babineau met his unblinking stare. His misdirected animosity fell away. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass. I had no right to say that.”

“That’s okay. Our lines cross now, too. Otherwise, I’d have probably killed you.” He smiled, making his comment more, not less, menacing. “So, I’ve told you mine. Tell me yours.”

“Cale wants to make my boy his heir. I traded them for his help to settle an old score.”

This time Colin did blink. “I changed my mind. I think I will kill you.” He crossed to the well-used couch and plopped down on it. “After you tell me the rest of the story.”

“This might take another six pack.”

*

Alain Babineau’s story started with an ambitious young cop out to make an honest mark for himself within a system that offered temptations often too good to ignore. Or too dangerous.

“My daddy was a good man. He started out as a State cop over in Jefferson Parish until he got clipped by a nervous teenager during a routine traffic stop. They wanted to put him on a desk, but his back couldn’t take it. He ended up doing private security work, nights mostly, leaving me and my mama home alone. The insurance money provided enough so my mama didn’t have to work but she liked to keep busy. She started volunteering at a call center for some local police charity. She was pretty, had a great laugh and smile, could charm a gator out of a set of luggage.”

Colin caught on quick. “What did she get charmed out of?”

It took a carelessly whispered comment during middle school baseball practice for Alain Babineau to find out. When he confronted his mother, she begged his forgiveness and his silence, vowing she’d made a mistake that would never happen again. Only, of course, it did, pulling a boy between the two people he loved.

“It got so I knew she was lying whenever her lips moved,” the detective said quietly. “How could I tell my daddy? We were his whole world.”

“Did the poor bastard ever find out?”

“No. He had a massive heart attack when I was a senior in high school, thinking he still had that perfect family. And there she was, crying over his coffin with her lover’s arm around her, no one the wiser but me.”

“Let me guess. End of happy family?”

“I went to the academy right out of school and never looked back. Promised myself I’d never be taken in by lies.”

Colin’s mouth curved into a cynical smile. “How long did that promise last?”

“Until my first real relationship went south. Until I got my shield and lost my illusions about the nobility that came with it. Until I found out my partner’s lover was a mobster and some kind of monster. That the woman I trusted and married and the son I wanted to call my own were the same kind of animals.”

Alain fell silent. He’d laid bare more than he’d planned and wasn’t willing to part with the rest. Not with this man he didn’t know well enough to entrust with his secrets.

“Guess you’re glad to have Cale come along to take them off your hands then.”

“Maybe,” he muttered, not looking up.

So why wasn’t he?

Mood unreadable, Colin put his second empty aside and got to his feet, still steady as a bridge abutment. Maybe he wasn’t interested in hearing that answer. Or maybe he’d reached a point where he’d become a danger to his new family member if he heard it. Either way, Alain didn’t ask him to stay. He locked up after the Terriot prince, leaving him with darkened rooms and shattered dreams.

As he lay down on the twin bed, breathing in the scent of teenage boy, the truth got too big to ignore.

How was he going to let them go?

*

Silas met Kendra at the door. She barely noticed how strained and strange his expression was. He caught her hands to detain her just long enough to say, “Kendra, he’s all right. Don’t be scared by the way he looks,” then let her run to him.

Despite his warning, the sight of all that blood nearly dropped her on the spot. There were others in the room but all her focus was absorbed by the figure sprawled on the couch, his dark head in the lap of a somber little blonde girl. Kendra went to her knees, not daring touch him until she saw the slight movement of his chest.

Getting a tight grip on the frantic emotions pushing for escape, Kendra reached out a less than steady hand to stroke his cheek. Warm skin, no trace of fever or deathly chill.

“Cale. I’m here.”

His eyes opened, instantly seeking her out. Finding her beside him, he smiled and murmured, “Hey, mama. Where you been?”

“Looking for you. How do you feel?”

He reached for her other hand and clutched it tight, his own crusted with gore. “Better now with you here.” He glanced around and called her down close so he could whisper hoarsely, “Don’t leave me, Katy. If you love me, baby, don’t leave me. They’re here. Ghosts, demons. She said they weren’t, but I can see them. Everywhere. Don’t let them take me. Not yet.”

She smiled, pretending his fearful claim didn’t rattle her. “I won’t,” she promised, drawing his hand up to place it over her heart. “I’ll be right here. You close your eyes and try to rest. I’ll keep you safe.”

She kissed him and lifted slightly away, continuing to smile and hold his hand until he drifted off again. Only then did she dare check for damages.

Very carefully, she lifted the hem of his saturated shirt, expecting the worst and finding a puzzle. No wound. Just a new scar. Like the ones on his back. She looked up at Brigit as the same conclusion dawned in her cousin’s eyes.

Someone had healed him. Had brought him back from the brink. Or had they brought him back over it? Kendra sought out Silas for answers. “How long has he been hallucinating?”

“I don’t know. He was lucid when I picked him up. He said he’d been drugged.”

“Is it Kick?”

“Possibly. But I don’t think so.” A coolly lovely female with crisp Northern tones crossed over to put out her hand. “I’m Susanna LaRoche. I’m a doctor. Silas brought him to me.”

“Did you heal him?”

“No. I do things the old fashion way. I’d just met with Cale, professionally. We were hoping to separate the compounds to come up with an antidote.”

“And?”

Kendra read the hesitation in her solemn dark eyes, her struggle over what to reveal from what was shared with her in confidence. Finally, she settled for a vague, “He’s got some very difficult days ahead of him.”

Critical days, the other female’s intensity conveyed.

Kendra understood. She could still lose him.

Charlotte Caissie stepped forward. She and Max had been lingering in the background, having followed a rather frantic Silas down from their floor above.

“It’s late. We have an extra bedroom where he could rest more comfortably. And it’s secure. You’re welcome to stay until he can travel.”

“I’m a floor away if needed. For anything,” Susanna added.

Kendra regarded them, these strangers who so freely offered aide to those outside their clan. Maybe she should have felt suspicion or some vague reluctance, but her reply was filled with simple gratitude as she thanked them. She stepped aside so Max and Giles could lift a motionless Cale, able to tear her anxious gaze away only long enough to fix it upon her unusually withdrawn cousin.

“Silas, we need to talk.”

*

Savoie’s massive top floor apartment was as conservatively sophisticated as their rooms on Canal Street had been decadent. Rain beat against the wall of windows overlooking the city and river far below. While Brigit and Giles talked with their hosts in the elegant sunken living room, Kendra confronted Silas over Cale’s still figure on the bed.

“Tell me what happened,” she demanded, voice low and fierce. “All of it.”

He spelled out everything he knew in heavy monotone, each word weighted with guilt. She listened without interrupting, emotions tightly gripped by the necessity to do whatever she had to for her king to stay alive.

“Who brought him back?”

“I think it was the little girl, Jacques’s daughter. She has . . . abilities. She and Cale have some sort of connection.” He paused to take a breath. “You have to get him away from here, Kendra. Lee knows who he is, and probably, who you are. I’ll charter a plane to take all of you back to Reno. Keep him sedated, in chains if you have to. Just get him out of here before he does something no one can bring him back from.”

After he’d gone, she sat on the edge of the bed listening to Cale’s quiet breaths, wondering how she’d have survived if she’d never heard him take another one. She didn’t cry. She had no more time for tears. She had decisions to make that would shape the future of her clan and her life.  She couldn’t let either of those events go on without Cale.

She heard someone enter the dimly lit room and glanced up to see Brigit, saying automatically, “He’s fine. Resting comfortably.”

“I came to ask about you. How are you?”

“I’m scared and I’m angry and I love him so much it’s crushing me.”

“What are you going to do?” Brigit came to sit, not next to her, but on the opposite side of the bed. She reached out to stroke her knuckles lightly along Cale’s relaxed jawline, regarding him with equal fondness and frustration. “He wouldn’t have been my choice for you at first, but I’ll do anything I can to make sure you keep him.”

“It’s more than me just keeping him, Bree. It’s him wanting to be kept. If I put him in a cage to keep him safe without his consent, he’ll hate me for it. If I do nothing, I’ll lose him anyway. I can’t stand the thought of breaking him or watching him do it to himself. I can’t leave him, and I don’t know how to help him if I stay.” Kendra caressed his other cheek then let Brigit catch her hand in a supportive grip. “Why are all the things I love about him the same things that break my heart?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s the strongest, fiercest, most selfless man I’ve ever known, Bree. He’ll let this kill him if I don’t stop him. And if I stop him, it’ll destroy what we share between us.”

“Sleep on it, sweetie. Don’t force yourself to make a choice you’ll regret. He’s safe here with you. Let that be enough for tonight. Let tomorrow take care of itself.”

Kendra nodded at that wisdom, wishing Brigit a quiet thank you and a good night. When the door closed behind her cousin, sealing the room in intimate shadow, Kendra removed one of the diamonds from her ears and replaced it in Cale’s.

“I have half of your love, my king, but the rest still belongs to your clan.” She bent to kiss him gently. “See that you stay alive to serve us both.”

*

Alert to possible danger, Max woke to the scent of rain-washed air. Cee Cee lay asleep beside him. The luminous numbers on the nightstand read 3:07 a.m.  He slid out of bed, prepared to deal with an intruder before remembering they had company. He doubted the delicate Terriot queen had decided to take a walk on his patio on a moonless night. The alternative made him anxiously pull on sweat bottoms and a tee shirt before moving silently, swiftly through the living areas to where one of the sliders stood partially open, letting in a cold damp breeze.

At first, Max didn’t see him out there in the darkness. When he did, his pulse lurched.

Cale Terriot stood on the far corner of the patio atop its waist high wall, his blood-stained shirt snapping crisply in the night air. He stared out into the distance.

Careful not to startle him, Max crossed the open space like one of the thin clouds scudding across the sky. When close enough to grab for him if he needed to, Max said conversationally, “Not planning to jump, are you?” then smiled to himself, suddenly remembering when someone special had said the same thing to him. “I’d pick a better spot.”

Already aware of his presence, Cale turned his head slowly to glance down at him. “What?”

“If you’re planning to jump, I suggest the other corner. It provides a straight shot to the sidewalk. If you go through one of those slanted glass roofs down there and land in the lap pool on seven, you might survive it.”