BlindHeat (26 page)

Again Jake wished for telepathy to warn Seth. Upwind he
might not catch the same scent that had warned Jake, but Jake noted a shift in
stride, the slightest hitch and tilt of head that signaled something had
alerted Seth too.

Threat confirmed. Now how to remove it fast? He had Allie in
a van back at the shop, threatening to shred anyone who came near Marcus or
Maya. He didn’t know how long he had before one of the tenants in apartments
above the shops on either side of his might notice the activity in his
backyard. How long before someone spotted the leopard in the van.

“Trouble?” Seth asked as he joined Jake. But his eyes cut
quickly away to the left, a signal of where he thought trouble lay.

Jake went along. “We need to maintain inner silence, which
is always troublesome. But trouble of the external variety? I guess that
depends on your definition.”

Seth ducked his head and murmured, “I’d say trouble is more
problems than there are people to solve them. Let’s just say I draw a line in
the sand. How many problems do you have on your side, Jake?”

“Two. One large and threatening, the other much smaller,
distant, the sort that lingers at the edge of your awareness, a nagging little
voice.”

“Well, I win. I have three. I think all three fall into the
major problem category. Especially when you toss a few firearms into the mix.”

The air vibrated tension and Jake wanted badly to scan
minds, but memory of the underlying vibrato in Allie’s anguished screams
wouldn’t let him risk it.

The yard was quiet. A bad sign. Too many predators lurked in
this yard. Small night creatures watched, waited for the coming confrontation.
Who would blink first?

Behind him, a slight shifting in the air, the sensation of a
snake uncoiling crept up Jake’s spine. Their smallest problem had decided to
move in.

Jake started to turn his head, but Seth signaled him to hold
with the slightest shift of his own. “Sometimes you just need to get a closer look
at what you’re up against.”

“That’s right, cowboy.” The voice had a hard edge, a nasal
accent, rather than the local Southern drawl Jake had grown accustomed to.
“Hands away from your sides. Both of you.”

Around them shadows shifted as four other men closed in. Not
too many problems to take on, but if there was an easy way out, something
quick, Jake was willing to wait. A fight would bring the women running.

“So what am I up against?” Seth asked.

“You’re up against me, cowboy. What the fuck you doing in my
girl’s apartment?”

His girl? Jake couldn’t picture it. The guy was maybe an
inch shorter than Allie, his hair slicked back and gleaming like dark oil. He
had pointy, ratlike features. There was nothing about him, except that he
dressed all in black, that suggested a connection to Allie. Jake wrote off
relative. If not a relative then what? The gun in his hand, no bigger than a
deck of cards, gleamed silver in the faint light cast by street lamps.

“I’m her lawyer,” Seth said.

“Why does she need a lawyer? And what about the rest of the
gang in there, they paralegals?”

“You’ll have to ask her why she needs me. As for the rest,
some friends of hers, helping to take care of a sick pet until Allie gets
back.”

“I would ask her, but she hasn’t come home. Crowded in there
tonight. She hates crowds.”

Jake glanced at the blind, the shadows moving back and
forth. The birthing had them so focused they remained oblivious to the tension
in the yard.

Seth didn’t reply.

“What do you mean, your girl?” Jake asked.

“I’m asking the questions, hoss. Why does it matter what I
call her? You hang around here too much.” The barrel of the gun changed angles
from pointing at Seth’s chest to pointing at his. “If you were thinking of
making her yours, forget it or die.”

That wasn’t a place Jake wanted his thoughts to go, Allie as
his. They went there anyway. He wanted to crush the little rat’s skull with one
hand.

“Name’s Jake,” he said, letting hostility drip from each
syllable.

Seth shifted and drew attention back to him.

“You’d be smart to hold still, cowboy. Smarter still if one
of you told me where my daughter is.”

“Daughter?” They both said it together.

“You can’t…” Jake trailed off. Marcus had warned him Allie’s
father was trouble. All they knew about him was his first name, which made it
hard to track him down. No way was this guy a shifter. Okay, so he didn’t know
every member of every tribe. But a guy this protective of his daughter would
not let her live alone among humans.

“What trouble is she in? Why does she need a lawyer?” He was
training the gun on Seth again, but Jake knew there were other guns in other
hands. He could smell the scent of gunpowder lingering on one of them, evidence
they didn’t hesitate to use them.

“It’d be easier to show you than explain,” Jake said. “And
if you’re really her father, you’ll know why it’s best not to bring your
friends along.”

Something flashed in the guy’s eyes. Jake knew in his gut
the guy knew. He understood exactly what kind of trouble Allie was in. Jake’s
hope that the claim of daughter was either lie or mistake was crushed.

“Tell me what she’s done,” he said. He looked away from Jake
just long enough to spit at Seth’s feet. If he was trying to rile Seth, he’d
have to work a lot harder.

Seth was looking at Jake, waiting see just how close to the
truth Jake would take it.

“It’s not so much what she’s done, Mr…”

“Say it or die, fucker.”

The corner of one of Seth’s lips quirked up just a hair, he
raised an eyebrow. He didn’t need telepathy to know what Seth was thinking.
It’d be something like, why don’t you tell him your name again. Jake wasn’t
going to rile easy either. He couldn’t afford to let Seth or Eddie get to him.
“It’s not what she’s done. It’s more like who she is. Or what.”

Eddie underwent an instant attitude adjustment. He slipped
his gun in his pocket. “Head, we’re going for a ride. I’m not back in an hour,
see to it the friends inside are sorry about that.”

Head, three times the size of his boss, but not as big as
Jake or Seth, nodded and consented with a grunt. His eyes spit hatred.

“We can take my car,” Allie’s father said, waving Jake and
Seth to the backseat of his Cadillac. The scent of a little pine tree air
freshener was overpowering, but it didn’t quite cover the scent of fear-laced
sweat, the kind of scent that permeated the air around a man about to die. The
back doors were like the ones in police cruisers—they didn’t open from the
inside. Bullet-proof glass separated the front and the backseats. The Cadillac
was the cliché of a mobster mobile, right down to the sliding window, which
Allie’s father opened when he joined the driver in the front seat.

“Let’s have some directions, hoss. The faster we get there
and back the happier your friends will be.”

Chapter Fourteen

Allie was holed up in the back corner of the van. Ben had
positioned himself close enough to the door to keep an eye on her, but far
enough back that she tolerated him.

Was it the right choice to bring Eddie here? Jake had never
felt so isolated. The weight of the responsibilities dumped suddenly on him made
it hard to think, to breathe. He wanted the woods, solitude, a long run and a
lot of howling. He was certain Allie wanted the same things. Well, not howling.

He wished he could touch her mind, but it had been pretty
obvious at the warehouse that touching her mind caused her pain. He wished he
could raise Marcus, or simply ask Ean or Adam how they had managed their mate
the first time she shifted. How had they eased her into managing a body so
foreign to the human form she was accustomed to? Allie must have had at least
some exposure to her beast side if Eddie understood the hint Jake had dropped.
Why was she so disconnected from this half of herself?

Jake headed for the van with Eddie trailing until Eddie’s
imitation of the soft chirr a mother cat used to call kittens toward a cub had
Jake swinging ’round to stare. Eddie passed him up and closed in before Jake
could warn him back.

A sleek female snow leopard filled the doorway, her green
eyes the one giveaway she was not your typical snow leopard. Her fur glistened,
her tail rose to full mast, twitching.

Eddie froze. “What’s this shit?”

At the sound of Eddie’s voice Allie sat, tipped her head.
She mewed, a soft, questioning sound.

Eddie went still, squinted in the darkness. “Kitten? That
you?”

Allie mewed again.

“Holy shit. What’d you do to her?”

Jake wasn’t sure how to proceed. The guy wasn’t acting like
a shifter. Yet there were elements of behavior suggesting that he knew
something. Jake looked at Seth, who shrugged. It would be easier if so many
lives didn’t depend on the decisions he had to make. Jake was quite happy being
the leader’s loyal assistant. He’d never had the slightest aspiration to carry
the weight Marcus willingly shouldered to protect the Pantherians. Jake decided
to say as little as possible, see what might be revealed. “What do you mean?”

She acts like she knows me, but— Last time she did this she
was a kid, a kitten.”

“Kittens grow up,” Jake said.

“Not into that,” Eddie said. “Why would you think that’s my
daughter?”

“I don’t know if this is your daughter. This is the woman
who lives in the apartment you insisted belonged to your daughter. I saw her
turn herself into this.”

“Yeah, so how come you didn’t piss yourself on the spot? How
come you act like this is an everyday thing?” Eddie’s voice rose, fear gave it
a quivery quality.

“She acts like she knows you, bud. Could we get her out of
the van and inside before someone notices all the activity out here and calls
the cops?”

“Too late,” Seth said, pointing a finger at a window in the
building next door, the curtain shifted and fell back into place.

“Shit,” Eddie said again. “You got something red, a blanket,
a towel? When she was little I used to lay one out. She’d come to me, lie down
on it, and turn back into herself.”

Jake looked at Seth. “I got a red plaid jacket on a hook in
back of the shop.”

Seth bowed to Jake’s taking charge of the situation without
batting an eye. He was gone, covering the ground in long strides, breaking into
a run as soon as he was out of Allie’s line of sight.

“Kitten?” Eddie asked again, inching closer. “Where you
been, baby girl?” He squatted on the ground a yard from her. The guy had balls.
Jake gave him that. Allie could be on him in one leap. He knew what he was
about too, making himself smaller by crouching. Less threatening.

Allie tipped her head, her tail was dropping, her ears
cocked forward, twitching.

The door to the shop slammed. Jake noticed the curtains
above stirring again.

“Not much time left before cops show,” Jake warned. “And you
need to get right up against the van, so that our busybody in the window can’t
see your girl when she comes to you.”

“What if she remembers how pissed she is at me and decides
to rip my throat out? What if this is all a trick and you just want to watch
that big cat eat me?”

“She can be on you and snap your neck before you realize
she’s going to jump. If she was going to eat you, she’d be done and puking you
back up by now,” Jake said. “She knows you. You haven’t pissed yourself and
you’re acting like women who turn themselves into cats is an everyday thing.”

Seth rejoined them and passed the jacket to Jake who only
got close enough to Allie’s father for him to just reach the jacket and take
it. He held Jake’s gaze. “You just think hard about the little ladies we left
behind. If I don’t stay healthy, they don’t stay healthy.”

The threatening tone agitated Allie. She was back up on all
fours, tail whipping, hissing warnings. Jake could see Maya’s hair, gold and
gleaming in the beam of a flashlight Ben aimed into the interior.

“Save the threats for later. See if you can sweet talk her
out of that van.”

Jake stepped back and let the little rat resume his wooing.
“Come to Eddie, baby girl. Look, I have your blankie.” He held out Jake’s
jacket. Again she mewed, her tongue swiped the air, tasting scent. Satisfied,
she inched forward her two front paws, now on the ground. She looked back over
her shoulder, uncertain about leaving her charges.

“It’s okay, kitty girl. Eddie can fix this. Don’t I always
fix everything?” He spread the jacket on the ground. She stretched her neck
full length, just far enough to sniff the jacket. “That’s my girl. There’s your
pretty red blankie. Aren’t you sleepy? Come lie down for me now.”

She moved onto the jacket, turning in a circle, sniffing.
Eddie reached out, his hand trembling. She could bite that hand off completely
with one snap of powerful jaws. Jake and Seth exchanged a glance.

Allie sniffed Eddie’s fingers, then butted his chest with
her head. He scratched behind her left ear and she lay down, purring as he
stroked her head. She yawned. Eddie cringed but held his ground, staring down
into a mouth big enough to crush his head. She lowered her head to her paws and
vanished, reappearing a few seconds later as a sleeping Allie.

Eddie pulled the corners of the jacket around her, trying to
cover her nakedness. Seth stepped up, threw his own shirt over her and lifted
Allie in his arms. Eddie grabbed his arm. Ben ducked behind into the van and
emerged with Maya.

The appearance of another naked girl set Eddie off. “What
were you scum having, some kind of orgy with my baby girl?”

Seth was ignoring Eddie, his head tipped to a sound Jake
heard too, the distant whoop of a squad car. He turned toward the shop.

“My place,” Ben called, heading into the shop with Maya.
Seth turned to follow.

“Not so fast, cowboy. She’s going home with me. Just as soon
as I deal with whichever one of you bastards caused this.”

Eddie dipped his hand back into his gun pocket. Jake had no
choice but to knock him flat. Seth took off and Jake grabbed Marcus from the
van, slinging him easily over his shoulder.

“This is the guy who caused it,” Jake said as Eddie
scrambled to his feet. “You want to deal with him?”

Eddie looked from Marcus to Jake. “He’s like her?”

Jake nodded.

“Are you like them?”

“Dude, you don’t want to know what I turn into.”

Eddie’s driver, a short, round guy, obviously on the slow
side when it came to protecting the boss, huffed across the yard waving a gun.
Eddie told him to go back to the car. The whoop of sirens was close enough to
hurt.

“Your girl shifted to save him and the other girl you just
saw. That’s all the explanation I have time to make. She’s found her own kind.
You want to keep her from that?”

Eddie studied Marcus. The squad cars turned down the street.

“I have to get them all out of here. I’ll be in touch as
soon as they are safe. You don’t want her to wind up in the place she saved him
from.”

Eddie shook his head no.

Jake signaled Atka in the driver’s seat to go and pushed the
side door shut. The van disappeared save for the sound of the engine receding
as it drove off.

Eddie blinked, rubbed the back of his neck with his free
hand. “Go,” he said. “I have experience holding off cops.”

“What about Allie’s friends?”

“Do they know about her?”

“Don’t think so.”

“I’ll make sure they don’t run into any problems.”

“I’ll get word to you later, Eddie. I’ll find you.”

“Just go.”

Jake was inside and headed up the stairs when the sirens
stopped behind his shop. He tossed Marcus over his shoulder and hoped his skill
with a mirror portal was sufficient enough to get him and Marcus through
without scrambling their DNA.

* * * * *

Marcus moved in and out of consciousness the way a car moves
in and out of patches of fog. There were clear spells, when he was aware of
Allie beside him. Moments when he’d been able to get his mind connected to
hers. He’d been ripped back to consciousness by her pain after she’d shifted
and the volume and blaze of telepathy threatened to drive her insane. He’d
silenced the others, warned Jake, and then gone back into the fog.

He recalled Allie’s response to her father, something other
than the animosity he’d expected. Then later he was in a soft bed with her body
spooned to his. Safe. They were safe and nothing more mattered.

As he fought his way through the fog to clarity now, he was
keenly aware of her absence. Not in his bed. Not in the house. He decided to
hold off telepathy until he knew where she was and in which form.

The house was quiet, save for the murmurs of adults gathered
downstairs, more than should be present in Ben’s house, Marcus realized as he
surveyed the guestroom he’d been frequenting more than usual these past weeks.

He recognized the bright spots of energy, seven babies
swaddled tight in blankets and sleeping on the triple king-sized bed in the
master bedroom. He moved soundlessly past the door. Marisa stirred but didn’t
wake.

In the kitchen he found them chatting over pancakes at the
long table with benches where the pack gathered for meals. Ben and Carlos,
plates empty. Ean was halfway through a triple stack slathered with syrup and
butter. Adam was urging Marie to dig into her untouched breakfast. Seth poured
coffee and pushed a mug next to the glass of juice Maya contemplated. Marcus
recognized the hung-over, headachy daze she was in as exactly the way he felt.

Allie, Jake and the rest of the Alpha pack were missing.

Seth hauled a chair from beside the wood stove and set it at
the head of the table for Marcus. “Jake took Allie to visit her father,” he
said, filling another blue mug with scalding coffee and sliding it in front of
Marcus.

The news snapped Marcus out of his daze. “Why would you let
that happen?” he growled.

“I sent two of my guys with them, Magus,” Ben said.

“If he meant her harm, Magus,” Seth countered, “he wouldn’t
have helped save her and you last night.”

“He helped? Maybe it’s a trick. Nothing Allie shared about
him suggests he’s anything but dangerous. A criminal.”

“Who raised a daughter he was aware was not fully human, and
protected her in ways that few humans would have been capable of. Not perfect,
but what she needed given her situation,” Seth said. “She’s with Jake. She’ll
be fine.”

“And what do you think her situation was?” he asked, but was
thinking about the girls upstairs, that Seth here meant one more person knew
Adam and Ean had taken a second mate. Pantherian law forbade any male having
more than one. Would forbid Marcus claiming Allie. It made him uneasy that he
had to keep breaking the laws. It made him uneasy that the number of males who
knew about the law-breaking was growing. Secrets didn’t stay secrets when this
many people knew them.

“A situation that is too similar to Marie’s to be mere
coincidence,” Adam said, cutting into his thoughts and bringing him back into
the conversation. “Jake said Eddie admitted Allie wasn’t his child. Allie said
her mother abandoned her to Eddie’s care. So we have a second Pantherian female
abandoned as an infant into the care of humans.”

“And not siblings,” Ean added. “We compared DNA to Marie
from that hair sample you gave Maya.”

“There’s just no way one Pantherian mother, let alone two,
would abandon a female child,” Ben put in.

Maya looked from him to Marcus and rolled her eyes.

“You don’t agree, Maya?”

“I think, especially if it was a girl, given that there has
been so little progress preventing the wasting, she might see it as a
last-ditch chance to save her baby. Maybe away from Pantheria it could survive.
Obviously it worked at least twice.”

“And the fathers would overlook a missing child?”

“They might. Or she might birth alone and conceal the female
baby, slip her out through a portal later.”

Ean interrupted. “Females don’t use the—” A lift of eyebrows
and a glare from Maya silenced him. If she had figured out how to use one,
others could have.

“I don’t go with that theory,” Adam said. “There are genetic
differences consistent between the two females we discovered in the wild.”

“In the wild?” Marie asked, joining the discussion for the
first time.

“It’s what we call the human world,” Adam explained, “far
wilder and more dangerous to our kind than the sensible order of nature.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that assessment.”

“You don’t have to defend the humans,” Ean said. “It’s not
like you’re one of them.”

“Hold on,” Marcus said. He hadn’t really wanted to get involved
in this discussion right now. He wanted to find Allie and Jake. Carlos slid a
plate of hotcakes in front of Marcus. Marcus picked up a fork to be polite, but
the scent of rich maple syrup and melting butter aroused nausea rather than
appetite. “Let’s stay on track here,” he said. “Why don’t you agree, Adam? What
genetic differences?”