Wanted by the Alphas (An Extremely Sensual Paranormal Shifter Romance) (10 page)

She smiles. “Sure, go ahead.”

He orders a variety of dishes foreign to her,
and then they settle back in their chairs over a pot of Chinese
tea, which the waiter pours into two small porcelain cups.

“So what brings you to Dolphin’s Bay? This
isn’t exactly the mecca of holistic medicine,” he says.

She wonders what version of her story to give
him. He seems to intuit this.

“I know,” he says. “You have the condensed
storyline to tell Patty and the rest of the small town gossips. And
then you have the real version. It’s OK. You can tell me the real
version.”

She hesitates, looking into his beautiful
eyes. She can drown into those eyes, and the moment she feels her
cheeks burning, she looks away. God, but he is so beautiful.
Different from Lucien, but just as beautiful.

He mistakes this for reticence.

“It’s OK,” he says with empathy, “you don’t
have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I thought you could use a
friend here who understands what you can do.”

“No, it’s OK. I want to tell you.” She needs
to tell someone about what happened to her to get it off her chest.
“I’m from a small town in Arizona called Tupelo.”

“Go on.”

He nods, his entire attention focused on
her.

The soft pink walls of the Chinese restaurant
melt away around them as she remembers.

TUPELO

“You can’t leave,” says the bodyguard she has
come to know as Damon.

“What do you mean I can’t leave?” she
demands.

She is extremely frightened.

“Senora Conchita needs you.”

Shannon tries to temper her anxiety by making
her voice calm. “And I will be here again tomorrow.”

Her trembling hands are betraying her. The
walls of the mansion around her are rose pink. The pink of a
hacienda glowing in sunset.

“But she needs you tonight to be with her,”
Damon insists, blocking her path.

“I have to go home. My brother is expecting
me.”

“Call him and tell him you have to work
tonight.” Damon is joined by two more cartel henchmen behind him.
Together, the three of them form a solid wall at the archway
leading to the hall, where the main doors are.

Her heart sinks. How the hell did she get
mixed up in cartel business? Oh yes, because they offered her a sum
of money she couldn’t refuse. That money would have allowed her and
Jared to take a few years off working if it does come to that.

So far, they have been paying her in
installments, but they are holding back the final sum until
Conchita – the matriarch of the household – gets better.

But Shannon knows she won’t get better. The
pancreatic cancer which is eating her alive is terminal. And worse,
the cancer is sapping Shannon’s strength and ability to heal. She
has kept Conchita at bay now for six months, but the cancer is
winning. Each time Shannon thinks she has managed to melt a bone
lesion away, another one would appear in Conchita’s brain.

Conchita is in terrible pain. So much pain
that morphine and all the cocktails of opioids and other
painkillers cannot keep it at bay. Pain like this is not compatible
with life.

But Marco, Conchita’s eldest son, knows that
with the passing of his mother, he would officially have to take
over the drug empire his mother has built. He is not ready for this
and the assassination attempts that would follow. So he is trying
to keep her alive for as long as possible.

Outside this hacienda, no one knows just how
sick Conchita Ruiz is.

Shannon has been feeling poorly for three
months now. She has not been sleeping well and she has completely
lost her appetite. She has lost ten pounds and her clothes hang
upon her body as though it is a rack. Her normally lustrous hair is
dry and listless. Her skin is pale and cold.

It is almost as though the cancer has latched
onto her soul and is bleeding her life away. She knows it is
psychological – there is no real tumor in her body. But the dark
blight upon her soul is very real, as if the shadow of death has
passed upon it.

Shannon turns from Damon in desperation.

“Call your brother,” he says again.
Pleasantly but dangerously. “Tell him you need to stay another
night.”

Shannon draws in a sharp breath.

Think. Breathe. Keep calm.

“I’ll call him,” she says in a shaky
voice.

“Good,” Damon says. He is a huge man.
Mexican. Towering above six feet four. Dressed to kill. Unlike
plenty of henchmen, he does not wear the proverbial scars of his
trade. “Would you like to use the house phone?”

“No. I’ll use my cell.”

She turns to walk away for some privacy.
This, at least, they allow her. So long as she does not leave the
hacienda.

She goes to a bathroom and locks herself in.
Upstairs, Conchita is crying out in pain. Her cries can be heard
all throughout the house.

She dials Jared’s cellphone and is gratified
when he picks up at first ring.

“Don’t tell me,” he says.

“They need me . . . for one more night.”

“Damn it, Shannon. You have been saying that
for the past seven nights. They’re going to kill you. She’s going
to die, and you with her.”

“I know. But they won’t let me leave.”

“Not if I can help it.” His tone is grim.

“No, Jared, don’t . . . these people have
guns!”

But he has already rung off. When she
frantically tries to call him back, her call goes to an engaged
tone.

A knock comes on the bathroom door.

“Shannon?” It is Damon. Pleasant but
determined. “Conchita needs you upstairs.”

*

Midnight.

Shannon is drained. She is in a little cot
next to Conchita. The old lady is on a hospital bed, connected to
infusion pumps filled with opiates. A monitor showing her heart
rate has been put on silent. The fulltime nurse they have hired is
outside, asleep. Conchita’s breathing is very ragged, and the whole
room smells of sickness and decay. Trays of food sit on the table
by the window, untouched by both Conchita and herself.

The barking of dogs comes again outside.
Furious barking.

Shannon sits up. Her ears are pricked.

More barking, and then comes the sound of
whimpers, as if the dogs are being frightened into submission.

Shannon’s heart is in her throat.

She gets up and goes to the window. There are
men shouting downstairs. It is as though an intruder has entered
the grounds and the guards have been thrown in disarray. She can’t
see anything but for the shadows of the trees.

A gunshot goes off. Then two.

In bed, Conchita groans.

The nurse enters the bedroom, frightened.

“Something is happening downstairs,” she
says. “We are under attack. Is it a raid?”

Shannon thinks she knows, but she can’t be
certain. The hacienda is a closely guarded and very secret
location, but you cannot rule out an attack by a rival Mexican drug
gang.

The nurse locks the door behind her and bolts
it. She is trembling.

“They won’t come in here,” she says, as
though to assure herself. “We’ll be safe in here. They won’t harm a
sick woman, will they?”

If that sick woman is Conchita Ruiz, they
might, Shannon thinks. Conchita’s ruthlessness with dealing with
her rivals is legendary.

Both she and the nurse huddle together in a
corner of the room, listening with growing fear. Gunshots puncture
the air, seeming to get closer and closer to the locked bedroom.
Rabid growls from a large animal intermingle with the cries of
men.

Please
, Shannon prays,
let
everything be all right.

There comes a thud on the door, and the
entire frame shakes. Finally, the door splinters apart. The nurse
shrieks as a very large black animal – the size of an enormous lion
– stands at the doorway. It is a panther, and yet not a panther.
Something about it is terribly intelligent and ancient.

Its growl sends reverberations through the
walls. Heat radiates from its body, and its breath is rank with
blood and human flesh. Shannon runs her frightened eyes over its
body and notes the torn flesh where the bullets have pierced.

Oh please don’t let him be hurt.

On the bed, Conchita flutters open her
eyes.

“Anubis,” she whispers in a surprisingly
clear voice, “have you come to take me?”

Shannon knows what she must do. She shakes
the nurse’s grip from her arms and runs to the panther.

Hold tight
, it seems to say to
her.

With the blood rushing in her ears to mask
out all other sounds, she leaps into the panther’s back and grips
its thick black fur. Its sleek muscles bunch beneath her and it
flies towards the open window. Shannon closes her eyes. Her mind is
a void as her entire being is concentrated on just holding on and
staying on the creature’s back.

The panther leaps out of the window and into
the cool black night.

For one preternatural moment, Shannon is
flying.

With a loud thud, they land on the ground
three floors down. And then they are off, flying into the night and
above the six foot wall with its barbed wire.

STORIES

It some ways, it is a catharsis for Shannon
to be able to tell someone what happened. But she leaves out the
part about the panther. That is not her story to tell but
Jared’s.

Kirk listens avidly until their food
arrives.

“We better get some chow in you,” he
says.

Shannon eyes the spread. Sweet and sour pork
is served together with a plate of stir fried vegetables. A bowl of
steaming hot rice is laid down for them to help themselves.

“It smells very good.”

“It is very good.” Kirk picks up a pair of
chopsticks. “Do you know how to use chopsticks?”

She shakes her head.

“Try it.”

She picks them up and fumbles with them. He
laughs. It is a rich, hearty laugh, full of baritone and
meaning.

“Here, let me show you how.”

Across the table, he gently takes her hand
and positions the two sticks between her fingers. His hand is warm,
and she suppresses the delicious but unbidden thrill running into
her knuckles and palm from his contact.

Get real. He’s your boss. And you’re dating
someone just as gorgeous, if not more.

At least, she thinks she is dating
Lucien.

“There is an art to it,” he explains. “Some
people end up holding them all wrong. The basic function of
chopsticks is to shove as much food into your mouth as quickly as
possible. That’s why rice is eaten off a bowl and the food on the
dishes is already cut up for you.”

He demonstrates. She tries to follow, but
ends up dropping her piece of pork on the table.

They both laugh.

Kirk signals for the waiter again. “Can you
bring her a plate and a fork and spoon, please?”

“I’ll get it right,” Shannon avows.

As they eat, Kirk asks more about her
powers.

“When did you know you were different?” he
says.

“When I was twelve. I came into puberty. I
had a cat named Marnie. She was bitten by a dog, and I was crying
because I thought she was going to die – she was hurt so bad. So I
didn’t know what to do, and I picked her up and held her and cried
all over her. I felt this warmth in my hands, and suddenly Marnie
was wriggling again and trying to get out of my grasp. The wounds
on her back and belly were closed up.”

“Did other people know this about you when
you were growing up?”

“Only my brother, Jared. I . . . I didn’t
want to be different, so I told no one.”

She remembers going out into the woods,
picking up small wounded animals to try to heal them.

“As I got older, I wanted to try my healing
on different living things. And so I volunteered at a Hospice. I
tried to heal all the old and sick folk there whom no one had any
hopes for recovery. That is when I realized my powers had
limitations. I can’t heal cancer. It takes too much out of me. I
can’t mend strokes. I can’t make the crippled walk again. I am not
God.”

“No, indeed,” Kirk murmurs.

“But I can definitely take away pain. I can
cool down fevers and stop infections from spreading and
inflammations from getting worse. I can knit bone – inch by
painstaking inch. I can close up wounds and lacerations. I can make
joint stiffness go away. I can make everything better, even though
I can’t heal what is terminally ill.”

“You have a great gift, and you have chosen
to make good out of it.”

She finishes her bowl of rice. Kirk was
right. The food is incredibly good.

She says cautiously, “You mentioned earlier
that you had personal experience with people with my kind of gifts,
but they used them for anything but healing. What did you mean by
that?”

Kirk grows silent. His chopsticks pause in
midair.

He finally says, “I can’t tell you exactly
what happened, because I don’t know myself. Except that I lost my
brother not too long ago under mysterious circumstances.”

She is intrigued. That must be the brother
she saw in the photographs.

“I’m so sorry. What happened?”

There is a long-drawn silence where she can
see that Kirk is debating how much to tell her. Just as she had
left out the part about Jared’s metamorphosis earlier because it is
not her secret to tell, he is doing the same – weighing how much to
leave out.

He says, “I wasn’t here at the time, so I
can’t really piece together what happened. My brother was out in
the woods. He was a lover of the great outdoors. He was found dead
. . . in a circle drawn with chalk on the ground.”

The hairs on the back of Shannon’s neck start
to prickle. She knows what he is going to infer to next.

WITCHCRAFT.

Kirk says, “There were no stab wounds or
bullet wounds or anything to suggest he had been physically mauled
by animals. So I can only conclude that he was done in by
witches.”