Dark Refuge (27 page)

Tears were streaming down her cheeks and Gabe covered one of her hands with his. He didn’t think he’d ever been as proud of anyone in his life. She was absolutely amazing.

And yet her father still hadn’t said a word. If anything, he looked ready to explode, though Mei appeared on the verge of collapse. What the hell had they done?

Chapter 17

Em sat back in her chair, wiped her tears with her cloth napkin, and took a sip of her wine. She’d been so afraid of telling her story, but with Gabe beside her it had been a whole lot easier than she’d imagined. She shot him a grateful look and he shared a smile with her that seemed to warm her from the inside out. She’d blamed the Montana cold, but it wasn’t the Montana chill at all.

Merely nerves making her shiver.

Once again she faced her father. If anything, he looked even more pissed off. She didn’t get it, but she wasn’t going to let his anger stop her. “I saved myself that day, but you took that victory away from me. Why? And how did you get everyone else to forget? Gabe didn’t know I’d been kidnapped; neither did Mac. Gabe’s done a lot of online research, and I’m not mentioned in the story at all. Not even alluded to as a nameless victim. Nor was the fact he’d been killed by an obvious predator part of the story, but I can guess that the pack wanted that bit left out. Still, Luci and Phoenix were with me that day, but they’ve never said a word.” She glanced at Anton and shrugged. “Sorry, but when she was little, Luci couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. Not without help. Did you help cover this up, Anton? Were all of you part of it?”

Without warning, her dad exploded up from his seat. “Yes, damn it! Anton was part of it. I was part of it. Our fucking goddess was part of it. We did it for you, and if you’re so ungrateful, so . . . He turned away and cursed, then ripped his clothes off and shifted. A snow leopard, snarling and out of control, raced from the room.

“Oliver!” Her mom was on her feet the moment her dad leapt from his chair, but he was gone before she’d stripped out of her jeans. “Let me go after him. Please, Anton?” When he nodded, a second snow leopard left.

Gabe was on his feet, ready to chase after them, but Em clung to his hand. “No,” she said, sobbing. “No, Gabe. Stay. He’s furious. He could kill you when he’s like this.”

Anton had stood but he’d stopped unbuttoning his shirt when he heard Mei’s plea. Now he turned at Em’s cry. “Do you think Oliver could be that violent, Em? He’s usually so calm, so organized.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but sometimes . . . There was always so much anger in him. Mom could calm him down, but he used to scare me when he’d get upset about something. It was worse after I was kidnapped, though I didn’t know that until the memories came back. Something about what happened to me affected him strangely. I don’t think he’s acting like a man upset his daughter was abducted. It’s more personal for him.”

“I think, for now, we let your mom have her wish and see if she can handle things.” Anton glanced at Keisha, and she nodded. “Good. If my mate agrees, it means I didn’t make a stupid decision. Believe me, she has ways of letting me know.”

“I tell him.” She looked at Anton and shook her head, as if this was a long-standing agreement between two who had loved long and well. “As hardheaded as he can be, I’ve discovered the direct approach is best.” She turned back to Em and said, “Emeline, I know this has got to be so unsettling for you, but whatever is going on, your father will come around. He loves you, and he knows he is much loved in return.”

Em took a deep breath and thought about that for a moment, and hated the first thing that came into her mind. “Do I? Do I love him? Everything he does makes me furious. Why?”

Keisha smiled softly and reached for her hand. Squeezing Em’s fingers, she said, “It’s because you love him. Because his responses, his actions, fall below your standards, and as a daughter, you have very high standards. You should. Daughters are what make men better than they might otherwise have been. They will do their best to be good role models for their sons, but they want to be magical princes for their daughters. Think about it. When you were small, didn’t you expect him to slay dragons for you?”

Em realized she was smiling. “Or at least get Aaron to quit picking on me.”

“Me? But I was a perfect big brother.”

She turned so quickly she almost fell out of her chair. “Aaron? How did you know to come?”

“Anton called me. What’s going on with Dad, sis?”

Gabe interrupted. “Aaron, do you remember when Em was kidnapped by the serial rapist?”

“What? That never . . .” Stunned, he glanced from one face to the next. “When? Why don’t I know anything about something so awful?”

“Something we’re trying to figure out,” Anton said. Then he turned to Em. “For what it’s worth, Em, your father was wrong. I had no part in covering the story up. I don’t remember the details either. It’s like a memory written in smudged, pale pastels when everything else is sharp and clear.” He glanced at Keisha. “What about you?”

She shrugged and held out her hand to Aaron. “Aaron, sit down. Have a sandwich. Gabriel? Em? Eat. As for you, my love? No, I don’t remember and it infuriates me that my memories have been tampered with. I know it was not you, and I know you are as angry as I am, but I can only imagine how Emeline feels. It’s a rape of the mind to have memories stolen.”

Em glanced at Keisha and felt as if a huge weight had lifted. She didn’t want Gabe’s parents to be involved. It was bad enough that her own had done this. Smiling through her frustration, she turned to Anton. “In my case, I can accept that I buried them myself, but Gabe and I were certain that you were the only one with the strength to make others forget. I am so glad it wasn’t you, but even the online records of the case are incomplete. How could that happen?”

“What the hell happened?” Aaron grabbed the untouched sandwich off his mom’s plate.

Em gave him the much-abbreviated story, and Aaron kept shaking his head in total denial. “Wow, Em. I had no idea. None.” And then he turned to Anton as if he held all the secrets.

Anton laughed and raised his hands. “For once, I’m innocent. I didn’t do it.”

“No, Anton. I did.”

They all turned at the same time as Eve walked across the room and took Oliver’s empty chair. “Anton, I could really use a drink.”

Even the pack alpha had a bemused expression. Eve was entirely corporeal, as real as any of them at the table, and she never, ever ate or drank on this earthly plane. “Cognac or wine?”

“Bring the Hennessy. I think I’m going to need it.” She looked directly at Em. “To you, my dear, I owe my deepest apologies. You were a child when I deferred to your father’s wishes, but he had long been my friend, and, for a brief time, my lover. I knew his history. His childhood was stolen from him. You know his story, and it was awful. A toddler sold into slavery, castrated to become a safe”—and she practically snarled the word—“
plaything
for the daughter of a wealthy man. If Adam, my mate at the time, had not figured out a way to give Oliver what had been taken from him, you and Aaron would not exist.”

Anton set a glass of cognac down in front of Eve. She took a sip and closed her eyes with a look of utter bliss. “Thank you. We have wonderful wine on the astral, but no one has figured out yet how to make cognac appear at the flip of a wrist. We need to work on that.”

“Obviously, I would not do well there.” Anton sat down and sipped at his own glass.

“Don’t worry, Anton. You and Keisha have long lives ahead and many things yet to do. It will be a long, long time before you pass through the veil.” She held her glass up and stared sadly into the depths. “I cannot stay long, but Em, I am the one who dampened the memories of those involved. They were not removed entirely and I have set in motion the process that will allow them to return slowly, so as not to frighten anyone. For that we have the Mother to thank. She rarely interferes, but in this case her assistance was more than welcome. Your memories were so deeply buried that I honestly didn’t think they would ever surface, not even during mating.” She dipped her head in Gabe’s direction. “But then I did not take into consideration the power of the one who would love you, or the strength of his love.”

She finished her drink and stood. “I must go. By taking this form, I’ve exhausted my time here, but I needed to see you, needed to tell you how sorry I am. I hope your father will come to see that hiding the truth is never good for anyone. I’ve learned my lesson, but I am so sorry it was done at your expense. I ask you to forgive me. I know it will be a long, long time before I forgive myself, or make such a terrible mistake again. Be happy, love well, and love long.”

Em wasn’t sure how quickly Eve faded from sight. Her eyes had filled with tears as she thought of the agony her abduction must have meant for her father. He had his own horrible past to think of when she’d been taken. She grabbed Gabe’s hand. “We need to find Dad. I want to tell him that I understand. Will you . . . ?”

“Of course I will.” He leaned close and kissed her, and then smiled at his parents. “Mom, Dad, I think we need to go make peace with the man who’s going to be my father-in-law before too long. That is, if my mate will agree to marry me at the winter solstice?”

She laughed at the question in his voice. As if there was ever any doubt what her answer would be.

• • •

They shifted on the deck beneath a gloomy sky after leaving their clothes inside, and damn but it was cold in the few seconds before he managed to cover his bare skin with thick fur and a wooly undercoat. They’d decided to go as wolves, though Em figured she’d shift to her leopard form once they found her dad, since wolves and leopards could not communicate well. She leapt from the deck first, following the clear prints her father’s leopard had made across the snowy meadow.

Gabe followed her lead. Watery sunlight shivered off the ice, but clouds moving in from the west spread shades of gray across the monochromatic landscape. Their broad paws crunched over the surface, breaking through scant inches in some of the softer places but finding firm footing most of the way.

Oliver’s tracks were easy to follow, and it appeared he might be heading toward a rocky outcropping that overlooked the valley where most of the houses had been built over the years. The afternoon was bitter cold. As they followed Oliver’s trail across the frigid landscape, what little sunlight there’d been disappeared behind the clouds, and then behind the mountains as they drew closer to the shortest day of the year. Their breath left vapor trails as they ran, but the only sounds were the crackling of ice underfoot and their harsh breathing as they raced through the gloomy afternoon.

Emeline ran with complete confidence. Gabe proudly followed her, his respect for her growing with each step they took across the icy ground. She was willing to face her father and settle their differences now. Too often he’d watched humans and Chanku alike put their problems aside, avoiding them rather than dealing with them. That wasn’t his way, and he was pleased to see that it wasn’t Em’s, either.

It was amazing that he knew so much about her, and yet so very little. Their minds were filled with one another’s memories and knowledge, but they’d not had time to sift through those memories enough to make sense of them. He’d found the knowledge of Em’s language skills, though, and he fully intended to put those to use. He’d already had fantasies of wooing his mate using an obscure Mandarin dialect. Anything to surprise her.

There were so many things they still had to learn about each other, but they had the rest of their lives to find out. And they’d only been back together now for a little over a week.

I’m picking up my mother’s and father’s mindspeech. They’re not very far ahead, but they’re leopards and I can’t understand what they’re saying. I’m going to shift. If we stay within sight of one another, will you stay wolf? Your senses will be more attuned to any danger. My cat senses aren’t as strong.

She shifted as she ran, something Gabe had never seen her do. It was absolutely beautiful, almost as if one creature flowed into the other. Her wolven coat was snow leopard–marked, and it was almost as if the wolf ran ahead of the leopard as the leopard crawled in beneath the skin of the wolf to emerge fully cat when the shift was complete.

Her pace changed, from the easy ground-covering lope of the wolf to the choppier gait of a leopard genetically designed for leaping across craggy mountains in search of game. She was quiet, though, moving soundlessly across the frozen snow, her paws barely marking the icy surface.

Emeline paused and Gabe raised his nose to the air. He scented Oliver’s leopard, but it was a bit farther up ahead. Mei was coming closer, and he shifted, taking his snow leopard form so that he could understand her. She slipped out of the trees, as quiet and as beautifully graceful as her daughter. Walking up to Em, she touched muzzles with her and then sat back on her haunches. She turned and gazed at Gabe, where he waited a few feet away to give the two women privacy.

Come closer, Gabriel. You need to know what has happened.
She waited until he took his place next to Em.

Emeline, your father is very ashamed. He doesn’t want to face you. He admitted to me that he lied about Anton, that his anger wasn’t with you, it’s with him. I told him he’s a coward. He agrees. I’ve been against his actions and his lies since the day you came home so terribly emotionally wounded, but he wouldn’t hear it. He made me promise not to say anything to you, and it’s put a terrible strain on our mating bond. I’m angry and disappointed with him, but I told him I will no longer lie. It wasn’t fair to you that he put his fears and his inability to deal with those fears on you, his only daughter. I hope that someday you will be able to forgive me. I’m not sure I have it in me right now to forgive myself or your father.

She stood and walked a few paces before looking back at them over her shoulder.
I’m going back. It’s time to apologize to Anton and Keisha. Our pack alpha must be absolutely disgusted with us. But I am so glad you have found love, Emeline. And so happy it’s with a man both your father and I admire. Blessings to both of you, and Gabe, welcome to our family. We’re not always this odd. I must admit, while I still love Oliver more than life itself, I don’t like him very much right now. Emeline, I hope you can get your thickheaded father to accept he was wrong.