Force of Nature Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 4) (26 page)

“Well, why don’t you get to the point already? There are things going on that you’re well aware of, and I can’t be responsible for how she reacts later.” Gordon started to stand, but waited for some approval from Phil before he started pacing. “There are things going on, things that could come to hurt you, and Phil has agreed to help me keep you safe.”

She looked at them again.
Seriously
? Phil was a nice man and all, but protect her from Paddy? She didn’t think he had a violent bone in his entire body. She grinned at him when he sat next to her.

“What do you suppose you can do that I can’t? No offense, but you’re not really the type of man I’d call if I had a bully. You’re more the…behind the desk and sue their ass sort of bully.” She took his hand as she continued. “I think the world of you and your family, but I think you might want to sit this one out.”

“Honey,” he told her with a grin that was not at all nice. “I’m more scary than anything in this room. I’m a vampire.”

Chapter 5

Phil waited for her to say something. He could see that she really didn’t believe him. He didn’t blame her. There were days when he didn’t believe it himself. He sat back and waited for the questions, hysterics…something. What he got was a complete surprise.

“Vampire. Okay, so if there are werewolves, there should be something…someone bigger, right?” Alexis got up to pace as she talked seemingly to herself. “Paddy wasn’t nice before he did whatever, and now he’s…well, I was going to say monster, but I don’t want to be mean to that species either.”

“Alexis,” Gordon started, only to be ignored. When he looked at him, Phil simply shook his head. He thought she might be able to work this one out on her own.

“You can walk during the day. Is that the norm for your…what are you, a species or a race?”

Phil grinned. “Race. Species makes us sound like we were invented in a lab somewhere. We’re real. And no, it’s not normal for a vampire to walk in the daylight hours. My mother is a pureblood and my father isn’t. I can eat food as well as drink from a person. Part of my natural charm, I suppose you could say. Are you all right, honey?”

She nodded as she continued pacing and speaking. “So there are more of you. Okay. Probably lots of people I know are…aren’t what they seem. I guess I’ll have to pay more…CJ? Is she a…what did you call it, a were?”

“Yes,” Gordon said. “CJ was turned when she mated to Austin. She’s a white wolf, rare for us even as a natural wolf. She’s a gift to our pack.”

“Doesn’t that make it hard for her to hunt?” Before either man could answer, she answered her own question. “Of course, I suppose it doesn’t matter if you can just go down to the local meat market and pick up your meal. Sorry,” she said flushing. “I’m trying to absorb this.”

“You’re doing great. Go on, work it out, love.” She glared at Gordon and had Phil nearly laugh out loud from her expression.

“You’d do well to take the vampire’s advice and shut up.” She paced some more before she suddenly stopped and took several deep breaths. “I just told a werewolf to take the advice of a vampire and shut up. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. I need to…I need to take…. I’ll be—you’ll have to—I’ll be right back.”

Neither man moved when she suddenly dashed out the side door to her office. She was running across the field and toward the waterfall before either man stood. When Gordon started to go after her, Phil stopped him.

“She needs this. Let her go. You’ve taken her blood so if she gets into trouble, you’ll know it.” Phil looked around the room. “You should see if there is anything in here that you can get a clue about your mate.”

“What do you mean? Snoop?” Gordon shook his head. “I can’t do that to her. She already doesn’t trust me not to hurt her. If she figures out that I’ve gone through her things it’ll make matters worse.”

Phil looked around the room that was so much a part of the girl outside that he could see why she loved it here. He sighed heavily. He’d been a vampire for nearly four hundred years and still couldn’t understand the human psyche. Even this wolf seemed to have no clue about women. Not that he was having any luck with his own mate, but that was another story.

“What do you see in this room? Take away the fact that you’re a cop and look at this room as if you’re looking through her eyes.” Phil did the same. “The windows, the sheer size of them, what does that tell you?’

Phil looked out the large wall of windows. They’d been specially made for this room, he knew. There were three of them and they didn’t just come together as much as they blended to give the room the natural setting. He didn’t doubt that the woman who designed this room was as in love with nature as the man she’d been fated to be mated to.

The first window was nearly ten feet at its widest width. At the top it was about four feet and then got larger as it went to the floor. The trim around it was an old oak log. The wood had been cut in a way that the glass looked like it was there naturally. The next pane of glass was nearly fifteen feet in width. It was only a few feet smaller at the top, and it too fit into a log of dark cherry. Phil could actually smell the wood now that he was in here. The last panel of glass was over thirty feet and overlapped the next wall, which was stone from the mountain the house rested against. The masonry work alone to put the wall together had cost Alexis a fortune, but she could well afford it.

“She likes the outdoors. She has a lot of it in here as well as outside.” Gordon was looking at the room from the window. “She said her bedroom had a view. The one time I was there, I don’t…she and I got distracted and I can’t remember what it looked like.”

“Yes. When the house was being renovated I was onsite. Her room, the master suite, is below us. Much more below us. She cannot only see what’s behind you, but more. Most of the room’s view is of the waterfalls, and the stream goes right past her windows. When she purchased this house, she did it because of the way it sat. The builders told her that she’d never get what she had in the house, but she told them to…well, they built it to her specs, but made fun of her ideas while they did it. I think once the house was finished they were the ones eating crow.”

Gordon nodded. “She spends a lot of time in here. So do the children. She has a lot of wood worked into the room. Almost as if she was trying to keep the world that’s just out there at her fingertips. She…she’s going to be a beautiful wolf.”

Phil thought so too. Not only did he think she would be a more beautiful wolf than CJ, but he thought she’d be a bigger gift to the pack now forming. Something about Alexis made him think she wasn’t simply a woman with a great deal of brains. He’d bet anything she was a woman with a little magic too.

Gordon spoke and brought him from his musings. “She doesn’t trust me. Not at all, and I’m not sure what to do about that. She’s been hurt, hurt more than what the other wolf did to her the other day, hasn’t she? And more than…more than her sister’s death. What happened, do you know?”

He did, but he didn’t feel it was his story to tell. He also knew that the little girl, Darcy, was hiding behind more than her not speaking. The little girl was suffering in ways that no one could really see. He just hoped that someone reached her before it was too late.

“I can’t tell you that. That tale is going to have to come from her.” Phil saw her coming across the field. “Gordon, you know that she took this all very well, but I doubt that it will help you overly much in what you want from her. You should simply mate with her and then try to make her understand what you’re trying to do.”

Phil winced when he thought about the advice he was giving the wolf. His own mate, Gordon’s sister, was driving him crazy right now. And if he could just get her in a room for more than five minutes without her taking a strip off his hide he’d do the same thing and take her. She was his mate and damn it, he was tired of waiting on her. He frowned when he thought about where she was. He wasn’t thrilled about her not telling anyone where she was all the time. He wasn’t even sure that Austin knew and he was her alpha.

Alexis came in the door just as her office door opened. Sis walked in, took one look around, and started for Gordon. No one said anything as she took his hand and led him to the couch. When she pointed to it, he sat down and she crawled up into his lap. Phil wasn’t sure who was more shocked by the move, Alexis or Gordon. Phil decided they didn’t really need him anymore and slipped out of the room.

~~~

Gordon looked down at the little blonde bundle in his lap. She was sucking her thumb and her eyes were closed. He could see her lashes as they fanned across her cheeks. He leaned down and buried his nose in her hair. Sunshine and warmth was all he could think about. He looked up at Alexis when she sat down across from him.

“She’s never done that before. Not since my sister…she doesn’t trust others since Judith died.” Gordon had a moment to wonder if the child was more like her aunt than either of them realized. “When she died they were so lost. Darcy most of all, but Sis seemed to bounce back. At least during the day. She still screams in her sleep.”

“Were they there? The children, were they there when it happened?” He knew that the boys hadn’t been there. They’d been away at camp, according to what he’d read in the report from Dallas.

“Darcy was home from school for a doctor’s appointment. Sis isn’t old enough to go to school yet, and Judith couldn’t manage day care on what little she’d get from the state. I told her that I’d pay, but she was very prideful and wouldn’t let me.” Alexis stood to take the baby from him. He stood with her and she led him out of the room.

They put her into her little bed. Gordon could see that the two girls shared a room. He could even tell which sibling shared what part of the room. The side that held the bed that Sis now occupied was covered in dolls and books, pink stuffed animals, and a bright pink spread. The room looked like a child played there. The other part was in deep contrast to this one.

The spread was a dark purple. That, as far as he could see, was the only color on that side of the room. It wasn’t as though the room was done in black, but it was devoid of color of any other kind. The walls were white, the dresser and the desk as well. There were no books on the shelf, the bed was neatly made, and nothing was out of place. He looked at Alexis when she cleared her throat.

“She didn’t want it any other way.” She looked at the bed. “Nothing I could do could make her chose a color. The spread was picked out by Sis or she’d have a white comforter too.” She nodded toward the door. “Let me show you out. Sis will sleep better if we leave her be.”

Gordon followed her out without a word. He wasn’t leaving her, not that night or any other night if he could help it. She was his and he needed to claim her before Patrick Booth hurt her. And he would once the pack started to come down on him. He’d do whatever he could to hurt her more than she’d already been hurt by him.

When they were in the hall leading to the front of the house he pulled her to him gently. When she started to protest, he kissed her. He didn’t kiss her hard or even with as much passion as he wanted, but simply brushed his mouth over hers.

His body screamed for him to take her. His wolf, nearly at the breaking point, seemed to claw at him from the inside out. Gordon was careful this time to keep it slow; he didn’t want to frighten her and he didn’t want her to knee him again. When he moved to take another taste of her mouth he felt her stiffen. He didn’t let her go as much as moved her behind him.

“Paddy, what the fuck are you doing here?” she practically snarled at the man in front of him. “You’re not supposed to be within five miles of me and the kids. Get out before I call the—”

Paddy roared at her when she came around Gordon to get to the other wolf. It was all Gordon could do not to shift and take the man. He had his scent now and he’d pay for upsetting Alexis.

“It’s time you left. Now.” Gordon let a little of his humanity go to let the other wolf see that he meant business. He knew that this was the man who’d hurt his mate and also the man who was terrorizing the children, and it was now his job to protect them as much as he could.

The whimpering startled him for just a second. Before he could stop her Alexis was out from behind him and making her way to the sound. The man, Paddy, didn’t move a muscle, but stood smiling at him. He smiled like he knew something that Gordon didn’t.

“You the wolf who sprayed himself all over my future mate? You’d better stay the hell away from what’s mine, little cub. I’m going to take what should have been mine in the first place, and you are inconsequential to my plan. The other one was a waste of my time.” Paddy nodded toward where Alexis went without looking at her. “The scrawny one didn’t tell me about this beauty before I fucked her. Had I seen her first, you’d be minus a bed buddy. And now that you’ve marked her it’s every man for himself when it comes to claiming her.”

He moved quickly and had Alexis in his arms before Gordon knew his intent. When Paddy stilled her struggles with a hand around her throat, she looked at Gordon with tears in her eyes. His wolf roared. Gordon felt the change coming. His beast wanted to kill.

“Let my mate go and I’ll let you live long enough to apologize to her before I tear your throat out.” Gordon felt his body respond to his mate’s terror. His wolf moved along his skin and tore at him. “This is between you and me now. Let Alexis go.”

Paddy licked her throat to her cheek. “Hum, delicious. I can’t wait to have this sweet thing beneath me, screaming out my name. Do you know what I did to her sister? Do you have any idea what it felt like to kill her? You’d do well to remember I’ve tasted human blood in terror, little boy, and I’ll have no trouble killing her just so you can’t have her. Leave her to me and
I’ll
be the one who lets
you
live.”

The sound of a door slamming made them all freeze. Paddy jerked once as if he’d been hit. Then he leapt toward the door as a shot rang out, and Gordon could see where blood stained his shoulder. With a snarl toward something in the doorway, Paddy Booth shifted and leapt through the front door that was open.

“Find the kids and stay with them.” Gordon looked to the door where the wolf had gone. “I’m so sorry about this.” And he shifted. The last thing he heard before going through the still open door was someone screaming.