Let the Wild Out (21 page)

“You take the word of the Duncanis over your own?” Magda’s
voice dropped.

“I take my own logic. Like it or not, Magda, I choose
Rachel. Douglas chooses Rachel. There is nothing you can do to stop our
upcoming wedding. She will be chieftess and if anything happens to her, I will
make sure my next bride is a Duncanis from Australia with a well documented
history from the prison colonies. I am sure the notorious mass-murdering
shifter, Darius Drake, had children while banished there.”

Magda gasped in horror. “You wouldn’t! That wolf ran rampant
over the civilized world. His children are outcasts! You would dare taint the
royal bloodline?”

“I most definitely would. So decide, Magda, Rachel or a
Drake?”

Rachel had heard stories of Darius Drake when she was
little. They were scary bedtime stories warning shifters of what happened when
they didn’t obey the rules. Darius had been a feral wolf that terrorized Europe
in the 1800s. When they caught him and he said he was a shifter, the humans
instantly stamped him insane, drugged him, and carted him off to Australia’s
prison colonies. The details of the transfer were hazy, but she seemed to
remember that shifters had been the ones to take him so his secret was never
seen and shifters were not exposed. The werewolf murders had been big news at
the time, second only to some of the vampire stories.

Rachel wasn’t sure how she felt being compared to a Drake
descendent. At least she was a step above crazy. She was still more disturbed
that the two chiefs came to America specifically to judge her bridal suitability.
How did she even get on their radar? Was it the omni-shifting? They had seemed
genuinely surprised when she told them about it.

Magda asked. “Is that all?”

“No. Unfortunately your role here only works if I trust you.
I don’t trust you. The Duncanis does not trust you. I do not have proof of your
crimes against us and that is the only reason you are not going to be severely
punished. If proof does surface, then I will deal with you accordingly at that
time. Call off the attacks, Magda. Whatever else you have planned, call it off.”

“What will you do with me?” Magda whispered.

“I think it is time you retired. Officially, because of your
years of service and loyalty, I will accept your retirement and gift you with
the Southern cottage. You stay there, out of trouble, or unofficially I will
have you dragged away in the middle of the night.” William’s tone lightened. “I
am sorry it has come to this. You have been good to me over the years.”

“Apparently not good enough,” she said angrily.

“You may stay for the ball tonight and announce your
retirement there. You will be watched, so don’t try anything.”

“Goodbye, my chief,” she grumbled bitterly.

Rachel heard footsteps and pulled back down the hall. She
wasn’t quick enough. Magda saw her and stopped. Rachel opened her mouth but
nothing came out. Rage burned in the other woman’s normally composed gaze.

“The others will never fully accept you. If you think I’m
the only one unhappy with this union, you are more foolish than I thought,
little fish,” Magda stated before storming down the hall, out of William’s
private wing.

Rachel didn’t move. William quickly appeared through the
door, glancing after Magda and then to Rachel. “I didn’t hear you in the hall.”

“You were distracted,” Rachel answered. “So is that it? Is
it over? Magda is banished and…”

“She should no longer be a threat to you.” William came
fully into the hallway. “She’s not foolish. She’ll call off any attack she has
planned. The woman is politically motivated, not suicidal. I should have seen
it earlier, I’m sorry. But whatever happens, we will keep you safe.”

“So if it’s over, I can go home now?” Rachel crossed her
arms over her waist. Her stomach churned and her heartbeats felt heavy and raw.

“What do you mean?” William asked. “Home?”

She didn’t meet his eyes. If she did, she would get lost in
them just as she always did. “I know you targeted me. I know I’m the reason you
were in Colorado. It wasn’t a chance meeting. Douglas found me, sent you a
picture, and you both came to check me out to see if I was marriage-worthy. It
wasn’t fate. It was politics.” She hugged her arms tighter. The shirt she wore
smelled of his laundry detergent. “I heard everything, William. Magda’s right.
She’s not the only one who will oppose to me as a chieftess. I have said it
from the beginning, what do I know of this life? I will go to the ball tonight
because I promised you both I would. But then I want you to let me go home. I
don’t belong here. I belong running the Colorado sanctuary. That is my destiny.
I think this whole crazy experience was to show me my place in the shifter
world.”

“You can’t mean this,” William stated.

“I can and I do.” Rachel frowned. “I know you are listening,
Douglas. You might as well join us. It will save me from having to repeat this
later.”

Douglas appeared down the hall. He walked slowly. His
stricken expression found hers. “You can’t leave.”

“And you can’t make me stay,” she countered. Well, in truth,
they could. They were the most powerful shifters in the world. “I don’t know
how you knew about my abilities, but that is the only reason I can think of
that you would come to America to find me.”

“I went to America to find a bride who was not politically
motivated to be with us,” Douglas said.

“That does not make it sound any better,” she answered.
Somehow, she’d convinced herself that their joining was fate. What a silly
notion, fate. This circumstance was planned. They planned it for political
reasons.

“We thought you were a trout,” Douglas said, “and we wanted
you anyway.”

“What he means is we do want you. We don’t care what kind of
shifter you are,” William amended, trying to soften Douglas’s bluntness.

“But it does help that you are strong. For that alone the
people will accept you.” Apparently, Douglas did not want his point to be
softened.

“The fact we care for you will also persuade them.” William
tried to smile at her. His hand lifted briefly in her direction as if the
gesture could draw her in. “Those who are resistant will come to accept you.”

On one hand, here she had two very attractive, smart, sexy,
powerful men practically on bended knee. On the other, she had a lifetime of
Elvie’s warnings, hippie teachings and self-doubts. Elvie would tell her to let
the wild out. How could she do that as chieftess? Elvie would tell her to be
careful, that she should never have let them see her gifts. She would warn
about how the hundreds of years of single life could change. Today they might
not experiment on her kind, but shifters had in the past and they might again
in the future.

Her brain and her heart were not meeting eye to eye, and she
didn’t know which organ to trust. Was her heart foolish? Was her brain over-thinking
a very simple thing?

If the truth were known, she had thought she’d have more
time to decide. When she’d told them both—mere hours before—that she loved them
and would re-address the marriage thing when the threat had passed, she didn’t
expect the threat to be resolved so quickly.

“One of the maids said something about having a dress
delivered to my room for tonight. I’m going to shower, nap, try it on, do other
girl things.” It was a lame excuse to get away from the two of them, but if she
stayed there much longer her heart would take completely over, and she would
give in to whatever they wanted.

“Be careful,” William said. “You should be safe, but it’s
wise to be careful until Magda leaves.”

Rachel nodded and moved away from them, not really focusing
on her surroundings as much as she should have as she walked to her guest room.

 
“Magda is leaving?”
Douglas asked. “What happened?”

“I should ask you the same thing.” William stared down the
hall where Rachel had disappeared. He wanted to go after her, but he had seen
the look on her face. She was confused, hurt, mostly confused. “I thought we
were going to confront Magda together.”

“The moment came up and I took it,” Douglas answered. “I was
on my way here to tell you. It appears Magda found you first.”

“Yes, I banished her with some stern threats. Legally, we
can do little else without proof. I don’t think she will cause problems. At
this point, if something happened to Rachel, she knows she’d be blamed.” William
took a deep breath and motioned into the game room. “Care for a drink? It looks
like we have some things to discuss.”

Douglas nodded, following the man inside.

The ball was everything Rachel imagined a 19
^th
century English manor gala would be, with the addition of vampires, fairies,
witches, a goblin or two who apparently snuck in the servant’s entrance to
crash the event, what looked to be a pet troll brought in under a large, black
blanket, and a handful of creatures she had no idea what to call. Candles
burned over the hall, shining over the crush of bodies filtering through the
main entryway. Fresh cut flowers scented the air by their sheer volume, and
their large, crystal vases sparkled like stars around the edges of the dance
floor. A live quartet played ballroom music. Rachel’s dance experience was
limited to country line dancing and techno bobbing in dark clubs. Jumping up
and down at a high school rave hardly prepared her for something like this.

In what Rachel was sure was one of Magda’s final jabs, the
gown she’d been given to wear was one size too small and only buttoned up the
back with the aid of a corset. It made it hard to breathe. Though ornate, with
a flared skirt of purple tulle and ribbon, she thought the look better suited
to the top of a wedding cake or in a ballet than on her body. Thankfully,
though, she seemed to match the other ladies in attendance.

Who she didn’t match was Douglas and William. Their tuxedos
were dark and of the finest cut, complete with a deep red accents that clashed
with her ballerina purple. Still, she stood between them as their joint date
and greeted all who entered the hall. She didn’t have much to say to anyone, so
she did her best to stand quietly and smile.

Magda did not show herself. Rachel wasn’t sure if that was
comforting or not.

As the last of the guests arrived, she was introduced to
some of the residents of the manor. The sisters Faith, Hope and Charity were
polite, and seemed to have little ill will towards her apparent position as
what they termed “the chiefs’ favorite”. Judith was a dark, slender woman whose
movements looked better suited to the ballerina outfit Rachel wore. Then came
the infamous Lisbetha and her less noticeable companion, Ginger. Ginger didn’t
stay long, as her eyes wandered off towards a group of young-looking vampire
men in attendance with King Kristoff. For all Rachel knew, each vampire could
have been centuries old. When she greeted the pale creatures, they had the
distinct smell of dust beneath their heavy cologne.

Lisbetha, however, stood out from everyone in the crowd. Not
only was she beautiful, but her sleek evening gown was the exact shade of red
that accented the chiefs’ tuxedos. Her blonde hair was piled on the top of her
head and her makeup was flawless. When she took her place next to them, she
looked like she belonged.

“I see my father’s tailor did a stunning job. I chose very
well,” Lisbetha commented. The woman’s ploy worked. Rachel felt like the
outsider. Already she was uncomfortable in her tightly cinched gown, but now
anyone who looked at the four of them would easily pick her as the odd one out.

“Rachel, would you honor me?” Douglas asked.

Rachel shook her head in denial. “I don’t dance like this.”

“We can show you,” William whispered.

She eyed the couples on the dance floor. They looked as if
they had been doing the steps for centuries. There was no way she was going to
let the chiefs take turns while she stepped on their toes and made a public ass
out of herself.

“I would be honored to dance with you, my chief,” Lisbetha
said loudly as she looked up at William.

He glanced around. Several had heard the woman’s decree, and
he had little choice but to lead her to the dance floor.

Rachel resisted the urge to trip Lisbetha. She watched
William lead the woman artfully in the dance steps. As jealous as she was, there
was no way Rachel could even begin to mimic the movements. The combination of
heat and a tight corset caused her to sway on her feet. A tiny bead of sweat
worked its way down the back of her neck. She blinked, suddenly lightheaded.

“How long do I have to stay here?” Rachel asked Douglas.

“Rachel,” Douglas whispered a little too harshly, as he
grabbed her elbow.

“How long do I have to stay here?” she repeated. Her vision
blurred. She heard a gasp and the music stopped.

“Why are you yelling?” Douglas asked in her ear. He tried to
force her to walk but she couldn’t pick up her feet.

“Yelling?” She frowned. “I don’t feel right.”