One True Mate 4: Shifter's Innocent Read online

  Cerise flipped through a few of the middle pages of the book, delighted to see they were all short explanations of things she knew nothing about. She stopped at a random entry and read, struggling through the first few words, then letting her eyes wander over the accompanying picture. She didn’t get out much; Myles never let them leave the farm and the last time either of them had been into the city had been years ago, the last time she’d tried to get Kaci away from Myles and Sandra, but even she could tell the Byzantine Empire had happened a long time ago by the pictures accompanying its entry.

  Cerise tucked the book into the waistband of her pants at her back and strode into the kitchen, letting her eyes unfocus and feeling viscerally for the money that had to be there. Nothing. She pulled a few vases down from on top of the fridge and peeked inside them anyway, but she’d been right. No money jar.

  She walked through the rest of the rooms, then made her way up the stairs after Kaci. “Anything?” she called out, then gasped when she saw what Kaci was holding.

  A gun. A compact one with a swirly-blue grip, like a piece of jewelry. “Put that down,” Cerise hissed.

  Kaci held it carefully and turned it over in her hands. “We could really use this,” she said, almost to herself.

  “Lemon, put it down,” Cerise admonished, her voice tight. “You’ll shoot yourself.”

  “Okay, okay,” Kaci said, and placed the gun on top of the dresser she was standing in front of.

  “Anything?” Cerise asked again.

  Kaci shook her head and pulled open another drawer, rifling underneath the clothes there. “Nothing so far.”

  Cerise turned away. It was no use searching up here. She felt nothing.

  Cerise clomped down the stairs and was just about to call Kaci to her when she remembered the pull, almost like a beckoning voice in her head, that she’d felt in the basement. Maybe there had been money in that box. It didn’t make sense that money would be in a plain cardboard box, but she would look.

  In a few minutes, she was in front of the box, with Kaci sitting on the bottom step, looking bored already. She hadn’t found any DVDs upstairs and that was all she cared about, trusting all the other details to Cerise.

  Cerise touched the box curiously, then pulled it open. But the box had gone silent. Cerise looked inside and found only Christmas decorations. She put the box aside, frustrated, even more frustrated to discover she could see around the basement better than she had been able to when they’d first entered. The sun was rising fast.

  Something on the wall, behind where the box had been, caught her eye. It was a small plastic square embedded in the wall, with a faint light flashing on it, like some sort of alarm system. She stepped forward and looked at it, drawing her eye close. A beep sounded, making her pull her head back, and a door to her left slid open. A door that had been cleverly disguised as only part of the wall. As she stared, the door slid shut as quickly as it had opened. A draft of air pushed against her face, bringing with it a lovely smell of evergreen trees, warm leather, and pure masculine male. Cerise frowned. The only male she’d smelled in the last few years was Myles, and he smelled like rotten fruit. Not a good smell.

  Cerise stared at the door, brows drawn, as Kaci pushed out a breath behind her and said, “Mega-cool!”

  Cerise frowned. They didn’t have time for this. But the tunnel called to her, and curiosity demanded she take another look.

  She ran her hands over the plastic square, looking for whatever had triggered it to open the first time. She felt no grooves or buttons, so she hesitantly moved her eyes in front of it and again the door slid open. Then shut again. Cerise stared at it, trying to puzzle out what the door could possibly be. She’d seen a dark tunnel beyond that seemed to lead for miles.

  Inexplicable desire to follow the tunnel clawed its way through her and she felt helpless to resist it. She dropped her head and thought furiously, trying to convince herself to go back upstairs, head out the door, and go home. They had a plan and they needed to follow it.

  But her thoughts flew like a hurricane inside her head, trying to convince her to follow the tunnel, to see where it led. It’s good. He’s good. He’ll fix everything for you. Cerise frowned again. She trusted no one, especially no man. Self-reliance was all that she had. Too bad she was almost entirely ignorant about the world outside their captive life. Just looking at the houses they broke into told her that. The person who lived in this house lived nothing like Kaci and Cerise lived.

  The voice spoke up again. Follow the tunnel. Follow the scent. Everything will be okay.

  Cerise looked to the broken window and the rising sunlight streaming in through it, then raised her gaze to the ceiling above her head, then looked over her shoulder at Kaci, who was gazing at her expectantly, waiting for Cerise to make the call. As naïve as Cerise was, Kaci was doubly so, and she knew it.

  Cerise pressed her lips together. No. She absolutely could not risk everything they’d been working toward for months on the complete unknown behind that door.

  Then why did she find herself beckoning Kaci to her, and trying to figure out her best plan of action to get them both through the door before it closed?

  Chapter 2

  “Where are we going?” Kaci panted.

  Cerise tucked her elbows into her side and ran faster, trying to discourage talking. “I don’t know, I told you.”

  “Then why are we doing this?”

  “Lemon, just trust me, please.”

  Cerise could no more explain why they were doing this than where they were going. How could she explain the voice? The feeling she didn’t even understand? The desire that made absolutely no sense? The anticipation of something wonderful, that she couldn’t justify, much less bring words to?

  Kaci snorted, but said no more. Their cheap shoes pounded on the concrete floor of the tunnel. Cerise eyed the next soft light in the distance. The lights were placed only every 50 feet or so, so that much of their forward progress was in complete darkness, but Cerise could tell they were alone in this tunnel. No animals. No people. No nothing, but them.

  The tunnel smelled musty, but not as musty as she would have imagined, as if someone took care of it, cleaned up, kept it dry. The sounds of their passage through it was dampened but echo-y at the same time, making her frown and wonder exactly how long the tunnel was.

  Ahead of them, a few feet past the next light, she could see a doorway. Her eyes focused on it, drawing her body there. That was where she was going. She could feel it. They’d gone maybe a mile to the east, towards town.

  Cerise slowed her pace to a walk, her eyes on the door. Kaci let out a huff next to her. “About time,” Kaci said, irritation obvious in her voice.

  Cerise ignored her, and examined the door as they neared it. Next to it, another plastic square was affixed to the wall. This time, Cerise did not bother touching it, she just leaned in close and let it see her eyes. The door opened, then shut again too quickly for Cerise to react, but a breeze of scent bathed her face. She took a deep breath and sighed. The scent was dark and strong and she wanted more of it.

  “Cool,” Kaci said. “It’s just like the other one. Let me try.” Kaci stood on tiptoes but couldn’t get her eye up to the height of the plastic box. “Give me a boost.”

  Cerise maneuvered behind her and bent in a slight crouch, then lifted Kaci a few inches, letting her climb on Cerise’s leg. The box beeped again, but the sound was a harsh, denying sound, not the pleasant blip that signaled the door would open.

  Cerise lowered a pouting Kaci back to the floor. Beyond the door, she had seen only darkness. Anything could be there. “You ready?”

  “Yeah,” Kaci said, excitement in her voice. Cerise knew she was surprised to even be let inside. Cerise tried to make her wait outside as often as possible, but it wasn’t safe in this tunnel. Cerise had no idea what the tunnel was for, who built it, and who might be patrolling it. Kaci had to stay with her.

  Cerise leaned forward, wrapping an arm ar
ound Kaci’s shoulders. The box beeped pleasantly, and both of them stepped inside. Kaci tried to whisper, but Cerise shushed her.

  She felt/listened in the darkness. Another basement. Empty, but the house itself was not. One person. Motionless and horizontal. Sleeping, two floors above them.

  She bit her lip. They should not be in this house, but the desire rose up inside her again. She had to be in this house. She had to find out what it was that was calling to her. It couldn’t be money, the call was different. It wasn’t a cold, emotionless ping of paper and metal from a stationary spot, but more like a friendly hand curling around the nape of her neck, encouraging her to do something she wanted to do anyway.

  “You stay here,” she whispered to Kaci.

  Kaci grabbed her hand tight and wouldn’t let her go. “No way am I staying here in the dark,” she whispered back fiercely.

  Cerise blinked. Kaci had a point. She looked around and tried to see anything. Dark shapes loomed to their left and she could barely make out a clear path in front of them. She curled her fingers around Kaci’s. “Okay, come on, but we aren’t staying long. Just for a second.”

  Cerise took small, mincing steps across the floor until she sensed, and almost saw, a stairway ahead of them. She moved to its left and felt along the wall for a light switch. There. She snapped it on then turned to look around the basement. This one was finished with a thin carpet and only a few plastic boxes along one side. A clear plastic container of DVD cases drew her eye. She nodded to Kaci. “Look.”

  Kaci sucked in a breath. “I thought you said no movies.”

  “If you stay down here while I go see… something, I’ll let you bring one home.”

  Kaci was already drifting that way. “Deal.”

  Cerise stared at the wooden stairs leading up to the house beyond. Who was she kidding? If she were caught, if anything bad happened here, Kaci was in a world of trouble. She couldn’t get back out into the tunnels, couldn’t get back to the house that Zeus waited patiently behind, and couldn’t explain why she was here. And still that desire clawed inside Cerise. She had to see what (who) was upstairs.

  Cerise ascended the stairs quickly and pressed her ear to the door, listening/feeling beyond. All was quiet. She eased the door open and stepped through, then closed it softly behind her. She lifted her nose and took a deep breath. The scent she was drawn to was everywhere, calming her, pushing her to find its source.

  Her eyes passed over the small, neat kitchen, then traveled to her left. A dining room with table and chairs. To her right was a living room with a couch along one wall. She walked that way, tiptoeing on numb feet. What was she doing? Risking everything! Cerise grimaced. Just waking up was a risk for her and Kaci. She was doing something, and that was better than not doing anything. She had to believe it.

  Along one wall, there was a couch, but no TV. She and Kaci had broken into twelve houses in the last three months and all of them had more furniture than this one did, all of it pointed at a huge, slim TV mounted on the wall, so different than the one she and Kaci watched at home. The tiny, boxy, awkward one they were lucky to have.

  Her body tuned to the male she knew was in the house, she let her eyes travel over what else was different about this house. On every spare inch of wall, gathered in elaborate patterns, were pictures in simple wooden frames of all shapes and sizes.

  The total effect of the images was to make Cerise forget her purpose for a moment. The number of pictures on the walls must have been in the hundreds, some bigger than a notebook, one as big as a window. Most were smaller, the size of half a piece of paper.

  One of the biggest ones was of a city with brightly covered buildings rising from the ground. The second biggest one was a forest seen from the treetops, another a river winding between two bluffs, a fourth a bird in flight glancing back at the camera. Cerise held her breath and turned in a circle, taking in an overview of all the pictures that covered every wall in the room.

  It took her a few minutes of staring to realize what was off about them, different about them from other houses she and Kaci had broken into. Every picture was shot from above, or from high in the sky, like they’d been taken from an airplane.

  Cerise stopped spinning and stared at one wall, opposite the couch, her gaze caught by what was obviously the key piece of the collection, the one picture that was as big as a window. The background was blue, a sky with concentrated clouds whipping around a ball placed in the very center. She’d seen the earth as it looked from space in the opening credits of Sliders and this ball looked like that, but instead of continents and oceans, the ball was covered with skyscrapers and houses, and a wide river that cut right through the center of the man-made structures.

  She stared at it for a long time, her breath snaking in and out of her lungs like an afterthought. She didn’t know what city this was, but in the image, it was beautiful. She wanted to go there. To live there. Not for the first time, she wished she lived a different life.

  Cerise shook herself, remembering why she was there, in that house, taking such a risk. She lifted her face to the ceiling and took a deep breath. Upstairs. She walked slowly through the living room, the picture room as she was already thinking of it, and found a staircase at the back of a short hallway.

  Slowly, she tiptoed up the stairs, wincing at every creak they made under her feet. But the man never stirred, never moved, she could practically trace his outline in her mind. It was big. It made her shudder.

  At the top of the stairs, she turned right, following her feeling of him, but at this distance she could have followed his scent. It was strong, and getting stronger. She passed uninteresting doors, heading for a partially open one at the end of the hallway.

  As she peeked inside the room, enough light fell in the room from the window facing east that she could easily see what she’d come to find. A man lay sleeping on the bed, his back to her. Cerise stared at him, knowing he had been the reason she had felt compelled to come here, but still fighting that knowledge. The feeling said, trust him. Every experience she’d ever had in her life said, no way!

  Her neck muscles tightened and her head began to pound harder as she resisted her inexplicable desire to go to him, to wake him, to tell him who she was and see if it meant anything to him. Men couldn’t be trusted. Most men. All men. Especially men as big and muscular as this one was. He looked like he could throw Myles across the room, and Myles was solid and tough as nails.

  Her eye traveled over him even as her mind continued to rebel, taking in his dark hair in a military cut, the sculpted planes of his body, as his chest rose and fell under a single white sheet. The back of his arms and shoulders was covered with twisting tattoos she didn’t pay much attention to, except the one that looked like a depiction of a storm you might see on a map, a circle with lines radiating out from it.

  The pillowcases and sheets below his big body were also white and pristine-looking. On the empty pillow next to him was a camouflage cap set perfectly facing forward and at right angles to the creased lines of the pillowcase, like the last thing he’d done the night before was take it off and place it there. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for the rest of his clothes, but the floor she could see was bare. No pictures in here, only a dresser and a closed door she imagined led to a closet. She wondered what kind of clothes she would find if she pushed the door to the closet open, rummaged around in there. The thought confused her and filled her with more desire. She wanted to know this man, wanted to examine his life, and him.

  The man turned over and made a distressed noise in his sleep. Cerise sucked in a breath and prepared to run, but his eyes remained closed, his breathing even. Behind his lids, she could see his eyes moving quickly. Dreaming.

  His chest began to rise and fall more swiftly. “No,” he said, and Cerise jumped, barely biting back a cry. “No Cole, not without you,” he spat out, and his handsome face twisted with some emotion, but his eyes were still closed. Not dreaming, nightmare-ing.

 
She held her ground, staring as the man’s heavy brows shot close together and his fingers twitched. “Why?” the man moaned and the agony in his voice destroyed her. What was he seeing in his sleep?

  He whimpered, a foreign sound she never imagined would come from someone so big and strong and she took a step forward, unbidden, against all her better judgment. His handsome face with the wide-set eyes and strong jaw twisted again, sweat rising on his forehead, his back bowing. “Please, he’s my brother,” the man panted, his eyes squeezed shut. Cerise’s heart twinged in her chest, and she crossed to him, walking around the bed to face his back. She approached his bedside and lay a hand on his massive shoulder, the heat from his skin seeping into her hand at once.

  “Shh,” she whispered, but she needn’t have spoken. With her touch, his forehead smoothed, his tensed muscles relaxed. He sighed, and half-smiled, one corner of his lips curling up as the sigh escaped them and he relaxed onto his back.

  Her fingers stayed with him, moving to the strong muscles of his upper arm. She could no more stop touching him than she could stop breathing, stop thinking, stop being. His half-grin floored her, turning his face from dark and tortured to handsome beyond anything she’d ever seen or imagined.

  A flood of feelings washed over her. Right. Good. Trustworthy. Cerise’s eyes floated closed and she let the feelings and sensations come. Tingles marched across her skin as her hair tried to stand up on her head and arms. It felt so good that she never wanted it to end. Felt good in the way someone grazing their fingers lightly up and down your back felt good. She reveled in it, allowing sensation to overtake her.

  With a jolt of dismay, Cerise realized her whole body felt different, more aware, more there. She could feel her pulse at her neck and in her chest and… between her legs? She licked her lips and pulled her hand away from the bare skin of the man in the bed in front of her, curling the fingers that had been touching him close to her body, wrapping them with her other hand.