A primes passion, p.6
A Prime's Passion, page 6
Nikolai’s features smoothed, returned to normal. Even the anger she’d seen in his eyes was gone, sucked back inside him in a way that might have disturbed Meridia if she hadn’t been riding the razor’s edge of her own fury. She was braced for questions. But there were none.
“You have my word as Prime I won’t take her to or near Greylock—not unless she asks it of me.”
“She’d slit her wrists first.” Meridia curled her lip. “If you think she’d ever ask it, then you know nothing about Zennia Day—you likely never did. You will not force her to go anywhere or do anything—agreed?”
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“Yes.” Showing him the razor edge of her own fury, she said, “If Zee agrees to go anywhere with you, then my people have open access to her, wherever she is within your territory—whenever we wish to see her. Even if it’s five decades from now.”
The thick sweep of Nikolai’s lashes swept down, concealing the vivid, rich cobalt of his eyes. “Why?”
“Because... if she needs an out, my people will provide it. I don’t trust any of yours to leave her be.”
Lids lifting, Nikolai stared at her with power pulsing in those startling eyes.
“You think I cannot keep a woman safe in my territory?”
“I’m thinking you never considered her safety or well-being after you threw her aside when she was eighteen years old and told her to never return to Appalachia. Why the fuck should I trust any of you to look after the safety of my friend now?”
Chapter Five
Zee woke before dawn, feeling caged and trapped within her own skin. It had never been this bad before and it scared her, but she throttled down the fear, because fear fed the things inside her. Any strong emotion fed them.
Rising from the bed, she grabbed a swimsuit and changed, lingering only long enough to send Donner a text.
He responded back within seconds.
Wait for me. I finish my patrol in less than an hour. I’ll go with you.
She blew out a breath.
No. I need to be alone for a while. I’ll be fine. Don’t tell Meri.
She ignored the response and threw the phone down on the bed, trying not to think.
It was better that way, better to keep her mind blank, to just... move.
Her father was gone.
She’d felt it, somehow, despite the fact that they hadn’t spoken in more than ten years. The bond between them she’d thought gone had still existed after all, but it had been a stunted thing. The pain, when it came, had been a twisting phantom, like a deformed limb with nerve damage being wrenched from her body. And it ached.
There were other aches within her too. Her brothers, reaching for her, the love from them almost enough to make her want to buckle. She ignored them all, because it was easier to pretend those connections were as dead as the bonds.
They’d fade, these aches. Just like they had when she’d ran out of Appalachia, her tail literally tucked between her legs, the broken animal within her crying with loss, agony and confusion.
Pain faded. Sooner or later, it always did, changing into a deep ache, like the dull, heavy weight of her heart.
She dove into the water off the private pier behind the building where she rented an apartment, the cool water closing over her like a glove. Kicking hard, she went deep and swam for as long as she could without surfacing, then emerged, already nearly a half-mile from shore.
She was five miles out when she saw the big, deadly form that was Donner approaching, his dorsal fin sailing up out of the water, his muscled form sleek and dangerous. Shaking her head inwardly, she ignored him as he swam with her until he finally fell back, forced to return and give report to whoever was assigned to take over.
Her muscles started to burn shortly after.
She ignored that and kept on as the sun rose and stroked over her skin.
And still, she swam, channeling the fiery hunger, the misery, the physical ache that set into her like claws into each stroke, each kick of her legs.
It wasn’t until a deep pervasive weary numbness sank into her that she began to cut toward shore, not recognizing anything in sight. The angle of the sun was now high overhead and her quivering muscles held only long enough for her to reach the wooded area just beyond the sandy beach. A trail marker told her where she was. For a second, she just stared, not comprehending.
The small state park in New Hampshire was just south of Portsmouth.
She’d swam seventy-five miles.
For an Atargarian, that would be nothing.
Even she, a Therian, could easily swim twenty miles over a period of a few hours easily. She’d gone on long swims with Meridia before and had a good idea of her endurance.
But she’d been swimming like she had demons at her heels since before dawn.
She was tired now.
Truly tired, everything in her numbed and drained to the point of emptiness.
After pausing to listen, she slipped off the trail, moving deeper into the trees, scenting the air until she found a place that didn’t smell strongly of humans. Then she stripped out of her suit.
As she went to her knees, the wolf came and took her, her form shifting to that of her lupine self. Shaking out her fur, she sniffed the air once more to check for any hint of a threat. Scenting nothing, she sat, then lay down, head on her paws.
Curling up against a tree, she slept.
“SHOULD I HAVE GONE out after her?”
Meridia felt the guilt along the subtle connection she shared with Donner and sent back a silent wave of reassurance before speaking. “If she needed to be alone, then she needed to be alone. We all need it sometimes. And this way, she’ll have worn herself out enough that she won’t be so twisted inside.”
Donner had been nearby when she’d gone to talk to Zee earlier, only to find the woman gone.
He’d been reluctant to talk but Meridia realized soon enough it was because Zee asked him not to. Once Meridia demanded an answer, alpha to second, Donner had quickly told her, then confessed he was worried. He’d seen her in the early morning hours, but had to fall back to his patrol route.
A young male right whale Atargarian he was friendly with had contacted Donner, told him he’d seen “Meridia’s adopted little sister” swimming like a demon, miles north of the cape.
Her own worry rising to the fore, she’d sent out an alert, not just to her people in the waters, but to the creatures aware enough, intelligent enough to watch for her.
Now, after delivering the news to the Appalachia Prime, Meridia kept her features blank and calm.
“Is this how you watch over those under your protection?” Nikolai asked. “By losing them?”
“She’s not lost—” Donner growled, only to stop at Meridia’s light mental touch.
“I could always kick them out of my territory when I’m pissed off. Make them outcasts so nobody of the pack will come near. I hear that’s what all the big, surly Primes do,” Meridia said with false sweetness. “But I prefer to let those I love live their lives as they choose. She wanted to swim, so she went for a swim.”
“One that lasts... ” Nikolai gave the slick, shiny watch on his wrist a quick look. “Seven hours?”
Her phone rang and she held up a hand, pulling it out and adjusting it to audio only. Pacing several feet away, she listened as one of the humans who’d been accepted into the fold after marrying an Atargarian spoke.
“Describe her?”
Saul Galway’s voice was rueful. “Meridia, I’m an old man and I can’t walk ten feet without my knees creaking. Millie... well, she’s a lot of things but quiet and graceful aren’t her strong suits. But Millie could scent Therian and we both saw the wolf, black, except for one ear. That was brown. Sleeping curled up in the trees at the park. Millie caught the scent and since we’d heard the alert, we decided to look, make sure she wasn’t hurt. Millie didn’t scent anything like that. Think she wore herself out. How the hell did that girl swim all the way to Portsmouth?”
Damn it, Saul. Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced herself for a reaction from the Therian close by.
There was nothing. He remained leaning against the car he’d arrived in, dressed in a slick black suit, the wind teasing his short hair.
She didn’t buy that calm façade for a minute.
“Thank you, Saul,” she said quietly, wishing she could connect with Millie the way she could with Donner and some of her other people.
“Millie went for a swim,” Saul said, voice lower now, as if he’d sensed her irritation. “She’s going to send word out so people know she’s here and can look for her when she heads back. Unless you want us to wait and drive her?”
“No. It’s fine.” Ending the call, she gave the Prime a silky smile. “It’s your lucky day. I’ll wait to start the clock on your Twenty-four hours until Zee gets home.”
NIKO HAD NEVER CARED much for sushi, but at that moment, he was tempted to sink his teeth and claws into the woman standing ten feet away.
It wouldn’t be an easy fight, and having the big bastard at her side would make it even more interesting, but he was fucking tired of the games, the questions... the worry.
So instead of snarling and going on the attack, he gave her a bland smile. “You’re so kind.”
Her pretty lips bowed up and she fluttered her lashes, but Niko was under no illusions. The mermaid wasn’t flirting with him. Not that he was interested, at all, but he’d seen the hard edge of fury during the moments when she’d let her control drop and spoke to him in a voice that had been like a beautiful blade across his neural pathways.
She used her beauty the same way—an edged weapon to cut, slice and destroy.
It should enrage him—and it did on one level.
But on a deeper level, it roused a deep sense of respect. Because that weapon had been drawn in defense of somebody she cared for. That strength had kept Zee safe and for that, Niko was grateful.
Even if he did wanted to sink his teeth into the mermaid’s annoying neck now.
He silenced the wolf’s raging voice and moved to the car he’d rented for the trip. “Can you provide me with her address? I’ll wait for her there.”
“No.” Another pretty, deadly smile and Meridia cocked her head, the long, spiraling curls of black, red and deep brown falling over one shoulder. Her smooth, rich skin, a soft golden-brown, seemed to pulse, a ripple of the deadly creature who lived inside her stirring toward the surface. “That’s her domain and you won’t go there unless she welcomes you. But I’ve arranged accommodations. Donner.”
The big brunette at Meridia’s back came around her, holding out a card.
His eyes were beyond dark when he looked at Niko, the challenge open.
“Do you have a death wish?” Niko asked coolly.
“Do you?” Donner’s smile was hot and wickedly bright.
“Donner. You can return to the cape,” Meridia said. “We’re going to be nice to our... guest.”
“Damn.” But that smile didn’t fade and Donner didn’t look away from Niko until he’d turned back to his Alpha.
VICIOUS, JEALOUS POSSESSIVENESS tore through Niko as the other man strode away, hopping into a retro-style Jeep that looked like something from the previous century. As it purred quietly to life, Donner continued to watch Niko, that cagey smile still burning hot.
Once he was gone, Niko turned his gaze to Meridia.
“Are they lovers?”
Meridia tapped a long, shell-pink nail against one thigh, her head cocked as she looked him over. “I don’t believe you have any rights to ask such a question.”
Without saying anything else, she turned and walked down the pier.
Niko scowled at her back and not even the brief glimpse he got of her sliding from human to her sea form was enough to cool the edge of fury riding him.
He checked the address he’d been given, sneered when he realized just how far Meridia had put him from Zee. He knew exactly where she lived. Meridia hadn’t just taken care to keep distance between them—he wasn’t even staying in the same fucking town.
And there wasn’t fuck-all he could do without being disruptive to the peace between Therians and Atargarians.
Crumpling the card in his fist, he shoved it into a pocket, then pulled out his phone.
The biting rage in Phoenix’s eyes hadn’t dimmed in the hours since Niko had last spoken to him but to his credit, the alpha managed to sound almost polite when he said, “Yes, Prime?”
They’d been friendly once, Niko thought out of the blue. Not friends, perhaps, but that would have come eventually, if Niko hadn’t been so foolish.
“Can you have a couple of your newer wolves do a scout along the inner perimeter near Portsmouth?”
“If I send another wolf in to Meridia’s turf, she’ll probably kill first, then shoot me a text asking why a mangy Therian was in her territory later.”
Narrowing his eyes, Niko scrutinized Phoenix’s face. “Odd. You didn’t say it wasn’t doable. You have somebody close by already.”
The only response was a slow, lazy blink that reminded Niko of the way Liam watched him.
“Nobody needs to go into the coastal perimeter.”
“Why?” Phoenix narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
He bit back the urge to tell the alpha he had no right to question the Prime. But Phoenix, in his own way, had been doing what he could to protect his sister. “She’s not in Provincetown. She went swimming before dawn, wasn’t seen for hours. Meridia had a call a few minutes ago that one of her people had glimpsed a Therian wolf in a state park a little south of Portsmouth.”
Phoenix’s jaw worked, then he gave a short nod. “My man can’t get close. She doesn’t want us near her, especially me. If she scents one of us, she’ll run, hard and fast.”
“Why did you never try to fix the bond between you?” Nikolai asked.
Phoenix stared at him with dead eyes.
“Because I failed her. Because I’m the reason she ended up in Durham-Starfell and why you think she was using you and lying to you. I’m the reason everything went to shit when she was finally happy. Talking to me reminds her of every happy thing she thought she’d have, only to lose it.” He smiled bitterly. “Oh, and let’s not forget... she doesn’t want to risk the ire of the Prime falling on my head.”
He ended the call.
Niko continued to stand there, staring at the blank screen and feeling more hollow and empty than before.
Chapter Six
Zee came awake with no conscious thought of what had disturbed her.
But there was a gut-deep awareness, something went deeper even than instinct.
Run!
She clamped down the urge and tried to unlock her muscles, so achingly tight and overused. She hurt everywhere.
Awareness whispered again. Wolf.
Part of her sat up straight, eager, intent, for just a few seconds.
Then shame shredded her. Carefully, she edged back the way she’d come, waiting for the scent to grow weaker, fainter. It didn’t. It just lingered.
Twilight was settling over the coast and she panted, both the wolf and the woman thirsty, but she didn’t dare follow the scent of fresh water. It was in the other direction. In the same direction of a hidden, watching Therian.
There was a quiet understanding growing inside, one that belonged to her hungry Fae nature she’d worn into submission through physical exertion.
That part of her stretched and stretched, seeking the same thing her wolf had first sensed. A Therian male. He smelled of pack. Unfamiliar in a way, yet, not. She didn’t know this wolf, but he was from Greylock. From home.
And this thing didn’t care about the humiliations she’d experienced in her life. It just hungered.
Panicking, she spun and raced for the water.
There was a sense of confusion, then determination behind her as the Therian’s scent grew stronger.
She ran faster, stretching her long, powerful body out, paws tearing into the ground. There was a startled cry when a human caught sight of her but she ignored it, eyes on the pier.
That presence grew stronger, closer.
Whoever it was, he’d see her soon if he hadn’t already.
She launched herself from the pier, still wearing the skin of her wolf. When she hit the water, she was human and she went deep as she had earlier, swimming hard and fast until her lungs screamed for air. And then she pushed herself harder, clawing herself to the surface only when it was clear she had to breathe... or drown.
And still she felt the eyes of a Therian close by.
Watching.
THE HUMPBACKS APPEARED not long after she went into the water.
They weren’t Atargarian, but she knew they’d been watching for her—and why.
When one of the smaller ones went under her, then gently came up, catching her on its fin before rising to the surface, she didn’t fight. Meridia had told her how a few of the family groups let some of her young play with them like this.
They would have sensed Meridia on Zee and knowing they were watching over her gave her some measure of peace.
All she had to do was get back to Provincetown and she’d be safe.
That was all she had to do.
When the large black dorsal fin of an orca appeared, she patted the right whale’s bulky body and slipped away from him. He didn’t make any big waves until she was closer to Donner and she was almost too tired to appreciate the care the mammal showed. Almost. Donner shifted in the water, from orca to man, in the blink of an eye.
She tried to avoid being around any of the Atargarian males when they shifted because her body didn’t need the reminder of what she couldn’t have, but now she was so tired, even her Sidhé nature was silent.
