Hard Mated (4 page)

The rituals were supposed to ensure the cub’s acceptance into the community, but Spike sometimes wished the rituals and ceremonies would go to hell. They were supposed to strengthen the Shifters, but Spike long ago had decided that Shifters were just bad at minding their own business.

Sean left them alone, wise man, when he could have insisted on dragging Spike and Jordan over to see Liam right away. Spike would have to thank Sean with a beer later.

Jordan wouldn’t put on the clothes. Ella got him into the small pair of drawstring jeans by telling him he couldn’t eat unless he put something on. Alarmed, Jordan grabbed those and hoisted them over his bare legs.

Ella turned the sandwiches out on a plate, each sandwich piled high with beef, turkey, chicken, tuna, or a combination. Spike didn’t know what cubs ate—did they need milk? Or was that only when they were first born? Jordan announced he was hungry and proceeded to down four sandwiches before he sat back on the kitchen floor and burped.

He’d fall asleep now, Spike thought. Worn out from the night, his mother’s death, being brought to Shiftertown, and now with his belly full of food, he’d curl up and sleep it off.

No such luck. Spike and Ella ended up chasing him all over the house, from cellar to attic and back again. Jordan threw off the pants and shifted back and forth from wildcat to boy depending on what he wanted to get into or
where
he wanted to get into. And he was damned fast.

When he ended up way in the back of the pantry, a wildcat cub now, wedged between shelves and refusing to come out, Ella got out a broom and tried to pry him out. Jordan leapt away, dodging her, and scampered around the kitchen, loving the game, Ella chasing him with her newfound tool.

“Grandma!” Spike shouted. “Don’t you dare hit my kid with a broom!”

“It never did
you
any harm,” Ella yelled back.

Jordan laughed, evaded them, and ran on.

Spike finally tackled him in the living room. Father and son were both wildcats now, and Spike pinned the squirming boy under his body. Ella had given up and gone upstairs, the night aging.

Jordan started to quiet, soothed by Spike’s warm body, his adrenaline finally running down. Spike’s eyes drifted closed, the slowing staccato of Jordan’s heartbeat somehow comforting.

He woke up to sun pouring in the windows. Spike had shifted to human sometime in the night, and so had Jordan. Spike had slid the pants back on the sleeping little boy, and now Spike found his arms wrapped protectively around his son.

With his eyes closed, his mouth slack, one fist on the carpet, Jordan was innocence itself. And helpless.

Spike started to move his body and stifled a groan. He ached all over. The fight coupled with the shock of finding out he had a cub made his muscles stiff and his head pound. He needed water, to hydrate, or else he needed a beer. A lot of beer.

But he couldn’t get drunk while he had to take care of this little guy. Drowning himself in hops was for when his cub was safe and didn’t need Spike standing guard. Which would be never. Cubs had to be protected at all times.

All times. Damn it, how could he? How
any
Shifter do it?

They had mates, that’s how. They had help. Liam had his mate Kim—a human woman, sure, but she’d proved capable. The two of them watched over their new cub with unceasing vigilance. And yet, Liam still had time to run Shiftertown, Kim to conduct her business of being a lawyer to Shifters. How the hell did they do that?

How had Spike’s grandma done it? Ella had raised him alone—and in the wild—after his parents and grandfather had been slaughtered by Shifter hunters down in Mexico. Spike had been a cub, ten years old. Ella had been so huddled in grief, she’d wanted to die herself, but she’d said over and over,
If I die, who’s going to take care of you?
and she’d soldiered on.

His grandmother’s expression last night as she’d quit and gone to bed told him that she expected him to soldier on too.

He brushed back a strand of Jordan’s hair.
Cub of my pride. Now that I’ve met you, how can I let you go?

Spike very gently pressed a kiss to the top of the little boy’s head.

Jordan’s eyes popped open. He stared up at Spike in sleepy confusion, then his eyes cleared.

“I’m hungry,” Jordan said. “Can I have breakfast?”

Goddess, what was he supposed to feed a cub for breakfast? Based on the number of sandwiches Jordan had consumed last night—a lot.

Jordan wriggled out of Spike’s grasp and spread his arms. “I’m dressed. I get to eat.”

Spike pressed his hand to his forehead. His temples were throbbing, not helped when the land line phone rang. Loudly.

Chapter Five

Myka spent a sleepless night, grief at watching Jillian’s last breath and worry about Jordan keeping her restless.

Jillian had been adamant about giving Jordan to Spike—
who the hell named their kid
Spike? Jillian had feared what would happen if humans got wind that she was raising a Shifter child, and Myka understood her fear. A system that was so fucked up it would make a little girl live with her abusive stepfather wasn’t going to be kind to a Shifter child.

Even though Myka had never been a big Shifter fan, she was aware that they were treated like second-class citizens, and she thought that unfair. There was no guarantee that Sharon would be allowed to keep Jordan if it was discovered that he was half Shifter, or that Jordan wouldn’t be shipped off to some Shiftertown far away. Jillian had assured her that Shifters would have a way of keeping it quiet.

But handing him over to that inked Shifter wasn’t what Myka had wanted either.

She tossed and turned, imagining all kinds of dire scenarios—Spike locking the kid into a closet, maybe beating on him to relieve his feelings, or trying to figure out how to get rid of him as soon as he could. Sure, Spike had looked intensely proud when he’d realized that Jordan was his son, but that might wear off as soon as Jordan became his usual wild self. Jillian hadn’t known what to do with a kid with that much energy either.

Myka spent the night with Sharon, not wanting to leave her alone, but while Sharon slept the sleep of the emotionally exhausted, Myka lay awake or got up and paced.

In the morning, Sharon’s two sisters arrived with their husbands and kids. Myka, though she more or less had been living with Sharon and Jillian these last few months, decided to leave them alone. This was a time for family.

She stopped at her small house to shower and change, then she went to the stables.

Myka knew her friends and Sharon would think her crazy for wanting to work today, but at the stables she could seek peace in turmoil. Working with the horses—Myka trained Quarter Horses to be cutters, ropers, and barrel racers for their owners—usually erased all troubles from her mind.

She’d been coming to these stables since age eleven, when a friend’s mother had brought her here after school. The friend’s riding instructor had let Myka get up on a horse and take a lesson too. Myka had never looked back.

Myka nodded tightly to the two other trainers who’d come for early sessions but didn’t stop to talk. She took out Carlos, the cutting horse she was currently shaping into a champion for his owner.

She warmed up Carlos with nothing more strenuous than a pleasant jog around the ring before she started the real work. Cutting horses had to respond to the slightest shift in weight or touch of the reins, in order to cut a calf from the herd or to chase it back in.

Myka started the lessons of response and reward, but she realized after only a few minutes that neither her heart nor mind was in the training. She could only think of Jordan sleeping on Spike’s lap, Spike’s fierce eyes and his large hand on Jordan’s back.

Damn it.

She’d made a promise to Jillian to let Spike take Jordan and not interfere. Jillian had believed with all her heart that living with Spike was best for Jordan. Myka should let it alone—decision made, deed done, none of her business.

But she couldn’t wash her hands of Jordan like that.

Myka gave Carlos another jog around the ring, patting him and telling him what a good boy he was, then took him back to the barn. If she tried to train while her mind was elsewhere, she risked ruining the horse. His owner would be less than pleased, and other owners might decide to look for a more reliable trainer.

Might be a moot point anyway, because the owner of the entire stables and training center wanted to sell the place to developers. Good-bye job, good-bye stables that had given Myka the girl a haven, and Myka the adult a way to make a living.

Life sucked all over.

Myka put Carlos away, fussing over him, then she went to her pickup, scraped the dust and manure from her cowboy boots, got in and started the truck, and drove to Shiftertown.

*** *** ***

Spike hauled himself off the floor and slid on his sweat pants to answer the phone, while Jordan announced once more, at the top of his lungs, that he wanted breakfast.

The call was from Liam. “Spike, lad, I need you to help me with Gavan. Go down to San Antonio and talk to him. Casual like. Find out what he’s up to, if he’s going to be a threat, or just likes bellyaching. He never was happy about what happened to Fergus, and I don’t need that haunting me. I know about your cub situation—which we’ll talk about when you get back.”

Spike’s hand tightened on the phone. He was a tracker—he’d pledged all kinds of loyalty to the Shiftertown leader in return for acceptance. Didn’t matter who the leader was or what he asked Spike to do, Spike did it. Without question.

But this was different. Liam was asking Spike to leave Jordan alone for hours, with only his grandmother to protect him, and go to San Antonio and meet with a guy he’d never really trusted. No way could Spike take Jordan with him to the meeting—Gavan had always had a cruel streak, and Spike wasn’t letting him anywhere near his cub.

“Liam,” he began.

“I wouldn’t ask you, but something’s going on, you know Gavan better than anyone, and I need to nip this in the bud. The lad will be all right in Shiftertown, I promise. He’s safe here. I’ll have Kim or Andrea drop by and look in on him later.”

“I can’t.” The words surprised Spike even as they came out of his mouth. No one said
no
to Liam Morrissey.

“Spike. Lad.”

Liam was an alpha. Even over the phone, the dominance came across that made Shifters, especially Felines, want to go down on one knee and promise him fealty. He was lead Feline, lead Shifter. The mightiest of the mighty.

“I can’t,” Spike repeated.

Liam’s voice took on a patient tone, though the dominance thing didn’t go away. “I know better than anyone that we need to look after the cubs. You talking to Gavan could help us all, lad, and every cub in Shiftertown. If Gavan’s up to something, it threatens your new one as much as anyone else.”

Spike closed his eyes and fought the instinctive need to obey, to say yes.

Let Dylan or Sean sort out Gavan. Why the hell did Liam need Spike to do it,
today?

Just then Jordan ran through the kitchen, screaming, a toilet brush in his hand. Ella came charging after him with the broom again.

“I’ll call you back,” Spike said to Liam, and hung up the phone on Liam’s startled exclamation.

Spike limped back to the living room, lifted the jeans Sean had delivered to him last night, and plucked Myka’s phone number out of the pocket. As soon as he turned to reach for the phone, a pickup pulled up and stopped in front of the house. Myka herself hopped out, the October sunshine making her dark hair glow like black fire.

*** *** ***

Myka studied the house as she went up the walk. Shiftertown was nowhere near as slum-like as she’d assumed, and neither was Spike’s house. He lived in a two-story bungalow, its second floor about half the size of the first, an upstairs gable poking up to make the house cozy.

A wide, old-fashioned porch wrapped around the front, chairs and a porch swing adding comfort. This was not a house for display, like the fine suburban homes Myka passed on her way across town. This house was meant to be lived in.

Myka had about ten seconds to observe all this before the front screen door slammed open and a whirlwind that was Jordan flew at her.

“Aunt Myka!”

Jordan flung his arms around her legs. Myka leaned down to him, worried, but Jordan sported a big grin as he raised his arms to her, begging to be picked up.

Myka lifted him. Jordan gave her a sticky kiss and started babbling excitedly about the house, his new great-grandmother, his new clothes, and asking when he could go home.

The door opened again and Spike walked out. In the light of day, he looked even more huge than he had last night. Spike was taller than most men Myka knew, though not lanky or bony. He was big, hard with muscle, though it was lean muscle, honed by natural strength, not protein powders.

He wore only loose workout pants that rode low on his hips and tied with a drawstring, so most of that muscle was on display. The lack of clothing showed off his tatts, a dragon’s tail wrapping around his abdomen to disappear down somewhere under the drawstring.
Holy effing moley.

Spike came off the porch, looming large as he approached. He walked right up to Myka, stopping maybe an inch from her, never mind about personal space.

Was it getting hard to breathe? No, Myka stood in the cool, fresh air, October in Austin dry and fine.

Jordan squirmed in her arms and pointed at Spike. “That’s my dad.” He said it proudly, no fear. “Did you know I had a dad?”

“He stays with me,” Spike said. His tone was flat, no argument welcome.

“How’s he doing?” Myka asked.

Instead of answering, Spike looked her over, running his gaze from her unmanageable hair to the pointed toes of her cowboy boots. Myka had put on a form-hugging tank top under a button-down shirt when she’d left the house, then thrown off the shirt when she drove over here, the day plenty warm under the sunshine.