Laura's Secret (7 page)

Mara picked up the conversation then by talking about the sights to see in the area with Ben and Tom making a comment here and there. The tension in the room dropped as the conversation became more general. Second servings of food were taken and then thirds. By the time the meal came to an end, there were no leftovers. It seemed at least that part of the shifter legend was true. They obviously had fast metabolisms to be able to eat that much and not be as big as houses. She didn’t eat very much at all, her metabolism was slow and she didn’t get that much exercise.

Tom and Ben offered to clean up and make coffee for those that wanted it after the meal. So Laura, Mara, and Marshall headed into the living room. Laura didn’t realize how tense she’d become. After traveling only at night for so long and then only getting a few hours sleep before the store opened this morning and then spending the day moving into her new place, added to the tension of the meal, Laura was tired. The full meal on top of the long day was too much for her. While Marshall walked around the room, looking at the house, its architecture and how she’d set it up, Mara went to check on the coffee. Laura wondered if he would mind if she asked him some questions. They hadn’t actually admitted they were shifters, but they hadn’t laughed and asked her about missing her medication either. She tried to think of the best way to approach him, to make the next step in this slow dance of communication.

Marshall stared at the half-empty bookcase in front of him. He didn’t want to confirm Laura’s suspicions but he and his bear really wanted to get a good whiff of her scent. A spring cold,
and yes shifters got colds, and other diseases
, combined with the spicy foods and he hadn’t satisfied that urge. That was another true thing about shifters, they used their sense of smell to a much larger degree than full humans. They could scent truth from lie, arousal, fear, and many other emotions. But in order to use those senses, they needed to be close when in human form. Their human noses were more sensitive but not nearly as strong as when shifted. A nine-inch bear nose had twenty-one hundred times the sensitivity of a human nose. Right now he really wanted to get up to this human’s skin and pull her scent into his receptors. He could learn a lot about her that way.

Part of him was surprised she wasn’t peppering him with questions. Maybe she was intimidated by him, most were. He was over seven feet tall with broad shoulders. In the shifter world, size was everything, the biggest, the baddest, the survival of the fittest still held true. He decided to see how long it took her to break the silence in the room. He knew he could outlast her, he just wanted to see how strong her commitment was. After fifteen minutes he was tired of wandering around the room and poking into half-unpacked boxes. He was also pleasantly surprised she hadn’t spoken, she was stronger than he thought. Mara came into the room with the coffee.

“Ben and Tom have gone home…” she said and then went quiet.

“What…” he started to say, turning back to the room.

They both noticed Laura had fallen asleep in her chair.

“So, Marshall, are we going to kill her,” she asked, putting down the tray holding the coffee carafe, cups, and milk and sugar. They both were well aware of the laws regarding humans that had knowledge of shifters. If they wanted Laura to live, and Mara was beginning to think they did, they had a limited amount of time to act.

Marshall didn’t listen to what Mara said. The urge had been beating against him since he’d entered the house took over his actions when he saw the frail beauty was asleep. Striding over to where she was slumped over in her chair he bent over her small frame and pushing aside her hair, put his nose right against the skin of her neck and took a deep breath.

When Marshall took his first up close and personal sniff of Laura, he smelled deep forests and running streams, lavender, honeysuckle, and wildflowers. As good as that was, he still knew she wasn’t his mate—now they had a problem. She smelled too good to be evil, she hadn’t been lying, and she now had a death sentence hanging over her.

The only way a human could be allowed to know about shifters was if they were mated to one. That was the law. Find out and either you died or took a mate within a short period of time. Marshall had a lot of respect for the female and he didn’t want her to be killed. At the same time, she knew too much about them to be running around free, they would have to keep her under house arrest until they discovered if she had a mate.

“We need to have our single men scent her,” he said.

“I can just picture it now, a long line of men out the door, taking turns sniffing up on her,” Mara laughed.

“Do you have a better suggestion or just more humor,” he growled at her.

“She’s been traveling for weeks with no time to do laundry,” Mara said, remembering the bag of dirty clothes she put into the laundry room. “If the Kobold she hired hasn’t already cleaned them, I suggest we grab some of her dirty laundry, cut up scraps, put them in baggies, and send those around to be scented,” she said.

“She has a Kobold?” he asked astonished. Kobolds were something like brownies; they kept the house, cooked, cleaned, and even made minor repairs to things like clothing and shoes. They were most likely to be found in the Rhine lands of Europe where they were first from.

“She hired the Kobold as decorator and offered her a home. I ran across Lola earlier in the kitchen. Laura couldn’t see her,” she added. “That’s all I was able to discover so far,” Mara said.

He thought about everything for a minute and agreed the dirty laundry was the best solution to their current dilemma.

“Agreed, I’ll carry her into her bedroom, bring her chair. You will need to stay with her until she’s mated. I’ll want two others here as well in rotating shifts. She’ll have to be watched for now. I’m going to review the data she’s gathered. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know if I need to speak with her again,” he said, reaching down to pick Laura up out of her chair. He was surprised at how light she was.

“Yes, Alpha. Ben and Tom went home to get a few things from my place and to pack overnight bags for themselves. They should be back in an hour,” Mara answered, having foreseen the Alpha’s orders. She took hold of the chair and followed, giving directions on the location of Laura’s bedroom as they went along. She remembered seeing a large first aid kit in the bathroom. She counted on Laura having some latex gloves handy. She would use them as she picked through Laura’s clothes so her own scent didn’t get intermingled. She gave a brief thought to sending out her own clothing too, after all, she too longed for a mate. But this was a life or death situation for Laura, so she let the fantasy slide away.

Laura didn’t awaken when Marshall lifted her from her chair and carried her into her bedroom. And she also didn’t wake up when he put her on the bed and he and Mara began to strip her clothes from her body.

Marshall was shocked when he removed the sweat pants from Laura’s legs. They were so thin, he could see the outline of each bone. She had very minimal flesh and almost no muscle at all. It made sense since she’d been paralyzed for so many years. He would have to find out more details about her injury, exactly what her limitations were. In general, shifters were in very good physical condition and they healed quickly. He didn’t know of any shifters who had become paralyzed. The fact anyone in his care had suffered bothered him on an instinctual level.

With Mara’s help, they stripped her to the skin and covered her with blankets for warmth. It wasn’t until he stepped away from the bed that he smelled the blood. Looking down he saw that he’d scratched the pad of his finger. Flipping back the cover, he saw that her skin was scratched also. He pointed it out to Mara and she got the first aid kit to treat it. Mara searched through the clothes and found a bent hook on Laura’s bra. She put it aside to be cut up. Laura must have been exhausted because she slept through the entire process. It was about that time he remembered the household computer that had greeted him earlier.

“Maggie?” he said in a soft voice.

“This is Maggie, do you need assistance?” a voice said.

“Maggie, Laura is asleep. Mara, Ben, and Tom will be staying to make sure she is well. Are you able to secure the house behind me?” he asked as he left Mara and Laura in the bedroom and walked back to the entrance.

“Hold please.”

While he waited for an answer he took the time to look over the rest of the living areas. There were several large bedroom suites, all fully decorated and ready for occupancy.
Why was that?

“There are four life forms in the house and all entrances are secure. I will open and re-secure the entrance door after you leave.”

“Who is the fourth life form and where is it?”

“Lola is resting in her quarters, she is an unusual life form, she doesn’t act within established parameters. However, all her life signs are within normal ranges so the authorities have not been notified. Will there be anything else?”

He’d forgotten about Lola, the kobold. “Tom and Ben will be returning to act as internal security. That is all, Maggie. Refrain from making any notifications about members of the household and visitors unless you’ve checked with myself or Mara first.”

“Very well, please have Laura add her guests and yourself to the security protocols within twelve hours or I will consider her to be illegally held and contact the local police regardless of your current command.”

What the hell?
“Maggie, explain what you mean,” he said in a gruff voice.

“Since Laura activated my program, she is currently the only one with full security access. You and other life forms have limited security access as guests. She seems to be unaware of Lola, which is strange because she has Lola’s security built into my systems. Scans show Laura’s respirations are normal and regular so you have not harmed her. If Laura does not awake and reset my security measures within current parameters then security protocols previously programmed will take effect. Do you require further information?”

“No, you have been quite thorough,” he said as he stood in front of the door, waiting for Maggie to open it for him.

“Thank you. Goodnight, Marshall Connor,” she said, opening the door.

“Goodnight, Maggie.” If he thought it was strange saying goodnight to a computer, he let that slide. As he left the house and walked down to his truck to drive home, he thought it was too bad that Laura wasn’t his mate. He admired her a great deal. He worried about her frail body and felt sorry for her family. If she were his, he’d be frantic.

Shifter males were always seeking their mates. If too much time passed they began to go feral. He had another twenty or thirty years before he needed to worry. Still, he wouldn’t mind meeting his mate and starting a family.

Each spring, many male shifters went on mate quests. They would travel visiting other shifter groups in the hopes of scenting their mate. At this time their beasts would be close to the surface so they had to shift frequently. About half of those who went looking found their mates. It gave hope to the rest. A shifter’s mate kept the beast leashed, the violent tendencies muted. This allowed the human brain and intellect to stay in control.

For those unlucky few who were unable to find their true-mate, they could do one of two things. They could fall in love with an unmated female and take her to mate. It wasn’t the same level of completeness a shifter felt with their true-mate but it was enough to save the male from going feral and becoming a monster of legend. The second option was being taken as a second mate with an already mated pair. Brothers would sometimes share a mate to keep one from going wild, to give him an anchor. If he later found his mate then the four often shared a home.

This was more common with the wolf shifters as they tended to retain the pack mentality of their beasts. Bears and most felines, other than the lions, were more solitary. As a result, they were fewer in number. The shifter council was still working on ways to increase their numbers, but it was hard to change a shifter’s basic nature.

Marshall stopped thinking about mates as he pulled into his driveway. Tomorrow was going to be a long day. Now that he thought about it, he should call in his local council. It would save time as there was quite a bit of material to cover. And he also wanted them to meet Laura. He needed allies if he decided to bend shifter law and keep her alive for longer than a week.

After making Laura as comfortable as they could, Marshall had left and Mara went through Laura’s things and found the laundry hamper they had brought over from the motor home. There was a mesh bag resting on top.
Paydirt!
The bag held all of her used lingerie. It seems Laura had a hidden sexy streak. She put the entire mesh bag into a plastic garbage bag and carried it to the kitchen. After she found a box of baggies she cut each pair of panties into two pieces, there wasn’t enough material for more than that, and placed them each in a baggie. After she had them all bagged she went to the office and pulled a box of oversized envelopes out of the supply cabinet and took them into the kitchen, placing a baggie into each one.

In the morning she’d have the Alpha’s assistant make up overnight shipping labels and send out the envelopes. Marshall would be able to keep Laura alive for a week, maybe a bit longer; after that, she would be mated or dead.

Chapter Eight

Laura was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming because she was walking. Not only that but it was a sunny day and she wasn’t in any pain. She had always had vivid dreams. She often used her dreams in her video games. She dreamed of animals that spoke, as well as trees and rivers. Elves, trolls, dryads, nyads, and other magical people as well. This time the dream was different.

The setting was similar to many others, she was walking through an ancient forest with towering trees. What was different was the silence. There were no rustlings in the undergrowth, not even the sound of leaves fluttering in the breeze. The world around her was perfectly still, as if it was holding its breath or was stuck between two moments in time. Curious, she continued to walk down the path to see what would happen.