True Nature (12 page)

Meagan gasped and dropped her head into her hands.

Stirling stood. “You’re upsetting everyone.”

“So we do nothing?” Hunter demanded. “I know we’re supposedly waiting on autopsy results, but we both saw the body. We know Grandda was ripped to shreds, but we’re just supposed to sit here?”

Before Stirling could protest again, Isobel took her son’s arm. “Be still.” She looked hard at Hunter. “Both of you be still.”

In the sudden silence, the scream of an animal could be heard from outside.

Hunter leapt toward the bank of French doors to his right. Over his sister’s sobs and his father’s protests, he wrenched them open. Cold air spilled inside. Hunter smelled something alien. Another scream cut through the night, cruel and triumphant.

His skin tingled as he strode to the edge of the icy, brick patio. Summoning the second nature inside of him, he roared, his instinct to challenge whatever was prowling the mountains beyond the estate.

“Hunter, no,” Isobel demanded from behind him. “Now is not the time.”

Following her command as he would have his grandfather’s, Hunter clenched his fists. His body strained against his clothes, anxious for a change, yearning to stalk the beast that had killed his blood kin.

His grandmother touched his shoulder. Her voice gentled and settled him. “Think of your sister and your mother. They don’t understand this part of our world.”

“Listen to her,” his father said, stepping to his side. “You can’t do anything about this tonight. Your grandfather’s men are mourning him. They deserve that. They shouldn’t have to worry about you, too.”

“I don’t understand,” Hunter protested.

“I know you don’t,” Isobel said, regret lacing her tone. “I’m sorry you’re not better prepared. Your grandfather thought he had more time. He thought you deserved to be carefree before you knew the truth.”

“What truth?”

“You know we have enemies,” Stirling said. “I know he told you that much.”‘

Chymera. The creature his grandfather had told him about. The mutant Fraser had warned Zoe about in her vision. No doubt Chymera had his own clan.

Hunter remembered the legends, the stories of how his family had become shifters, of the enemy who had sworn a blood oath against them. But had he truly believed those stories before now, before Grandda’s savage death?

“I need to know,” Hunter said, turning toward his grandmother.

“And you will.” She turned back toward the door. “Come back inside where it’s warm.” She sounded strong and sure of herself, but in the lighted doorway, she swayed a bit and reached for Hunter’s hand.

“Nana?” he said, suddenly alarmed as she faltered another step.

Swearing, Stirling stepped forward to take his mother’s arm. He guided her to the sofa.

Meagan went quickly to Isobel’s side, glaring at Hunter. “What’s wrong with you?”

Isobel patted her granddaughter’s hand. “I need to talk to Hunter.”

He closed the doors behind him. “And I need to hear the truth.”

“No,” Meagan said, a note of firmness in her voice that Hunter wasn’t used to hearing.

She glared at him again. “Nana’s exhausted. Tomorrow, she’s spreading Grandda’s ashes at the cabin. Whatever she needs to say to you can wait until after that.”

“I need to know now,” Hunter protested.

“And of course the mighty Hunter should get what he wants,” Meagan retorted. “Just like always.”

Hunter fell back a step, surprised by Meagan’s bitterness.

“That’s enough.” Stirling helped Isobel to her feet. She protested, but it was clear that she was in no shape to continue this conversation.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered to Hunter. “I promise tomorrow we will talk. You take care tonight.”

With a last grumble from Stirling and a disgusted glance from Meagan, Isobel was helped from the room. Hunter stood in front of the fire, staring after them.

From the chair where she had remained seated, his mother chuckled. He stared at her. She raised her glass to him and then drained it dry. “The fun’s just beginning, my dear boy. You may be sorry when you know all the secrets.”

Hunter swore, and she laughed again. “I know. I know I disgust you. But if you ever marry, we’ll see how well your wife copes with the MacRea heritage.”

Turning on his heel, Hunter went to the foyer and through the heavy front doors into the cold, winter night. He couldn’t breathe in this house. Despite his grandmother’s admonition to take care, he needed to change.

He raised his face to the sky and began to run, shedding his clothes as he changed into a sleek black panther. Lifting his head again, he let out a loud roar, fully realized, fully feline. Panthers can roar as many other cats do not. Cats like bobcats, cougars, and even housecats can purr, but they cannot roar. Hunter roared again, eager to silence the other creature who had dared cry out on his family’s land.

Behind him, he heard voices. He recognized Shamus, calling his name. But Hunter took off, racing through the gardens, scaling a tree and breaching the walls of the estate. No one could catch him when he took this form. Black panthers were called ghosts in the forests because they were difficult to see among the trees and undergrowth.

As he ran, the anger inside him subsided. He remembered running in this same forest with his grandfather. He could feel Fraser’s presence. On a hill overlooking the house, he stopped and roared again, imprinting his grief on everything around him. He waited for an answer, but he heard nothing. He felt dominant and in control as he tore his way up and down trees.

Gradually, he calmed. He went back toward the estate wall. Then he smelled the enemy.

The evil was close. He looked around, sniffed the air, and moved to hide in nearby weeds.

He waited, but the enemy stayed hidden. Chymera didn’t attack. And Hunter was canny enough to realize this was part of the battle. His grandmother had been right. Tonight was not the time. But the time would come. Hunter knew that as well as he knew this land.

He climbed a tree and went back over the wall. Just beyond the broad, front porch, he shifted again and found his clothing had been placed on an iron bench among the porch’s furniture.

Shamus stepped out of the shadows. A rifle gleamed in his hands. “You can’t tear off like that again, Master MacRae.”

Master MacRae? The address surprised Hunter into silence. This was what Shamus had called his grandfather. He ignored the man and pulled on his clothes.

“There’s a demon afoot,” Shamus said. “Your grandmother cannot take another loss. Aye, none of us can take it.”

Remembering the strength he had felt on the hill overlooking the house, Hunter forced out a laugh. “I’m not afraid.”

“You should be.”

Before Hunter could reply, his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pants pocket and saw that it was Zoe.

“Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly when he answered.

He turned away from Shamus and went inside, firmly closing the front door on the scowling bodyguard.

“I’m fine.” Hunter crossed the foyer to his grandfather’s study.

“What do you think it was?” Zoe asked.

“What was?”

“What you heard in the woods. You felt something, smelled it. I saw you.”

“You’re talking crazy. Do I need to call Bernie and get her to take you back to the hospital?”

“You were in the woods, as a panther.”

Hunter frowned. “How did you know that?”

“I saw you, Hunter, I saw you running through the woods. I was just sitting here, thinking about you and your grandfather, and then I could see you. You were so sad and so grief stricken it broke my heart. You ran wild through the woods like a black streak.”

How could Zoe know what he had just done?

“Your grandmother told you not to go, but you went anyway.”

This was downright creepy. He and Zoe had always been in tune, but she was peeking into his brain. “So you saw the scene with my family, too?”

Zoe sighed. “I can’t explain how I see these things, but I do. I know you were warned not to go into the woods and went anyway.”

“How much of my life can you see?”

“Oh, my god, Hunter, only stuff involving your second nature,” I said with impatience. “Anything else and I’d poke my eyes out. Now what was going on tonight?”

There was another long silence before Hunter sighed. “I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t run, and there’s this thing out there, howling in the night…” Hunter steadied his voice and told Zoe about his grandmother’s talk of his family’s enemies. He described the primal scream that had spilled over the mountains and valleys.

Zoe barely stifled a gasp. “So you ran off to issue your own challenge? And you’re already thinking about going back. Aren’t you?”

He was silent.

She groaned in frustration. “Oh my God, I can see you searching through those woods again. This is what your grandfather meant in my vision. He said we had a special connection, that I could see you. I have just enough precognition to know what’s about to happen, but I can’t do a damn thing about it. Just like with Kinley.”

“Zoe,” Hunter murmured. “There’s nothing you could have done about Kinley.”

“I can’t lose you.”

“You’re not going to.”

“Your grandfather told me to protect you.”

“Shit.” Hunter dropped into the chair behind his grandfather’s broad desk.

“There’s so much I don’t understand. Like Grandda’s body. He didn’t change. He took all that punishment as a human. That just doesn’t make sense. He could change in half the time it takes me. What would cause him to remain human when he was being attacked?”

“You need to listen to your grandmother,” Zoe said. “I know she can explain this to you.”

“Tomorrow I’m taking her to the cabin to spread Grandda’s ashes. She promised we would talk.”

“Is it safe to go there?”

“Grandda’s men are armed to the teeth. They’ll be standing guard.”

“They couldn’t contain you tonight.”

“I didn’t give them a choice,” Hunter admitted.

“Don’t take chances,” Zoe warned. “Please, promise you won’t. I feel as if something bad is about to happen.”

“Worse than what’s already happened?”

She had no reply to that. Hunter sat back in his grandfather’s chair. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back at work in a few days. We’ll be back to normal.”

“Normal?” Zoe’s laugh was low and without mirth. “I don’t know, Hunter. I think ever since you found that body in the woods behind our office, nothing has been normal.”

Hunter clicked off the phone and listened to the sounds of the house settling around him. He had always felt safe here. Now he wondered if he would ever feel safe again.

The following afternoon, Hunter pulled an ATV up to the porch of his grandfather’s cabin. The rustic hideaway still looked much as it had when he’d come here as a teenager. The snow that had fallen yesterday had largely melted. Sunlight filtered in streaks through the bare limbs of the giant trees that surrounded the haven of Fraser MacRae.

This would be his final resting place.

Beside Hunter, his grandmother sighed. “Fraser was always so happy here. He loved the woods and spent a good part of his life wishing he could spend more time here.”

Hunter got out of the vehicle and extended her a hand. She stepped out, one arm cradling the urn with Fraser’s ashes. Nana had regained her strength today. Her eyes were clear and bright. Acceptance had settled over her features.

Hunter had been surprised that it was just the two of them who would spread the ashes. But Nana said that’s what Fraser had wanted. How did being excluded make his father feel? And what did Stirling think of how Shamus and the other employees kept deferring to Hunter?

His parents and sister had been very quiet this morning, as if last night’s family fracas had never happened. Margaret and Meagan departed for the city after a somber family brunch. Stirling was back at the house, going over financial records and meeting with attorneys, already moving forward to settle Fraser’s estate.

His grandmother’s soft sigh brought Hunter back to the business at hand. He turned to her. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Almost,” she murmured, looking again at the sun-dappled forest. “Fraser brought me here when we conceived your father. Those four days were among the happiest of our married life.”

“Nana, please,” Hunter said, pretending to shudder.

She chuckled. “Your grandfather was a lusty, loving man. Our life together was a wonderful romantic adventure. It should make you proud to know that.”

“It does, but can we talk about something else now?”

Isobel passed the urn containing her husband’s ashes to Hunter. He took it calmly, although he couldn’t control a grimace.

“Don’t be so squeamish. You’re just holding a part of your grandfather. He will be so happy when he’s resting peacefully in his beloved woods.”

Looking down at the urn, tears stung his eyes.

“I know,
ogha
. Life will never be the same for either of us. He was a vigorous, happy man, more so with me than anyone else.” She glanced around, her expression soft with memories. “When we moved here, there was almost nothing here. He built our house and set about bringing people here to build the town and create a place where he had everything he needed. With easy access to New York City, we were set.”

“Were you happy living way up here most of the year?” Hunter set the urn on the steps of the cabin.

Isobel laughed. “Not at first. I left the small town where I lived in Scotland and looked forward to living in America and experiencing new things. I wanted to live in the city. Fraser was astonished at my reaction. He said, ‘I thought you’d love it, Izzie, it’s a great deal like your home in Giffnock.’ I said, ‘That’s why I wanted something different, you big ass.’ We had a hell of an argument.”

Now Hunter laughed, remembering his grandfather’s famous temper. “How long were you two mad at each other?”

“Until your grandfather grabbed me and kissed me and said, ‘Ah, lass, you’re gorgeous when you’re spittin’ fire. Give us a kiss, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’ And he did. Did you know we’ve visited every one of the continents? I’ve had a good life, a very good life.” Tears gathered in her eyes.