The Last Warrior (Shifters Unbound #13) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,77
me?” She banged her hands to her chest. “I know about the hoch alfar. I know that’s why you want to go to Faerie without me, but I won’t let you. We’ll face them down together, or hide from them together—whatever works.”
“Rhianne—”
“Do not tell me you will charge to Faerie and leave me behind. That is what this argument is really about, remember? We can yell at each other about the mate bond another time. Which I do feel, by the way. I’m not an idiot.”
“No, but you’re new to this.” Ben’s voice rose. “Don’t you think I want you to form the bond for me? What if you discover that it’s not true after all? That you’re forming it for someone else but don’t realize because I happened to be standing in front of you? Can you imagine that torture for me?”
Rhianne rarely let her anger fully surge—she’d seen the devastation her people could cause when they lost their famous tempers—but now fury flashed out of her. As when she’d been locked in the Bureau’s cell, she wanted to blast out the windows, grab Ben, and haul him away.
“Happened to be standing in front of me? Who the hell else would I be forming it for? Every Shifter I’ve met so far is already mated or a child. I feel the bonds, Ben. I see them.” Rhianne snatched at the threads in the air.
“I usually can see them too,” Ben said. “This time I don’t.”
“Maybe because you can’t see your own?”
“Oh, sure, a reasonable explanation. I believe you are feeling it, Rhianne, but I think it’s cruel of you to get my hopes up.”
“Cruel?” The Shifter in her began to snarl. “I’m being cruel to you?”
Rhianne felt her wings unfurl, her arms stretching out to become them.
“Um.” The hesitant syllable from the kitchen doorway snapped Rhianne’s attention from the growing inferno inside her. She lowered her arms, the wings receding.
Liam’s nephew, Connor, who was a younger version of his uncle Liam, had entered the kitchen.
With him, standing close, was the young woman Carly said was Tiger’s cub. She’d pulled her orange and black hair into a ponytail, but it was the only thing about her that was subdued. Her eyes, so like Tiger’s, darted between Ben and Rhianne. Rhianne sensed the wildness in her, one that could tear apart this place faster than any of them could, even if they combined their efforts.
Connor cleared his throat. “If you need a place to be private, and it sounds like you do, come with me.”
He crossed to the back door past a silent and nonplussed Ben. Tiger-girl followed, her gaze moving to Rhianne and staying there.
Rhianne saw intelligence in the tall young woman, raw, but there. She was no fool. Tiger-girl swept her gaze over Rhianne from head to toe, craning to see behind her back as though looking for her wings. Rhianne shrugged, giving her a small smile. Tiger-girl grinned then hurried out after Connor, not letting him out of her sight.
Ben caught Rhianne’s hand. She didn’t jerk away this time but allowed him to tow her along after Connor and Tiger-girl.
Conner went down the porch steps into the common area behind the houses. Dawn had broken, the gray sky flushed with pink light. Rhianne and Ben followed Connor and Tiger-girl around the house to a large built-on lean-to, possibly at one time meant to be a garden shed.
“Hey, Connor.” A young woman jogging on the common waved to Connor. The young woman, who looked to be in her very early twenties, wore shorts, tank top, and sneakers, good for running. And for Shifting, Rhianne realized. Easy clothes to take on and off.
The young woman halted and beamed at Connor, paying no attention to the rest of them. Connor glanced around at her. “Oh, hey lass. How are you?”
The words were casual, what Connor might say to anyone who happened by. The young woman brightened. “I’m doing just fine. Missed you at the party last night.”
“Busy.” Connor turned from her to fit a key into the padlock of the shed. “Shifter stuff with my uncle. You know.”
“I do.” The young woman sidled closer, completely ignoring Ben, Rhianne, and Tiger-girl. “You’ll be doing his job one day. I bet you’ll be awesome.”
“Shew, I hope it’s not too soon.” Connor jiggled the key in the lock. “A good many years from now. I want to enjoy myself first.”
The young woman giggled. Tiger-girl, who’d been watching with narrowing eyes, abruptly stepped between the