Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing out there in the diner. What had she ordered? Which greasy dish was for her? He tried to guess. Maybe eggs…
The object of his thoughts walked through the kitchen door holding Nancy’s apron. He raised an eyebrow knowing they’d have to communicate entirely telepathically since she would look crazy speaking aloud while he couldn’t.
Instead of glancing at him, she turned to Bob. “Hi, Bob, do you remember me from yesterday?” She touched Bob’s arm. “I’m Angel Kane. Nancy isn’t feeling well and even though I’m not a waitress, I have lots of experience waiting on people. Can I help?”
Bob stammered his response. Angel had a way of doing that to people. She walked in a room and took over. It was very opposite of how Parker handled life. His size made him noticeable, there was nothing to be done about that, but his general silence made everyone forget he was in the room.
Still, part of what she’d said made his head sputter. Had she told him earlier her last name was Kane? As in ‘Kendrick Kane?’ The Alpha of Westervelt who had terrified him as a child? Wow. Angel was royalty and that would make her even more of a target to people who wanted to hurt her.
Even after they removed their souls from each other’s keeping he might have to stick around her to keep her safe. It made his blood boil even to think of her being in danger. His wolf growled at the thought.
She whirled around to gaze at him. “I can feel your tension all the way over here.”
“Sorry. I’ll try to tone it down.” He stared her up and down. She appeared downright sultry in her waitress apron. If he could, he’d bend her over one of the tables and take her with nothing but that apron around her waist.
“Alright,” she spoke to Bob again. “I’ll get moving.” She winked at Parker. “Hope you can keep up”
Bob stared at Parker. “Do you have something going on with that hot number? Woo, good for you boy. Guess she likes the type who doesn’t have much to say.”
Bob shook his head and kept cooking. He often spoke to Parker but he never expected a response, which was good because, as it turned out, Parker couldn’t have spoken to him if he’d wanted to.
The morning went pretty smoothly. Angel would come into the kitchen, leave the orders, pick up the orders, deliver them, and if it wasn’t as smooth a transition as Nancy did no one seemed to notice or complain. Every time the door opened his day would get a little bit brighter.
He hung his towel on the rack and decided to take a five-minute break. He would have waited for Angel to take hers but truthfully they couldn’t both be off at the same time. Bob needed her help while he was out of the room.
Picking up the garbage—he might as well take it out while he got his few moments of fresh air—he moved to the rear of the restaurant and out the back door. After he quickly deposited the waste in the dumpster, he walked over to the front of the building to watch the cars go by. This was his usual routine. He’d spend his free moments imagining that he got into one of the moving automobiles and let it take him…
Where was always the question. Where would he let it take him? Unfortunately, his wolf always had one answer and it wasn’t one he could abide: home. He couldn’t go there. Not after what his father had done. Not when he knew that being there would bring out the parts of him he so desperately wanted to keep hidden deep inside where they couldn’t harm anyone.
Especially Angel.
A car door slammed and he looked momentarily at three women who approached the diner. Most of the time he didn’t care about the patrons. They came, they went. The diner’s location next to the highway meant the majority of the patrons were mostly transitory. They had very few ‘regulars’ coming in at any time.
For most of his time here the lack of constant people had been part of the appeal of the strange little place he’d spent the last twenty years cleaning up. It was less likely anyone would find him or recognize him. Of course, Angel had found him. Not that she’d been looking. He shook his head. Perhaps it was time to also acknowledge that after twenty years, no one was going to be searching for him.
So maybe he could leave. He rubbed his forehead as a headache started between his eyes. Where would he go? Angel’s face appeared in his imagination. He sighed. The truth was, he would go anywhere she wanted.
But he wasn’t sure the same could be said for her feelings, and he didn’t want to follow her around like a lost puppy she had to take care of.
He turned to go back in the diner when the scent assailed him. His nose twitched and he covered his mouth. He didn’t have a word for what he scented. No, it simply smelled…wrong.
He’d never encountered the situation before. Not like this. He moved forward trying to identify the source. Bob would be looking for him any second but for the first time in his life the old man was going to have to wait for Parker’s attention. This took precedence.
In seconds he had determined the foulness came from the three women who had exited their vehicle and were now climbing the stairs to the diner. It wasn’t a hygiene thing—no, that element of them smelled fine. This was a magic problem. He sniffed again and adjusted his thinking. It wasn’t all three of them. It was the twins. The ugly woman who walked by herself didn’t smell evil.
It was like all the badness in the world had gathered itself up and attached to two of the women entering the diner. And gods help him, they stunk from it.
The wrongness about them would be undetected by humans. Only Angel would know there was something off when they came near her
Not necessarily.
His wolf spoke lowly, a growl in his voice.
Parker stopped moving. What do you mean?
We’re all different. Her wolf may not scent the evil of those two.
That wasn’t good news. His pulse pounded hard. He needed to get inside and keep her from getting near those three people right away. Instincts he couldn’t control threatened to overtake him. A very large part of him wanted to run inside and tear up the two women—hell the three of them—just to keep her safe.
But he was a rational man. He would control the beast inside of him and find a better way.
He ran quickly through the back door of the restaurant and Bob looked up.
“Short break?”
Yep, it was. He nodded and stepped out into the dining room. He spotted Angel and his fists clenched. She was currently waiting on the very patrons he didn’t want her anywhere near.
“Angel, they’re wrong.”
She raised an eyebrow but made no other outward indication she’d heard him as she smiled at the unattractive woman.
“What do you mean?”
“Magically, they smell bad, evil, or something.”
He wasn’t particularly versed on the right words for this kind of thing. He just knew what he knew. They smell wrong.
She cleared her throat and wrote something down on her pad. “They smell fine to me but I’m not going to argue with you on this subject.”
“Well, I’ll be right back with your coffee.”
She turned and moved toward him. When she reached him she grabbed his arm, pulling him with her into the kitchen. It wasn’t like they could talk in there, not with Bob cooking at the stove.
“Bob, do we have arugula salad?”
He shook his head. “Darling, I don’t even know what that is.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She walked quickly to the freezer and opened it. As she gazed inside, she spoke to Parker telepathically.
“You think they’re bad witches?”
The way she said witches made him think she’d had dealings with them before. He hadn’t, as far as he knew, except apparently he’d been cursed. Magic was a dangerous thing altogether. When he got out of this mess, he wasn’t going anywhere near it ever again if he could help it.
“I think they’re bad something.”
She smiled as she pulled three ice packs o
ut of the freezer. “You have a real way with words, Parker.”
He leaned against the counter and watched what she did. “What are you doing?
“Nothing. I’m pretending to be busy so we can chat undisturbed.”
That was what it had looked like to him. He couldn’t imagine what she’d found so interesting in the freezer or why she grabbed the ice packs. It was a relief to know he wasn’t nuts.
“I want you to go back to my apartment and wait for me there.”
She stopped her maneuverings and rounded to glare at him. Gone was the soft, sweet gaze of their workday together. No, the eyes that studied him now were the eyes of a pissed off woman. He didn’t have to work hard to see that she was Kendrick Kane’s daughter. The man had terrified him as a child and the woman who stared at him now could melt glaciers with her glare.
“Did you just tell me to go home and hide?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. She might be able to intimidate the world, and even make him sweat a little bit, but he wasn’t going to be pushed around by her. No way, no how.
“The hiding is optional. The going home is an order.”
If it was possible to scream telepathically she did it. “An order?”
Inside of him, his wolf whimpered. This was not good territory. His use of that word was a big mistake. He held enough of her soul to know she didn’t handle what she considered manhandling very well. Parker hadn’t put his hands on her—and never would—except she considered orders to be akin to beatings.
The door to the kitchen flung open and Angel gasped. He whirled around. The twins stood in the doorway staring at them.
They were identical. The one who stood on the right hissed. “I told you I felt magic. Someone in here is using telepathy.”
Bob slammed his spatula down on the stove. “What is going on here? I don’t know who you two think you are but I don’t let customers in my kitchen.” He pointed at the door. “Out.”
The woman on the right sneered. “Go to sleep, old man.”
She clicked her fingers and Bob hit the floor. Angel swore as she ran to his side.
Parker stalked forward. For once, he wasn’t ashamed of his wolf side. He wanted to kill these two bitches. No one hurt Bob…
Angel snarled as she grabbed Bob off the floor, holding him in her arms. “Are you crazy? You don’t use that kind of magic on an old man.”
“What are you? The magic police?” The twin who had knocked out Bob laughed. She turned her attention to Parker, which was just fine with him. “Tell your boyfriend to back off or I’ll make him a toad.”
She’d been looking at him when she spoke but she’d clearly addressed Angel.
“I don’t tell him to do anything.” Angel gently eased Bob’s head back down on the floor and stalked over to him. “He’s a fully grown wolf-shifter. He’ll have you for dinner before you can blink.”
That was right. He could, if he wanted to, have these women for dinner.
He hadn’t made a move but the witch stared at him like he’d threatened her. Inwardly, he shrugged. His size alone made that happen all the time. Finally, she spoke again. “I mean it. I’ll turn her into a cockroach.”
He knew the women must be feeling desperate. They’d stormed into the room thinking they could pick on whoever was in here. They were no better than bullies—magical bullies but the idea was the same.
The door banged open behind the horrible twins. The twin who had threatened Angel fell forward at the impact, discharging her power through her hand. It happened so quickly, it was over before he even realized what was about to occur.
Angel!
He screamed in his mind but it was too late. His blood boiled hot as the woman who had been picked out for him by the universe doubled over on the floor.
He howled along with his wolf at the horror.
“Oh my gods!”
He stared at the person who had knocked into the twins. It was the unattractive woman who had accompanied them. She gasped as she whirled her arms in the air.
The room seemed to slow down for a moment before the twins froze on the ground. He didn’t care. He only had eyes for Angel as he darted across the room. She was unconscious and he cradled her in his arms. He hadn’t wanted this thing between them. Still, he couldn’t stand the thought of her dying. Inside of him something shriveled at the thought. He could still feel her soul where it had been entrusted to him safe and secure inside of him. That meant she still lived, which was a small relief.
The third woman who had barged in spoke. “Oh no, what’s happening in here?”
He pointed at the woman. “You did this.”
“No.” She gasped again as she ran over to him. “I didn’t. Charra did. She and Penny are horrible. I’m sorry I knocked into her. She must have planned to hit her with the spell anyway otherwise this couldn’t have happened.”
“You heard me?”
She shook her head. “Of course, I did. You spoke to me directly. You wanted me to hear you, right?”
That was too weird. He couldn’t deal with it right now. “Fix her.”
She bent over. Placing her hands directly above Angel’s body, she made a hissing sound.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
Parker had never thought of himself as being rude but he couldn’t stand to look at this woman. Sores covered most of the visible skin on her face. One of her eyes drooped down lower than the other and her hair was a rat’s nest of brown tangles. It was painful for him to stare at her even as he forced his gaze to remain on her distorted features and not on Angel’s unmoving figure.
The woman stared at him with sympathy in her eyes. “Thank you for continuing to regard me. It’s hard, I know.” She nodded in the direction of the two frozen twins. “Their mother did this to me. I have to stay with them and take care of them until she turns me back or I’ll stay this way forever. It’s a spell. It’s almost impossible to look directly at me. But you’re doing it.” She glanced down at Angel. “And she did when she took my order.”
“She’s kind.” He grabbed the woman’s arm. “Please, can’t you fix whatever they’ve done, to both Angel and Bob?”
The woman shook her head. “I would if I could. It’s too powerful for me. They’re more talented than I am.” She stared down at Bob. “He seems to just be unconscious but she’s in a magical coma.”
“What do I do?”
He had an idea of what he could do. He could wake up the wonder twins and beat them—hard—until they told him what they’d done to Angel and they undid it. He’d never raised a hand to a woman, but he was willing to break his cardinal rule right now if need be.
“Take her away from here, quickly.” She bit her fingernail. “My freezing spell won’t hold very long and they’re going to be really mad when they come to. You don’t want to be here when that happens. I’m Liz, by the way.”
“Take her where, Liz? Who can help her if you can’t?”
He didn’t know how to drive a car. Even so, he’d take her wherever she needed to go. He’d find a way.
“There are only two places to go and neither of them are very good options.” She stood. “Kendrick Kane is a very bad man who controls an empire of wolves. I think he’s somewhere in Arizona.” She visibly shivered. “I’m afraid of him. It might be too far for you get there in time.” She bit her lip. “Or you could take her to his sons. They live up in Maine on an island called Westervelt. I wouldn’t go anywhere near there, personally. They killed a witch there a few years ago. Neither situation is very good. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”
Liz darted over to where the twins lay unmoving. “You need to hurry. You don’t have much time.”
Parker picked Angel up in his arms. She weighed nothing. He ran out the back door grabbing Bob’s car keys on his way out. It had been years since Bob took the car anywhere and Parker hoped it still worked. He’d have to fak
e his way through driving.
There was no time to get to Arizona. Angel was in a magical coma and even though Parker didn’t know exactly what that meant, it didn’t sound like a good thing to him. He’d take her up to Westervelt. Neither of them were witches, so hopefully the Kane brothers wouldn’t take out their brutality on them. Not that Parker was going to let anyone hurt Angel.
He’d rip them all to shreds. He’d seen his father do it. Still, his mind stuttered at the information Liz had given him. Kendrick Kane led an empire of wolves somewhere other than Westervelt? How was that possible? This was Angel Kane; the brothers wouldn’t want to hurt their sister, would they?
After putting Angel in the car, Parker stuck the key in the ignition and felt a moment’s relief when the car turned on. Maybe his luck was changing. He pressed on the gas, too hard, and the car made a loud growling noise. Damn. He hadn’t remembered to put the car in drive.
This was going to be ridiculously hard.
Why hadn’t he ever taken the time to learn to drive?
Because you’ve been hiding in a kitchen.
He growled inside. He really wasn’t in the mood.
Chapter 7
ANGEL looked around at her surroundings as she shivered from the cold. She had no idea where she was. Wherever this place was, it was early morning. She stood in front of a large lake with a slight mist covering the still waters. Closing her eyes, she searched for her wolf but didn’t get a response to her query. She tried again as the truth dawned on her.
Her wolf was missing!
She gasped and clutched her chest. It was like an ache inside of her body, a limb that had been surgically removed and she wanted it back. A calm, soothing presence filled her up and breathed deeply for a moment to enjoy the sensation. It felt as if Parker held her in his arms even though he wasn’t anywhere around.
Except, of course, he was. Half of his soul now resided in her body. As she opened her eyes, she moved forward, drawn by a force she couldn’t explain to see whatever was about to happen.