Desert Bound (Cambio Springs) (12 page)

Alex had never even heard her move from the truck. The snakes continued circling, even more agitated by the scent of violence in the air. One reached out in a half strike, slamming his head into Alex’s foreleg, though the teeth didn’t sink in. 

He bit down his urge to bite. One careless move and there’d be a dead shifter on his conscience. He didn’t want that, even if they were threatening him. The problem was, they knew it.

Connor, Rory, and Kellan had backed up, scooting away from the mountain lion pinning their cousin. Ted bared her teeth and screamed in Maggie’s face again, one paw locked on the shotgun that the woman had pulled, the other pinning Maggie to the ground. Her claws dug into the woman’s chest, five deep gouges that welled red with fresh blood.

It filled the air, exciting every predator in the vicinity. Alex could feel his hackles rise. The urge to attack the snakes around him swelled.

“Enough!” 

He heard the roar coming from the cliffs as Old Quinn walked down the trail, red faced and wearing a furious expression. 

Ted backed off of Maggie and let Quinn pull the young woman up by the throat. He pinned her against the wall. 

“You dare, Margaret Quinn?”

“Uncle—”

“You dare pull
my
gun on a clan leader while on
my
land?”

“I asked them to leave! Twice!” 

“You’re a stupid child, and I have no use for you.” His graveled voice rasped in the dry air. “This is not your land, and the territory laws don’t protect you. Now I’m telling you to get off
my
land and not come back until I give you leave. That is your only warning.”

He tossed her by the neck toward her sisters, who caught her and scrambled off the porch. Connor, Rory, and Kellan stood watching, none of them daring to say a word. Old Quinn stepped out into the yard and yelled at the snakes. “Get! I want all of you gone.”

Just as quickly as the rattlers appeared, they left, slinking into the grass and rocks as if they’d never been there at all. Old Quinn glared at the boys on the porch, especially Connor.

“Connor, get out of here.”

He had the gall to look hurt. “Why?”

“Because I want you gone!”

Old Quinn didn’t have to say it twice. Connor took off without a word. Quinn grunted at Rory and Kellan and pointed at two chairs at the end of the porch. 

“Stay there and don’t come inside. Rory, don’t be an idiot like your cousins. Kellan, listen to Rory.”

The boys went to sit immediately while Quinn turned to Ted and said, “If you’re not here to give me any kind of fucking exam, then shift and get in the house, doc. We have things to talk about.”

Then he glanced over his shoulder and said, “You too, McCann. And I don’t want any fur on my couch.”

Chuffing out what had to be a laugh, Ted loped back to the truck, ducking behind it to get dressed. Alex shifted and tried to pick up the scraps of clothes that had ripped when he changed. He tossed them in the back of the truck and didn’t even flinch when Ted walked past and slapped his ass.

“You still get little freckles on your butt.”

“And you still like my ass,” he said, trying not to smile. “Cats. Always taking advantage.”

“I like the freckles. They’re cute.”

He couldn’t hold back the grin. If they were alone…

Shifting made him horny. There was no delicate way to put it. After the initial nausea they all went through during puberty, a shift set the blood running. For fight, flight, or sex. It left the body revved up, and very little helped except giving in to whatever urge struck hardest.

He pulled on the spare sweatpants he kept behind his seat and hoped that Old Quinn had something stronger than sweet tea to give him.

Alex was sucking back a beer by the time all three of them sat down in the living room. Old Quinn may have never married or had children, but he was still the head of his family. The Quinn women kept his house for him and kept his kitchen stocked. There was always food and drink to be had, which came in handy when your house was the unofficial hangout of a good third of the town’s population. 

Quinn eyed them, glancing between Ted and Alex with amused awareness, but Ted’s expression said it all.

Back off, old man. This is none of your business.

Nevertheless, the old man smirked. “You here because of Marcus?”

Alex nodded, but it was Ted who spoke.

“Yes, but first, do we have a problem about Maggie?”

“Did you draw blood?”

“Yes.”

Quinn cocked his head, never one to let an advantage slip by.

“My clan will have a blood marker on yours, but I’ll be cautious about collecting it. I know it was provoked.”

Ted didn’t look pleased. Alex narrowed his eyes and saw Old Quinn smiling at him as if he’d done him a favor.

Blood markers were inevitable when you had as many predators living together as you did in Cambio Springs. On moon nights, when all the clans shifted, things could get wild. It was one of the reasons that snakes usually stayed out of the way when nights got rowdy. Bears, big cats, and wolves could all hold their own, even in a fight where blood was spilled. Birds could fly and there weren’t many of them. But snakes were stealth hunters, better served by isolation and silence than outright attack.

For the cats to owe the snakes a blood marker was significant. The fact that Quinn acknowledged the marker as provoked was… problematic.

While wolves could claim attack on any member of the pack as a provocation, cats were solitary. Provocation would only be acknowledged for immediate family. A child… or a mate. By calling the attack on Maggie provoked, Old Quinn was effectively calling Alex McCann Ted’s mate.

And that wasn’t lost on Ted. 

Alex narrowed his eyes and wondered if Old Quinn had just made his life easier or harder.

Luckily, Ted brushed it off. She nodded and said, “I’ll let my mother know.”

“Appreciated.”

“Maggie’s a problem,” Alex said.

Old Quinn tugged on the end of his mustache. “You don’t have to tell me that, McCann. Course you know it’d be better if her brother was around.”

Sean hadn’t been back in the Springs since high school. The few times Alex had seen him had been in Los Angeles or one of the other cities where the journalist had been on assignment. They emailed regularly, and Alex knew that Sean kept in touch with his uncle, too.

“You know he’s not likely to be back.”

“And I know the reasons he stays gone are bullshit.”

“They’re his reasons, Quinn. I can’t—”

“You tell him, Alex. He stays gone after Marcus is dead, and his family and clan are fucked for leadership. Hell, he might actually listen to you.” Quinn’s voice was soft when he glanced at the porch. “After Sean, Marcus was it. Now, I’ve got my eye on Rory, but he’s young. And he’s messed up about his brother right now. All the older generation are too much of a mess.”

The Quinn’s last clan leader had been trouble, encouraging the more criminal elements in his family to thrive, and it had left a mark on his parents’ generation. Old Quinn started to change directions for his family as soon as his grandfather had died, but that change took time.

“You’ve got a lot of years left, Quinn.”

The old man’s voice grew hoarse. “If losing Alma taught me anything, it’s that you have to be prepared. We don’t have no guarantees here. Tell my nephew to get his ass home. He has responsibilities.” 

“I’ll tell him, Quinn, but you know there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded between Alex and Ted. “Speaking of responsibilities, you two thought about what you’re going to do to the balance of power here once everyone knows?”

Ted said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not a very good liar, Teodora Vasquez, so don’t try to bullshit me.”

Alex placed his hand on Ted’s knee and felt the tension. She was angry, but he didn’t want the old man to sidetrack them. “That’s not why we’re here, Quinn.”

“Just something to keep in mind.”

“Fine,” Ted said between clenched teeth. “We want to talk about Marcus.”

“I bet you do.”

Alex scooted forward in his seat, setting his beer on the coffee table. “Ted and I are looking into some things that Chief Gilbert might not think about. Some… alternate areas of investigation.”

Now Quinn just looked amused. “You know Gilbert is smart as hell. What do you think you’re gonna find that he won’t?”

“He may be smart, but he doesn’t think like a criminal the way I do.”

“You?” Old Quinn hooted. “A criminal?”

“Nothing shadier than real estate deals in Southern California, old man.”

Quinn tipped his head toward Alex. “You may have me there, boy.”

“Has Gilbert come up here to ask you where Marcus got the money to start his business yet?”

All amusement dropped from Old Quinn’s face. “Leave that one alone, Alex.”

“Has he?”

“No. But if he does, he has friends in the police department in Vegas who can look into that shit. It’s not something you two need to poke around in.”

He could feel Ted sit up straighter. “There
was
something sketchy,” she said.

Quinn frowned before he took another pull on his beer. “Of course there was something sketchy. You don’t start a business with that much capital on account of your smile. I didn’t like it, but Marcus did it anyway. And it’s something he got out from under as soon as he could. I don’t think it has anything to do with who killed him.”

Alex asked, “Why not?”

Old Quinn narrowed his eyes. “Because if I did, there’d be seven dead Eye-talians Vegas PD would be investigating right now.” He leaned back and flicked his mustache. “Not that they’d get anywhere. Snake bites happen in the desert.”

Chapter Nine

“Provoked.”

Her mother was going to have a fit. Not only was Old Quinn getting a blood marker on their clan, but the elder was insinuating that Ted had mate privileges with the future McCann alpha. She was never going to hear the end of it.

I’ll show you provoked, old man.

She was silent on the drive back, letting Alex navigate his truck over the rocky roads leaving Old Quinn’s house. She didn’t think about the fact that he was driving. Hadn’t even asked if he wanted her to. She drove in the city because he hated traffic and tended to get enraged. He drove in the country because he was better off-road. It was another slip into old patterns that she tried not to think about.

“Your mother going to pitch a fit about the blood marker?”

The fact that he guessed her thoughts only ticked her off more.

“Probably not. Blood markers are inevitable, and she knows I’m not a hothead.”

“And it was
provoked
…” She could hear the mischief in his voice. 

“Stop. Just… stop.”

“You know I won’t.”

She sighed. “Try.”

Alex didn’t just stop talking, he pulled the car over. 

“Is she?” he asked.

Ted was lost. “Is she what?”

“Your mother. Is she going to throw a fit?”

He wasn’t just asking about the marker. It was all of it. She and Alex. 

“You two thought about what you’re going to do to the balance of power here once everyone knows?”

She hated that Old Quinn was right. There was more than one reason that most shifters looked away from the Springs for mates. It wasn’t that inter-clan pairings didn’t happen. They did. Jena’s late husband had been a wolf, even though he’d never shifted. Ted had cousins who were in different clans because their parents weren’t cats. Children from such unions had a fifty-fifty chance of being either animal.

But among the leadership…

Ted was one of the most dominant cats. Alex was the future alpha. None of their elders had liked their relationship in college, and all of them had been quietly relieved when it ended. Despite the fact that she had no interest in leading her clan—and had told her mother so repeatedly—she couldn’t ignore the implications of being in a relationship with Alex.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Ted—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m an adult. And at the end of the day, she wants me to be happy. She’s not a horrible person, Alex.”

“No, but she’d sure like it if I was submissive to you.”

“Yes.” There was no use denying something he knew already.

He silently stared at her hand where it rested on the console between them. He reached over and twined their fingers together.

“Not going to happen, Tea.” His voice wasn’t arrogant. If anything, it was a little sad. “I’m the head of my clan. Dominance is in my blood. You know that, right?”

His firm touch eased the knot of worry in her chest. If he’d wavered, she might have doubted. But Alex was a man who knew who he was. And what his animal was capable of.

“I know, Alex.”

“Being submissive… There’s not a damn thing wrong with it. It’s a necessary balance for some. But it’s not me. And it never will be.”

She wasn’t interested in challenging him on it. Ever. But he didn’t need to know that. 

Plus, her cat wanted to play.

Ted twisted her hand around and clasped her fingers around his wrist. “You sure about that? Ever?” She squeezed her fingers tight around his skin. “Because that’s just… unimaginative, Alex.”

The heavy atmosphere in the car couldn’t last through his rueful grin. “I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing anymore.”

“Are you complaining?”

“No.” He pulled his wrist away and put the car in gear. “But she’s going to cause problems if we get back together—”

“Which I’m still deciding.”

He turned his head and cocked an arrogant eyebrow at her. “Sure you are.”

“Arrogant.”

“Stubborn,” he said. “And my dad won’t be thrilled either. The benefit is, they’ve got all the same arguments they always had, and we have the same answers, plus a few new ones.”

Ted started to play devil’s advocate on their own hypothetical relationship.

“We can’t belong to both clans.”

“Of course not,” Alex said. “You’ll stay in your clan; I’ll stay in mine. We’re people first, not animals.”