Freakn' Shifters Bundle (3-in-1) (51 page)

“Hi. You must be Jill. I’m Meredith Grayson, Chris’s mother, also head of the Shifter Welcome Committee for the Ottawa area. Nice to meet you.”

Jiao clasped the outstretched hand and shook it, wondering at the woman’s presence.
Did she come to warn me away from her son?
Oh please, no. If Sheng heard anything of the sort, he’d have them packed and gone by the morning. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Oh goodness. Call me Meredith. We don’t stand on formalities around here.”

Remembering her manners Jiao opened the door wider. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea or coffee?”

“Perhaps another time. I’m in full prep mode for Thanksgiving dinner, but I thought I’d take a little break and pop on over to introduce myself and invite you to come tomorrow for supper if you don’t have plans.”

“Oh, I couldn’t impose.” Even if the thought of seeing Chris and meeting his family intrigued.

“But I insist.”

“My husband –”

“Should come along, too.” Meredith’s smile turned almost predatory. “I’d love to meet him as would my husband Geoffrey.”

“He’s not the most social of people,” Jiao admitted.

“Perhaps we can cure him of that.”

Good luck. She’d not had any success. “I’ll ask him.”

“Ask me what?” Sheng asked coming into the room.

“Jack, this is Meredith, head of the Shifter Welcome Committee. She’s invited us to come for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“How kind, but I’m afraid we must decline,” he answered politely. Gee, like she couldn’t have guessed his response on her own. And usually, she would back him, but…

“Why can’t we go?” she asked, pinning him with a stare. “We don’t have any plans, and I’ve yet to master making a turkey.”

“My family is very friendly, as are our friends and neighbors,” Meredith added. “The more the merrier.”

“We wouldn’t want to create more work,” Sheng replied throwing Jiao a warning look.

“What work? I always make a ton of food. It would be a great way for you to meet some of the other shifters in the community.”

Before Sheng could refuse again, Jiao answered, ignoring his wishes. “You know what? We will come. It sounds delightful. Can I bring anything?”

“Just an empty stomach. Say around fourish? Or earlier if your husband likes to watch football. Geoffrey insists on having it blaring the entire day on every television in the house.”

Sheng would hate that. Too bad. “We’ll be there,” Jiao replied brightly, elbowing her brother in the midsection hard enough to make him gasp before he could contradict her.

Jiao saw Meredith to the door and held it open long enough to wave goodbye as she drove away before turning to face a simmering Sheng.

“Exactly what do you think you are doing?” he asked tightly.

“Fitting in. It is what we’re supposed to do so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. Right?”

“By accepting an invitation to a dinner with what sounds like a lot of shifters?”

“What better way to meet the people we live among? Oh come on, Sheng. It’s not like I’m going to change into my cat and announce we’re fugitives from a rich sicko who likes to collect shifters. Stop being so paranoid.”

“I’m not paranoid.”

“Cautious. Paranoid. There’s a fine line, brother. Besides, I want to go. I think it might be fun to meet other people.” To see Chris, but she didn’t mention that for obvious reasons, just like she’d omitted who Meredith was in conjunction to their handyman. Sheng would have never agreed, even reluctantly, if he knew.

“We’ll go, but no alcohol, or staying too late.”

“I am not leaving before dessert.”

“Fine. But if this shindig ends up backfiring –”

“Yeah. Yeah. You can say I told you so. Thanks, Sheng.” Jiao flung her arms around her brother and hugged him tight. Excitement at the coming dinner warred with anxiety. She didn’t fear discovery by Kaleb, or one of his supposed spies.  No her fear bore different roots.

What if Chris has a date?

Could she handle the wolf she already thought of as her own, paying attention to another woman? Judging by the claws popping out from her fingertips, no. But she didn’t let it sway her mind from attending the dinner. She sure did hope, though, that Sheng’s attitude would adjust so he didn’t look like he swallowed a crate full of lemons. He took antisocial to a whole new level.

*

Sheng, despite the nagging doubt in his gut, didn’t cancel their dinner plans the next day. He could see how much Jiao wanted to go. How she chafed at their boring existence and he understood how she felt, because their hiding tired him, too. But he preferred a stale existence to captivity.

A part of him understood their chances of discovery were slim despite their unique heritage, after all, Asians were in evidence all over Canada. Heck, he’d even spotted a few shifter ones in this very neighborhood, not spotted leopards of course, but still rare breeds for the climate. On the surface, he and his sister would pass muster. However, he feared them relaxing their guard. Getting too comfortable. Letting the wrong person know or see who they were inside.

One wrong word or observation to someone related to Kaleb and it could all end. One harmless Facebook picture, or Twitter and poof, they could end up back in their cage in the mountains, prized pets brought out to perform, earning their keep lest they lose their usefulness to the man who controlled their lives.

Sweat beaded Sheng’s brow as he slid his bare foot along the corded rope suspended so high in the air.

“Don’t look down,” his father advised from the platform behind him. “Keep your eyes in front of you and pretend it’s the balance beam just like we practiced.”

Sure, except the balance beam stood only inches from the floor, not a few stories. His gaze flicked down, far, far down, and he swallowed hard. He should listen to his father. He brought his gaze back up and pointed it straight ahead. At the other end of the rope, standing on a small platform, he saw Jiao watching him, her teeth gnawing her lower lip in worry. Dammit. He couldn’t act afraid. Not with his little sister watching. Not when her turn was next. They needed to get this right or Kaleb would punish them – if the fall didn’t kill them first.

One foot moved forward on the tautly strung rope, his toes curling for grip, while his arms hovered outstretched for balance. With slow steps, he made it to the middle.

“Good. Now, remember how we did it in practice. Bounce, leap, change, and land.” His father’s words emerged smooth and encouraging, but he couldn’t completely hide the worry in his instructions.

Jiao didn’t even try. She clasped her hands to her chest and watched him with wide eyes.

Sheng could do this. Just like they’d practiced. He tried not to think of the plunge if he failed, or the lack of a net to catch him if he slipped. At least his mother wasn’t here to watch, her services required elsewhere. He just wished she’d taken Jiao with her, just in case…

No. He would not fail. Couldn’t.

One deep breath. Two. He pushed his weight down, and then sprang up, calling his cat. In midair, his body contorted, the pain of the change still so new. But he couldn’t focus on that. Couldn’t focus on anything but the fact he descended, gravity gripping his lithe form. He hit the rope, but his front paws slipped. His sister gasped as he heaved forward, face first. The floor, so far below, mocked him with its hard surface as his body followed his flailing paws, and he toppled. But didn’t fall.

Hind feet hooked around the rope, he hung upside down, swaying slightly. It was times likes these he thanked the fates his animal had a rare agility.

Muttered, but still audible to a shifter with keen ears, Sheng heard his father’s quick prayer of thanks. “Good job, son. But next time, try and land on your feet instead of giving me a heart attack,” his father joked.

It took lots of practice, and a few more scares, but Sheng did manage that. Plus hand stands, swings, pirouettes and other acrobatic feats meant to please a crowd who came to see the catboy and his sister perform.

The worst part? They weren’t the biggest freaks in the show, and while it wasn’t a great life, they survived. Until the day Sheng overhead Kaleb discussing his plans to breed his sister to the highest bidder. Even without his promise to his father, Sheng would have done anything to get her out of there, and he did.

If only Patricia could have found the compound they escaped from and stopped Kaleb for good. While the shifters didn’t really have an army per se, they did have a governing body that would have put a stop to Kaleb’s crimes if they could find him. However, despite their searches, they came up empty handed. The Rockies they’d fled, too vast for a proper search.

What a shame, because a dead or incarcerated Kaleb would have solved their problem. Sheng knew there weren’t many sickos like him who got off on capturing their kind and using them for his perverse performances, both inside the ring and in the wild for the hunt. Sheng often dreamed of killing the fat bastard himself. A massive bear of a man, and one hundred percent human, Kaleb went nowhere without guards. Guards or not, though, if given a chance, Sheng would try to kill him.

I’d do anything to end this limbo we’re living in. Anything to stop the nightmares that we might end up back in that sicko’s clutches.

Jiao was right. Something had to change. Running forever wasn’t an option. But damn, it was so hard letting go of the fear and the paranoia, to relax his guard. Did he want to go to this stupid Thanksgiving dinner? No, but did he need to? Yes. And not just for his sister, but himself.

Sheng needed to meet other people. Adjust his thinking that the whole world was out to screw him and his only remaining family over. He needed to learn to trust others, maybe make a friend. A girlfriend.

Well into his twenties, he desired the last most of all. At least he wasn’t a virgin like his sister. He’d taken care of that curiosity while still in captivity. And, despite his stand offish attitude, he never had a problem finding a partner for a bit of between the sheets action. However, those quick, impersonal couplings left him feeling incomplete. Sometimes even lonelier than before. At the same time though, it was all he could allow himself because until he could ascertain the danger was gone, he couldn’t drag another person in to possible danger.

And if I can’t have a woman in my life, then neither can Jiao, a man that was,
no matter how petty it sounded.

Late Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang, but Chris didn’t pay it any attention. Despite the packed living room and family room, it seemed more people had arrived, his mother’s fault for being such a good cook. Who could blame so many of his family, friends and neighbors for showing up? No sane person could resist the mouthwatering smells coming from the kitchen – and the slap on his hand was well worth the taste.

The glimpse he’d gotten of the pumpkin pie, with whipped cream on top, made him want to do battle so he wouldn’t have to share. He restrained himself though from rescuing the pie. The last time he did that – trying to sneak off with it to the woods with a single fork – the pie got destroyed when his brothers caught him. ‘
No, not my precious,
’ he’d cried as it soared in the air and hit the floor upside down. Pissed, his mother had him and his brothers doing slave chores for weeks afterward. Years later, he still mourned the loss of the pie no one got to taste.

Over the din of the crowd, he could hear his mother speaking with the new arrivals, her enthusiastic greeting carrying. Years of practice with so many boys left her with an ability to have herself heard that most army sergeants would envy. However, as he and his brothers well knew, it wasn’t her loud tone they needed to fear, but the quiet one.

Something tickled his senses, a prickling awareness dancing across his skin. Suddenly awake, his wolf raised a shaggy head in Chris’s mind, ears perked with interest. Chris didn’t need to turn around to know his mother did exactly what she threatened. She’d invited his mate. And – he took another whiff to be sure – her damned husband.

Angling around, he positioned himself by the bookcase, making it hard for them to spot him, but giving him a perfect view of Jack and Jill – without their buckets. Curious glances were sent the Asian couple’s way, and a couple of admiring ones from his single male cousins, and his brother Stu. Jill looked too damned cute in her clinging silk blouse and form fitting slacks. It didn’t please him or his wolf at all to see the interest she attracted.

Mine.
The growled thought almost left his lips. Acting on his possessive impulse though wouldn’t go over well. But he couldn’t let his brother’s slobbering look go unpunished. He made a mental note to do something evil to Stu later.

A soft touch on his arm had him peering down, way down. Gina, his favorite female cousin, and the shortest at a ridiculously small five foot nothing, stood at his side. A hoyden in her youth, she grew up to look like every man’s wet dream until she opened her mouth and turned into a foul mouthed, raspy voiced trucker. God, the trouble they’d gotten into as kids.

“What’s got you looking like a dog who just got his nuts chopped and is looking to kill the man responsible?” she asked, in her usual delicate fashion.