Hard Mated

Chapter Five

Myka spent a sleepless night, grief at watching Jillian’s last breath and worry about Jordan keeping her restless.

Jillian had been adamant about giving Jordan to Spike—who the hell named their kid Spike? Jillian had feared what would happen if humans got wind that she was raising a Shifter child, and Myka understood her fear. A system that was so fucked up it would make a little girl live with her abusive stepfather wasn’t going to be kind to a Shifter child.

Even though Myka had never been a big Shifter fan, she was aware that they were treated like second-class citizens, and she thought that unfair. There was no guarantee that Sharon would be allowed to keep Jordan if it was discovered that he was half Shifter, or that Jordan wouldn’t be shipped off to some Shiftertown far away. Jillian had assured her that Shifters would have a way of keeping it quiet.

But handing him over to that inked Shifter wasn’t what Myka had wanted either.

She tossed and turned, imagining all kinds of dire scenarios—Spike locking the kid into a closet, maybe beating on him to relieve his feelings, or trying to figure out how to get rid of him as soon as he could. Sure, Spike had looked intensely proud when he’d realized that Jordan was his son, but that might wear off as soon as Jordan became his usual wild self. Jillian hadn’t known what to do with a kid with that much energy either.

Myka spent the night with Sharon, not wanting to leave her alone, but while Sharon slept the sleep of the emotionally exhausted, Myka lay awake or got up and paced.

In the morning, Sharon’s two sisters arrived with their husbands and kids. Myka, though she more or less had been living with Sharon and Jillian these last few months, decided to leave them alone. This was a time for family.

She stopped at her small house to shower and change, then she went to the stables.

Myka knew her friends and Sharon would think her crazy for wanting to work today, but at the stables she could seek peace in turmoil. Working with the horses—Myka trained Quarter Horses to be cutters, ropers, and barrel racers for their owners—usually erased all troubles from her mind.

She’d been coming to these stables since age eleven, when a friend’s mother had brought her here after school. The friend’s riding instructor had let Myka get up on a horse and take a lesson too. Myka had never looked back.

Myka nodded tightly to the two other trainers who’d come for early sessions but didn’t stop to talk. She took out Carlos, the cutting horse she was currently shaping into a champion for his owner.

She warmed up Carlos with nothing more strenuous than a pleasant jog around the ring before she started the real work. Cutting horses had to respond to the slightest shift in weight or touch of the reins, in order to cut a calf from the herd or to chase it back in.

Myka started the lessons of response and reward, but she realized after only a few minutes that neither her heart nor mind was in the training. She could only think of Jordan sleeping on Spike’s lap, Spike’s fierce eyes and his large hand on Jordan’s back.

Damn it.

She’d made a promise to Jillian to let Spike take Jordan and not interfere. Jillian had believed with all her heart that living with Spike was best for Jordan. Myka should let it alone—decision made, deed done, none of her business.

But she couldn’t wash her hands of Jordan like that.

Myka gave Carlos another jog around the ring, patting him and telling him what a good boy he was, then took him back to the barn. If she tried to train while her mind was elsewhere, she risked ruining the horse. His owner would be less than pleased, and other owners might decide to look for a more reliable trainer.

Might be a moot point anyway, because the owner of the entire stables and training center wanted to sell the place to developers. Good-bye job, good-bye stables that had given Myka the girl a haven, and Myka the adult a way to make a living.

Life sucked all over.

Myka put Carlos away, fussing over him, then she went to her pickup, scraped the dust and manure from her cowboy boots, got in and started the truck, and drove to Shiftertown.

Spike hauled himself off the floor and slid on his sweat pants to answer the phone, while Jordan announced once more, at the top of his lungs, that he wanted breakfast.

The call was from Liam. “Spike, lad, I need you to help me with Gavan. Go down to San Antonio and talk to him. Casual like. Find out what he’s up to, if he’s going to be a threat, or just likes bellyaching. He never was happy about what happened to Fergus, and I don’t need that haunting me. I know about your cub situation—which we’ll talk about when you get back.”

Spike’s hand tightened on the phone. He was a tracker—he’d pledged all kinds of loyalty to the Shiftertown leader in return for acceptance. Didn’t matter who the leader was or what he asked Spike to do, Spike did it. Without question.

But this was different. Liam was asking Spike to leave Jordan alone for hours, with only his grandmother to protect him, and go to San Antonio and meet with a guy he’d never really trusted. No way could Spike take Jordan with him to the meeting—Gavan had always had a cruel streak, and Spike wasn’t letting him anywhere near his cub.

“Liam,” he began.

“I wouldn’t ask you, but something’s going on, you know Gavan better than anyone, and I need to nip this in the bud. The lad will be all right in Shiftertown, I promise. He’s safe here. I’ll have Kim or Andrea drop by and look in on him later.”

“I can’t.” The words surprised Spike even as they came out of his mouth. No one said no to Liam Morrissey.

“Spike. Lad.”

Liam was an alpha. Even over the phone, the dominance came across that made Shifters, especially Felines, want to go down on one knee and promise him fealty. He was lead Feline, lead Shifter. The mightiest of the mighty.

“I can’t,” Spike repeated.

Liam’s voice took on a patient tone, though the dominance thing didn’t go away. “I know better than anyone that we need to look after the cubs. You talking to Gavan could help us all, lad, and every cub in Shiftertown. If Gavan’s up to something, it threatens your new one as much as anyone else.”

Spike closed his eyes and fought the instinctive need to obey, to say yes.

Let Dylan or Sean sort out Gavan. Why the hell did Liam need Spike to do it, today?

Just then Jordan ran through the kitchen, screaming, a toilet brush in his hand. Ella came charging after him with the broom again.

“I’ll call you back,” Spike said to Liam, and hung up the phone on Liam’s startled exclamation.

Spike limped back to the living room, lifted the jeans Sean had delivered to him last night, and plucked Myka’s phone number out of the pocket. As soon as he turned to reach for the phone, a pickup pulled up and stopped in front of the house. Myka herself hopped out, the October sunshine making her dark hair glow like black fire.

Myka studied the house as she went up the walk. Shiftertown was nowhere near as slum-like as she’d assumed, and neither was Spike’s house. He lived in a two-story bungalow, its second floor about half the size of the first, an upstairs gable poking up to make the house cozy.

A wide, old-fashioned porch wrapped around the front, chairs and a porch swing adding comfort. This was not a house for display, like the fine suburban homes Myka passed on her way across town. This house was meant to be lived in.

Myka had about ten seconds to observe all this before the front screen door slammed open and a whirlwind that was Jordan flew at her.

“Aunt Myka!”

Jordan flung his arms around her legs. Myka leaned down to him, worried, but Jordan sported a big grin as he raised his arms to her, begging to be picked up.

Myka lifted him. Jordan gave her a sticky kiss and started babbling excitedly about the house, his new great-grandmother, his new clothes, and asking when he could go home.

The door opened again and Spike walked out. In the light of day, he looked even more huge than he had last night. Spike was taller than most men Myka knew, though not lanky or bony. He was big, hard with muscle, though it was lean muscle, honed by natural strength, not protein powders.

He wore only loose workout pants that rode low on his hips and tied with a drawstring, so most of that muscle was on display. The lack of clothing showed off his tatts, a dragon’s tail wrapping around his abdomen to disappear down somewhere under the drawstring. Holy effing moley.

Spike came off the porch, looming large as he approached. He walked right up to Myka, stopping maybe an inch from her, never mind about personal space.

Was it getting hard to breathe? No, Myka stood in the cool, fresh air, October in Austin dry and fine.

Jordan squirmed in her arms and pointed at Spike. “That’s my dad.” He said it proudly, no fear. “Did you know I had a dad?”

“He stays with me,” Spike said. His tone was flat, no argument welcome.

“How’s he doing?” Myka asked.

Instead of answering, Spike looked her over, running his gaze from her unmanageable hair to the pointed toes of her cowboy boots. Myka had put on a form-hugging tank top under a button-down shirt when she’d left the house, then thrown off the shirt when she drove over here, the day plenty warm under the sunshine.

Spike didn’t pretend not to look—he ran his dark gaze from her neckline to where the fabric clung to her waist. Myka held Jordan a little closer, a shield from Spike’s unnerving scrutiny.

“He’s fine,” Spike said, answering her question. His hard gaze broke a moment, as though he wanted to say something more, then he shut up.

Jordan squirmed to get down. Myka let him with some reluctance. Jordan ran back to the porch, jumped up on the swing, and started swinging as hard as he could. The chains creaked, but the porch swing held. The look on Spike’s face as he turned to watch his son was such a mixture of worry, protectiveness, and terror that it stopped Myka in her tracks.

“I came to tell you that Jillian’s funeral is Saturday,” she said into the silence between them. “Sharon—Jillian’s mom—thought you might like to come.”

Spike glanced at her. “Best I don’t.”

True. A Shifter showing up at a funeral with all Jillian’s family might cause some problems.

“Jordan shouldn’t go either,” Spike said. “He wouldn’t understand.”

Here Myka had to disagree. “He should be able say good-bye to his mother.”

“We’ll say good-bye. But in the Shifter way. Human funerals are depressing. You bury your people in the ground. Or shove them into a fire. That’s just weird.”

“Not much alternative, is there?”

“Jordan will give her to the Goddess, with me.”

Myka hadn’t been religious since she’d moved in with her stepfather at age ten, but she knew that Shifters followed some form of paganism no one really understood, though many documentaries had been made. Some of the churches around town had tried time and again to convert them, but had never made a dent.

“Come to the ritual,” Spike said.

“What?” Myka blinked out of her thoughts.

“Come to the ritual with us. Say good-bye to her our way.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Spike turned fully back to Myka, resting his hands on his hips, right above his waistband. “I have to go. I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice, and I can’t take him with me. Not to this.”

“Have to go where?” Here it came.

“Shifter business. My job.” He hesitated, giving Myka the once-over again. “My grandma can’t watch him by herself. She’s not use to kids, and . . .”

Myka waited, wondering where the and led, but Spike shut his mouth again.

“Are you asking me to watch him?” Myka asked.

“Can you?”

Now he was pleading. The bad-ass warrior, who’d defeated a giant bear, for crap’s sake, was asking her, near-fear in his eyes, to watch over a four-year-old so he could do . . . whatever he had to do.

“What is this Shifter business?” she asked.

Spike’s brows drew down. “You’re nosy.”

“Jordan’s the son of my best friend, and she died last night. So, yeah, I’m all kinds of nosy. I used to ride horses tougher than you, so don’t think I’m afraid of you.”

He just stared at her, like a lion might stare at a roach who’d made the same declaration. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”

“You didn’t answer my question about what kind of work you do.”

“Errands. I’m an errand boy.”

“Yeah?” Myka looked him up and down, from all those bulging muscles to his buzzed hair and his wicked-dark eyes. “What kind of errands?”

“Anything I’m told to do. And that’s all you get. Stay?”

Myka had planned to already, but she made a show of conceding. “Yes.”

“Yay!” Jordan yelled from the porch. “My new great-grandma made me pancakes. Want some pancakes, Aunt Myka?”

“Pancakes? Give him a sugar high, why don’t you?”

Spike looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “Pancakes are good for him. He needs energy. He’s a Shifter.”

Myka raised her hands. Now was not the time to debate. “Just go do your thing. I’ll watch him.”

Spike gave her a nod, half of thanks, half of exasperation. He turned around without another word and loped back up to the porch. Gracefully. He moved with amazing precision.

He opened the screen door. Jordan hopped down from the swing and dashed inside before Spike could grab him, the kid shouting for Spike’s grandmother.

Spike glanced back at Myka, still holding open the door. “Well? Aren’t you coming in?”

Myka hurried up to the porch. Just before she reached the door, Spike moved ahead of her and walked into the house, the screen gently swinging shut in Myka’s face. What the hell?

Spike turned around impatiently and yanked the screen door open again. “I said, aren’t you coming in?”

“I was, but you cut me off.”

Spike scowled down at her. He was close enough that she could smell the warmth of him, the male musk, the faint sweet of syrup from his pancakes.

“You think I’m stupid enough to let a female enter someplace ahead of me? Without me checking it out first?”

“It’s your own house.”

Spike kept staring at her, then he shook his head. “Goddess, I’m going to have to help Jordan unlearn all kinds of stupid shit.”