Their Shifter Princess 3: Coven's Revenge Page 2

  No matter what was coming our way, the world stilled when Logan kissed me.

  Chapter 2

  As Arthur's boat pulled into the dock, I took an impatient step forward, straining to see my sister.

  Logan settled his arm around my waist, drawing me against his body as if he were holding me back. His nostrils flared as he teased out the scents on the air. After he nodded, Seb reached out to catch the line that Arthur threw his way.

  Had Logan been afraid that Arthur would come back under the influence of the coven?

  As soon as the engine cut off and the boat ran up against the plastic bumper hanging over the edge of the slip, Arthur jumped off. The dock reverberated under his feet.

  Arthur turned back to help Maddie onto the dock, but she hesitated, staring at him. Her face was pale and blotchy, her long blond hair tangled around her shoulders. She looked so scared, and all I wanted was to wrap my arms around her and make her feel better.

  It took me a second to remember he was 6-foot-6 of terrifying alpha male. I'd come to see him differently during my time on his island but it was understandable that she might be wary of Arthur.

  "It's all right," Kai said. His voice was gruff and familiar, and it sent a throb of emotion through me. I looked past Maddie for him, eager to see his face.

  Kai avoided my gaze as he rested his hand on Maddie's shoulders. "He's going to take you to see your sister."

  She hung back, almost stepping back into his arms.

  "Maddie," he said, his voice frustrated and kind at the same time, as if she had already pushed him to the edge of exasperation. "Come on. We have to get off the boat. You're going to be safe here."

  Reluctantly, she stepped to the edge of the boat. Kai steadied her as Arthur leaned out to catch her around the waist, and he lifted her easily down to the dock.

  He set her down between us. She looked at me, her pixie face unsmiling.

  I felt my grin flicker and die, but I still leaned forward and pulled her into my arms. I hugged her, but her arms hung at her sides.

  "What's wrong?" I demanded, kneeling in front of her so I could get a better look at her face. "Are you okay?"

  She didn't answer me. She glanced away, staring somewhere over my shoulder so fixedly that I almost turned to see what the hell she was looking at.

  Kai jumped from the boat to the dock. "She's had a long day."

  "And it's not over yet," Arthur said, because he was so helpful like that. "The Shenandoah pack called. They were hit too."

  "Did you hear anything else from Callum or any of the others?" I asked eagerly, straightening up.

  Maddie brushed past me as if she was glad I'd let go of her. When she reached the sandy bank, she stopped. Her little face was still so set and angry. I knew she couldn't stand for me to be away--she always had that fear of being abandoned--but I thought she'd understand. I'd even talked to her on the phone a few times. I'd been desperate to hear her voice, and she'd chattered easily enough at the time. What the hell had happened?

  Arthur shook his head. "Callum knows where to find us. He'll make his way here if he can."

  "What about the Shenandoah pack?" Logan asked. "Did they take a lot of injuries?"

  "Yeah," Arthur said grimly. He ran his hand through his hair and heaved a sigh. "I told them they could come here."

  "I see," Logan said, with zero inflection.

  Back when I was born and the coven destroyed my pack, the Atlantic pack had left us all to suffer instead of helping. Now Arthur was taking a risk. He was trying to help another pack...even though it meant bringing them to his sacred pack land.

  His decision would mean something to Callum, who still simmered with rage over being abandoned. Arthur was choosing to be different from the previous alphas and to extend a hand to the other packs. It could change everything.

  "If the coven attacks us here, we’ll make them regret it," Arthur said. "We have fortified positions, machine guns. They'll have to approach on boats. It will leave them vulnerable."

  We would need for them to be vulnerable to have a fighting chance against witch’s magic.

  Arthur and Logan, already engrossed in the discussion of what preparations had been made and what still had to be done, moved quickly toward the house ahead of us. Seb hesitated, as if he was still watching over me.

  "Come on, Maddie," I said.

  She flashed me a dirty look and reluctantly trudged toward the house with me.

  I glanced back at Kai, who stood on the dock as if he was rooted there, his arms crossed over his chest. There was an expression on his face that was hard for me to read. His stance telegraphed irritation. But Kai covered a lot of other emotions with irritation. And no matter how cold his posture, his gaze as he watched me was filled with regret.

  "Kai," I said. I'd meant to be off-handed and light-hearted. Kai, are you coming? But instead, my voice broke. I frowned, unable to ask the rest of my question. Traitorous voice.

  His eyes widened. He was at my side in a few quick strides. He looked into my face as if he wanted to say something, but instead, he swallowed.

  Maddie slipped between the two of us, taking his hand in hers. He glanced down at her and managed to smile, although his eyes were still troubled.

  "Let's get to the house.” There was an edge of heat in Seb’s voice. He glanced from us to the horizon, and his voice was cool and controlled again as he looked at Kai and added, "We've got to make sure the girls are safe.”

  "Always." Kai’s gaze returned to mine. No matter how he felt about me right now, he said always like he meant it with all his heart. It gave me a swell of hope.

  Seb trekked resolutely around us and up the sandy path.

  Feeling a sense of dread, like something terrible was coming our way, I headed up the hill behind him. Kai and Maddie were at my side, but no one held my hand.

  My sister and at least one member of my pack had come back to me.

  Yet I felt more alone than I had in a long time.

  Chapter 3

  I'd never been in the war room before. The first day I came here, Logan had led me past this space, filled with screens and tables and a handful of people working. When I glanced in, someone had gotten up and closed the door. It had been a reminder that I did not belong here, that I was neither trusted nor wanted. That hadn’t been so long ago.

  But now, the room was a lot more crowded. One of the men looked at me as if they wanted to say something, but Logan's gaze met theirs first. Their eyes dropped to the terrain table, which held a miniaturized version of the island rendered in sand and clay.

  On a big screen television, there was a map of the island, and radios buzzed.

  At the back of the room, doors stood open to another room that was filled with rows of picked-over weapons: flat black metal barrels and stocks, bright silver swords, and empty spaces between. Most of the shifters were heavily armed now with everything from knives to rifles.

  Inzel came to the door. Logan must have scented him because his nostrils flared, and there was the faintest crinkle to his nose. He nodded to Inzel anyway. Maybe he and Arthur still planned to use Inzel's ruthless ambition.

  It was Arthur who went to the door. "I'd like you to guard the barns in the west fields."

  "The supply shields?" Inzel's tone was offended.

  "If they burn our livestock, it will be a real loss for our families," Arthur said firmly. "Take a rifle and go."

  Inzel gave him a long look, and Arthur met it with an expression of challenge. After all, Inzel, hadn't challenged Arthur himself. He relied on Logan to do it. Inzel’s gaze fell to the floor and he headed to the back of the room. His gaze rose just as he reached me, when his back was to Arthur and Logan, and he flashed me a look of pure hate. I met his gaze evenly, pretending that look didn’t make my stomach twist.

  While Inzel was behind us in the armory, Seb murmured to me, "You shouldn't be here."

  "She's staying with me," Arthur snapped, without looking back. He barely looked a
way from the conference he was having with Logan and a few of his lieutenants around the terrain table. "I want to make sure she's safe."

  Logan's jaw set. All of my guys wanted to make sure I was safe.

  "All right," I said, "but I want to get my little sister something to eat."

  "Fine," Arthur said grudgingly.

  Maddie was still not talking to me, but I steered her out of the war room and Kai followed after us.

  Someone knocked into my shoulder, hard, as we were walking down the hall. As I spun to see who it was, I tried to tamp down my annoyance. It was a bustling time in the house as everyone rushed to prepare.

  Inzel walked past me, now that he had almost checked me into the wall.

  "Watch it," Kai ground out before I could say anything myself.

  Inzel stopped and turned around, but took another step back as if he were too busy to pause. With a smirk spreading across his face, he raised his hands as if to say it didn't matter.

  "What's your problem?" I asked a second too late, just as he was beginning to turn back around. I didn't actually care what his problem was with me. I could imagine his problem just fine. But right now, he seemed to feel he could show his disdain of me openly. Why? What was he up to?

  "No problem, Princess," he said, his face blank.

  Kai stared him down. Inzel turned on his heel to go, and it surprised me. He didn't seem like the type to let it go if he thought another wolf was disrespecting him.

  Then he turned right back on around. I knew it.

  "Best watch yourself," Inzel told Kai. "You're not on your own territory."

  "From what I hear, neither are you," I said lightly, as I stepped between Kai and Inzel. Inzel wanted to fight with Kai and ignore me. As a female, I was irrelevant to his old-school, misogynist view of the world.

  I intended to wake him up.

  Inzel bared his teeth. "What do you mean, girl?"

  I smiled back at him. "I think you know exactly what I mean."

  As he stepped in toward me, he narrowed his eyes dangerously. Kai was right there, stepping in front of me.

  "Inzel." Arthur's voice was a whip-crack down the hallway. "You're needed at the barns."

  I waggled my fingers goodbye to Inzel. He nodded to Arthur and walked away, although the set of his posture was rebellious.

  "Piper," Arthur said, and his voice was entirely different. Soft, affectionate, exasperated.

  I turned and smiled at him, too. "Arthur. Look! We all know each other's names."

  He heaved a dramatic sigh. I put my hand on Maddie's shoulder and steered her ahead of me down the hall to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was empty for once. This house had a commercial kitchen, all stainless steel and big appliances, and it made me uncomfortable. It wasn't like the kitchen back at the Blissford house, where we all gathered for cozy meals and banter. I felt unwelcome here.

  "Are you hungry?" I asked Maddie brightly.

  She shrugged. Her eyes met mine, then flickered away.

  I gave Kai a look over her head, trying to appeal to him for help.

  "What the hell was that?" Kai demanded.

  I shot him a shut-up look before I realized he wasn't responding to Maddie and me. He was still thinking about the near-fight in the hallway.

  "Oh, that was Inzel. He wants to lead the pack, but he's too weak to challenge Arthur directly." I began to look through the kitchen, trying to find where peanut-butter-and-jelly makings would be concealed in the shelves and cabinets. "I don't like him very much."

  "Were you trying to start a fight with him?"

  I wasn't going to talk about it here, where someone might overhear me, and I didn't want to worry Maddie, either. "Nope."

  "Because it looked like you were trying to start a fight with him."

  "You know, you never said hello to me." I finally found peanut butter and bread and carried it to the table. I couldn’t find jelly, but there were rows of jars of honey from the island’s beehives in the pantry. "Mads, do you still like peanut butter and honey?"

  She chewed on the end of her hair and didn’t answer me, staring at nothing. It made my heart twist. She’d started doing that when she was five or six, and when it made ‘Dad’ furious, I’d begun to braid her hair so it wouldn’t get stringy.

  "You didn't say hello to me either," Kai pointed out.

  "True." I twisted open the bread bag and pulled out six pieces of bread. Even jerks deserved sandwiches today. We all needed our strength. "But I haven't been the one rejecting calls."

  Maddie yawned and leaned back into Kai's body, catching his hand with hers. They looked so comfortable together, like he really was her big brother and she was his little sister.

  "You two seem to be getting along well," I said.

  I hadn't expected to hear the barb of jealousy in my voice, but there it was. I was grateful that Maddie and my pack had become family. And yet…

  "Well, you abandoned us both," Kai said. "For a good cause, of course."

  "I didn't abandon anyone." My cheeks were instantly hot. Good lord, was he really talking like this in front of Maddie? He knew damned well about her abandonment complex.

  "It was for a good cause," Kai repeated, as if that would take away the sting of his words.

  I raked my hand through my hair. "Why would you say that? You know I didn't want to leave."

  He shook his head, glancing away from me even though there was nowhere else to look.

  Fuck him anyway. I leaned across the table, resting my elbows on the cool metal. It carried a chill that swept through my body. When I tried to make eye contact with Maddie, she looked down and bit on her lower lip. She often bit her lip when she was anxious until it was ragged and bleeding.

  "Maddie," I said softly. "I didn't want to leave you. I've missed you this whole time. But I knew that Kai and the other guys would take good care of you."

  I hated to even say Kai's name right now, but I knew it was true. He would have given his life to protect my sister if she needed him. He still would.

  I didn't want to scare her, but at the same time, I wanted her to know I'd had a good reason for leaving. I struggled with the right words to say.

  She finally looked up and her bright blue eyes met mine. Her eyes were shiny with tears.

  "I thought I had to go to keep you safe," I said. "I know it hurt. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But sometimes I have to do something that's hard for us--"

  "You keep leaving me," she said, her voice ragged but fierce. "You left me alone. You disappeared for nights at a time. And then you went away and you didn't even say goodbye."

  I’d left her sleeping in her room when the Atlantic pack showed up to steal her back from us. Maybe I should have woken her. I hadn’t wanted her to be scared. "I know."

  "I don't care if it wasn't your fault," she said. "You were still gone. And you're my only person."

  Her tears spilled out onto her cheeks.

  Oh, those tears killed me. She was such a little girl at the same time as she was so bright and spunky. No matter my intentions, I'd hurt her.

  "Maddie." I rushed around the table to hug her.

  She stopped me, raising her hand and meeting my eyes like she had something else she had to say. "And then you weren't there. Those evil men came and you weren't there with us.”

  That was what had changed everything. The moment she had to run for her life without me. I wished I knew everything about what had happened, but I didn’t want to push her. I'd have to ask Kai later.

  "I'm sorry. I should have been there." I wrapped her in my arms. For long seconds, she resisted, her body angry, and then she wrapped her arms around my neck and clung to me. Her wet face was against my throat as I squeezed her tight.

  I looked for Kai over her shoulder. After everything he had said, I expected him to be staring like he hated me.

  But instead, he looked relieved. What the hell? Like he had anything to do with this? He had made things so much harder. I desperately wanted
to talk to him and simultaneously never wanted to see him again.

  I told Maddie I was sorry, but it seemed like so little to say.

  Especially because, if the island were really invaded by the coven, I wasn't going to stay with her.

  My father would never stop looking for me. From what he had said, I was the one with active magic right now. Maddie wouldn't be useful to him for years. He might believe that she hadn't reached the island as long as he couldn't find her and everyone kept to the lie.

  But he would never give up on finding me. No matter how she felt, being with me was the most dangerous place in the world for my sister.

  We ate our sandwiches in silence. I wasn't hungry, and it was hard to swallow around the lump in my throat. But I wanted to make sure Maddie ate. Who knew when we would get another chance to have a meal? To eat together?

  I found myself glancing toward the bustle in the hall over and over. I didn't know what to do with Maddie or how to help the pack.

  Kai followed my gaze to the hallway, then raised his eyebrows at me, as if he had noticed how distracted I was.

  I still wasn't talking to him. But as I picked up the last bite of my sandwich, he swiped my plate, then stacked and carried all of our plates to the sink.

  "So now what?" he asked, with his back to me.

  While I didn't have to worry about his gaze catching mine, I studied his back: the long, lean lines of his legs and the narrow waist beneath spreading shoulders. His t-shirt clung to his lats as he washed our plates off. His dark hair was freshly cut. Good grief, I'd even missed the man's back.

  He set the last dish onto a towel by the sink and then turned to lean against it, crossing his arms as he looked my way. "Well?"

  I didn't know what to tell him.

  Finn rushed in. "Hey, Arthur's sending boats back to the mainland to ferry in the other packs. He told me Callum's with them. Nick and Josh, too."

  As relief flooded my chest, I jumped up from the table.

  "I don't think he wants you to go," Finn said, holding up his hand. "He's not sure about the Shenandoah pack."

  "He said he wanted me by his side," I shot back. "Where he could protect me."