Hour of the Lion by Cherise Sinclair (reading a book txt) 📕

Vic felt her cheeks heat.

"Now Daniel, you‘re embarrassing her," Helen scolded. "Vicki, come here."

When Vic reached the bed, Helen pulled her down for a soft kiss on the cheek. "I thank you for the gift of warmth. Aaron said I would have died if you and the boys hadn‘t patched me up so quickly and kept me from chilling."

Vic moved her shoulders. "Yeah, well, you look really good now considering how much blood you lost." Vic frowned. Actually, Helen looked too recovered.

"Daonain bounce back quickly," Heather said, handing her mother the bowl of stew. "Aaron sent this over with Vicki."

"Bless him. I‘m starving. You all excuse me while I rudely eat in front of you." Helen scooped up a bite. "Mmmmh, the man can cook."

"Any more of that?" Daniel asked with a pitiful look. "I worked hard today too, you know."

"Ah, poor baby. Did the wittle baby have to carry his mama who weighs at least a hundred pounds," Heather said in a syrupy tone.

"Fine, I‘ll get it myself." He stomped out the door. "And she‘s at least a hundred-twenty,"

came his voice from the other room.

Vic choked on a laugh as Helen and Heather broke into giggles.

"So, Vicki," Helen said. "Tell me about yourself. After you get adjusted to being a shifter, will you stay in Cold Creek?"

"I don‘t—" A knock on the front door interrupted her. Vic heard a murmur of voices, then Alec walked into the bedroom.

She gasped. He had spatters of blood on his face and hands, more on his shirt. She was at his side before she could think. "Where are you hurt? Show me."

He glanced down at his clothes. "Oh, damn. I‘m sorry, sweetie. I should have cleaned up first, but Calum was worried about you."

Vic tried to move his clothes to see where the bleeding came from, but he took her hands.

"It‘s not mine."

"Then—" Had he gone hunting and killed a deer? "Okay."

"Thank you, Alec," Helen said as tears filmed her eyes.

Heather was openly crying. "Thank you, Alec," she repeated.

Jesus fuck, he‘d done something more than kill a deer. Vic kept her grip on his hand and yanked him out of the room. Her jaw was set so tight, she had to force out the words, "Okay, I think it‘s time we had a talk. In private."

"We will." The lines in his face had deepened, making him look another twenty years older.

When they entered Aaron‘s cabin, it was empty. Alec left her, wanting to wash and change, so she curled up in a chair by the woodstove. She should be getting all her ducks in a row to yell at him, but her thoughts kept sliding back to that little chat in Helen‘s kitchen. Had Heather really implied that Alec and Calum might marry the same woman? That‘s why neither of them seemed worried about fucking around with her? Calum had said, “Alec and I often…share…our women. Alone or together.”

Wow. A weird feeling slid through her. She could screw them both, and no one would object? She idly braided a strand of her hair. It sounded pretty cool for sex and everything, but in a marriage? How bizarre must that be? Not like she‘d ever find out—she had enough trouble just hanging out with a guy. To marry more than one? Not in a kazillion years.

Neither man had mentioned marriage anyway. Why would they? If shifters didn‘t care who fathered babies, then guys probably ran wild when single. Vic realized her jaw had clenched again. She sat back and told her muscles to relax. She wasn‘t jealous of the guys—not really. She just didn‘t want to see bitch one and two get their claws in them. Not possessive, merely competitive.

When Alec walked into the living room, she frowned at the paleness of his face. "Want some hot chocolate?"

"Thank you, cariad, but I‘m not hungry." He dropped onto the couch across from her chair.

The laughter that always lurked in his eyes had disappeared completely.

He‘d called her cariad. Darling. She hugged the knowledge to herself. "Alec, you‘re exhausted. I can wait."

With an attempted smile, he shook his head. "I won‘t be able to sleep for a while, and I‘d enjoy your company. Calum said you had questions and weren‘t happy with his answers?"

Her anger rose again. "He wasn‘t making any sense at all."

"What‘s the problem?"

"Why isn‘t someone tracking this...feral person? I asked him to loan me a rifle, and he said no. And that he wasn‘t sending a hunting party out."

"Ah." Alec scrubbed his face with his hands. "Some of our traditions come down from the Fae."

Here we go with the traditions again. "And?"

"The Fae used bows and arrows only when hunting game." He moved his shoulders.

"Sometimes humans too."

"I‘m not getting this."

"Fae fought other Fae hand-to-hand or with knives. Bow and arrows—basically, long-distance weapons—were only used on animals."

"Oh." Vic frowned. "So shifters don‘t use guns or arrows on other shifters."

"Exactly."

"And a hunting party? You don‘t do that either?"

"If needed. But cahirs only."

Another fucking new word. She glared at him.

His lips twitched. "Sorry. We still use some bastardized Gaelic and Welsh from the old days." He gazed at the woodstove. Behind the glass door, a salamander, scales brilliant as the flames, spun in circles. "Cahir are those chosen to defend the clan. You‘d say maybe warrior?

Protector?"

Soldier. And Calum had said to Alec, “I"m sorry, cahir.” Alec was a cahir. "Your God supposedly gave Calum power—powers—whatever. Does a cahir get anything?" she asked only half-sarcastically, for she‘d felt that power in Calum, as if a fucking current of electricity had hummed through him.

"Anything?" Alec‘s finger traced the blue-tinted scar high on his left cheekbone. "A couple more inches in height, muscle, strength. All at once. I was a cop and in good shape, but I spent the next twenty-four hours puking my guts up and trying not to scream like a girl." Despite his light tone, his eyes held the memory of some serious agony.

Nasty. "Are you the only cahir around?"

"We have four in the