“She didn’t ask for this.”
Tristan had been the only one in the pack not to remark on her name and he hadn’t called her ‘made’, which made her disposed to like him even if he was a little scary.
“I know that.” Tristan nodded and stood up. “No one knows better than me what it is like to be trapped as a wolf.” He reached out his hand and she shook as she braced for what she was sure to be a blow. Instead, he patted her on the head. “And no matter what she is she’s ours now.” That last phrase seemed to be directed to the room. He turned around to the pack. “She’s pack.”
In unison, everyone in the room answered. “She’s pack.”
Tristan nodded as if he’d expected no less. “Alright, Azriel—brilliant mind of our pack, now we just need to figure out how to get your woman out of her wolf body and into her human one.”
Cullen moved forward. “It begs the question, my Alpha, is she a shifter trapped in a phony wolf body or is she a non-shifter human who is trapped in a wolf body that she would never have otherwise?”
Az cleared his throat. “We aren’t going to get answers about that since she doesn’t seem to remember anything other than who she is and even that is hampered by the ‘episodes’ of lunacy that overtake her.”
How do you know I can’t remember?
Because you didn’t know you were the Senator’s daughter.
That made sense. Did you have to call it lunacy? She didn’t know why but that word bothered her. It was bad enough he had seen her like that and that now his brothers had.
The whole pack would think she was a lunatic.
Az cocked his head to the side. That was not a choice word. I apologize.
Wow. He apologized?
The redhead stepped forward. “Tristan, if I may offer a suggestion.”
“Of course, little one.”
The woman smiled and shook her head. “Some day you’re not going to call me that any longer.”
Tristan laughed. “Not possible. I’m going to call you that in this life and the next one.”
Walking toward Leah, the ‘little one’ crouched down. “My name is Ashlee Morrison Kane.” Ashlee looked behind her at the pack. “I think it’s rude that no one is introducing themselves and Leah here has to try to figure out who we all are through osmosis.”
Leah liked her already. Ashlee continued. “Anyway, Tristan, I think that I may have a solution. I’ve been trying to think this through using my own knowledge of magic coupled with the lifetimes worth of knowledge I acquired from the aunts before they died. I don’t see why we can’t do the same thing with Leah that we did with you when you were trapped in your wolf form.”
A brown haired woman who had been leaning on Theo’s arm stepped forward. “I wasn’t here yet when that happened. What did you do?”
The blonde who stood next to Cullen laughed. “No women were here. It was just Ashlee and all of them.”
Theo laughed. “And Ashlee was holed up in Tristan’s room forced to shift by herself thanks to our carelessness that night. We’re lucky anybody made it through that time. Are we sure we want to pull that out again?”
“It won’t work.” Leah really hated the sound of Gabriel’s voice. It was so hostile.
“Tristan was already a shifter. The magic just called him out.”
Ashlee stood. “The same concept applies here. She’s pack so whether she’s wolf or not Tristan will call to her. If my father were alive, Tristan would call to him and he was human. Pack is pack. It just is.” Ashlee took a deep breath. “Not to mention we don’t know that she isn’t a born shifter. She might be and,” Ashlee put her hands on her hips. “I don’t think, Gabriel Kane, that you are in any way qualified to argue magic with me. It’s a female thing.”
Tristan growled, which drew the attention of everyone in the room. “Whatever you’re going to say, Gabriel, don’t say it. I like Ashlee’s plan. In any case, it can’t hurt Leah. We’ll do it tonight. Almost the whole pack is here. Michael, Damien, Kurt, and Reggie are off island but it’s enough souls. Rex,” Tristan turned to address a man Leah hadn’t noted earlier. He quietly stood in the corner without making a sound. At the mention of his name, he raised an eyebrow.
That’s our youngest brother. He’s…troubled.
She grinned. Seems to be that way for most of your family.
The unmated ones anyway.
Leah was tempted to ask Az if that meant that he was now no longer going to be ‘troubled’ but Tristan continued talking.
“I want you to go with Faith and figure out the best way to contact Leah’s father. One way or another, we have to tell him she’s alive.”
Theo shook his head. “All objections I have to Faith spending time with little brother over there aside,” this earned him snickers from the pack and a look of angry dangers from Rex. “Are we sure we want to contact Senator St. James if we can’t be sure we’re going to return Leah to her natural state?”
Tristan sighed. “You’re not a father, Theo. I’m here to tell you, the man needs to know she’s alive. Besides, he might be able to shed some light on some of this.”
“Or expose us and we’ll all have to go into hiding.” Theo was clearly not going to let this go.
“Look,” Az interrupted. As sexy and warm as she found his voice when she heard it in her head, aloud it was rough and demanding. She wondered if he knew he had that effect when he spoke. “We’ll leave it up to Leah to contact her father. She’s not a child. We’re not going to make decisions for her like she can’t conduct herself.”
Rex stepped forward. “Any interest in seeing what your mate actually looks like Az?”
Az shook his head. “What?”
Rex held up his cell phone and Leah’s heart sped up. “I did an internet search. Here’s a picture of Ms. Leah St. James, beloved and missing daughter of Nathan St. James, senior senator from the state of Maine.”
Without another thought, she rushed to Az’s side to look at the photo. If anyone was going to see what she looked like, it was going to be her. Az took the phone from Rex’s hands and crouched down so they could look at her picture together.
Leah’s heart fell. The woman whose mischievous smile stared back at her was a complete stranger. Would there ever be anything about herself she would remember?
Chapter Four
Az stared at the woman in the photo displayed on his brother’s phone. She stood on a grassy hill, leaning up against a large tree. Dressed entirely in black, which meant that she wore black slacks and a black turtleneck, except for, of all things, hiking boots, she grinned at the camera. Her hair, black as midnight, hung stick straight to her shoulders where it suddenly curled under towards her neck. Blunt cut bangs completed the effect.
The look might have been severe was it not for the fact that she’d also dyed about one third of her locks hot pink. Ultimately, the look worked for her where on other women he might have found it akin to looking at an oddly striped zebra.
On Leah, however, it fit perfectly. He suspected it had something to do with the funny glint in her eyes or the way her thin black eyebrows lifted slightly like she was secretly laughing at the cameraman. His heart pounded in his chest as he was nearly undone with a completely unreasonable hate for whoever it was on the other side of the camera who had made her laugh. It should only be he who made her laugh.
Shaking his head, he forced the adrenaline-induced frenzy back down from whence it came. Theo had warned him, he was going to be extreme until he actually ‘mated’ with Leah. He placed his attention where it belonged: on the picture in front of him.