Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

“There’s a parking garage under the building,” Gavin told Colt. “You’re welcome to park there. The Clan owns the whole building, so only our people are in residence. Here’s the transponder that will open the gate. Just pop it on your dashboard, and you’ll be good to go.”

Gavin handed over a little black box that Colt put on his dashboard. It was a double-edged gift. It would allow him to come and go from the place as he pleased, but it would also, Colt was sure, be a way for the Clan to track his movements.

“What about Faith’s car?” Colt asked, one eyebrow raised. Gavin looked at the old clunker and back at Colt.

“I have one for her, but really, you’d be safer traveling—if you have to travel—in your truck. Houston roads aren’t very forgiving,” Gavin commented.

Colt saw the sense in that statement. Still, Faith should have a way to open and close the gate too. They couldn’t keep her or her car prisoner here.

“All the same, she should have one, even if we don’t use it,” Colt said quietly.

Gavin nodded. “Agreed. I just figured you’d rather be the go-between for now, since she probably has no idea who I am.”

The humor in his eyes was easy to see, as was the understanding. Gavin knew Colt had issues with the Clan and wasn’t coming on too strong, which Colt respected. It took a big lion to not puff up his crest and try to prove he was the biggest badass when faced with a strange competitor lion. Clearly, Gavin knew his own worth and didn’t have to display it to every other shifter in sight. Colt admired that. It wasn’t something he usually found in younger shifters. It usually took time, age, and experience to gain that kind of cool.

“I told her about you, but you’re right,” Colt replied, liking this other lion in spite of himself. He could see now why his brother had been so easily won over by the easy-going shifter.

“I’ll escort you up to your temporary home as soon as you park. I’ll meet you by the elevator in the lobby,” Gavin went on, backing away slightly from the truck.

“Copy that,” Colt replied. Gavin stepped farther away, and Colt maneuvered his truck up next to Faith’s car, still stopped at the curb. She rolled down her window. “We’re going to park below the building in the private garage. I have the gate opener. Follow me.”

She looked a little dubious but didn’t ask any questions. Faith nodded, and he pulled ahead, going down the little ramp that led to a security gate. The transponder did its thing, and the gate opened at his approach. He pulled in and cleared enough space for Faith to enter, which she did. Then, the gate slid down again, and he searched for the elevator shaft. He was looking for two spots right next to each other for his and Faith’s vehicles, but that wasn’t hard to find. The garage wasn’t full. Not even close. He chose a spot, and Faith parked next to him.

She got out of the car and stretched. He couldn’t help but watch her. Her movements were sinuous, like a cat’s almost. Seductive. Mesmerizing.

“Doesn’t look like a lot of people live here,” she observed, looking around the mostly empty garage.

“According to Gavin, the Clan owns this entire building. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only a few of them living here. It looks and smells like new construction. That could be why they’re using it for us, right now. It was probably only just finished being built, and they’re letting it air out before moving any of their people in. No matter how careful we are to try and source natural products, there’s always some off-gassing that can irritate our sensitive noses.”

Her eyes widened as she looked at him. “I had no idea. I guess that could be kind of difficult in today’s world. Having heightened senses, I mean. Everything around us is so mechanical and chemical, and loud.” She shook her head.

“We have ways to deal with it,” he told her.

She really had a soft heart if she was concerned for the welfare of shifters in this modern world. Typical Priestess. Big heart, kind intentions, couldn’t hurt a fly. Although… He’d seen her dealing with that demon this morning. So, yeah. He’d have to scratch that last bit. She could definitely hurt a demon. So, she wasn’t exactly like other Priestesses he’d met. She had that little something extra. She had that slayer thing going on. And damn him if he didn’t find that sexy.

“Are we taking the elevator or the stairs?” she asked, reaching into her backseat for a big duffel bag.

“Since they’ve promised us this would be a safe house, I suppose the elevator is okay. I don’t think Gavin would lead us into a trap. He and my brother had some dealings recently, and my brother vouches for him,” Colt said.

He got his own go bag out of his truck, then joined her walking toward the elevator, which wasn’t far away. He hit the button for the lobby, and they were on their way.

Faith was impressed by the building. Everything was clean and modern yet somehow natural. There was a lot of real wood finishes, including carved panels in the elevator depicting ocean vistas. She might have thought that was a little odd for a Clan supposedly made up of lion shifters, but her mentor had told her there was something a little different about the Kinkaids. They also counted selkies among their number.

Selkies, Faith had learned, were creatures out of Celtic mythology. Stories about seals being able to come on shore and take off their fur coats to live among humans for a time abounded in the ancient Irish and Scottish lore. They were said to be beautiful women or very handsome men, and their human lovers would find their seal skins and hide them to keep their lovers on shore. But the minute the selkie retrieved their skin, they would leave for the ocean, never to return.

Sad stories, really. Faith had found them very melancholy. But apparently, selkies were a real thing, and somewhere back in history, a Scottish boy had left his homeland to travel to Africa and fallen in love with a lion princess. They had been shunned from her Clan because not only was he white, but he was a seal shifter, not a lion. Together, they had forged their own path, which eventually led to the Kinkaids coming to America.

Samson Kincaid was the current Alpha of the Clan, and a very powerful man, indeed. He had built the Clan into something his ancestors probably hadn’t ever dreamed of. He’d become a billionaire in his own right and made it so that the entire Clan prospered. He owned numerous businesses and had influence far beyond Texas. He was also rumored to be a rare white lion. Apparently, the princess’s genes had bred true in Samson, for that was the way big cat shifters knew their leaders.

Among lions, Faith had been told by her mentor, the white ones were the royalty. It was the same with tigers. The new white tiger king was believed to have been marked by the Goddess Herself, and currently ruled over a business empire that stretched from Iceland to America and many other parts of the world.

She doubted she’d get to meet the lion king himself, but just being around a lot of shifters was new to her. She’d spent most of her life among magic users, and up until recently, mages didn’t mix much with the other magical races. It was still kind of odd to form alliances with those outside the Mage’s Circle, though Faith was given to believe that it was happening more and more in recent years.

And now, there were actual demons for her to fight. No longer was her skill a theoretical one, being trained in the absence of a real threat. No, now the fight was very real, and she was gratified to know that the things she’d been learning from her mentor actually worked in real life. Thank goodness, or her career as a Demon Slayer would have been a very short one.

The elevator ride was quick. They only had to go up one floor to the lobby. When the doors opened, the man who had gone up to Colt’s truck was waiting for them. He smiled welcomingly at Faith and extended his hand.

“You must be Miss Peabody,” he said as she stepped out of the elevator and took his hand reflexively.

There was a tingle of magic, but unlike the tickling whisper of Colt’s magic against her own, this man’s magic felt a little scratchy. Not totally uncomfortable, but not as nice as Colt’s. He seemed to notice as well, shaking her hand politely then letting go with an odd look on his handsome face.

“I’m Gavin Kinkaid. I’m here to escort you both and give you the lay of the land. Your magic is very potent, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Gavin said unexpectedly.

“You know magic?” she found herself asking, curious as to what he meant.

“My mother was a mage,” he replied, surprising her again. “I have a little bit of the talent, but of course, the shifter side of my nature overshadows that. My lion is a bit of a beast.” He chuckled, and she found herself smiling, though she wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.

“I don’t know a lot about shifters, except what my mentor taught me. It’s not much, I’m afraid,” she explained.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ll pick it up.” He shook hands with Colt, and they nodded a greeting in a very masculine, somewhat guarded—at least on Colt’s side—way. “There’s someone who wants to meet you both first, before I take you up to your temporary abode.” He pushed the elevator button, and the doors opened again. “If you’ll just come this way.”

They followed him into the elevator, and Faith was impressed when he took out a key and inserted it into a keyhole that had been covered with a blank plastic button. She would have taken it for a dummy key that had no use. She never would have imagined there would be a keyhole behind the plastic.

Gavin turned the key and hit a three number sequence on the floor buttons. Somehow, she didn’t think he was playing a childish prank that would turn this express ride into a local. No, that code meant something in connection with the key, and the elevator rose quickly to one of the higher floors. She couldn’t be sure which floor because the indicator light didn’t change, but when the door opened, she found herself looking across a big open space to a bank of windows that looked out over the city.

“Nice view,” Colt commented in a low tone that didn’t carry beyond the elevator car. She looked at him and realized he was trying very hard not to give away anything of his mood.

Poor guy. He had to be on his guard with these people who should have been his family. She really wanted to know more about how this situation had come about and why it had lasted so long, but she’d only really just met these people. However, if she got the chance in the course of the next few days, she’d try to get to the bottom of things. After all, a Priestess was tasked with helping wherever she could, and this family—this Clan—needed help to heal the rift that probably never should have taken place.

“We keep this space for special occasions,” Gavin said, winking at her while gesturing for her to step out of the elevator first.

She walked out and realized the space wasn’t finished being built yet, but it was very close. There were a series of doors along the wall that the elevator was on, and the windows opposite the elevator doors had a small grouping of chairs and a low table near them. It was a conversation area in the public space, but there were walls on either side that held more doors.

Gavin led them to one of the doors at the end of a small hall and opened it. He ushered Faith through first, then waited for Colt to enter before he walked in and closed the door behind himself. They were in a luxury apartment that had multiple rooms from what Faith could see. She’d stopped a short way into the entry to wait for the men because she wasn’t sure which direction she should go in. It was a big apartment that probably took up one whole side of the building.

“This way,” Gavin told her, stepping in front so he could walk to another door and open it.

Faith walked in and paused. This time because there was another man in the room, sitting behind a desk. He looked up from a thick report he’d been reading when the door opened, and his golden gaze raked her, seeming to take her in with one sweeping glance, then moved on to give the same scrutiny to Colt.

Colt stopped dead in the doorway when he saw the man, and Gavin nudged Colt to get him to step fully inside. Colt did so, and Gavin came in and closed the door, then walked over to the side of the desk to stand with the other man.

“Ma’am, Colt, this is Sam Kinkaid, Alpha of our Clan,” Gavin said simply.