Chapter Nine

 

 

“Hi.”

She blinked her eyes and looked into Tristan’s face. “Hi, yourself.” She blushed. No, she refused to believe that he could reduce her to feeling like a teenager after her first time.

“Hungry?”

Now that he mentioned food she was starving. The flush in her cheeks went to her neck.

He leaned over to kiss her. “You look good in red.”

“Aww, men! Males! You never learn.” She rolled out the bed hiding the deeper crimson flooding her face. She marched to the bathroom keeping her back straight until the door closed. Then she went to the mirror to look at herself. Who was this woman? She laughed, whoever she was; she liked her.

A quick shower, then she was in the bedroom picking out an outfit from the clothes that had been given to her earlier. Was it possible for her to go back to her apartment? All she wanted was clothes, but the thought of stepping in there again made the hair on the back of her neck rise.

She shook her head. The one thing she listened to and trusted were emotions, not just other peoples but hers as well. There was a black pit in her emotional well-being that said death was waiting for her there.

She looked up when Tristan came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist.

“I think; I could be wrong that it’s against to the law to wrap a towel around hips that are as gorgeous as yours.”

“I never heard of that law.” He took the towel off revealing what she thought had to be a fantasy from last night. Nope, his thighs were still hard and thick, and his dick belonged on some planet that offered pleasure for the weary traveler. She’d have to get rid of all the travelers, but that was a minor detail.

“You're licking your lips.”

“I am?” She walked up to him putting a little extra thrust in her hips and holding her body a little tighter making the girls perk up.

“You are.” He drew her close until his dick was pressed against her stomach. With slow, deliberate moves, he took her mouth in a sensuous kiss.

“Who needs to eat?” She asked him.

“You do, you’re not out of the woods yet.” He stood back sadness reflected in his eyes before he covered it. “Let’s get you fed.”

He dressed, and they walked out of his rooms toward the kitchen.

“We were beginning to think that maybe you were going to skip breakfast,” Locke told them with a wink.

Mira started laughing. “I’m sorry, please I’m really sorry.”

“What did I do?”

“Your wink, it was wayyyy to slow. Next time do it like this.” She demonstrated.

He followed her demonstration several times until he got it right. Then everyone else had to try it. Before she knew it, they were laughing and winking. She looked around and realized not only had Tristan accepted her, but his friends had too.

“I like you guys.”

“We like you too,” Ven told her.

“What no steak for breakfast?”

“Deja and Safire put their dainty feet down about having steak three meals a day,” Ven told her.

“We stick to the rule because, well, you don’t want to make them mad.”

What kind of women could make several Kur’ik males concerned? She shivered, maybe they weren’t as nice as she thought.

“I can’t say I’m upset about the french toast; it looks good.”

“It is,” Cade told her. “I helped Ven this morning he’s teaching us how to cook.”

“What did you eat before you learned to cook?”

“We’ve been in the ground for a long time. Before that, we ate the rations that were on the ship.”

She turned to look at Tristan. This wasn’t the first time she heard the term. Did this have anything to do with him being at the graveyard?

“We were made with the ability to slow every system down to almost the point of death and lie under the earth. This was considered a failsafe. A way not to waste a fighter’s life. Healers can find those who have burrowed under the ground.”

“For how long? A day, a week?”

“Forever if need be.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. This was a different world, a different species. They had the right to be different, but cruelty was cruelty no matter how you justified it.

“I’m sorry.”

All five pairs of eyes focused on her.

“I’m sorry that they treated you like you didn’t matter, like you weren’t worthy of love. I’m happy that those sadistic fucks lost you. Their loss is my gain. I hope each one of you finds someone special to spend your life with.”

“Is that what humans want?” Key asked her.

“Not all of us. It’s what I want. A special person to laugh and love with. I believe life is hard no matter who you are. What makes it worth living is who you surround yourself with.”

“I agree,” Ven told her.

They sat in comfortable silence as they ate. Mira watched Ven. There was something different about him besides the color of his eyes. He looked up and gave her the perfect wink before lowering his head. He was going to be a heartbreaker.

The ringing of her phone made her jump. The tone told her it was trouble.

“Hello? Jax?” She listened frowning before she said goodbye.

“I need to go down to my warehouse.” She turned to tell Tristan. He was already standing.

“I’ll go with you.”

A denial tried to come, but she bit it back. Maybe now was a good time for him to see what kind of trouble followed her around.

“Road trip,” Ven said. “I thought today was going to be boring.”

“Is there ever a boring day when you're around?” She asked him.

“I hope not.”

Mira nodded her head and left the room coming back with her purse in hand and flats on her feet. “The world awaits.”

They followed her to her car.

“Why don’t you guys have a vehicle?”

Ven laughed at her. Tristan just shook his head.

“Go around the back of the house.” She drove around; five cars were sitting outside the garage.

“Those are the ones we can’t fit into the garage,” Tristan told her. “We don’t advertise unless we have to. Everyone knows your car, so we take it.”

She drove off wondering what else they were doing that she never thought of.

The distance between the warehouse and Tristan's home was closer than she realized. It took roughly thirty minutes to get there.

“Ven did you fight?”

“I did.”

She parked the car and turned to look at him. In his eyes were shadows he kept buried. Her mind flicked back to Jax on the rare occasion she had been able to surprise him. The shadows that flashed across his face, the way he held himself. How he caught himself before he struck out at her. Was the look she saw echoed in Ven’s eyes.

The pit of her stomach tightened. The Kur'iks were just as damaged as the friends she hung out with. That may be the glue that was bringing them together. Her heart was going to keep them together. The more time she spent with them, the more she liked them.

“Looks like I have company.” She got out of the car looking at the two cop cars, and the one she was sure was a plain clothes vehicle. “I wonder what they want with me?”

They walked in to find Jax and Lea standing in the middle of the large open space with cops surrounding them.

“Mira welcome to the party,” Lea gave her a bright smile. Her words letting Mira know she didn’t appreciate the cops questioning her.

“Mira Owen?” The plain clothes cop said.

“That’s me, who’s asking?”

“I’m Detective Oliver. Sorry to have to bring you out here. I stopped by your apartment first, but you weren’t at home.”

“You found me, how can I help you?”

He gave her a smile as he looked at Tristan and Ven before holding up a picture.

“We are following up on a report that this young lady is missing. We gathered some information that said you might know where she is.”

“That’s Meghan, the last time I saw her was a week ago. She was going back to her so-called boyfriend.”

“So-called?”

“Do me the favor of not acting detective. If you’re looking for Meghan, then you know she fell in with the Centre St. gang. She’s supposed to be the girlfriend of Mercurio AKA Dawg. He pimps her out and then beats her when she doesn’t want to have sex with his clients. That’s where I suggest you start.”

“We’ve already investigated them, and they all swear she’s with you.” One of the cops in blue told her.

“You’re free to look around; you won’t find her here.”

“You heard Ms. Owen look around,” Detective Oliver told the cops he brought with him.

“Ms. Owen I’ve heard your name more than once through the years.”

“I work for a strip club. We are legit.”

“Yes, I pulled the paperwork on it myself. A couple of years back a young lady disappeared. The prevalent rumor was that she was dead.”

“Too many young people disappear every day in this city,” Mira told him.

“I agree. Your name kept coming up in connection to the victim. It was said that you got away with the perfect murder. No one believed that you didn’t have a hand in her disappearance.”

“Are you here to arrest me, Detective Oliver?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. I want to share an interesting story.” He gave her a large smile his brown eyes twinkling. “Not that long ago, a month, maybe two I was watching television. There was a story about a young lawyer who brought her first case to trial and won. She took a major drug dealer off the streets. The news, as well as the law company she works for, were impressed.”

“You didn’t find her skills impressive?” Ven asked him.

“I might have if I weren’t busy going through the cold caseload. Standing on the television screen was the woman everyone thought dead. She was alive and well.”

“Then the police no longer think of me as a potential murderer. That thought brings me peace.”

“We found no evidence of Meghan being here.” The two cops in blue said when they walked back into the large open space. They cleared up the tension in the air between Mira and the detective.

“Thank you for your time. If something comes up or maybe a bit of information you forgot, you can call me here.” Detective Oliver held out a card.

Mira tripped when she went to take it falling into the male officer. He helped her stand. The female officer next to him reached out on instinct to steady her.

“Sorry, sometimes I can be such a klutz.” Tristan helped her move back. She reached out and took the card. “I’ll call if I remember anything. Detective may I ask why you are looking for her?”

“Her brother came to town.” He turned to walk away.

“Does that mean she has family that’s important somewhere in the world?”

“You know this game as well as I do Ms. Owen.” He walked out, the two cops following behind them. They stayed silent until all three cars left.

“Oops, I can sometimes be a klutz?” Jax was staring at her.

“Honey if I walked in heels as well as you do I swear I’d be a runway model,” Lea told her with a grunt saying she wasn’t buying it.

“What did you find out?” Ven asked.

“Evil. The kind that makes me want to wash my mind out with soap.”

“The man?” Lea asked.

“The woman. Try to find out her name. She’s so dirty that a bath wouldn’t help her. She doesn’t have Meghan, but she wants her. We need to find out who she is and why she’s after Meghan.”

“We need information, until then I’m going to take my girlfriend to get her nails done. I’ll wait at the bar across the street.” Jax left with a wave.

“I haven’t seen any of my daughter’s old friends in a while. I bet they’d like some homemade cookies. You guys have fun.” Lea walked out humming to herself.

Mira closed the warehouse up then met Tristan and Ven at the car.

“They are going to look for Meghan?” Tristan asked her.

“Yeah, I can’t show my face on the street, especially if I’m hunting for a lost kitten. It brings to much attention to us. They can look a little, but we have a network of people who help us. They can stay under the radar while getting us information.”

“Why do they help?” Ven asked her.

“They lost someone. It feels like you have forever to bring them back into the fold then time speeds up and takes them away from you before you ever had a chance. They’re never coming back. When you get a chance to keep someone else from the same fate, it doesn’t make it better, but it helps a little.”

“I understand.”

She looked at Ven in the rear-view mirror. “Do you?”

“I do, Enzo; that's my dad. He almost lost me. He worked with Declyn in one brave, crazy move. They saved my life.”

“That’s what my life is about brave, crazy moves. I try to save all the kittens I can.”

“What about the males?” Tristan asked her.

“The beautiful thing about kittens is that they are born male and female.”