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  Healed

  Crescent City Creatures, Book 4

  Samantha Stone

  Published: 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-62210-369-0

  Published by Liquid Silver Books. Copyright © 2016, Samantha Stone.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the USA

  Email [email protected] with questions, or inquiries about Liquid Silver Books.

  Blurb

  Cael will never take a mate. After accidentally hurting the only woman he’s ever loved, he believes it unsafe for him to ever touch a woman again.

  Aiyanna doesn’t care. For years, she’s wanted him, only to be rejected at every turn. It stings every time he turns her away, but letting him go would only hurt worse.

  When vampires come to New Orleans for the first time in decades, problems between Cael and Aiyanna seem small in comparison to the danger now facing the thousands of humans celebrating Mardi Gras. Only together do they have a chance to defeat the new creatures threatening the entire city, including Cael’s werewolf pack.

  Healed brings the Crescent City Creatures together again in an installment filled with danger, revelations, and love.

  Dedication

  For Shelley—don’t let anything stop you from kicking college’s hairy ass!

  Acknowledgements

  An enormous thanks to:

    Mom, Dirty Johnny, Charles and Liz—your encouragements mean the world.

  Victoria—for pushing me as a writer, and making every page you touch better.

  Ansley and the rest of the Liquid Silver team—for continuously betting on me.

  Chapter 1

  AIYANNA Rivette stared the masked man in the eye, smiled, and was tossed a bundle of fuchsia beads for her trouble.

  Most years, she loved Mardi Gras. People threw her free stuff, she almost always had a drink in her hand, and she could shimmy down the entire parade route with her dance troupe, Les Salopes Ivres, or The Drunken Whores. There was nothing not to like about the season, except for the traffic and tourists, both of which Aiyanna could ignore with relative ease.

  This year was different.

  A threat hung over the city, issued by a man Aiyanna had considered a friend for over five years. Alexandre was a werewolf in the local clan prohibitum—basically a holding cell for convicted weres—and he disappeared over a month ago only to resurface with his previously bound powers freed and a message for the creatures of New Orleans: the warlocks were coming for them.

  Given, he’d also promised a period of peace before any attack, but the word of a warlock, especially one who’d lied about his loyalties for so many years, wasn’t something Aiyanna would bet her life on.

  So she spent most of the parades since Epiphany looking over her shoulder, wondering who were wearing the masks.

  She wasn’t paranoid by nature, but after the warlocks had tried to burn down the werewolves’ firehouse while she slept inside, she figured playing it safe was her most prudent option.

  “Aiyanna!”

  If she weren’t a panther shapeshifter with keen hearing, there’s no way she would’ve made out Briony’s shout. The witch made her way to Aiyanna’s perch on the uptown end of St. Charles, holding her lace skirts in both hands. Aiyanna stood on a ladder with a glittery, purple, wooden seat glued to the top, elevating her above the crowd.

  Countless ladders, each decorated similarly, lined St. Charles Avenue so small children could be raised above the crowds to see the parades. Almost always, their parents stood protectively on the rungs behind them. While they were balanced to avoid injury once the clever devices were set up, Aiyanna had seen more than one human hurt from the wrong person choosing to carry them in the throng.

  Aiyanna’s was a five-year-old’s seat, but since the child vacated it at eight that evening, her head lolling back against her father’s chest, Aiyanna figured the spot was fair game.

  Even so, she had no doubt Wish would give her hell tomorrow for using his daughter’s stand to get better beads.

  The thing was, she couldn’t care less about what she caught. Here, she could see all the nefarious deeds committed by drunk humans as well as any more sinister attempts made by creatures.

  So far, the most interesting sight of the night was a partially clothed human woman who pulled an impossibly small flask from the heel of her stiletto. Aiyanna really needed to get one of those.

  “How’s it going?” Sebastian held his mate’s waist while she climbed up the ladder, the protective gleam in his eye even more intense than usual. Even when she stopped, level with Aiyanna, he kept a steady hand on her thigh.

  “I’m not going to knock Briony off the ladder if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she said dryly.

  Briony and Sebastian exchanged an intimate smile, making her cringe.

  After witnessing not one, but three, of the werewolves she’d hung around for so long meet women, fall in love, and become blissfully mated, her giddy happiness for them was beginning to wane.

  It’s about time my turn came. She hoped she didn’t look as bitter as the words in her mind sounded.

  Just like werewolves, shapeshifters mated for life too, their life forces bonding together so if one died, the other did, too. The only difference was shapeshifters’ magic didn’t usually meld with their mates’ like werewolves’ powers did. Having met a couple where the woman was lion and the man a cobra, she was glad her kind didn’t have to worry about that particular mating clause.

  Or else there’d be even weirder creatures roaming the streets than there already were.

  “He didn’t mean any offense,” Briony said, too knowingly. Unfortunately for Aiyanna, Briony could read auras, and with them emotions.

  So much for keeping my pining behaviors a secret.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been offended ever since you banned me from tasting at Full Moon.” Aiyanna raised her eyebrows and looked over her shoulder at Sebastian, who only laughed.

  “You got drunk, said the only good beer was Cael’s Pale Ale, and shouted you’d rather have a Guinness anyway.”

  Briony’s rich brown eyes widened before she laughed too. When she stopped, ignoring Aiyanna’s aggravated glare, her brow puckered in thought. “You know, we could add on a stout or a porter,” she murmured. “It would taste like chocolate.”

  “Let’s get this sour brew worked out first.”

  Flinching slightly, Briony nodded. “The last batch we made tasted like salt,” she whispered. “I don’t know what happened.”

  Aiyanna snorted while Sebastian scowled.

  “Any word from Cael?” Aiyanna asked as nonchalantly as she could. Briony wouldn’t buy it, and damn if Sebastian didn’t either.

  She was in love with Cael, had been since the moment she met him five years ago. Unlike his friends, he hadn’t been keen on opening his heart and forming a relationship.

  He refused to date her instead, deciding to follow her around to ensure her safety whenever the urge hit. She was a panther; she wasn’t worried about safety because nine times out of ten she was the most dangerous being in the vicinity. Of course she didn’t tell him that, so she could be around him at all.

  They had a strange relationship.

  “He’s in a fight with Raphael,” Briony answered, shuffling her booted feet. S
he almost lost her balance, only for Sebastian to right her a moment later with a flick of his fingers.

  Werewolves and witches with combined powers produced strange abilities, even to her. Werewolves and shapeshifters, however, were a perfect pair. Now I just have to convince Cael.

  “What a surprise, the two biggest hotheads in the pack were in an argument.” Aiyanna rolled her eyes. Raphael was their Alpha, and his temper the stuff of legends. So was Cael’s. The thing was, Raphael and Cael were more alike than either would ever willingly admit.

  Yet they were opposites in terms of their sentences. Raphael was the first member of the clan prohibitum to gain his powers back, and Cael would be the last…if the werewolf Elders ever allowed him his freedom.

  “This will surprise you.” Sebastian’s tone was deadly serious.

  That got Aiyanna’s attention. “Why?”

  Sebastian ran a hand through his auburn hair, leaving it even more raised and mussed than before. For a clean-cut businessman, his hair never looked combed.

  “Because Raphael finally convinced the Elders to consider freeing him. They want a private hearing, with only packmates present.” He frowned. “Cael won’t consider it.”

  Groaning, Aiyanna stomped, rattling the ladder and jarring Briony. This time the witch kept her balance, grinning when Sebastian caught a felt rose and handed it up to her.

  “I can’t believe he’d give this up,” Aiyanna murmured. Only it was a lie. She absolutely believed he would keep punishing himself for a crime he committed a century ago.

  He’d killed a woman while they made love, an accident that still haunted every move he made.

  It was why he’d been sentenced to the clan prohibitum and the reason he wouldn’t go near Aiyanna or any other female—he couldn’t bear to hurt them. And he wouldn’t, of that she was positive. He was a hardheaded, unrelenting man, but he lived to protect others.

  Hell, Cael was more likely to join the glitter beard movement than willingly lay an unkind hand on a woman.

  “Do you know where he is?” Aiyanna caught a large cup and absently placed it on top of the stack currently growing from her oversized purse.

  He might not want to date her, but Cael would listen to her. She had to talk to him. That were needed his powers back, if not for himself, then for the safety of his packmates. Keeping him weakened would help no one.

  “Last I heard, he was tearing up the gym,” Sebastian muttered. “I’ve already ordered new equipment, since the last time he ransacked the place everything was broken and Alex—” he broke off and frowned, but continued when Briony took his hand. “Alex was pissed there wasn’t anything in there he could use.”

  “I’m sure Sophia will appreciate you replacing everything,” Briony said gently. She was probably right. Sophia used the gym more than most of the men in their pack, including her own mate.

  Sophia could also kick all of their asses most days.

  Aiyanna leapt to the ground, allowing herself a grin for the ease by which she landed. More often than not, having a feline side was a fantastic advantage.

  “Losing Alex the way you guys have—it sucks.” She put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, wishing she could heal hearts as well as cuts and bruises. “It’ll get better, one way or another.”

  He smiled up at his mate, but his words were for Aiyanna. “I know.” Sebastian turned and pinned her with his bright blue stare. “Now go talk some sense into Cael before Raphael kills him.”

  Chuckling, Aiyanna waved over her shoulder and walked toward her car where she’d parked it on Pyrtania.

  Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the small parking lot the pack had purchased soon after Christmas in order to accommodate werewolves pouring in from Halifax and Inverness, eager to fight warlocks and win. From what she knew, most of them had vacated until Mardi Gras was over.

  The firehouse was the pack’s longtime home in the warehouse district, a rather run-down building surrounded by trendy lofts movie crews liked to rent out while they filmed in the city. Inside, she passed Heath, one of the pack’s head solders, ransacking the refrigerator and cursing the abundance of cold-pressed juices and brightly colored vegetables.

  “Did you do this?” he asked.

  “No,” Aiyanna answered, “but I’d eat it because it’s healthy, and I’m not stupid enough to hurt Briony’s feelings.”

  The witch was wont to cast spells around people she didn’t like. They weren’t malicious by any means, but she got her point across. Normally it was Cael on the receiving end of her vegan wrath; although, Briony had begun to take it easy on him, to Aiyanna’s dismay.

  Hearing him yell about the walls of his bedroom changing color to reflect his mood had been endlessly amusing, especially when his shouts came from a room so dark it resembled a cave.

  Heath gingerly took a sip of an electric green juice. “This isn’t so bad.” He shrugged before drinking the entire bottle in less gulps than was wise.

  Shaking her head, she made for the gym.

  It didn’t take long for her to realize Sebastian was right; Cael was most definitely ransacking the place, and it was unlikely any of its furnishings would be spared.

  A few dull thumps sounded from inside the room, followed by the tinkling clatter of broken glass. Even though Aiyanna had no way to sense if Cael had injured himself, he probably had cuts running across his knuckles from the dozens of times she’d healed them after he’d punched or broken things.

  She was a healer, a quirk in her genetics that seemed to have skipped a generation. The gift came from her mother’s side, the Choctaw portion of her lineage. Interestingly, the Haitian half of her made her a panther shapeshifter.

  When Aiyanna’s mother, a beautiful Native American woman, died in childbirth, her father had killed himself in his grief despite the lack of a mating bond tying their lives together. From what her aunt told her centuries ago before she, too passed, their lives had been linked as surely as if they had been mated.

  While that was romantic and all, it’d left a half-breed newborn in the hands of a human woman with little knowledge of creatures but vast amounts of love for her niece. Most of the times Aiyanna healed, she thought about her Aunt Nadie, and the way she healed with not a speck of magic but a well-trained eye to the herbs of the earth. In many ways, Briony reminded her of her beloved, long-dead aunt.

  Glad her healing abilities were at full capacity—when it depleted, she depleted—Aiyanna opened the door to the gym and stopped in the doorway, butterflies tickling the insides of her stomach because she absolutely needed something else to humiliate her further.

  As if wanting a man who refuses me isn’t embarrassing enough.

  What was next, a beet-red blush, or Cael finding that notebook where she’d drawn a picture of him getting on one knee only to ask her out on a date?

  At least he probably wouldn’t be able to make out what the picture was to begin with. She was no artist, especially when compared to Mary, Raphael’s mate.

  Instantly, Cael turned to face her, his expression softening for a split second before morphing back into a mask of rage. His piercing blue eyes went flat, and his full lips thinned, dipping down toward the deep groove in his chin.

  A lock of black hair swung down to his cheek, but Cael shoved it back angrily. He held a seventy-pound weight in his other hand. She suspected it wasn’t for lifting, but for use as a projectile.

  The mirrors on every wall were shattered, weights littered the floor, and the elliptical and rowing machines were in pieces beside a surprisingly intact treadmill.

  “What do you want?” Cael snarled.

  She was certain he wanted to toss the weight at her, but experience had shown that he wouldn’t. It was only reason she didn’t gingerly pry the hunk of iron from his clenched fist.

  So she flipped her hair back behind her shoulder with a confidence she didn’t feel. Fake it ’til you make it, or just can’t fake it anymore.
/>   Lately, she was leaning toward the latter option.

  “I’m here to talk some sense into you,” she said in her most serious tone.

  The problem was, with the pain flaring in his gorgeous eyes, all she wanted to do was hold him until he felt marginally better. She didn’t want to lecture him. He’d already considered everything she was about to say, but what else could she do?

  Time and time again Cael had made it clear he didn’t want to be held, and especially not by her.

  Chapter 2

  CAEL Prendergast clenched the weight in his hand and considered knocking himself senseless with it.

  Nothing made sense anymore, so why should he try following along? Alexandre, their packmate with the most goodness inside him by spades, had turned to the proverbial Dark Side. In their desperation to defeat these foes, the Elders decided to grant Cael his freedom, something he’d never thought to hope for after a century of living as a criminal.

  It wasn’t right. He’d killed Ava, taken her life so quickly there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do to reverse it. What would it do to her pack, still living in Ireland, if they found out he’d been released?

  Most likely, her brothers would come to New Orleans and kill him themselves. The only reason they hadn’t back on that early March morning in 1917 was because they thought death wasn’t justified punishment.

  “I want the guilt from the life you’ve taken to eat you alive,” Sean had said in an eerily quiet voice.

  Cael hadn’t tried to explain that he hadn’t meant to kill her—he didn’t even understand how he killed her—because it didn’t matter. Ava was dead by his hand, and that was all either of them needed to know.

  Even after the time passed, he couldn’t simply live his life as if he hadn’t brought death upon an innocent woman. If he forgot, he’d hurt someone else.

  Worse, he’d hurt Aiyanna.

  She watched him from across the room, her golden eyes narrowed. The set of her shoulders was straight and proud, representing the woman underneath well. If ever there was a formidable woman, it was her.