Page 31 of Balthazar's Fire

Oliver laughed at his father’s veiled denial. Everybody knew how many affairs he’d had, including Oliver’s mother, Gloria, who seemed content to let her husband do just about anything he wanted. It was the one area where Oliver envied his father. He wasn’t a mad advocate of marriage, but if he had to have one to pass on the family’s assets and their special genetics, then he’d choose one like his mum; a quiet, subservient woman who had looked all right in her day and was content to drink herself to death rather than make waves.

“What happened to that nice-looking piece of ass you used to have out here?” Jonas asked, glancing around at the office Cherie had once frequented.

“I had to let her go,” Oliver lied, his gaze flitting to Cherie’s empty desk. He wouldn’t bother to enlighten his father that the woman who’d worked for him was the same one who’d seen his chimera as he seized her for himself, nor that the real truth was that the rival family they both loathed had helped her to escape. Oliver would have both of those matters ironed out soon enough. “She didn’t work hard enough, I’m afraid.”

“Shame,” his father murmured as he headed for the exit. “I always fancied having a piece of her, myself.”

“Never mind,” Oliver cooed. “There’s plenty more fish in the sea, Dad.”

Watching his old man disappear into the corridor, an image of the wide-eyed Cherie bound and afraid formed in Oliver’s head. Unlike his father, he was going to have a piece of her, and sooner than she realized.

Chapter Eleven

Balthazar

Cherie fell asleep beneath the purple blanket he’d laid over her, barely stirring when he carried her through to his bedroom and not even rousing when he later climbed into bed with her. Balthazar had considered sleeping on the couch. It would have been the gentlemanly thing to have done, but he reasoned that they were beyond that point in whatever relationship was developing between them. After all, she had willingly submitted to both his psychological and physical commands, and had trusted him enough to crash out while she was still naked. He would never do anything to wreck the faith she had put in him, and he hoped that she knew that.

Nonetheless, he kept his distance in the bed, resisting the overwhelming urge to spoon her and press his swelling cock into her perfect little behind. Even though every fiber of his being told him to give in and snuggle her, and he sensed that Cherie would not have an objection, his incessant need to do the right thing won out. If she was unconscious, then she couldn’t consent, and consent was everything.

Stretched out beside her and in an attempt to focus his attention on something other than the scintillating naked woman at his side, his thoughts returned to Monroe. Not only was the useless son-of-a-bitch prepared to snatch the woman Balthazar was dating away for his own vile agenda, but he was also a shifter. His brow furrowed as the final thought resonated.

Oliver Monroe’s a fucking shifter!

For so long Balthazar and his brothers had believed they were alone with the gift. That’s what their father, Michael, had always led them to think and it’s what they’d assumed. The fact that Monroe had been able to morph into the snarling chimera changed everything. Now, there was the proof that another man shared their hybrid status, albeit turning into a different creature, and there was still the question of the Monroe bloodline in general. What if Oliver wasn’t the only one?

What if every one of the vermin can change into a chimera? What if there were a whole nest of chimeras just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world?

He shivered at the dark and unwelcome idea, thinking again of his father. If Michael was there he would know what to do. Whatever his flaws, Michael had always been a comfort and a fountain of great knowledge. Blowing out a breath, Balthazar focused on his father’s face in his mind, wishing he could draw on that source now.

‘Father.’

Balthazar called out in his head, the same way he did on the mountain tops when Michael sometimes visited. Over the years since Michael had passed, Balthazar had learned that he could still commune with his dad that way. Somehow, Michael’s telepathic thoughts were as clear as they had been in his living years.

‘What am I going to do?’

Balthazar had no expectation that his query would be received, let alone answered, but as the thought left his mind, he relaxed. Just the ability to ask someone else for assistance helped, even though that person would never be able to reciprocate in the conversation.

‘Balthazar?’

He tensed at his father’s voice, glancing right to see if the beauty sleeping beside him had stirred, and uncertain for a moment if he’d truly heard the response or if he had only invented it for his own well-being. Reassured that at least Cherie didn’t seem to have heard Michael’s response, he stared at the ceiling in the half-light, trying to calm his racing heart.

‘Balthazar, is that you?’

There was little doubt that time. The voice definitely belonged to his father, and it came to Balthazar in the same way their telepathic communication always had. Was it possible that he could link with his dad without the backdrop of the peaks to amplify their interaction? The thought was as exciting as it was disconcerting.

‘It’s me, Dad.’

Once more, Balthazar peered over at Cherie, concerned that she’d somehow intercept the messages and decide he was crazy. After all, maybe he was? There was still a chance that the voice in his head was of his own making.

‘I do not see you on the crags around Fireside, my son.’ Michael’s voice was every bit as soothing as Balthazar recalled. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m at one of our houses,’ he replied, anxious not to reveal too much about his location in case his father was able to put in a celestial appearance. ‘I didn’t know we could speak anywhere but the mountains.’

‘It is also new to me.’ The astonishment was clear to hear in Michael’s tone. ‘How go things with you, Balthazar?’

‘I have Cherie back,’ he announced proudly, as though the beautiful brunette beside him was little more than a trophy he’d won in fifth grade.

‘From Monroe?’ Michael queried.