Highland Shifter (MacCoinnich Time Travels #4)(53)
Author: Catherine Bybee

Having spent many hours of his life in animal form, there were times Simon lost himself in the ambitions of whatever animal form he chose. His sense of smell, sight, or hearing was stronger as a human because of it. He wasn’t joking when he told Helen the animal in him didn’t leave him completely when he shifted back to human form. A couple of years after he began shifting, he noticed the enhanced senses. Those talents molded him into the warrior he was. He could hear his enemy advance, smell their fear. Equally, he could smell the pheromones of a lover spike.

Helen emitted those like none other. Her scent drove him mad. He could also scent fertility much like an animal can with its mate. So why, when he scented Helen’s, did he not bring her to completion with his tongue and dive away? Why couldn’t he stop himself from claiming her with such primal force?

Why did he fill her with his seed knowing damn well the chances of it taking root and bearing his child was high?

Helen moaned in her sleep and dove closer into his embrace.

“I’m here,” he whispered to her sleeping form. I’m here.

* * * *

Philip met Malcolm’s icy stare through the glass. “She disappeared.”

Malcolm grasped the end of the phone with white knuckles. “You’ve searched everywhere?”

Philip nodded, knowing the police recorded every word. Privacy in prisons was non-existent. “My secretary said she called while I was in Scotland, so I waited until I was back in the States to notify the authorities.”

The last thing Philip needed was for the police to think he had anything to do with Helen’s disappearance. The sins of his brother could very well float over to him if he wasn’t careful. A missing woman abroad and the brother of a convicted murderer didn’t bode well for Philip’s freedom. As it was, the authorities had hauled him in for questioning twice. Each time the questioning took on a darker edge.

Of course, there was no evidence of foul play, no family to push an investigation. There were bandages found in Helen’s bathroom trash with blood, but not enough to suggest a mortal wound. Someone in the apartment complex stated that they’d seen Helen after she’d flown to Scotland. She’d been with a large man who didn’t fit Philip’s description. Without anything other than his brother’s crimes to go on, the police hadn’t questioned him further.

Still, the entire ordeal unsettled him. Malcolm and his quest for freedom through Helen was what started this mess. Of late, Philip couldn’t shake the feeling that Malcolm’s freedom could very well mean Philip’s incarceration. Trading places with his brother was not on his “to do” list.

Malcolm glanced over his shoulder to the guard standing at the door. “Was she in the States when she called? I thought she flew to Europe.”

“She did, according to the flight records. Her return ticket is sitting with some of her things in Scotland so she didn’t get back the way she left. The police said she called the office from her apartment. My secretary knows Helen as well as she knows me, she knows her voice. Still, she can’t be in two places at the same time.”

This meant that Malcolm’s theory about how the stone worked might have a snowball’s chance of being true. The spark in his brother’s eye suggested Malcolm came to the same conclusion.

“If she called from the States, chances are she’ll show herself soon. Have you checked with that old lady she spends time with?”

“Spoke to her on the phone. She sounded concerned about Helen’s disappearance.”

Mal’s eyes narrowed. “You should check on her. She doesn’t have family, right?”

No, which right now sounded like a blessing. Philip felt his own will bending toward his brother’s. If Helen were in hiding, she probably would run to Mrs. Dawson’s.

Philip had only met the woman once when she walked into the auction house in search of Helen. He had a terrible feeling the woman saw right through him, deep into his tarnished soul. He didn’t want to repeat the experience.

“I’ll call her tonight.”

“A personal visit would be better.”

Order delivered.

Philip forced a smile to his face. “Right.”

Even behind bars, Malcolm managed to win. Philip knew what the man was capable of, and knew brotherly love wouldn’t keep Philip above ground if he didn’t come through for his brother.

“Call me tomorrow, two o’clock.” Malcolm hung up the visitor phone and pushed the steel chair back. The guard behind him stood taller and nodded when Malcolm walked past him.

Philip slowly placed the receiver on the hook and watched his brother disappear. The farther away his brother walked, the less pull he had on him. But Philip was well rehearsed at releasing his brother’s hold.

Others weren’t.

Even the guard escorting Mal back to his cell couldn’t be trusted. Philip might be able to push thoughts into the minds of the people around him, but Malcolm matched him with that gift, took it further, and erased a person’s own desires as well.

When they were kids, Malcolm would practice his tricks on the teachers at school. It started off innocent enough. I deserve an “A”, Miss Benito quickly morphed into I was in your class all day. On rare occasions, a teacher would break out of his brother’s hold long enough to mark him absent. Those teachers always found themselves doing completely inappropriate things in front of, or to, students.

Philip remembered a thirty-something year old Algebra teacher, married and mother of two. Malcolm loathed her. Malcolm sat at the front of the auditorium during an anti-drug demonstration put on by the local sheriff’s department and bent the teacher’s will like a twig. Once all the students assembled, and the cops uncovered their contraband to educate the kids on what to stay away from, the teacher burst from her seat, ran to the table, and started popping all the pills she could grab. She screeched profanities as if she had Tourette’s. The students howled in laughter while the police and school staff tried to restrain her.

The district fired the teacher and the police put her on a seventy two hour psychiatric hold before pressing charges. Malcolm never had to deal with her again.

Mal seldom dirtied his own hands. He’d have the bigger kids fight his battles.

But the bigger kids couldn’t get his dick wet, and that’s what landed Mal’s sorry ass in jail.

Philip remembered the pictures and video of what his brother did to the woman he’d murdered.

Everyone on the jury would remember the pictures, too. No matter how hard Malcolm tried, he couldn’t manipulate everyone’s mind at the same time to get him acquitted.