N. Walters - Legacy Found

“Isaiah.” As if a dam burst in her mind, memories flooded into her consciousness.

He stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were blazing as he studied her. “My God. Rachel. It is you.” He walked forward like a man in a trance and grabbed her into his arms, holding her close to his heart.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, unafraid of this big man. She remembered him. He’d been more of a father to her than her father had been. She took a deep breath and his familiar scent surrounded her.

“I remember you.” The words were torn from her throat.

He leaned away and brushed her hair from her face. “Are you real?” The pain and anguish in his voice was so real it made her heart ache. She nodded, unable to speak.

“I hate to break up this reunion, but we have a problem.” Anger and some other emotion she couldn’t pin down vibrated from James.

Shelley pulled away from her brother and tried not to look at the dead man lying in the dirt beside them. She had to own up to the trouble she’d brought to his home. “This is my fault. He was searching for me.”

“It’s not anyone’s fault.” The hunter who’d shot Steve had his hands in the air. His rifle sat on the dirt at his feet.

James studied the hunter. “Who are you?”

“Quinn.” The tall, light-haired man offered no more than that.

James stood, hands on his hips, studying the stranger. Shelley wished he’d put on a pair of pants. Watching him strut around naked was doing funny things to her body, which were totally inappropriate given the circumstances.

“The rest of them are dead.” Joshua walked up beside James and handed him a pair of jeans.

“So are the Carlos cousins.” Donovan stepped forward, looking tall and menacing. She was glad he was fully clothed. She wasn’t quite ready to see another naked man. “Those bastards took advantage of the chaos with the hunters to try to kill James and nab Alex and Shelley.”

James growled low in his throat as he hauled on the jeans. He zipped up the fly but didn’t bother to button them. “I’ll deal with the rest of that clan later.”

He studied Quinn. “You need to give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you.”

But Quinn wasn’t paying any attention to James. His eyes were glued on Donovan Brody.

Shelley glanced from one man to the other, noting the similarities between them. They were of the same height and build. Where Donovan’s hair was dark brown, Quinn’s was blond. But the facial shape was the same. And so were their eyes. Pale ice blue.

James’s tension went up a notch. “Somebody better start talking.”

Quinn addressed Donovan. “Do you remember Sandra Lawton?”

Donovan frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“Maybe you’ll remember a tall blonde woman you lived with for a few months about twenty-five years ago in New York. You apparently had a great time for a while. One morning, you left without a word. She searched for you but never found you.”

Donovan’s gaze narrowed. “I remember. Sandy. She said her name was Sandy.”

Quinn nodded. “Yeah, well, you left more than just a good time behind.” He straightened his spine and braced his legs apart. Shelley knew what he was going to say before he spoke. “I’m your son.”

Quinn was numb as he stood there and stared at his father. He’d failed Chris. Steve Macmillan was dead, his time with the bounty hunters was at an end and he was no closer to his goal. He’d have to find some other way of searching for his twin. That’s assuming he got out of this situation alive.

He could shift to his wolf form, but that wouldn’t help him here. Not with so many other pureblooded wolves around. They might even kill him for being a half-breed. That happened a lot as he’d discovered during his years of searching for his heritage. He didn’t lose any sleep over killing those fuckers. They’d kill him and his twin if they had a chance.

He recognized Isaiah Striker and his brother Joshua. His mother had discovered Donovan Brody’s secret in the time they’d been together. She’d known what he was but had loved him anyway. She’d followed him in secret several times when he’d met with others of his kind, wanting to learn more about her mysterious lover. She’d seen the Striker brothers, had learned their names.

When he was five, his mother had seen the brothers walking down a street in New York and had pointed them out to him and Chris. Told them who these men were. What they were.

The other man. The one in charge, he didn’t know at all. He was one scary bastard.

Then there was the man he’d searched for all his adult life. Now that he was standing in front of his father, he didn’t quite know what to do, what to say.

“If you’re Donovan Brody’s son, what the hell are you doing with bounty hunters?” It was the alpha male that spoke.

“James,” his father cautioned the other male. It felt weird to be staring at the man who was his father. For years he’d been nothing more than a memory shared by Quinn’s mother.

Something deep inside him stirred when his father stood up for him. But he wasn’t reading much into it. They still might decide to kill him. The other man’s name struck a chord. “James? James LeVeau?”

The male’s eyes narrowed and pure menace flowed from him. He was one scary dude. “James Riley now. Why do you want to know?”

He motioned to Steve’s body. “He has one of his hackers searching a holding company belonging to you. He saw you and your truck in Nashville and got suspicious. When he turned up next to nothing it made him even more so.”

James strode forward until he was standing right in front of Quinn. Wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, he was an intimidating sight. But Quinn wasn’t backing down.

“I’m only going to ask once more. Why?”

Quinn sighed, knowing he had to tell the truth if he wanted to have a chance of getting out of here alive. “As you already guessed, I’m a half-breed.” James nodded. The fact that he wasn’t ordering Quinn’s immediate death was slightly reassuring.

“I have a twin. We were attacked more than a year ago. It took me a while to understand why it happened. We didn’t know much about our heritage. Only what our mother was able to piece together.”

James nodded. “Go on.”

“Chris disappeared and I haven’t been able to find a trace. I infiltrated the hunters to see if they had Chris.” Quinn nodded his head toward Joshua. “You can thank me for that call you got telling you to go to Chicago last fall.”

Joshua glanced at Isaiah, but neither of them spoke.

Quinn glared at James. “To save your life, I just killed the last link to my twin.” Defeat all but smothered him. What would he do now?

Donovan stepped up. “You’re my son.” He had a dazed look on his face, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

Quinn inclined his head. “Mom always said I was the spitting image of you.”

“Where is she now?”

“Dead. She died when I was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry.”

Quinn shrugged. “She knew what you were. And good thing too or we would have been seriously fucked.” Obviously, Donovan couldn’t be too sorry. He’d never given his mother another thought.

“She knew? She never said anything.”

“She loved you anyway.” Bitterness crept into Quinn’s voice as he remembered his mother sitting in their crappy little apartment, staring out the window, watching for a man who never came. “She spent years hoping you would come back. We even lived in the same rundown place until we were ten.” He shut his mouth. He was saying way too much.

“I’m sorry for that.”

“Would it have mattered?” Quinn couldn’t stop himself from asking. “If you’d known she was pregnant?”