Page 1 of Marshall

Chapter 1

Marshall looked down at the paperwork that had been forwarded to him from Hamish.His best friend and vampire king had helped him secure a loan from the local bank so that he’d not just pay cash for the house he’d been looking into buying.He explained that the town needed the money, and that was why he co-signed.The banker didn’t believe or didn’t care that Marshall had plenty of money.

The banker, James Pitsbody, wouldn’t loan him the money.He’d been turned down by the banker three times in the last five years.While he did have a job, Marshall knew that telling people that you were self-employed made them think that he was a freeloader or something along those lines, and he decided that he wasn’t worth the risk.

Marshall wasn’t worried about defaulting.He didn’t believe that Hamish was worried either.They both had more money than they could spend in several lifetimes, and he was happy to be living close to his friends.They all, Hamish Perry, Warren Justice, Calhoun Meyer, Murray Phelps, and Brad Kirk, had moved to be closer together and had been having a wonderful time just being able to hang out together.He also thought it was funny that they had two sets of kings and queens of their kind as well.

“You should also understand that once you find your mate, and I’m hoping for that more than a lot of other things, she can be added to the deed anytime you wish.You have been looking for a mate, haven’t you?”He just shrugged.“I hope you have a better answer than that when the women get around to asking you.Any one of them will have your head if you tell them that you don’t care to have one.”

“I don’t.I know you remember Rachel, my wife from decades ago.”It wasn’t really a question, but like him, Hamish shivered at the thought of her.“She made it so that I never want to think of having a mate ever again.The fates had it all wrong when they paired the two of us together.When she was murdered, it was all I could do to go out and look for her killer.And then not shake his hands for taking her out of the picture.”

It had been that bad, too.Not that he’d admit that to anyone but his dearest friends.But Rachel had been a nightmare from the second that they were mated.The change in her, from a sweet-talking innocent woman to the she-devil that she really was, nearly had him taking his own life to get out of her clutches.

“I think about her on occasion.”Marshall asked him why he’d do that.“Not for any other reason than to remember how she treated you and the rest of us when we were around.The time that sticks out in my memory the most is when you guys had that dinner party.I think you’d been mated for about a month then, and she threw that fit.I can still remember seeing all the blood on the walls and the brain matter now after all these years.”

“Having her kill two people right there in front of us, one of them being a vampire, I thought for sure that she was going to kill us all that night.She only did what she did because she wanted you to know that she didn’t suffer fools well.To this day, Hamish, I still have no idea what that meant.Then that bear cub, too.”He shivered once again, thinking about how she’d just sliced him up with a sword before any of them could move to save him.“I wonder what the hell she was thinking you’d do with her after her doing that?”

“I couldn’t do anything then, me thinking that whoever was the rightful king of my kind would surely come down on her ass.But no one said a word about either of them.There was no one coming around to ask questions either.I’m betting, from what I know now about the previous counsel, that they more than likely paid her to make that kind of scene.I know also that someone, I’m assuming you, had to pay a large fine when the bear family demanded restitution.”He nodded, remembering howmuch it had been.Not nearly enough for them to have lost their only child, he still thought.“The more I find out about the stupid three of them, the more astonished I am that no one took them to task before we did.Launder certainly made an impression with them.And not in a good way.”

The council, consisted of three members that ran things the way that they wanted for decades.Stealing funding from vampires, and destroying them as well for no other reason that they thought it was fun.If not for Warren’s mate having been working for them for centuries, they might well still be trying to make things go their way.As it was now, getting funding to the right people had become a job that had been ongoing for some time now.

Now that he had a home, one that he’d picked out for himself because he liked it rather than because it was something there that he needed, Marshall decided that he was going to bring all his things and put them in his new house.Most of it was things that he’d picked up in all his lifetimes.He knew that some of the things would be considered to be antiques to some buyers, but he knew them to be sturdy, beautifully handcrafted, as well as unique pieces that he himself had created.Marshall ran his hand over his dining room table and thought of all the work and time he’d put into it.

The tree, a massive mahogany, seemed to tell him just what it wanted to be.He’d found other large pieces of wood or trees that had done the same.Over his lifetime, he’d become quite the furniture builder and had until very recently been able to put his hand to a tree or even a large stone and it tell him, showing him just how to carve it into what it thought it needed to be.He supposed that he had the same talent but he’d been so busy of late that he’d not had a moment to look into making more furniture.Something he only just realized that he had missed a great deal.

Going to the back yard, something else that he had wanted in a new home and got was needing some work as well.When his little faerie, Jamboree, sat on his shoulder, Marshall asked her for some help.The little creature seemed to vibrate with newfound energy, ready to please her new master.

“Yes, my lord, Marshall.It would be our pleasure to do this for you.Why, I remember when this house was such a showcasing.”He corrected her, telling her that it was simply a showcase.“Yes, that’s right.But the woman who lived here until she passed on would leave us out tins of goodies.I don’t know that any of us spoke to her but she just seemed to understand that we were around and willing to help her.The garden there, do you see it?It had the most beautiful roses in it.Of all colors as well.”

“I’d like to have that brought back.But it might be too late for this year, I would think.”Jamboree told him that it was, but they could work on her roots, and she’d be willing to bloom for him all the next warm season.“I do remember there being a kitchen garden around here, too.I’d love to have fresh herbs when I cook.I do love to cook myself up a fresh meal at times.”

They wandered around the yard, the two of them setting tasks for the faeries that seemed to be around in abundance nowadays.He supposed it had a great deal to do with Ruby and Robin.They were goddaughters to the queen of magic as well as the queen of faeries.He’d also heard that Becka and Brad were working with the little ones in keeping them busy but also keeping them healthy.He’d seen faeries and brownies alike work themselves to death trying to please the person to who they were assigned.Marshall was going to be very careful that he didn’t allow them to get too exhausted while helping him out in the gardens.

By the time he was ready to call it a day, the back of his home looked a good deal better than it had before.More than likely better than it had for decades.Even the decking, a place that he planned on spending a great deal of time, looked brand-new.There were pots of mums, a fall favorite, all over the deck to bring some color to the much-needed drab weather.

Being a wolf, a very ancient one too, he loved the outdoors more than most animals.After sending off the faeries to have some of the pretty colored mums for a snack, he made his way out the gate an into the wooded area that was behind his home.While he wasn’t sure who the land belonged to, he thought that they might not mind for someone to just walk around.

The wooded area wasn’t in too bad of shape.He could see that it had a lot of felled trees that he thought would be great for someone in need of firewood.There were leaves up to his knees thick along the pathway that he was making up as he went.Coming to an open field, he stood gapping at thelarge helicopter that was there.He was ready to go and see if there were people around when he felt something touch the back of his head.

“Don’t move.You give us away, and I’m going to kill you where you stand.”The man’s voice, while mostly clear, it did sound like it was slurred.Inhaling deeply, he could smell the coke that the man had been using, along with body odor and beer.Two things that he abhorred most about humans.“Been waiting on one of them daughters of mine to come out here and get into that thing for the last couple of hours.Why is it just sitting there on my land?”

“Your land?If it’s yours, why don’t you call the police to find out who it belongs to?”The pop to the back of his head hurt, and he decided that he might be in over his head right now.Reaching out to all the kiss, all the men and women that he’d come to love, he told them what was going on.“I can’t say for sure where I am.I’ve been wandering around in the wooded area behind my house for a couple of hours.”

“Did you make a straight line from your home?”He said that as straight as a man could make, he supposed.“You’re more than likely on the Brandon property.The helicopter, is it Army?Can you see that?”

“Yeah, I think so.It’s camo browns, for sure.Who are the Brandon’s?Do they have an idiot drunk drug dealer in their family?”Calhoun said that they did.He was one of the three brothers that they’d been talking about the other night.“I remember.The twin sisters are watching over their grannie.Yes, I remember now.Well, you might want to warn them that one of them, he said that he’s someone’s father, is waiting for them to come out to the chopper.I don’t know what he’s planning, but I’m sure it won’t bode well for the women.He’s set on killing them, I think.”

“I’ll contact them…damn it, I don’t have a number for them.I had it, but I left it at my office.Marshall, if I were you, because he’s pointing a gun at you, I’d just kick his ass.I’ll head over to the Brandon home and see what I can find out.You meet me there.If that’s their chopper, then you’re within shouting distance of the house.”He told him that he’d do just that.“Don’t kill him.The world might be better off without them around but I don’t know that his family would be that thrilled about it.Not today.”

After disarming the man and knocking him out, he leaned the man up against a large boulder and asked one of the many faeries in the area to keep an eye on him.Also they were to let him know if the man woke up.

“They take turns coming out here, sir.There are three of them, all men with distasteful smells about them.I will keep an eye on this one and have the others alert you should the other two show.”Nodding, he asked where the house of Brandon was.“Oh yes, I never thought to see if this man is related to them.They are the most wonderful women.”He cleared his throat, keeping Jamboree focused.“Yes, just up there to the right is the home.

Seeing the house, he made sure that they knew that he was unarmed.There was an elderly lady sitting in a chair on the back porch with two others around her.Shouting who he as and that Calhoun Meyer was a friend of his.The elderly lady laughed.It was more of a cackle, and she told him to come on.He made his way there just as the two women went into the house.It looked as if they were going to enjoy the nice weather and have a cook out.He was going to do that very thing when he got home.

~*~

Mitsy laughed at the man who was now trying his best not to stare at the girls.She supposed that her granddaughters were all grown up now and well beyond being called girls, but she didn’t care.They were her girls, and she’d do what she wanted.Which she normally did anyway when she thought about it.