Softly Say Goodbye (Redemption's Price Book 3)
by Rachel Leigh Smith
by Rachel Leigh Smith
Blair Kincade pasted on his five-millionth smile of the last six weeks and lied to the camera. Thank the gods, the photographer didn’t linger. The Fund banquet always drew them by the dozens and he was in no mood to pretend a second longer than necessary. Dad didn’t deserve it.
He pulled away from his father and tossed back the rest of his champagne. Not that it’d do anything to him, but half his life was about appearances. Tonight, it was the appearance of a happy family, by putting on an act for the cameras and grant recipients. Right now, he wanted every person in this place to leave him the hell alone. Including his father.
“Thank you for doing this, son.”
A soft growl escaped. “I’m here for Owen. Not you.”
John Kincade sighed, just as softly as Blair had growled. Which meant every set of shifter ears in the room heard it. “I messed up, Blair. I admit it. You’re still my son, and I couldn’t love you any more if you were my flesh and blood.”
Blair counted to three so he wouldn’t start a fight. The last thing he needed was to loose claws and fangs on the man who’d raised him, while half of Denver watched. They didn’t need to see their beloved Super Bowl-bound quarterback turn into a snow leopard and get his ass kicked by an almost two-hundred-year-old cougar-turned-lion. “I’m grateful you protected me. But you also denied me everything I was born for.” His throat tightened almost to the point of pain. “After losing your own pride, how could you do that to me?”
“They’re dead, son. All of them. Had you stayed out there as a helpless cub, you’d be dead too.”
“It wasn’t your call to make.” He faced the man who’d raised him, loved him, protected him. “You lied to me for almost thirty years, and I’m supposed to be okay with it? Newsflash, Dad. I’m not.” His human side still thought of the man as his father, but his leopard rebelled at any thought of him as Dad. The fight almost caused physical pain sometimes. Like now. Along with a burning need to get out of the same space.
“Another reporter’s coming.”
“Nice sidestep. This conversation is over anyway.” He brushed past Dad and started looking for Owen.
The annual awards gala of The Samuel Kincade Fund wasn’t a place for the faint of heart. Denver’s elite came in droves, along with politicians, a few celebrities, athletes, and many of the grant recipients. This year the latter group included his older brother Gabe’s mate, Dr. Autumn Dailey. She was doing a DNA study on wild cougar populations, had accidentally tangled with the now-dead Teton pride, and mated with Gabe in the process.
Which made Blair jealous. He longed for a mate of his own, someone to share life with. To share his pain with. When carried by two, it ceased to be as heavy.
Blair followed Owen’s scent to a corner where he hid behind some plants. An undertone of bitterness laced his scent, and Blair put his body between Owen and the crowds. “You don’t look so good.”
A pale and shaking Owen met his gaze. “There are…so many. People.”
Blair moved in closer. Put his hands on Owen’s shoulders. “I know. If you need to leave, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“I’m alpha, Blair. This shouldn’t…I can’t—”
“You can leave, Owen, if you really need to. This is a huge thing, and you’ve already been braver than expected.”
Owen leaned forward, and Blair enclosed him in a tight hug. The future alpha of the Boulder pride was a certified agoraphobic. Blair held him as tight as he dared, since Owen outranked him on the alpha scale. “Are you still taking your medication for this?”
“I stopped because it hasn’t happened in ages.” Owen shuddered. “I’d hoped Sekhmet fixed this too.”
The Egyptian goddess of healing and one of the eyes of Ra. She’d healed Owen physically last summer, when he’d been returned to them after being missing for twenty-two years. “I think she heals physical things. This is mental.”
Another shudder, and Owen pressed in tighter. “Can we go outside for a little while?”
Outside. Into gardens covered with snow. His snow leopard forgot all about being mad at Dad and pressed so hard against him, fur rubbed the inside of his skin. “Of course.”
He steered his trembling baby brother outside, nodding to Gabe and the other security guys as they went past. All acknowledged the movement, but none followed.
An expanse of fresh snow met them, and Blair drew the scent into his lungs. Nothing in the world smelled better than fresh fallen snow. It sparkled in the soft light of a garden lit with strands of white twinkle lights woven into now-bare trees and hidden in hedges. It was also deserted—exactly what Owen needed right then.
Owen peeled away from him and wandered into the shadows. Blair knelt on the pea gravel path and dug his hand into the snow mounded on the side. He let a partial shift go through his hand so his leopard could feel the snow on a paw and quiet down. The leopard didn’t approve of sacrificing their last free night to be here at the gala instead of roaming the snow-covered mountains in the pride lands.
“How come there aren’t any snow leopards in the pride?”
Blair lifted his gaze toward where Owen’s voice came from. Switched to his leopard vision so he could see his brother. “We don’t play well with other cats. Then there’s also the whole communist countries part, and the Himalayas.”
“I can see why they’d want to stay in mountains like that. Where did your pride live?”
Blair raked his paw through the snow once more, shifted it back to his hand, and remained crouched by the soothing chill of the snow. “Siberia.”
“That’s a lot of territory.”
Want to read more?
The dream of a pride and a mate isn't supposed to cost him everything.
Snow leopard shifter Blair Kincade has spent a lifetime using football to fill the gaping hole in his soul. Being an alpha without a pride sucks. As does being lied to about it his entire life by none other than the one he should've been able to trust: his adopted father. Meeting a visiting Russian snow leopard turns into finding the last survivors of his destroyed pride. And the possibility of a mate bond with a woman strong enough to stand by him.
Ballerina Oksana Bukovskaya has come to Colorado with one goal in mind: to save her adopted father, who's slowly losing his memory. There have been one too many attempts on his life, and she's not leaving until he's safe in the Boulder pride lands. Falling for an alpha she thought dead is an unexpected complication.
Uncovering the pieces of what happened to their pride reveals Ares's fingerprints all over a slaughter no one remembers. Plus he's sent one of his assassins after the only man who could've stopped it. Finding the answers--and the killer--is the only way Blair can protect his pride.
There's just one problem. It might cost him his mate.
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