Free Redeeming Rue AP4 by R. E. Butler Page A

and Hanai meet us at the diner in town?  Don’t tell the kids, please.  We’ll be there in an hour.”
    “You’ll explain what’s going on?” Dag asked.
    “I promise.”
    “We’ll be there.”
    James handed the phone back to John and pulled Rue to her feet.  He reached for the brunette wig she wore and she flinched, but then she seemed to resign herself to him taking it off.  He tugged the wig off her head and was surprised to see that she had white hair.  It was the purest white color he’d ever seen.  Her hair was pinned, and as he began to pull out the bobby pins, John went over to the door and closed it.  Someone had broken through the door.  The deadbolt had been ripped away from the wall, and the security chain hung loosely against the door.
    Combing his fingers through her hair, he rubbed a silky lock between his forefinger and thumb and looked into her bright green eyes.
    “We need to know everything, Rue.  We won’t let you go through this alone.”
    John joined them.  Rue dropped onto one of the beds, and he and John sat on either side of her.  She was quiet for a moment, and then she began to talk about her clan, led by Gerarli.  She’d had a good life, until she shifted into an albino panther on her sixteenth birthday and had been attacked by her own family, chained up, branded, and banished.
    Her story tugged on his heartstrings.  She’d survived nearly insurmountable odds.  A teenager, all alone in the world, relying on a few kind strangers to help her along.  She’d suffered because of her clan’s backward thinking.  Her clan believed her mutation was because of a sin or evil she’d brought to them.
    “I was forbidden from returning to the clan or having cubs.  They must have seen me and tracked down my car.”  Her shoulders slumped in defeat.
    “I don’t get why you having white fur is such a big deal.  There are anomalies in every shifter group.  Heck even humans have unusual traits that pop up from time to time, odd eye and hair color, an extra toe.  Nothing to kill someone over,” he said.
    “My clan is very traditional and resistant to change.  In their minds, I’d done something that caused my shift to create white fur, and the fact my naturally dark hair turned white, too, was viewed as being derived from evil.”
    She was torn up emotionally and mentally, and right now she drooped from exhaustion.  James stood and pulled her gently to him.  Cupping her face, he studied her bright green eyes fringed with thick lashes.  She had a straight nose and high cheekbones.  The lips he had kissed repeatedly were lush and parted slightly as she stared at him.
    His thumb traced the lower swell of her bottom lip.  “We’re not letting you go through this alone.  We’ll figure it out.”
    She tried to shake her head, but he held it steady.  “You could die.”  She gripped his wrists.
    “No one is dying today or any other day.” John stood and placed his hands on her hips.
    “You don’t know me.  You have a family.  You can’t risk yourself for me.  They could kill you if they believe you’re helping me.”
    James withheld the snort.  Her clan might think they could go around killing people just because they happened to be different, but they had another thing coming.  It was true Rue was a stranger to him and John, but he felt a soul-deep connection to her because they were mates.  She was beautiful and she was theirs, and no one was going to take her from them, or take her son from her.
    “Go take a shower,” he ordered.  She gaped at him in surprise, and even John looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.  James chuckled and gave her a warm smile.  “There’s no need to hide anymore, Rue.  We know who and what you are, and honestly, my cat can’t stand the artificial scent.  We have time before we need to head to the diner to meet Dag and Hanai.”
    “Okay.”
    She grabbed some clothing and a zippered bag from a suitcase on the