by Mary Martel
That was the only reason.
We weren’t cowards. Yeah, we had run away ten years ago but not because we were cowards. We were survivors and just doing what our father had taught us to do in order to survive. Just boys at the time we were too young then to stand up for ourselves, to fight.
We weren’t too young anymore, and we were much more than capable of taking care of ourselves.
*****
The waitress had long since come and gone, taking our empty plates and bowls with her. We’ve been sitting in the café for a while now, silently sipping from our cups of coffee. I’m surprised our waitress hasn’t told us to leave already because they’ve been non-stop busy since we sat down. They could probably use the booth. Probably, she’s afraid she’ll lose out on her tip if she gives us the boot.
The others haven’t approached.
They’d simply driven right past without slowing down or stopping.
Or, I should say, they hadn’t stopped where we could see them.
I could feel them, though.
They were parked a block or two up Main Street, just out of sight.
Waiting.
It would seem I had not been wrong.
Now I had to figure out what the hell I was going to do about it.
Riley and I could take on the shifters and a tracker. Most definitely. Shifting forms was like riding a bike, you never forgot how to do it. If it were the two of us I might say we go for it. But Collette was not to be trusted and in no way would I be leaving Shayne alone with her. And I couldn’t take her with me and simply leave Shayne here all alone and unprotected. I’d never do that.
I trust Shayne completely. Even though it has become all too clear she is keeping things from me.
Surprisingly, I find I’m not upset by this. I know a thing or two myself about keeping secrets. I also know she is keeping hers out of what she has to believe is self-preservation.
I get it, really, I do.
When she’s ready she will share. I’m not going to push her at the moment. If we weren’t in a situation I’d probably push her, I’m not ashamed to admit it.
That doesn’t mean I’m not curious as hell because I am. She can hear Collette’s thoughts. I didn’t know what to make of this. I didn’t know of any humans with supernatural abilities. But, then again, I didn’t know any humans. Yeah, we had lived amongst them for the past ten years but it didn’t mean we were making friends all this time.
Well, I hadn’t been out making friends all this time.
Riley was a whole different matter. He got friendly with any and every attractive male he came into contact with. He flirted his ass off. Young. Old. Married. Single. If they caught his eye he didn’t give a fuck. He went for it. And, nine times out of ten, he got in there. They couldn’t resist his rakish charm and rugged good looks.
He’d stick with the same one until we were ready to hit the road again. Then, he’d wipe ‘em and move on to the next poor sucker wherever it was we happened to land.
He was fucking shameless.
I’m in no place to judge him. It’s not like I’ve been living my life as a monk while I waited to find my one true mate. But it didn’t mean I chatted it up with them, romanced them. I found my sexual partners at bars and usually took them out to the truck where I fucked them. I’d fuck them in the same back seat where I’d just sat holding hands with Shayne no more than an hour earlier. When I pulled my cock out I was done that was it. I didn’t wipe my memory from their minds. I told them to get the fuck out of my vehicle, sometimes I even had to forcefully remove them, then I went home and never returned to that particular bar again, in hopes they’d forget me all on their own. If not I didn’t give a fuck. They knew nothing of my supernatural side so I felt no need to wipe their minds so I let them keep the memory of me and my cock.
Riley was altogether different breed of man. He spent time with them. Even the damn married ones. It’s like he craved the emotional and physical attention he received from them. Even knowing he was only going to receive it for a temporary amount of time and when it was over they wouldn’t even be able to remember it their time spent with him. He never spoke of them to me, not once. But he was my little brother, mine to look after, so I took it upon myself to keep tabs on him. That’s to say I spent a goodly amount of time following him, keeping tabs.
This, I felt almost unbearably guilty about. If he had been able to grow up at home then he would have been able to make as many connections with people as he wanted. Knowing my brother as the type of man he has become, those connections would have turned into lifelong friendships. Or maybe even a long lasting, healthy relationship. But, because we’d run away he’d never gotten the chance.
Shit yeah, I feel a tremendous amount of guilt over that.
I did the best I could with him considering the circumstances. I know this. More importantly, so did he. That knowledge was all that should have mattered.
So, I felt it safe to assume he would be more knowledgeable when it came to humans than me. I’d have to remember to find time later when we got to wherever it was we were to end up and have a private word with him. See if he’s ever known of another human with the abilities Shayne is showing signs of having. I might even have to swallow my pride and ask him if he had any tips for me on how to make her feel more comfortable with me touching her. Not that that conversation wouldn’t be uncomfortable in the slightest.
Like I said, it is not for the here and now, though.
Right now I’ve bigger shit on my plate to worry about.
Like, say, what the hell I am going to do about the shifters lying in wait to ambush us up the road. Shifters who are likely my Uncle’s minions.
We can’t continue on to Collette’s house with the threat of them following behind us the whole way hanging over our heads. I’m thinking maybe a confrontation isn’t such a bad way to go about it after all. Get it out of the way. It isn’t like that’s not the inevitable outcome anyway.
If we initiated it then maybe it will give us the element of surprise and with it, the upper hand.
The question was, how do we go about it?
More importantly, how do I go about it in a way that’s safe for Shayne? In a way where I won’t have to leave her alone or with the damn Vampire?
Chapter 14
Shayne
I was seriously getting sick and tired of being in this damn SUV and having no clue as to where in the hell we were going. I was also getting sick and tired of not knowing what in the hell was going on.
I’m beyond fed up and I want in the know. Badly. Like two days ago.
However, I don’t bother to ask.
There’s no point. It would be a waste of my breath. Ian would just give me the run around and feed me some bullshit. Some more bullshit. The man was annoying like that.
The entire time we had been at the café Collette’s thoughts kept popping up in my head. Over and over and over again.
It had been obnoxious to say the least yet extremely informative.
It would seem the more agitated the Vampire became the more she projected her thoughts.
I wish I knew how to shut it off because she was slowly driving me fucking insane. It had never been this bad before. I’ve never heard so many thoughts from one person. I didn’t like it, and I wished like hell I could somehow make it stop, find some way to put her on mute.
However, it did grant me some insight into the mystery that was Collette.
She was worried. And not a small amount.
It would seem that she was genuine in her feelings for the boys. She cared about them and she did it deeply.
She felt responsible for them, almost maternally so. She had loved them like they were her own flesh and blood and it had fucking gutted her when she’d thought they were dead. It had fucking gutted her. Her insides, her everything, had been ripped clean out of her.
She felt like a complete fool for believing in Roland’s lies. She now hated him with a fierceness that ast
ounded me. The force of it left me breathless and shaking.
She’d loved their father something fierce and it was not at all platonic. Something I didn’t think the brothers knew about. Something I had no intention of ever informing them of. I didn't like to share other people's secrets that I had picked up on accident. It didn't seem right.
And, lastly, she was bound and determined to see no harm come to either of them while they get their lives back to what they should be. She would stop at nothing to see they get what was rightfully theirs, their inheritance, if you will.
She honestly (albeit crazily) thought of Ian as her king. I couldn’t wrap my head around Ian being a King of anything. The whole thing seemed so outlandish.
Knowing all of this, all the love she has for them, I still don’t like her. I feel badly for her, even pity her, yeah, but it isn’t enough to make me change the way I feel about her in general.
She’s a bitch and I’ll probably never like her.
Ian’s voice jars me from my thoughts and what he says makes my eyes go wide in panic.
“Take this dirt road coming up on the right. Drive about half a mile and stop. When we stop I want everybody out of the truck except for Shayne.”
Umm… say what? I didn’t want to be left alone when I had no idea what was going on.
“You sure about this, brother?” Riley quietly asks.
“No,” he bluntly replies, “but I am sure we don’t want them following us to Collette’s. Whoever they are they’ve been following us for they probably already knows who we are and where we are. We might as well see if we can figure out who it is and what they want.”
“Why do I have to stay in the truck?” I ask him.
“Because it’s not safe for you to get out of it,” he immediately replies.
“Will you be safe?” I hesitantly ask. If it's not safe for me how am I supposed to feel comfortable with him going out there with unknown dangers?
His eyes on me turned to liquid heat in a second. In a rough voice I haven’t heard from him before he rumbles, “You don’t have to worry about me, sweetheart. I’ll be fine.”
God, I hoped so.
I really, really did. If something were to happen to the three of them I would be royally fucked. We're out here in the middle of nowheresvile, I don't even know what state we are in, and all the money I have on me is my measly tips I made the last time I worked at the bar, however long ago that was. A day? Two? A week? I didn’t know what day it was at this point. I've got plenty of money from the life insurance left over in my bank account, but I'd have to find an atm in order to access it. The closest is probably at the cafe where we ate breakfast which would be miles and miles behind us by now. I didn't want to walk miles by myself in the freaking wilderness.
God, I hoped like hell that whatever this was it didn't turn out badly for us. For better or worse, I needed these people.
*****
Ten minutes later I found myself alone, sitting in the back seat, looking out the back window of the SUV. I watched in silence as four men emerge from a blue sedan that had just parked further back, on the opposite side of the dirt road from us.
As soon as they step out of their vehicle I am once again assaulted with the same wretched dead animal smell from earlier.
My God. What is that smell? Pulling the sleeve of my shirt down over my hand I cover my mouth and nose with it in hopes of blocking out that wretched smell.
Three of the men look so similar to one another they have to be related. Probably brothers. Not triplets, but certainly brothers for sure.
All of them tall and lean. They’re hair so dark brown it’s closer to black in color. One’s is cropped closely to his head, but not quite shaved. The other two wear theirs long, down to their shoulders, it's so straight it looks like they've taken a flat iron to it. Nowhere near Ian’s length, though, and nowhere near as gorgeous. Although, I think I might just be a wee bit biased when it came to all things Ian.
All three sets of eyes are hidden behind dark, wire-rimmed, bad ass, aviator shades. If I had to guess, given their near midnight hair color, I’d say their eyes were probably brown but I could be wrong.
The fourth man looked sickly. He’s middle aged and bald except for some wiry grey hair slicked over the very top of his skull. His skin droops off his face giving him saggy cheeks. His face is utterly vacant, almost like he's incapable of having emotions.
He is the only one not wearing sunglasses and his eyes...
Holy hell.
His eyes.
They are milky white.
His entire eyeball is white. No iris’s to speak of.
I’ve never seen anything like it before in my whole life and I could say I’d ever want to again.
It’s eerie…
And beyond creepy.
He looks somehow… empty. Devoid of any and every thing that was once him.
I shudder in my seat as a jolt of unexpected fear courses through my body.
My guys were out there with that… that… person? While I am stuck in here all alone, safe from whatever that person was.
That thought does not sit well with me. I desperately wish I could be out there with them. Even if it meant having to be out there with Mr. Creepy.
Tearing my gaze away from those milk white eyes I look back to where the brothers and Collette are standing and cannot believe what I am seeing.
I blink, thinking my eyes are playing tricks on me.
And blink again.
And again.
And again.
The image remains the same no matter how many times I open and closed my eyes.
Ian stands tall and proud, his hair whipping around his body in the breeze. His arms are crossed over his broad chest, his lips an angry line of displeasure. He looks like a fierce warrior ready to do battle. A fierce but beautiful one.
To his left stands Collette. Face carefully devoid of any emotion, not that I imagine this is a mean feat for her or anything the woman only seemed to be capable of feeling a whole two emotions.
To his right, where Riley was standing minutes before, sat a tiger.
A freaking tiger.
I did not believe my eyes.
“Holy fuck,” I whisper into the silent vehicle.
“Holy fuck,” I repeat, because it is worth repeating.
The body of the tiger is long and sleek. A wide forehead with a short muzzle. Its mouth closed, hiding what I’d assume would be nothing less than razor sharp teeth. Thick, sturdy legs that end in broad paws. Fur a variety of colors and stripes ranging from a fiery orange to black to a tawny yellow. From where I sit in the car I could just make out a circular shape on the back of its ears. It had to be at least six feet long with a tail half the length of its body.
It is by far the most majestic creature I have ever laid eyes on.
And it was sitting on its hind legs right next to Ian.
Right next to him.
Where had it come from?
I wanted to look around for Riley but I’m afraid if I take my eyes off of the beautiful creature in front of me it would disappear as if it had never been there in the first place. Or eat someone, which was a definite possibility.
Behind the tiger sat a small bundle of something. Upon closer inspection I realize it’s a pile of clothing.
What on earth?
Insanely, my mind conjures up Ian’s words from our conversation at the last motel we had stayed at.
“I'm a shifter."
"I can turn into an animal.”
I can turn into an animal.
He claimed he could turn into an animal…
I hadn’t taken him seriously at the time, and he had never said what animal. I couldn’t...
I just... was that even possible? Could it be…?
Logic said that no, it wasn't. This had to be some sort of trick my addled brain was playing on me. Maybe this was all an insane dream. That would make so much more sense. It would certainly explain why someone li
ke Ian would be interested in me. I was asleep and dreaming my ass off. Any minute now I'd wake up to a hyped up Anna May, bouncing up and down on my bed, ready to tell me all the nasty details of her date with the dude she picked up at the coffee shop.
I pinch my thigh.
"Shit." I yelp. That hurt.
I rub my thigh, trying to soothe away the sting.
Not a dream then.
Could it be...
Was this tiger a shifter?
More importantly, was it…
Riley?
“Oh my God.”
Chapter 15
Ian
I am shocked, to say the least, when the brothers LeRoy stepped out of a dark sedan with the tracker. I’d been right, they were traveling with a tracker.
The brothers LeRoy and I had grown up not together, but around each other. They were from a very old family line, much like my own. Although, my line was stronger than theirs.
Their father had been a council member and was a close friend of my fathers. He probably still sat on the council.
The brothers three looked the same as I remembered them, only slightly older. At twenty-nine Brooks was the eldest. The only major difference between him and the other two was that he kept his hair cropped close to his head and the other two did not. Reed and Austin are twenty-six and identical twins. Honestly, the three of them could pass as triplets that’s how similar they are in looks.
Seeing the three of them step out of that car throws me off. I don’t know what to make of them being here. Why in the hell have they be following us and with a fucking tracker no less?
It doesn’t make sense.
They keep some distance from us, stopping in the middle of the road, ten feet from us.
Riley’s in animal form and I wonder what Shayne thinks of him. I don’t dare take my eyes off of the men standing ten feet in front of me to look her way. Probably for the best. She could be a serious distraction and I needed to focus.
I cross my arms over my chest and wait. I’m not going to be the first one to open my mouth. They have been following us.
