by Mason Sabre
Gemma took a quick scan of the place. Danny hadn't arrived yet, so she joined the line; she’d order them both coffees. Not that she had any clue what he drank, or how he took it, but he’d get the same as her and like it, straight, black, just fuel and power. If he didn’t want it, she’d drink it. That wasn’t a problem.
Gemma was standing behind a line of Humans and they’d backed away like they might catch a disease. She kept herself quiet, though, standing at the back and reading the specials. Every time the door opened, Gemma jumped, but each time it wasn’t Danny. An unease crawled up her spine.
Two Humans came in, and they didn’t notice Gemma like everyone else had. Dressed in just jeans and a small t-shirt, she was pretty sure she wasn’t so noticeable … apparently, it meant she was downright invisible and they pushed in front of her and joined the queue. She bit her tongue, not letting herself utter a sarcastic, you’re welcome, at them. It would make a scene and she was already in a piss-poor mood.
It was nothing more than the usual ignorance given by the Humans. It was that ignorance that made them so afraid of Others. They had to prove they were top dog every chance they got … even queueing for coffee.
By the time the sixth Human came in and stood in front of her, Gemma was about ten seconds from losing her temper. Of course, they would have loved that, and then they would have had an excuse to ask her to leave.
It was a relief when Danny came in, late, but there. His face was drawn and tired. The weight of the world rested on those young shoulders, but seeing him was like slamming a wall into her head, and she had to swallow down the lump in her throat when he met her gaze with those same deep blue eyes of Cade’s. He had longer hair than Cade, though. The same mousy colour, but his hair swept down over his eye, and he had to push it back.
When they got their coffees, they took them upstairs, out of the way. It was quiet there and there were comfy seats. The sign above them, though, read, “Humans only.”
Whatever.
Gemma sat at the first table she came to that had a sofa. The Humans could splutter their shit and burn it later when she was gone.
Danny stirred his coffee even though there was no milk and no sugar.
“Danny?”
His hand froze, his head was down, but he lifted his eyes, peeking out at Gemma behind the floppy hair.
Gemma gritted her teeth. He was wolf … he needed touch, but right then, the last thing Gemma wanted was contact, especially from someone whose scent was so familiar. She made herself. Inching to the edge of her seat, she reached out for his hand. “Is this about Jessica?”
He nodded slowly at first, and then the hand she wasn’t holding, he lifted it and pinched the skin at the top of his nose, between his eyes. Gemma waited, holding his hand and letting him compose himself. He took a breath. “I didn’t kill her.”
“I know that.” Gemma wouldn’t have thought either Danny or Michael had killed her. Each other, perhaps … but Jessica was special to them both. “Have you talked to Cade?”
“My dad won’t let me.”
“Why?”
Danny raised his head then. The sadness had gone from his eyes and what replaced it was a mixture of fear and hatred. His jaw was set firm, and he pulled his hand away from Gemma’s and leant back. He untucked the edge of his shirt, and then lifted it up. His ribs were a mass of black and blue. Red gashes crossed across his skin in the opposite direction to his ribs.
Gemma clenched her own jaw and fought back the images she had of Cade when she had seen those marks herself, on his body. She hadn't meant to see them. She never asked, but she knew. “Trevor did that?”
He lowered his shirt. “And Aaron. They wanted me to tell them about Michael and Jessica.”
“Michael is the baby’s father?” Danny shot Gemma a harsh glare and then his expression dropped. “It was your baby?”
He didn’t need to answer her. The way he looked, the way his scent suddenly filled the air and changed it, told her enough. She could almost hear his heart breaking in his chest.
“Does Cade know?”
He shook his head. “They’ll execute me, won’t they? Your dad …”
Fuck.
Would he? She didn’t really know. He hadn't called for Cade’s execution. He hadn't told anyone what she and Cade had done. He’d just helped them, hidden it.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” he said when she hadn't answered him. “I mean, I feel like I'm dead already. I might as well be gone.”
“This isn’t the way.”
“She was my life.”
“Tell me what happened. Tell me about the night …” She didn’t want to say, the night Jessica was killed, the words hung there, unspoken between them. “Were you both leaving?”
“She was supposed to meet me at the station, but she never showed up. I waited for almost two hours and nothing. Her phone was off, too. I couldn’t call her house because her mother was there, and she thought that Jessica was out with girlfriends. I didn’t want to ask anything in case it made her mother suspicious … If I had called her mother, maybe she’d be alive?” The last of his words came out choked, although he wasn’t crying, but he was barely holding himself together.
“You don’t know that.” Jessica had been killed probably when Danny was calling her. She didn’t say that to him, though. Why give him those images?
“We were going to Exile.”
Danny’s words struck chords with Gemma she thought she had buried. He and Jessica were walking the same path she and Cade had done. Both journeys ended in death. “How were you getting there?”
Danny puffed out his cheeks. “I had a friend; he could get us tickets. Two-fifty each. We had the money. We were meant to meet him at the boat.”
“What did you do when Jessica didn’t show?” Gemma asked, carrying on.
He looked down again, his face paling. “I went home.” Gemma let him have a moment to pause. He didn’t cry or sob, just sat quietly, the guilt of his own actions and his own thoughts torturing him. They would for a while, but it wasn’t his fault. “When I went home, my dad was talking about interspecies pregnancies.” He paused. “Do you think it was him? Did he kill Jessica?”
Gemma wanted to tell Danny no. She wanted to give that ease to a boy about his father, but Trevor was capable of it. Trevor was capable of a lot of things, and as she sat there, not answering Danny’s question, the Human in her house came to mind. He had said this was the MacDonalds. He had said it outright. “I really don’t know,” she said in the end. It was all too coincidental, wasn’t it?
Chapter 4
Cade
Cade jolted awake, wrenching himself from the shadows of his sleep and a place in his mind where he existed with Gemma and not Natalie. She filled his mind, a torturing image that made him wish he could close his eyes and go back to her, but instead, he took a breath, and what he could smell was the scent of another woman on his skin.
Getting up from the bed, he tried to push the images of his dream away. If he didn’t, he would climb into them, lose himself and tear another hole in his damn heart. One he probably wouldn't be able to fix.
He went to the bar that was bolted to the wall by his door and did pull-ups until the ache in his muscles was so strong that it was the only thing invading his mind.
Natalie came into the room as he was just finishing up. She wore a towel around her body, leaving her skin wet and glistening from the shower she'd just taken. He caught sight of her in his peripheral vision and pulled harder, pulling himself up on the bar with such speed he caught the edge of his chin and sent dizzying agony through his head.
“Did you sleep okay?” Natalie asked. She had brought her clothes in with her. Instead of getting dressed in her own bedroom, she lay them out on the end of his bed. Cade fought himself with the need to tell her no, this was wrong. She’d be hurt, though, if he sent her out of his room.
“I did,” he said, his tone clipped, and for that he felt a pang of guilt. This was not
Natalie’s fault. He was walking up a mountain when all he wanted to do was run back down. Run down, lock himself away and wrap himself in the delicious warmth of Gemma.
He couldn’t think like that. It wasn’t right.
“Are you ready to go back to work?” Cade dropped himself from the bar and rubbed his hands together. He hadn't told Natalie yet that his father had got rid of her job. He hadn't wanted to put that out there. But the only way to go forward was to keep walking. It didn’t help that everything he said was like lies coating his tongue.
“God, yes. I’ve missed it.” She pulled at the knot on the towel, pulling it free, and Cade tensed at his body’s sudden reaction to Natalie’s exposed flesh. His wolf slammed into him, going feral almost with the need and desire to walk over there and take her. He turned his back, but that did nothing because the mirror was right next to him. Her breasts had a smooth curve to them, and her skin was flushed from the heat of the shower. Everything stilled for him and he couldn’t force his gaze away.
It was an effort to put himself on the floor and brace his hands behind his head to do sit-ups. He said nothing as he counted each one all the way along to ten. When his muscles burned, he dared to let himself speak, but not look at her yet. She was too much, too close and his wolf was all but begging.
“My dad has had your position filled.” He turned, pushing his bare back against the cold floor. Natalie had put half of her clothes on. Her nudity was covered at least. Sweat trickled down Cade’s skin.
Natalie stared at him, but any desire she might have had shot from her expression and the air around them stiffened. “I don’t have a job anymore?”
“He wants you to work with me.”
She fixed him with a gaze for a second as if trying to judge his reaction. “And you? What do you want?”
He had to put on his mask and forced a smile. She needed it. He could feel it, his wolf could, too. He knew right then, he had her heart in his hand. He could crush it if he wanted to, and she would take it. “I think it’s a great idea,” he lied. “Or maybe you’ll get sick of being around me.”
That soft smile broke out across her mouth. It made her entire face happy. “I don’t think I could get sick of you.”
He gave a genuine smile back. “Just wait. You will.” He pushed himself up. He hadn't finished the work-out, but if he didn’t get out of that room soon, he would do even more of the things he regretted and probably break Natalie’s heart. “I’m going to grab a shower. I have an errand to run before work.” He gave a pause, his brain telling him what to say and his heart screaming at him to silence it. He was digging a big hole … a giant fucking hole that he would never crawl out of. But this was what Gemma wanted. He had to remind himself of that, remind his wolf that he needed to stop pining for the thing it wanted. “If you want, you can come into work with me today. See how it all works?” The question was an acrid taste in his mouth, but he kept his face straight and his emotions in check.
Natalie grabbed her top and slipped it on, easing the hold her semi-naked flesh had on his mind. He had grabbed the door handle, not trusting himself with her so close. He gripped it painfully tight, sending aches into his already worked-out muscles. “I was going to see Beth today, but I could go later?”
Relief.
“Go see Beth first then come in after lunch? I’ll pick you up?”
She nodded.
Cade stayed in the shower longer than normal. Part of it was to wash away the scent of Natalie against his skin, but it was ingrained now. She had buried herself there. Maybe it was just him, but the other part of it was making sure Natalie had gone downstairs, so he could get himself ready and not have to fight his wolf all the way. His wolf was more than ready to take Natalie, to find somewhere alone and mate. He’d never lost control of his instincts like that before, although he’d never really given himself the chance to.
“Do you want to call me when you want picking up?” he asked when he was ready and about to leave.
Natalie was standing in the hallway and using the mirror as she brushed through her hair. “You tell me what time?”
He shrugged and walked down the stairs toward her. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay. I’ll call you.” She walked over to him and stopped just inches away. He had his hand on the edge of the banister and Natalie hesitated and then placed her own over his. He tried not to tense at the contact from her. Tried not to pull away even though he wanted to.
He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, realising she was waiting for a proper departure today. She turned her head, catching his mouth, and she delicately placed a hand against his cheek as she kissed him. She smiled against his lips, and he couldn’t help but take a deep inhale of her scent … such a dangerous thing to do. It awoke his wolf. “I’ll see you later.”
Cade didn’t really have an errand. What he had was a need to think, and a need to be somewhere familiar with someone who’d understood. It was just a shame now he couldn’t answer back … couldn’t give him that useless advice he’d ignore.
Cade stared at Stephen’s name across the memorial stone. Stephen’s body wasn’t there. Others didn’t get buried, their bones were burnt, their ashes thrown away most of the time, but they had stones, places to mourn.
“Stephen Davies, beloved son and brother,” it read. “And you …” Those last two words were the ones that choked Cade up the most. Gemma had carved them in one night. One time not long after Stephen had died. Connor would never have his own stone. In the world of Others, he didn’t exist. He didn’t have the right to a marker. Stephen would have carved the name too; if he had been there.
It had been two years too long. Sometimes, Cade was sure that really, Stephen was alive. He could feel him like a whisper pressing against his mind. Sort of like Phoenix and Gemma. He was connected to them. They were gentle blips out in the world somewhere. They kept him sane, safe. Even now, standing in front of the stone that bore Stephen’s name, Cade was sure he could still feel his friend.
Maybe it was just him. He had the power to lock minds. All shifters had that, but Cade’s was stronger. He felt that if he called to Stephen, Stephen would answer. He hadn't dared, though. Doing that and getting no answer would make Cade have to face that his friend was gone.
“I miss you, you bastard.” He crouched by the stone, not kneeling on the earth, though. He picked at the few weeds that had grown around the edge—a clearing, mostly of his mind. There were flowers on the edge too, old and rotten now,like everything in his head. That was like rot … seeping in and making it that he couldn’t think straight.
“I wish you were here. I wish you could tell me what I am supposed to do.” He let his mind go silent, let the white room of his consciousness break in and give him that peace. He closed his eyes and settled everything. It was almost like he could pile everything into places, Gemma on one side, Natalie on the other, and him standing in the middle. Gemma was the forbidden thing, Natalie was the right thing, but in his head, he couldn’t go to either one of them.
“Don’t you dare give up,” Stephen popped into Cade’s mind, making his eyes snap open, and he gasped, almost falling back from the suddenness of it. He reached for the top of the stone to steady himself.
Don’t you dare give up?
They were Emily’s words, not Stephen’s.
Shit.
“See?” he said, glaring at the stone accusingly. “You’re gone, and I still fucking see you. It’s all so fucked up.”
Chapter 5
Gemma
Home … it didn’t feel like home anymore, and the idea of going back to it raked icy claws down her flesh, bringing her out in bumps across her skin. She was restless. A caged tiger who needed something more than she had … who needed what she wanted.
Gemma sat back in her seat as Danny got up and left. His presence pressed on her like Cade’s. That want, that need … that familiar scent that snaked into her being and made her pine for him. They were brothers, and while Da
nny wasn’t Cade, he was a close enough reminder of what it was she was missing. What she had thrown away.
God, she was going crazy.
Grabbing her phone out of her pocket, she all but sobbed as she scrolled to Cade’s name and the call just two hours ago. The echo of Natalie’s pleasant and gentle voice rocked Gemma and made her throat constrict. Made her want to speak to him, to say she was sorry. That she had changed her mind. She clicked over his name and then hovered at the call button, but if she called him, then what?
Back at the cabin, the look on his face when she said it was a mistake ... she'd never be able to shake it. But the feel of him against her, inside her, the taste of his lips and the feel of him so close to her created such contentment. She wanted that so painfully that it was breaking her in two.
“How many will die if I click call?” She clasped the phone to her chest. She could tell herself all she wanted that she was calling to tell him about Danny, she could even tell him that, but they would both know the truth.
Connor and Stephen were already the victims of something she and Cade had tried to force. If she pushed this, if she said yes to Cade, Phoenix would be next. Trevor could not care about the boy and that he had killed his maker. But it was more than that now … it was Henry too.
Henry….
Gemma puffed out her cheeks and lowered her phone. She had to let go of Cade even if it killed her, even if it tore her heart into a hundred shattered pieces and threw them on the floor. And it would.
Letting him go had never truly solidified in her mind until that moment when she'd heard Natalie. Letting him go meant letting him be with someone else, letting him mate with her, have children with her. It meant a lifetime of never being able to touch him again.
But if he was dead?
Lifting her phone again, Gemma navigated to Shelley’s number and hit call without thinking. She sniffled in her sob, cleared her throat and widened her eyes, trying to shake off the self-pitying sorrow that wedged so raw in her chest.
