by Elise Jae
“It’s a long story.”
His mouth twists in a frown, and his eyes dart between us once again as he grips his door a little tighter.
If I had to guess, there’s’ something he wants to say, or ask, that he doesn’t want Drift to hear.
D’s hand slides up my back, a support I lean into, ever so slightly.
“You aren’t going to invite us in?” he asks.
Luther’s glare was more concern than anger this time. ‘What do you want?”
I’m trying to decide how much I want to give away, and how soon.
Drift takes my pause as an opening. “Do you want me dead?”
Okay… all of it.
Now.
I look back at D, not really certain how to let him know I hadn’t meant to give Luther that easy of an out that quickly.
Better to let him stew.
But D isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at Luther in that way that feels like he can see straight into someone’s soul. Someone’s mind.
It’s something I don’t ever want turned on me.
Even being this close to it is unnerving. I want to step away, move myself so I’m behind drift, instead of beside him. But that’s not the image I’m trying to project.
Drift might be the looming danger, but I’m the one who’s going to get those answers.
I press a hand to his chest. It’s not enough to push him back… just enough to make him break the trance he’s somehow put Luther under.
“Luther,” I say, trying to snap his attention back to me. ‘We have a problem.”
“What kind of a problem?” He’s still looking at Drift, but the wariness is startling.
“Someone threatened me.”
The shock on his face, the sudden shift in his focus—fully on me—is enough to assure me it wasn’t him. He’s not the kind of guy who can hide something.
Not to that extent.
When he’s angry, it shows.
When he’s scared…. it shows.
Now, he’s terrified.
Eyes too wide, he dips his head down to look me in the eye. “Who?”
“If we knew that, we wouldn’t be here asking you, now would we?” Drift moves, just a fraction closer.
That gets his attention back.
“I would never hurt her!” Whipping back to face me, his face twisted in pain. “I wanted you to be my bondmate. I was willing to wait until you were ready to bond again. I just wanted to let you get to know me more, so that when you were ready, I’d already be there, so you could choose me.”
He turned a glare on Drift. “So that there wouldn’t be a chance for a bully to swoop in and force you.”
“No one has forced me to do anything. And I was never going to be your bondmate.”
He searched my face. Looked down, as if only now realizing I was in real clothes for the first time he’d seen me. What he saw changed his face to something…. ugly.
He steps forward, grabs my wrist, tugging, as if he wants to drag me inside and lock me away.
It was a mistake.
I knew it the instant his hand touched me. He knew it the instant D got ahold of his arm.
The scream he let out was startling, but didn’t cover the snapping sound. And this time I did stagger back.
That was why I didn’t hear whatever Drift said to him. Had no idea why he turned sheet pale.
But whatever it was, Luther gave me one last, lingering look, and hurried back into his house, cradling his arm.
“Is he going to hospital?”
“I doubt it. He’d have to explain, and it’ll take him a while to come up with a convincing story for how it happened.”
“Maybe he slammed it in a door.”
D shook his head. “The bones have spiral fractures.”
“How can you know?”
“Because that’s what happens when I squeeze and twist that particular body part in that particular place, in that particular way.
He glances at me as the car starts back toward his home, something sheepish crossing his face. “It’s the only way you can break a monster’s trachea.”
“And you happened to learn that it breaks sian bones that way on accident.” I hadn’t meant to sound as dubious as I do.
“Actually, yes. The need is so common when we’re out in the wilds, it made sense I’d teach it to the others.”
“Which one was it?”
“Trench. Luckily, we all heal fast—though not as fast as Richter, lucky bastard. Trench was not particularly happy about it, but he bounced back.”
“I’ll have to get his side of his story.”
“Do, I’d love to hear how he plays it.”
He smiles, and a little piece of my heart melts. It’s different from the ones I’ve seen before. The kind that comes from familial memories…. We don’t have any of those yet. But we might.
And we might not.
A cold slice of dread solidifies the part of me that had softened. He puts himself in very real danger, danger he might not ever come back from.
If not for someone trying to contract me to kill him, I might never have known. One day, he might simply have disappeared.
Swallowing, I have to look away. I didn’t realize the thought would sting.
SIX
KIMBA
There’s a car in the garage when we get back, but Drift only rolls his eyes.
Not a threat.
One of the brotherhood.
I don’t need a bond to know that much.
Something happens when he gets out of the car that makes him relax, what, I can’t guess.
At least, not until we walk in the door and I see who it is that’s stopped by.
The pretty one, Richter, and this time, he’s brought his bondmate.
His pregnant mate.
She’s not very far along, but in my line of work, I’m surrounded by women who are a sneeze away from getting pregnant. I’ve started to think I know before they do.
I’d bet good money she’s not much further than a month in.
But like they all do, she glows.
“You met Richter before,” D says.
He’s stopped beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder. There’s something possessive in the gesture, but I don’t hate it.
“This is his bondmate, Laurel.”
“It’s delightful to meet you.” Laurel moves forward and takes my hand in both of hers. “We’ll have to get together with Cindy and Andrea sometime soon. We could do with a girl’s night with all the testosterone we have to put up with.”
Richter’s smile tells me this isn’t the first time she’s suggested getting away from him. And with how protective the men whose mates worked at Margot’s could be, I imagined pregnancy had resulted in a small amount of smothering.
“I’d like that.”
D’s fingers tighten on my shoulder a moment before he says. “I assume this isn’t just a social call.”
“No. I have some monster related numbers and needed to discuss them in person.”
I catch the smallest glance toward Laurel. He might have brought her, but he doesn’t want to talk about this with her.
It’s my turn to take Laurel’s hand “Why don’t you and I go sit down and talk while they deal with the gory details.”
There’s a pause as Richter’s eyes narrow at me and Laurel’s smile grows.
“Great Idea.” She says as I realize I’d just responded to Richter’s comments, in their language.
I let him marinate on that.
Drift lets me go, but I can feel him watching me as I lead Laurel to the large round sofa, sitting closer to the fire than the windows.
“That was… interesting.”
“Ric didn’t know you speak their language.” Laurel watches her bondmate, laughing.
“Edan needed me to be able to talk with the others. Needed to be sure I gave a good impression. He was one of the people who pushed hardest for getting the Agency set up and bringing over those of
us who fit the parameters.”
“Sounds like you were a show pony.” Laurel’s grimace is faint, she hides it well—just not well enough.
“No. It wasn’t like that. I was more of an ambassador. But in a way that men who had no idea what to expect from human women would accept.”
She gave me a skeptical look.
“I know you haven’t spent much time with sian men outside of the Brotherhood. But I can assure you. Most of them are not like Richter. Most of them think of women as if they are spun glass. We’re too fragile to be left on our own. We’re rare and therefore precious. We need to be protected at all times. Like some resource they could lose at any moment.”
‘You’re right. I haven’t experienced that.” She pauses, looking at the white out the window, there’s something sour in the response. “Is that what you experienced at Margot’s as well?”
“Not personally, but I heard about it. Margot and I had a deal. I danced. I didn’t fraternize.”
“But Drift….” She shoots a confused glance at the men’s backs.
“He was the only exception to the rules. I’d been there for three years. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d get… I think Margot was looking for someone, and Drift came into the picture at the right time.” I glance over my shoulder without meaning to. “She trusted him. So, I trusted him.”
“And thank God for that.” Scrunching her nose in a laughing smile. “Ric tells me you’re famous.”
“That’s what they tell me too.” Running a hand through my hair, I almost tell her how silly it sounds. But I don’t get the chance.
Laurel twists her head to the side and her eyes widen… just a fraction. “I just figured out why you’re so familiar. You’re Kimberly Wade, that cop.”
I wince. “Old sins cast long shadows.”
“That was hardly a sin.” she rolled her eyes. “You were acquitted. No one actually thinks you did it.”
“People still did when I left. I’m sure they thought ‘running away’ was an admission of guilt.”
“Is that why you didn’t go back… after?”
“It might have been part of the reason.”
A faint blush covers Laurel’s cheeks and she shoots a glance at Richter.
I’ve seen that look a dozen times before, and I’m not surprised when he comes to collect her.
“It’s time to go home.” Richter says, holding out his hand to help her up.
“And feed me.” Laurel laughs as she gets to her feet. “I didn’t realize I’d be so hungry.”
“That’s normal.”
Again, I get a look.
“I’ve been here for seven years, and I’ve spent the last four of them around women who come and go when there’s a baby on the way.”
Thankfully, they take that explanation without further question.
It’s the first time I’ve said the b word out loud in a long time and it’s a sour taste on my tongue.
Goodbyes exchanged, they disappear into the garage, and D hesitates a moment before handing me my coat.
He takes my hand. “Come on, we can watch them go.”
There’s a set of stairs I hadn’t noticed before, and the door he leads me through at the top of them. Opens on a cold blast of wind.
It’s a sprawling balcony that gives an icy view of the mountains.
From here, it feels like I could see forever. The only movement is the car pulling out of the drive.
DRIFT
When they disappear around the snow drift, Kimba doesn’t head back inside. Arms wrapped around herself, she stares at the mountains
I don’t know what Laurel has told her. Don’t know what she might have already inferred. But It’s clear she knows being here—being with me—is a statement.
She has other options. She could easily have taken them.
And she chose me… once again.
I have no idea how I’ll ever be able to explain how grateful I am for that.
“Did you know our language before you came over?” I ask, needing to hear her voice
“No. Edan taught me. He slowly transitioned to the point where we spoke it exclusively in the house. So, I had almost three years of immersion before he was gone, and then… the women at Margot’s liked to practice with me—they thought it was fun to bring home their new skills to their bondmates, and several of the clients were more comfortable, or hadn’t learned a human language yet.”
There’s a tiny slip of information I hadn’t known buried in those words… “You were bonded for three years without children?”
Her eyes widen a fraction and she looks quickly away, as if only now realizing what that implied.
“I know, it sounds impossible, but Edan... couldn’t.” She shrugged and snuggled down into her scarf. “By the time we found out, we were okay with it just being the two of us.”
She’s distant, gaze on the far mountain. Her words are a whisper. “At least, that’s what I told myself.”
The snow crunches under my feet as I go to her.
“That’s one of the requirements for coming here. You have to want kids and show that you can have them.” She sighs, and the sound disappears into the unending white. “I barely made the cut. And I spent so much time thinking it was me….”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?” I pull her back against me, wrapping my arms around her, sharing my warmth. “That if you accept someone else, they’ll fail you too?”
She looks up at me and the sorrow in her eyes is so deep, I worry we’ll both drown.
“I’ll go get tested if you want.” I brush my lips against her hair. “You have to know I’d do anything for you.”
She blinks a little too fast, but nods.
“I’m asking you to take me for your own. I’m offering you everything that I am—even the bad parts, sorry about that.” My smile is shaky, and I can’t steady it. “I’ll take no for an answer, you know that.”
“I do.”
“And you know I’ll still do everything in my power to protect you.”
“Yes.”
She’s shivering, but I don’t think it’s from the cold. Wrapping my arms around her, I press my lips to her hair and just hold her for a moment. “Let’s go back in. We don’t have to talk about this anymore if you don’t want. Not right now.”
I let her go when she pulls away and follow her back inside, sliding the bolt behind us. As she moves, she takes off her jacket. When she sits, she kicks off her shoes.
I sit beside her, and she moves onto my lap, pulling her knees up to curl into a human sized ball. I like it, but I don’t say that.
“You’ve sacrificed a lot to protect people you don’t even know.” Her voice is small, muffled by my shirt.
“A lot was sacrificed for me. None of us chose this. It was given to us. We didn’t have the opportunity to refuse.”
“Then you’ve made more than I knew before. And you’ll understand that making sacrifices isn’t something that’s easy to do.”
“No. It’s not.”
Pressing gently away, she looks up at me. “I’ve lost more than I can ever explain… losing again….”
I search her eyes. “I think you know me well enough by now to know that I have no intention of trying to eclipse Edan. I would never tell you you couldn’t continue to love him.”
She tucks her head against my chest, nodding. “I know.”
Flashing sparks in my periphery.
I glance to the side, activating the lens. And see the perimeter warning.
“I have to go.”
I didn’t realize how much I would hate saying those words.
She doesn’t notice my reticence, or if she does, she doesn’t mention it. Standing, she steps out of the way so I can join her on my feet.
“What can I do to help while you’re gone?”
I have a feeling she wants busy work, and I could give her something that means nothing at all. But she’s more than capable of continuing the search without me.
/> “The archives, the net. Anything you want, you can access from that terminal. Maybe you’ll find something we hadn’t thought to look for.”
She’s already dug in by the time I pull on my suit and make it back upstairs.
SEVEN
DRIFT
The monster is already dead when I get there. But only just.
“You just missed Arc. He was out on patrol. Got here first. Bastard likes taking my things.”
I didn’t remind him that he should be thanking his brother. Any kill you walked away from without bleeding was a blessing. And if Arc did the dirty work.
“He okay?”
“Yep. Lucky bastard as usual. Said he came up behind the thing on his bike and caught it off guard.” Shrugging, he reaches for his pack. “I guess they weren’t expecting us to come from the caldera side.”
I move around the corpse, trying to get a good look at it.
Trench looks from me, back toward my home. “You didn’t have to come.”
“I know, but it was too close for comfort.”
“You’re getting just as jumpy as Ric, now. And you don’t have half of his excuses.”
“I have enough.”
Trench stops in the middle of yanking a coil of cording from his bike. “You really do love her, don’t you?”
I nod, still watching the snow for any sign this one wasn’t alone.
“Then do what you have to to make sure you don’t lose her.”
Trench’s experience was one that left me with questions I knew he didn’t want me to ask.
Rejection wasn’t something we were used to. And he was the only one who’d actually faced it from a woman.
Instead, I look down at the body he’d wrapped in a tarp and was securing for transport.
“I’m going to take it back. It’s pretty intact, might find something useful.”
Trench had been looking for answers inside the monsters for over a year now, and he had barely scratched the surface.
He needed help, but there was no one we could ask.
Nodding toward the bikes, I move to the other side of the bundle. “Let’s get it packed up and get out of the cold.”
