by P. Jameson
“Sex never meant shit to me either. Just something to do. To pass the time. Or something expected of me. Never said that to anyone before, but I suspect the other fuckers around here feel the same. Empty fucking. Empty drinking. Empty existing.”
“Not the mated ones,” she reminded.
“Not the mated ones,” he agreed.
“What do you think a bond like that is like?”
Smokes blew out a breath, rubbing his palms together roughly. “I think it must be nice that they somehow figured shit out. But I don’t think that life is for me.”
What did that mean? Did he not want a chance to heal and earn his Firecat like the others had?
“How did you end up with that bastard anyway?”
She’d only told this story once. To the Dolls who became Bastian’s after her. The feelings of betrayal it conjured made her feel sick. The way the life she should have had was stripped brutally away.
Pulling her knees up to her chin, she began to tell it again. “Growing up, it was just me and my dad. My mother died when I was three. The only thing I remember about her was her hair. So black it was almost blue. Like raven feathers.” Papa called mama Birdie because of it, but her name was Savannah. Kind of funny that Smokes liked to call her Dove. Maybe she would ask him why one day. “He worked for Bastian. He did security.”
Janet jumped at Smokes’s unexpected growl. “Your father was one of Bastian’s henchmen?”
“Papa wasn’t a bad man. He was…. He was kind. And gentle. The kindest man I knew. He was a good father. Or tried to be at least. But I didn’t know the side of him that did Bastian’s bidding. Papa hated working for him but it paid good, and allowed him to put me in a good school. I knew it was dangerous. Like being a cop, but opposite. Except I didn’t really understand why until I was in college.”
They say college is for losing your innocence. Maybe they are right, but she never expected it to go the way it did.
“With me away studying to be something better, my dad decided he was done being Bastian’s pawn. He’d saved enough money to quit and told the boss he was done. But as you know, Bastian didn’t like losing things he considered his, and my father was one of his most dependable men. He wouldn’t let him just quit.”
Janet reached for the water on the side table and took a sip just to stall. She’d have to tell him the rest, but her stomach was already quivering in revolt.
“Bastian had me captured and brought to his compound. He held me ransom, except it wasn’t money he wanted from my Papa. It was loyalty. As long as he kept working for Bastian, I wouldn’t be hurt. But he offered my dad a choice. If he really wanted to quit, he could buy his way out. The cost? My life.”
Smokes’s expression was murderous. “Your father chose to stay.”
Janet nodded. “He did. And I lived in Bastian’s mansion for two years, in a bedroom that he kept locked. I met Vegas then. She would be sent in with food sometimes. And drugs to keep me from pounding the doors and screaming. She was so quiet then. Like a beaten puppy. She didn’t even know her name. I knew then, if I didn’t get out, he would ruin me.”
And damn if he didn’t do just that. Ruined. Poison. A broken shell of a person trapped behind impenetrable walls.
“But I didn’t work for him then. I was just… there. And my dad got to visit once a month. He promised he was trying to find a way to get me free. At the time, I didn’t understand why the cops weren’t coming. Why the news didn’t know I was gone. Why my friends from school didn’t wonder about me.”
They’d been fed a story about how she’d decided to study abroad for the remainder of the year. They didn’t even question it. She had always wanted to travel. It was one of her future plans, to be a traveling nurse and spend some time volunteering in burdened countries. She’d wanted to be a help to people. Instead, she was the burden and people had to help her.
Life doesn’t turn out the way that you want it.
“Everything changed in one night. One. Night. That’s all it took. My father was shot while working. According to Bastian, he died fast, but I guess I’ll never know if that’s the truth. Suddenly, I was useless to the man. And useless things get taken to the river to die. But he gave me a choice too. A way to survive.” She lowered her gaze to the floor. “And I took it. The rest is history.”
There. It was all out.
Miraculously, it was a relief. Smokes knew all the sordid details of how she came to belong to Bastian and how she’d traded her body for survival. What he would do with the information, she couldn’t control. Maybe he would use it against her, maybe not. But she wouldn’t regret telling him because getting it off her shoulders felt like shedding a winter coat so a new one could grow in. Her nausea had faded. Her heart felt lighter, even if only by a fraction. When the weight was as heavy as what she’d been carrying, shedding even an ounce was liberating.
“History.” Smokes stood and walked over to the window that had safety bars on the outside. Protection from when Bastian and his men attacked the warehouse. “But you’ll carry it into the future.”
And he was right. The life inside her was proof. Right now more than anything, she wished she was strong enough, brave enough, to do it with her head held high and a guarantee that she wouldn’t poison her own offspring with what she’d become.
“I wish…” Janet shook her head. How? She couldn’t see how to be what she needed to be. For the baby. For herself.
Smokes’s gaze was heavy on her. “You wish what?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me what you want.” His demand was rough like asphalt and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“I wish I could reinvent myself. I wish I was somebody new. Not the girl I’ve been for so many years. The scared, desperate thing that depends on everyone else. I wish I was strong.”
“Then do it,” he said, and she stared at him. “Fucking do it, Jan. Who says you can’t be strong?”
Janet frowned. “H-how? I’m… I mean… you see me.”
“Yeah. I see you.” He stalked over to the bed and crouched before her. “I see you, and you’re already stronger than you think.”
What he was saying didn’t make sense. She was the weakest of them all. Everyone knew it. How did he see it differently?
Or maybe he was lying.
A rumbling from her stomach broke the silence, and she realized she was starving.
“Put some shoes on. We’re going out.” Smokes stood, moving for the door.
“What? Where?”
“You’re hungry. I’m hungry. We’re going to find food.”
“I… I don’t like leaving the warehouse. We can get food from the kitchen.”
“There are some things you can’t get from the kitchen, dove.”
“Like what?”
“Like a cheeseburger fried in hundred-year-old grease.”
“Dyer’s?” Nostalgia swept her back to the first time her dad took her to the burger joint that claimed to fry their food in ancient oil.
“Yeah. When’s the last time you had a Dyer’s burger.”
She smirked. “I think you know the answer to that.”
Smokes nodded, his hand already on the doorknob. “I do. Too long. So let’s go.”
“But I’m wearing sweatpants. And a shirt that doesn’t fit. My hair is… I mean… I look like shit.”
“You look beautiful,” he muttered under his breath. “You always look beautiful.”
Her head snapped up. “What did you say?”
Smokes cleared his throat and moved closer, crowding her space just enough so that she could smell his spicy leather scent. It was the smell of comfort. When it became that, she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then get your shoes. Let’s go. I’ll meet you outside.” He headed for the door, not giving her a chance to argue.
Quickly, she slipped on the canvas shoes she ordered with
the money she’d earned helping Mama Kitty around the warehouse and ran to the mirror to see if anything could be done with her hair. She had always kept it long and since looks were crucial for Bastian to make money, he had allowed her regular cuts and styles that the other Dolls didn’t get. But since arriving at the warehouse, she’d let it live in a messy bun and barely brushed the tangles out. Dragging the clip from her tresses, she raked the brush through in three fast strokes and threw it back up. She would have to deal with it later.
She made her way down the hall past Mama Kitty’s office with butterflies in her stomach. Not only was she leaving the warehouse for the first time, she was going with Smokes.
Smokes who said she could be strong.
What if he was right? Fucking do it, Jan. What if she really could?
She pushed through the front entrance and into the bright sunlight, finding him on a phone call.
“…as soon as possible. How long? Okay, sure. Mm hm. Yeah, thanks, Toya.”
Toya.
Oh, no. Why was he calling her? Possibilities rolled through Janet’s mind each one like a punch in the gut.
Smokes shoved the phone in his pocket and turned to find her standing in the doorway. “Ready to go?”
Janet nodded. “But… do you have something else you need to do?”
“No.”
“It’s just that you were on the phone.”
Smokes shrugged like it was of zero consequence.
“With the lady doctor. The pretty one.”
He went still for a breath and then looked away, running a hand over his jaw. He seemed amused. “That bothers you?”
This time, Janet looked away. “I’m really not feeling like a cheeseburger after all. I think I’ll just get something from the kitchen. And you can finish whatever… you know…”
She spun back for the door, but didn’t make it before Smokes grabbed her hand to pull her through the parking lot.
“We’re going for fucking cheeseburgers, and by the time we get there, you’ll understand why I was calling Dr. Toya.”
Chapter Fifteen
Smokes lined up the four milkshakes he’d ordered, and then stacked the cheeseburgers in front of Janet. The booth at Dyer’s Burgers was too small for his legs but he liked being this close to her. Needed it. They both did, after everything they’d been through today.
Seeing his baby on the doctor’s machine was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
Not mine.
Mine. Both fucking mine.
His new beast was getting harder and harder to fight. And the reasons for fighting it were getting harder to remember. Especially when Janet opened up to him like she did.
His female was in such a dark place. Hurting and confused and grasping at anything that could fix her. Grasping for him, and he’d been failing her.
Grasping for him. What a desperate move. Because their dark places matched. He recognized her hopelessness, her lack of respect for her own abilities. Her self-imposed loneliness because she didn’t want to rub off on anyone. He recognized it because he did the same damn thing, getting quiet and keeping secrets and pretending he was fine.
He wasn’t fine.
She wasn’t fine.
He had to help her see past what she survived. And that was exactly what he’d started the moment he left his mate’s room.
Smokes caught her nervous gaze and held it. “Well, what do you think?”
On the way over, he’d told her about his conversation with Dr. Toya. Janet wanted to be strong. But he had no idea what kind of training was safe for a pregnant female. One call to the doctor and he knew where to start.
“I think you ordered too much food.”
“No such thing,” he said, nudging one of the shakes in her direction. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“You want me to learn yoga. With the pretty doctor.”
The pretty doctor. Her jealousy was endearing even if it was completely pointless. Only one woman grabbed his attention in that way. And he couldn’t have her.
But he could help her, and that was almost just as good.
“She has a name. Stop calling her that.”
“I saw her coming from your room last week.”
“Mmm, did you?”
Janet nodded.
Smokes sighed, setting aside his cheeseburger and rolling up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the nicotine patch he relied on now. “She was bringing me these. To help with the cigarette problem.”
“Nicotine patch?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” She looked away fingering the edge of a napkin.
Smokes leaned across the table, wanting to touch her face, but he somehow refrained. “Look at me,” he demanded instead. When her blue eyes lifted to his, he spoke the truth. “I’m not interested in the doctor like that.”
“It was none of my business. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
But as his mate, it was her business. She just didn’t know it yet.
“I don’t mind,” he admitted. “I just want you to know, none of that is in the cards for me.”
Janet’s brow furrowed. “You don’t think you will have a mate?”
Shit. He guessed it was time to come clean. He couldn’t keep it a secret forever. And hell, maybe it would even help her understand where he was coming from.
“No, I do have a mate. But I won’t have a bond like the others.” He watched her expression fall. “My situation is complicated.”
“W-who is she?”
He stared at her for so long, she must have guessed what he was about to say.
“I didn’t tell anyone when I first saw you in the photo Skittles carried around, but I knew. Before we ever came for you, before we ever got you free. Still, no one knows. Just me. And now you. But they must suspect, because of the baby.”
The baby that wasn’t his.
Mine.
“I’m your mate?”
He nodded.
“This means I’m the one that can help bring your Firecat out.” He saw the way her eyes lit up, and knew he had to shut it down.
“I don’t know. But I know I don’t want it.”
She frowned. “You don’t? I thought… well, the others…”
“I’m not like the others, Jan. Nothing like them. I’m… I’m a protector. I protect. I’m not a lover.”
I don’t love was the unsaid part. And he didn’t say it because he didn’t think it was true. He did love. He just wasn’t very good at it.
“Oh.” She stared at him for several breaths before picking up the shake and taking a long pull from the straw. “I will try the yoga if you think it will help.”
Smokes let himself feel the relief at her agreement. That’s right, female. Protect yourself.
“Good,” he said out loud, picking up his burger. “After yoga, doc said you should learn boxing. And I, for one, can’t wait to see you punch the hell out of a bag.”
“Put a picture of Bastian’s face on it, and I’m sure I’ll figure it out fast.”
***
Janet sipped her milkshake feeling nervous and giddy at the same time. She was Smokes’s mate. It seemed wild and absurd that it could be her. Marlee and the girls were right, but how did they know? How could they see what she couldn’t. Possibilities.
For the first time since learning about her pregnancy, her doubts didn’t flood every thought. Instead, hope battled them back.
What if she could be a mother to this child, and love him despite his circumstances? The way Mama Kitty loved the werecats.
What if she was strong enough to move forward and have a life after trauma? Just like the other Dolls.
Maybe it only took someone hard like Smokes to believe in her. Or… or maybe it only took her believing in herself. And a shit-ton of hard work.
Yoga. Boxing. Why couldn’t she do that?
Looking up from her bacon cheeseburger, she caught Smokes smirking. “What are you thinking about,” he ask
ed.
“Nothing.”
“Your cheeks give it away every time,” he murmured. “Your skin is porcelain until you’re hiding something. Then it turns pink like a rose.”
“Just thinking about possibilities.”
“What possibilities?”
Janet watched him carefully. “I keep thinking I can’t do this. Can’t be a mom, can’t be happy, can’t forget what happened. Can’t have… relationships. But what if all that is bullshit I’ve been telling myself because I couldn’t see a way? What if I just need time? Time to figure myself out.”
Smokes put his cheeseburger down and meticulously wiped his fingers on a napkin.
“Dove, I think you can have just about anything you set your mind to.”
“Just about?”
He nodded, his expression guarded. “Just about.”
What did that mean?
Smokes slid from the booth, unfolding to his full height. “Going for refills. You want anything.”
“Bring some napkins,” she muttered, distracted.
While he was gone, she tried to sort out what she’d learned.
He said he would never have a bond like the others. That he didn’t want a Firecat like the others. Maybe he didn’t want his mate like the others too. Maybe she came with too much baggage.
But even if that was the case, she had to be strong. With or without him. If she wanted to stand on her own two feet, she had to consider that there might be no one to stand beside her. And she did want to stand. No more leaning.
“Twenty. Twenty, is that really you?”
Twenty.
The question chilled her to the bone as she spun her gaze around to find a familiar man approaching the booth.
No. No, no, no.
Her stomach twisted into a snarl as the man gave her a sly, knowing smile. It slipped into place like an eel, sick and dark, while the memories of him froze her in place.
“Max.” Max Sheppard was a circuit judge and had been one of Bastian’s most lucrative customers.
“Well, well. It is you.” He stopped next to her, his horrible cologne invading her senses as he bent low to speak. “I wondered what happened to you when Bastian’s place burned up. You weren’t there when it happened, were you?”
