by Reinke, Sara
He sat down on the bed and cut a glance toward the living room door, beyond which the lamps still burned brightly and he could see shadows moving as Lina and Jackson continued signing together. Cradling his phone in his hand, he looked down at the touch screen, then typed a response to his sister.
We’re here safe and sound. Everything’s good, he wrote, adding to himself: Well, except the fact that Lina’s mom hates me and now Lina pretty much seems to, too. Oh, and I think Jackson is living next door to a vampire. Just great.
After a few minutes, Tessa texted in reply. I’m glad. I hope you have a good time.
How are you? he asked.
Feeling fine, she replied. Just tired a lot. No more nausea, though. Yay!
Brandon managed the first genuine, if not somewhat weary smile all night. How’s Mom?
He’d never been particularly close to Vanessa, his mother. Like most Brethren women at the Kentucky compound, Vanessa’s responsibilities to home and family had extended far beyond the raising of her own children. She’d shared responsibility for every Noble family child who lived under the roof of the great house, and in the midst of such a crowd, Brandon had often felt overlooked, even forgotten, by her.
She’s hanging in there, Tessa said. I think she’s glad to have me, Rene and Daniel here at the great house.
Give her a hug from me, he wrote, words offered more by obligation than any true emotion on his part. For a long moment, he sat there after hitting send, debating about texting anything further, confiding in her.
The hell with it, he thought, and he typed again: Have you or Rene heard how Tristan’s doing?
Hell, for all we know, Tristan could be perfectly fine back in Lake Tahoe, Lina had told him earlier that afternoon during their fight. Brandon hadn’t believed that at the time, hadn’t believed that Augustus would have lied to him about something that serious, but as he’d picked at his food during dinner, left relatively alone and to his own thoughts, he had to admit, at one point in time—not so long ago, in fact—he wouldn’t have put something like that past his grandfather.
After a moment, Tessa wrote back: What do you mean?
She doesn’t know, Brandon realized.
Is Tristan alright? she asked.
He’s fine, Brandon replied. I was just wondering if he’d said anything to you or Rene, that’s all. They buried his mother right before we left. He seemed pretty down.
If Augustus had been worried enough to warn Brandon about the Davenants, then surely he would have voiced these same concerns to Tessa and Rene. Unlike Brandon, they were right in the midst of the Davenant clan—at the horse farms, for Christ’s sake.
But he didn’t tell her. She doesn’t know. Brandon shoved his hair back from his brow, feeling the anxious knot that had been tightening in his stomach ever since Lina had walked away from him beneath the orange tree suddenly clenching all the more. Maybe Lina was right. Maybe it really was a trick, Augustus’s way of controlling me, even from a distance, keeping me in line.
Right where he wants me.
****
“So Mama tells me you quit your job,” Lina remarked as she sat opposite her brother on the couch. She’d tucked her legs beneath her and hugged a pillow comfortably against her chest, watching as Jackson visibly squirmed.
Yeah, Jackson admitted at length, bobbing his fist in affirmation. It was a long time coming. I guess Mama’s getting sick was just the excuse I’d been needing for awhile now.
What do you mean? she asked and he awarded her a long look.
Heaving a sigh, he said, I wasn’t… He paused to insert finger quotation marks; not standard American Sign Language, but something that clearly conveyed sarcasm. …‘deaf’ enough for them.
Even when he’d enrolled at Gallaudet University, the nation’s most prestigious college for hearing impaired students—and from which he’d graduated magna cum laude—Jackson had felt out of place. He’d explained to Lina once that this was because he was considered deaf, not Deaf—with a capital D, he’d said—among his peers. The fact that he had been born able to hear, along with the fact that he could speak—and chose freely to do so—alienated him among these more “purist” of his fellow students.
Earlier this year, I supported a student and his family’s decision to have cochlear implants, Jackson continued. I guess it wasn’t the right choice. They refused me tenure right after that.
When she raised her brows in surprise, he nodded.
So I’ve basically been looking for a way out, like I said, he continued.
“Will you go into teaching here?” she asked, and he shrugged.
I don’t know, he signed. To tell you the truth, Scarecrow, my heart’s not in it too much anymore.
Scarecrow was a fairly intricate series of gestures; Jackson had long ago abbreviated this nickname for Lina—one she hated—by using only the last of these: pecking his index finger and thumb together, mimicking a bird’s beak.
“What will you do instead?” Lina asked.
I don’t know. I’ve been working down at a chop shop a friend of mine owns. I’m really getting into it. You know I’ve always liked that sort of shit.
Yeah, she signed back. As a hobby. But as a job, Jackie? Come on. You made good money teaching. You’d really give that up to be a grease monkey?
She regretted saying this almost as soon as she’d finished the motions with her hands. But unfortunately with sign language, as with the written word, once it was out, there was no way to recall it.
He looked at her long and hard again. Even though deep down inside, he was a giant, hulking teddy bear, Jackson wasn’t the sort of man you wanted to piss off. Aside from being very tall and very strong, he was also a black belt in aikido. And when his brows furrowed even slightly—as they were at the moment—even as his kid sister, Lina had to admit, he was one intimidating son of a bitch.
I like what I’m doing, he signed at last. For the first time in…hell, I don’t even know how long, Lina. I’m having fun. I’ve made some friends—people who don’t give a shit that I’m deaf and actually treat me like a human being, not some defective freak or misplaced misfit.
“Jackie,” she began aloud.
I like what I’m doing, he said again and she held up her hands in concession.
“Okay, okay,” she said. As she watched, some of his freshly stoked irritation began to wane. His posture relaxed, as did the cleft between his brows. And this girlfriend of yours, she signed, the movements of her hands drawing his gaze. What does she think of you pissing your life away to tinker with motorcycles?
How did you find out about Taya? he asked, glancing toward the doorway to the lanai, where Brandon had disappeared some time earlier. Did Brandon tell you?
No, she signed back. Mama did. And while she had Jackson’s surprised attention in full, she added with a grin, She didn’t know her name, though. Taya? She finger spelled it and he nodded, heaving a sigh, as if he’d just saddled himself with some sort of tremendous, insurmountable burden. How long have you been seeing her?
A couple of months, he signed back.
Her brows lifted. It’s serious, then?
Serious enough, he replied with a noncommittal shrug.
You’re fucking her, Lina teased, extending the fore- and middle fingers of each hand like pairs of legs, then bumping them together, imitating the act of copulation.
Jackson scowled. Stop it.
You are, she signed again, grinning wickedly now. You’re totally pussy-whipped. Look at you.
He grabbed a throw pillow from behind him and flung it at her. With a laugh, she ducked.
Don’t say anything to Mama, he warned. I’m going to invite her over to meet everyone—you, Mama, Brandon—next week for dinner. Then, after a moment in which she could have sworn her brother looked bashful, he added, I’m going to ask her to marry me.
“What?” Lina exclaimed aloud, eyes flown wide.
You can’t say anything, he added quickly, and she launched he
rself from her end of the couch toward his, grabbing him around the neck in a strangle-hold hug.
Jackie, that’s wonderful! she signed. That’s fantastic news! I’m so happy for you.
He smiled hesitantly. Really?
“Really,” she told him, clapping his face between her hands so he could read her lips. Then she planted a loud, smacking kiss on his nose. “It’s the best news I’ve heard in forever, Jackie.” And God knows I needed to hear some, she thought.
Brandon doesn’t know, okay? he signed. He met her today, but I want the proposal to be a surprise. Don’t tell him, either.
Her bright smile faltered. “I…I won’t,” she said. Not to worry, she added in her mind. Because he’s probably still so pissed at me, we won’t be talking much about anything for awhile.
Jackson retreated to his room, then returned to show her the ring; something simple but striking he’d picked out on his own—a pear-cut, half-carat diamond in an unadorned setting, framed by a solid band of gold.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” he asked, his eyes round and hopeful.
“Of course she will,” Lina said. “And she’s going to say yes. She’d be crazy not to.”
Thanks, Scarecrow, Jackson signed as he rose to his feet, moving to return the engagement ring to his room. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. Good night. Sleep tight.
When he’d gone, Lina glanced toward the lanai. Seeing the engagement ring, seeing the happiness in her brother’s face had brought to mind her only feelings for Brandon. She felt like shit for having fought with him earlier. There hadn’t been a really good chance to try and patch things up since then. At one point after dinner, she’d found herself roped into dish duty with Jackson, while Latisha had drawn Brandon aside into the living room for a conversation Lina hadn’t been able to overhear. All she’d kept thinking as she’d watched them from the kitchen was, Please, Mom, don’t say anything, not now, not about his family or his grandfather or what happened to Jude.
Because she knew if Latisha did, Brandon was liable to walk out the front door and out of her life for good.
At the doorway to the lanai, she paused. The lights were off, and only faint illumination filtered through the windows from neighboring porch lamps or distant street lights. She could make out Brandon’s silhouetted form on the futon; he lay on his side with his back to her, a blanket draped loosely over him. She didn’t know if he was sleeping or not.
Brandon? she thought hesitantly. A part of her hoped that he’d be awake, his mind open to her. Another part—although very small—did not. Because deep down inside, I’m afraid, she realized. Afraid of him leaving, of choosing the Brethren over me.
He needs to be with one of his own kind, Augustus had said.
And oh dear God, maybe he’s right, Lina thought, blinking against the sudden sting of unbidden tears. Maybe I’ve already lost him. Hell, maybe I never had him to begin with. No matter what Michel said.
To that point, she’d been able to refute Augustus’s cruel remarks, at least in her own mind, with something Michel Morin had told her only a few weeks earlier. When Rene had betrayed Brandon, turning him over to Augustus and the Brethren Elders, they’d taken him forcibly from California back to Kentucky. Desperate to help him, Lina had agreed to travel with Michel Morin from the Lake Tahoe compound. He’d chartered a private jet for the occasion, and along the way had tried his best, although ultimately in vain, to distract her with what had seemed at the time like idle conversation.
I think there are some Brethren who are meant to be with humans, he’d remarked. They’re drawn to them—physically, emotionally, telepathically. It’s damn near irresistible to them both, a phenomenon I like to call pair-bonding.
He’d told her this because he’d gone on to speculate that’s what she and Brandon were—pair-bonds—and had tried to reassure her that if something had happened to Brandon, she’d know it, feel it, sense it intrinsically.
But I didn’t know he’d been shot, she thought as she watched him sleeping. I didn’t know Rene had betrayed him. I didn’t sense any of it. What if that means Augustus is right and Michel’s wrong?
Because Michel had told her something else on that flight to Kentucky, something that hadn’t registered much with her at the time, but which had come back, time and again, to haunt her.
Breeding pairs, he’d called them; Brethren who were meant to bond with other Brethren in that same intrinsic way. These insured that Brethren genes were passed on generation to generation, and were never fully diluted by the pair-bonds who mated with humans.
Is that what Augustus meant when he said Brandon needed to be with one of his own kind? What if he can tell somehow, what if he knows something I don’t? Something not even Brandon realizes yet?
Tears welled in her eyes now, blurring her vision until she blinked, sending them in a sudden tumble down her cheeks. With a frown, she wiped them away, struggling to compose herself, hating Augustus Noble all the more. That son of a bitch. Even when he’s hundreds of miles away, he can still get to us, hurt us.
And somehow, this time was even worse than when Augustus and the Elders had been chasing them before, hunting them down. Because at least then we had each other. Now he’s turning me and Brandon against one another, slowly but surely.
She shied back in the doorway as from the futon, Brandon uttered a sigh. The mattress creaked as he shifted his weight, rolling over to face her now. As he did, he must have stirred, because she became instantly aware of his presence in her mind as he instinctively extended his telepathic range to survey his environment. He sat up, the blanket falling away from his shoulder. He’d stripped off his T-shirt before turning in, and she could see the faint play of dim light against the muscles in his bare chest and abdomen.
Lina? he thought, sounding groggy.
I’m sorry, she told him. Not just because she worried she’d roused him, or because she wished she could take back the sharp, hurtful words they’d exchanged earlier, but because she was afraid she was doing Augustus’s dirty work for him. Unconscious on her part or not, she was pushing Brandon away.
With a miserable little gasp, she stumbled across the darkened lanai and to his bed. She crumpled into his shoulder, and felt the immediate, comforting warmth and strength of his arms encircling her.
Hey, he said softly, gently, because even though he couldn’t hear her muffled sobs, he could feel them trembling through her shoulders, the dampness of her tears on his bare skin. He stroked her hair, kissed her ear through a tumble of curls. It’s okay, Lina.
No, it’s not, she thought, clinging to him. Looking up, tearful, she met his gaze. “I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered.
He cupped her face between his hands and smiled. I’m not going anywhere.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again so that he could watch her lips, see what she was saying. “Please, Brandon. I don’t want to argue anymore.”
In reply, his hand grazed her neck, his fingers fanning through her hair to cup the back of her head, then he pulled her down, kissing her. His lips were gentle at first, but after a moment, she opened her mouth, letting his tongue steal inside. With a muffled whimper, she drew him closer, tangling her fingers in his dark hair, pinning him against her. In that instant, she no longer gave a shit if her mother heard them or not, if Jackie stumbled upon them. Her hands fell to his waist, then below, tugging at his sweatpants.
Lina, wait… he thought in warning, though he laughed soundlessly against her mouth as she pushed him back against the mattress. When he lifted his hips so she could shove his sweats down, she felt the press of his burgeoning erection already swelling between them.
Still kissing him fiercely, she fumbled with the snap of her jeans, then pushed them away, kicking her feet to send them tumbling to the floor in a haphazard heap. Her panties quickly followed.
We can’t… he began, then in her mind, his voice dissolved into a groan as she fell against him, spearing him into her deeply. Ho
oking his fingers into her buttocks, he pulled her down further, until he had completely filled her. Immediately, she began to rock, drawing him out with excruciating, teasing friction and then plunging him back into her, straight to her core. Her vision had adjusted to the darkness and shadows, and she watched as, beneath her, he closed his eyes, tilting his head back, his breath escaping him in short, sharp gasps.
God, he thought to her, pleading, keeping his hands clasped against her ass, grinding into her at every advance. She could see his canine teeth begin to descend, the slight hint of swelling along his upper lip as his gums throbbed beneath. When he opened his eyes, there was nothing between the lids but glossy, doll-like blackness.
You’re so beautiful, he whispered as she sat back, keeping her rhythm steady and strong. His hands slipped to her hips, then her thighs, then swept up to caress her breasts through the thin fabric of her T-shirt. She always wondered what she looked like to him in those moments when his pupils had dilated so wide. He’d stare up at her in mesmerized fascination—like right now—as if her skin had been diamond-plated, sparkling and aglow.
So beautiful, he said again, and then he hit that spot in her that made her come instantly, exquisitely. She closed her eyes, throwing her head back as pleasure shuddered through her. She was worn out in the aftermath, but didn’t stop, didn’t slow her steady rhythm at all because he had yet to come. He wanted to, his body was poised for it. Lina could see this in the tension bridging his shoulders, tightening the muscles stacked in his abdomen, hear it in the staccato-like measure of his breathing. His fingers dug firmly into her waist as he drove himself into her, straining for release, his body glossed with sweat.
For another twenty minutes, they went at it, until at last, exhausted, she crumpled against his chest and fell still.
Don’t stop, he pleaded, grinding into her, pushing against her hips, trying to drag her into motion again. Lina, please, I’m almost there.
