by Dean Murray
Rather than focusing on the crazy bits of my life, I decided to worry about Dominic. It took me a while to tease all of the information out of her, but I was relentless—in a nice, subtle way. The real breakthrough came when we were shopping for the stuff we'd need to help my mom make dinner.
I turned to ask her where she thought the ricotta would be, and suddenly realized that her scar was missing. I steadied myself against the cart for a second and then grabbed her arm.
"Dom, your scar is healed! I can't believe I didn't notice it before now. I guess your face just looks so right the way it is now that I didn't think anything of it."
Dom put a hand up to her cheek as if remembering what the scar had felt like and then nodded. "It...well, it was gone before I went back to Utah."
"How is that even possible? You told me it wouldn't ever heal, that the guy that had done it to you was like Agony."
That last part had been said in a quiet hiss, but Dom still looked around like she was worried someone would overhear us. I checked too, but there wasn't anyone around.
"I can't explain it all. Someone told me that I had it within me to heal the scar, that I could become a powerful healer and that A...the pack would need me. The next day, the scar was gone. That is part of why I went back to Utah. I thought maybe I could heal James."
"Is that why James was okay?"
Dom shook her head. "I don't think so. He was really hurt, but Donovan had stabilized him by the time I got there. I tried to relax and tap into whatever it was that had allowed me to heal myself, but I couldn't seem to do it. Right there at the first it felt like I was close, but the longer I was in Sanctuary, the more tired I got. It was really odd. I went from feeling fine to wanting to curl up under a blanket and never move again in the space of maybe an hour."
It was one of the most amazing things I'd heard yet, but in other ways it didn't surprise me at all. Dom had been helping Donovan patch the pack up for years now. Her disposition was perfect for helping people get better.
"I thought that wasn't possible, Dom. You said that cats don't gain abilities like hybrids can."
"You're right. There hasn't ever been any kind of record of a cat being able to do anything like this. I can't explain it."
We both sat there in silence for a few seconds, she because she was uncomfortable, me because I was shocked. Dom finally shook herself and pointed down the aisle.
"We need to get moving or we're not going to be done shopping in time to get the food ready."
I grimaced. I'd agreed to a second, no, a third attempt at dinner with Russ, but that didn't necessarily mean I was excited about it. The shopping trip had served as a distraction from the thought of meeting someone who was currently auditioning to replace my dad, but the distraction had run its course. I was going to have to start mentally preparing myself for dinner.
Dom accidentally bumped a floor display with the cart and muttered something under her breath that I was pretty sure was a profanity in Spanish. Even if she hadn't sworn, I still would have known she was angry. Power arced off her in unpredictable waves, sometimes lashing out with enough force that I found myself unconsciously rubbing my arms and other times subsiding to a background hum that wasn't any worse than the fluorescent lighting above us.
"Are you okay, Dom?"
"I think so. I just haven't felt right since before I came back."
I shook my head, worried about her again. Dom was here to take care of me, but there wasn't anyone to take care of her.
"Let's finish the shopping and get you back home. Maybe you should sit this dinner out."
Dom's power flared up again and for a minute I thought she was angry with me.
"No. I'm not sitting anything out. My job is to make sure you're safe."
It wasn't the kind of argument I was going to win while standing in line waiting to pay for our food. I shrugged and decided that once Mom got home, I'd have better odds. Even Dom would have a hard time arguing both my mom and me to a standstill.
I started to exit the store and then had to stop abruptly as a guy about our age hurried past with a woman a couple of years older tagging along behind him.
Dom's power pulsed out again as she almost ran into me.
"Adri, what just happened?"
Dom's smooth voice momentarily took on an even deeper accent than normal as her frustration peaked.
The guy who had just walked in front of us stopped and looked back. What had begun as curiosity suddenly turned to anger as he took Dom and me in. He moved towards us aggressively, and Dom was suddenly between him and me.
A split second later, the woman that had been trailing the guy was between him and Dom.
"What's going on, Shawn?"
"She's a southerner. I felt her power as I walked by and then I heard her talk."
It was the one disaster I hadn't even considered. Dom had been clear that shape shifters weren't allowed east of the Mississippi. I'd expected vampires or mermaids, not another shape shifter, but there was no denying the power lashing out from both him and the girl that I was realizing was his bodyguard.
I tried to pull Dom backward into the store, but she was on high alert. I would have had better luck moving a bronze statue.
"Listen, 'Shawn,' I don't have any quarrel with you. I'm not what you think. Just back away and we can all go our separate ways."
There was absolutely zero give in Dom right now, but I knew she couldn't win a fight against two wolves. If one or both of the pair in front of us was a hybrid, then she had even less chance of surviving. There was only one thing I could think of to do. Dominic was screening the right side of my body from their view, so I pulled my phone out and dialed Rachel's number. It went through to voicemail but that was okay; I didn't actually need to talk to her. I cleared my throat and then held up the phone.
"I don't know who you are, Shawn, but you need to calm down. Dominic isn't your enemy, but more importantly, if you hurt either of us then our friends will hunt you down and kill you. I promise you that."
The girl let out a low growl that was only barely audible to me, but suddenly Shawn was pulling her back with confusion once again flashing across his face.
"Dominic, like Dominic from Sanctuary?"
"Yes, that's right. Who are you?"
"Shawn Bishop."
Dom bit off another curse. She was in rare form today. She looked back at me for a second. "Shawn is the heir apparent to the Chicago pack."
Shawn nodded and pointed to his companion. "This is Vicki. What are you two doing in New York? Alec is already on thin ice with the Coun'hij. The last thing he should be doing is letting his people run wild like this."
It was said with a smile, but Dom didn't return the gesture. "Where Alec sends us is his business. Your pack may be the largest in North America, but your father is hardly the kind to court problems with the Coun'hij. He doesn't know where you are right now, does he, Shawn?"
It was Shawn's turn to go all frigid. "That's our business."
I held up a placating hand. "Okay, so we all have things we're doing here that we're not anxious to have the rest of the world know about. Let's just agree to keep each other's secret and part ways without trying to kill each other."
Shawn shook his head and pointed at me. "You haven't told us who you are."
"My name is Adri."
"Okay, Adri. We'll leave you to go about your business and we'll go about ours. If, however, you tell anyone, it will eventually make its way back to me and then there will be an accounting."
"That's fine. I've kept bigger secrets than this."
It wasn't until we were almost back to my house that Dominic finally seemed to get control of her beast. The flashes of power suddenly died out and then she turned to me with a look of amazement.
"Adri, your ploy shouldn't have worked. Shawn is about as dominant as they come. Forcing his hand like that really should have had the opposite effect. Who did you call?"
"Rachel. Which reminds me, I need
to text her and tell her not to do anything about that message."
Dom nodded absently, but it was obvious she was only half listening. "Something very odd just happened, Adri. I just can't figure out why Shawn would have been in New York or why he would have backed down so quickly."
I shrugged and hit the elevator call button with the hand that wasn't carrying the food. She was probably right, but I couldn't think of anything that was less important. What Shawn did or didn't do wasn't going to have the slightest impact on my life.
Walking into my house and finding out that Mom still wasn't back, however, was the kind of thing that was going to have a very immediate impact on my night. She was late, not just the 'not-here-when-she-said-she-would-be-here late.' No, she was later than even the hour leeway I normally gave her past her stated arrival time. I had a very bad feeling about this, and it only got worse when she picked up my call on the first ring.
"Adri, honey. I'm sorry—I know I'm late, but I just can't get away right now."
I'd barely seen her for the last couple of months, and now she'd canceled our New Year's Eve dinner. It was disappointing, but it was also something I could live with because it meant I could put off meeting Russ for another couple of months.
"It's okay, Mom. I'll just put the ingredients away, and Dom and I will order some takeout."
"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. What would you think about you and Dom having dinner with Russ still?"
I hated it. Mom already knew that without asking me. Unfortunately, that meant she didn't really care how much I didn't want to have dinner with Russ.
"I'd rather not, Mom."
"I know, honey. It's just that this is the second time I'd be canceling on him at the last minute. I don't really think he's going to take this well, but I don't want to drive him away. I...well, I thought if you guys still had dinner together that maybe it would help soften the blow and give me another shot at making things right in a couple of weeks after everything slows back down."
Somehow I didn't think things would ever slow down, not really. My bet was that Russ was smart enough to realize that. Mom took my pause as a sign that I was weakening.
"It would really mean a lot to me, Adri. I've tried to give you your freedom and not ask very much of you lately. I know how hard it was for you to decide to leave Sanctuary, but I think it showed that you are ready to be an adult. Can you please do this for me?"
I knew my mom was using guilt on me but that didn't necessarily stop her ploy from being effective. Ultimately, I didn't really have a choice. If I told her no and then Russ walked out, she'd always blame me. If I helped her the best I could and he still walked out, then it wouldn't be my fault.
"Okay, I'll do it. Dom hasn't been feeling very well lately, but I think she can make it for a few more hours. I'll cook dinner and then I'll play nice with Russ."
"Thanks, sweetie; that means a lot. I'll call Russ now and make sure he's okay with the change in plans."
I'd told Mom that Dom wasn't feeling well because I'd wanted to dish out a helping of guilt the other way—not that it had done any good—but when I looked over at Dom it seemed like she really wasn't doing very well.
"Dom, the door is locked and nobody is getting in here without you being able to hear it from the other room. Why don't you go lie down and get some rest? You look like you really need it."
"Okay, but just for a few minutes. If you need something just yell. I won't be going to sleep."
The fact that she'd agreed actually made me more worried about her. Dom wasn't the kind to give in so easily, not unless she was in really, really bad shape. I already knew that trying to convince her to go home wasn't going to work, so I just crept over and shut the bedroom door before getting started on the lasagna.
Cooking wasn't my favorite thing to do, but occasionally it served as a good distraction. For the half hour or so that it took to put everything together and preheat the oven, I managed to leave aside worries about Dom, Russ, or what might be happening with the pack back in Sanctuary.
Once the lasagna was in the oven, the table was set, and everything was more or less ready to go, I went into the living room, set the alarm on my iPad, and put one of my new favorite songs on repeat as I stuck the headphones in my ears.
I figured the heavy drop to the music would stop me from falling asleep, but it turned out that I was more tired than I'd realized. The next thing I knew, the doorman was buzzing to ask if he could let Russ come up.
"Yes, please, Vince. Thank you."
I rolled off the couch and headed to the kitchen, where Dominic met me looking like she'd just woken up and was more than a little disoriented. A quick look confirmed that everything was ready to go so we both stumbled into the bathroom and ran fingers through our hair.
A few seconds later, Russ was knocking on our door. Dom answered it while I grabbed juice from the fridge. I turned around from putting it on the table and had a hard time pulling my eyes away from Russ.
He was tall, but not tall and lanky, tall with the kind of shoulders you'd see on a rodeo cowboy. He looked like someone who spent a lot of time outside working for a living, who'd then been stuffed into designer jeans and a charcoal polo that did incredible things for his gray eyes.
It took me a second to realize he was waiting to shake my hand.
"It's nice to finally get a chance to meet you, Adri. Honestly, I almost told your mom no when she called tonight to rearrange plans. Spending the evening with two underage girls didn't sound like the smartest thing I could be doing, but I couldn't resist the chance to finally see what Nicole's daughter was like."
It was an abrupt reminder that he was the enemy. The fact that he was gorgeous as well as rich didn't change anything other than to make him a little bit more dangerous.
"Yeah, well, I'm afraid I'm not much like Mom. The lasagna's almost done though, so I guess you'll at least get to compare our culinary efforts."
He smiled—even his smile was amazing—and held up a bottle of wine. "I didn't have a chance to make it back home and drop this off after your mom told me she wasn't going to be here. Can I leave it here without the two of you drinking it?"
I took the bottle and looked at him oddly. "If I'm the kind of girl who would drink it, wouldn't I also be the kind of girl who would lie about it?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so. Not if you're anything at all like your mom. I think you probably break rules, but I don't think you like lying about it. Your mom breaks plenty of rules, but she doesn't do it out of some kind of immature need to prove she can break them. She breaks them because she sees something on the other side of the rules that she thinks is important enough to justify breaking them. Does that sound familiar?"
"Yeah, I guess that does sound familiar. I didn't realize my mom was like that too though."
Russ shrugged. "I don't have kids of my own, but I've noticed that parents are often slightly different with their kids than they are when their kids aren't around. That's one of the reasons why I was actually willing to have dinner with you and your mom so soon after I met her. At some point, I'd like to see what she's like when you are around."
He'd given me plenty to think about already. I was starting to feel like I'd come to a gun fight with a knife. If I wasn't careful I'd find myself liking him despite my best efforts. I held up the bottle of wine and then put it on the counter. "Dom and I won't drink this, and we won't give it to any of the lame kids from my school. It will be right here waiting for my mom whenever she gets back."
I got a serious nod from Russ in response to my promise and then my iPad started beeping at me. Pulling the food out of the oven gave me a chance to gather my wits about me again. By the time the food was on the table and we were sitting down to eat, I felt ready to do battle again.
"So tell us a little bit about yourself, Russ. How did you get involved in fashion? Is that where you made your money?"
Dom shot me a warning look. She obviously thought I
was being too confrontational, but I had the final call when it came to all things involving Russ and my mom, so she didn't actually say anything.
"Actually, I got involved in fashion almost by accident. It's pretty much the last thing I thought I'd end up spending two months a year on. I joined the army as soon as I graduated from high school and then spent three years in Iraq. I ended up leaving at the end of my second tour despite the fact that I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with myself."
Russ took a second bite of his lasagna and smiled at me. "This is really good by the way. It's not quite the same recipe as your mom cooked, is it?"
"No, not quite. We were out of nutmeg when she made it."
Russ nodded and took a drink of juice. "Who knows what would have happened after that, but my grandfather died a couple of weeks after I got back to the States. He...well, he left me a lot of money. He didn't approve of my parents. He didn't approve of any of my family really, but I guess he respected me for having entered the military, despite him telling me not to."
"So what happened next?"
Russ did a half snort, half laugh thing that somehow didn't look unnatural coming from someone who was probably a billionaire.
"I nearly self-destructed. Booze, parties, you name it. I surfaced two months later just because I'd gotten so stoned that I'd lost my wallet. I got another set of credit cards ordered and realized I had a choice to make. I could either become the kind of man who was worthy of the fortune my grandfather had left me, or I could let it destroy me. There wasn't any kind of halfway measure there."
"So you decided to own the money rather than letting it own you."
"Yeah, that's as good a way of saying it as any. So I took a crash course in finances, put my money to work and then started looking for causes that were worthy but needed a little push."
I looked over at Dom, wondering if he'd been telling the truth or not, and she nodded. Interesting.
I turned back to Russ and raised an eyebrow. "And the fashion show?"
"It's one of the few shows that actually mixes pro designs in with designs from high school and college students. They do it without attributing the designs to anyone until weeks after the show. By the time anyone knows a given design was done by a student rather than a big name, the student in question is usually sitting on a quarter of a million in orders for their new design."
