Stray

by Rachel Vincent

  He squeezed just a bit too hard, to show me how much I’d been missed. Then he swung me in a complete circle as I squealed, taking me back to my childhood, when I’d spent every summer tagging along behind him and Jace, just in case they decided to let me play.

  He set me gently on the floor, then plopped down on my bed and leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows. The pose was familiar enough to send a pang of nostalgia ringing through me. As children, we’d spent hours sprawled across my bed, making fun of Michael’s latest girlfriend and laughing at Owen’s most recent attempt to sneak a terrified pet past our mother.

  “So,” he said, still grinning. “Got your escape planned yet?”

  “Like I’d tell you if I did.” I curled up at the head of the bed and pulled a small, frilly pillow into my lap. It was one of those worthless, decorative things that do nothing but get in the way. My mother bought it, assuming I’d like it because I had ovaries. She was right, but for the wrong reason. I used it when I needed something to punch.

  “You think I’d rat you out?” Ethan asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “I know you would. That’s your job.” He didn’t deny it, and I couldn’t work up any real indignation. Trying to hold a grudge against Ethan was like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands. Not impossible, but damn near.

  A soft shuffling sound from the doorway drew my attention. At the threshold stood Owen, my third brother. He was just tall enough that a chunk of his perpetually tousled hair brushed the top of the door frame. Dark eyes met mine and a smile spread across his face, slow and sweet as his Texas drawl. “Hey, sis, I heard you were home.”

  “Owen!” I crawled off the bed, tossing the pillow aside, and ran toward him. He met me in the middle of the room, scooping me up into a hug to shame all others, the kind that pops your spine and steals your breath, all in the name of brotherly love. Owen was our resident farm boy, cowboy hat and all. He smelled like the land, like dirt, fresh water and hard work. His jeans were torn and permanently stained, which meant he hadn’t changed out of his work clothes yet. But then, he hardly ever did. Or, more accurately, he hardly ever stopped working, which eventually turned all his clothes into work clothes.

  “Aren’t they feedin’ you up there?” he asked, holding me at arm’s length for a better view. “You’re lookin’ kinda skinny.”

  “She looks good to me,” Jace said from the doorway. He dropped my suitcase on the floor and snatched Ethan’s apple from the dresser. Grinning, he took a big bite and sank backward into my desk chair, his arms crossed over the arched back.

  “She is thin.” Ethan sat up to scratch one tanned shoulder. “But it wouldn’t be quite so noticeable if you’d wear actual clothes, Faythe.”

  “I am wearing actual clothes.” I glanced down at myself, trying not to see his point. Okay, maybe my shirt was a little low cut. And tight. And my jeans didn’t quite reach my belly button, but that’s how everyone on campus dressed in the summer. We lived in Texas, for crying out loud. It was hot. “Besides, it’s not like you have any room to talk,” I said, eyeing his bare chest.

  He shrugged, as if to say he didn’t make up the rules. “It’s different for guys.”

  A double standard. Shocking, really.

  “Leave her alone before you scare her off again,” Owen drawled. “You know how sensitive women can be about their clothes.” He put his arm around my waist and squeezed me affectionately, a gesture as smooth and gentle as his temperament.

  “She’s no woman, she’s our sister,” Ethan said. I twisted in Owen’s embrace to stick my tongue out at him. Ethan reciprocated and moved to sit on the edge of my bed, feet brushing the thick taupe carpet.

  “She’s not my sister,” Jace said around a mouthful of half-chewed apple. His easy grin spoke of casual teasing, but his eyes met mine with enough heat to make me pause with uncertainty for a moment before replying.

  I smiled to soften the coming blow. “I’m not your anything.”

  “Ouch!” He leaned back against the desk with one hand over his heart, covering an imaginary wound. Then his smile reached his eyes, and he took another bite of the apple. Clearly I’d dealt him a fatal blow.

  Owen hugged me one more time, brushing the top of my head with his chin full of prickly stubble, then let me go, backing up to lean against my wall. On the radio, the first notes of “Miss Independent” played, and I smiled at the irony of listening to it from inside my tumbleweed prison. Lucky bitch, I thought, turning it up to give my father every opportunity to hear the song through the walls.

  I sank onto the bed next to Ethan and leaned my head against his bare shoulder. “What’s this about you fighting a stray at school?” he asked, draping one arm around my waist. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not ladylike to pick on boys?”

  Had she ever. “It was nothing. Just a scuffle.”

  Jace tossed the apple into the air and caught it behind his back. “Marc thinks it was the same guy who took Sara.”

  Like he’d know, I thought. But what I said was, “Couldn’t have been. He was too easily frightened. It was just some asshole intruder looking for a little excitement.”

  “Sounds like he found it.” Owen drawled.

  I grinned. “Damn right.”

  “Looks like you found a little too,” Jace said, his gaze focused on my stomach.

  Shrugging out from under Ethan’s arm, I looked down at the gap between the hem of my shirt and the waist of my jeans. An amorphous purple blob had taken shape on my left side, over the lowest of my ribs. “Beautiful,” I said, standing to get a better view in the mirror. “Just lovely.” It hadn’t looked anywhere near that bad when I’d left campus. Sammi hadn’t even noticed.

  “Where’s everyone else?” I asked, tugging my shirt down to hide the bruise as I sank back onto the bed.

  “Vic’s out looking for Sara,” Jace said. He tossed the apple core into my trash can and held both fists up in victory. I rolled my eyes. Guys may get bigger, but they never really grow up.

  “Yeah, I heard.” I pulled away from Ethan, rolling my head on my shoulders, trying to ease the tension that had been building since the moment I’d smelled the stray on campus. It didn’t work, but it did give me a pretty good crick in my neck. “What about Parker?”

  “He’s around,” Ethan said. “Marc has him out playing foot soldier.”

  “On our own property?” My eyebrows arched in surprise as I rubbed my neck. Then the implication sank in, and my hand fell into my lap, my discomfort temporarily forgotten. “Daddy must be really spooked by all this.”

  Ethan and Owen exchanged looks, but I wasn’t fast enough to interpret them before their expressions were gone. Something else was up, but they weren’t talking. Wonderful. I hate secrets I’m not in on.

  “We better go,” Owen said, shooting Ethan a stern look. “We’re supposed to help Parker.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ethan mumbled, pulling himself off the bed with one hand wrapped around the corner post.

  Owen slapped him on the shoulder and shoved him toward the door, turning back to look at me from the threshold. “We’re going huntin’ later, if you wanna come.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, careful not to commit myself. I loved hunting, and he knew it. But if I appeared too eager to go, they might think I was glad to be home, and I certainly couldn’t have a dangerous rumor like that floating around unchecked.

  Owen gave me a leisurely, knowing smile and disappeared into the hallway. I listened until I heard the back door slam shut, then turned to look at Jace.

  He smiled back at me from my desk chair, showing no inclination to leave. Big surprise. I considered kicking him out so I could pout in private, but then he turned those bright blue eyes on me—the playful sparkle mingling seamlessly with a hint of that earlier heat—and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kick him out and watch the light fade from his eyes.

  Instead, I returned his smile, running my hand over the bed to smooth out wrinkl
es I didn’t really mind in the first place.

  Jace leaned back in my desk chair, his Kentucky Wildcats T-shirt stretched across broad shoulders. He was descended from the original Kentucky wildcat, which, of course, was more than just a mascot. “Don’t be mad at me,” he said. “None of this was my idea.”

  “I know.” I tilted my head to the left, still trying to work out the muscle cramp. “You can stay. Until you start to bore me.”

  “Why, thank you, Your Highness.” He stood to perform a deep, highly sarcastic bow. But instead of returning to the chair, he sat down behind me on the bed, brushing my hand away from my neck. Careful not to tug, he gathered my hair and laid it over my shoulder, then began massaging my neck at the base of my skull.

  His touch was firm and warm, and his fingers moved with confidence, seeking the tensest muscles. I moaned with relief, then stiffened and flushed from embarrassment. Jace only laughed and rubbed harder until I relaxed again.

  “So, how ya doin’, kid?” he asked, moving down to work on my shoulders.

  “Not too bad, for a prisoner.”

  He chuckled, sounding distinctly unsympathetic. “Could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “You could be a hostage.”

  I huffed, plucking imaginary fuzz from my comforter as he moved lower, kneading the muscles between my shoulder blades through the thin cotton of my shirt. “At least a hostage has hope of a ransom.”

  His hands hesitated for a moment, his breath stirring my hair as he sighed. “Your dad’s only trying to do what’s best.”

  “For whom?” I pulled away, turning to half face him.

  “For everyone.”

  “What’s good for the gander isn’t always good for the goose, Jace,” I said, resorting to a mutilated cliché. It didn’t help. He couldn’t understand. Tomcats were immune to my particular plight, a fact I’d envied all of my adult life.

  “You’re not poultry,” Jace said, grinning as he brushed a strand of hair from my shoulder. “And anyway, after everything that’s happened the last couple of days, you have to admit us watching out for you was a good idea.”

  “The hell it was.” I beat Jace over the head with that stupid fancy pillow as I spoke, punctuating each word with another harmless blow, even when he brought his arms up in defense. “I…watched…out…for…my…self.” After one final whack, I dropped the pillow into my lap and sat frowning at Jace. “Marc wasn’t even there. But don’t you dare tell Daddy. I’m getting ready to try my hand at blackmail.”

  “A new hobby? What, you get tired of the disappearing act?”

  “Funny.” I smacked him one last time with the pillow. “But I’m not kidding. He has no right interfering in my life. For that matter, neither does my father.”

  Jace’s grin faded slowly. “My father died when I was three, and my stepfather never gave me anything but a hard time. Your dad gave you five years of freedom. Why isn’t that enough?” With nothing appropriate left to rub, his hands settled aimlessly into his lap, and I stared at them to avoid seeing the dejected look in his eyes. He was taking it too personally. It wasn’t like I’d left him in particular.

  “Because my life isn’t his to give,” I said, my words clipped short in frustration. “It’s mine, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it.” Why is that so hard for everyone else to understand?

  Jace shrugged. “So, what do you want to do with your life?”

  My hand clenched around a handful of my comforter. “I don’t know yet.”

  Instead of laughing, he nodded as if he understood. He probably did. If Jace had any long-term goals, surely he wouldn’t have still been working for my father.

  He ran a hand through his straight, light brown hair, and my eyes tracked the movement automatically. “Your dad never sent Marc, you know. He could have, but he didn’t.”

  “Until today.” I tried not to pout. I really did, knowing I’d never be accepted as an adult as long as I acted like a child. But old habits really do die hard.

  “Today’s different.”

  “No, today’s the same.” I straightened out of my slouch, drawing his gaze up with me. “It’s the same as tomorrow will be, and the next day. It’s the same as it was when I left.”

  “Not quite,” he said, and the grin was back. He shifted into a more comfortable position, wrinkling my comforter, and leaned forward, blue eyes gleaming. “You’re out of practice now.”

  Out of practice? A slow smile spread across my face. He wanted to run.

  “Is that a challenge?” My pulse quickened at the thought of a race, my heart already preparing to increase the blood flow to my muscles. I leaned forward in anticipation, my breath coming fast and shallow. My aggravation was gone, overwhelmed by my love of the chase.

  “It’s a fact.” Jace’s eyes sparkled as he edged subtly toward the side of the bed. “There’s no way you could have kept in shape up there, with nowhere to stretch your legs.”

  I flashed him a smile, brazen and cocky. “You’d be surprised.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’d be astonished.”

  “To the tree line?” I asked, and he nodded. “Let’s go.” Pulling the barrette from my hair, I hopped onto the floor, kicking off my shoes one at a time. I was already halfway to the hall when Jace tackled me from behind. My knees and elbows hit the carpet with a rapid series of thuds. He fell on top of me, pinning me to the floor on my stomach, his body stretched the length of mine.

  My breath whooshed from my lungs, and I struggled to replace it for a long moment, until Jace realized the problem. He propped himself up with one elbow, giving me just enough room to breathe. Irritation blossomed, and I opened my mouth to demand that he get up. But my words were forgotten at the first tentative brush of his fingers against my bare skin.

  Jace and I had always enjoyed a very casual physical relationship, trading chaste smooches and the occasional rump pinch with no more significance than a hug from a brother, which he practically was. However, this was a new kind of touch, different even than his boldly seductive greeting in Daddy’s office. Before, he’d acted with confidence, almost arrogant in his certainty that I enjoyed his attention. But now he was hesitant, his touch featherlight and slow, as if he expected me to stop him at any moment.

  I probably should have.

  “No head start for you,” he whispered, running one hand over my hip and up my side. His fingers tickled, sending promising shivers all over me. I squirmed beneath him and heard his breath catch.

  “I don’t need a head start,” I breathed, my cheek pressed into the floor. His stomach was warm against the curve of my lower back, bare between the seam of my shirt and the low waist of my jeans. On the radio, a new tune played, intense, and heavy on guitar and drums. My heart raced along with its rhythm, and my legs ached to run. But instead of glorying in the freedom of speed, I was trapped, immobile. “I’ve always been faster than you, and a few years with limited practice time isn’t enough to give you an advantage.” I twisted my neck, trying to see him. “Besides, you can’t run while you’re holding me down.”

  His fingers eased beneath the edge of my top, brushing the sensitive skin over my ribs and beneath my breast. I gasped, fascinated by the curiously delicate sensation and my own conflicting impulses. One was to fight, to claw at the carpet in a bid for freedom. But the other was to lie still in anticipation of what might come next. Because whatever it was, knowing Jace, it would be good.

  Okay, maybe today was a little different after all, I thought, more puzzled by my body’s reaction to him than by anything he’d done.

  “I’m just slowing you down to give the guys a chance,” he whispered into my ear.

  I froze, listening, and heard laughter and footsteps coming from the backyard. They were already heading for the trees.

  Damn it! How could I have forgotten? As teenagers, Ethan and Owen had taken turns “delaying” me by tripping me or distracting me through even less honorable means. Apparently they’d now re
cruited Jace to do their dirty work. If I couldn’t get out from under him, they would start the hunt without me.

  Fueled by impatience and mounting aggravation, I bucked, trying to throw him off, but he rode me with ease. I couldn’t help being a little impressed, in spite of my frustration. I hadn’t been near another cat in ages and had forgotten how good our balance really was. “Whatever liberties you take now, you’ll pay for outside,” I panted, winded by my own struggle.

  “Oooh,” he purred, his nose skimming the surface of my skin. “Say that again.” His fingers brushed the wire edge of my bra cup, but went no farther.

  “You’re all talk,” I said, trying not to squirm. But my voice was throatier than I’d intended, and the hitch in his breath told me he’d noticed.

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “It’s a fact.” I threw his own words back at him, and he laughed, his body shaking against me.

  “How ’bout a bet?”

  “You’ll lose,” I warned, still listening for the others. I could barely hear them now; they’d already disappeared into the trees, their laughter blending into the chorus of sounds that defined the night. And as interesting as Jace’s distraction was proving to be, I was eager to join the hunt.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But if I don’t, you owe me.”

  “Owe you what?”

  His voice deepened, and he grew still against me. “The chance to prove I’m not all talk.”

  Five

  My heart thumped in surprise, accompanied by a tiny, treacherous spark of curiosity. I’d expected him to ask for something typically lecherous—like me washing his car in a tiny bikini—but I was completely unprepared for his actual request. I was tempted to laugh it off as a joke.

  But Jace wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even breathing. He lay on top of me, heavy and completely motionless, his pulse racing as he waited for my answer.

  I strained again to look at him over my shoulder, trying to see if he was serious. Surely he was only teasing. But no matter how I twisted, I couldn’t see his face. I saw dust bunnies under my desk and the edge of a long-lost CD case jutting out from beneath my dresser. But all I could see of Jace was his shadow, stretching in front of me and into the hall through the open doorway.