by Lily Cahill
“I have that effect on people. I just leave behind idiots everywhere I go.”
Nina giggled. God, she knew he was joking, but this man certainly did have an effect on her. He was turning her hard, outer shell into mush. And that was saying nothing of her heart.
Nina looked away, her eyes only half-focused. “You really think I should do it? Leave this place and finish my novel?”
“Nina,” Drew said, his voice low and serious. “I think you should do whatever makes you happiest.”
Nina’s heart kicked against her ribs, and she swallowed hard. Could she actually say it out loud? Could she do this? Give Drew the chance he so greatly deserved? He was a shifter, yes. But everything he’d done and said since she’d met him had made Nina reconsider what she thought about shifters.
“I can tell you this, Nina,” Drew said when Nina remained silent. “I see a lot, sometimes I wish I didn’t. But with you … I can tell you want to leave LA. I’ve only been here a week, and Jesus. It’s just … it’s the hellmouth. I feel the city stripping away my calm, my happiness. I don’t know how you’ve been able to stand it for so long.”
Nina scrunched her nose up, thinking. “For a long time, I wanted this. This life. But I just don’t know anymore. Is it a failure to leave?”
“Doing what makes you happy is never failure, Nina.”
“What would make me happiest ….”
Drew watched her closely, and Nina could see the hope in his eyes. Maybe … maybe …. Drew’s hand cupped Nina’s cheek, and she nuzzled into his touch. Drew would make her happiest. Drew Hart, a shifter. Nina’s heart was torn in two, the hatred she’d felt for shifters at odds with what she was experiencing now.
“Can I tell you what would make me happy?” Drew’s voice was raw with emotion. Nina could only nod. “Us. I’m sick of being just me. I want to be us. I don’t know what happened to make you run, but I know we can make each other whole, Nina. If we just give this a chance, I know we can be happier than either of us can even comprehend. Please, Nina. Come with me on tour, and then we’ll go to Montana, make our life there. You can finally get out of LA, write that novel. We deserve happiness, Nina. Jesus, we deserve it so much.”
Drew grabbed Nina’s still hands and pulled them to his mouth. He kissed her knuckles, her wrists.
“I love you so much it hurts, Nina. Say you love me too. Say you’ll come with me.”
Nina’s torn heart knit together and swelled with so much emotion it nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“I … I ….”
Drew’s phone erupted.
Whatever spell had fallen over them shattered. Drew’s phone rang insistently in his pocket. He glanced at it, then back to Nina.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. He pulled out his phone, and Nina watched his face contract into worry. He ignored the call and turned his attention back to Nina.
But before he could speak, his phone rang again. And when he ignored the call, his phone beeped with a text. Then another. Annoyance bubbled up within Nina.
“Can you put that on silent?” Nina sat up and hooked her arms around her knees.
“There’s been some, uh, shifter stuff happening.”
Nina furrowed his eyebrows and stared off toward the ocean. It always came back to shifters. If Nina did decide to give this thing with Drew a chance, she wouldn’t just be with a shifter, she’d be pulled back into that world, a world she’d worked so hard to escape.
“I can’t really talk about it with you, sorry,” Drew said.
The shell around Nina’s heart hardened. “Of fucking course,” Nina snapped. “Being a shifter is more important than anything else.”
Drew’s face stilled, and his green eyes went hard as jade stone. “You’re not a shifter, Nina, so you have no idea what it means to be one.”
Nina gasped, her eyes going wide. “I know exactly what it means to be a shifter. I might not be a shifter, but I was born into your world, Drew. I know just how fucked up it is. I thank Christ every day I’m not like you.”
Drew bristled, and his phone started ringing again. “Good for you. But I can’t run away from what I am, even if I wanted to. Even for you.” Drew yanked his phone out of his pocket then scrubbed his hand over his face. “I have to answer this,” he said, making to stand.
Ice froze Nina’s blood, a cold fury that pulled everything in her taut. It would never change. Shifters would always choose their own over her, even if she was Drew’s goddamned mate. Nina scrambled to her feet and loomed over Drew. “Don’t bother getting up. I’m leaving.”
Pain lanced across Drew’s face. “Shit, I’m sorry.” His phone kept ringing, but he silenced it. Yet it was too late, far too late. “It’s my uncle and there’s trouble in my clan.” Drew scrubbed a hand over his face. “Not just my clan. There are shifters trying to grab power, and if I don’t stand up for my people, so many lives could be in danger. Don’t go, Nina. I need to take this, then we’ll talk. Really talk. I want to know how you know about shifters, how we can make this work.”
Nina laughed ruefully. “I really don’t care about any of it, Drew.”
Nina was sure her heart had left her chest. She didn’t feel it beating, just a yawning emptiness where hope had swelled. And then it kicked over and beat hard, painful. She was afraid her ribs would crack under the force of it. It would never be just her and Drew. There’d always be a third person in their relationship.
Nina had let herself dare to dream of a different life despite knowing she shouldn’t. This had been a mistake, letting herself see Drew again. It only made the inevitable worse. Because the truth was, she couldn’t be with Drew. She would always see the bear in him and fear it, would always spend her life waiting for the shifter side of him to dominate their relationship.
He loved her. And God, she was afraid she could so easily fall in love with him too. She’d realized it while she listened to him play. But loving Drew could mean giving up an important part of herself—her independence, her livelihood. And that terrified her. She couldn’t do it … not with a shifter, the very thing she’d fought to get away from all those years ago.
Nina pushed down her misery and reached for the hatred she’d felt for shifters since she was seventeen.
“You want to know what happened to me? I’m a seer.”
Drew’s eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open. “I didn’t think any were—”
“Still alive? Yeah, I am. Your precious shifter world used me for what I am, took my blood to make your precious fate vision stronger, then cast me aside when I asked for anything in return. When I needed my family the most, they chose keeping a shifter safe—the man who raped me in the middle of a field with my house visible in the distance. I screamed, but nobody came.”
Drew stumbled to his feet, horror streaked across his face. “Jesus, Nina.” His voice broke and his blinked hard. Drew reached for Nina, and part of her ached to be comforted by him, to let him take away some of her pain. But she couldn’t. Drew seemed so different from the shifters she’d grown up with, and maybe he really was. But would he be able to withstand the pressure from his clan if they knew she was a seer? Nina didn’t think Drew would ever hurt her … but what if hurting her was for the good of the clan? He’d so easily decided to take the call from his clan even when she’d asked him not to. Who was to say what would happen if her blood could help his people?
Nina jerked away from Drew’s touch and jutted her chin.
“That man wasn’t punished because I wasn’t one of them, I didn’t matter as much as he did,” Nina said, spitting her words. “And you’re just as much to blame for it. For a culture that says shifters above all else, above a seventeen-year-old girl who was terrified and hurt. Fuck you, Drew. And fuck every shifter out there. I never want to see you again.”
Her body fought her, her heart wailed, but Nina turned around and walked away.
Chapter Eight
Drew
DREW PACED BACKSTAGE. IT WAS the first nig
ht of their tour, and he had to be on stage in less than two hours. But he wasn’t looking forward to it—he was mired in despair for the past. It’d been twenty-four hours since Nina had walked away from him. Twenty-four hours of torment as he thought back on just how colossally he’d fucked it all up. Twenty-four hours since he’d learned the whole truth about Nina Marten. God, he wished he could fold her into his arms right now, to comfort her. But he couldn’t—and he didn’t think he ever would again.
And it was all Errol Hart’s fault. Yeah, it’d been Uncle Mac who called him, but it was his father who’d apparently attacked a sentry at the border of the Southern Clans, his father who’d left a wolf shifter dead. The Southern Clans were in an uproar over it, calling for Errol Hart to be hunted down and executed. Cross-territory violence carried the threat of throwing away the hard-earned peace among shifters. And it was all because of his bastard father.
His uncle had shouldered so much burden since Errol Hart had been deposed as clan chieftain and exiled. It was time for one of the Hart brothers to assume the helm of the Western Clans, to bring stability back to the shifter world. After years of putting it off, Drew didn’t think he could turn away from the responsibility for much longer.
After learning the truth about Nina, for the first time, Drew didn’t want to give up the responsibility. She had been hurt in so many ways because of corrupted leadership. Drew couldn’t let anything like that happen again. He may have ruined his chances with Nina, but he vowed to become the sort of leader who would protect the vulnerable, even if, like Nina, they weren’t shifters.
Drew thought back to the time when his father was terrorizing not just his mother or him, but innocent people. He’d murdered humans for the fun of it, toyed with human women, raped them. It was only when he attacked one of their own, a shifter from their clan—Derek Craven’s mother, Delilah Swann—that he’d finally been brought to justice. The injustice of it curdled inside Drew. He would not let that happen again.
In twelve weeks time, Drew and his brothers would travel back to Montana for a conclave. If you’d asked him a week ago, Drew would have said he’d agree with whatever the conclave decided—even if it decided to oust the Harts for good. But not now. He would fight for his place as chieftain of the Western Clans, and he’d work to be the sort of leader who would make Nina proud of shifters.
Even though he knew it was the right decision, it wouldn’t make it any easier to tell his brothers. Leading the clan meant leaving Wild Harts. Drew wouldn’t miss the fame, the touring, the endless party of being a rockstar. But he would miss playing music with Jax, Chase, and Bret.
Drew collapsed into a chair in the wings and dropped his forehead into his hands. He felt like he was being dragged in three different directions—each of them just as important as the other. Nina and his brothers and his clan all wanted different things from him, and Drew was afraid he couldn’t make everyone happy. Something was going to have to be sacrificed. The question was, what?
He felt both dead tired and agitated. Drew had always been the only Hart brother who could easily control his emotions, but he could no longer find a calm, safe spot in his soul. With Nina gone, he wasn’t sure he ever would.
A pair of boots stopped in front of Drew. He glanced up to see Chase looking down at him with a crease between his eyebrows.
“I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re surlier than usual.”
“Not now, Chase.”
Chase sighed. “Drew, my brother. When is the time? Not too long ago, you found me at my worst, you pulled me back up. You’ve saved our world. A lot. Without asking for anything in return. I don’t want to leave you in a pit because you refuse to talk about what’s bugging you.”
When Drew remained silent, Chase continued. “We’ve all noticed something is wrong. Shit, even Bret said we should get you an escort.”
“I don’t need an escort,” Drew growled.
Chase stared hard at Drew. “Is it because of …?”
Drew pressed his lips together. He couldn’t bury this misery much longer, but he wasn’t ready to talk about losing Nina. He thought of the embarrassment of Kirsten calling off their wedding. He didn’t want their pity again, not ever again.
“Right, well,” Chase said after a moment of silence. “I’m not saying something happened with her, but she dropped this off with Emily earlier. You should read it.”
Chase dropped a proof of the soon-to-publish Rolling Stone in Drew’s lap and walked away. Drew stared down at the cover, at his own stoic face staring back at him. With his heart racing, Drew flipped to the six-page spread and read Nina’s words.
God, she was amazing. Her evocative writing pulled him in and didn’t let him go until the final word. Nina’s article connected Wild Harts’ deeper, more mature sound with the strong women supporting the band. There were quotes from Emily and Tiff, and she even paraphrased what he’d said about his mother teaching him fiddle to draw the concept out further. It was … perfect.
She was perfect. For him. And he’d never know that perfection again. Sorrow for what he’d lost swirled with pride in his mate. Nina may have rejected him, but she’d never stop being Drew’s mate.
Drew wrenched his head up, his heart in his throat. He looked at his watch. They went on in ninety minutes. They were playing at the Palladium in West Hollywood, and it was madness to think he could race to Nina’s place and get back in time. But he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t walk on that stage and play music without knowing.
The Rolling Stone proof was tight in Drew’s grip as he jumped out of the rental and raced up the block toward Nina’s loft. She wasn’t answering her phone, but Drew couldn’t give up. This was his last chance. After tonight, he’d leave LA behind for the tour. The thought of it made him run harder, his heart pummel his ribs.
Drew skidded to a stop at her door and leaned against it for half a breath. His lungs burned and his muscles jumped with anticipation. Drew jammed his finger against the buzzer and waited.
And waited. Nina didn’t come to the door. He rang again and craned his neck to look up into her windows. There was a flash of a face, a twitch of curtains. Then nothing.
“Dammit,” Drew growled. He rang the buzzer again, and he swore his heart stuttered to a stop as the seconds dragged on. Drew looked up again.
“Nina!”
A clutch of women walking by him raised eyebrows and then started giggling. God, he must look like a lunatic. But screw them. Screw everyone, if it’d mean talking to Nina again. Holding her again.
“Nina, please!”
He thought he saw the curtain inch back.
Emboldened, Drew backed out into the street. A car honked, but he snarled at the driver and looked back to Nina’s darkened apartment.
“I love you, Nina Marten. And I’ve read your article. You love me too. Please, Nina!”
Another car honked, but an onlooker wolf-whistled encouragement. Drew ignored them all.
“I fucked up. God, if I could go back to that night and start over. Give me a chance … give us a chance.”
“Give him a chance, Nina,” a woman across the street shouted.
Cars honked, people cheered for Nina. But Nina didn’t appear. The seconds bled into a minute, and still she didn’t appear. Drew’s heart threatened to crack in two.
And then it got worse.
“Hey, is that …?”
“Oh, shit! It’s the guy from Wild Harts.”
Phones were pulled out, cameras flashed. And Nina still didn’t appear.
Drew hung his head. The adrenaline of the moment, the anticipation, grew dry and brittle and blew away like dust. He felt eyes on him, phones recording him, people pitying him. Drew slapped away someone’s phone when they got too close and strode toward his truck, defeated.
Every single night on stage, in every face Drew saw, he searched for Nina. But she was never there.
It’d been eleven weeks since he’d last talked to Nina, touched Nina, hoped for a future
with her. Since he’d been rejected outside her loft, he’d tried calling her twice and almost called her dozens of times. But she didn’t want him, and he couldn’t force himself on her. Drew felt hollow inside, a husk of a man. Was this his life now? He’d known that true happiness was attainable, but he’d fucked it up.
And worse, he was surrounded by what that happiness could look like. He saw it in the way Jax and Tiff shared small, private moments, in the way Chase and Emily spoke in a sort of shorthand. Fated love was all around, but he was left out of it, and he always would be. He wished he could talk to Bret about it, but his brother had been growing more and more distant. He was with a new woman on every tour stop, and was unapproachable all other times.
Drew stood in the wings as roadies broke down from the opening set. Beyond the darkened stage, an arena packed full of fans shouted their names. For the past nine weeks, Wild Harts had played to sold-out arenas and giant festivals. Drew flexed his fingers and rolled his neck. Right now, right this moment, his responsibility was to put on the show of his life. But he couldn’t find the will to go on inside of him—he’d left his heart outside a loft in Venice, California.
A hand clapped down on his shoulder. Drew turned to see Chase, Jax, and Bret at his side. Bret squeezed his shoulder. “Ready, brother?”
Drew nodded. Worry twisted his gut. God, he didn’t want to let anyone down. But he didn’t know how much longer he could go on like this. He opened his mouth, desperate to tell someone the way his mind roiled. His brothers looked at him expectantly, smiles on their faces and light in their eyes. This was the culmination of everything they’d worked so hard on, of hours in the studio, of months on the new album, of years building a following. And more than that—Jax had found his voice because of his mate; Chase had found his foundation because of his.
“Good luck out there, guys.” Drew couldn’t disappoint them, not now.
Bret started up the primal chant, and anticipation filtered through their tight circle. Drew tried to make his heart and soul respond. He wanted to feel the excitement, the fizz of expectancy like his brothers did. Instead, he felt empty. Yet still he picked up the chant, growled the loudest, beat his chest the hardest.
