by A. C. Arthur
Priya didn’t want him controlling her and Bas apparently had no plans to add her to the list of things he had. So they were even, she’d thought when he’d left her in his suite alone, with instructions to stay there until he returned. Of course she hadn’t listened, and he shouldn’t have expected her to because she wasn’t in his employ and she wasn’t his … what? What did she want to be to Sebastian Perry? More than a passing fling, she surmised with a pang to her chest.
“This will end,” he’d told her. And it would, Priya knew. He would walk away and so would she. The question of whether or not the secret would remain intact was what had her temples throbbing. And it shouldn’t be that way. Her goal had been clear from the start, the job was done. Malik would be safe and her life would go on without Sebastian Perry. It sounded even more clear-cut the more she played it over and over in her mind.
Unfortunately, her mind wasn’t the problem. Her body and her emotions seemed to be taking over and she had no clue what to do about that fact. So she stopped thinking about it and lifted a hand to knock on the resort room door she’d been headed to.
A few seconds later the door was opened. Priya was holding up a hand before the woman on the other side could speak.
“I know, I know, you told me not to go downstairs. You told me it wasn’t a good idea to be in the bunker and I didn’t listen.”
Jewel folded her arms over her chest and frowned. “I told you it was dangerous down there.”
Yes, she had, Priya thought. Jewel had tried to tell her so much more and Priya wondered if she would get all that information from the woman now.
“I know, and I apologize for being so pigheaded and reckless.” She hadn’t really thought she was both those things but had been told so in the past so just went with it.
It was apparently a good assumption to go with since Jewel actually looked a little more relaxed after the comment.
“What do you want now, Priya?” she asked impatiently.
“I want to talk to you about what’s going on here. About what I think you know.”
The woman shook her head, dangling silver crescent earrings moving with the motion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
Jewel tilted her head, her eyes narrowing just a bit before she gave a slight nod. “You want to confirm that I’m not romantically involved with Mr. Perry.” She sighed heavily. “I told you before there’s nothing going on between him and me. As a matter of fact, I’d venture to say that considering you’re still here and not kicked out on your butt, that he must be pretty into you. So there should be no worries on your part.”
Priya started to say something, started to deny but stopped. Growing up, she’d had two older sisters who had their own forays with the opposite sex, and of course, there was her mother. Funny how none of the females in the Drake family had ever been exceptionally close, so when Priya had experienced her first date and the next and the next, it had been a very private affair. Even throughout high school and college she’d never been able to forge any close or lasting bonds, especially not with females. That didn’t mean she was averse to them, just hadn’t found the right one, she supposed, kind of like she’d never found the right guy.
“I’m not worried,” she replied slowly.
Jewel nodded as if she really didn’t believe her. “Okay, good, then, I think you should leave.”
Priya raised a brow. “Why? Did someone tell you not to talk to me?”
With a heavy sigh Jewel lifted her hands and massaged her temples. “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”
Trying desperately to ignore Jewel’s comment about Bas being into her, Priya still wanted answers about other things. She suspected that Jewel knew this and was wrestling with whether or not to cooperate with her. Priya wanted that cooperation badly, she needed it. There were questions she had that even Bas couldn’t answer, but she had a feeling Jewel could. Alienating the woman definitely wasn’t going to work in her favor so she quickly decided on another tack.
“You wanna go downstairs and have a drink?” she offered. That’s what girlfriends did, or so she thought. They had drinks together, they talked, shared, answered each other’s questions, maybe?
Jewel looked at her closely for a moment and then the woman did something that was absolutely abnormal, and more confirming than Priya could have ever hoped for. Jewel took a step forward and looked up the hallway, then down, then back at Priya again.
“Fine,” she said tightly. “Let me get my keys.”
Twenty minutes later the two women were sitting in La Selva sipping mojitos and talking about nothing more than the décor and the food.
“It’s Spanish-inspired just like everything else here at Perryville. I think Mr. Perry’s parents were from Brazil or something like that,” Jewel said as she toyed with the ends of her napkin.
“I can see that,” Priya commented, looking around the restaurant.
What she really saw were tourists enjoying their vacations. Across the room was a family of six—mom, dad, and four kids that looked to range in age from fifteen all the way down to five. The two younger kids touched each other repeatedly, earning baleful looks from mom and reproachful ones from dad. While the two older ones took to more verbal altercations that finally had dad elbowing the older boy and the girl he’d been arguing with smiling in triumph. The scene might have touched a spot in Priya’s heart except Levi Drake had never been a real father, so she had no idea what the complete family experience felt like. Adding to that dismal thought was the fact that she would most likely never have a husband, or four kids that they needed to reprimand while on vacation.
“So Bas is from Brazil?” she asked even though that wasn’t the question she’d planned.
“His parents are. He was born in New York.”
“Yes, I remember reading that somewhere online,” she said a little absently as she tried to figure out why she wasn’t asking questions about the shifters, but was focusing solely on Bas now.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read online, reporters are biased,” Jewel commented before picking up her glass to take a sip. “They tell the stories they want to tell, regardless of the effects it will have on other people.”
Now that comment hit home, reminding Priya of the story she’d written but had yet to send to anyone. “Good reporters get the facts first,” she defended herself. “I like to deal with facts, such as, Sebastian Perry is a bit of a recluse, living out here in his own little world, doing his own thing.”
“Is that bad?” Jewel asked. “Not doing what everyone else wants you to do, being your own person, taking charge of your own life. Is there something so wrong about that?”
“No,” Priya replied immediately, thinking back to the day she’d moved out of her mother’s house and into the college dorm. She’d only been able to stay there for one year before the small scholarships she’d received had run out. Working as a waitress and living in the basement of an older woman whose husband had been a journalist gave her the inspiration to push further. And when she’d managed to transfer from the community college to Howard University where she eventually graduated with a journalism degree, Priya had been beyond proud for making her own decisions and pursuing the life she’d always wanted for herself.
Of course, her old life still had a hold on her and kept her returning to her mother’s house to help out whenever she could.
“Why do you stay here?” she asked Jewel abruptly. “I mean, you can be an administrative assistant anywhere. I’m guessing that’s what your title is, right? Why do you stay in Perryville?”
Jewel looked up with such sadness Priya almost reached out to touch the woman’s hand. Something told her that wasn’t what the other female wanted and Priya understood completely. Pity was not an emotion she wanted to be on the receiving end of, ever.
“It’s a good place to be,” was Jewel’s slow response. “And after a while you just want to be in a goo
d place, with good people.”
“Are they good people here? Perry and his sidekicks, are they good people?” That was the question that had bothered her throughout the night.
Bas said the Shadow Shifters were good, that they were creating a democracy for themselves, living amongst the humans in peace. So far she had to believe that was true, if she didn’t think about the bank robbery or the murders back in D.C. He’d said they didn’t wish to harm humans or anyone else for that matter. But he’d killed a man right in front of her. Priya couldn’t forget that, nor could she ignore Bas’s unapologetic demeanor when she’d mentioned it to him. True, the larger-than-life man had been an intruder so she could look at the death as self-defense, but something deep down told her it was more than that. Just as something told her there was more to Bas and his people than he’d told her.
“You ask a lot of questions. Have you always been this inquisitive?” was Jewel’s response.
Priya shrugged. “I guess so. Nobody ever gave me real answers growing up so when I was old enough I was determined to find them, to never not be in the know again. That’s why I became a journalist.”
If Priya wanted the look on Jewel’s face to change instantaneously, drastically, she would have made that announcement much sooner. But really it looked like the woman wanted to bolt instead of finish their drink.
“You’re a reporter. What are you doing here? What are you writing?” she asked in what Priya instantly recognized was a nervous voice.
“Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute,” Priya said, this time reaching out to touch Jewel’s arm as the woman was about to leave. “I’ll tell you why I’m here, just have a seat.”
Jewel hesitated. She looked around the restaurant, then out the window, then back to Priya as if she really had no choice.
“It’s not about you,” she said on instinct. The fear that had entered Jewel’s eyes the moment she said she was a reporter, coupled with the pounding heart rate she’d felt as she grabbed her wrist, meant the woman was probably on the run from something. Now, the look of relief that was slowly taking over assured Priya that it wasn’t a situation she wanted to get into. Jewel could rest assured there would be no question-and-answer session aimed at her past, not from Priya at least.
“I just want to know more about them. Perry and the legions of men he has following him around like he’s some kind of mobster or something.”
“They’re his guards,” Jewel said softly. “They are sworn to protect him and they don’t deserve you spreading lies about them.”
Priya shook her head. “No, that’s not what I want to do,” she stated emphatically, for the first time since this whole thing had begun, really thinking about what those people were asking her to do. “I don’t want to spread lies about them, I just want to understand better.” And then she would make a decision on releasing the story.
Jewel flattened her hands on the table, then as if nervous about something, picked up a napkin and absently played with the edges. “You asked before if they were good. Yes, they are. They let me stay here without any questions. I do my job and I live my life here with them, knowing that I’m safe because of them.”
Right, Priya thought without posing another question. Being safe was important, especially when fear of whatever is chasing you outside of Perryville has a stranglehold on you and your life. For the first time in her life Priya felt connected to someone, to a female. She felt like she and Jewel had a lot in common even though neither of them had actually confessed the truth about themselves. Jewel was afraid of something, just as she was, and both of them had ended up here, in Perryville, with Bas and his friends, and that had to mean something.
It meant that was the end of the interview, Priya concluded. She’d never had a real friend, besides Lolo, and wasn’t certain she could count Jewel as one just yet. What she did know for sure was that the thought of Priya being there to question her had made Jewel so afraid she’d paled. For the first time in a long time, Priya felt like crap about her job. Or rather, her time with Jewel had magnified the niggling doubt she’d had just before leaving her room. Suddenly, she was glad she hadn’t hit SEND on the e-mail to Agent Wilson.
* * *
Ezra Preston had been born and raised the first twelve years of his life in the Gungi. He spoke fluent Portuguese, English, and a bit of Italian—if the female was fine enough to warrant the taxing on his brain to remember the melodious language. The first son of Aran and Gena Preston, his father was a leader in warrior training for the Topètenia tribe, and he’d grown up learning everything there was to know about fighting as a Shadow Shifter, in human and cat form. His twin brother, Eli, younger by two and a half minutes, had learned right beside him, almost as if the two had been born conjoined instead of identical.
On their thirteenth birthday the twins had been sent to the States to attend a prestigious private school, a gift from their maternal grandfather who sternly believed in the integration of shifters and humans. They studied American culture by day and were allowed to roam as cats along their grandparents’ vast estate in the mountains of Pennsylvania by night. At seventeen they were flown to Sierra Leone to train with exiled warriors from the Lormenia and Serfin tribes. It was important to their grandfather that they know as much about each shifter tribe as possible. Hector Preston wanted his grandsons to be highly intelligent as well as thoroughly trained in defense amongst the shifter world and the human one. But two years later when the twins were slated to join the army, they’d performed their first revolt from the tyranny that had been their life.
Eli had actually been the first to comment on the path their lives were taking, while Ezra had been somewhat content to continue learning about battle strategies and weak points within each tribe. The idea to support their tribe by becoming more active in the newly formed Stateside Assembly and possibly more like their human side than the loincloth-wearing warrior Topètenia had been Eli’s as well. It hadn’t taken much for Ezra to agree—in fact, it had taken the first human female in his bed to convince him there was so much more to the world than just the Shadow Shifters.
Ten years later they were Lead Guards to the Head of the Stateside Assembly, positions of stature and great importance that impressed their parents and grandparents—who had been a little harder to convince. They were still fighting side by side and leading with the same attention to loyalty and strength as they’d been taught.
It was those teachings that had drawn Ezra to a complete stop as he’d walked into La Selva and noticed the two females sitting at a table near the windows.
The first female, who faced him as he moved slowly to the table the waitress led him to, caught his attention for many reasons. Of course there were the obvious ones, the intense red shade of her hair and the brilliant green of her eyes—attention getters if ever he’d seen any. But they neither impressed nor encouraged him to continue staring even after he was seated, menu slipped between his fingers.
He was two tables away from them and could see her as if she were sitting only a foot or so away. Pert lips moved as she spoke; slim, blunt-nailed fingers feathered through her hair just before her head lowered, then lifted again, concern etched plainly across her face. She wasn’t a skin-and-bones type of female even though the half-eaten salad in front of her would have instantly given that impression. But her face was full, her arms shapely, not frail. Ezra would bet the extraordinary salary he received from the Stateside Assembly that she was neatly curvy in shape and as alluring all over as her face.
She lifted her glass to her lips and his dick twitched. No, the clever bastard didn’t just twitch, it rose to stand at complete attention, ready, willing, and able to begin the process which would undoubtedly lead to a happy and satisfying ending. Ezra dropped his menu and let one hand fall to his thigh where his length had extended. His other hand lifted his own glass of water, putting it to his lips so he could take a gulp, then another as he realized her lips were now as wet as his own. Until she licked them, then the hand
on his thigh had no other choice but to rub along his thick erection, a deep purr rumbling in his chest.
In the next instant, as if she’d heard his gratitude for her simple act of drinking water, she looked directly at him. If he had not been wearing True Religion jeans, steel-toed boots, and a long-sleeved Under Armour shirt, he might have felt exposed himself. He might have assumed she could see his naked body, hot and hard for her. He also might have considered that the next swipe of her tongue across her bottom lip meant she was ready, willing, and able to give him the ride of his life—reverse cowgirl style just the way he liked it.
Instead her look slowly shifted to concern, maybe even fear, Ezra decided as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled with agitation. His body chilled as if she’d picked up a hose and doused him with ice-cold water. Fear from a female was neither attractive nor tolerated by Ezra—or any of the shadows for that matter. Bred into them as viciously as their warrior instincts and the laws of the Ètica, was the staunch rule to protect their females, at all costs. Ezra—who had never given a thought to being mated, but absolutely loved the female race, human and shifter—took that extremely seriously.
Setting down his glass he leaned forward in his seat, prepared to do what, exactly, he had no clue. He didn’t know this woman, had no idea what had frightened her or what now had her head lowering once more, her lips moving frantically as she spoke to the female accompanying her.
The female, Ezra noticed with a jolt, who was oddly familiar.
They’d been sitting at a table with four chairs, the redhead with her back to the window, facing the front entrance—hence grabbing Ezra’s attention immediately. Her companion was sitting right beside her, instead of across the table, so that now that he’d decided to stop drooling over the redhead, Ezra could see her face as well. And his body stiffened for an entirely different reason.
