by J. L. Weil
I still had feelings for Travis Winters.
And really, what girl wouldn’t? I had to have been the world’s biggest idiot turning away from a guy like him, but the majority of the world didn’t have my problems.
It was for the best, I cajoled as I ran inside my house, slamming the door behind me.
Chapter 10
The next day, I enrolled in school.
Joy.
Truthfully though, I was secretly thrilled to be back in a classroom. Being educated at the facility had not been high on their list of priorities. Online classes an hour or two a day at the most. I’d missed interacting with people, walking down the halls, having my own locker, and graffiti desks with carved hearts. The little things that everyone took for granted or complained over, those were the things I’d missed the most.
The hunger for learning had never left me, but my peers thirst for gossip would be first and foremost. My return was going to be five o’clock news worthy.
Tossing my hair into a ponytail, I wore no makeup, but my cheeks were already a natural rose color. My green eyes were bright with anticipation and a hint of nerves. Dressed in what had become my usual wardrobe of black khakis and a tee, I had traded in my dresses the day I was taken.
Staring at my reflection, I gave myself one of those “Emma, you can do this” speeches. They never helped, but it was worth a shot. I snatched my keys from the counter and slung my bag over my shoulder.
Here goes nothing. Senior year, here I come.
And to think I was going to graduate Hall High.
With my head held I high, I entered my old school feeling just a little nostalgic. What I hadn’t missed was the attention, the hushed whispers, and the gasps of surprise. I could have done without all that, but it was understandable. There were a least a dozen rumors swirling around about my disappearance, and none of them came close to the truth, but I figured a fabrication was better than the real thing in this case.
Did my peers really want to hear about the tribulations I’d endured before I was broken in body and spirit? I didn’t think so. Mostly everyone here would have covered their ears, except maybe Chase and Craig. They were kind of warped.
My boots clapped on the linoleum floor as I made my way to my assigned locker. Weighed down with school supplies, I was stopped a few times, girls gushing over my unexpected reappearance. I revealed as little as possible, and their silly tears made me uncomfortable, especially from girls who barely knew me.
I ended up distracted, seeing Angel. Alone. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I pulled myself away from the swarm of peeps. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite mutant,” I said in my sweetest voice, knowing it would irritate her.
Angel screwed up her face in anger. “Fancy seeing you here. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but I’d be lying.”
I tsked. “Such manners. Didn’t your mama teach you that if you don’t have something nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all?”
Her eyes practically flashed red. “Listen, you redneck skank—”
I grinned. “Do you kiss your boyfriend with that dirty mouth?”
“I told you. He is not my boyfriend,” she enforced between clenched teeth.
Blah. Blah. Blah. So she said before. I leaned in, propping a hand on the locker by her head. “Is that why he spends so much of his time with his hand up your shirt?”
She shook her head and shoved off the locker. “I don’t have time for this.” She began to move toward the crowd, fuming with each heavy step.
“Lucky for you, all I have is time,” I sneered.
This was going to be so much fun. They were going to rue the day they let me go. I was dying to harass Sierra. That bitch deserved it the most, and I couldn’t wait to sink my claws into her.
It was probably totally wrong that I was enjoying myself and plotting ways to make their lives miserable, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of entertainment in good ole Spring Valley. I planned to make my time here count, leave my stamp on the place, because I knew this was only a temporary assignment. Eventually, I would be sent somewhere else to clean house.
Since Travis had dropped me off, I stuffed all thoughts of him in a deep, dark corner of my brain. He was a distraction I couldn’t afford, and the feelings that he was dredging up were dangerous.
Over the next few weeks, Angel and I had numerous run-ins during and after school. It had become the highlight of my day, ruffling her feathers. I realized that if I wanted Chase’s head on a platter, I needed to get to him through Angel. Tormenting her in the process was just an added bonus.
I yanked on a strand of Angel’s long hair, hoping to get a rise out of her during math. Getting under her bitten nails was more fun than pre-calc. Her only reaction was to pull her hair to the front, over her shoulder.
I snickered.
Taking the end of my pen, I poked her in the back. And again.
She spun around, eyes like blue flickering flames. “Stop it,” she hissed.
A few people turned our way. I smirked and shrugged. “Just want you to know that I’m watching you,” I whispered.
“Like I could forget.”
Lexi frowned at us from the next aisle over, and Angel rolled her eyes in return.
I leaned forward on the desk. “You know I heard that if you do that enough, your eyes go cross-eyed.”
“Bullshit,” Lexi said, covering the word in a cough.
I couldn’t help myself. My lips twitched in what might have been misconstrued as a small grin. I had to bite back my smartass retort. We had caught the attention of our pea-brain instructor.
“Ladies,” Mr. Davis scolded. His bushy mustache jiggled as he spoke. “Is there a problem?”
Was there ever! We were sitting in a class with a demon offspring, a demon hybrid-thing-a-ma-jig, and a demon hunter. Yeah, we had big problems. “No, Mr. Davis. Lexi and Angel were just offering to help me catch up on the assignments,” I replied in a sugary sweet voice.
Angel choked.
Lexi snorted like a lady.
And I smiled.
Chapter 11
Travis caught me off guard. All day, the skies had poured in anger. Lightning and thunder raging against each the other in a war as old as time. Winds screamed, fighting with the trees and anything that got in their path.
Locked away in my bedroom, I sat by the window, listening to the rain pelt the glass. I laid my forehead against the cold pane and watched as my breath fogged the glass. Mom and Abigail were at the dance studio in town, and I was alone. I hugged my knees to my chest, and for the first time in a long time I felt the urge to dance—in the rain nonetheless. The feeling snuck up on me. Before I wouldn’t have thought twice about dancing with the music of Mother Nature, but now, I just sat there tracing the dripping raindrops.
I released a huge sigh when a movement in the trees edging my property caught my eye. No longer was I alone. Another flash of blue and I was positive who it was.
Travis.
He stepped forward, eyes connecting with mine through the stormy fog. Blond hair, dark and wet, was pasted to his face, but it was the sea-green eyes and the damp long eyelashes that tugged at something inside me. He looked like a lost and drowned puppy, without a soul in the world to care for him. That was just the kind of person the old Emma would have gravitated to, eager to take in the stray.
But now…I closed my eyes and took one long controlled breath.
It didn’t help.
Just fan-freaking-tastic.
I bolted from the window and ran for the stairs, jumping the last few steps. When I reached the door, I threw it open. “What are you doing here? Have you lost your mind?” And I thought I was a total head case.
He was leaning on the doorframe, soaked to the bone, and still managed to look smokin’ hot. “I needed to see you.”
I stood there staring at him as if he had lost his mind. Coming to a house of hunters? Was he crazy?
I stepped onto the porch, closing t
he door behind me. Our bodies brushed, and a shiver ran over me. It was most definitely not from the rain. All around us sheets of water poured like buckets. After a quick scan of the yard I grabbed Travis’s hand, hauling him around the house. My mom would kill me if her floors got wet, and I couldn’t risk anyone seeing us together.
We shouldn’t be together.
I should have told him to go, right then and there.
Instead, I locked us inside the garage and looked at my watch. We had less than an hour before my mom was due back home. He could say his peace and split. “Are you insane, coming here?” I demanded.
I tried to unlace our fingers, but he was having none of it. His grip held our hands fused together. He tugged on our arms, bringing me closer to him. The heat from our drenched bodies fizzed. A darkened amber popped into his eyes, and I knew that would lead down a path I didn’t want to explore, even though my body was all on board. I opened my mouth to protest, but found myself silenced by his sensual lips.
He took me by surprise.
At first I didn’t know what to do. It was like I’d never done this before. His lips grinded on mine, turning my mind to mush. Our dripping wet clothes were smashed between us, but I couldn’t have cared less.
Then I was kissing him back, but it was different now. He changed angles, gathering me close, my hands fisted in his sopping hair. A bolt of pleasure shot through me, making me dizzy from all the sensations swarming in my system. My heart was beating in my head, echoing in my ears like a train picking up speed in a tunnel.
Holy mighty hotness.
His lips were soft and seeking, but unyielding. I was powerless to resist. The fight inside me had gone out, if just for this stolen moment in my garage, on a magical raining day. It almost felt normal. His kiss offered comfort I didn’t know I was searching for. Strong hands spanned the small of my back, keeping me secure.
There was desperation to our kiss, stemming from every lost second torn from us, every fear, and all the space that had separated us. Feelings that had been stomped out of me came rushing back in tidal waves. My fingers curled into his shirt, and he lifted me off the ground, my legs wrapping around him. The kiss might have started out sweet, but it quickly deepened, taking it to an edge I wasn’t sure I was stable enough for.
Jesus, I could barely handle the emotions that were wildly churning inside me. I didn’t recognize the girl draped around Travis, her mouth merged with his.
My back hit the wall of the garage, and I let a breathy moan escape. Had that just come from me? I didn’t think I was the kind of girl who got swept off her feet by a kiss, but damn, it wasn’t just any kiss. Travis kisses altered my world.
That was a scary thought.
I reveled in the shudder that rolled through him as I ran my teeth along his lower lip. We came up for air, but his lips were always busy, leisurely paying attention to any part of me he could. My neck. My jaw. The sensitive spot on my ear.
“Hmm,” he murmured, and the sound vibrated against my lips as his mouth once again found mine. “You still taste like peaches.”
And he could still kiss the socks off me.
He made me lose my head, made me forget what I was…and that was the problem.
His head dipped to kiss me again, but this time I shoved at his chest with the first breath of clarity since we’d stepped into the garage. We couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let him get inside my head. I was tired of people poking around in there. For the first time since my release, I wanted to find myself. Who I was. What I wanted to be. I was sick of being caught up in everyone else’s battles.
Fuck the facility.
My life was a smorgasbord of messed up, and I was going to take the reins and steer my life in the direction I wanted to go.
Somehow.
I would deal with the “how” later. Right now I needed to deal with Travis and his super sexy lips.
“I didn’t bring you in here to make out,” I snapped, unable to not stare at his mouth.
He angled a brow and smirked, showing me his lady-killer dimples. “That…was long overdue.”
The boy was relentless; I’d give him that.
And I needed room to breathe without the scent of him clogging my brain. It was distracting and made me want things I couldn’t yet have. It was a travesty. I needed to fix me, before I could even think about Travis.
I just hope he got that.
“This…won’t work,” I insisted with more force, whatever it took to get it through his thick skull, even if I had to beat it into him.
He took a step toward me. “We can be together again. We can find a way.”
I held up my hands, warning him to not come any closer. There might have been a small dagger that I jerked out of my back pocket clutched in one of them. A girl can never be too prepared. “No. We. Can’t.” Here it goes—the heart-crushing speech. I took a deep breath. “There is no us.”
He flinched, but I barreled through, needing to get it all out there before I let him coax me back into his arms. “This was a huge mistake.” He shook his head, not really hearing me. “I’m a hunter. I kill your kind. Do you get that? A hunter for hire and I am charged with killing your cousin. That hasn’t changed.” Yet, I added silently to myself. Chase’s future was still uncertain. “Can you honestly say you’re on board with that? Me killing Chase?”
Silence.
I scoffed. “Yeah. I didn’t think so.”
His eyes darkened to a dangerous color. “I get that you’ve been through hell and back, but I’m not giving up on us. I love you, Emma.”
Talk about sucking the air right from my lungs. “Travis, you don’t even know me anymore.”
“That girl is still in there, whether you believe it or not. I wasn’t able to fight for you before, and trust me they will pay.” His voice dropped to frozen octaves. “But I am here now and I won’t let you go so easily this time, not without bringing the walls down around us first.”
“Travis, I need space. I can’t think when you are near me.” Crap. Had that just come out of my mouth?
He gave me a dimple grin. “Good.”
I smacked him, and he caught my hand, threading our fingers. Travis had more excuses to see me than Carter had pills. And after awhile, I was finding it extremely hard to shut them all down.
The pad of his thumb ran across my chin. He was messing up my game plan, getting inside my head with his sexy dimples and “boy next door” charm. Travis was dangerous, but not in the way I had been brainwashed to believe. His weapons were his devilish good looks and his lips.
Oh Lord, his sweet lips were some much more lethal than any dagger, arrow, or sword I’d ever faced. “You need to leave. Now.”
He finally agreed to leave, but not without a good deal of reluctance. I slouched against the wooden frame of the garage and laid my head back. There should have been relief and irritation inside me, not disappointment and regret.
This sucked big cajones.
Chapter 12
It was Black Friday and I was feeling the height of crankiness. The holidays weren’t exactly joyous, filled with good tidings and all that stuff. Not for me. My dad made the trek home from the facility where he had been spending most of his time with the new recruits.
Thanksgiving at the Deen house had been the peak of awkwardness.
My bedroom became my hideout, especially after the dinner I had just been forced to endure. Would this feeling of never belonging ever leave me? Would I ever be able to find myself again? Be happy with myself?
Question after question tormented my mind as I stared out my bedroom window, the sheer white curtains floating around me. I had been failing miserably at trying to convince myself that what I imagined I’d felt the other day with Travis had been a fluke.
Normally I don’t lie to myself.
Since our steaming make-out session in the garage, Travis had been constantly on my mind. For shit’s sake, even now my cheeks flushed just thinking about him, thinking about our k
iss. I needed some severe therapy. Stat.
It was the buzzing of my cell phone, vibrating on my bed that tore my thoughts from Travis. Glancing at the number on my screen, I did a double take. “How the hell did you get my number?” I answered the phone. This was a secure line given to me upon my release from the facility. I’d given it to no one. Not even my mom.
“I have many talents, Em, as you know,” Travis replied in a voice both lazy and sexy at the same time.
How the heck did he do that?
I pretended that his voice didn’t cause my heart to go into cardiac arrest. “Oh, I bet. How about you use one of those talents to forget my number?”
“You wound me.”
I snorted. “As if that was possible.” He was sounding more and more like his pompous ass of a cousin. It must be something about demon blood that made them think they were God’s gift to woman and we all should swoon at their feet.
Ha.
Not in this lifetime.
He had another thing coming if he thought this was going to be easy. “I’m hanging up now, and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t call me again.”
“Emma.” My name tumbled from his lips in a plea. “I needed to hear your voice.”
Oh crap. He’s done it now.
My heart did a precession of cartwheels and maybe a few back flips as well. “You’re insane.”
“About you.”
I knew that he cared about me, loved me even, but hearing him say it out loud made my tummy turn to jelly mush. In my head, I could picture the dimples I was sure were winking at me. “You say that to all the girls.” After the words left my mouth, I realized that what felt like eons ago—back before I knew what he was—we’d had a very similar conversation.
Travis also remembered. “I thought we already covered this. There is no one else for me but you.”
If I closed my eyes, I knew that I would be able to see his face. Sandy hair that felt like satin in my fingers, sparkling aquamarine eyes filled with charm and charisma, and those damn dimples. He was the stuff of dreams.
