by A. C. Arthur
“What’s going on here?” he asked, holding a flailing Kyra in his arms.
“She wanted to make it clear that you belonged to her. I wanted to make it clear that my name is Lidia, not bitch.” I finished with a shrug then moved around both of them to walk out the door.
I was at my car, about to put the key in to unlock the door when he came to a stop about three feet away from me.
“You hit her in the middle of a crowded Starbucks, that’s a new one even for you,” Brayden said before chuckling.
His words only exacerbated the guilt trip I was already putting myself through. His laughter scraping along raw nerves that had endured as much as they could for one day. I whirled around, closing the space between us faster than I could blink.
“For your information your little tramp approached me! She poked me and told me I had to stay away from you. Really? Me stay away from you when you’re the one stalking me and my boyfriend all over campus!”
“You’re making another scene,” he said, looking quite amused.
“I don’t give a damn about making a scene! But you are not going to stand here and blame me for this when I’ve been doing nothing but trying to fit in to this place. I’ve been going to classes, studying hard, trying to become the best teacher that I can and what do I get in return? You all of a sudden acting like a sex-crazed maniac, Daniel screwing whatever pair of legs that open, and that crazy-ass girlfriend of yours acting like she owns the world and calling me out of my name.”
By then I was screaming and people that had filed out of the store were now in the parking lot looking at me like I’d lost my mind. Brayden, for his part, had finally decided that maybe this wasn’t as funny as he first thought, took my keys from my hand, and stuffed them into his pocket.
“Come on,” he said, pulling me by the arm and moving toward his truck.
I could have resisted, could have pulled away and yelled at him some more, but I was sick of people staring at me, all of them wondering what was wrong with me. I guess something could be said for the change, at least they weren’t looking at me like the members of the tribe. They weren’t shaking their heads in pity or thinking they were right all along.
Brayden held the passenger side door open and I climbed in, refusing to meet his knowing gaze. I snapped the seat belt in place and folded my arms over my chest, staring straight through the windshield to the darkness.
A minute later we were pulling out of the parking lot. Ten minutes later Brayden was still driving and I was still staring out the window.
“They don’t know about him or about what he did, you know,” he said finally.
I didn’t care what he said or what they knew because none of it mattered. None of them mattered.
“And you’re not him, don’t forget that fact while you’re sitting over there spitting mad at yourself for doing what came natural. She agitated you and you reacted. That doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you your uncle.”
I heard his words, he’d said them to me on many occasions before. A part of me recognized them as the truth, while a bigger part thought they represented nothing more than placation. Brayden was so good at that. Whenever I’d felt like I didn’t belong with him and his brothers he’d left them and taken me out alone. We’d spent more time swimming and racing and just sitting on a rock talking than I did with any of the other Sanchez brothers, it was no wonder we were so close. Maybe too close.
“I don’t give a damn about Daniel Mulligan or who he decides to lay up with,” I said, still looking out the window to the trees passing by quickly as Brayden drove on the highway.
“That’s good to hear,” he said. “He wasn’t worth it.”
“I don’t care about your little piece telling me to stay away from you either. If I choose to stay away I will, but not because she tells me to.”
“That’s not an option,” he replied immediately. “I don’t ever want you away from me.”
I looked over at him then. It was dark in the cab of the truck so his face was hidden in shadows but it didn’t matter. I knew everything there was to know about that face. I knew that just beneath his right ear was where a cheetah had taken a chunk out of his skin. It should have either killed him or at the very least left a grisly scar, but because he was a Shadow Shifter, it had done neither. I knew there was a muscle in his jaw that ticked whenever he was getting angry and that his thick eyebrows would furrow just before he shifted into his cat. I also knew that staring at him now and remembering all that was a colossal mistake.
“This all seems so pointless sometimes,” I admitted. “Us coming here trying to live among the humans, trying to gain acceptance. Why go through all of that when beneath it all we’re still different, we’re still outsiders from the jungle? We still don’t belong.”
“You belong wherever you want to be, Lidia. You can do whatever you want to do. The choice is and always will be yours.”
I let those words marinate, wondering how I felt about Brayden saying them.
“As long as I choose what you want,” I said before thinking. “I can be a teacher if I go with you and become an Assembly guard first. I can stay in school as long as I date who you want me to.”
The truck swerved, pulling over onto the side of the road so fast I was lucky to be strapped in.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Brayden said, turning sideways in his seat so he could face me. “I’ve never told you what to do or how to do it, never said you couldn’t be what you wanted. I came to this school to support you and to be with you and I haven’t left you because I want you to know that you have my support regardless of what you choose to do with your life.”
I opened my mouth to speak but Brayden put his hand over it.
“I’m not finished,” he told me. “As far as who you can date, the truth of the matter is I don’t want you dating anyone.”
Silence filled the cab.
“Anyone but me, that is.”
I sighed, turning away from him. “Take me back to my car, please.”
“After,” he said simply, a growl quickly following the words as he leaned over the console.
I think I knew what he was going to do. On some level I wanted it. The way one of his hands went to the back of my neck, pulling my face to his, and the other grasping my shoulder to hold me still, was breathtaking so I didn’t speak immediately. I also didn’t speak when his lips touched mine, because, well, his lips were on mine and despite all the conflict roaring through my body, this one thing was true. I liked Brayden’s lips on mine.
The kiss was hot and determined, hungry and demanding. His tongue thrust possessively into my mouth, I tilted my head to accept, to devour. Teeth and lips and moans and growls all came together to fill the cab of the truck with the thickest, sweetest-smelling aroma I’d ever imagined. With every inhale my body temperature soared. I wanted, needed more.
And Brayden pulled away.
He hesitated for a second like he wanted to go another round. I had to admit that I wouldn’t have argued that if he did. But the way he looked at me was like he wanted to say something more, maybe yell or shake me, or possibly—please, just one more time—kiss me into submission. My breasts tingled with that thought.
He slid back over to sit rigid in the driver’s seat, both hands gripping the steering wheel with enough intensity to whiten his knuckles. Then he drove off, leaving me to wonder and to want. I moved as close to the door as I could, turning my head until my neck hurt, to stare out the window.
Let my body tell it, I wanted Brayden like I wanted my next breath.
My mind, on the other end, knew it was a mistake, knew that it could not end well, that Brayden and his family might actually pay for the help they’d extended to me. That was what I could not bear, the outcome I would never forgive myself for.
CHAPTER 6
Brayden
After two weeks of this torture, I’d finally had enough and sent Lidia a text before I changed my mind.
>
WE NEED TO TALK
Tossing the phone onto the counter in my kitchen I moved about methodically fixing my ritual bowl of frosted flakes without really paying much attention to the task. This is how I’d been since dropping Lidia off at her car that night at Starbucks. It’s the only mode I’d been able to work in since sitting in my truck scenting her arousal—albeit mixed with anger—and her still denying what we are to each other.
I’d thought nothing could have made me angrier than seeing them together that night at O’Shea’s. Then I’d caught him with that girl and punched the hell out of him, so I felt justified, instead of angry. But then she still turned away from me. She didn’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t have Kyra, and yet, it still wasn’t enough. Lidia still wasn’t here with me.
The jingle of my phone snatched the angry and somewhat depressive thoughts from my mind and I dropped my spoonful of cereal back into the bowl to answer it.
“Yeah?” I snapped, then sighed. “Hello?”
“You alright?” Aidan asked on the other line.
Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, then letting it out slowly, I was finally able to sound as normal as I possibly could. “I’m cool. How about you? How’s the training going with the FL?”
Aidan’s timing was perfect. Talking about things I knew, things I was sure of, would make me feel better. Training to be a guard, making my future commitment to the Assembly and all it stood for, were what I knew best. They were all I’d been taught growing up, all I’d ever wanted to focus on.
“Things are getting pretty live here. Talk of the rogue army being built is strong. They’re almost positive Sabar’s heading up the effort and even more determined to get him before he gets too many of us.”
“Really? What happened?”
“A prostitute was ripped to shreds the other night and a few months back a senator and his daughter were brutally murdered. Cops are just starting to put the pieces together.”
“Damn, he’s moving fast, huh?”
“Yeah, Rome’s not happy about it. He’s called a telephone conference with all the FLs for a little later this morning, to strategize, I guess,” Aidan finished.
I wished I could be there. I wished I could sit at that table with all those seasoned warriors and listen as they decided how to deal with the biggest threat to the Shadow Shifters in our entire existence. The fact that the threat was one of our own was a damned shame, but one that would be rectified nonetheless.
“That’s not why I’m calling, Bray,” Aidan was saying.
“What? What do you mean? Is it Caleb? Has he gone off and gotten himself in trouble again?” My youngest brother was another one of our parents’ good deeds. It seemed Gil and Marta Sanchez couldn’t help but take in all the wayward and orphaned children of the Gungi.
Caleb’s father had been a human that had happened upon his mother while on a tour of the forest. Both of them had been in a place where they didn’t belong. His father had raped her and Caleb was conceived. When Caleb was five years old his mother had gone out in search of his father and been killed in the village by a human. That’s when Caleb had come to live with us and that’s when, I suspected, his nightmare of a life had taken on another meaning entirely—one outlined with bitterness and revenge.
“No. It’s not Caleb.” Aidan went quiet for a second or so which caused me to shake my phone, pull it away from my ear, and look down at it to make sure the call hadn’t been dropped.
“Hello?” I yelled into the phone. “Aidan?”
“I’m here. Mom’s sick,” he said as if he were saying something as simple as, “it’s raining outside today.”
“What do you mean sick?”
“They’re in London, or at least they were. Dad said she wasn’t feeling well after one of their meetings so she went back to the hotel room to rest. When he arrived hours later she wasn’t responsive so he called an ambulance. They called it exhaustion, said her blood count was low and that she needed iron and rest. They’re on their way back to the States now to find a shifter doctor.”
I leaned forward, unable to simply stand holding the phone any longer. My elbows dropped onto the counter, my head hanging low.
“They’re going to Florida?” I asked, not really able to vocalize any of the other junk running rampant in my head right now.
“Dad thinks it’s best if she’s in her own bed and she can see her ocean while she recuperates.”
“Her” ocean was the Atlantic Ocean, which was right off the coast of the home in Key West where we’d all grown up, when we weren’t traveling the world. It was our American home base, as Dad had told us when he first bought the house. It was Mom’s favorite place, second only to the Gungi.
“He’s right. She’ll rest there and she’ll get better,” I heard myself saying because that’s what I needed to happen.
Aidan was a bit more solemn in his response. “Right. So anyway, I just wanted to let you know.”
I nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Hey, everything alright with you? You sound a little off. I mean, even before I told you about Mom,” Aidan said.
I shook my head as if he could actually see me. Then I stood and opened my eyes, frowning down at the soggy mess my cereal had become. “I’m good.”
“Okay, well, when are you and Lidia heading out here? These finals are going to be brutal so you’ll need all the brushing up you can get.”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. The plan had been for us to leave after graduation and head for the East Coast. But just before the summer kicked off Lidia had started hinting around at maybe not going back for the finals. I tried to dismiss it, talked around it and didn’t really let her go too deep into her reasons, because I hadn’t wanted to hear it, hadn’t wanted to consider that our lives wouldn’t continue as I’d wanted. Then she’d gone to L.A. and hadn’t contacted me for three months. I knew then that the plan was changing, but I still didn’t want to accept it.
“Just a few things that need to be wrapped up first. We may not make it out until a little later than expected.” It was optimistic, I knew, especially after all that had gone down with Daniel and Kyra, but I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t latch on to the fact that I would go back without Lidia.
“Well, don’t take too long. It’s going to be hard enough getting back into the full swing of things after not actively training for four years. Believe me, I know,” Aidan added with a chuckle.
“Yeah, well, that’s because you were never that good anyway.”
“I can beat your sorry ass. Especially now, I can smell a rogue a mile away.”
“In your dreams,” I commented even though the last of his bragging sort of stuck with me.
We joked for a few minutes more, then both of us agreed to try and get in touch with Caleb to figure out what his status was regarding the finals. Caleb was a fighter, he’d been fighting all his life. Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally sure he was fighting for the same reasons we were and eventually, that would become a problem.
By the time I finished the call with Aidan I’d almost forgotten about my text to Lidia. Until I saw her reply.
YOU’RE RIGHT. WHEN? WHERE?
I frowned. She was agreeing that we needed to talk but I didn’t feel like that was a good thing. Either way, it needed to be done. I could figure out if I was going to like it later.
MY PLACE @6
Her reply was immediate. FINE
CHAPTER 7
Lidia
Brayden didn’t look good.
Well, not in the normal sort of way.
So don’t get me wrong, when he answered the door wearing nothing but basketball shorts that hung low—I mean, almost porn-flick low—on his waist, ankle socks, and tennis shoes, my throat instantly went dry. After a brief hello he’d turned to go back into the apartment and I’d had no choice but to follow behind him, seeing the line of sweat rolling down his spine, in between the two strongest and deliciously defined shoulder blades ever.
Aside from the lust that moved through my mind like a runaway storm, I could still sense that something wasn’t quite right.
Brayden hadn’t spoken since the hello and he’d walked straight through his living room, back toward the second bedroom where he kept his weight bench and other workout equipment. He’d always been a workout freak, wanting to keep his body in pristine condition for all the battling he’d presumed he would be doing as an Assembly guard—a fact that had always baffled me since he still ate meat like he might actually die without it.
He was sitting on the weight bench, one elbow resting on his knee while the other arm stretched forward to pick up another weight. Back and forth he flexed the weight as if it were a feather. It had multiple slats on the bar so I knew that wasn’t true, still, I stood watching, mesmerized.
Brayden had a great body, naturally tanned and beautifully sculpted. His black hair was damp, his face serious as he did one rep after another and another. Finally, I figured I’d better speak up instead of staring like some sort of groupie.
“We should talk about this personal thing that’s going on between us,” I started.
My voice sounded really loud since there was no other noise in the room. Unless I counted the occasional release of breath from Brayden and the slight click of the weights as they moved.
Then he dropped the weight to the floor and I jumped.
“Is that what it is, Lidia? A personal thing?”
Okay, he was definitely angry. I knew that tone, just as I knew he’d go for another weight before actually looking up at me.
“Our entire relationship is personal,” I began. “It’s always been that way. You and I were closer than me and your brothers. I knew that and so did everyone else. When I announced what college I wanted to attend everyone was excited for me, but not you. Then you announced you wanted to come along. I should have stopped you because I knew you weren’t interested in school.”
