by A. C. Arthur
“I would do anything for you,” he whispered. “Anything.”
***
Brayden was true to his word. We walked along the beach, hand in hand, until finally I had the guts to pull away. I walked backward toward the water, lifting the hem of my shirt as I moved.
“You really want to go for a swim,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.
“I really do,” was my response. My shirt fell to the sand and I reached behind my back to unhook my bra. Brayden’s gaze immediately lowered.
There was a rush of power and my shoulders shook slightly, my nipples tingled beneath the breeze. He liked what he saw and that made me feel more feminine than I’d ever managed my entire life. A smooth sensation, kind of like a waterfall, rippled down my spine and my skin felt sensitized, the breeze brushing against me, causing the slightest prickle of pain.
“Then I guess I have no choice but to join you,” he said, pulling his shirt up and over his head quickly.
My mouth watered at the sight, rock-hard abs, rippled and sculpted like he should be on the cover of one of those workout magazines. His dark skin had a slight glow in the moonlight. When his hands went to the rim of his sweatpants, mine went to the button of my shorts. Our gazes locked and we worked in synchronicity, pushing the garments—bottoms and underwear—down our thighs, stepping out of them slowly. I wore flip-flops so they came off with my shorts and panties. Brayden wore tennis shoes but he knelt quickly, untying them and toeing them off.
When he stood again he was gloriously naked. I wanted to touch him and I desperately needed him to touch me, so I lifted my arms, welcoming him.
“You are beautiful,” Brayden said when he was close enough to spread his fingers around my waist.
“You are my companheiro,” was my reply. Putting my hands to his shoulders, grasping his strength, feeling the warmth of his skin. “You have been my best friend all my life, you’ve been my champion, my greatest supporter. I love you.”
The words just slipped out, feeling as natural as the waves rolling against the shore, now lapping against our feet.
His hands were in my hair once again, the blunt tips of his fingers raking over my scalp. He pulled me closer until my breasts pressed against his chest.
“I feel like I’ve loved you forever.” His words were punctuated by the fierce touch of his lips to mine, the deep thrust of his tongue into my mouth.
From there it was like a frenzy of movements and emotions. Brayden broke the kiss, lifting me into his arms and carrying me deeper into the water. I kept my legs clasped around his waist, my arms around his neck, my lips on his. The coolness of the water did nothing to still the heat burning against my skin, or the cat raking its claws against my spine, displaying its desperate need.
As if he knew, Brayden’s hands went to my back, moving up and down. I’d never heard of this, never learned much about the mating and joining of shifters because I never wanted it to happen to me. But his simple touch calmed the cat inside, it slaked the vicious need, replacing it with sensuous hunger.
“There, baby. I’ve got you,” Brayden whispered in my ear. “I’m going to give you what you need.”
I didn’t know if he was saying that to me or to the cat and damn, I just didn’t care. His hands had moved from my back down to my ass, gripping tightly until I gasped with the sting of pleasure and pain.
“Right there, Lidia. Right there, sweetness.”
I heard his words and guided my hips until I felt the pressure of his engorged tip. Brayden pushed my bottom and thrust deeply until he was planted firmly inside of me. We both shouted with the connection, our voices lost in the roar of the waves.
“I love you, Brayden,” I said, my back arching so that it felt like he was going even deeper inside of me. “I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Never,” he said, keeping his grip on my waist, thrusting his hips in and out. “You’re never going to lose me, sweetness. Never.”
I believed him because I needed to, I had to. Now that I’d decided that my place was with Brayden, the thought of losing him was not a possibility. I’d wanted it all, wanted the most happiness that I could find and here it was. It had been standing right beside me all along.
CHAPTER 14
Brayden
“Coroner ruled the death of Kyra Hopkins a suicide. There was no one else found in the apartment, dead or alive,” Jace told us as we sat in the hotel room he’d obtained for us in Pacifica.
Beside me Lidia reached for my hand. I took hers, squeezing tightly to assure her that everything was going to work out. Even though I wasn’t sure I was going to like what Jace was about to say.
“The police want a statement from you,” he continued. “Your statement needs to be that you broke up with Hopkins two weeks ago. She confronted Lidia, warning her away from you following the breakup but you had no other contact with her. You were not at home the night of the suicide, hence the mess found in your apartment. You were at my place in Malibu supervising the construction.”
Lidia tensed beside me and I shook my head even though I knew it wasn’t what Jace wanted to see from me. I was supposed to be strong and decisive and committed to our tribe. I’d been trained to be just that type of shifter. Although Aidan was the oldest, he’d always taken his duties lightly, never really pushing as hard as he could to be the very best shifter. I suspect because he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted to be, kind of like Lidia. But me, I always knew, always wanted to do what was expected of me.
Now, not so much.
“You want me to lie to the police?” I asked Jace.
The FL had been leaning against a desk, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest. He’d looked somber and no-nonsense, as if he expected me to simply go along with everything he’d said.
“No,” he said bluntly. “I want you to go into that police station and tell them that Sabar had a group of rogues on your and Lidia’s tail for the past eight months. That his plan was to use you to get Lidia to come to him. Kyra Hopkins, a human, somehow got mixed up with rogues and they used her to get to you. Lidia would do anything for you, and Sabar was playing on her weakness, something he makes a habit of doing with young, less-experienced shifters.”
Jace released his arms, planting his hands on the desk and continued to stare at me. “So you can go to the police station and tell them you were there, that you killed a rogue and injured two others. You can tell them that you were going to kill Kyra but she beat you to the punch. And then you can sit in a human jail or insane asylum until they figure out what to do with you, or until your cat gets fed up with the containment and breaks free, exposing you to even more humans and possibly death.” Jace shrugged. “It’s your choice.”
I didn’t know what to say, and if I had any ideas, I wasn’t sure how to convey them. Lidia spoke first.
“He’ll tell them exactly what you said, Jace. I was with him in Malibu when Kyra jumped out of that window.”
She spoke so strongly, so concisely, I almost believed what she’d said was true.
At the same time I felt like I might be watching all my ideals and dreams fly out the window just as Kyra had. Was this really what I wanted? Was this the type of shifter I wanted to be?
“You cannot fight the battle if you’re locked up, Brayden. You killed a rogue, not a human. And Kyra killed herself. This is what we do,” she said, using a finger against my chin to turn my face to hers. “This is what we do,” she repeated.
We. I loved the sound of that, loved the total connection we felt now and the scent that wafted through the air when we were together. She was my other half, she was part of me. That fact was undeniable. I’d thought this was where I wanted us to be in life, but I think there was a part of me that never really thought it would be. How to act now that it was, didn’t come as easily as I’d thought it would.
Lidia touched my face and she smiled. “This is what we do.”
I shook my head. “It’s
not what I do.”
Jace stood. He didn’t speak for the seconds after I did and neither did Lidia. I released her hand and stood as well.
“My parents traveled the world, counseling different tribes on keeping the peace, on protecting the humans from those of us who thought to rule the world. Shadow Shifter guards are to protect the humans against the rogues. We are not authorized to kill just for the sake of doing so,” I said.
“Is that what you did?” Jace asked.
I couldn’t see his face because I’d walked over to the window, looking out at the fading daylight.
“Did you just walk into your own living room and kill the man that had come there supposedly to rob you?” the FL continued. “Or did you protect your mate from a rogue that was about to kill her? The other two rogues were disarmed, not killed.’
“But I was going to kill the girl.” This was the first time I’d said these words, the first time I’d vocalized something that had been nagging at me since it happened.
I made the decision to shift into the cat when I knew Kyra was in the room. I knew she would see me and I didn’t care. I killed right in front of her and Lidia and didn’t think twice about it. And when I realized what had happened because of my instincts, I decided to kill Kyra, a human.
A lump, like a heated rock of guilt sat in the pit of my stomach and I wanted to crumple beneath the pain. I wanted to roll into a ball and berate myself for being careless, for letting my emotions get the best of me, for putting my personal instincts against the good of the tribe. I didn’t preserve our most cherished law and look where we were now. Hiding out, thinking of a lie to make things better. It wasn’t right, at least not in my mind.
Lidia’s touch was what I felt next. Her hand on my arm. I didn’t look at her, couldn’t. Now that she’d decided to embrace her heritage she was in with Jace full force. I didn’t like disagreeing with her, but I couldn’t change what I felt.
“She set you up, Brayden. Maybe she didn’t know that the setup involved us both, but she knew she was bringing those guys to your house to possibly kidnap you. And you didn’t kill her, she jumped,” she said vehemently.
“I was going to kill her and so were you,” I said. “Is that really how we plan to deal with humans who happen to show up in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I know what you’re grappling with, Brayden. It’s a subject that Rome has been discussing with the FLs a lot lately. It’s why we’re working with the Stateside Assembly to come up with new laws to regulate the world we now live in, the times that are now upon us,” Jace said. “The Sanchez brothers, Lidia included, have long been on our radar. All of the FLs know what an asset each of you will be to our team. We know what you’ve been taught and we plan to teach you more, to help you grow into the shifters you want to be. Not that you were meant to be, Brayden, because that ideal came from a time and place that was unbound and unconventional. We need each of you with us, to bring to the table the struggles of your generation, the insights you’ve gained from living with the humans for these past four years. That’s why we, along with your parents, thought it was a good idea for all of you to go out on your own for a while.”
“It makes sense, Bray. What he’s saying makes a lot of sense and you know that’s saying a lot coming from me,” Lidia added.
I didn’t know what to say or what to do. This wasn’t what I’d learned or what I’d been prepared for. To tell the truth, Lidia’s total dedication to the tribe and to me wasn’t either. I’d hoped and dreamed, but I don’t know, there was a part of me that always seemed to doubt. Now what was I supposed to do?
***
The next day I walked out of the police station after giving the statement Jace and Lidia told me to give. Across the street in a stone-gray Suburban Lidia, Jace, and his driver were waiting for me. I paused at the top of the steps, taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly. It had rained last night so the air had a dewy fresh quality that still lingered even at almost ten in the morning. The sky was still overcast, traffic moving up and down the street at its regular pace. All seemed normal.
But that summation would have been wrong.
They came at me from both sides, their stench reaching my nostrils before I actually saw either of them. In seconds they were upon me and my first instinct was to shift, to go at them in cat form and tear their throats out. Instead, I ran down the steps barely missing them. I thought about going across the street, heading right for the truck but I knew they were watching, knew they would see what was happening and act accordingly.
I ran faster than they did. They were sloppy, which I should have surmised from before, the night they walked into my apartment. I hadn’t realized they were rogues then, hadn’t zeroed in on their scent like I did this morning. Now that I knew, the rules to the game were slightly adjusted. I cut down an alley, dodging a Dumpster that I wasn’t anticipating being so close to the opening. Then I crouched down behind that Dumpster and waited.
They ran into the alley, both of them, stinking, dirty bastards. Seconds later there were additional footsteps as the duo continued looking for me.
“We know you’re in here,” one of them yelled.
“Come out so we can get this over with,” a different voice said.
Then there was clicking, the safety coming off a gun. I came out from behind the Dumpster then, facing the two rogues with Jace, Lidia, and Jace’s driver all holding guns behind them.
“Yeah, I’d like to get this over with,” I said to the rogues. “I’ve got other things to do today.”
Before they could lunge, Jace was right up on one of them, holding the gun to his temple.
“Move and die,” he said through clenched teeth.
The driver came up beside the other one and Lidia pushed past both of them to get to me.
“How did you know they would come after you again?” she asked me.
I shrugged. “The job wasn’t finished. As long as they were alive Sabar was going to send them back. Now that they’re in our custody he’ll have to come up with another plan. And by then, I’ll be ready for his sorry ass.”
CHAPTER 15
The Mates
Three weeks later
“I could do this all day,” I said after another lap in the pool.
“And I could get used to watching you do that all day,” Brayden added from the spot where he sat on the side of the pool.
“Or you could come in and join me.”
He slipped into the pool, making his way closer to me. “Every time I get in the water with you, swimming is the last thing we do,” he said.
Moving away from Brayden was still an instantaneous thought in my mind, but I’d been getting good at pushing that thought away and staying still. He reached out to grab me then, his fingers at my waist, his strong arms pulling me up against his muscled body. I went willingly, wrapping my legs around him instantly.
I was expecting his kiss because that’s what usually came at this moment, but not this time. Instead he buried his face in the crook of my neck, holding me almost too tightly for me to breathe.
“Wherever you are is where I want to be, now and forever,” he whispered.
I ran my fingers through his damp hair, resting my cheek against his head. I loved him so much, not just for putting up with all my emotional crap, but for agreeing to stay in California with me while I finished up my teaching degree and accepted the internship at the charter school. And for accepting the job with the Pacific Zone as guard trainees, which would change to official guards, once he returned to the East Coast and took the finals—after we both returned to the East Coast and took the finals.
We were going to be guards together, I was going to teach in the human world, and we were going to be officially joined. I had everything I never realized I wanted and was still amazed to find that so did Brayden.
“Now and forever,” I told him. “Meu companheiro.”
Author’s Note
While writing the Shado
w Shifters: Damaged Hearts trilogy I had plenty of musical inspiration. Below is the playlist that truly personifies the Sanchez brothers and their journey to love. Hope you enjoy!
Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts Playlist
Beautiful, Mariah Carey f/Miguel
Maroon 5, Love Somebody
Stay, Rhianna
When I Was Your Man, Bruno Mars
Unconditionally, Katy Perry
Come and Get It, Selena Gomez
Everything Has Changed, Taylor Swift f/Ed Sheeran
We Remain, Christina Aguilera
Imagine Dragons, Demons
Read more e-novellas in the Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts series
…and don’t miss the Shadow Shifters novel: SHIFTER’S CLAIM, coming in August 2014!
About the Author
Lisa Fleet Photography
A.C. Arthur was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she currently lives with her husband and three children. An active imagination and a love for reading encouraged her to begin writing in high school and she hasn’t stopped since. Her debut novel Object of His Desire was written when a picture of an Italian villa sparked the idea of an African-American/Italian hero. Determined to bring a new edge to romance, she continues to develop intriguing plots, sensual love scenes, racy characters, and fresh dialogue—thus keeping the readers on their toes! Visit her at: www.acarthur.net.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
“Part of Me” copyright © 2014 by A.C. Arthur.
All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
