Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts, The Complete Series: Mine to Claim, Part of Me, and Hunger for You

by A. C. Arthur

  “I do not want you,” she insisted, her voice hitching just a bit.

  “Liar,” I accused her, holding her tight, loving the feel of our bodies so close. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for this female, no limits to how much I would grovel and plead and wait. The cat inside, on the other hand, had reached its limit as evidenced by the quick and low growl that escaped.

  Lidia shivered at the sound, the cat inside her most likely ready to answer in kind to the heat. “Bully,” she yelled, pulling from me and running down the steps until she got to the bottom. “You can’t make me feel what you feel, Brayden. Even if Daniel is an ass, there’s no future for you and me outside of a friendship. We have different goals and will eventually go in different directions. It’s just not a smart move,” she finished, huffing out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

  In the next instant she was down the steps, running away from me once more. I started to yell down at her that this thing between us wasn’t a “smart” move, it was the only move, the only future for us, for shifter mates.

  Instead, I exercised all the restraint I’d been taught, held the cat at bay with all the strength I possessed, and continued down the steps slowly until I was eventually outside of the dorm house and walking across the street to my truck. I didn’t look for Lidia because I knew exactly where I could find her. I knew her entire schedule, just as I knew she’d been angry with herself for running away. Lidia hated the idea of being a coward almost as much as I hated her persistent thoughts of us not continuing our lives together. Unfortunately, none of that changed a damned thing, that’s what I wanted to make her understand.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lidia

  My mind was definitely not on the stars while I sat in the back row of astrology class. It wasn’t even really on the alleged betrayal of my wannabe boyfriend. It was where it always seemed to be lately, on Brayden.

  I hated that I’d known he was on the other side of the door before I’d even opened it today. I’d known when Daniel was at the door as well, but the sensations were drastically different. Whereas Daniel’s scent was fresh, human, aroused, Brayden’s was dangerous, a sweet, sultry scent that seemed to speak to me on another level entirely. I knew that level and I freakin’ despised it!

  The growl that rumbled in my chest as I looked up to see his thick eyebrows and inky-black hair in need of a trim was another unwelcome trait. I’d heard him talking but what he said hadn’t mattered because I simply didn’t want him to be there. I mean, yes, for years Brayden had been one of the first people I saw in the morning but that was when we were staying in the same house or hotel or cabin. Now that we lived in separate dwellings about twenty minutes away from each other, I didn’t like the fact that I could look up at any time and see him standing there.

  And yet when we were separated this summer, I hadn’t liked that either.

  Talk about never being satisfied.

  I wanted to scream with this indecision that plagued me like a deadly disease. One minute I thought I knew the answer, was certain of what I wanted and how I wanted to get there. I had an absolute mentality when it came to the tribe I was born into and the cruel hand it had ultimately dealt me. And then Brayden looked at me. He smiled. He laughed. He simply stood there knowing things that nobody should know until I chose to tell them. And my decisions faltered like a house of cards.

  I hated him for that.

  Not necessarily for telling me about Daniel, because after our three dates I knew there was never going to be anything serious between us. Hell, I hadn’t even been up to allowing him to attempt another kiss. For his part, Daniel hadn’t seemed too upset over it, just sort of went with the flow. The reason for that casual attitude was clear now that I knew he was getting it from someone else.

  I inhaled a deep breath, let it out with a heavy sigh, and then wanted to jump for joy when class was finally over. If I’d known who was waiting outside of the door, I may have withheld that joy. I was having such bad luck with doors today.

  It was obvious he hadn’t come to see me. In fact, he was walking so fast, looking down at the floor, I got the impression he wasn’t looking for anyone and didn’t want anyone looking for him. Too bad, I figured it was as good a time as any to get this over with.

  “Daniel!” I called out to him but he kept walking.

  I walked faster, watching as he hurried to turn a corner. I had to jog a little to get around that corner before losing sight of him completely and when I caught up with him, I didn’t bother calling his name, but grabbed the sleeve of his shirt instead.

  “Hey,” I said when he turned to face me.

  Then I gasped, which I didn’t do often because being born a shape shifter, there wasn’t a whole lot more in the human world that could shock me. This definitely did. Daniel was rocking one hell of a black eye. Or was it green and a sickly shade of purple?

  “What the hell happened to you?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Look, I gotta go, Lidia.”

  He was turning away from me and I moved around him, stopping right in front of him so he either had to push me down or squeeze past the flow of other students to get away.

  “What happened to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, still looking down. “Anyway, I guess it’s good that you’re here so I can tell you I’m not interested in seeing you anymore.”

  If I didn’t know better I might have flinched at how cold and just a tad bitter his words sounded, as if I’d been the one getting it against the wall by another guy.

  “You’re not interested in seeing me anymore?” I repeated what he said and it sounded like a question even though I already knew the answer.

  “That’s what I said,” he continued. This time he did look up at me, but he also lifted his hand to act like he wanted to scratch something on his forehead, managing to partially shield the black eye instead. “It’s no big deal, we tried it and it didn’t work. So we’ll move on.”

  I nodded. “Right. You moved on and inside of the math intern while I sat in class. No big deal.”

  He didn’t even look shocked that I knew, which made me wonder.

  “Okay, we’re done, can I go now?”

  “Who hit you?” I asked.

  “Move out of my way please.”

  I tilted my head, saw something beyond the cool blue eyes that I’d found intriguing and the dimple I’d thought was cute. “It was Brayden, wasn’t it? He hit you when he found you with that girl.”

  “Look, you and your psycho boyfriend can have each other. I don’t have time for this juvenile brutality. Now move out of my way.”

  Daniel did push past me this time and I stayed flattened against the wall while he walked away instead of trying to go after him again. Besides, there was nothing else to say. I knew he was an asshole and he knew Brayden had a serious right hook. I guess that made us even.

  ***

  I wanted a latte with a shot or two, or three, of espresso. Actually, I wanted another cranberry and vodka but had a feeling liquor wasn’t going to go well with charting out constellations, which I needed to do tonight for homework. So I stood in the hideously long line at Starbucks during a time when I thought people should be looking for dinner instead of a caffeine high—clearly I was wrong.

  Once the guy with the multiple piercings through everything but his eyeball handed me the cup wrongly marked Olivia, I was more than ready to leave, not really wanting to be around people at this moment. The confrontations with Brayden and Daniel had been more than enough for me for one day.

  I’d taken a sip which had burned the hell out of my tongue and was heading to the door when she came out of nowhere. I mean, really, why hadn’t I seen her and all that dark hair stacked on top of her head in a riot of curls before she was up in my face with that fake-ass smile?

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi, Kyra,” I replied.

  “There’s something I need to say to you.”

  No! My mind screamed. I did not want an
other confrontation and definitely not with this chick.

  “I really need to get going, Kyra. I have someone waiting for me and I can’t be late.”

  She nodded as if to say “yeah right” then proceeded to poke one of her elegantly painted nails into my shoulder.

  “I want you to stay away from Brayden. He doesn’t want you around and neither do I. You’re messing up the plan. So whatever you two may have had before, this ‘friendship’ you both like to call it, is now officially over. Got it?”

  It was hard listening to her words because I was much more focused on her continuous poking. Actually, the cat inside was becoming more and more interested in that as well. Another thing the cat seemed to be reacting to was the stench. Kyra reeked of…of…no, not possible. She was a human, I knew that for a fact. And yet, I inhaled again, just one more time to be certain.

  “Brayden and I are just friends,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster considering we were standing in the middle of Starbucks.

  “Whatever,” she said with a wave of her hand. “We’re all he needs now.”

  “We? What are you into, some type of group sex thing? I know Brayden and I don’t think he’s into the swinger scene.” This girl was looking at me like I was the nutcase, when clearly the things she was saying, matched with that weird scent, were what was really out of order here.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, then rolled those big eyes once more. “Look, just stay away from Brayden.”

  Was she serious? She’d known Brayden for like fifteen minutes compared to how long I’d known him. Not to mention the fact that I could wrap one hand around her pretty little neck and squeeze, watching the blood drain from her face, if I wanted. Luckily for her I opted for the more human reaction. I nodded like I agreed, saying with absolutely no conviction, “Okay, whatever you say. Can I go now?”

  She actually looked like she hadn’t been paying attention to me, but looking somewhere over my shoulder instead. This girl was a real goofball. “Yeah, you can go,” she began sort of absently, but I was already moving around her.

  “Bitch!”

  I heard the word and thought I saw warning lights flashing red before my eyes. I had an impulsive nature, a temper that didn’t take much to flare up. I knew all this and had promised the Sanchezes I would keep it under wraps while attending the human college, but damn, she’d had to go there.

  I turned slowly and was going to ask her to repeat herself but the gloating look she was giving me was just like she’d said the word all over again. I dropped my latte and the palm of my hand landed against her cheek before she could blink those false-ass lashes again. Her head snapped back and a scream escaped her, like I’d been attacking her instead of trying to slap some sense into the tramp. Everyone in Starbucks now had something else to interest them other than overpriced caffeine shots.

  “I’m gonna kill you,” Kyra yelled and lunged at me.

  It took no thought at all and even less effort to sidestep her. She tumbled into something but I didn’t know what or who, until I turned back around. No, I knew, that’s why I took my time turning around.

  I’d scented Brayden the second I smacked her and he’d walked into the store but was otherwise occupied so I couldn’t turn around and act cordial.

  “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.