by Dannika Dark
I nibbled on a ginger cookie while Trevor cleaned the crumbs from inside the display case.
Trevor had soft features for a man, but the kind of face that gave him the allure of a rock star. Especially the way he styled his hair to half shield his eyes, lending to his mysterious persona.
“Do we have enough dough prepped for tomorrow?”
“All good. I took care of that,” he said. “Did you eat dinner?”
“I had some garlic bread.”
“That’s not enough.”
I smiled. “I’ll pig out when we get home. How’s that?”
He pulled up a stool and straddled it. “Did you see any action in Colorado?”
I shoved the rest of the cookie into my mouth, chewing slowly. “You guys need to lay off. It’s not like we went on a honeymoon.”
“No, I don’t mean sex. Everyone knows you saw more action than Reno in a combat zone. I meant with the pack-war stuff.”
“Oh, that. Just a local rogue who wanted to start shit with Austin.”
“Guess he wins the dumbass award of the year.”
“That’s why Austin doesn’t want to spread rumors until the Council works out a plan. I don’t have any trouble with the rogues who come into my shop, but I can see how something like this would give someone ideas on how to get away with murder.”
I walked around Trevor and set the box of leftovers near my purse. “Are you ready to head out? I’m done cleaning.”
Evening hours always brought a sense of nostalgia, reminding me of the old days at the candy store when April and I had been a couple of inexperienced girls who couldn’t imagine where our lives would lead. Sometimes I’d close up early to go hang out with April at the candy store, but it wasn’t the same. So much had changed—we had changed.
“Yeah, let’s blow this joint,” he said.
I lifted the box and moved around the counter. “I still think we should hire a Vampire for the night shift. Just imagine how much work they could get done since they don’t have to sleep. My prepping days would be over! Then we could focus on serving customers instead of rushing back and forth between the counter and kitchen.”
He switched off the main lights. “I’m not working with a Vampire. He might charm me into believing he’s not sucking my blood every three hours in the bathroom.”
I laughed. “You’re so…” The words tumbled away, and the floor slipped out from beneath my feet. I wondered if Trevor had switched out the lights, because suddenly I was immersed in darkness and had no sense of anything around me.
“Lexi! Lexi!” I heard Trevor yelling from far away. The sound was muted, similar to being underwater.
When I rolled onto my back, sparks of light began to appear, and then Trevor, hovering over me with panic-stricken eyes.
I blinked, my hearing slowly returning. “I’m… I’m fine. Wow, that was weird.”
“Weird? Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. I know I’m good-looking, but I’m not that good-looking. What happened? One minute you were talking, and the next, bam.”
I took his hand, and he pulled me to a sitting position.
“I don’t know. I blacked out for a minute.” I stared at cookies and cakes strewn across the floor, the box upside down and flipped open.
“You shouldn’t have overworked yourself,” he said, chastising me.
I had to laugh considering I’d spent half the evening sitting on my butt reading a magazine. “I had more exercise on my vacation.” My smile waned. “All that work mopping the floor… and now look at it.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, staring down at the mess. “I’ll sweep it up in the morning.”
“We can’t leave it like this; it’ll attract roaches.”
The bell jingled on the door, dragging our attention away.
“We’re closed,” Trevor called out.
A shadow of a man stood before us, his beige coat much too long for his modest height. When he stepped forward, one of the track lights from above shone on his face, and I gasped.
“Charlie?”
Trevor brewed a pot of coffee while I locked up the store and seated Charlie at a small table.
“You haven’t changed,” I remarked, noticing his thin hair and spectacles. “Last I heard, you had cancer and died.”
Could he sense the contempt in my voice? Because the tension in the air was palpable.
Charles Langston, my old boss, had always reminded me of a college professor, not just in looks but also his demeanor. He appeared to be in his late fifties, relatively short for a man, unremarkable features, and too pale to live in the South. The lines etched in his forehead weren’t deep, but they were a visible roadmap to the life he must have lived. He had kind eyes brimming with wisdom, and they made you feel like you could open up to a man like him.
He sipped the coffee from his white cup and glanced over his shoulder at Trevor, who was busy sweeping up cookie crumbs. “I’m a Mage. I conceal my light to blend in easily with the humans. Other Breeds think I’m a Relic, and that’s fine by me. Less trouble.”
The sound of my fingers drumming on the table filled the awkward silence that followed. “I don’t know whether to be pissed off at you for making me cry over your death or relieved that you’re alive.”
Charlie added another packet of sugar to his coffee. “The attorney you met is a friend of mine; it’s not the first time he’s helped me wrap things up and fake my death. So I slowly withdrew, made people think I had an illness, and drafted up some documents with my lawyer regarding the company and my finances. I did business on the human side of town, so I needed to make it look real with my neighbors, the legal system—everyone. A female friend of mine drove down and set me up with a new identity.”
“You also skipped town on a loan shark without settling your debts.”
He set down his paper cup, steam rising from the top, and put his hands in his lap. “So you know about that.”
All I knew was what Reno had mentioned years ago. Charlie owed Maddox, but he didn’t say why.
“Did you think faking your death would get rid of the debt?”
Charlie pushed his small wire-framed glasses farther up his nose. “That’s not why I left. Because I choose to live in the human world, I have to fake my death and move on when the time is right. My Creator made me over four centuries ago, and not by my choice. I was an educated man, and he had a desire to learn. When I gained my independence, I broke ties with the Breed world. Years ago, your brother came into Sweet Treats asking for a job. Not for himself, but for his little sister. That’s an admirable quality for a man to have, looking out for his family that way. I’d seen you in the store a few times with your friends and sensed you were Breed, so my curiosity was piqued as to why you were living with humans.”
“I didn’t know I was a Shifter. That’s a long story.”
“Most stories worth telling are long.” He took another sip of coffee and warmed his hands around the cup. “I liked mentoring you, Lexi. You always had a good head for business; you just didn’t give yourself the benefit of the doubt. That kind of confidence comes with age and experience, but I saw enough potential to know that you would never get too comfortable in a job that didn’t challenge you. Maybe I wanted to help because I sensed you were a Shifter, though I couldn’t tell if you’d gone through your first change.”
“I thought a Mage couldn’t sense what Breed people were?”
He shrugged. “It depends. Some of us have learned to read energy, but mostly it was in your personality. Shifters have remarkable qualities that separate them from others, traits I find most amusing.”
I folded my arms. “Glad you kept me around for your amusement.”
He pursed his lips and sat back. “Maybe I wanted to keep an eye on you since you seemed a bit lost. Your energy wasn’t as strong as the other Shifters, so I thought you were a defect. Without a pack, you’d have to work twice as hard to support yourself through the years.”
�
�Why did you leave?”
Charlie pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck. “I had a conversation with April one morning while setting up the displays. She mentioned her father’s car going over a bridge when she was younger. It’s funny how you can run away from your mistakes, and yet they always seem to track you down.”
“What does her father have to do with you?”
I turned to look at the front door when it suddenly opened.
“Jeez, it’s like winter out there!” April exclaimed, tucking her hands back into her thin jacket. “I should watch the weather channel more often. So why did you call me over? Car trouble?”
Impeccable timing, I thought to myself. If Charlie walked out and I never saw him again, I would have regretted not having called April to witness this unexpected appearance.
It took her a minute before she recognized Charlie, and her smile withered, replaced with shock. When she didn’t speak, he stood up and cleared his throat.
“April, you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. But I can still see that young girl who used to hide her romance novels in the cabinet beneath the register. You’ve embraced the natural beauty of your hair. I much prefer it that—”
Without warning, April threw her purse at him, and he flinched. “How dare you!”
He held his hands up. “Let me explain.”
“Explain how you pretended to have cancer and die? Now you show up and want to compliment my hair? I don’t understand. You lied to us! I cared about you, Charlie. I looked up to you like a father.” Tears swam in her hazel eyes, and her lip quivered.
Trevor approached her with open arms. “Come here, babe.”
She tried to fight him, but he stroked her upper arms and calmed her down. A smudge of eyeliner crawled down her cheek with a teardrop, and he wiped it away. When Reno wasn’t around, Trevor guarded April like a watchdog.
Charlie’s feet were rooted in place, and I remained seated, still reeling from shock myself. Maybe I’d whacked my head on the floor harder than I thought.
April pushed Trevor out of the way and approached Charlie with alarming speed.
He backed up a step. “You might want to hold on to that anger, because what I’m about to tell you will change everything you thought you knew.”
She hesitated, her hands clenched. “What do you mean?”
The tension in the room crackled like fallen electrical wires.
Charlie locked eyes with her and kept his voice steady. “I’m the one who hit your father’s car.”
April blanched.
“What the fuck?” Trevor hissed.
“It was an accident,” Charlie admitted. “I was stupidly driving drunk and had a collision. He died instantly; there was nothing I could do. I panicked and called the only person I knew who could make the scene look like an accident. You have to understand that the last place a Mage wants to end up is in a human jail.”
She shook her head. “You’re a Mage? You—”
“I got a new identity, closed my hot dog shop, and leased out some space for a candy store. Driving drunk that night was the worst mistake of my life, and not a day passes I don’t think about it. But you see, I couldn’t get involved with the human police. I’m immortal, and a life sentence would be long enough to raise suspicion. My prints were all over the car, my paint embedded in his… I panicked.”
April’s gaze drifted down to the patterns on the tile floor. “Is that why you hired me, because you had a guilty conscience and thought you’d do me a favor?”
“No,” he said woefully, stepping closer. “I didn’t know he was your father—not in the beginning. I once asked why you never talked about your father. When you told me about the accident, I made the connection. Same date, same location. After that, I planned my exit from this life. I could have sold the shop like I’d done a million times and used that money to start over, but I wanted to leave you two something. You were always a motivated young lady, and I knew you’d recognize a good opportunity. I gradually stepped back and gave you two more responsibilities. It was the right thing to do. Staying would have meant deceiving you. To tell you the truth, seeing your sunny face every day filled me with the worst kind of guilt.”
My heart broke for April, but somehow she managed to hold herself together with a resolve I didn’t understand.
“My father’s death was a long time ago. Eventually every woman has to let go of the pain that will keep her from living a fulfilled life.” While there was conviction in her words, I certainly didn’t hear it in her voice—not in that moment. April was fighting off a rising emotion that quickly took hold, and she burst into tears. “You killed my father!” she screamed, her voice cracking.
April’s knees gave way, and Trevor held her up from behind until she steadied herself. Dark liner smeared down her face, and she gave way to the pain.
Charlie’s voice broke. “It wasn’t intentional.”
Trevor caged his arms around her from behind and stared daggers at Charlie.
I finally rose to my feet and stood between them. “Why are you back? Because this is a little traumatic for everyone. We would have been just fine living the rest of our lives thinking you were fertilizing a tree somewhere. Is it the store you want?”
“I don’t want the store.” He clasped his hands before him and regarded me with critical eyes. “I live on the East Coast now in Cognito. Rumors are spreading fast about a pack war, and we’ve noticed rogues leaving the city over the past few months. I don’t know if you’re aware of what’s developing, but I didn’t just come down here to warn you; I came to help. You might not want it after all the deceit, but this is bigger than any grudge you’re holding. I didn’t mean to take a life all those years ago, and seeing the aftermath of that destruction made me realize how every choice I make affects someone. This is a choice I’m making because turning away would be a sin.”
“It’s not your battle to fight,” Trevor said, stroking April’s hair.
“No, but ignoring something because it’s none of my business is the wrong thing to do. If you saw a human child wander into a busy street, would you keep walking? Didn’t think so. Sometimes we don’t have to be the same to feel compassion. You know the powers I have as a Mage, and I’ll fight for your pack.”
April wiped her face and stepped out of Trevor’s arms. “How do you know we’re in a pack? I’m human and—”
“And mated to quite an interesting man who happens to be a Shifter. I’ve been out of your lives, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been checking up on you.”
April moved around me until she was standing in front of him. In a flash, she slapped him across the face. Without a word, she spun on her heel and stalked out the door, leaving her purse behind.
Trevor picked it up and shot me a conflicted look. “You okay to drive?”
I nodded. “Go after her.”
When he rushed out the door, I gestured toward the table. “Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll talk.”
Charlie rubbed his cheek, the skin turning a bright shade of red. He sat down, his gaze drifting around the store until he focused on the Parisian painting by our table. “You’ve done a fine job classing it up, Lexi. I thought you’d knock out the wall in the old store and build a coffee shop like you always talked about, but this was a smart move.” He sat down and lifted his cup. “Expanding on the Breed side of town, I mean. It gets tricky living in the human world and having to deal with their taxes, laws, and hiding what you are. On top of that, you risk regulars finding out when they notice you aren’t aging. You’ll always have to sell and start over.”
“Is that what you’re still doing?”
“Nah. I finally capitulated and opened a hot dog eatery in the Breed district. Call me old-fashioned, but I always liked selling hot dogs. It’s nice not having to worry about taxes.” He sipped his coffee, and his grey eyes lit up. “But I guess you know all about that by now. Ever thought about selling the candy store?”
I shrugged
. “We still make good money, and it belongs to April. I own it, but it’s always been her store.”
Charlie set down his empty cup and pushed it away. “I need to talk to your Packmaster.”
I huffed out a laugh and tapped my fingers on the table, irritated with his demand. “What do you need to talk to him about? He’s not going to set you up with a room so you can fight with us.”
“I really don’t care for moving in with anyone. I’m here to offer you my help.”
“The war might not even happen. Not for years, so you’re wasting your time down here.”
Charlie nodded. “True. But if there’s one thing an immortal has, it’s time. I’m not a naïve man. April’s never going to forgive me, and that’s understandable. I’m not here to win her over, because she has every right to hate me. But I’ll never be square with the fates unless I atone for my sins. I’m a penitent man, and the window of time I have to make peace with her is a short one. Time stops for no man, and she isn’t getting any younger.”
“You could have told us you were leaving. Maybe if you had confided in us, we would have understood.”
He laughed richly. “That would have meant telling you about the Breed world, and you wouldn’t have been prepared for it. And then to just leave you with that information?” He shook his head. “It could have placed you in danger with the loan shark I was working with.”
“Yeah, Maddox isn’t a forgiving man.”
His brows popped up. “How do you know his name?”
“Well, Charlie, if you’d done a really thorough investigation, you might have discovered that Maddox and my mother are now an item.”
He tossed his spectacles on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was hoping I wouldn’t run into him during this trip.”
I gave him a mirthless smile and carried his empty cup to the trash. “Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?”
