by Amanda Perry
I wait a few moments, making sure that they are gone. I know I have about four hours before they get back and I think it’s just enough time to get to my aunt’s house, get my things, then come back. My hope is to run into Aunt Lauren and confront her about everything going on. Levi was so adamant about me never going back that I know it’s something I have to do on my own. Hopefully, he won’t be too upset when he finds out.
20
After pulling on my shoes and my box of distractions that I had hidden from the family, I slowly make my way to the front door. Poking my head out, I listen for a few moments to be sure I can’t hear the family or the guards. Surely, they’re busy running a security check around the property and if it’s anything like the other checks, it’ll take them a while. When I’m confident they are all occupied, I quietly step outside and shut the door.
Making my way slowly to the front gate, I see the guards standing there keeping watch. Thankfully, the family is nowhere to be seen. Knowing I will only have one shot to get away from them without them catching me, I take a deep breath and ready my box.
“Hello Miss Harbor. What can we do for you?” guard number one asks, looking surprised to see me but more than curious about the box in my hands.
“I just thought you all could use a pick-me-up,” I tell him sweetly, opening the lid of the box and revealing a large collection of baked goods. It’s not the first time I’ve given them treats. I figured if I got them hooked on them, they wouldn’t be suspicious of me bringing them as a distraction.
“Oh, that is very nice of you,” guard number two says with a grin, already eying the brownies.
“Unfortunately, I forgot the milk to go with them.” I sigh sadly and look over at their small guard building about a hundred feet from the entrance of the gate. “You wouldn’t happen to have some in your mini fridge, would you?” My voice is overly hopeful.
“Of course, let me go get it,” Guard number one insists.
“I will wait here. Can you ask him to get some cups as well?” I ask guard number two.
Guard number two glances between his friend’s retreating back and the brownies, nodding and inching away. “Two minutes, wait here.”
I grin triumphantly when he runs to catch up to guard number one. Mission accomplished. I set the box down next to their station and quickly punch in the code to open the gate. I don’t wait for it to open fully before I take off in a full sprint toward the bus stop, I know it’s about half a mile away near the main road.
Lucky for me, the front of the Black’s estate is full of trees, blocking me from the view of the guards. Unlucky for me, the guards are shifters and the second they realize I’m gone they will be rushing to figure out where I went. My only hope is that I timed this correctly and the bus will be at the stop when I get there.
I don’t stop running until I reach the main road and I almost laugh in relief when I see the bus pulling up to the stop. I quickly hop on and pull the coins I found in the couch out, silently reminding myself to apologize and pay them back as soon as I can.
The ride to my aunt’s house is uneventful. It takes an hour, but I’m so busy either looking out the window expecting to see someone following me, or lost in thought, that the time flies by. When my stop comes up, I almost miss it because I’m busy trying to figure out what I should say to Lauren when I see her.
Hopping off the bus, I make the easy walk to her house. A strange car is in the driveway, but that doesn’t surprise me. Lauren always has random people in the house. What does shock me is the fact the car looks brand new. Most of the cars that are around here don’t even look like they should be running, let alone like they just drove off the lot.
I shake my head, not having time to think about the car and its owner. Walking into the house, I’m shocked at the state it’s in. The scent of stale cigarettes and alcohol hits my nose as soon as I step through the unlocked door. I have to kick a few empty bottles out of my way just to get all the way into the house. There are empty food wrappers, half smoked cigarette butts, burnt spoons, and used syringes all over the place. I can’t believe how horrible Lauren let her house get. I have never seen it so bad before.
Looking around the room in shock, I don’t notice I’m not alone until it’s too late. Bulky arms wrap around me, trapping my arms to my sides. I scream and kick, but the arms tighten more, the grip bruising my arms.
“Shut it, bitch,” a deep voice shouts in my ear as the man holding me pulls me toward a kitchen chair. “If you keep struggling, I will kill you.”
I immediately stop my movements. The jerk drags me to the dining room table and ties me to a chair. This is bad, this is very bad. I’m so confused. Where is Lauren and who is this crazy guy? My thoughts are soon answered when Lauren comes out with another oversized ape of a man.
“Julianne, nice of you to finally show your face.” Lauren’s voice is sickly sweet and I realize quickly she is going to be of no help. She wastes no time spewing insults my way. “You know when your parents died and I was contacted to take care of you, my first thought was ‘Hell no!’ Why would I want to take care of a spoiled brat that my idiot sister spawned?”
I flinch at her hateful words about my mother. I could care less what she says about me, but I can’t stand her speaking ill of my parents. “You don’t know anything, Lauren. My mother and father were amazing people and it’s no wonder they never talked about you. You are hateful and disgusting.”
A harsh slap across my face brings a gasp out of me and tears spring to my eyes. Lauren thanks the ass who hit me, then glares at me.
“You want to know why I decided to take you in?” Lauren asks, not stopping to hear my answer before she continues on. “I found out that your mommy and daddy left you quite the inheritance. Unfortunately for me, the inheritance is in a bank account that is only in your name and only accessible on your eighteenth birthday.”
I stare at her in shock, not believing that she kept this information from me. She lied to me about their will. They left an inheritance I knew nothing about? Was she ever going to tell me?
“I recently found a loophole though,” she explains with an evil grin. “If you die, your legal guardian gets the inheritance. So, I decided to hire some help. These lovely gentlemen helped me borrow some rather expensive items from a family they claim has a lot of power. It was almost too easy to set you up to take the fall for it. However, when they didn’t kill you like we all expected, we had to come up with a plan B.”
Looking back to the two men standing menacingly behind Lauren, I cringe at the evil, glowing glint in their eyes. I don’t know if Lauren knows what they are, but I think I do. It’s a toss-up whether they’re rogue demon shifters or part of the notorious Ashford clan. Either way, they have no regard for human life and they are more than happy to help my aunt get rid of me.
“They know the Black family and helped me break into their house. They also helped me plant the evidence that it was you,” she explains, clearly happy with herself. “When my plans didn’t work out, I knew it was only a matter of time before you came back for the little trinkets you thought you hid so well.”
I feel my eyes widen in horror when she reaches under the kitchen counter and pulls out my small box of mementos from my parents.
21
“Give me the box, Lauren,” I growl, struggling against the ties holding me to the kitchen chair. Luckily, the goon didn’t do a very good job at securing me. He must think because I’m human and he isn’t I wouldn’t be able to escape. I wiggle my wrists until I feel one of the ties loosening, and I know if I can get free, I may be able to get the box from her and make a run for it.
“No, I don’t think I will.” She grins evilly at me and dumps the contents of the box on the table. “Let’s see what we have here. I don’t want to burn anything valuable after all.”
She proceeds to go through the notes, cards, pictures, and other small items from the box. When she gets to the necklace my father gave my mother when I wa
s born, she picks it up and smiles triumphantly when she realizes how much it would be worth.
“Well it looks like we have something to sell in this pile of crap,” Lauren says to the two men standing behind her watching her sift through the items.
I’m finally able to work the ties loose around my hands and I jump up from my seated position, surprising Lauren and the two men. I snatch the necklace from her and make a mad dash for the door. Just as I’m about to clear the threshold, someone grabs a fist full of my hair and yanks me back hard enough to cause me to fall to the ground. Before I can do anything, Lauren starts kicking and hitting any part of my body she can reach.
“I should’ve killed you months ago, you ungrateful bitch,” she screams as her booted foot comes down on my chest. I curl into myself, trying to protect my head and stomach from her blows. The world starts to go dim, but before I allow myself to succumb to the darkness, I hear distant shouting and wonder if the neighbors called the police again.
“Julianne!” a comforting and familiar voice breaks through the blackness threatening to overtake me. “Open your eyes for me, love.”
Leviathan is here. I want to open my eyes and see him, tell him I’m sorry for leaving without telling him. I can’t though, my head is too fuzzy and my body is too tired. My last thought before I finally pass out is, I hope I don’t die so I can tell him I’m falling in love with him.
LEVIATHAN’S POV
“What the fuck do you mean she is gone?” I shout, glaring at Ron and Don, our two night guards. “What happened?”
The two idiots proceed to explain how Julianne brought down some baked goods for them and when they went to get milk at her request, she took off. Ron stayed behind to keep guard over the gate while Don ran after her and caught up to her just in time to see her jump on a bus.
I try taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down, but it doesn’t work. I have to wonder why she would run. She seemed happy with us, but was she really just hoping for a chance to escape? Maybe asking her to move in with me was too much for her, but in my world, once you meet your mate, you are never far apart from each other so her moving in now isn’t strange at all.
“Levi, I think I know where she went,” Joseph mumbles, wearily eying me. He knows how mad I am right now and he is smart to tread lightly. Though I would never hurt him, I might shout or scare the hell out of him.
“Where?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm.
“I think she went to her aunt’s home. She was talking about it the other day and no one wanted her to go. As far as I know, it was never discussed again but I think she still wanted to go confront her aunt and get her things from that house,” Joseph explains, toeing the ground with his shoe.
I take a brief moment to think over his words before nodding and heading for the door. “Brecken and Remus, you guys coming or not?” I ask as I pass them.
Without a word they follow me out the door and to my car. I didn’t know my car could go as fast as it did on our way to Julianne’s old house. Thankfully her license had her address or I’d never be able to find her. The closer we get the worse the houses look, and when we pull up to Julianne’s, I’m shocked at the shit hole we’re staring at.
I don’t take much time looking at the place though. I’m on a mission to get my girl. I walk up to the door and I hear shouting and what sounds like someone being hit. I slam the door open and see red at the sight in front of me. Any control I have over the demon inside of me disappears. I shift in the middle of the doorway, not caring who may witness it.
Julianne is lying on the floor with two members of the Ashford clan standing over her, while her aunt is beating on her and screaming that she should have killed her already. I don’t hesitate to take the lives of both of the Ashford men, but I don’t want the blood of Julianne’s aunt on my hands, even if she deserves it.
Brecken, however, has no problem at all with getting a little... or a lot... of blood on his hands.
22
Leviathan’s Pov
Three days. Julianne has been unconscious, hooked up to wires and tubes, bruised and broken, for three days. Brecken took care of Julianne’s aunt for me and, watching my love lying broken in that bed, there isn’t a hint of regret that I let him do it. Her body won’t ever be found. As far as the police know she ran after we showed up and we have not seen her since. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, so they simply put her picture in the media as a wanted person. The bodies of the two Ashford men are with the aunt as well, where they should be.
Remus said that Julianne will make a full recovery. She has a broken leg and a few cracked ribs. Along with bruising and scrapes all over her body, she has a concussion and a gash in her forehead that required stitches. He claims her body just needs time to rest and when she is ready, she will wake up. She is lucky to have no internal injuries.
I want to be angry with her for leaving and going to her aunt’s house without telling me, or at the very least, asking me to come with her, but I understand why she did it. I made it clear I wanted her to have nothing to do with her aunt and she felt she couldn’t come to me. I should have offered to take her when she first broached the subject. My idiocy put her in this position and I can only hope she forgives me for that.
“I’m so sorry, love,” I whisper, kissing Julianne’s forehead. “Please don’t hate me.”
“Levi?” My father’s voice pulls my attention to the door of Julianne’s hospital room.
My father and mother are standing in the doorway, next to Izzy, Vivian, and Nikki. I know that means the girls are here to clean Julianne up. I hope she is all right with it, but I refuse to allow a stranger to come near my girl.
“Let’s go get something to eat, Levi,” my father suggests, seeing the indecision in my eyes as I glance from my family back to my life.
Finally deciding that she needs the girls to look after her, I allow my father to pull me from the room and down to the hospital cafeteria where my brothers and Joseph are all waiting with food for us.
“Thanks,” I mumble, picking at the sandwich Remus slides in front of me.
“So, we found out more about Lauren and the Ashford clan,” Brecken reveals, breaking the silence. My head snaps up and he knows he has my full attention. “Turns out Lauren owed the Ashford clan money. They had some low-level human drug trafficking going on, probably for shits and giggles because the assholes have nothing better to do with their pathetic lives.
“Lauren contacted them, telling them that her niece stole the money that was supposed to be used to pay back her loan. They decided to help her set up Julianne with the promise of gaining half of Julianne’s inheritance which would be triple what Lauren owed them. The only problem was that their plan didn’t work. We didn’t kill Julianne. Instead, we let her live and that they could not allow or else they would never see a penny of that money.”
The tick in my jaw did not go unnoticed by Brecken and he cringes a bit. “I’m sorry about that whole thing, Levi. Julianne forgave me for being a dick.”
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that I’m not mad at Brecken for trying to protect the family. I’m mad at the Ashford clan for putting Julianne in danger. I nod at Brecken, letting him know he is forgiven and I see his shoulders relax slightly. He may act big and tough, but at heart, he can’t stand anyone in the family being upset with him. “Anyway...” Brecken continues after taking a quick drink of water. “So, when they realized we hadn’t killed Julianne, they came up with plan B. The security breaches at the gates were a distraction. Lauren hoped that Julianne would run away from us and right into their waiting arms. But when you and she were spotted around town having fun and she looked happy, they had to continue to try to lure Julianne out and away from us. Lauren knew that Julianne would come back eventually for her parents’ things that she hid from her.”
“How did you find all of this out?” Dad asks, raising an eyebrow at his eldest son.
Brecken smirks. “When they were loadin
g Julianne onto the ambulance, I noticed someone watching from across the street. He looked too nervous to be a bystander, so I looked into it. Turns out he was one of the Ashford men that helped Lauren. He was very helpful when he thought I was going to allow him to go free if he told me what I wanted to know.”
The look in Brecken’s eyes tells me that the man did not receive his promised freedom I’m sure the Ashford’s will retaliate when they find out three of their own were killed by us. It may lead to them starting an all-out war with us.
My mother walks up to our table, ending the conversation we were having. I know she is here to tell me I’m good to go back to Julianne so I stand, food untouched, and start to head out of the cafeteria.
“Levi,” Remus calls, stopping me. I turn to see him jogging up to me and I wait impatiently for him to make it to me. He looks really bothered by something, so rather than brushing him off, I allow him to catch up before I start walking again. Remus remains silent at my side while thinking through something. I don’t try to push him. He will talk to me when he has his thoughts sorted.
When we’re outside Julianne’s room, he grabs my arm to stop me from going through the door. I look at him patiently, wondering what is on his mind. “Levi, you need to think about something. Julianne is human. If the Ashford’s start a war, they will come after her first, knowing she is our weakness. When she wakes up, you need to tell her everything and allow her to make her own decision on whether she wants to join us or not.”
I growl low and threatening when he implies she may decide she doesn’t want to be with us. Remus doesn’t seem fazed by my not so silent threat. Instead, he puts a comforting hand on my shoulder and continues explaining himself. “You know there is a good chance she won’t survive the change, Levi. You need to be prepared for that and so does she. Even if she does somehow come through it unscathed, it’s will not be an easy change for her. Please just think on this, You and she both need to be in agreement”
