Sabotaged (The Sundance Series Book 3)

by C. P. Rider

  "Yes. But you'll tell me when you're ready."

  I stared at my shoes. There was blood on the canvas parts and the shoelaces. "I didn't kill him."

  "Okay."

  "But what I did to him… I never want to do it again."

  "You wiped his memory, didn't you?"

  "Yes." I didn't look up, just kept staring at the blood on my shoes. "I left him with the knowledge that he was a shifter and some basic life skills, but that's all. I took away his experiences, family, friends."

  "His ex-fiancé."

  "Especially me. It took hours. I unraveled every knotted memory of us, pulled every last thread." My stomach clenched. "To do that to someone … it's an invasion. It's monstrous. Digging through his brain, I saw everything that had made Julio himself. There were things I didn't know that helped me understand him better. Traumas he had buried deep."

  "What will he do now?"

  "Dad said they're going to give him a new identity and ship him to a facility in Europe since he had no ties there that I could see. He can start a new life. Do some good working for the people my dad work for, I guess. I don't know. I don't want to know."

  Lucas looked thoughtful. "So, you gave him a clean slate instead of killing him. That doesn't sound monstrous. It sounds compassionate."

  "Does it?"

  "To let a man live instead of killing him? Yes." He reached for me. "If I had come in when he was there, I would have killed him—no hesitation. You wiped his mind, yes. That's a serious thing, yes. But given the choice and time to consider it, wouldn't most people choose the latter?"

  "Maybe."

  "Look at it from a different perspective. With the way Roso was raised, by a family of despotic wolf leaders, when had he ever had a choice? At least this way, he might have a chance. The way he was headed, someone would have killed him soon, and it probably would have been you or me."

  "Yep."

  "You're looking at me like you don't believe me, but if you had thought Julio Roso was better off dead, you would have spiked him off the planet and been done with it. But you didn't. Instead, you saved him the only way you could."

  "No, I didn't." I tapped the gold ball on my bracelet. The sun charm that had reminded Lucas of me. Because he said I was the sunshine to his gray existence.

  "Neely, I'm sure you—"

  "No, you're not sure." I jerked around in the seat and faced him. My healing charms thumped against my chest.

  "I'm not?"

  "No. And I think you should be sure. A few weeks ago, you gave me a USB that had proof of some questionable things you had done for Malcolm and told me to watch it and decide if I could still be with you. I know I hadn't told you this yet, but I did watch it, and yes, I still want to be with you. It changes nothing for me, but maybe you won't feel the same way."

  The sincere look he'd worn when trying to explain that I was a good person, that I'd done the right thing, that I wasn't culpable, slipped right off his handsome face.

  "Well, this is the moment when you learn the truth about me, Lucas. This is my USB of bad deeds. This is when you decide if you can still be with me." I held up my hand when he made to speak, because I was quickly losing my nerve and I needed to tell him everything, to make sure he understood what kind of person he was involved with.

  "I didn't do this to save Julio's life. I did it to get rid of him. And, even worse, I did it to see if I could. It was an experiment, Lucas. Just like the experiments Garrett Harris performed on me and the other paranormals at the sanctuary. I did this because I wanted to see exactly what I could do with my ability. How far I could go and not kill. How much power I truly have."

  I pushed open the truck door and got out. Looked over my shoulder at him. "And what's more, I intend to keep experimenting on anyone who crosses me until I figure it out."

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  "Nice mic drop, but it changes nothing for me, Neely."

  "Doesn't it?"

  "No." Lucas was hot on my heels as I entered the bakery, closing the back door behind us and leaning against it. "Though it would have been nice to hear about the USB sooner."

  "I didn't mean to leave you hanging. Other things kept getting in the way is all."

  He tipped his head to one side, eyed me with suspicion. "I assumed you hadn't watched it because you didn't want to see what I was capable of."

  "You asked me to. Of course I watched it." I walked the rest of the way into the kitchen. The worktable was clean and the whole place smelled like lemon-scented disinfectant with a faint undertone of coffee and a hint of vanilla. Home. I instantly felt lighter, despite the heavy conversation I was having.

  "What you told me doesn't change anything. I loved you before, and I love you now." He gazed at me with such naked longing in his eyes that it arrowed straight to my heart. "This is going to sound corny, but I've wanted you from the moment you drove into town. It was as if a part of me—call it my soul, I don't know—recognized you right away. I've never had that kind of connection with anyone else."

  "Alma gemela," I whispered.

  "I heard that phrase in your head back at the sanctuary. What does it mean?"

  "Soulmate." His gaze locked onto mine as I continued, "I've heard it said that a soulmate isn't someone who completes you, as the movie Jerry Maguire would have us believe." I smiled a little, and so did he. "A soulmate is a person who makes you feel so accepted, so deeply loved, that nothing and no one can hold you back from becoming the you that you were always meant to be."

  "I hope you feel that way with me," he said softly.

  "I do. And I hope you feel that way with me." I picked up a baking sheet that lay on the worktable and set it by the sink. "Because this is my pivot point, Lucas. I can't continue to live the way I did when I came to Sundance. Eventually, I'm going to end up getting myself or someone else killed."

  "You know I know this," he said gently.

  I nodded.

  He folded his arms low on his chest. "But, Neely, it's not your fault José was killed. Even if you had done everything right, he might still have died. Roso wanted him dead."

  "If I had stopped denying who and what I was and lived fully in my power, he might have lived." I turned away from the sink and circled back around the worktable, in full view of Lucas. "And it's that might have that gets to me."

  "If I'd tried harder to stop Suyin, she might not have let Malcolm change her. She might have, but I'll never know, because when she told me that was her plan, I didn't push her. I just … walked away. Yes, she made the final choice, but what if I'd tried harder, said the right thing, told her how much she mattered to me?"

  "You feel it, too."

  "Yeah."

  I wanted to run to him then. To dive into his arms and envelope myself in his warmth, to be the warmth he enveloped himself in. But there was still something standing between us. Something I'd brushed aside while our world was submerged in chaos.

  "Lucas, why do you think those alphas weren't able to change me?"

  "You said they weren't strong enough." He dropped his arms and moved farther into the room, stopped a foot from me.

  "Julio might not have been," I said, "but Alpha Gold was strong. Not as strong as you, but definitely stronger than Saul Roso."

  "You think she could have changed you?"

  "If she'd pushed harder, I'd either be dead or a crossbreed. Or both."

  "Goddess of Fur and Spike," he corrected.

  "Lucas," I hesitated, cast my gaze downward as I considered the best way to ask him this question without making it sound accusatory. "I have a theory."

  "What is it?" He reached for me, but instead of grabbing hold, let his fingers glide down my arm to my fingertips.

  "I think Saul Roso changed me."

  "What?"

  "I think you got there too late that day. I think he changed me into a crossbreed in that truck on the highway, and then you let me kill him." I swallowed audibly. "But you didn't just let me kill him, did you? You dominated h
im first.

  "Back then, I didn't understand what you were doing. I mean, my knowledge about shifters changing people isn't vast by anyone's standard, and I hadn't yet put all the pieces of the puzzle together. But then I remembered something."

  Lucas said nothing, only stared at the wall behind me.

  "You bit my uncle's neck when he was dying to force him to be yours, because if you were his alpha, you'd have the power to compel his change, which might have helped save him. You couldn't ask him to let you change him the way you did the day of the convocation. He was beyond consent. Instead, you had to dominate him as an alpha leader.

  "I also know you couldn't heal him outright. His wounds were mortal, and they would have killed you. I understand now that you were trying to buy him time to say goodbye. Thank you for that, by the way."

  He acknowledged my thanks with a brisk nod, but didn't look at me. A muscle pulsed in his cheek.

  I continued, "Between you and Roso, you were the stronger alpha. A prehistoric shifter trumps any alpha leader in power—except for another prehistoric. When you killed him, you didn't just kill him—you made him yours first, didn't you? That's really why you had to go to Las Vegas. Once he was yours, all of his shifters were yours, too. You had to deal with them."

  I willed him to look at me, but he kept staring at the wall. "I think I knew it deep down, but it all came together that day at the sanctuary. Alpha Gold said that the reason the alphas bit my neck was to bring me into their group before they changed me, in case I went rogue and killed them once I was a crossbreed. It's all connected—the biting, the dominating, the changing—but it's also separate, isn't it?"

  "What are you asking, Neely?" Lucas finally looked at me. His mouth was a hard, straight line, his whiskey gaze cool. "Say it."

  "Am I your crossbreed?"

  His jaw tightened as he leaned the slightest bit closer. "If you really think that, why aren't you angrier with me?"

  "Because I believed you."

  "Believed me?"

  "When you told me you loved me." I swallowed the lump in my throat as my eyes filled with tears. "So, if you did this, you must have a good reason, because you wouldn't hurt me on purpose."

  His eyes glittered with emotion. He pressed his lips together as if to stop himself saying something he might regret. "No. You aren't my crossbreed."

  "But Lucas, Roso—"

  "Didn't finish. I thought he had, and yes, I dominated him and brought him into my group before I killed him on the chance that he had changed you. Not because I wanted a crossbreed, but because I thought I might have to protect you from yourself—and protect my group, too. And so, I watched. And I waited. But you didn't change."

  "Wouldn't you know right away if I was part of your group?"

  "Normally, yes. But I'd never done anything like that before. Suyin was the first spiker-shifter I'd ever seen, and nothing about Malcolm's experiences with her were normal. Even he admitted it was all virgin territory. Spikers are rare. A crossbreed spiker-telepathic-shifter is unheard of."

  I nodded numbly. "Okay. If that's true, then why couldn't they change me?"

  His gaze moved down to the bracelet on my wrist. He flicked the lock with his index finger. "I don't know for sure, but I have a theory, too. If I'm right, it's also the reason why I can't heal you and why you couldn't read me until recently."

  "You look so serious." I put my hand on top of his on the table. "If I'm not a crossbreed, how bad can it be?"

  "I think we might be mated."

  We went upstairs after that. My head thrummed with pain from what I'd done to Julio, and it had grown worse with every word of my conversation with Lucas. I needed to lie down.

  "Say something."

  I don't know what the man expected from me. I didn't have a single coherent thought in my head.

  "Mated," I said. There. That was something. "Like married, but with a deeper metaphysical connection."

  "Yeah. Where did you hear that?"

  "Dottie." I did that thing where I nod because I have no idea what else to do. "So, we're 'like married' now?"

  This time it was his turn to be flustered. "Kind of?"

  "How do you explain why you can't heal me? Why I can't read you—or at least why I couldn't read you and now I can not only read you, you can get inside my head…" I trailed off. "Speaking of which, I need to sit down. My head hurts."

  "Are the spiking aftereffects going to be bad?" Lucas whispered, presumably to not worsen my headache, which he had already done by laying this mate thing on me, so whispering wasn't exactly going to change anything.

  "I spiked Julio for hours without killing him, so yes."

  "If you'd killed him you wouldn't be hurting, would you?"

  "Not from that, no." I sat on my bed and kicked off my sneakers. "Okay, so tell me why I couldn't read you."

  He dropped down on the bed beside me. "Simple. I didn't want you to."

  "Nobody wants me to. It doesn't matter what people want. Telepathy doesn't work like that."

  "But they aren't mated to you."

  "Stop saying that, it's weird." I rubbed my temples. "Okay, then why couldn't you heal me?"

  "Because you didn't want me to."

  "I don't know, I wouldn't mind it right now. This bandage itches like crazy and my head feels like it's going to fall off."

  He rubbed gentle circles on my back. "You once told me that you don't like that I have to take on an injury to heal it, remember?"

  "Yes. I don't like that it hurts you."

  "So maybe, subconsciously, you won't let me heal you because you don't want to see me in pain." He gave me a toothy smile and waggled his brows. "You're doc-blocking me. Because you won't let me doctor you, get it?"

  "Yeah, I get it." I groaned. "How long have you been sitting on that zinger?"

  "About five minutes."

  "Next time let it simmer longer."

  He laughed.

  What Lucas said made sense. I tended to be protective about him healing me because I didn't want him hurting on my account.

  "Okay." I squeezed my eyes shut. "And when you wanted me in your head, you opened up and let me in? That's how it works?"

  "I think so."

  "So, when the alphas tried to change me, they couldn't because I what? Belong to you? I'm not in your group and we both know you aren't my alpha. How does that even work?"

  He blew out an exasperated breath. "I don't know. It's not like I've ever been mated before. I told you, it's a theory. I don't have all the answers."

  "Are you sure we're mated?"

  "No. I'm not sure about anything."

  I pursed my lips. "In my paranormal romance books, when people are mated, they usually have to have sex to seal the deal. We've had a lot of sex, Lucas. Nothing metaphysical between us has changed."

  "Except I can't heal you and, for a while, you couldn't read me. Plus, once you were able to read me, our connection was even stronger than before. We can now read each other."

  Am I right?

  "Yes, you're right. How does that sort of thing happen? The mate thing, I mean."

  Lucas replied in a sing-song voice, "Well, when a shifter and a spiker love each other very much…"

  "I'm going to spike you to sleep if you don't get serious." My eyes drooped. "I've got just enough energy left to do it."

  "Okay, fine. I don't know. I've never been mated before. My parents weren't mated. Although my grandparents were…" His upper lip curled. "God, please, don't make me call Luciana and ask. I won't be responsible for my actions if she shows up to counsel us or something."

  "We'll keep your grandmother in our back pocket." I crawled up to my pillow and rested my head on the cool cotton. "Let's ask the witches first."

  "Fine." He crawled up beside me. "The lesser of two evils, I suppose."

  "Dolores and Dottie are my friends. They are not evil."

  He kissed the line of my jaw, his lips warm and gentle against my skin. "I know."

 
; "How'd you get them to come to the sanctuary with you, anyway? I've been meaning to ask that." I turned my head so he could kiss the other side.

  "I told them that I might know where you were."

  "And?"

  "That's it. They immediately packed a bag. According to Chandra, their bag contained nine bottles of wine, a box of witch charms, a book that shed black hair all over my upholstery, and a container of lavender—pretty sure Dottie brought that to keep me calm while traveling with Dolores." He tugged on the hem of my top. "They like you, Neely. Especially the mean one."

  "Dolores isn't mean, she's just a little … salty."

  "To be honest, I had more difficulty getting people to stay here in Sundance than I did finding volunteers to rescue you. Amir is still pissed at me for taking Chandra instead of him. And Carter Reid was unhappy at having to stay, too."

  I couldn't help but notice he didn't mention Dan Winters, but I wasn't going to bring it up. One person's nastiness didn't wipe away all the goodness from everyone else.

  "I love this town," I said.

  "It loves you." Lucas rolled me onto my side, his chest to my back, and pulled me against him. "I love you."

  "Yeah, I know. You made room for me on your raft."

  "We are never watching that movie again. Also, you're not supposed to say, 'I know.' You're supposed to say, 'I love you, too, Lucas.'"

  "I love you, too, Lucas." I mimicked him.

  "Stop trying to do my voice. You're horrible at it." He pulled at the bandage on the back of my neck. "Let me heal you."

  "It bothers you that you can't make me all better?" I teased.

  "Yes, damn you."

  "It bothers you more that I won't let you, doesn't it?"

  He wrapped one arm around my middle and yanked me closer as he let out a low, ticking growl. A warning.

  "Cut it out." I smacked him in the gut with the back of my hand. "I'll let you, but on one condition."

  "What is it?"

  "You tell me how long you've suspected we might be mated. Did you think that when you suggested you might be the fiancé of penis future?"

  He stopped growling. "Maybe. Yes. But that's not why I said that."