by Cecilia Lane
Sure enough, she had only a few tense minutes to herself before he took a seat with an exaggerated sigh of contentment.
“You never did answer my last message. Did you enjoy the fireworks?” He waved a hand toward the ruined building. Activity centered around it, and would for many more weeks while it was repaired.
“Did I enjoy the fireworks?” She struggled to keep her voice low. “Did I enjoy you hurting innocent people? And for what? Because I stole from you? Because you wanted to prove you could hurt me from anywhere? Because you needed to have control over someone who left you?”
Anger marred his face. He reached across the table and snagged her wrist in his hand. “I forgive you for your trespasses against me. I will honor our arrangement. You can come home now.”
The half-second she took to reject his offer weighed on her. She didn’t know where she stood with Callum or with the rest of Bearden. And with Jamin there, inside borders he shouldn’t have been able to cross, the chances of her involvement in the explosion being discovered increased significantly.
She didn’t know if it was self-preservation talking or the stray fear that Callum rightly called out, but she was ready to run in that instant. Guilt wanted to pull her into the dark depths and never let her see the light of day again.
“I’ll never go anywhere with you.” She tried to tug her hand away and glared when he only tightened his grip.
Then he changed the scowl on his face and beamed a smile at her. The hand holding her tight stroked a thumb over her skin. “It’s fine, love,” he murmured. “You needn’t fear anything ever again.”
Jamin looked over her shoulder and she turned. Callum stared hatred at her and Jamin.
Chapter 19
“As you can see, we are as self-sufficient as possible. Our emergency services cover the entire enclave, with police, firefighters, and medics all within walking distance from where we currently stand.”
Callum chattered on about the benefits and conveniences of Bearden. He tried to puzzle out why the fae were so interested in visiting. According to the records Allison dug out for him, the last fae court to visit had arrived and then left just before he’d been born thirty years prior.
Oh, they’d tutted with regret when they caught sight of the blown out wall and were visibly relieved to hear no damage had been done to the Broken, but they didn’t inquire about inspecting the sleeping figures. Instead, they requested he carry on with a tour of the town.
The whole visit raised his hackles, but he tried to put on his best face for the delegates of the Queen of the Summertime Forest or some such ridiculous title. He was sure that was the shortened version, too. The fae loved their pomp.
The leader, Quincy Quickfeather, tried to look impressed. It made his beautifully symmetrical face look strained and constipated.
He should have never agreed to the visit. He could still be in bed with Leah instead of curbing the desire to give the man a tour of every bathroom in the vicinity.
“Will your father be joining us? I was under the impression we’d be meeting Mayor Strathorn.” Quincy paused and tilted his head slightly. “Not that you are inadequate, I am to understand. But there is a difference between the son and the father.”
“I assure you, I am fully aware of my father’s work. He’s taken a leave of absence and I’m filling in for him until a new candidate comes forward.”
“Ah. I see.” He exchanged a look with the others in the tour. Callum took a quick headcount and scowled. One was missing.
They passed behind the fire engine that Cole and the rest were dutifully scrubbing down. It didn’t take long for Callum to spot the missing fae. Leah sat at one of Mug Shot’s outdoor tables with Jamin across from her. He couldn’t hear them clearly over the chatter at his back, but Jamin stroked his fingers over her hand.
Her companion focused on him with a sly smile, then she turned in her seat. She jerked her hand out of Jamin’s as soon as she spotted him.
Bear roaring in his middle, he left behind the delegation without any explanation and crossed the street. Rip, tear, blood, that’s all he wanted. His ears pounded with every raging beat of his heat.
She was his. No one should touch her.
“Leah.” His jaw clenched hard enough that he was surprised his teeth didn’t break. “I see you’ve met one of our fae visitors.”
He inhaled and tested the air. His scent lingered on her skin, as it should be. But the air was thick with anger rising from them both.
It was not a happy meeting he was walking into. Had Jamin pushed himself on her, like Bruce? His vision swam with red and the need to protect her grew overwhelming.
And Jamin simply pasted on a delighted smile. “It was a surprise to see one of my,” Jamin paused and added just enough suggestion to his next words to proclaim his true meaning, “good friends here in Bearden. I just had to stop and say hello.”
Leah’s cheeks flamed red. Mortification entered her scent. From being caught with another man’s hands on her? He wasn’t simply another man, though. Ex-lover, at the very least. More than a simple night together, judging from Jamin’s need to lay claim to her and the way she ducked her eyes. They had a history that she wasn’t willing to share.
Callum’s bear wanted to roar and rip and he was finding it hard to disagree.
“The rest of the delegation is gathering for a ride out to one of our greenhouses,” he told Jamin tightly.
Jamin waved his hand in dismissal, eyes wandering over Leah. “That will be well for them. I think I’ll take my leave and stay with Leah. Here.”
“You shouldn’t.” Her words held none of the life he was used to hearing and all of the guilt he didn’t want to believe. She fidgeted, too, fingers drumming against the table.
“Oh, I should. We have so much to discuss,” Jamin insisted.
A fresh wave of guilt met his nose. She might not be happy with Jamin being in Bearden, but he couldn’t think of any innocent reason for her to dump that stinging, sticky scent into the air. Nothing he came up with bode well for them, or his heart.
And she still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He needed to cut the ties he thought he’d tethered to her. He couldn’t get close to her when her secrets were being flung right in his face. She had another man to go with her other life outside of Bearden.
Outsiders never stayed. Outsiders never settled.
“You have our schedule,” he growled and turned quickly on his heel. He needed to get her out of his nose and eyesight before his bear tore out of his skin.
A chair scraped against the ground and light feet followed after him. Leah darted to his front and forced him to stop. “Hey, can we talk about this?”
Callum directed his look over her head. She didn’t want to meet his eyes before, and he didn’t want to meet hers now. Fucking small town. They were being watched from both sides of the street, and the fae paid special attention. “You should get back to your friend.”
“Not my friend. Ex, only.”
“Does he know that?” The venom in his voice didn’t surprise him in the slightest. He wanted her to himself. Seeing her with another man filled him with ugly feelings he wanted to toss at everyone nearby. They could hurt just as badly. These were the dark times where he let his bear take his skin and wandered alone, to prevent the dangerous moods damaging those who didn’t deserve it.
But she was the cause of it. She was at the very center. And she still stank of guilt.
She growled with enough force to sound like a bear lived in her middle. “I didn’t know he’d be here. I didn’t know what he was.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll be with the rest of them all day. Dinner?”
“I work tonight. After?”
“I’ll leave my door open.” Callum stalked across the road and tried to get a handle on himself.
Each step away from her felt like a thousand miles walked in broken boots with glass dug into the heels. His bear tore at his control. Rage, rage, was
all the beast did. His inner animal clawed and roared against him while trying to force him back to her. Back to their mate.
No. Not mate. Never mate. She wasn’t meant to be his.
Humans were forbidden inside the enclave and he was forbidden from turning her into a shifter. He should have resisted the urge to cover her in his scent.
He kept an eye on the others as they loaded into the van that’d arrived to take them all to the greenhouse district. He didn’t want to lose another one.
But that same watch let him see Leah cross the street with slumped shoulders. For someone who wasn’t friends with the little fae man, she sure got close to him as soon as she took her seat.
She was stiff when she leaned back over the table. Because she knew she was being watched? Or because her words were true and they weren’t friends?
They didn’t need to be friends to wind up in bed together.
Bile rose in his throat, followed quickly by red-hot jealousy. That was the type of man she liked? Jamin, with his pretty hair and his sharp features? All the fae were beautiful in their catlike, perfectly symmetrical ways. Much different from him with calluses on his hands and stubble on his cheeks.
His father’s words came back to him. Make her part of everything.
He couldn’t do that. They were from vastly different worlds.
If Jamin was the sort of man she liked, she was taking a trip into the gutter with him. Jamin was soft. Cultured. From his expensive looking shirt, right down to the shiny shoes on his feet, he looked like he’d never had a hard day in his life. Probably spent all his time outside the enclave visiting the opera and enchanting unsuspecting humans into doing his dirty work.
Where everything was handed to Jamin on a magical platter, Callum made his own fortune. He didn’t rise through the ranks in the firehouse because of his father. He worked his way up from the lowest probie to fire chief through one fire after another.
Leah was an outsider. Outsiders never settled into enclave life. His own mother wouldn’t stay, even with sons to keep her in one place. A wild girl like Leah needed excitement in her life that she wouldn’t find in a sleepy shifter town.
It was a mistake to attach to Leah and a mistake to think he could ever have a future with her. She belonged with the pretty fae out in the real world.
Chapter 20
Leah felt watched. All damn day, too. From the second Callum slapped her with his words and stalked away from her till that very moment, as she hooked another keg into the line and cleared the tubes with a test draft.
Her eyes flicked over the bar and found Jamin. There was her unwelcome watcher. She wanted to growl and smash something. Preferably a thick glass, and right into his head.
Following Callum’s angry dismissal, she told Jamin to leave her alone. He retorted with threats of exposing who truly set the device that ruined town hall, and followed it up with a question of if her fingerprints had been found on a lock picking kit yet. With the threats clear, she didn’t run for help.
Avoided him at all costs, yes. She made her quick escape into her room at Muriel’s and locked herself inside. That was a mistake and a half, even if she managed to avoid Jamin’s slimy attempt to destroy her life yet again. Locked inside four walls was a prison of her own making. And she replayed the entire morning over and over in her head.
She didn’t know how to explain Jamin to Callum without exposing her involvement in the explosion. If he knew Jamin had anything to do with it, Jamin would be dead. And she’d be the next to hang.
Leah narrowed her eyes when she focused again on the shadows. Hidden as well as possible next to Jamin, was Bruce.
It was a curious sight, and she wondered how they managed it. Her temporary guard in the firefighters never arrived, though most of the usual crowd also seemed intent on making an early retreat to their beds. She chalked it up to a barely hidden animosity that existed between fae and shifters. No one wanted to accidentally mingle. No one, except Bruce.
She thought of shooting Callum a quick message. Bruce and Jamin together could mean nothing but trouble, and probably for more than herself. Bruce had a strong dislike for Callum, Jamin wanted to bring problems to everyone in her life, and the rest of Bearden would suffer.
A glance at the clock and Gideon’s slow appearance from the back office decided for her, though. She was due to meet Callum in the time it took her to walk from the bar to his home. She could add the shadowy meeting to her list of confessions and properly explain her unease.
Fuck, she still didn’t know what to tell him. That Jamin was an ex, that would be repeated until he believed her. But telling him that Jamin was the one to run her off the road? That Jamin was the one she stole the map from that put her inside Bearden in the first place? Both of those were tricky and could lead to Jamin being questioned. And if Jamin was questioned, there was nothing keeping his mouth closed about how she spied for him.
There was no way to make Jamin pay for all his crimes without implicating herself.
But to let him go, or to have Callum think she felt anything for the man, was utterly revolting.
She wanted to atone for her crimes. Maybe this was where she began. Not with spilling her past to Callum, but with admitting to him how she hurt everyone in her moment of weakness.
Callum had hit the nail on the head when he called her scared and unable to see past running away. That’d been all she could think of the moment she realized he would keep her inside the town. She’d let her fear of standing still and suffering her consequences dictate her actions.
Fuck Jamin and all his false promises. Fuck his devious nature. Fuck hiding who he truly was for the entire time she knew him.
She didn’t want to lie to the people who took her in when they had no reason to do so. She didn’t want to lie to Callum.
Bearden had become her home, and she wasn’t going to stand by while Jamin threatened the people she was beginning to love.
She needed to tell Callum everything. From the act of stealing the map to the moment she let Jamin’s words steal into her head and pollute her thoughts, Callum needed to hear it all. Her complete confession would be the only way to rid Bearden of Jamin and the threat he posed. He couldn’t use her to worm his way out of punishment if she laid everything out on the table.
She waved farewell to Gideon. Maybe the last. Maybe she’d be sitting in one of Bearden’s high-security cells by morning, making neighbors with the sleeping figures underneath town hall.
It’d be worth it if she knew Jamin wouldn’t hurt anyone again.
The door to the bar swung shut behind her and she started her long march toward her fate. Callum would hear everything, just as soon as she made it to his door.
She’d neared Muriel’s when a sudden crack sounded in the night. She wheeled around toward the noise, and saw nothing but darkness behind her.
A shiver sailed down her spine and she wrapped her jacket firmly around her body. The hair on the back of her neck rose with something unseen in the night. The feeling of being watched only intensified.
Leah picked up her pace. Danger radiated in the night behind her, cutting off her access to Gideon at the bar and keeping her moving steadily forward. She started counting the blocks left before she could turn into the small clearing that housed the Strathorn cabins. Five more.
Quiet nights in the city never made her as nervous as she felt then. There was always some bar or late-night shop she could duck into. Always some friend to call if she needed help.
Without the firefighters or Callum himself, she felt utterly defenseless and alone.
A hand wrapped around her mouth and stifled her scream. Her feet kicked at open air as the person behind her lifted her high off the ground and pulled her into a dark side street. Strong arms wrapped around her middle and controlled her easily.
Fear and panic pushed through her until she was covered in a cold sweat. Bruce shoved her hard against the side of a waiting truck. Her head rang with the blow, but it wasn
’t enough to knock her out.
“Stay quiet,” Bruce snarled in her ear. His hand left her mouth for only the time it took to replace it with a dirty cloth.
Stay quiet? She wouldn’t be complicit in her own abduction. She pushed at the cloth with her tongue, trying to dislodge it from between her lips. Barring that, she shouted as loud as she could. Maybe a stray shifter would be nearby, and maybe they could still hear her.
But Bruce was too quick for her and had his abduction planned. The door to the truck creaked open, and he snagged a length of rope from the back seat. That length went around her head and secured the cloth in place. He then jerked her arms harshly behind her back and lashed her wrists together.
Then her world shifted, and she found herself face down on the backseat. Old, cracked leather was all she could see and smell. Bruce grasped her ankle and a fresh dose of fear hit her brain. Tied up, bent over, and at Bruce’s will, Leah screamed against the cloth and struggled to get anything but muffled sound out of the truck.
She didn’t know if she should feel relieved when Bruce simply growled and bound her feet together tightly, even as she kicked and struggled against him. He trussed her up easily, then rolled her into the floorboards.
“You had to choose him, didn’t you?” Bruce snarled when he locked her away and took a seat behind the wheel. She hoped to hear a slur to his voice, anything to convey a weakness she could exploit. But he hadn’t smelled or sounded of booze. He was sober in his actions.
The engine roared to life and the truck moved. Bruce taunted her as he drove to whatever destination he had planned. “Both of you think you’re so much fucking better than the rest of us. Prodigal son and all that bullshit. Stuck up bitch from wherever you humans breed like rabbits. You deserve each other.”
Leah kept her muffled retorts silent, largely because the motion in her position made her stomach turn. She tried to pay attention to the roads and think of where she was being taken, but soon it was all she could do to keep from vomiting. The fumes, the cramped space, and Bruce’s idiotic ranting were a heady combination.