by Dana Archer
Uri draws his leg up and turns in his seat. Then he stares at me. Tiny hairs stand up on my arms despite my wool jacket. I don’t rub at my arms to warm them, though. I can’t move. Uri holds me entrapped, waiting on what he’ll say next.
Finally, he drags the back of his hand along my jaw, and my caught breath escapes on a slow exhale. His caress reaches my chin, and he brushes his thumb over my lips, pulling the bottom one down ever so slightly. The hardness in his expression fades. It’s not lust replacing it. Not sadness either. With the slackening of his features and the hunching of his shoulders, I’d almost call it regret.
“I was supposed to come to this city twenty years ago. There was a blind human living here who knew about shifters. I thought maybe he could give me some advice that might’ve helped Ezra.” Uri slips his hand around the back of my neck, then leans closer, filling my vision and blocking everything else out. “I ended up not coming.”
“Why?” Because twenty years ago would’ve put me at eleven. Uri might’ve met me. I was on the streets most nights, hanging out and trying to survive.
Flexing his fingers, Uri grips a section of my hair. I wait for him to brush his lips against mine, but his steady gaze never leaves my face.
“Uri?” My breathless voice betrays the effect this man has on me. There’s no hiding it, not when Uri is so close. “What stopped you?”
Another long moment passes before Uri lowers his head to mine, his mouth to my ear. “I don’t know exactly. Not fear. Not regret. I simply knew if I did, my life would change. I’d assumed it had to do with Ezra.”
“Didn’t you want to help him?”
“I did. I do. I’m confident human medicine will advance enough to restore his eyesight while the influence of a witch will ensure whatever repair is made follows him through shifting from feline to man. I believe that with everything I am. Someday, he will look upon a woman the way I see you, and when that day comes, I will be free to embrace the same. That day isn’t here yet. Until then, he’s… I’m…”
Tightness on my scalp flutters my eyelids and forces me to press my lips together to hold my squeak back, but the sharp tug eases in the next heartbeat as Uri releases my hair. He wraps his arms around my back and draws me closer to him, urging me to lean over him, a reversal of our positions. Whether intentional or not, the subtle move, putting me in a dominant position, empowers me.
I twine my fingers in Uri’s loose waves and bring my mouth to his, close enough our lips touch and our breaths mix. “What, Uri? Tell me.”
“Trapped. We’re both trapped. Him to the dark. Me to my promise to him.” Uri slips his hands under my shirt and rests his fingertips against my sides as if needing the skin-to-skin contact as much as I do. “And pretending we’re whole doesn’t change the fact that we’re not free. Doing so will only hurt us and those around us.”
That includes me. I know it. This has to do with me, with whatever connection Uri and I share. It’s not lust or some infatuation or an addiction to Uri’s scent. This is more. It’s powerful. What I felt when Uri breathed me in and filled my lungs with his breath—his essence—is proof. Nothing he says or doesn’t say now will erase the memory of feeling as if I found my home. It’s here with Uri.
He’s mine, just as I’m his. Exactly as Ezra told me.
My pulse quickens, a pounding in my ears that leaves me on edge. “Are you now thinking your assumption is wrong?”
“About being trapped?”
The featherlight brush of Uri’s lips against mine sends energy down my spine to settle low and pushes me to the brink. Of what I don’t know. Lust? Hope? Despair? Or maybe all those things.
I swipe the tip of my tongue along my bottom lip, stroking Uri’s in the process. “Yes, about being trapped.”
“I’m surer than ever about my fate and Ezra’s. We’re trapped by the consequences of the past.”
I want to know what happened to Ezra and why Uri feels responsible, but I can’t let this chance slip by. “You mean about your life changing if you made the trip to this city twenty years ago? Those consequences?”
“You would’ve been a child.”
My heart races more, an excitement I can’t deny seizing me. “But you would’ve recognized our connection then. Right?”
“I am not aroused by children.” Uri tightens his hold on my waist and moves to lift me away from him.
I grip his hair and dig my elbows into his chest, a subtle plea not to push me away and my only recourse. Uri’s stronger than I am. If he doesn’t want my touch, he’ll make sure I can’t reach him. That’ll destroy me. He might as well stick me in a cage. Not being able to touch him will have the same effect on me. “And I didn’t get turned on by adults at eleven either. I knew about sex, but it didn’t interest me. I was just a kid trying to survive. I played with dolls, slept with my stuffed lion, and still believed in happily ever afters, but I also hustled drunks, pocketed tips left for waitresses, and took anything that wasn’t nailed down and could be sold at the pawn shop.”
Uri stills, the muscles under my body locked tight, but he doesn’t say anything.
“But I would’ve recognized you as a prince. My prince.” I relax against Uri, letting my lips skim a path across his cheek to his ear. “Right, Uri? I would’ve recognized you as my prince, the one man willing to lay down his cloak so I could walk without getting my feet dirty.”
“I would’ve laid down my life to save you and your sister from growing up without anyone to treasure you.”
I squeeze my eyelids, trying to stop any tears from leaking out. Emotions and I don’t mix well. “That’s sweet and all, but if you’d died then, you wouldn’t be here now when I am an adult and we’re both interested in sex.”
“This has nothing to do with sex.”
The rawness of Uri’s response hits me. I focus on him from inches away. “What does it have to do with?”
“I should’ve been here then. That’s the point you’re missing. I should’ve been here twenty years ago. If I’d come, maybe I would’ve saved you, saved your sister. Maybe that’s why my goddess tried to lead me here. Twenty years ago would’ve been early enough to save you and Sam, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then if my goddess had truly tried to intervene in your life, I failed you. Failed Sam.” Uri’s tone darkens. “Every moment, every pain, every memory is my fault.”
“Like you said, you don’t know what your goddess’s intention was back then.”
“No, but it’s awfully convenient I had the opportunity to be here when you needed me most. Don’t you think?”
Releasing my tight hold on Uri’s hair, I cross my arms behind his neck. “But that’s not when I needed you most. It’s now. Sam would agree with me too. We had to experience what we did to become who we are today. The pain, the hunger, the helplessness, the abuse. All of it. Those things define us just as whatever happened to you and Ezra define you.”
“A freak accident happened to us.” Uri slides his hands up my back. “A musket Ezra was trying to shoot blew back into his face. Humans rushed him off to their whack-job healers, and I couldn’t get free to tell our father or any of our pride mates who would’ve actually been able to save Ezra’s sight. Those humans locked me up, calling me a troublemaker, and by the time our dad found out, it was too late.”
There’s so much more to Uri’s story just as there is to mine, but these details break my heart.
“You were kids?” They had to be. Once Royals hit maturity, their immortality kicks in. Before that, they’re as vulnerable as the rest of us.
“Not kids. Not adults. We were at that age when we thought we knew everything.” Uri hooks his fingers around the clasp of my bra. “We were wrong.”
“Ezra can share your vision.” That’s my best guess from watching and listening to their interactions.
“Only when he’s human. His cats weren’t injured. They can see perfectly fine.”
“Wait. His cats?” I lean back as Uri un
hooks my bra. “Don’t you become your animal when you shift? Change shapes? I’d always assumed that. When Colin shifts, he understands what I’m saying and remembers everything once he returns to his human shape.”
“We’re not shapeshifters in that literal sense.” Uri slides his hands around my rib cage. “We’re shifters. Or maybe ‘hosts’ might be a better term. We share our bodies and souls with the bodies and souls of animals. When I shift, we change places. Their bodies emerge while mine fades. When I take my werecat form or allow my claws or fangs to emerge, we literally share the same skin.”
“Sort of a symbiotic relationship?”
Uri inclines his head. “I can control their bodies when I allow them to walk on this earth or I can retreat completely to their realm and allow them freedom. It’s my choice. Most often, we share what you call a symbiotic relationship, though. I hover in their souls and see the world as they do just as they often do when I’m human and they’re hovering in my soul.”
“Ezra looks through their eyes instead of yours.” No matter whose vision he borrows through, however, he’s not free. “But he only sees what you or they are looking at. He never sees for himself.”
“We focus on what he wants to look at. He just has to tell us.”
The tightness returns to my chest. I slip my arms around Uri’s neck and pillow my head on his shoulder. Without examining Ezra, I can’t guess the extent of damage or hypothesize on the possibility of whether his injury would be repairable. “You’re not responsible for a freak accident. You know that, right?”
“Long ago, powerful human shamans were claimed by the gods and goddesses. Those stolen humans became the prized possessions of the heavens. They also became the fathers of the Royals, but once they returned to the human realm, those altered humans and their offspring could no longer be directly controlled by the deities of the heavens. They can guide us, however, subtly influencing us into taking the paths they want.”
“Like trying to lead you to this city.”
“Yes, and I chose not to come. That’s the point. My goddess can guide me, but she can’t stop me from failing those around me.”
And blaming himself will give Uri the excuse to distance himself from me. I shake my head. “Things happen for a reason. That includes failure. Sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes.”
“My mistakes caused Ezra’s blindness and allowed both you and your sister to suffer through an experience nobody should have to endure.” Uri lifts me off him, setting me on the passenger seat, and grabs the steering wheel, his outstretched arm acting as a wall between us. “Those are not learning opportunities. Those are failures. Plain and simple. And failure should be punished, not rewarded.”
“You mean, you should be punished. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
Hugging myself, I turn in my seat. “You realize that also means I get punished too, right? That’s not fair. I can’t help it you’re too stubborn to realize this is our chance to make up for the past.”
Uri’s brows turn down. His lips thin. And the tightness in his posture makes the veins in his neck stand out. He shakes his head before I can comment on his confusion or his anger and opens the truck door. A blast of cold air invades the cab, making me shiver. He grabs a long coat from the bench behind the front seats, slams the door, and slips into the jacket while rounding the hood.
Cursing, I open my door. No way am I going to let him ignore me. I’m right about this. I know it.
A firm hand on my thigh stops me from climbing out. Uri reaches under my shirt and slides his warm palms around my back to hook my bra, then pulls the cups, adjusting the cotton over my breasts with the utmost care, as if I’m to be treasured.
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Uri’s actions don’t match his dismissal from moments ago. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Nothing shows on his face: not lust, not regret, not even the appreciation I feel with his careful touch.
Uri lifts me from the raised truck and sets me on the running board, putting us almost at eye level. He settles his hands on my hips, then stares at me for what seems like forever. “I’m stubborn. Don’t ever forget that. I won’t fail you again. I promise you this.”
“And I won’t fa—”
“Let’s walk the rest of the way.” Uri sets me on the pavement next to him. “It’ll give my cats a chance to access our surroundings. The shifter who attacked you yesterday blocked his scent, but he can’t hide from me forever, and when I do find him, he’ll regret ever laying a finger on you.”
With a hand at my lower back, Uri urges me to walk with him, but if he thinks my silence and compliance equal submission, he’s sorely mistaken. I don’t need to voice my promise to him. Actually, the one I hold in my heart is more powerful. I won’t betray myself, and I won’t give up my memories, not of the past and not of the sense of completeness I felt when Uri shared my soul.
Twelve
Uri
Walking with an erection straining against my zipper is not a pleasant sensation. Neither is knowing I’m failing in my promise to Ezra, my commitment to Shifter Affairs, and my goal of making a difference. The only good thing going for me at the moment is my decision to buy a long trench coat to replace my leather bag. Not only does the coat have enough pockets for all my Shifter Affairs issued supplies, it effectively hides the reaction Lyla has on me.
Too bad I can’t counter Lyla’s effect on my unraveling world as easily. I’ve tried. Ignoring her hasn’t helped. Neither has my attempt to force her into a role I can control.
After the story she shared with me, how am I supposed to look upon my beloved human—my property—and tell Lyla she has to explicitly obey me?
Delicate but strong fingers slip between mine, and Lyla’s firm tug draws me to a halt, saving me from a question I can’t answer. With her head tipped back to hold my gaze, Lyla focuses on me with an intensity I can’t help but appreciate, as if I’m the only male who matters. It’s not true, even if, in this moment, she believes that.
I’ve messed with her head. Multiple times. Sharing air with her started it. Licking her wounds yesterday compounded it. Nearly bringing her to release reinforced the craving for me. Now every breath she takes fills her lungs with my scent and reminds her of what it felt like to share her soul with mine. In that respect, it’s no wonder she’s looking at me this way. I’ve programmed her to yearn for me. Even knowing it’s my fault, I can’t help but fall under her spell.
I step closer to Lyla, my leg brushing hers. “What?”
“Izzy’s not here.”
“Are we calling it a night, then?” As much as I enjoy having Lyla look at me as if I’m truly her prince, the sooner I can get her home, the better. For us both.
Lyla shakes her head. “Not yet. It’s early.”
“Okay. We can round the block again if you want.”
“No, we’re drawing too much attention walking around here.” Lyla glances over her shoulder and scans the road.
A woman, maybe in her fifties, catches Lyla’s gaze and holds it. Lyla tenses, every inch of her body strung tight. I can feel her tension radiating from her as if her anxiety manifested itself into a fear. Her nostrils flare on her harsher breaths. I take her hand in mine, and the trembling sets me on edge. I study the woman on the other side of the street, but the worn-down human isn’t a threat, at least not one my cats would categorize as someone to keep Lyla away from.
I squeeze Lyla’s hand, her uneasiness sparking my need to protect her. From what, though, I don’t know. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing.” She glares at the woman once more, then looks at me with a smile. “Too many people recognize me. I think it’s my hair. They called me the golden girl back in the day.”
The debate plays out in my head. I want to push Lyla for the real reason for the tension that had just locked her muscles. I sense her need to change the subject too. Whatever bothered her isn’t something she wants to dwell on. Fine by me. As lo
ng as Lyla is with me, she’s safe.
Giving in to her change of subject, I twirl a lock of Lyla’s hair. The different highlights give it a shimmering quality just like… “Spun gold. That’s a better way to describe it.”
With a small smile, Lyla leans against my hand. “It definitely makes me stand out in the crowd, but that’s not helping us now. I might even be destroying our chance at finding Izzy. If she catches sight of me and doesn’t want to talk to the cops, she’ll disappear before we can approach her.”
“Izzy will sense me before she sees you, and we don’t know her story. If she’s fearful of males like me, she’ll run.” Which makes my presence here a hindrance to the case. “One of the regular agents should’ve come with you.”
“Why would she fear you?” Lyla studies me as if the very idea of a woman fearing me is impossible.
“Females like her are extremely valuable, and if she’s adopted, she doesn’t have an extended family to protect her from becoming a victim. Unless, of course, Bryon’s stepped up and looked out for her.”
“Doubt it. Bryon’s a loner, you know? He doesn’t step up for anyone.”
“Except you.”
Lyla scrunches her nose and glances at my chest. “I sort of made it a point to befriend him. He is the one who led Shifter Affairs to where Sam was being kept. I owed it to him. He didn’t think so, however. In fact, he was less than happy about being bugged by the annoying little girl who kept bringing him coffee.”
“But you wore him down.”
“Yeah. We’ve gotten close over the years.”
The jealousy I experienced talking with Bryon flares again. I tip up Lyla’s chin, needing the insight her eyes give me. “How close?”
Lyla drags the tip of her tongue along her lower lip and slides her gaze to my mouth. “Depends on your definition of close. We’ve spent enough time together that I probably know the most about him out of anyone in this city.”