by Dana Archer
She shoves her seat, knocking it to the side, and rushes forward, head down, and barrels into Ezra. He grabs her hand, and she gasps.
“I’m sorry. I—” Eyes wide, she takes in Ezra’s cool, empty expression and trembles, her free hand shaking.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ezra asks.
“Home.” Charley works her jaw. “Back to where I’m staying, I mean. Not my home.”
“Not alone, you’re not.” Ezra lifts Charley, her feet dangling, and hands her to Ilan. “See her back to her place, if you don’t mind. And lock her in this time.”
“Sure thing. My shift is over, and her place is on my way home.” Ilan sets Charley on her feet and wipes his palms on his thighs before motioning her forward. “Let’s go. I want to tuck my sons in before bed.”
Charley walks forward, but glances over her shoulder once they reach the door. Ezra doesn’t react to her stare burning into his back. Odin does, however. The dog peeks around Ezra’s legs. Then Charley’s gone, ushered out by Ilan.
“Like I said, I haven’t done anything illegal.” Vince stands and holds out his phone. “This contract is perfectly legitimate and fair too. Read it. It just has her working for us instead of her other fans. We’re simply shifting her fan base.”
“We don’t need models.” Ezra shakes out his hand. “Or social media know-it-alls.”
“We like to look at pretty things just as much as the next guy.” Vince flinches. “Trust me on that, okay? She’ll do quite well under this new contract, modeling clothes or whatever for our women. It’s perfect timing, honestly. There’s been a push for attire that’s doesn’t rip as easily when you’re trying to get naked. Quick-changing styles, you might call them.”
“The Yurans are involved in the fashion industry too?” Asa mentioned entertainment, not clothes.
“Among other things. Asa has quite a bit of money to invest, and I’ve been giving him suggestions on where to allocate his fortune.”
“From prison?”
“Yes.” Vince answers me. “We’ve talked extensively over the past few years, more than we ever did when I was free. Asa wants to make sure I follow his rule, I guess.” Vince steps around me, giving me a wide berth and avoiding my gaze. “And if you don’t have any other questions about the Yuran business, I have places to be. Things to do. Promises to keep.”
I step into Vince’s path. “What promises are those?”
“Ensuring harm doesn’t come to those you love.” Vince gives me a pointed look. “Or else you’ll turn me into your puppet. Right?”
“That or death.”
“And since I don’t like either of those options, I guess I’ll honor my promise.”
“You never made one.”
“Then I’ll make one now.” Vince lowers his voice to a near whisper. “I will do everything in my power to protect Zoe and her family. Not yours. You’re on your own, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re strong enough to handle keeping your pride mates safe. Otherwise, my alpha wouldn’t be so afraid of losing the shifter world to you, and that, Kade Alexander, should be your biggest worry. Wasting your time on a barely mature male who’s trying to make amends for the stuff I’ve done is only going to distract you from the big stuff coming your way.”
“What big stuff is that?”
“If you haven’t figured that out yet, maybe you are as naïve as Asa believes, and for Zoe’s sake, I hope that’s not the case. She’s lost enough people over her short life, and I don’t want to see her hurt anymore. We’re friends, and I care deeply for her. She saved me, believe it or not. I owe her this and more.” With that, Vince makes his way to the bar and orders a beer, then settles back with his frosty mug to watch the game playing on the screen in front of him.
“Do you believe him?”
Without taking my attention off Vince, I answer Ezra. “About them being friends? No. About Asa coming for me and mine? Yes.”
And there’s nothing I can do about it. Yet.
Twelve
Zoe
A soft whimper whips my head to the side. I listen, every instinct within me triggered. For several minutes, silence reigns while my muscles twitch. The urge to move prevails, propelling me through the dark fog of this unnatural world. It’s not real. I know it’s not real. It feels real, though. From the cold to the uneven ground under my feet. Branches scrape against me, the twigs catching my clothes and slowing my frantic trek through the woods. I push onward, following the path to the overlook I know by heart.
Moonlight cuts through the treetops ahead of me, shining light into my perpetually shadowed internal world. I run, the craving for the caress of the rays on my skin a tangible desire. Like a starving woman, I stretch out a hand, my fingertips passing through the dappled moonlight. Stars expand in a rush through the sky above me, lighting up the darkness as if I’d flipped a switched and turned them on.
Another whimper comes from behind me. I pivot, abandoning the light I’m not worthy enough to enjoy. My dream me—my crazy side—steps from the woods. No blood covers her tonight. The same jeans and black shirt I’m wearing do.
“Where’s John?” That’s what my brother called the baby I never named, never held, and never looked upon. The hospital requested a name for his death certificate, though. With me unconscious, Josh provided the name. He couldn’t have picked a better one.
My doppelgänger wipes her hands on her thighs, then slips her fingers into the front pocket of her jeans and pulls out two elastic bands, a purple and a black to match the ones in my hair. “Who’s John?”
Considering she can read my thoughts and knows what I’m thinking, the ignorance serves another purpose. I don’t know what, however. My crazy side has her own goals, and I can’t so easily pick them from her head as she can from mine.
“Correction. You can’t pick anything from my mind.” My evil twin smirks. “That should tell you something about who’s really in charge in our little forced coexistence.”
“Sure does. It tells me I’m smart enough not to wade into your messed-up mind.”
She chuckles, her superior look never fading. “If you say so.”
“My baby… That was my baby crying. Where did he go? Where is John?” Because his soul didn’t move on. My doppelgänger has been clear on that point. I believe her. Maybe that’s foolish, but I do. It’s instinct. Just as I trust those things my shrink told me. My baby’s soul is still somewhere on this earth. I feel him, and I can’t help but think he’s afraid to move on. He is only a baby, and if nobody led him to the other side… “Answer me!”
“He’s a brand-new soul too.” My evil twin laughs. “Poor luck, wouldn’t you say? His first go-around at life, and his mom fails him before he can take his first breath.”
“Where. Is. He?”
With both elastic bands held between her lips, this crazy version of me gathers her dyed silver-and-purple hair into ponytails and sets them with the bands, the purple on the right and the black on the left, exactly as I’m wearing them. She shakes her head on a smirk, the purple ends of her hair caressing her shoulders. “Where he belongs.”
“Which is?”
“Somewhere safe.” She leans forward and scrunches her nose. “So’s the man you loved most…then.”
“BJ?”
She doesn’t say anything. She only stares at me. Hands balled, I step forward. “You lie! BJ’s dead. This whole town went to his funeral. He had a partial open casket. Hundreds of people came. They looked at his face. They kissed his cold cheek. He’s dead!”
My outburst doesn’t sway my crazy side or compel her to speak. She remains unmoving, unblinking. I fling my fisted hands down and splay my fingers, when all I want to do is hurt her. “Talk to me! Where is my baby?”
“Safe.”
“Liar!” I spit the word. “He’s dead.”
My doppelgänger smiles and casts her gaze to the ground. “We made a deal.”
“Don’t lie.”
“The time to mak
e good on that deal is almost upon us, and good or bad, we’ll both reap the benefits. That’s not how it was supposed to be. It might be better this way, though. A blessing in disguise, that’s what humans call it.”
“I didn’t make—”
“Kade thinks we’re his true mate.”
“Kade thinks I’m his true mate. Not you!”
“We’re one.” She turns in a slow circle, her outstretched arms encompassing the shadowed woods. “And this is our soul, a place where we can both come and hide.”
“Li—”
“Our time is almost here.”
I step into the black mist, leaving the moonlight behind. “I don’t know why I’m here or why I’m arguing with you. It’s not healthy.”
“Then why are you?”
On a slow pivot, I scan the woods around me. No moonlight. No stars. Nothing but the shadowed outlines of trees and rocks. Even the path I’d taken through the woods is gone, swallowed up by the inky mist. One wrong step, and I could careen off the edge of the overlook and fall to my death. “I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t know how to get out of here.”
“I can lead you out.” She steps behind me and rests her chin on my shoulder. “I can take you to your baby too. All it’ll take is for you to uphold your end of our bargain.”
That pre-wail grumble babies make comes from the woods. I jerk my body, whipping my arm back and knocking my crazy side to the ground, then run in the direction of the sound. Her laugh mocks me, but my baby’s distress grows louder. The ground under me changes from dirt to stone. I freeze and stretch my arms out to the side, catching my balance.
With my heart pounding, I glance down as my baby’s grumbled sobbing morphs into an earsplitting scream. Nearly every instinct demands I reach him. The caution my shrink instilled in me stops me.
I can’t die. Bad things will happen if I do.
“Right. Bad things.” Sarcasm drips from my doppelgänger’s voice. “That damn shrink lied to you. Nothing bad is going to happen. You can finally get your wish and save your baby.” She laughs. “Isn’t that what you pleaded for when you were dying? Not to die so you could save your precious loved ones’ lives?”
My baby’s shrieking changes to a pitiful sob, the kind that would accompany a pouted lip and a scrunched chubby face. I squeeze my eyes closed as the reality of my past wraps around me. “He’s dead.”
“Is he?” My crazy self lowers her voice. “How can you be sure? Did you ever hold your dead baby’s body? Feel his cold skin?”
“Josh told me.”
“Josh told you a lie.”
“No.” I spin, sweeping my leg out and toppling my crazy side over the edge of the overlook.
Her laugh echoes around me, within me.
The world shakes with a rhythmic vibrating that travels up my arm.
Brightness floods my world, blinding me and splintering my crazy side, shattering her face—my face—into dust.
* * *
On a sharp intake, I glance at my hand and my fingers gripped around the phone while the loud clanking of the air-trapped radiator grounds me and chases back the last remnants of the twisted realism that’s become my reality. The urge to run from this self-induced hell seizes me. It’s my only escape. She doesn’t follow me.
With my pulse racing like some runaway train, I push away from the table, falling off the kitchen chair in my apartment and landing on my bottom. Another vibration travels up my arm and stills the need to get away. I turn the phone over. Josh’s text asking if I’m awake and want to talk shows on the screen. The last of my anxiety fades, my heart rate slowing. I send my reply, telling him to come up whenever he wants, then glance at the table where I’d slipped into my own mind.
A cup of steaming coffee and the magazine Mira had left when she’d visited the other night are set out exactly as they’d been a minute ago. I was reading the article about the latest model to admit to being an addict. I was not asleep. I’d swear on it. Heck, I’d bet Kade’s car on it. I wasn’t even thinking about the past, at least not that I remember. Maybe the article triggered some memory. BJ did have a drug problem. He’d been fighting it just as this Charley O’Connor is now.
Heck, reading this magazine probably did conjure up the past, but the trigger doesn’t matter so much as how easy I slipped into my own alternate reality, and if I don’t get out of town soon, I’m going to have more episodes. Then Josh and my parents are going to start questioning whether I’m losing my mind again. They’ll start discussing whether I should be committed. Or at the very least start seeing Dr. Fairchild again.
Using the edge of my hand, I scrub at my lower lip. “Not on my life.”
The first-floor door opens with a squeak, and Josh yells up, “Are you decent?”
“Yeah.” I look over my shoulder. “Got a half pot of coffee too.”
“Good.” Josh steps into the kitchen a moment later. “I need a fix. It’s too early to break out the alcohol.”
“Too early?” Turning to him, I smirk. “Since when? I remember you drinking a beer for breakfast after you turned twenty-one.”
Josh makes an amused sound. “I’ve got eyes watching me now, and kids pick up on things you wouldn’t expect, which is why I had to get out of the house for a while. Megan and Molly are sharp. They’re also protective. If they can fix Daddy’s problems, they will. It’s darn sweet, but I need more help than a couple of preschoolers can give.”
The small creases by my brother’s eyes—dark blue like mine—and the hardness of his jaw register. I motion to the table. “Sit and spill it.”
Josh snatches the toppled chair, spins it, straddles the seat, and rests his forearms on the back’s edge. “You’re still as bossy as you were as a kid.”
“And you still only obey me when you want to.” I pour black coffee into a teal-blue ceramic mug—the white lines of age giving it a crackled appearance—and set it in front of him. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
His response doesn’t hold that “don’t ask” tone or the inflection that suggests there’s a lot but he’s not about to tell me any of it. He sounds completely normal. My brother wouldn’t be sitting here if everything was normal, however. “Nothing?”
“That’s what I said. Nothing.”
“And by nothing, you mean…?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing going on. Mira’s going to be giving birth any day now, and nobody’s reached out to us with death threats or questions or doubts. The initial buzz about Mira being pregnant rocked the shifter world. There was a lot of outright disbelief and hate for her and me. Then”—Josh turns the mug toward him and grips the handle but doesn’t drink—“nothing.”
“Kade said something, didn’t he? Threatened anyone who tried to hurt your family.”
“Yes, but it was more of a reminder that Mira was an Alexander, and Alexanders will kill for one another.”
“But Mira is your mate, the alpha female of your pride.” At least that was how Zach explained it when I asked to be filled in on everything I missed out on during the drive to the prison for Vince’s hearing.
Josh nods. “It’s complicated. Megan’s an Alexander. She’s bonded to Kade in the way of a pride mate. Mira and Molly, though, are more like honorary pride mates than those sharing a mystical bond. And me? For my family’s sake, I’m just a human mate in the eyes of the shifter world.”
“Makes sense. Though I bet doing so irritates you.”
“It’s for the best. The shifter world won’t see me as a threat, and when it comes down to it, fear’s what keeps them in line.”
“But you’re a human with your own set of cats and that creepy goddess sharing your soul. If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is.”
“And I’m still adjusting to living with these crazy instincts and the whackjob goddess who decided to latch onto my soul.” Josh shakes his head. “Excuse me. Golden Goddess who blessed me and granted me the ability to spend eternity with Mira.”
“She likes to remind me of the benefits of our deal. I like to remind her of what that deal actually is—a symbiotic relationship”—Josh leans forward and pulls the mug closer to him—“and that means her power is mine.”
“So you can do anything she can?”
“I will once I’ve learned to wield her powers safely.”
Speechless, I study my brother. There’s nothing different about him, at least on the outside. Appearances can be deceiving, however. “And what does she get out of it?”
Josh lowers his voice. “The chance to walk among humans.”
I lean closer until the scent of his favorite cocoa butter soap drifts to me. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Once I’ve mastered her powers, she can walk among humans, leaving me in charge, so to speak.”
The sensation of my crazy persona melding into me rolls through my body and leaves me flinching. Josh narrows his eyes. I sit back in an attempt to gloss over my case of the heebie-jeebies, hoping Josh doesn’t press me on my reaction. “What? She’ll emerge from your chest like some sort of demonic possession?”
Josh shrugs. “The how doesn’t matter. What does is the fact I can give the Alexander pride’s goddess what she’s craved since the beginning of time.”
“And nobody else knows this, do they?” If they did, my brother’s unborn babies wouldn’t be the only ones at risk. Josh basically confessed to one day being able to wield the powers of the heavens.
“You and Mira do.”
“Not Kade?”
Josh shakes his head.
“Why not?”
“Because.” Josh wets his lips and studies the black coffee. “Kade’s had his own issues to deal with. Maybe I’ll fill him in soon. We’ll see, though. Depends on how things go.”
“Depends on how what things go?” The suspicion in my voice tugs Josh’s gaze to mine. “Do these things have to do with me?”