by Linsey Hall
“Har har.”
“You really don’t know why this place is like this?” he asked.
“No. Should I?”
He shrugged. “You’re not a Shifter, so I guess not.”
“It’s Shifter business? Wait. Does our proximity to Glencarrough have anything to do with this?”
We’d actually driven partway back to Glencarrough to get here. From my limited understanding of the geography, Glencarrough was the closest settlement to this place.
He nodded, staring at his hands, then flexed his palm and clenched it into a fist. “You asked why I wasn’t on the Alpha Council. And you’re right—it’s odd that the Origin isn’t on the Alpha Council.”
I nodded, urging him to continue. The way the Alpha Council ran their business was a bit of a mystery to non-Shifters. Magica and Shifters didn’t usually hang out much. We certainly didn’t talk about the structure of our governments.
“For centuries, we were on the Council,” Aidan said. “Until my father. I actually lived with him until I was fourteen.”
“I thought you said he died when you were young and that your mom raised you.”
“Fourteen feels young now. And I don’t like to talk about him, so I say that. I found my mother after he died and she raised me from fourteen to eighteen. She’s the only one I want to remember.”
“Why?”
“When I was twelve, my father had a disagreement with two other council members. They couldn’t come to terms on some council business. Something fairly minor, though I never learned what exactly.” He dragged a hand through his hair, clearly uncomfortable. “He killed them.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “Why?”
“That’s only part of the ugly part.” He reached across the table and picked up my hand. His fingers were warm and strong. He turned my hand over and looked down at my palm, as if he were reading my fortune.
After a second, I realized that he didn’t want to look at me, though he did want a connection. My fingers curled around his.
His voice was gruff when he finally spoke. “Some Origins have been known to have rage issues. Scholars of magic think it’s all the built-up power and the fighting spirits of the animals we can become. Not every origin is hit with it, but some are. My father was one of them. One day, he snapped. For the first time in Alpha Council history, there was murder. After he killed the two other council members, he holed up here and put all the protections in place. It was his family’s land—I’d spent some time here as a little kid—but we moved here full time after the murder. He never left this land, and no one could get to him. The Alpha Council decided to pardon him. Or at least, not seek vengeance. He was too powerful and too protected. Some people are still angry about that decision. Like Angus.”
“Yeah, he didn’t seem to like you today.”
“No. Because I went with my father. I was old enough to know better, but I stuck by him.”
“You were a kid. You were freaking twelve! Of course you stuck by him.”
“Twelve is old enough to know better. He was a murderer who used his power to avoid punishment. But he was my father. I didn’t want to believe he was evil and I couldn’t leave him. I became a traitor to the other Shifters when I went with him.”
“Because you didn’t want to betray your father. There was no winning for you.”
He shrugged.
“So you grew up here? With him?”
“Yeah. It, uh, wasn’t an easy childhood, even before he killed his fellow council members.” His gaze met mine, strong and fearless.
I couldn’t really imagine what it must have been like to live on this secluded piece of land with a guy whose insanity manifested itself as rage, but I had a feeling that might only be because I couldn’t remember my past.
“You turned out good though.” I squeezed his hand.
“Thanks. And it’s done with, so it doesn’t matter. After he died, I found my mother. He’d told me she was dead, but I found some of her things in his room. She took care of me. Turned me into a decent man. Eventually, I approached the council to make amends for going with my father that day.”
“And they forgave you, obviously, because you were just a kid.” I hated that he was so hard on himself.
“Yeah, most of them. A few, like Angus, can’t recover from the loss of the men my father killed, so they hate me. I don’t blame them. Because of that, I thought it best that I not sit on the council. I don’t think the family curse is going to get me—most Origins go mad by their early twenties—but the Council needs some distance from me.”
“I guess.” I glanced around the room.
“Thanks for dinner.” His tone indicated the conversation was done. Sharing was one thing, but dealing with the aftermath was another. “I’m going to head out to the gym and beat up a punching bag for an hour. There’s two bedrooms. Take the one with the bigger bed.” He turned and strode to the door.
“Uh, thanks,” I said to his retreating back. I couldn’t blame him for bailing out. It was how I liked to handle emotional shit too.
When the door shut behind him, I went to the little window over the kitchen counter and looked out. Aidan’s big strides ate up the ground as he headed toward the small building about twenty yards away.
I turned around and scrubbed my hands through my hair, trying to get a grip on the emotions ricocheting through me. While I hated that Aidan’s life had been so shitty when he was a kid, the way he’d risen above it only made me respect him more.
And trust him more, too.
Oh, boy. I was in trouble.
5
Cold, damp stone bit into my back as I huddled against the wall. My heart pounded, a terrified drumbeat in my head. Footsteps sounded in the hall outside our dungeon cell.
I squeezed myself into a ball, trying to disappear into the stone. If I could just make myself small enough, he wouldn’t find me. I didn’t know where they took the girls when they left this dark little hole, but they came back different.
Collared.
The door crashed open and light blinded me. It pounded into my head. I hadn’t seen light in days. I scrambled back, my shoulder bumping against the girl next to me. Instinctively, I flinched. But when she grabbed on to me, I latched on to her right back. Like my muscles remembered that we were friends even if my mind was too scared to remember.
The figure that stood silhouetted in the door was huge. A monster. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. Anything to keep from drawing attention to myself.
“In you go.” His voice sounded like rocks scraping together.
His arm moved and a small figure hurtled into the room. I hadn’t seen the girl standing in front of him, but he’d shoved her.
Gratitude welled inside me when I realized he wasn’t coming for one of us. But when he slammed the door and the girl started to cry, shame washed over me. The only reason he wasn’t taking one of us was that he already had.
And now she was back.
I sucked in a deep breath and scrambled forward. Even though we were alone in the room—me and the other girls—I still moved low to the ground, with stealth. It was instinct.
When I reached the girl, I pulled her up by her arms. Though I couldn’t see in the dark, there were other arms as well. My friends. We picked up the girl and half-dragged/half-carried her back into the corner with us. When we reached it, we huddled into a pile.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. Was this my life?
I hugged the girl nearest me, not sure who it was because of the dark. When I felt the cold metal around her neck, I realized. It was the girl who’d been tossed back in the room.
She now wore a collar.
I bolted upright in bed, gasping. The dark closed in on me, suffocating and blinding. I blinked frantically, trying to make out anything in the cloying blackness. The quilt beneath my fingertips was soft cotton, not stone.
I wasn’t there anymore.
I was in Scotland. In Aidan’s childhood home.
/> Safe.
No longer a prisoner or trapped in my own nightmares. I sank my fingers into the quilt, trying to anchor myself to the real world. My heaving breaths were loud in the silence.
This dream had been new, but had felt like a continuation of the one I’d had over a week ago. I was finally remembering my past, but the things I was dredging up…
Freaking awful.
I dragged a shaky hand through my hair and rubbed my eyes. I had to get out of this room. I couldn’t risk falling back asleep like this. Not if it meant having that horrible nightmare again. And as much as I wanted to understand my past, I clearly needed to experience it in small doses.
With a trembling hand, I reached for my lightstone ring on the bedside table. The glow burst to life when I put it on. Soft light illuminated the small room. I’d gone to bed before Aidan had come back, but before I’d fallen asleep, I’d heard him come in and go into the other bedroom.
The last thing I needed was a chat, though.
As quietly as I could, I climbed out of bed and tugged on my jeans and boots, then zipped myself into my jacket. I strapped my daggers to my thighs, then tiptoed through the living room and out the front door.
The night was damp and cool, and I sucked in the cold air, hoping to clear my head as I walked silently across the grass toward the building that Aidan had gone to earlier in the night.
Though I had nervous energy to burn after that nightmare, I’d be fooling myself if I said that was the only reason I was going to the gym. It was where Aidan had escaped last night when he’d felt uncomfortable. Uncomfortable was an understatement for how I felt right now, but maybe it would work for me too. And maybe it’d tell me more about Aidan.
Yeah, it was a bad idea to get involved, but the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know. And right now, I’d rather try to think about a guy than my past.
The heavy wooden door creaked as I pushed it open. My lightstone illuminated the small space as I stepped inside. A few pieces of ramshackle exercise equipment—weight benches, punching bags of various sizes, pull-up bars—decorated the space, but that was about it.
Had Aidan worked out when he was young to keep himself strong, so he could withstand his father’s rage episodes? I shuddered at the thought, my heart twisting in my chest at the idea of a small Aidan being subject to that kind of abuse. He’d been stuck here for most of his childhood, living with a monster.
I was proof that you could survive it, but I hated the idea of anyone I cared for going through something similar.
I dragged my jacket off and hung it on a hook by the door, then went to the punching bag in the corner. It was the big, bulky kind. Roughly the size of a man if you chopped him off at the knees. I wanted to do that to Aidan’s father. To the Monster who’d stolen my memories. To the one who’d captured Amara.
I launched my fist at the leather bag. Smack! The force of the hit jolted up my arm. I didn’t usually work out—my job kept me too busy—but pulverizing an inanimate object felt good. My fists flew, pounding into the bag. The lightstone ring on my hand flashed with every blow, the effect almost hypnotizing.
My breathing started to drag, my lungs burning. After a while, I realized that tears rolled down my cheeks, but I didn’t stop to wipe them away. I just kept hitting, wailing on the bag like I wanted to wail on so many bad guys that I couldn’t catch because they were hiding or locked up in a damned Dawn Temple or already dead.
Eventually, a shadow caught my eye. My muscles tensed, ready to turn on any attack. But it was Aidan.
Of course. He was the only one who could get in here, anyway. The protection spells were too strong.
He didn’t say anything, just leaned against the wall. I hit the punching bag a few more times, but the fight had drained out of me. I sniffled and dragged my sleeve across my cheeks.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked, trying to sound normal.
“Not once I heard you get up.”
“How long have you been here?”
He approached, seeming to have waited until I was done beating the crap out of the bag.
“Long enough,” he said, then pulled me into his arms.
I stiffened, but his warmth enveloped me. My face pressed against the soft flannel covering his hard chest. Fates, he felt good.
“Are you trying to comfort me?” I mumbled into his shirt. I couldn’t smell his magic right now, but I could smell him. Soap and skin and Aidan. I wanted to breathe him in forever.
“Yeah, maybe.” His big hand rested on the back of my head, stroking my hair, and his other wrapped around my waist. “Am I doing it right?”
I nodded, sniffling. The tears were past, thank magic, but I didn’t want to let go.
“What was that all about?” he asked after a moment.
“Just felt like a workout.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Those midnight workouts that involve crying. Those really make me feel the burn. I alternate them with leg days.”
I laughed, the sound muffled against his shirt. Now that the crying had stopped, I had a chance to focus on how good Aidan felt.
And damn, did he feel good. He towered over me, seeming tall and strong as a mountain. Heat coiled within me. I tried to ignore it.
“But really. What’s wrong?”
I dragged in a ragged breath. “I guess this job just hits close to home. I can’t stop thinking about Amara.”
Or my past. Or your past. Why was the world so damned cruel?
“Close to home? You told me about the Monster who hunts you, but not about how you met him. I know almost nothing about your past.”
The nightmare flashed in my mind. That was my past. Why would I want to tell anyone that?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish the feeling of the dark stone cell. I didn’t want to think about my past, not now that I was feeling a bit better. Being held like this made me remember the good things there were in life, not just my ugly past or Amara.
I sunk my fingers into Aidan’s shirt, wanting to grab hold of his strength and use it to force the bad memories away.
“Nothing interesting in my past,” I said.
“Now, I know that’s not true. I showed you mine, so you ought to show me yours.”
I laughed. He was talking about revealing dark pasts, but my mind went straight toward what it might be like if he showed me his.
That was a better way to forget this misery for a while.
I ran my hand up his chest, reveling in the hard muscles beneath my palms. I raised my head to meet his gaze.
Fates, he was handsome, especially when the concern in his gray eyes turned to heat as he registered my intentions.
“Cass.” Aidan’s voice was rough.
His hand tightened in my hair, and heat flared low in my belly. I stood on tiptoe and pulled hard at his shirt, dragging him down until I could crush my mouth against his.
His lips were warm and soft, a contrast to the hard body that pressed against my own. I wanted to climb him like a tree.
The low groan that escaped his throat spiked my desire higher. Ravenous, I ran my hands over his shoulders and chest, wanting nothing more than to rip his shirt off and kiss every inch of him.
His mouth felt like heaven on mine. When his tongue traced the seam of my lips, I parted them. He slipped between my lips, and my brain fogged. Every bad thought was drifting away as pleasure swamped me.
I pressed myself closer to him, gasping at the skill of his kiss and his hardness against my belly. Need flooded me, a desire like I’d never felt. This wasn’t just any guy.
This was Aidan. I didn’t care that he was a millionaire and the most powerful Shifter in the world. He’d had my back every time something bad had come at me. He’d had no reason to come on this job except to be by my side.
Then the thought of the job—of Amara—stole my breath.
I jerked away, gasping.
“What’s wrong?” Aidan’s voice was strained. The desire in his dark eyes was fi
erce. I shivered.
“Nothing,” I said as I pulled away. “At least, not with you. But I can’t stop thinking about Amara. We can’t fail her.”
“We won’t.”
“I want to practice shifting again.” I needed to practice. I couldn’t keep running from my magic, not when bigger things were at stake than me lying low from the Order of the Magica or the Alpha Council. “I’ve got a better handle on the lightning and my Mirror Mage powers, but shifting is still so damned hard. What if I need it to save her?”
Approval gleamed in his eyes. He’d been pushing me to practice and embrace my magic while I’d been such a wimp, so stuck in my ways of hiding and repressing. But now someone needed my help.
“Good,” he said. “What do you want to turn into?”
Smaller things were easier. We’d tried a house cat back at his place in Ireland. I’d gotten as far as growing furry paws before I’d passed out from the effort. It’d been weird.
“Something smallish, but fierce,” I said. As the Origin, Aidan could turn into anything, so I could just mirror his Origin powers and pick whatever animal I wanted. “How about a bobcat?”
“Good choice. Do you want me to turn into one first to make it easier?”
“No. I’m just going to try to mirror your Origin power and go from there. That’s more like what would happen if we were in battle. I wouldn’t be able to ask you to change first.”
He nodded.
I sucked in a deep breath and stepped back, then closed my eyes. Shifting was hard because it wasn’t my natural state. I was Magica, so when I mirrored another Magica’s powers, that came more naturally. I understood how to use magic, even if the powers were all different. But understanding how to be magic—to change into an animal like a Shifter did—that was harder.
I focused on the feel of Aidan’s magic, which was surging now that we were actually going to use it. The sound of crashing waves and the scent of the forest filled my senses. My magic wound around his, reaching and poking, trying to get a handle on how he turned into an animal. I could feel his Elemental Mage powers. It’d be nothing to latch on to those and send a blast of fire from my fingertips.