Chapter 9
Cordelia felt self-conscious as she came downstairs the next night. Mary had come to wake her up a couple hours before sunset and informed her that they were going to be hanging out by the pool tonight. She had tossed a bathing suit on her bed and told her to get a move on. She was thankful that it was at least a one piece.
Her confidence might be growing but she hadn’t reached the point where she would be comfortable wearing a bikini in public.
She had found a floral wrap-around skirt in the boxes from her apartment and she was glad she could hide her hips and thighs. Changing into a Shadow Walker might have made her hair shiny and her eyes sparkle but it didn’t do anything about the extra pounds she carried. On the bright side, it did erase cellulite so she supposed she should be more thankful.
She followed the music that drifted from the back of the house and found that everyone was already outside. The pool area was brightly lit causing the stone patio to shine like silver. So far, Demetri was the only one who was enjoying the massive inground pool, doing back flips off the diving board while Marcus sat in the attached hot tub with Katerina and a female Cordelia didn’t recognize. Mary and Zeke were at the outdoor bar, fiddling with the stereo that pumped music into the outdoor speakers. Giovanni was scurrying around the cabana on the opposite side of the pool, arranging platters of food on the low table that was surrounded by oversized brightly coloured pillows.
She made a beeline for the bar, hoping that a little liquid courage could help her feel more comfortable in her skin. Mary and Zeke greeted her as she grabbed a beer from the fridge underneath the bar.
“So where’s Nicky?” she asked Mary.
“He left to meet with Isaac, the Council’s Enforcer. He’s going to be looking for Armand tonight.”
Zeke smiled at her. “Speaking of Armand, I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you on taking that guy down.”
She blushed, feeling a little flustered under his gaze. It was almost painful to look at him. He was so pretty and it ended up jumbling her brain.
“I just got lucky that he has a huge ego,” she told him, trying to brush away the praise. It felt weird to be congratulated for beating on someone.
“Still it was impressive to see a little thing like you tossed him like he was a rag doll.”
Her eyes widened and a giant grin spread across her face. No one had ever called her a little thing, least of all a guy who looked like he belonged on the cover of high-end fashion magazines. All of a sudden, the whole being in a bathing suit thing didn’t seem so terrifying. Talk about a confidence booster.
“It actually felt really good,” she confessed.
He laughed at that. “Looks like you have a spitfire on your hands here, Mary.”
“We’re used to it. Demetri spent his first twenty years getting into fights every night. Then again I think that might have been less because he wanted to fight and more because he was always running his mouth.”
As if he knew they had been talking about him, water splashed across their feet. Demetri, who was floating by the side of the pool, splashed them again which got Mary cursing.
“Are you guys coming in or what?” he asked, as he tossed his head to get his wet hair out of his eyes.
Zeke stood up and extended a hand to Cordelia. “You want to come?”
She hesitated for a moment, self-consciousness bubbling to the surface again but she quickly pushed it back down. No, she was done with letting the fears her mother had berated into her control her. After all, what was there to be afraid of now that she was a Shadow Walker?
Besides, for some reason beyond her understanding, Demetri chose to wear a super tight Speedo so at least she wouldn’t look the most ridiculous.
She took Zeke’s hand and they walked to the edge of the pool. She untied her skirt and dipped her foot into the water. It was the perfect temperature, warmed by the sun during the day.
“Come on, Grandma, get in here!” Demetri called out and splashed her again. She gave him the finger before diving in and Zeke followed behind her. She came to the surface, feeling refreshed and saw Zeke pop up behind Demetri.
Zeke grabbed his shoulders, shoving him beneath the water. Demetri broke the surface sputtering water before he declared Zeke “Dead!” and lunged for him. She laughed as the boys chased each other through the water, gliding over to the hot tub when their chase came too close.
“It’s nice to see you again, Cordelia,” Katerina greeted her. “I want to introduce you to my friend. Beatrix, second daughter of Damianus.”
“Nice to meet you,” Cordelia said to the female that she had noticed earlier. She was young or at least she looked young. She had probably been changed when she was around eighteen. She was tall and willowy, all lean arms and legs. She had fine brown hair that she had pulled back into a ponytail and it emphasized her delicate bone structure. Her eyes were a radiant silver, the outdoor lights making her irises to resemble swirling circles of mercury.
“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Beatrix greeted her. “I heard about what happened at Roxy. I am glad that you are okay.”
“Thank you. Though I don’t think challenging Armand was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Males can be so full of themselves,” Beatrix said. “Sometimes getting smacked down is the best thing for them.”
“I fully agree,” Katerina added, lifting her glass in a toast.
“Ladies, I’m going to assume you are only talking about Shadow Walkers,” Marcus said, “And not human men.”
Katerina smirked at him before taking a sip of her wine. “No, I’m definitely talking about both.”
“You wound me,” Marcus replied, hand on his chest as he put on a frown and the women laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Zeke asked as he pulled himself up to sit next to Cordelia on the wall.
“Marcus has been entertaining us,” Beatrix replied.
“He does seem to be quite the ladies man tonight.”
Marcus shrugged as he leaned back and smiled. “What can I say? They find me irresistible.”
“Hey, they like me too,” Zeke said, wrapping his arm around Cordelia’s shoulders. The sensation of his bare skin pressed against hers had her blood warming in her veins and she felt a tug deep in her gut. “Right?”
Cordelia just laughed and ducked her head as her cheeks reddened. She didn’t know what to say to that. She had never been good with flirting, even harmless flirting like this. Well, no time like the present to practice.
She put her hand on his knee and looked up at him, flashing him her best doe eyes. “We adore you.”
The heat in her veins increased and the weird tugging in her gut got stronger, as if it was trying to draw her somewhere. She might be an amateur at the flirting game but she wasn’t a stranger to physical attraction and it had never felt like this.
Demetri swam over to join them, distracting her from her thoughts. “Guys, why do you lie to yourselves? We all know it’s me the ladies want.”
Zeke splashed Demetri while Marcus flipped him off and the girls laughed. Zeke smiled at that. “When the ladies are laughing at you, it’s not a good sign.”
As Demetri and Zeke continued to chirp each other, Cordelia caught the scent of sawdust and pine trees on the wind. She scanned the area and was surprised to see Gabe seated at the bar with Mary.
Well, that explained the strange sensations she was experiencing. It wasn’t attraction to Zeke that had her veins tingling. It was Gabe’s blood, still pumping through her, reacting to his presence.
She excused herself from the others and headed over to the bar. She saw that Mary and Gabe were sharing a bottle of tequila and each of them had a shot glass that they were currently filling.
“Hey Gabe.”
“Hey,” he said nonchalantly before knocking back the shot, not sparing her a glance.
She sensed immediately that something was wrong. There was an aura of dark anger hovering around him and she
could sense part of it was directed at her.
“Have you been here long? I didn’t see you come in.”
“You probably missed me coming in because you were too busy talking to your friend over there.”
She was surprised by the coldness in his words. He had never spoken to her with such malice before.
Oh God, what if Mary and Anne had been wrong? They had promised her that she hadn’t forced him but why else would he be so angry with her?
“Is there something wrong?”
Gabe’s expression didn’t change as he considered her question, his eyes remaining hard and the ire in them flashing bright.
“Nope, everything is all good. You can go back to doing your own thing,” he replied, waving towards the others.
“Well, all right, if you’re sure,” she said, reluctantly. She knew he was lying but she had no idea why. She knew him well enough to know if he was upset because of last night, he would tell her straight-up.
“I’m positive,” he told her before turning back to the bar and pouring two more shots. He handed one to Mary and Cordelia watched the way their fingers brushed. She looked between the two of them, Gabe, the gorgeous chiseled Adonis and, Mary, the chic slender beauty.
Oh, she got it now.
His coldness towards her had nothing to do with what happened last night. It had to do with what was happening now. She was interrupting his chance to be with Mary.
As jealousy reared its ugly head inside her, she had to fight the urge to go after Mary. A primal instinct inside her screamed that Gabe was hers and Mary had no right to be anywhere near him.
She knew it was the blood bond talking and she had to control it. Gabe was free to do whatever he wanted. She had no right to control him, no matter what her instincts told her.
She knew it but it still hurt like hell to have to let him go.
“Okay well you two enjoy yourselves,” she said with a lame wave before walking away.
As she made her way back to the hot tub, she felt a presence wheedle its way into her mind through one of the fractures that had appeared in her mental shields from her extreme emotions. She tried to push out the presence but she was too late and Mary’s voice echoed in her mind.
…Cordy it’s not what you think…
…GET OUT…
The command was fuelled by anger and jealousy and they made it strong enough to push Mary out of her head. She pulled her shields tighter around her, determined to keep everyone out of her head. She didn’t care to hear whatever excuses Mary would drum up.
She stalked back to where the others were seated, her anger still a dark cloud hanging over her head. When she dropped down on the pool edge, Zeke looked over at her and smiled warmly.
Damn, the man was absolutely exquisite.
She remembered how every woman at Roxy had slowed when they had passed their table, taking their time to stare at Zeke. They had inevitably made a second pass, this time intent on catching his eye with what they had on display, be it deep cleavage, dynamite ass or legs that went on for days. Females of both the human and Shadow Walker variety had unanimously declared Zeke prime, Grade A beefcake.
So why wasn’t she attracted to him?
Sure, she was able to appreciate the perfect face and body and she liked everything that was on the inside too. But she didn’t feel the spark, that thing that gave the oomph to attraction and made you crazy about another person. The something she felt every time she was around Gabe.
She glanced back to the bar and was sad to see that his back was still turned to her. Maybe it was for the best. It was silly of her to think that becoming a Shadow Walker would change his feelings for her. She needed to stop pining over someone who didn’t want her and move on.
***
Gabe had been twitchy all day. He hadn’t been able to sleep at all because his stupid brain wouldn’t shut the hell up. He had gone over the night’s events again and again, trying to piece together all the jagged fragments. There were definite holes in the whole thing and a lot of what he did remember was fuzzy.
But he remembered the most important thing: Cordelia was alive and well.
And a Shadow Walker. A really hot heterosexual Shadow Walker. That he had kissed. And damned if that kiss wasn’t burned into his grey matter.
That memory was what got him twitching all over. He wanted her…bad. The only problem was that she had cut things way too short. He had been more than ready to take things horizontal in the garage last night but she had pushed him away.
Which, now that he had time to think about it, he should have seen coming. They might have cleared up his idiot mistake about her sexuality but that didn’t automatically mean she wanted him. They’d been friends for a while now and she never showed any interest in him. She only wanted to be friends, her abrupt shutdown of the make out session in the garage made that obvious.
But as he counted down the minutes to sunset, he remembered the way she had responded to him in the moment. He remembered her moans when he pressed against her, how she had been the one to climb on top of him, the way her lips had trailed down his throat. She had been into it. He realized she had to have some kind of attraction to him to respond like that. Which made everything ten times more confusing.
As he had driven the Viper back to the manor, he had resolved himself to stop worrying about it. He had made his intentions clear last night and that meant the ball was in Cordelia’s court. She had enough going on in her life right now, she didn’t need him pushing about his hard on for her. She had stopped things between them last night so it was up to her to start them again.
With that decided, he had been in a good mood when he had parked the car in the garage and cheerfully greeted Olivia when she had answered the door. His mood had instantly soured when Olivia had led him outside to the pool and he had seen Cordelia cozied up with the man he vaguely remembered from the night before. They looked quite comfortable together and Gabe’s blood boiled when the guy leaned in close to whisper something in her ear that caused her to laugh.
He had stalked over to the bar and as he took up his first shot, he was joined by Mary. She didn’t say much, just downed a shot with him before setting them both up again. Then Cordelia had finally pulled herself away from the guy to come see him and he had blown her off.
He probably should have been nicer about the whole thing but he just couldn’t stop himself. He was pissed and would rather sulk at the bar than have to pretend that it didn’t bother him to see her flirting with another man.
His mood got darker and darker as he caught the reflection of Cordelia and the man in the mirrors mounted behind the bar. He had the urge to chuck his shot glass at the mirror, shattering it into a million pieces. Instead he filled the glass again, taking his aggression out on his liver.
“You know if your plan is to get shit faced and take a swing at him, you might want to call it off now. Zeke is a third son.”
He poured another shot for both him and Mary and then shook his head. “I have no idea what that means.”
“It means he can snap every bone in your body without breaking a sweat.”
“Well it’s a good thing that while I have every intention of getting completely wrecked, I’m not going to start any fights.”
“Are you sure?” Mary asked skeptically. “Because jealousy is coming off of you in waves.”
He squinted at her suspiciously. “You one of those weirdo hippy psychics?”
“Nope, I’m the real deal, my boy. Shadow Walkers have a lot of different abilities. My clan leans towards being telepathic.”
“So basically you are telling me that when I’m here, I don’t even have the privacy of my own thoughts. Fucking fantastic.”
“Don’t worry, we were all raised with manners. We won’t read your thoughts unless it’s absolutely necessary. Like I said, it’s coming off you in waves. Even the best mental shield couldn’t stop it from coming through.”
“Great. Now Cordy knows I’m jealous
and I look like an asshole.”
“She’s got no idea. She’s too young to have control over her abilities. She can’t identify the feelings of jealousy as yours. She thinks they are her own feelings. It’s why she stormed off and has been glaring at us for the last little while.”
Mary nodded toward the mirror and, sure enough, she was right. Cordy was sitting between Zeke and Demetri, who were talking animatedly, but she wasn’t listening to a word. She was glaring in his direction, her face dark with anger.
“My advice would be to go talk to her.”
“Maybe a bit more liquid courage.”
“What are you, sixteen and asking the pretty cheerleader to prom? You don’t need booze or a wingman. What you need to do is act like the grown ass man you are and go talk to her.”
“Well aren’t you blunt?”
“I’ve been told it’s one of my more annoying traits.”
“It’s not. It’s a good thing,” he said with a smile. “You tell people what they need to hear. It’s better than blowing smoke up their ass.”
“And it usually gets me labelled a bitch.”
“They’re wrong. My mom always said that it wasn’t fair that when a man tells it like it is he is called a leader but when a woman does it, she’s called a bitch.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle as he pictured his mother, hands on her hips, back straight, chin in the air, telling a car mechanic that she certainly wasn’t going to pay a one hundred percent markup on parts because he thought she didn’t know a spark plug from a piston simply because she was a woman. The mechanic had cursed her under his breath but he had still given her the parts at cost.
“She liked to tell it like it is a lot,” he admitted with a rueful smile.
“I’d like to meet her. I think we’d get along.”
“She was a great woman.”
The past tense was enough for Mary to understand why she would never meet his mother. She inclined her head to him, offering up her glass to honour his mother’s passing. He nodded back and they each downed their drinks in salute.
“So if your mother was here, what would she tell you to do?”
Born in the Shadows (In the Shadows Series Book 1) Page 14