Gut Deep: Torn Worlds Book One

by Augustine, Donna

Donovan

  Penelope ate in silence. She didn’t ask me about the weather, or what fruit I liked, or which pie the cook might make. She barely looked at me at all as I sat on the other side of the dining table from her.

  I’d been dodging her small talk for what felt like eons, maybe eternity. I usually didn’t answer or gave her one-word replies. Now I couldn’t stop watching her, waiting for her to speak, wondering if she’d ask me one of the thousand stupid things she seemed to always have on the tip of her tongue. Why wasn’t she talking? Especially tonight? After she patched up Ralph, it had almost felt like we’d come to a truce of sorts.

  Then she’d gone upstairs to get cleaned up and had been pulling away ever since, like she was in another world.

  I should’ve gone to the club. I shouldn’t have been sitting at dinner with her. I was getting too close and didn’t have the strength to pull back or push her away.

  “We might be getting a bad storm,” I said.

  “Hmmm?” She glanced up at me, but looked like she was a million miles away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, ditching the small talk. I could never stand the stuff.

  “Headache, is all. Actually, it’s killing my appetite. I think I’m going to skip dinner tonight.” She got up and walked out.

  The worst part was I gave a fuck that she did. I cared that she was out of sorts, wanted to know what had changed in her, what was bothering her.

  I went into the study. Leaving the lights off, I poured myself a drink and tried to convince myself to leave for the club. I’d told Bigs to go home, but I could get him back here in a few minutes. The club was where I was needed after tonight, but instead I’d come home, worried that Pen would be rattled after all the blood. She hadn’t been at all. She’d been fine. Amazing, actually.

  A movement outside caught my eye. Penelope sat on the lounge chair by the pool. The full moon cast her in an unearthly glow, and her eyes glittered with the unshed tears of a thousand oceans.

  She’d probably gone outside, imagining she had privacy. Instead I watched as she sat there as fragile as I’d ever seen, so vulnerable that something deep in me felt like it was splintering apart as well. I couldn’t get rid of her, but I couldn’t watch her like this either, folded over into herself as if her body were breaking as well as her soul.

  I’d pushed and pushed, thinking it was for the best, thinking I’d keep her at arm’s length. I pushed her thinking she’d be able to take it, that she was unbreakable. I didn’t even know what had done it.

  I stepped away from the window, not wanting to see any more, afraid I might go out there and try to comfort her, or something equally as stupid. If I went to her now, I wouldn’t only be comforting her, I’d be fucking her as well.

  * * *

  The lights flickered.

  I waited.

  They flickered again. Not tonight. I was on the edge of doing something that would destroy all possible peace in my life, taking a path I knew I shouldn’t. I was standing in front of a crossroads—one way was straight downhill, no effort involved; the decline would make it nearly effortless, but at the bottom might lay hell. The other road was a steep incline, exhausting, but there was a guaranteed nice perch at the top where I could relax and coast. The slightest wind at my back and I’d be heading downhill.

  The lights flickered and then went off for good. The minutes ticked by, and I went to the window. I could see most of the city from the house, and there wasn’t a light in sight. It was probably the bad weather, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be trouble. “Never let a crisis go to waste” wasn’t only a saying their politicians liked to use. The resistance had adopted it as well, and were adept at the tactic.

  My phone rang. I answered, and Huddy asked, “Lights out by you?”

  “Yes. Everything’s out as far as I can see,” I said, still standing by the window, watching the wind blow the snow about.

  There was a pause before he asked, “You think there’ll be trouble?”

  “Depends on how long it lasts, but stay alert.” The odds increased the longer it stayed dark. “I have to go. I need to get Penelope.”

  “You think they’d aim for her?” he asked, as if it never occurred to him.

  “I think they’d shoot before they knew who they were shooting at.”

  “You’re really getting a thing for her, aren’t you? You don’t just want to fuck her. You like her.”

  “Fuck off. I don’t have time for this.”

  I hit end and threw the phone on my bed. It dinged, letting me know Huddy had made sure to get the last word. The preview of the message was all that I needed to see.

  Huddy: How the mighty have fallen.

  There were three laughing emoji beside it. Asshole.

  I made my way to Penelope’s room, wondering if it had been smart to put her on the other side of the house. It seemed the perfect place for her initially, but there were definite issues with the distance. Maybe I should have her things moved closer.

  I rapped softly on her door.

  “Pen?”

  “Yes.”

  I opened the door and she was lying on the bed, a book facedown beside her, wearing one of my t-shirts. Not sure how she’d gotten it. It was the silky kind and followed the lines of flesh, the slope of her breasts to the hardened nipples, and then down to the flatness of her stomach. Her beauty could put a Rembrandt to shame.

  When we’d fooled around, I liked that she’d left her bra on, the way it pushed her breasts up. Now all I wanted to do was tear my shirt from her and see her fully naked, feel their weight in my hands and cover them with my mouth.

  “Is there something wrong? Are the lights out everywhere?” she asked.

  I leaned a shoulder on the doorway. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’d rather you were with me in case. It’s not unheard of for rebels to seize upon an opportunity.”

  She nodded then swung her bare legs out from under the blanket, dressed only in my shirt that fell mid-thigh. I liked seeing her in it. Too much, in fact. I would have to tell Bigs to pick her up more pajamas for her. This wouldn’t do.

  “Wouldn’t they leave me alone?” she asked, oblivious to her appeal. Even if they realized she was a human, she still wasn’t safe.

  “If there’s an attack, sometimes they come in shooting first and sort out the targets later.” Sometimes they did other things that had nothing to do with killing at all.

  She looked back at her book, before realizing the pointlessness of bringing it with her. If I could barely read it in the dark, her human eyes had no chance.

  I walked back down the hallway, toward my room.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, following me out.

  “My room. It’s strategically designed to head off an attack where your room is not.”

  “Okay,” she said, without the slightest bit of alarm.

  She hadn’t paused, not even a second, as if she trusted me. How had that happened? And when?

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a generator,” she said.

  The small talk was back. Whatever had thrown her earlier seemed to have passed.

  “I normally do, but it was getting upgraded and then the new one had a problem. I’m waiting for a replacement to be shipped.” I pushed open the door to my room, watching where she’d go. Would she take the chair in the corner, or sit on the bed?

  She sat on the bed, propping her back up on the headboard, stretching out shapely legs. Was she trying to kill me?

  Although if I’d wanted her in the chair, I could’ve walked to the study. This room wasn’t that much different than any other spot in the house, and I’d brought her here.

  I sat on the other side of the bed, reminding myself why I shouldn’t fuck her.

  “Were you always some type of server?” I asked, looking for the most mundane subject to fill the time.

  “I waitressed part time to earn some cash, but it wasn’t my grand plan.” Her voice was soft, almost wistful, b
ut with a hint of sorrow.

  “What was your plan?” I asked, watching as she stared off across the room, as if there were an entire world in front of her I couldn’t see.

  “Do you really care, or is this to pass the time because the electricity is out?” she asked, snapping back to the here and now.

  That would’ve been a dead-on assessment if I were stuck with anyone else. Except even the mundane seemed interesting when she spoke. I actually cared what she said. This girl was nothing but aggravation, and I kept coming back for more.

  “You’re right. I don’t really care,” I said. It was better if we didn’t talk anyway.

  The quiet spread out as I sat in the dark next to her, wondering again why I’d brought her here and not downstairs.

  I heard her shift beside me, turning on her side to face me. “What did you do? You know, before this all happened? What was your life?”

  I turned my head toward her with a raised brow.

  “So maybe we’re both bored,” she said with a devilish grin and a shrug.

  “I asked first.”

  She took one of the pillows, cuddling with it while she lay on her side. “I was in med school.”

  “That’s why you knew what to do earlier tonight.” And that was why she was always reading those horrific books. Seemed an odd pastime before.

  “I didn’t really know anything for sure. My education got cut short. I mostly fumbled around and got lucky with Ralph.”

  Her offhand attitude didn’t fool me. She would’ve been an amazing doctor. She handled the pressure like it was nothing. It was a shame she’d stopped going. The talent had nearly poured out of her.

  “Why’d you drop out? We didn’t shut down the schools.”

  “You shut down the money, which affected the scholarships. You shut down the loans, so that was no longer an option either. Unless you could pay all your bills out of pocket, you couldn’t go.” Any truce we had was fast disappearing as her voice shifted from wistful to angry.

  “It’s not like you gave us much of a choice. How many of our kind did you think we were going to watch get hunted down before we did something about it?” I asked, sick of hearing the victim line. The humans had antagonized my kind for centuries. I hadn’t voted for the takeover, but it wasn’t because I didn’t understand it.

  She dropped the pillow, sitting up. “Most of us didn’t know about your kind.”

  Like that was an excuse. “It was your government.”

  “You think they told us?”

  “You voted for them.”

  She got off the bed. “I’m going back to my room. I’d rather take my chances with the rebels.” She walked toward the door.

  Let her go. She’s not your problem, or shouldn’t be.

  I got off the bed. “Pen, stop. You’ve heard the stories of what happens during these rebellions.”

  She turned around, her hand on the door, waiting for me to give her a reason to stay. I shouldn’t, but I was going to anyway.

  I took a few more steps and then leaned a shoulder against the wall, crossing my arms. “Before the revolution, I was doing the same thing I’m doing now, head of the D.C. pack.”

  She turned completely, leaning her upper back against the wall. She had one leg crossed in front of the other and her toes resting on the other foot. She was sucking in her lower lip, completely oblivious to how fucking sexy she was. If she were a shifter, I’d be breaking up fights for her daily at the club. “What does that mean, exactly? What do you do?”

  “Come away from the door and I’ll tell you.”

  “Why can’t you tell me while I’m standing here?” she asked, a slight teasing tone to her voice.

  “Because I don’t like you closer to the door than I am.”

  She hooked her thumb toward the door at her back. “You mean because of the army of rebels marching in right now?” She let out a soft laugh.

  “Don’t underestimate the threat,” I said, stepping closer, not sure if I was talking about the rebels or me anymore.

  Her bent knee waved back and forth, drawing my eye to her bare thighs. “You know, I’m not totally useless, despite what you think. I’ve taken some martial art classes. I can fight.”

  “You mean you think you can fight,” I said, taking another step toward her in spite of myself.

  “I’ve sparred with men. I could inflict some damage.”

  Human men and shifter men were an entirely different thing. We weren’t even talking apples and oranges—we were talking apples and porterhouse steaks. But if I went there, she’d dig in. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide.

  I had to let it go. If I didn’t, if I pushed, I wasn’t sure where it would end.

  “Just come back here.”

  She smiled, licking her lower lip. “You’re afraid I’m right, that you’ll end up with a couple bruises and will have to say the weak little female gave them to me.” She tilted her head back and laughed, showing me her slender, beautiful neck. She leaned her shoulders back on the door, her hips jutted out in my direction, and her knee bent.

  She wanted me to touch her. God, this was going to make things that much worse. She didn’t always like me, but I knew when someone wanted to fuck me.

  “I’m not sparring with you. I don’t want to hurt you. Now come away from the door.”

  “I think you’re chicken,” she said.

  I’d fared pretty well with the breeze at my back. I couldn’t resist hurricane winds. I was about to sprint downhill, right into hell, and was glad to do it.

  She tilted her head to the side, her hair draping forward. “I’ll make you a deal: if I’m harder to take down than you think, you have to tell me why you keep helping me.”

  “And if you’re not?” I asked.

  “Then you name the prize.”

  If she had any skills, I was on her too fast for her to remember them. She was under me in the next second, hot and warm. I fit between her thighs like she was custom-made for me.

  “You almost had me,” I said, teasing her.

  I didn’t know if her skin was flushed because of the sudden takedown or because I was situated between her legs, our hips flush, my erection pressing against her. I’d never gotten so hard, so fast.

  She tugged at her hands where I had them pinned above her head.

  “Are you going to let me up now?” she asked.

  “You lost. Don’t I get my prize?”

  “What do you want?” Her words were breathy. Her tongue darted out and wet her lips.

  Don’t do it. Don’t. She’s not a casual girl and there’s nothing here for her but trouble and heartache. Don’t do it to her.

  The lights flickered on. My phone started ringing. The gust at my back, the one propelling me on the road to hell, calmed. The universe pulled me back from the abyss.

  Still, I didn’t move, my lips hovering too close to hers.

  “There are no happily ever afters, hidden meanings, or buried feelings. I am what I am.” She deserved a warning, and this would be the only one she’d get. The next time she licked her lips and sighed as she stared at me, I’d accept the invitation that might lead us both to hell.

  “You mean a monster? I’m not sure you’re as bad as you say.” A smile teased her lips as her eyelids grew heavy.

  Silly girl didn’t realize she wasn’t playing with fire; she was waving around a blowtorch that would raze her entire world.

  I’d warned her. It was more than I’d done for others. In spite of my good sense, I was excited that she hadn’t been scared off. The next invitation I received, I’d accept.

  I moved off her before I didn’t have any will left to do it.

  “I’ll name my prize at another time,” I said, knowing that was the wrong thing. I should’ve said nothing, but I’d already taken a mental step toward the road to hell. I wasn’t quite ready to look away yet.

  Twenty-Five

  Penelope

  I ran my hands over the snug dress that dipped low eno
ugh to tease my cleavage, slit high enough to show off some thigh, and hugged every curve I owned. I’d even let my hair down, letting it cascade around my shoulders and down my back. It wasn’t as if I wanted to seduce him. He’d asked for seductive, so that was what he’d get.

  This was all an act, a show we’d put on tonight. I wasn’t crazy enough to get involved with Donovan. The reasons against it were stacked higher than I could see over. This was about forcing Mallard’s hand and getting away from Donovan. It had nothing to do with the way I’d been nearly panting for him to kiss me and he’d warned me off.

  “Pen?”

  Donovan opened the door. He didn’t knock and wait anymore.

  I barely glanced at him, afraid to see whether my black dress would have the required effect.

  “I thought I had a few more minutes, but I’m ready,” I said as I fiddled with some earrings in the mirror. They were simple silver hoops but added a little glimmer.

  I crossed my legs as I sat as far away from him in the car as possible, as if it would disguise my thoughts. Would he kiss me tonight, touch me again? The more I thought about it, the farther away I tried to move. If my thoughts continued to add to my guilt, I was going to be out of the car and on the road soon.

  “I don’t see why we need to put on a show. I understand the plan, but you’d think Mallard would’ve moved on. That we wouldn’t need to parade in front of everyone.” I was babbling, as if the more I talked, the more he’d realize that I didn’t want him. It certainly wasn’t one of my more ingenious plans.

  Donovan must have droves of women lined up, human and shifters alike. He probably had vampires knocking down his door, too. If I did have a minor attraction to him, he might not notice. What had he said not long ago? I was “there.” I was of no real consequence, so I needed to get over myself. He might not be a bad guy, but he’d never be my guy. I could never forget who he was, or what he was, and the threat he posed to my family, even if sometimes he made it all too easy to do exactly that.

  We pulled up to the curb in front of a club I’d never heard of before the takeover. A man walked over and my door was opened for me, as another took the keys from Donovan.