Shifter Romance Box Set

by Unknown

  I'm not sure if that's as comforting as he thinks.

  “Alright. If you're sure. We should get out of here before they wake up, or someone finds us here. Do you—do you want to come back to my place? For coffee?” It sounded out of place, such an ignorant question. He's still bleeding and I'm asking him out for coffee? Ugh.

  Brandon shook his head, looking amused. “You know, that's the best thing I've heard in a long while. Yeah, let's go.”

  Chapter 6

  Angel did not like Brandon.

  The second I cracked my front door, leading him in behind me and wishing my place was cleaner, Angel began hissing. I'd never seen her like that, her eyes wide, every bit of white fur standing on end.

  “Angel,” I chided her, motioning for her to get out of the way. She'd planted herself only a few feet from the door, like she was guarding the apartment. “Angel! Stop that, what's wrong?”

  Behind me, Brandon leaned over my shoulder. “Guess she doesn't like me.”

  Blushing, I moved out of the way, closing the door. “I'm sorry! She's never done anything like this before.” Shooting a glare at the cat, I grumbled. “Quit it. Come on, stop.”

  “Don't worry about it,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Cats aren't my biggest fans.”

  Smoothing the top of my ponytail, I nudged at Angel with my foot. Reluctantly, she slunk away until she vanished into my bedroom. Not once did she take her eyes off my guest.

  “Maybe she smelled the thugs on me or something,” I wondered out loud.

  Brandon frowned, looking around my apartment curiously. “Mn. Nice place, Fiona. How are you affording this?”

  “Grandpa.” I tossed my jacket onto a chair, moving into the tiny attached kitchen. Filling up the coffee pot with water, I set it to brew. “After everything that happened... you know, back then,” I glanced at him, furrowing my eyebrows. “He was the only one left who could take me. He lives on the border of South Dakota still, he's been paying for me to go to school here.”

  His mouth quirked into stiff line. “I see.”

  Wetting a towel, I moved over to him on nervous legs. “Here,” I said, gesturing at the blood soaked side of his body. “You uh, you should take your shirt off, it's ruined. Then we should really clean that wound.”

  “It's fine,” he said softly.

  “Nope. Off with it.” I tried to tease. The tension was too much, now that we were standing there together. I had too many questions, he had all the answers.

  When he shrugged, hooking his fingers in the hem of his torn shirt and pulling it over his head... he only gave me more things to think about. “I'm telling you, it's okay, Fiona.”

  Gawking at the reddish, smooth smear on his ribs where the knife gash had been left me speechless. He really did heal up. Water from the cloth dripped to the floor, but I didn't care. Running my eyes over his long torso—the shapely rippling muscles and the powerful confidence in his wide shoulders—I stared into Brandon's face. “You were telling the truth.”

  “I was,” he agreed somberly.

  “How?” Licking my lips, I searched for a more detailed question. “How?” I asked again, giving up any semblance of being relaxed.

  Squeezing the shirt in his palms, Brandon looked from my face, to the floor, then back again. “Fiona, it's a long story.”

  Behind us, the coffee pot burbled, its bitter scent filling the air. “Sit, and tell me.” I dropped the cloth in the kitchen sink, then reached for his shirt. Hesitantly, he gave it up, so that too ended up in the basin. “We've got all the time in the world right now,” I said gently, opening my cupboards. “I want to know everything. No,” I said, filling two mugs with fresh coffee. “No, more than that. I need to know.”

  He said nothing, just watched me as I worked. Seeing me nod my chin at the couch, he followed, sitting down on the plush cushions like they might bite him. Taking a mug from me, he sniffed at it. “You're really sure?”

  “I am. Without a doubt, I'm more sure about this than anything else.” The coffee felt wonderful on my throat, close to scalding. Sitting across from each other, only an arm's length between us, I focused on him. Everything in his face, in his body language—the fact that he was still bare from the waist up—it had my complete attention.

  Between his healed wound and his sculpted body, it was hard to decide where to look.

  Sighing, he took a sip of his drink. “Damn, that's good. I haven't had coffee since...” He waited, then chuckled. “This is harder than it should be.”

  “Why?” I asked, lifting my eyebrows.

  His smile was shy, it made my heart flutter with memories. “I've never told anyone what happened. You're going to be the first.”

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, so I just covered my silence with my mug.

  Inhaling slowly, his chest flexing wide, Brandon launched into his tale. “I don't need to tell you about the flood. You, of all people, know what happened that night. But,” he whispered, staring down into his drink, “you also don't know, at the same time. Fiona, when I got you onto that roof... all I could think about was how I needed to protect you. To keep you safe, even if it meant I'd lose my own life.” His laugh was jaded, yet his eyes—those perfect green eyes—when they lifted, they held the sparkle I remembered.

  Some of him hasn't changed. Whatever happened, it left some of him whole.

  “Fiona,” he went on, “the last thing I saw that night was your face. I looked up, felt relief, and then the flood took me under. It yanked at me, keeping me from surfacing or getting air. In that moment, I knew I was going to die. It was... strange,” he murmured. Looking to the side, seeing something I didn't, he smiled. “I was confident I'd gone out like a hero.”

  My words exploded, a righteous life of their own. “How can you glorify that? You abandoned me, you left me to live this stupid life without you!” Catching myself, seeing his hurt, his surprise, I bit my cheek. “How is it 'heroic' to give up what I—what we...”

  “Shh,” he said, quieting me. “Let me finish. You're right. It was dumb, I blame teenage delusion.” The twinkle in his grin disarmed me, easing my wave of umbrage. “If I hadn't survived, you wouldn't be able to chastise me now about my naïve thoughts.”

  “But how are you alive?” I asked, noticing how much I was leaning towards him.

  Tapping his finger on the rim of his mug, Brandon closed his eyes. “Right, how. After I was pulled under, my head slammed into... something. There was so much in that water, it doesn't matter what it was. I blacked out. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the middle of the forest.”

  Hanging on his every word, I reminded myself to breathe.

  “I was confused, as I bet you can imagine. And that was when I saw the wolf.”

  Coffee spilled onto my lap, making me gasp. Wiping at it, I motioned at him not to worry. “No, don't stop there. It's just stupid coffee. You saw a wolf?”

  Brandon settled back, placing his mug on the nearby end table. I copied him, deciding I was too hyped up to trust myself not to pour more out accidentally. “Yeah. It was dark all around me... but I could see the wolf. Hell, I couldn't miss it. He was gigantic, Fiona. Blacker than pitch, eyes the color of ice. He was staring right at me, staring through me, I swear.”

  The look on his face, I didn't doubt him... yet, I didn't understand. “Why was there...?”

  “He'd saved me.”

  If he hadn't been so serious, if I hadn't had such a strange two days, I would have laughed. “Saved you. You're telling me a wolf pulled you out of the flood?”

  “More than that,” he said under his breath. I watched him rub at his leg, nails twitching just above his knee. “He changed me, Fiona. Changed me! He told me it was the only way to make sure I'd live, that he'd given me back my life and I—I—...”

  With my brain throbbing, I shook my head. “Slow down, you aren't making sense. 'He' said? The wolf talked to you?” He sounds delirious, what if whatever happened to him has le
ft him unstable? A wolf, talking to him?

  Brandon stood abruptly, fingers working at the button of his jeans. It was so fast, he had them partly down his hips before I found my voice. “Whoa, hey! Brandon, what are you doing?”

  Not answering, he revealed the top of his tight briefs. The muscles of his lower stomach flexed, showing me far more of any man than I'd seen before. Never mind seen alone, in my apartment. Waving my hands, my panic flaring, I made a few uneasy noises.

  He turned towards me, stopping my dismay on my tongue. He'd yanked his pants down to his knees, revealing not just his well-toned thighs, but the gruesome scarring on top of his left leg. It looked like something huge had mangled his flesh, leaving behind deep grooves the width of my palm.

  The sight of it made my belly clench, removing any hilarity over the fact that Brandon Beck was standing before me in just his underwear. “What is that?”

  “This,” he said bitterly, “is from the wolf. He bit me, Fiona. He deliberately bit me, transformed me, to save my life.”

  “Transformed you,” I breathed out.

  Lifting his chin, his mouth tighter than elastic, Brandon challenged me with his eyes. “I'm a werewolf, Fiona. I'm a god damn werewolf.”

  I couldn't tear my eyes from that scar.

  “Fiona?”

  Is this real, can this be possibly real?

  “Fiona, hey.”

  Can Brandon really be—no, no that's not...

  He touched my shoulder, startling me. Wide-eyed, I looked from his thigh, to the fading pinkness of the earlier knife wound. That cut, fresh as it had been, looked more healed than the marks on his thigh. That healed, but the bite wound didn't? “Show me. Show me you're a werewolf.”

  Wrinkling his forehead, he bent to pull up his jeans. “No. It's too dangerous, for both of us.”

  I didn't like the sound of that. “Dangerous, like you might hurt me? I don't believe it.”

  He eyed me with scrutiny. “Fiona, you don't get it. I wouldn't want to hurt you. I've just never transformed around something I wasn't planning to...” Trailing off, he glanced away. “To kill.”

  “You want me to take you at your word. To just believe that you were saved by a werewolf, that you are a werewolf, and this isn't some weird joke?”

  Brandon didn't flinch, didn't break eye contact. “I'm a werewolf, Fiona. You told me you'd believe whatever I said.”

  He's so intense. Why would he lie about this to me? “I did say that, but this... If I hadn't seen all the pieces tonight, I wouldn't believe you.” I tugged at my hair, unsure what to do with my hands. “A werewolf. Brandon, if you think it's too risky to—to change or whatever, alright.”

  “You really believe me?” He looked so relieved.

  “Maybe I'm dumb, but... You're standing in front of me, I watched you throw full-grown men around, and those scars, well. It would be a pretty elaborate joke.”

  He scrubbed at his neck, then up to his skull. “Dammit, I wish I was joking.”

  My fingers dug into my shirt, making it bunch. “Hold on. You were telling me this is how you managed to live.” How you managed to come back to me. “Why would you wish you were joking?”

  “You don't know what it's like.” Holding his forehead, he fell down onto the couch heavily. “You can't grasp how everything has become so awful. Fiona, I'm not the person you knew back then. I lived, but I didn't get my life back.”

  Desperately I yearned to comfort him. The pain wracking his face was making my heart squeeze. “Brandon, you're the same person. Okay? People don't just stop being themselves—”

  “People?” Grunting, he narrowed his eyes at me. “People might not, but I'm not a person anymore. I'm a monster.”

  I reached out to touch his knee. He twitched, I could see the tension in his neck. “Monsters don't save people.”

  There was a flash of shame in his eyes. “You couldn't have expected me to just let you get hurt.”

  “No,” I agreed, my smile lifting upwards. “I sort of counted on you showing up, actually.”

  Brandon stared at me, unblinking. Then, so loud it shocked me, he began laughing. “You did that on purpose? Fiona! You sneak, you... are you insane?” Scratching at his shaggy, light brown hair, he looked me over like he'd only just noticed me.

  “Maybe. Who knows.” Shrugging, I moved my hand back. Brandon reached down, catching it like it was a mouse. His palm was warm, my face warmer.

  “Fiona, that was reckless,” he said gently. “You could have been really hurt.”

  Meeting his gaze, I fought to speak around my numb tongue. “I brought a weapon, I wasn't unprepared.” That's a lie, I couldn't even get my knife out. “But I knew you'd save me.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “I just did.”

  We eyed each other, I felt like I was daring him—but daring him to do what? Deny my words, tell me I was wrong?

  Breathing out through his teeth, so hard it whistled, he hung his head. “You weren't supposed to see me, not yet. I'd hoped you'd think I was just a figment when you caught me looking through your window. But then that kid, he just...”

  Carefully, I squeezed his hand until he looked at me. “You mean Mark. Yeah. That shouldn't have happened, he got drunk and it just spiraled. I wanted to thank you for that, too.”

  “It's nothing,” he said, eyebrows furrowing. “Uh, hey. About that guy. You and him, was I stepping on your toes or anything? I mean, are you two...”

  “Oh! No. No no no.” Pulling my hand away, I tugged at my hair, twisting the ends. “Not at all. Mark is just a friend. Or, I mean, he was. I'm not so sure after what he tried.”

  I swore he looked pleased. “Right. Got it.”

  The silence, temporary or not, was heavy with my discomfort. How do I even explain to him what I've been doing, why nothing would have ever happened with Mark?

  With anyone?

  My gaze roamed back to his legs, he was too close to avoid it. The scars were hidden under his jeans, yet they drew me like a bug to a lamp, just knowing they were there. “So... a werewolf. That word sounds so weird to say out loud.”

  “It's far weirder to be living it.”

  “Well,” I murmured, casting a shy look at him. “I'm living it too, now. What's it—what's it like, Brandon? Does it hurt or anything? Oh gosh, is that a dumb question?”

  Leaning back into the couch, he sighed. “Not dumb, no. It doesn't really hurt anymore. When I transformed the first time... that was hell. Hector tried to warn me, it's just not the sort of thing you can prepare for.”

  “Hector?”

  Cracking his neck, he frowned slightly. “Hector is the werewolf who changed me.”

  Nodding slowly, putting the pieces together, I found myself dancing around the one thing that really bothered me. “Brandon,” I started tentatively, “don't take this the wrong way. If you were saved, if this wolf rescued you back then... why did you wait two years to contact me?” My voice cracked at the end, the emotional roller-coaster too strong. All this time, thinking the boy I loved had drowned, that we'd just never found his body, when all along he was alive.

  Shutting his eyes, as if that question was too much, Brandon huffed out through his nose. “Fiona, I couldn't come back to you. To anyone, really. I didn't have a choice. Hector changed me, and it took me two years before I had enough control over myself to find enough free-will and escape him.”

  “Escape him?” I hadn't considered the idea that his savior was someone he needed to run from. “I thought he saved you?”

  “'Saved' me, sure. Bare with me, Fiona. There's so much that happened, it's hard to know where to even begin or end. I didn't know anything about werewolves until meeting Hector, I might not be the best at explaining the details.”

  He sounded vulnerable, something I hadn't expected. He'd been so tough, so dangerous, but before my eyes he was sinking into the couch like the world was crushing him. I couldn't handle it, seeing him so broken. Inching forward, I leaned my
shoulder against his. In the nearness of his skin, his heat, I could smell the scent of earth. “Just try your best, Brandon.”

  His eyebrows touched his hairline. I was relieved when he didn't try to move away. “Alright. I'll try.” Brandon took a slow breath. “Hector was the one to turn me. He was... he was an alpha, a wolf who wanted to control anything he could. His power, his confidence... I'd never run into anything like it. When he bit me, some part of him took over. Call it instinct,” he laughed bitterly.

  “Instinct?”

  “Yeah,” he went on, sounding less amused. “I couldn't resist him. I wanted to leave, immediately in fact. Hours after the flood, I'd healed up enough to run. My heart craved running back to the town, to try and help... to save you, my family.” His mouth twisted sharply. “Fiona, it hurt so bad. But Hector, he made me follow him. We ran into the forest, just... ran. I couldn't disobey him, even when I learned to transform.”

  My chest thrummed, eyes watering at the idea of him wanting to come back, being unable to. To know everyone was in danger... dying... and to be helpless. I knew that feeling too well, trapped on the roof and watching Brandon get pulled away. Hearing the screams of my friends, my parents.

  Lifting a hand in front of us, he made a tight fist. “I had all this strength. I could outrun a deer, or a car. I could tear logs apart. Kill—fighting,” he corrected himself uneasily, “was easy. But not when it came to Hector. Whenever I tried to resist him, nothing happened. I was a slave to him. For two long years, I had to endure.”

  Licking my lips, I lifted my head. I noticed, then, how close our faces were. “What changed?”

  Peering down at me, Brandon parted his lips. “You probably don't remember what last week was.”

  Last week...

  Tucking my hair behind my ear, I pushed away from him. I saw him frown, and that made my stomach swim. Walking with a purpose, I approached the calender nailed to my front door.

  “Fiona?” he called to me, baffled.

  Lifting the papers, I brought them back to the couch. When I pointed to May fifth, my finger was trembling. I'd circled the day in red, and in the middle, I'd written five words.