Crossing Hudson

by Mandy M. Roth

  I wanted to touch him but I didn’t dare budge. “The rules The Powers set in place. You know.”

  “No, I don’t know. Enlighten me.” He tapped the empty spot on the bench next to him. It was easy to see he was as overwhelmed with the situation as I was. Maybe more, but he had enough years on him to keep from being as obvious as I was. “I just know that I’ve sensed you around me for years.”

  I’d been place-jumping to the man for over a decade. I knew he’d never hurt me. Slowly, I managed to pry myself from my spot against the wall and take the few steps to the bench. I sat quickly, and couldn’t help but stare at his face. He was so handsome. Ruggedly so, with a five o’clock shadow and strong features. Unable to stop myself, I reached up and touched his cheek. Emotions welled and I was powerless to stop them as I burst into tears. I stared into his chocolate-brown eyes. “I’ve never seen your face before.”

  His dark gaze moved over me and his eyes glistened. “I’ve never seen any of you before. I have to say, you’re even prettier than I imagined.”

  I blushed, but kept crying. “Wait, you imagined what your ghost looked like?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  I gave him a questioning look.

  Opening his mouth, he appeared to be ready to say something, but nothing came out. He wiped my cheeks and just stared at me. Every feeling I’d ever had for him came to a head. I cried harder. Before I knew it, Cowboy had me pulled to him and his mouth planted over mine. I’d never been kissed before and wasn’t sure what to do. Turns out, he did. One second we were kissing and the next we were tearing at each other’s clothing as if we were so hungry for one another that nothing else mattered. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe The Powers were wrong and maybe, just maybe, they weren’t total dicks after all.

  2

  Chapter 2

  My bed was queen sized and should have fit two with ease, but Cowboy was hardly a small guy. I rolled onto my side, never feeling happier or more loved in my life. Cowboy wrapped an arm around my waist and kissed the spot on my shoulder he’d bitten me during one of our three joinings. I felt like I was in a euphoric fog. I’d been a virgin when the day had started, saving myself for my true mate, and now I was in his arms, sated, feeling whole for the first time in my life.

  He put his lips to my ear, his hand roaming down my body to my hip. He was obsessed with the tattoo that was there. It had appeared the day I turned eighteen. Another gift from The Powers. They’d branded me. Jerks. Cowboy was taken with it and couldn’t quit touching it. He had a similar one on his upper back, near his shoulder blade. I didn’t ask how he’d come by his.

  “Tell me more about these rules The Powers have, because I’m thinking we out-foxed ‘em,” he said, his lips pressed to my ear.

  I smiled as my body heated. “Maybe.”

  “Tell me your name. Seems simple enough to share that much after we shared so much more than that.”

  He had a point. I’d done things with him I didn’t even know were possible.

  “Maryann,” I said softly, unsure if he’d have pain from it or not. “But I like it when you call me Ry-Mack.”

  He traced a hand up my body and cupped my breast. “I more than like saying it.”

  I turned to face him, and he kissed me again, grinning like a fool. His hands found my hips as he eased up and over me. It was a position I really liked him in. “Mmm,” he whispered against my lips. “You’re like a drug, Ry-Mack. I can’t get enough of you.”

  I felt the same way. From the minute he’d touched me my world had changed. I knew I’d never be able to go back to what we’d had—the faceless, barely there to one another existences. “I like this…having you here with me.”

  “I know you’re probably sore, sweet-pea, but I want to be back in you again,” he said, in a low husky tone.

  I flushed, still not used to being so open with the topic of sex.

  His lips twitched.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” I chastised.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but the door to my room burst open. Cowboy was up and off the bed in a heartbeat, his arms out, claws emerging from his fingertips.

  Holy crap. I’d been told that my mate was a lycan shifter, but I’d never seen him shift forms. He’d kept this side of himself from me. I wasn’t sure why.

  Because he never felt the need to protect himself around you, I thought silently.

  Eliza was there, stake in hand, a dangerous look on her face. She’d killed plenty of shifters in her life. I didn’t want Cowboy next on her list.

  Screaming, I pushed out of bed fast, pulling the sheet around me. “Liza, no! It’s Cowboy!”

  She held the stake higher, her gaze raking over him. She arched a brow. “Wow. He is very hot!” She shook her head. “And he shouldn’t be here. How is he here?”

  “You’re a twin too?” asked Cowboy, glancing back at me, his claws receding. “That the Goth version of you?”

  Too?

  I tossed him his jeans. He caught them with one hand and put them on slowly.

  “How the hell is he here?” Eliza demanded.

  I bit my lower lip. “Turns out you’re right. If I really want something, I can pull it to me.”

  She groaned. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “And you slept with him?” she asked, her voice raising slightly.

  Since it was obvious I had, I said nothing.

  Cowboy straightened and stiffened, possessiveness and a strong feeling of protection for me oozing from him. “You may be Maryann’s sister,” he said slowly, his drawl more pronounced, “but I don’t see what business that is of yours. Maryann is my mate. I claimed her. It was the right thing to do. Fuck The Powers crap. They’ve played around with us long enough.”

  Eliza gasped and looked up, seeming to focus on something else for a moment before shrieking and moving into my room more. “Send him back and wipe his memory of meeting you! Mask the claiming! Do it now!”

  Cowboy looked like he wanted to kill someone. “She will not send me back. Not unless she’s coming with me. I’m not walking away from her now. And I’m sure the hell not letting her wipe my memory of her!”

  Eliza glanced upwards, looking towards the ceiling, her eyes widening. “You need to go now! The Powers have sensed something is off. They’re scanning your home now, Cowboy. If they find out that you’ve not only met but joined with her, they’ll kill her in an instant. They value you too much to hurt you, but they’ll sever the link between the two of you and she can’t survive without you. Her heart will cease to beat. Literally. You know they have the power to do it. But they can’t harm her once you’re together in a couple of months—the original time you were to meet her. What do you want, eight weeks without her if you go now, or eternity without her because they killed her? They’re terrified of how powerful the two of you may end up being together and are looking for an excuse to get rid of her. See, they didn’t exactly want this match to occur. Nature did. They’d rather it not happen.”

  Cowboy stood still and appeared to be listening to something no one else could hear. He gasped and grabbed me fast. “Send me back now! I feel them coming.”

  I shook my head as tears fell down my cheeks. He wasn’t even gone yet and already I felt an acute sense of loss at the idea of sending him away. I couldn’t do it. It would shatter me. “No.”

  “Ry-Mack, you don’t have a choice. She’s right. They’ll kill you without a second thought and I won’t let that happen.” He cupped my face and kissed my forehead. “Two months, sweet-pea. That’s all. Two months and then we’ll be together again. I promise.”

  I shook my head, steadfast in my decision. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be without him again.

  Eliza brushed my hair out of my face, her expression one of love and concern. “He’ll come in two months. He’ll open the link more and you can find him if he doesn’t make it in time.”

  “In time for what?” inquired Hudson, worry in his eyes. />
  Eliza gave him a look I couldn’t read. “The day they picked for the two of you to meet face to face is key. Too soon, bad will happen. Too late, bad will happen. The Powers stacked the deck against her, Cowboy, against this union. They want the two of you to mess up and fail. You screw up, she dies. And with this now, I don’t know what they’ll do if they learn of it. They may kill her, they may do something else, something worse than death.”

  Cowboy’s eyes widened as tears came to them. He was a strong alpha male. Tears weren’t normally their thing. “Oh God,” he hugged me tight and lifted me off my feet, “I’ll come. I swear to you that I will be there for you, Ry-Mack. Wipe my memory and send me back before it’s too late.”

  “No, I don’t want to go back to being a ghost in your life. You’ll just go right back to her and forget about me.”

  He took a deep breath and looked up. “Please, Ry-Mack. I promise you I won’t forget. I won’t go back to anyone. I’ll wait the time needed and I’ll be here. But you have to send me back now. They’re almost here. I don’t want to lose you. Please.”

  I cried so hard that sobs tore free from me. “But you will forget all about me and you won’t stop things with her. I know. I feel it.”

  “I’m sure it will all be fine,” Eliza said, trying to soothe me. “Send him home.”

  “But…”

  Cowboy set me on my feet and took hold of my shoulders. “Ry-Mack, do you remember where I keep my silver ring, the one with the wolf head on it?”

  I nodded as I cried.

  “Get it now.”

  Putting my hand out, I watched as the ring appeared. Cowboy tried to put it on my thumb but it was huge. Eliza ran out of the room and was back within seconds with a long silver chain. Cowboy took it, his hands shaking as tears fell free from his face too.

  Eliza left us alone and I was thankful for that.

  Cowboy took us both down to our knees and put the chain over my head. “Here, you keep this. It belongs to you now. I’ll know who you are when I see it again. And I will see it again, Ry-Mack. I can promise you that. I’ll come in two months and I’ll take you home with me where you belong. If for some insane reason I don’t come, you find me. You jump to me and I’ll be there for you. You have my word.”

  Dropping my head down, I looked at the ring and cried harder.

  “I love you,” he said, pulling me into his arms tight. “Send me back. Now. Hurry.”

  I let my energy build. It surrounded him and held him tight. A sob tore free from his throat as well as mine. “Please don’t make me send you away, Cowboy. Please.”

  He didn’t answer me. He couldn’t. He was crying as hard as I was.

  I touched his cheek gently. “You will…not,” I took a deep breath, “remember this as being real. You’ll think it was a dream. When you try to concentrate on it, it will be there but too fuzzy to make it all out. And you will mask my scent on you for your own safety. Now, go back.”

  He disappeared and I stayed on my knees crying. Eliza came in and drew me into her arms as she sat next to me. “I am so sorry.”

  I lay there for a minute and then held his ring in my hand. “Liza?” I asked, still crying.

  “What, honey?”

  “I can’t remember what he looked like and I know he told me his name but…but I can’t remember it. Why can’t I remember it?”

  “Because The Powers That Be are dicks.”

  3

  Chapter 3

  Present Day

  I arranged the last of the bat-shaped frosted cookies on the tray of goodies and smiled, impressed with my baking skills. I’d been busy all week preparing for the event, even though it was low-key in the scope of things, and private. It was also something about which the others in charge didn’t quite understand my excitement over. It was still important to me and the girls involved. Besides, I was in need of something fun and stress-free. Things had been more hectic than usual of late. I was running out of good days and I planned to make the most of them.

  As my thoughts lingered on my situation, the smallest of breezes blew past me. I didn’t look around for the source. I already knew what, or rather who, it was—my Soul-Guardian. The guy charged with watching over me from the other side and the guy who would be there for me at the end. Turns out, Soul-Guardians are pretty special and not everyone gets their own personal one.

  This wasn’t a prize though.

  It meant I was important to the grander scheme of things, but defective. See, I hadn’t come with the ability to sustain myself. Like a flower that required sun and water. My sun and water had to come from my mate—without it, I’d slowly wilt and die. I’d been on the slow-wilt route for most of my life. Some kind-hearted folks decided to buck the establishment and find a temporary workaround solution to my dilemma, but it had been just that—temporary.

  Hence, my Soul-Guardian who lingered to be as helpful as possible considering he was not my mate and he wasn’t alive. At least not anymore. At one time when he was living and breathing, he’d served the good fight as a Guardian.

  I often called him Casper as a joke and he hadn’t understood the joke back then. Once he learned I’d nicknamed him after a friendly cartoon ghost, he’d understood and found amusement in it. Porter was a stand-up guy—at least from what I was able to tell as I’d never actually laid eyes upon him. I could hear him and sense him. Most others couldn’t. The vampire who owned the club I was standing in could, which was nice, since it meant I wasn’t actually crazy.

  Porter was real.

  I pressed a smile to my face and glanced in the direction I sensed Porter in. “I’m okay.”

  His energy wrapped around me quickly and then vanished. He was always popping in and out like that. I was used to it.

  “This blows, Ryan,” Shona, a close friend and fellow demon-butt kicker, said as she turned to head back to the group of teen girls who were currently giggling in the other room of the establishment. She did not share my enthusiasm for the celebration. Shona was an old-school slayer, though she was only in her late twenties, brought up in a cut-throat environment where no one got a pat on the back or a ribbon for achievement. They got to stay alive when the shit hit the fan. I knew so many women like her. While it was easy to understand the practical aspect of her training, it made me sad to think of how emotionally stunted many of the girls grew up to be.

  Hard.

  Jaded.

  There was more to life than just killing bad things, and I had hopes to teach this new wave of slayers just that. If they didn’t have anything joyful in their lives, then they had nothing more than honor and duty to fight for. While that would carry them to a point, they’d need love and joy to take them across the finish line.

  I was hoping to provide that.

  The girls were supposed to be preparing for their final written exam prior to graduating from their first level of slayer training. They’d been hand-picked or predestined, depending on who you asked, to fight in the good fight. Though, the older I got, the more I realized the fight itself wasn’t good in the least. It was never-ending and sometimes the people who you thought should be totally on the good side were only out for themselves. As the saying went, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  All I knew for certain was the girls I was helping to train answered a higher calling. In a few years they’d be on the front lines, in the war between good and evil, but for now they were too busy having fun. I couldn’t blame them. Training did tend to become monotonous after a while. I should know. I spent the greater part of my youth with a sister who trained every moment of every day—wanting to be all she could be.

  Wanting to keep me safe from what was in the world.

  In the end, she’d failed and her life had been the price.

  She’d been a slayer. I was now one through osmosis.

  Eliza had been right all along. The Powers That Be were dicks.

  My chest tightened at the thought of Eliza and I had to push happier thoughts into the pla
ce or risk crying. Risk falling down an emotional vortex I couldn’t come back from with ease. And crying in front of a room full of teenage girls was just begging for a tear-filled overload. Misery loved company, but I wasn’t sure I was up for all the company I’d get should I lose it in front of them.

  Shona groaned, her frustration with slayer training a poorly kept secret. I still wasn’t sure how she’d been selected by Jude, the vampire in charge of the West Coast Slayers and club owner, to aid in training at all. She lacked anything close to patience. She had a foul-mouth, a quick temper and couldn’t focus much beyond hurting bad guys. She rolled her eyes. “They are certainly full of energy. Remind me again why we’re doing this? I didn’t get a party when I went through training.”

  “And look at you now.”

  She snorted. “Point taken. Seems like a million years ago when I was about to enter my advanced training. I remember how exciting it was. How thrilling it all seemed. Still, they need to just get through exams and then get onto the actual combat portion.”

  I knew as much, but I also knew deep down Shona wasn’t quite as jaded as she made herself out to be. “Had I been part of your training, you would have had fun,” I said evenly. “And your niece is in this class. Steffy and the other girls have worked so hard. It’s a big deal and you know it.”

  “My sister was supposed to handle this. This celebration was partly her idea and she swore to me she’d do the work for it,” said Shona, disgust rolling off her tongue. Her sister was a ball-dropper. I knew as much and I’d only known the woman a few months. She and Shona were total opposites, except both were natural-born slayers. Beyond that, Stacey hugged trees and drank wheatgrass shakes—ignoring the calling she was born for. Shona ate giant hamburgers and I’m pretty sure never thought of conservation a day in her life. I didn’t ask.

  Supernaturals and politics just didn’t mix.