by Angela Foxxe
Did it have anything to do with my life? Why I had found myself here? It was true that something about Torrance drew me to him, made me want to trust him, but I wanted to know if I could trust myself. Was it just because he was a dangerously handsome man, someone who drew me out to him and made me want to sleep in his bed?
It was true that my body responded to his presence. Something about him made me want to swoon, melt, and do what all of those other women did. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t blame you. I can’t imagine being in your shoes right now.”
“This can’t be the truth. This can’t be happening to me.” I groaned at him, knowing that it was the truth. I had seen the evidence with my own eyes. Of the thousands of things that seemed to be true in the world, this one thing was nearly beyond my comprehension. How could this be? How could these creatures exist? How could I not know about them? “Why do you keep it a secret?”
“Humans panic. It’s in their nature. I don’t blame them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it had to be done. We had to hide. Once humans began to develop weapons, modern weapons like swords or bows or guns we couldn’t be known anymore. We started to hide.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Really? Haven’t you seen how humans react to anything that they don’t understand? Haven’t you seen the hatred that they carry within them, the ability to destroy anything that scares them?”
“I don’t think we’re that bad.”
He cocked his head at me, carefully examining my face as I chewed on my lips. His eyes said the words before his lips had a chance to form the sentiment. “Do you really believe that?”
I thought back to history class, to the stories my mother and grandmother told me over the years. “I guess you’re right.”
“That’s why we hide from everyone. That’s why we live in a world that exists under yours.”
“Why, when you could be on top?”
“But for how long? We used to be on top,” he explained, his voice growing quiet. We were in his house, up in the room that he used as a study as I stared over the desk at him. I still wasn’t sure how to respond to everything. It was too much. “We used to rule, but we had too much power. We grew corrupt. The humans developed weapons and threw us to the side. They waged a holy war, trying to wipe out every one of us. We survived, barely. I’d have to say that I understand why it was done. We deserved it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My people are known for strong emotions, powerful urges to fight each other every step of the way. That can make us do some dangerous things. Some unforgivable things. I don’t think that you could really understand. What we had done was wrong. It was, and now we’re paying for it. We spend our time in hiding, and somehow the humans always seem to remember us. It may not be a physical memory, but we have become the boogey man that has followed them through generations.” He sighed, resting his face on his hands. “I don’t expect you to understand. You grew up in a world that viewed my existence as nothing more than legend.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I suppose I had hoped that you would never have to find out. That no one would ever find out that you were pregnant. I thought that I could have kept you safe. I was lying to myself. I should have found a way to tell you. A way to explain all of this.”
“I don’t blame you.” My heart was starting to soften. “I don’t think I could have figured out how to say this, either.”
“It’s not exactly something that we’re used to sharing. I was lying to myself, I guess. I know it was wrong.” He sighed again; I could tell that his heart was breaking. “This should have never happened to you. I don’t know how to make it up to you.” He had sadness in his eyes. Something about the way that he looked at me told me that the guilt that he had held inside seemed to last a lifetime.
It would be an eternity before he would be able to forgive himself for the bit of hell that I had gone through. It was something that he understood and I wondered why. He seemed to answer me before I had a chance to answer the question. “I was taken as a child, too. It took years for my pack to regain its status, but my father said that it was worth it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. We’ve been treated like second class citizens for too long. We had worked our way up to the place that we had been.”
“Do things like this happen a lot?”
“I guess you could say that. I don’t pick fights with other packs, so they think we’re weak.”
Another question rushed into my head. I wanted to know the truth about him, how he felt about the world that he lived in, how his world surrounded him. “Is everyone I met…?”
“Yeah, all of them, the lawyers, the driver, the maids, the cooks.”
“I can’t say that it’s surprising.” I shrugged, but the more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of the lie that I had told myself for my entire life. Something about it made me feel better. “I just don’t get it. I never knew, I never even suspected.”
“Did you never suspect? Are you sure about that?”
I was confused and took a long moment to stare at him before I could formulate my response. I knew that I was going to have to answer eventually, but the question was how I needed to answer. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you ever have nightmares? Irrational fears that didn’t make sense to you once you got a little older?”
“I guess so.” I still wasn’t convinced and it showed in my voice.
“Have you ever suddenly felt nervous, like you weren’t safe?”
“A lot more lately.” My eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure if I was going to believe him or not, but I had an idea about where he was going to go with this statement.
“Well that’s to be expected.”
“What are you getting at?” I was pushing for something more, something that he was resisting saying, some little secret, but I just wanted him to say it, even if I already had an idea of what it was going to be.
“I don’t know how to explain this. Have you ever heard of the concept of genetic memory?”
I thought about it. I had never really heard those words before, but I tried to understand the term. “Is that like instincts?” I was simply reading from context and the definitions of words.
“Sort of, I guess it could work that way, but it’s something a little bit different. The memory of my people exists deep inside you, you may never have seen us, but something in you reveals us. It’s the source of that fear.”
“Are you saying that I remember something that I had never seen?”
“I guess so; it’s just ingrained into your species, a way to protect yourselves from what used to be a very real threat.”
“A very real threat?”
“Yeah, let’s just say that some of us regard that as a proud part of our history while others, like myself, are ashamed of the abuses that we heaped on humans.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You probably won’t, not right away, anyway, but I can tell you that your life will be in danger for a while.”
“Why?”
“There’s not many people out there that can do what you do. It’s pretty rare and means that you’re descended from shifters and just weren’t able to change. Have you ever felt like there’s something different about you, some way that you didn’t quite fit in?”
I scoffed. “That’s one of those ridiculous questions that seems to be so personal but can apply to anyone when it needs to.”
“I know, but this isn’t like other people feel strange, this is different. Something that isolates you, sets you apart.”
“You aren’t doing this very well.” I shook my head, actually laughing a bit at this strange movie style ridiculousness. “I’ve fallen for a guy who did this before and this ain’t going to get you anywhere.”
“Well how about this?” A naughty grin see
med to cross his face for a moment. “Will you fall for this?” I got to see him change again. This time he was close to me, I could see the sleek fur starting to shimmer in the low lights of the office. The desk lamp wasn’t on, so there was no glaring brightness that associated itself with florescence. The room was shadowed and something about it made me smile a bit. I liked sitting in the darkness with Torrance, something about his presence made me feel like we belonged somewhere, slightly hidden from the world. It was nice to be hidden. Something about it made me feel a lot more comfortable, like I belonged somewhere. His mane was vivid and shining, something that just made me want to run my fingers through it. I wanted to touch his fur and wondered if it would be appropriate or not. I didn’t know, in reality there was a way to ask him, but I didn’t want to.
Instead, I stood there with my hands at my sides staring at him carefully as I watched everything that he did, but refused to move my hands, even though there was nothing more that I wanted to do than run my fingers through what looked to be incredibly soft fur. I sighed and looked on and he seemed to read my mind.
I don’t know how to explain it, but for some reason he seemed to understand what I wanted to do and moved closer, rubbing his soft flank against my body and forcing his head under my head. It was the same thing that I had seen a thousand cats do over and over again. I knew that he was inviting me to pet him; to do finally what my fingers had been itching to do.
I didn’t need a second invitation. I did what I had wanted to do. I pet a lion and something about it thrilled me to no end. I couldn’t get the truth out of my brain. There was no way that anyone would ever believe me. I had my fingers tangled in the mane of one of the magnificent beasts of the savannah. He changed back and I was still staring in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“You have, just not this close.” He was grinning at me. “If I remember right, last time you saw this you ran off and got kidnapped.”
“I guess you’re right.” I didn’t like it very much, but I could understand it. “I hope the baby’s all right.”
“If it’s truly a shifter, he or she will be fine.” He grinned. “And I’m pretty sure that the baby’s a shifter. You still smell like you’re with child.”
“I still should see a doctor in the morning.”
“Of course.” He shrugged. There was a strange smile on his face, an expression that I couldn’t quite identify the meaning of. It was something between amusement and lust and it made my stomach jump in excitement. Something about his look was affecting me in ways that I wasn’t sure if I was ready to admit. My lips grew dry and I stared at him. I couldn’t deny the handsome man that had hired me.
“I still have a question.”
“Ask me anything.” He was looking at me too, his eyes locked onto mine. The conversation seemed to take second fiddle to the conversation that was being shared between our eyes.
“Did you make sure that the egg donor was someone who could have shifter children?”
“Yes, she does this a lot. She knows what she is and shares her eggs. We just have to find surrogates. It works well.”
“Really? How do you keep track of all of this, you know, for when the kids get older?”
“I don’t think we’ve thought about that yet.” He shrugged, his eyes were still trapped in my gaze and I actually kind of liked that. We weren’t really paying attention to what was being said. “She’s pretty picky about who she donates to.”
“Well, maybe she keeps track of it all.” I looked at him. “This must be pretty new to everyone, isn’t it?”
“You could say that. I’m one of the first that’s been willing to do it.” He looked at me, his eyes seemed to be judging my reaction to everything that he was saying. I could understand his nervousness. I knew that it couldn’t be easy to tell someone about a way of life that could get you killed.
“You couldn’t help the way you were born.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, just thinking.” My brain flipped over itself. I wasn’t even in the same conversation that he was having. I couldn’t exactly tell him how my brain had gotten itself all turned around. It was something that made me feel a little bit disconnected recently. I can’t say that it was entirely unexpected. We continued to talk, discussing the little intricacies of the life in which I had found myself trapped. It took a while for me to understand fully what he was saying to me. I can’t say I can find much that I still struggle with today, but at the time I couldn’t wrap my head around all of the intricacies of the world that he lived in. There were so many strange things to take into account and I knew that it was going to take me a lot of time to get used to it.
I just had to figure out if I wanted to stay and figure it all out or not. In the meantime, I could ask all of the questions that I wanted to and get the most honest answers of my life. I was going to take advantage of it. That much was a given.
CHAPTER NINE
We must have talked for hours and hours. It felt like the edge of possible insanity had faded away and, as a result, I felt a thousand times better. I can’t really explain it, but this was the first time that I had found myself in a real conversation with Torrance. He was a great man, pleasant and kind, and something about him made my heart jump in crazy circles. I couldn’t understand why the flush on his cheeks and the strange way he brushed his shaggy hair behind his ears made me smile so widely. I shouldn’t have felt that way.
I remember a lot of the guilt that I suffered because of my feelings. Something about the way he talked, with nerves on edge. He had been afraid of my judgement, as if I held the future of his world in my hands. I suppose that in a way, I did, but he didn’t understand it the way that I did. With this knowledge, I could help him or hurt him while he had no choice but to live the life that had been laid before him. I was pregnant with his child, I did kind of have his future in my hands, well my uterus, anyway. I looked down and when my eyes traveled back up they locked into his lustful glare. I knew how he looked at me. He wanted me. Our conversation had just helped up grow closer and closer as the hours had flown by.
I should have had a lot on my mind. After all, I had just been told that all of my childhood nightmares were truth. There was no such thing as the fiction anymore in my mind. The world was changing around me. I didn’t feel like I was drowning. I should have felt that way, but instead I felt like I was starting to slip into belonging. It was a strange feeling, surrounded by people who seemed to understand the disconnect that I struggled with in the world that I had grown up in.
The truth was that I admired him. I admired the bravery of the people that surrounded him. I admired the fact that he lived his life hiding from danger. There was something courageous about that. I didn’t know what to say, not really. How could anyone respond to the knowledge I had just been given? I’m pretty sure that there have been people out there that had always believed, that had prepared for how they would respond to this type of news, but I wasn’t one of them.
I stared at him, my eyes, something, made me want to scream out how he made me feel. He made my stomach do flips and my heart beat a bit faster. I didn’t like to admit it, but the fact was that this man seemed to have an unconscious ability to affect my mind. I wanted to kiss him. He was still talking, but I didn’t know what he was talking about anymore, probably about the world that he lived in, that frightening place that I wasn’t ready to think about yet. It was too much; my mind had wandered over to less stressful things, like the pleasures of the flesh. I licked my lips. “Are you even listening anymore?”
“Huh? Sorry….” I wasn’t really sorry, but it seemed like the right thing to say at the moment. After all, where would we be if it weren’t for the little social niceties that we had all learned so early on in life, I regretted those ideas, the way that I had been raised for my entire life. The concept that I could have been saying the wrong thing all along, that kind of idea that seemed to haunt men and women these days. The idea of being wrong
seemed to be such a terrible idea. No one was ever willing to take that kind of risk, and I was the same.
Still I found myself imagining the way his hand ran over my body, the tingling of his fingers as he touched me in a thousand different ways at once. I remember the electric current that seemed to run over the areas where our skin had met in the past and my mind could stretch that feeling out, make it move over my entire body as I moaned a bit in my head.
Well maybe it wasn’t just in my head. Maybe he thought about me the same way I thought about him, but still I wasn’t willing to take the risk. I guess it could have been called the fear of rejection, but it didn’t matter. I excused myself and headed back up to my room, but the door was locked. I didn’t have the key. They had taken everything from me when I had been kidnapped. I no longer had a way to get into my own space. I sighed. It was time to walk downstairs and ask for a key. Maybe Torrance had a spare. I can’t say that I wasn’t a little happy for the reason to see his perfectly chiseled face once again.
Still my own thoughts lead me to feel a bit embarrassed over the entire matter. After all, wasn’t this my boss? I know that we had shared a moment of weakness before, but that didn’t mean that either of us wanted it to keep happening. Well, maybe I would have been okay with it, but it wasn’t professional. It wasn’t the kind of thing that a surrogate wanted to happen. I groaned, my mind buzzing with ideas as I made my way back down the stairs. “Maybe you should stay in my apartment for the night?” The question was posed from the shadows. I hadn’t even seen him.
“What?” I was suddenly glad that he hadn’t been going through my thoughts out loud.
“I think that maybe you should come and stay in my apartment. It would probably be safer.”
I thought about his suggestion, but the incessant begging of my loins kept interrupting it. “I’m not sure.”