A ghost of a smile flitted past my lips. He was safe. Thank God.
Then I glanced at Mercer. He was lying on his stomach on the floor beside the couch, gripping the top of his pillow tightly, his face contorted into a grimace. His fangs were dropped, and a soft whimper was spilling up his throat.
Bad dreams.
I turned, gripping the doorknob and telling myself to just leave him to it, but as irritated by him as I was, I soon found myself letting the knob go, turning on my heel, and silently marching back.
He wasn’t wearing a T-shirt, and for just a moment, I allowed myself to drink in the sight of his muscular back flexing and bunching as he shifted restlessly.
“Eff my life,” I whispered. Then, dropping to my knees, I watched—feeling outside myself—as I lightly ran my pointer finger down the side of his smooth temple.
Instantly he quieted, his listing ceased, and his breathing deepened.
I listened to his heartbeat, noted it was still deep and steady, the way it should be while in the grip of sleep, and whispered to him, “Relax, wolf boy. It’s just a dream.”
Blowing out a heavy breath, he shifted, and even though I knew he was still sleeping deeply, Mercer moved in closer to me. His hand shot out like a bolt and palmed my thigh, squeezing tightly before relaxing once more.
My heart, which wasn’t exactly running at peak performance right then, gave a powerful but sluggish thump. Everything about Merc confused me. At times, I was sure that he loved me, that even his wolf accepted me as its mate.
No one could tame a shifter, especially not in animal form, unless that wolf in someway considered you his. But though I’d always sensed Mercer wasn’t being entirely honest with me, his words ruined any shred of hope inside of me. Too many times, he’d told me to leave him alone, and too many times, I’d let myself falter, letting myself hope against hope that soon he’d stop fighting and just give in already.
Sighing deeply, his fingers strummed at the hemline of my jeans, and I felt my traitorous heart giving in all over again. Actions didn’t lie—only words did.
I was this close to letting him go forever, to just walking away completely. I couldn’t take any more rejection when it came from him, but he was asleep, and he wouldn’t know. So maybe just this once. Wetting my lips, I stopped thinking and moved on instinct.
Leaning over, I intended only to kiss his forehead as he’d done mine so many times in the past, but after kissing it, I found myself moving down the bridge of his strong nose, then to his cheek, and finally, I was at the corner of his mouth and breathing him in.
He smelled of sleep, man, and soap.
I didn’t kiss him then. I knew if I did, I’d never leave, but the words crawled out of my heart and dropped from my tongue before I could censor them.
“I have to let you go. So why can’t I?”
He twitched, and I jumped back several feet, moving like a startled rattler and gripping the doorknob in my fist once again.
Too much. I’d said too much.
Closing my eyes briefly, I yanked open the door on silent hinges and left, jumping into Betsy and flying down that dirt road as fast as the old rust bucket could take me.
~*~
Mercer
Her words echoed like cannon in his skull, dragging him away from the first bit of good sleep he’d had all night. Nightmares had plagued him off and on, waking him up in a sweat several times. He’d had visions of fighting off a horde of fangers intent on snatching her away from him.
Then he’d sensed her presence on a subconscious level, coming slowly awake as her lips pressed tightly to his sensitized flesh, and it’d been hell not to move, not to grab her and drag her beneath him and mark her, claiming her as he’d fucking wanted to from the first moment he’d clapped eyes on the sunshiny human.
Then her words, spoken so softly and trembling with such pain... He flinched.
His entire body tensed at the painful longing that echoed through her words as she’d whispered of leaving him. With his gut twisted up with nerves, sleep was impossible.
He’d let Scarlett leave, knowing she’d been spooked by his sudden reaction. Of course, Mercer knew she loved him. He’d always known. That was the most tragic part of their whole messy relationship, how much he needed her back, too.
Steven whined, yanking Mercer’s thoughts briefly away from the mess that was his love life.
Mercer worried about his brother, about how quiet and sullen he’d become lately. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his body was growing lankier, an obvious sign that he was beginning the transition from human toward beast. That was a crucial period in a young wolf’s life, and he knew he needed to be present more for Steven, but Mercer would be lying if he said his concern wasn’t more for Scar at the moment.
She wasn’t well.
He could see it in the heavy bags under her eyes and the sallowness of her skin. She’d tapped into that darkness again the day before, and it had drained her.
She’d not told him so, but Merc was as attuned to her soul as he was to his own. The nightmare of knowing when she and James would screw had messed him up for weeks, but he’d slowly begun to realize their connection was more than just knowing when she fucked.
Scarlett breathed inside of him.
It was hard to explain, but the connection was deep—all the way down. She could be miles away, but he felt her as if she was standing right beside him. He couldn’t see her every movement, thank the gods—he’d probably have gouged his eyes out with a rusty spoon if he had—but he sensed her when she was happy, when she was troubled.
That was how he’d known for some time that things weren’t good between her and James. Scarlett had turned to James for comfort. Mercer knew that had all happened because he’d fucked up.
The problem was he didn’t know how to stop screwing things up between them. Every time he tried, he only seemed to make things worse.
She was withdrawing—from not just him but from everyone.
She rarely came to the den anymore, and when she did, the visits were brief. She didn’t hang out with anyone in Silver Creek, but then again, she never really had, except for with him.
Muttering beneath his breath, he marched into her kitchen to make him and Steven something for breakfast. Not much in a vampire’s larder was worth eating, but Scar lived with wolves, so she always kept plenty of steaks in the freezer.
He grabbed two and fried them up quickly, just enough to heat them. The redder the better, as far as he was concerned.
The smell of food was a dinner bell to just about every shifter. Steven sat up with a small groan, rubbing his eyes. “Breakfast? Where’s Scar?”
It did Mercer’s heart good to know that even after seeing Scarlett at her worst, Steven still felt great affection for his sister. If the younger generation of shifters could stop giving into the fear and age-old hatred of the cold ones, maybe hope still existed for their two species to coexist someday, if not necessarily peaceably, then at least not so hostilely.
“Yeah. Almost done,” he said. “Go get dressed. You’ve got school. Scar’s gone for the day already.”
Steven frowned at the last part but did as asked and shuffled off toward the restroom bare-ass naked. Mercer snorted. He really needed to try to tame the pup a little. Maybe two hundred years before, no one would’ve batted an eye at seeing a kid his age walk around in the buff, but people tended to care nowadays.
After they ate, mostly in silence, Mercer saw his brother off and waited around as long as he possibly could for Scar’s return.
However, the time was well past nine, and he was already an hour late to his shift—not that anyone would say shit to him about it because being the boss came with some perks. Growling under his breath, he locked up and jogged toward the den.
Scar had been gone long enough that he knew whatever had called her away had something to do with the previous night. All evening, he’d been sensing her anxiousness.
She wasn’t
terrified, which helped him pretend a normalcy he didn’t actually feel, but he had work to do, and until she came back home, he couldn’t do much else for her.
He immediately got lost in the repetition of his job before he realized the day had sped by, the moon was nearly at its zenith, and he’d still not sensed her return to pack land.
Glowering and growing more irritated by the second, he unloaded a stack of boxes from his liquor supplier and studied the darkness of the nearby woods, wondering where in the hell she was, why she hadn’t called him yet, and how the hell to go about fixing the shambles of their relationship.
The indigo of night painted the rolling hills behind the honky-tonk with shades of deep, dark blue shadows. He was just turning to grab another case when the thick smell of clipped roses suddenly saturated the night.
His wolf awakened, alert and aware. Something was watching him, a predator—an ancient. Spinning on his heel, he expected to see Dean. Instead, a stunning, smiling woman was sitting on a box of crates with one knee bent up to her breast and the other leg dangling toward the concrete slab.
Her hair was a dark halo around her pale shoulders. She wore a cowgirl hat, jeans, boots, and a form-fitting A-shirt. Her eyes were neon lavender and her features beguiling. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to classify her genus. She wore a sensual smile, but not as though she was trying too hard. The look was natural for her, and small fangs peeked out from between her full lips.
Vampire?
He scented. She didn’t smell of rot and viscera, a scent common to most fangers, no matter how beautiful they were.
“Who are you?” he snapped, gripping the wine crate in his hands so hard that several splinters drove through his fingertips.
Her posture was relaxed and easy as she kicked one leg out, swinging it to and fro as though she had all the time in the world and no place else to be. His lip curled as his wolf grew frustrated within him.
What the fuck was this woman, and why the hell was she here?
“Sorry, back door was open. I was told to come back here and find Mercer. That you?”
He narrowed his eyes but grunted an affirmative. “Who told you to find me?”
She grinned, touching her chest with long, delicate fingers. “Some guy named... Emerson, I think, was his name. Anyway, met up with him at the truck stop some miles down the road a week back. Told him I was looking for work. And now, I find myself here.” She shrugged.
He didn’t trust her blithe and easy answer. Emerson wasn’t exactly the giving type. Sure, this Veiler was fucking hot, but hot was a dime a dozen in their world. Candy would eat Emerson’s balls for lunch if she knew he was looking anywhere else.
“What’d you say your name was?” he growled.
Her brows twitched, and her lips fought a grin. “I didn’t. But you can call me Pandora. Or Dora if you’d like.” She shrugged. “I’m easy.”
He narrowed his eyes, untrusting. Something was up.
“What can you do?” he asked. “Bartending? Waiting?”
She shook her head to both. “I mean, I probably could, but best not put me around too many males. Or females, for that matter. I have a tendency to become catnip to the masses. Weapon of mass destruction in the wrong hands, if you catch my drift.” She winked, giving him a throaty chuckle and wetting her lips with an undeniable come-hither expression growing in her eyes.
Soon, the air felt pumped full of liquid lust, making his blood heat and burn through his veins, filling his brain with images of their writhing, naked bodies fucking and screwing senselessly—on the floor, against the wall.
Thinning his lips, Mercer growled low in his chest, just a soft rumble of noise full of his displeasure, and the grin on her lips instantly vanished.
“Good for you, boy,” she said, and instantly the X-rated porn session in his mind vanished. “I told him he could trust you.”
He’d been ready to toss her flat out on her ass, but his ears pricked, and he cocked his head. “What? Told who? Em?”
“No. Dean.” She grinned, hopping to her feet and cocking her hips.
“Fuck,” he snarled. “I fucking knew it. You don’t know Emerson at all. What the hell does Death want now?”
She laughed, the sound making his skin heat and crawl with desire against his will.
“He was right. You really do need to switch these insults up a time or two, wolf boy. And relax—I’m the good cop in this scenario.”
Clenching his jaw, he eyed her cruelly. The mysterious Veiler might have been beautiful, but he would tear her limb from limb if she dared to try coming against Scar.
Her eyes were unflinching and her stance confident as she shook her head. “You don’t get it, Mercer, but I’m actually here to help you protect her.”
“From what?” he snapped back.
“From what’s coming. From herself.” She shrugged. “Pick your poison.”
“You know what she really is, don’t you?” he asked breathlessly, the hundred-pound crate in his hands began to turn his fingers numb from gripping so tight.
“Yeah.” She held up her hand when he opened his mouth. “But don’t ask. I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to. All I can say is Scarlett’s nearing a crossroads. She has a choice to make. I’m here to try and make sure she makes the right one.”
Mercer hated to admit that he sort of halfway liked the Veiler, but she was honest and open and hell of a lot better looking than that prick, Dean.
“And if she doesn’t?”
Her gaze turned faraway. “Yeah, that can’t happen. I’ve already seen what happens when she picks wrong. Trust me, you don’t want to go down that road.”
He snorted. “Whatever. Look, you say you’re here for Scar. And fuck me, but for some reason, I trust you. Though I know I shouldn’t.”
She grinned, red lips curving up into a sexy pout. “Yeah, I have that effect on others. Probably why Dean sent me to you. Look, here’s the thing. Dean wanted me to come incognito, not tell you who I really was, blah blah blah”—she mimed a mouth with her hand—“but I think you’re far too smart to play games with, wolf. And right now, I’m going to need your head in the game.”
“Game?”
“What comes next.” She tucked her hands into her pockets, rocking back on her heels and looking at him as if what comes next was obvious.
“What does come next, exactly?”
She didn’t smirk, flirt, or smile. Her face was stoic, her stare a mile long, and Mercer knew that whoever that Veiler was, she’d seen the worst life had to offer and had survived it. Something about her reminded him of Scarlett—soft, almost delicate but with a spine of steel too.
“A shit storm.”
His brows lifted.
She wasn’t done. “You have to make her trust you again, Mercer.”
“What?” he snapped.
Pandora didn’t flinch. She was beautiful, soft, but she was a monster, too—maybe even a bigger one than him. He could imagine she was the kind who’d scoff in the face of death and laugh while doing it, which made him like her just a little bit more.
“Look, I know what Dean was doing before,” she said, “telling you to stay away. And there was a reason for it.”
“Not one that ever satisfied me,” he said.
She shrugged. “The games that Dean plays... You have no idea, wolf boy. Everything he does is for a reason.”
“You sound like a fucking sycophant, and I’ve got to get back to work now.” He tried to shove past her, but she slammed her palm into his chest, stopping him dead in his tracks.
That’s when he finally got his first taste of her power and was rocked to his core. He’d mistakenly assumed Pandora was simply a Veiler, but she was more. She was just like Death. She moved outside of this world.
His brows lowered, staring down at her hand.
“Sorry,” she muttered, dropping it instantly. “Look, I’m not here to piss you off or make you paranoid. I really am who I say I am. A friend.”
&
nbsp; He scoffed. “A friend, really? There aren’t friends in this world. Just predator and prey.”
Her features softened. “You don’t really believe that. Because if you did, you wouldn’t love her the way you do. And you do love her, no matter what you say.”
Ice rushed through his veins, and his breathing turned choppy. That was a secret none knew, one he’d kill to protect.
She shook her head. “I’d never tell. But I need you to know you can trust me. That vampire she killed, she was a catalyst. The start of something...” Her gaze turned a mile long again as she stared at nothing, never once blinking, which gave him the sick feeling that she wasn’t lying. After a few seconds, Pandora blinked, giving her head a soft shake before returning to the present. “Something unstoppable. You need to be there for Scar. You need to make her know she’s not alone.”
Finally setting the crate down, he rubbed the ache behind his temple. “None of what you’re saying makes sense to me. I’ve always been there for Scar.”
“No.” Her word was strong and full of conviction. “We both know you haven’t.”
He ground his back teeth hard. “And I think we both know why.”
She snorted. “Dean’s a bit of a bastard, but he means well.”
“Well,” he snapped, clenching his hands into fists, “breaking my neck and killing me, only to bring me back with a slap to the face and the demand that I never ever fucking tell her how I felt, yeah... Means well, my ass.”
“Scarlett and I,” she began slowly, “we’re a lot more alike than not.”
“Meaning?” He lifted an eyebrow and crossed his arms.
“Meaning sometimes pain is the only way to make us bloom. But there’s a fine line with that too because if we feel completely isolated and alone, we do stupid things. Terrible things. You were chosen to be her guardian for a reason, wolf. And that time is now.”
“What?” He stilled, every inch of him suddenly feeling like a dowsing rod too close to water.
“It’s time to stop pushing her away. That’s what I’m saying. Do whatever you’ve got to do to make her trust you again, wolf, but you’ve got to make her do it and quick. The tides have shifted, and we have no choice but to adapt now while we still have the chance. Dean’s a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but he eventually gets there.” She grinned.
Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo (Southern Vampire Detective Book 2) Page 7