Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts, The Complete Series: Mine to Claim, Part of Me, and Hunger for You

by A. C. Arthur

  I’d already picked up my jacket and was zipping it as Scarlett called to me from beside her bed.

  “You’re a naïve little freshman, Gracie. You came from that uppity little town in Washington where you were the star of the show, your parents were royalty that ruled the land, so you’re hardly one to get up on your high horse about those that are accepted or not accepted. Take my advice and stay the hell away from Sanchez. He’s bad news and your hoity-toity parents definitely would not approve.”

  * * *

  Scarlett’s words replayed in my head as I walked out of the coffee shop, steam drifting up toward my face as I held the cup of coffee in both gloved hands.

  All the things about my past had given Scarlett the ammunition to strike as coldly and pointedly as she had. But I hadn’t told her everything and the parts I’d kept to myself were the ones that made me feel for Aidan Sanchez, they were what made me admire his wanting to stay a recluse. Hadn’t I come here to be by myself, or at least to start over by myself? Yet now, here I was, in the middle of another group of people that seemed to think they were better than someone else for whatever reason. I didn’t like how that thought made me feel, not at all.

  I also didn’t like the jolt I received when someone grabbed my arm, pulling me off the path I’d been walking away from the coffee shop. Hot liquid sloshed through the slit in the top of the cup and I gasped before a hand went over my mouth. My heart pounded as every self-defense technique I’d been taught fled from my mind. Stumbling through the grassy area around the side of the coffee shop I thought frantically back to the class I’d taken in Seattle, reaching for anything, any thought to how I could get myself out of this situation before it was too late.

  I saw the motorcycle before I was released and felt only a fraction of relief wavering through me.

  “I’m sorry,” his deep voice said from behind as he finally let me go. “I didn’t want anybody to see me or to see us together. But I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  My hands shook, more of my coffee spilling over my black gloves. It was a good thing they were leather and not one of the other pairs I had that were cloth because this hot liquid would have scorched the hell out of me by now. I took a few seconds to steady my breathing before speaking.

  “The police are looking for you,” I said because I really wasn’t ready to deal with his apology or the memory of why he was most likely offering it.

  I’d spent the bulk of my day replaying our kiss, those touches, his tongue, his hands, and it had been futile. I let Aidan Sanchez kiss and fondle me and I hadn’t stopped him. It was like an instant replay of the worst day of my entire life and yet, it hadn’t really felt like that, not on the inside.

  “I didn’t rob that gas station and I don’t own a gun. I don’t need one,” he said tightly.

  I turned then, looking at him and almost dropping the cup of coffee altogether. He was so damned fine, so right out of a movie scene gorgeous with his squared jaw and dark brooding looks, the leather jacket and dark jeans, the black steel-toed boots and the bike, like a modern-day Danny or Tony. My two favorite old-school romances about the good girl longing for the bad guy immediately sprang to mind. As both were musicals I half expected one of us to break into song at this very moment.

  Instead I swallowed and took a deep breath. “I didn’t think you’d robbed anybody. I told Scarlett you wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “You did?” He sounded surprised.

  “Yeah, well, I just don’t see a gun-toting robber as the same guy that rescued me from overzealous guys on two occasions.”

  He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his lips thinning into a line as he looked away. Actually, he looked uncomfortable and I wondered if it was because of what I’d said.

  “Why do you keep saving me?” I don’t know why I asked that question, wasn’t really sure I wanted the answer. But I didn’t want to walk away from him, not just yet. “I mean you just keep showing up where I am, when there’s some guy bothering me, like you’re my personal bodyguard.”

  When he didn’t speak I got worried.

  “You’re not, are you? My parents didn’t hire you to watch me, did they?”

  “Wow,” he said with a wry chuckle. “What kind of parents do you have?”

  I was about to answer or at least give him some sort of retraction statement when I noticed something. He’d smiled, or one half of his mouth had lifted as if he wanted to smile and his voice hadn’t sounded so ominous.

  “I guess the same type anybody has,” I replied lightly, “if you have insanely strict and overprotective ones that don’t know when to let go.”

  He nodded then, that partial smile still in place. “Yeah, I guess I sort of know that tune.”

  “Gotta love ‘em, huh?” I lifted my cup to my lips, drinking from what was left and acting as if I wasn’t standing on the side of a building as darkness was finally beginning to set with a guy that was wanted by the police.

  The half-smile faltered. “Guess so.”

  A group of people came out of the coffee shop, laughing and joking with each other, their voices causing Aidan’s head to snap in their direction.

  “I should go,” he said without looking back at me.

  He was right, he probably should go. But I didn’t want him to so I didn’t respond. He didn’t seem to care because he moved around me heading for his bike. I turned, opening my mouth, prepared to say … what? “Stay with me?” “Take me with you?” I didn’t have the guts.

  Aidan lifted his leg and sat on his bike. With one booted foot he pushed the stand back and straightened the bike. Digging in his pocket he pulled out a key. I was watching his every movement as if transfixed. His fingers were long, his hands wide, he looked strong. He started the bike and my heart thumped wildly, beneath the leather gloves my palms began to sweat, the hand that held the coffee cup shaking.

  “Come with me,” he said softly.

  So softly I barely heard him over the rumble of the bike.

  “What?” I sounded like a dweeb or a scared, nervous female, or whatever, it didn’t sound good.

  He didn’t seem to mind because he repeated his statement, “Come with me.”

  The first night he’d said that to me I’d hesitated because Rory had said the same thing when he’d invited me to his house that night. The second time Aidan had said it, last night at the party, I’d been so shocked at seeing him I hadn’t related it to Seattle or what happened there at all. Tonight, he was saying it again and I had a choice. I could get on this bike and go with him—the guy that Scarlett had so politely pointed out was a recluse and I didn’t know a damned thing about. Or I could go back to my dorm room and sit in front of a computer pretending to work when I was really thinking about the recluse that I didn’t know a damned thing about, except that his kiss had excited me more than anything I’d ever experienced in my entire life.

  I tossed the coffee cup aside, not caring that I was littering. Okay, that was probably going to bug the hell out of me tomorrow, but not right now, not at this instant. The only thing on my mind right now was climbing onto the back of Aidan’s bike, fitting my front against his back, and loving the feeling of warmth that immediately seeped through him into me.

  CHAPTER 6

  Aidan

  This was a big-ass mistake, in a long line of big-ass mistakes I’d been making lately. Brayden’s early morning call had only confirmed that fact.

  “Where are you and why haven’t you answered my calls?” my younger brother had asked the moment I said hello.

  “Hello. I’m doing well, and you?” had been my clipped and sarcastic reply.

  “You were supposed to be here a week ago. The final tests are in three months. The three of us getting together and going over everything we’ve learned increases all of our odds,” Bradyden had continued.

  I’d closed my eyes to his words, wishing like hell I didn’t love and respect him too much to disconnect the call. “I don’t need
my odds increased.”

  “We all do, Aidan. The old laws don’t really apply now, not to our generation. We have to act on any edge we can to get where we need to be.”

  “I’m where I need to be, Brayden. I plan to get my degree and—”

  “And what, Aidan? What are you going to do with a degree in computer technology when you were born and bred to do so much more?”

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to ignore words I’d heard too many times to count and their implication. “Look, you walk in the footsteps that were preordained for you. That’s your gig, Bray, it’s not mine.”

  “You’re the oldest.”

  “Yeah, well that wasn’t my choice either,” I snapped.

  “It’s who we are.”

  “I am who I want to be, not what a birthright or some ancient law says I have to be. It’s not what I want out of life. I thought you understood that.” That statement had been completely wrong. I knew when I’d walked away from Brayden and Caleb that night in Rio that neither of them had really understood. Brayden had looked at me with disappointment while Caleb, the adopted but still loved and cherished youngest brother, had given his tainted brand of approval. Neither of them agreed with me leaving the fold, but they supported me, because that’s what we did, always.

  “I know you don’t want to hurt Mom and Dad like this.”

  Brayden’s words had my eyes popping open. It was a low blow as I’m sure he knew and it had the desired effect, almost.

  “My intent is not to hurt them but my life is my own, that’s a fact I cannot and will not change.”

  Brayden sighed. “They need us.”

  By “they” I knew Brayden wasn’t only talking about our parents, he was talking about our tribe. And that was the one thing I didn’t want to think about or talk about or worry about, or anything. It was the thing I’d run so long and so far away from and I wasn’t willing to turn back, not even for my family. I’d used some fake-ass excuse to get off the phone with Brayden, promising to call him later, but not that I’d show up because I had absolutely no intention of taking the final steps to becoming a full-fledged Topètenia soldier.

  I turned my bike into the motel parking lot where I’d checked in earlier, after I saw the cops hanging around my apartment building. At that point I didn’t know why exactly but instinct told me to get out of there. A few hours later I had a call from the only other person who knew who and where I was. He’d said two simple words, “No exposure.”

  So I was camping out here just for tonight and then I’d be gone, for good.

  Except I couldn’t leave without seeing Grace one more time.

  “I thought you lived in the building with Jordy,” she said after I’d parked the bike and helped her off.

  I liked touching her, a lot. Too much. Everything I wanted to do to her was too much. I knew that and yet here we were.

  “Cops are all over that building,” I told her while I locked my bike up.

  “Right, Scarlett said they questioned her when she was there.”

  “Scarlett, your roommate, the one who’s sleeping with Jordy this week,” I added then walked toward the room I’d rented.

  She followed me asking, “How do you know Scarlett’s my roommate? And what does ‘this week’ mean?”

  “I know she’s your roommate just like I know you’re an art history major and that you’re the product of a mixed heritage. And by ‘this week,’ I mean that Jordy has a lot of girls in and out of his apartment. I don’t think that’s a big secret on campus.”

  I stopped at the door just before using the key to let us in because I knew she was digesting what I’d just said and maybe not liking or understanding 100 percent. When I turned around she was right there, right up on me, the top of her head a couple inches beneath my chin, her breasts in that puffy jacket she wore pressed against my chest.

  “You checked up on me,” she said, looking up at me.

  She had really long lashes and they were real, not like the glued-on ones females were wearing now. She didn’t wear makeup or if she did she never wore a lot of it, the freckles across the bridge of her nose probably wouldn’t be hidden even if she did. My fingers itched to touch the tiny brown flecks.

  “Why would you check up on me?”

  Because I hadn’t been able to think of anything else but her since that night at the bar. Damn, that was some lame shit and I wasn’t about to admit it to her.

  “I like to know things,” I told her with a shrug then turned around to open the door. She followed me inside and I closed the door behind us, locking it and putting on the chain. A futile effort since whoever really wanted to get in, probably would. Of course, they wouldn’t like what they found when they did but I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

  “So do I,” she said, taking off her jacket and tossing it on the bed.

  When she spun around to stare at me she’d put her hands on her hips, nice curvy hips I might add, and was giving me a look that said she meant business. I don’t think she had a clue how sexy that look was considering she was wearing some form of skintight material on her legs and a long but thin T-shirt with a sleepy-eyed teddy bear on front. The kicker was she wasn’t wearing a bra. Fuck me!

  “How old are you and where are you from?”

  One of those questions was easy-peasy, while the other … I sucked in a breath and tried to act as calm as I wanted her to believe I was. I took off my jacket and hung it on a chair that looked like it wasn’t going to be able to hold up on its own much longer. “I’m twenty-one so I was perfectly legal having drinks in the bar. And you?”

  She opened her mouth then snapped it shut, then tried again.

  “I’m nineteen and I tried to tell that bartender but he didn’t care.”

  “You had a drink at the party too,” I said, moving past her to plug my phone into the charger I’d left on the small table near the bathroom door. “You shouldn’t drink at parties with strangers. That’s how things get out of hand.”

  Her arms instantly folded over her chest then and she looked away from me. Now she was uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have brought her here. I knew that when I asked her to come with me but I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t stop any of my impulses when it came to her and I hated to think of the reason why.

  “So if you don’t want to tell me where you’re from then what are we doing here? Because really I could think that this was getting out of hand too and I haven’t had anything but a sip of a heavily creamed and sugared coffee.”

  She was adorable. No, the punch of lust I experienced every time I looked at her sort of downplayed that word. But right now she looked like an innocent teenager in a hotel with a dirty older man intent on having his way with her. That dirty older man would be me, even though I wouldn’t say I was much older, but I did want to have my way with her. Somewhere deep inside me I felt like I had no other choice.

  Instead of going to her and probably scaring her out of her mind, I rubbed my hands on my thighs and took a slow, deep breath.

  “I don’t know why I asked you here. And I don’t know why I keep popping up every time there’s a guy trying to hit on you. To tell the truth, I don’t know what it is about you, but I can’t walk away. I keep trying and trying and I can’t.” I admitted feeling something unfurl inside at the words.

  Her head tilted to the right as she stared and spoke. “When I was eight a puppy followed me home from school. My mom screamed bloody murder at the thought of me keeping him. Dad took him away an hour later and the next morning when the nanny opened the door to take me to school, the puppy was sitting on the front step. When I came out of school that afternoon it was there again. I never wondered why it kept showing up because I was so happy to see it. Until Mom had it put down.”

  She took a deep breath after that, lifting her hands to smooth strands of hair behind her ears. I liked how she looked when she did that, how her face was so much prettier when it was free of any distractions, like hair. I wanted
to touch her again. No, I really needed to touch her this time. So I stood and walked to her. I cupped her cheeks, loving the feel of warmth in my palms and sucking in a breath when her soft brown eyes stared up at me.

  “I’m not a dog your mom can put down,” I told her, a vicious hiss echoing inside of me.

  “But one day you’ll be gone too,” she whispered.

  I wanted to tell her no, that wasn’t true. I wanted to promise her something I knew deep down I’d never be able to deliver on. Tomorrow I would be gone and so tonight, right here, right now was probably one of the worst things I could ever do. But there was nothing, nothing I knew of that could stop me from taking this one thing, this one slice of happiness that I’d been able to find.

  “I’m here right now. We’re both here and there are no parents, no intruding guys, or well-intentioned friends to come between us,” I told her.

  Us? There was no us and I knew it. There was no me and her like boyfriend and girlfriend, happy ever after, or any of that chick-lit crap. There was only this moment and for the rest of my life I would hold onto this memory as if it were a lifeline.

  “No memories and no regrets,” was her whispered reply.

  I wanted to ask her what that meant, wanted to pursue why recriminations would be prevalent in her mind but she flattened her palms on my chest and pressed closer to me. The kiss was inevitable. It may have been a slower event, a smoother one if I had the patience, but I didn’t, so it wasn’t.

  Our lips collided and it was like a whoosh of air being sucked from my lungs. Her mouth was so soft, so warm, I just melted. My fingers dug into her shoulders as I grasped her tightly, maybe too tightly, so I gave myself a mental shove and loosened my grip. Her hands fisted in my shirt as she pressed closer, coming up on tiptoe and tilting her head. She was as anxious as I was to take this kiss further, or to at the very least see where this kiss would go.

  As we were in a motel room, the where was sort of obvious and even more so when she pushed me backward until I fell to the bed. She climbed over me almost immediately and I groaned because, yeah, this was exactly where I wanted her.