Strength (Mark of Nexus #1)

by Carrie Butler

  “Uh…” I stole a quick glance at Wallace, gauging his expression. He’d been so cramped in Gabby’s Mini Cooper during the three minute drive to the diner, I didn’t know how he’d fare twenty minutes to the mall. “Do you care? You could pick up a new phone while we’re out.”

  He considered it for a moment. “That’s fine.”

  “Good, then it’s settled,” Gabby proclaimed with a sly grin, closing the issue before anyone had a chance to dispute it.

  Aiden puffed out his chest. “Nobody asked me.”

  She shot him a look. “What else would you be doing this afternoon? Homework? Huh uh.”

  Great. This trip had all the makings of a bad ‘80s movie.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I could get used to hanging out in the mall again.

  I’d spent a fair amount of time loitering in different shopping centers as a teenager, and the combined aroma of cinnamon rolls, hot pretzels, and shoe leather was oddly comforting to me. It was something I could count on, regardless of the city or time of day. Everything else in my life could spin chaotically out of control, and this one, stupid thing would still be the same.

  “Hmm.” Gabby hobbled around the store in four-inch heels, eyeing herself in the mirror.

  Despite my reservations, we’d sent Aiden off with Wallace to find the Sprint kiosk. What they could possibly find to talk about, given their history of awkward exchanges, I didn’t know. “Do you think Aiden is still afraid of Wallace?” I asked.

  She rolled her jeans up, modeling the pair of red, strappy stilettos. “Not as much as he used to be. Do you like these?”

  “It’s hard to say in winter. Ask me again in four months.”

  “Helpful.” She clicked her tongue and sat down on the stool to take them off. “Maybe I’ll get a handbag, instead. I need something.”

  Yeah, like an intervention.

  “So, what are you spending to distract yourself from? The Maverick thing?”

  Her expression hardened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked. “Do you feel okay?”

  “Rena...”

  I blinked. “Did something bad happen?”

  She looked down at the shoebox, carefully unfolding the tissue paper. “I know we aren’t officially together or anything, but I—never mind. It’s stupid.”

  “What is?” I crouched down, helping her clean up the mess of boxes.

  “I think he might be cheating on me,” she said in one breath.

  “What?” My voice jumped an octave, and a saleswoman peered around the rack to check on us. “What?” I repeated in a hushed tone, leaning in. “How do you know?”

  “Well.” She unstrapped the stilettos slowly, letting out a deep breath. “I might just be a little suspicious. I mean, I used to get upset when he asked about you all the time, but then—”

  “Huh?”

  She waved me off. “He just used to ask stuff about you. I got a little pissed, until I realized it was probably because, ya know, you guys have classes together.”

  “Oh, right. Definitely.” Aside from the fact that we rarely talk.

  “But then, last night, he moaned someone else’s name…Gail.”

  “Gail?” I cocked my head to the side. “Who’s Gail?”

  “I don’t know.” She took off one shoe and then the other, pressing them into the box at different angles. “She must be one important bitch if he felt the need to call out her name during sex.”

  I cringed. No wonder Gabby was acting weird. She felt betrayed by the first “relationship” she’d had since the last time she got burned. “Well, maybe it was an accident. Maybe she’s just an ex or something.”

  “I don’t know, but we had words about it.” She put the lid on. “He got mad and took off. He hasn’t been answering his phone since.”

  I took the box and set it on the floor, doing my best to comfort her without the aid of my associates Ben and Jerry. “I’m sure he just needed a little time to cool off. Don’t worry. You guys will get this sorted out.” I scratched my head and tried to think of something else to say. Something that didn’t hang awkwardly in the air. “If not, screw it and move on.”

  “You’re probably right,” she admitted. “He’s just got me all on edge today. I tried to put it in the back of my mind, but that’s not happenin’.”

  “You know what that means.” I stood up and pulled her to her feet. “More retail therapy.”

  She flashed me a grin and stuffed her feet back into boots. “Girl, lead the way.”

  Sixty bucks later, we met the guys near the Sprint kiosk. They were sitting on a bench, and Aiden was pointing at something in Wallace’s hand.

  “Hey,” I called as they both looked up. “Did you find something?”

  “Yeah, Aiden was just telling me all about my new phone.” Wallace met my eye and mouthed, “All about it.”

  I made no attempt to hide my grin. “Well, it’s nice to see you suitemates getting along.”

  “I guess we were a little quick to write him off before.” Aiden rubbed at the back of his head, a tinge of pink staining his freckled cheeks. “He’s kinda cool to hang with. A bunch of girls came over and talked to us.”

  Gabby snorted, and I did my best to appear unaffected.

  “Oh yeah?” I raised my eyebrows. “Either of you Casanovas score any digits?”

  “You know it.” Aiden fished around in his pocket. “Her name is Macy.”

  Gabby pushed between them and plopped down with her bundle of purchases. It was a tight squeeze. “Like the store?”

  “Yes, like the store,” Aiden mimicked, scrunching his nose. “But she’s pretty, and we’re going to hang out Wednesday night.”

  She looked skeptical and turned to Wallace. “Can you verify that, Ace?”

  “He did get her number.”

  “See?” Aiden held up a torn receipt with writing scrawled across it.

  “What about you?” I shifted my weight, eyeing Wallace. “Get any numbers?”

  “A few.”

  “Dozen,” Aiden finished, a proud wingman in the making. “They came up with all kinds of excuses to talk to him.”

  I could’ve sworn I saw the slightest hint of a blush as Wallace looked away, shoving his new phone into his pocket. “Want my seat?”

  “No, thanks.” I looked around at the other stores, making sure there wasn’t anything I needed before we left. When I tilted my head, I felt Aiden’s eyes on me. “What?”

  He gave a start and looked away with a guilty expression. “Nothing.”

  “What?” I repeated, tracing my fingers over the bandage on my neck. “This?”

  “I-I wasn’t staring or anything. I mean, I know what happened. Gabby told me about it while you were taking your nap.”

  Wallace bristled, straightening to rigid posture. I shot him a questioning look, and then it hit me. I’d forgotten to fill him in on our side of the story. He probably thought…

  I felt the color drain from my face as I turned back to Aiden, projecting my voice in a hasty, mechanical recap. “You mean how I hurt myself getting into the car, and Wallace’s brother had to come get me? Then Wallace showed up and they reconciled, so we ended up staying at their grandma’s house? That’s what you mean, right?”

  Aiden blinked, staring at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” I forced a smile and turned to Wallace. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered with a tight expression, rising to his feet. “Ready to go?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The trip back to campus seemed like it took twice as long. Even stuck beside me, with his knees pressed against Aiden’s seat, Wallace hadn’t said a thing about last night. I thought he’d at least give some indication of how he felt regarding the edited tale—but he didn’t. We rode back in silence and parted on friendly, generic terms.

  I hated it when he tried to internalize things. It didn’t seem fair. He was allowed to know
what I was feeling, but he couldn’t return the favor?

  Naturally, I spent the rest of the night distracting myself. Gabby and I ordered a pizza, and I buried myself with books. I finished all of my homework, took a practice quiz online, and started studying for next week’s chapter test. On a Saturday night.

  By the time I finished studying, the words were blurring on the page. I had to reread the same passage three or four times to grasp the meaning, and it just wasn’t worth it, so I went to bed—overwhelmed, exhausted, and nursing too many unresolved feelings.

  Feelings that bled into my dreams.

  “No!” I jolted awake with a sharp intake of air and sat straight up in bed, tears streaming down my face. Wallace was dead.

  He’d been tortured and killed because of me, and in the end, I hadn’t been able to tell him the one thing I needed to…the one thing I hadn’t told myself—I cared about him. He was everything I never dared to hope for in a man, and now it was too late. I’d already lost him.

  I slammed my fist into the wall, gritting my teeth. “Daaamn it!” A sob broke through my cry as tiny lines of blood split my knuckles and stained the concrete.

  “Whoa, whoa, girl.” Gabby stumbled across the room in her pajamas, unkempt and horrified. “What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”

  Trembling, I looked up, trying to hear her through the chaos in my mind. A nightmare?

  A sudden pounding rattled the door hinges, like the whole thing was about to splinter and give way.

  “Who the hell beats on someone’s door at four thirty in the morning?” Gabby huffed.

  I couldn’t answer, possessed by an overwhelming desperation that’d taken hold of my body. Before I even realized what I was doing, I’d already thrown back the covers and bolted for the door.

  “Rena?”

  Please, please, please…I didn’t bother to check the peep hole, flinging the door wide open.

  “A-Are you okay?” Wallace filled the doorway, leaning against the wall as he caught his breath.

  I stood in his shadow for a moment in complete shock. “You’re…” My tears ran anew as I threw my arms around his waist, hugging him harder than I’d ever claimed anyone in my life. His heartbeat pounded against my ear in a strong, powerful percussion, and my knees nearly gave out.

  “I’m here,” he murmured, the words reverberating through his bare chest as he ran his hand up my back. “Everything’s fine.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, letting myself come down from the hysteria. He was there. Real and in the flesh. Nothing had happened.

  My breaths became deeper, evening out as I pulled away. Or, at least, I tried to.

  “Sorry,” he said, and dropped his hand to his side. Why he kept his other arm tucked behind his back, I didn’t know, but it really didn’t matter. There was enough to process, as it was.

  I wiped at my eyes with the back of my arm, sniffling. “No, I just…” I shook my head in disbelief. My stomach was a churning mess of conflicting emotions. What was I supposed to say?

  Something had changed between us. The tiniest crack had formed in the wall of my defenses, and I couldn’t patch it up. The awareness was already there. As much as I wanted to deny it, it was there.

  I did care about him.

  If I were honest, that was probably a horrible underestimation of my feelings for him. My arm felt tight again, and I ran a hand back through my hair. God, why did it have to be him?

  Reluctantly, I raised my gaze upward, past the hard set of his mouth to the unnerving concern banked in his eyes. He was looking at me strangely. I didn’t know how to place it.

  “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, uh...” The weight of a third-party stare bore into my back, and I turned around. “Would you mind?”

  “Oh!” Gabby was quick to recover, patting her hair down. “Y’know, I was just thinking about going upstairs.” She scanned the room and grabbed a few things, tossing them into her overnight bag. “It’s been a while since I graced the boys upstairs with my presence. Might as well have a slumber party.” She gave an awkward laugh, hiking the bag up on her shoulder to edge around us.

  The orange scrunchie she slid onto the doorknob did not go unnoticed.

  “Take care of my girl, Ace,” she called over her shoulder, bumping the suite door back with her hip. “I’m leavin’ her to you.”

  “Thanks, Gabby,” I whispered, moving to let Wallace step inside.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, I drew a deep breath. Now what was I supposed to do? It was four thirty in the morning, and there was a half-naked man in my room. I wasn’t equipped to deal with these types of situations.

  There was no need to turn the lights on. Moonlight poured in through the window, flooding the room in a cool, otherworldly glow—a glow that felt eerily reminiscent of my nightmare.

  Our nightmare.

  It was clear we were still sharing them. There hadn’t been any need to explain the reasoning behind my actions; he’d already known. He must’ve watched himself die, too.

  “So, have you noticed?” he began out of nowhere.

  “Huh?” I jerked my head up. “Noticed what?”

  “This.” He held up his right arm, forcing it into the light from the window.

  What was he talking abou—

  My breath caught in my throat.

  A complex band, maybe an inch wide, encircled his forearm below the elbow. It was dark, like you’d find on someone who’d had tribal ink done, but there was a bizarre sheen to it. It was like oil on water—a myriad of colors twisting over the surface.

  “A tattoo?”

  “No.” He sucked in a deep breath and reached forward, hesitantly rolling up the short sleeve of my nightshirt. “The Mark of Nexus.”

  “What’s that?” The soft cotton brushed against my skin, and I shivered in response, following his gaze. Colors raced over jagged lines in an iridescent film around my upper arm, glowing in an unearthly brand. I tried to clear my throat. “H-How?”

  He ran a hand back through his hair, looking down. “I don’t know. I never thought…” He shook his head, a grim smile playing at his lips. “I didn’t think it was real.”

  I felt dizzy, staring at the band on my arm. It was different than his but strikingly similar. In fact—I darted my eyes between them—mine was the exact inverse of his, like a negative image. I rubbed at my arm, hoping to smear the thick black lines.

  No such luck.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, averting his eyes.

  “Why would you be sorry?”

  He was quiet for a moment, collecting himself. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I shifted my weight, trying to remain calm. “Okay.”

  “Grandma used to tell us all kinds of stories when we were kids. One of them was about markings revered as a sign of the rarest and most powerful of alliances—the Nexus.” Wallace paused. “A bond between someone of my bloodline and someone…like you.”

  “Human?” I ventured, noting his obvious discomfort.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, whenever a human and a Dyn…Dyna…uh…?”

  “Dynari.”

  “Yeah, that,” I agreed, suppressing my nerves. “So, whenever those two joined forces, they’d wake up with ink, and that was supposed to mean something? And why is mine up here”—I pointed to my bicep, before gesturing to his forearm—“and yours down there?”

  “Actually,” he said, letting out an uneasy breath as he moved to stand beside me. “I think they’re meant to line up.”

  Sure enough, the dark bands met at perfect height—as if they’d coiled between us. “Oh.”

  It was hard enough trying to absorb the fact that Wallace was some kind of supernatural being, now I had to believe he’d evoked something in me? The room started to tilt.

  “I think we’re missing something,” he continued, taking a step back to look at me. “I mean, my parents and grandparents weren’
t bonded, and they represented the union between our kinds. What’s different between us? We aren’t even…” He trailed off.

  It took every ounce of my self-control to keep my emotions stable. If I allowed the anxiety to surface, even for a moment, he’d notice. And then what? He’d feel guilty and try to distance himself again. That wouldn’t help anything.

  My brows knit as I thought it over. “Wait. Back the truck up. I thought people didn’t even know about you guys. How could this mark be revered by anyone?”

  “Revered among my people. No outsiders know or, to my knowledge, have ever known about our bloodline specifically. They’ve mistakenly tied us into different legends and folklores over the years, but they’ve never truly known of our existence. Only the humans we’ve taken as mates.” He blew out a sigh. “Until now.”

  “Your people,” I mumbled. “Why do you always act like we’re so different? Whether you care to admit it or not, human blood pumps through your veins, too.”

  The question seemed to startle him. “Do you think I like being different? I’d gladly give all of these”—he clenched his fist—“abilities back, to live a life like yours.”

  “Oh, yeah, because having superpowers must be so damn hard,” I heard myself say, rolling my eyes. It was a reflex. I hadn’t meant for it to come out, but it was the truth. “We should all be so unfortunate.”

  “Do you realize how good you have it?” His eyes sparked aglow in the darkness, and I knew I’d crossed the line. “I hurt everyone I touch, Rena. Do you still not get that? I’ll never be able to show…some woman I love her. I’ll never be able to hold her and sleep with her at my side, because I’ll be scared to death of crushing her. I’ll never be a husband. I’ll never be a father.” He panted hard, his eyes boring into mine. “I didn’t ask for this. Any of it.”

  I was paralyzed, overcome with his anger and frustration. The markings on my arm burned, and I realized what he was trying to say. He couldn’t reject the hand he’d been dealt. His blessing had become his curse.