by JJ Jones
“Katie, enough of this, OK? Just say what you mean to say, in plain English that I can understand. Talk to me like I’m stupid.”
“Aren’t you?” She smirked, pleased with her burn just the way she would have been when they were young.
He was about to rip her a new one for it, too, when Aubrey put a hand on his arm, a clear instruction for him to be quiet.
“How do you know that name?”
“How do you? Maybe you should explain it to him.”
“The Commander is the one who runs the operation that brought you in. He’s in charge of the whole thing. I don’t know his real name because he won’t let anyone use it, I don’t know why.”
“Well, because he doesn’t want everyone knowing who he is, of course,” Katie interjected, earning her a look from both Aubrey and her brother.
“Yes, I suppose that’s it. He’s the one who explained my use to the project.”
“A pretty face, right? Was that your use?”
“It was,” Aubrey said, close to tears at this point, “but please, you have to tell me how you know this stuff.”
“It’s in my blood.”
“What?” Chase scoffed. “Because you’re a shifter? What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it. It’s only in the female shifters, though, and only with the dragons. It makes sense that you don’t know it. It isn’t something that’s usually told to any shifter not blessed with that power.”
“But why not?”
“For the same reason that all shifters aren’t told about dragon’s blood. Think about it, Chase. Can’t you see how dangerous it could be? For the shifter with the ability to see, that is. It’s an ability that can be a terrible burden, one that the wrong people could easily brutalize a shifter in order to take control of.”
“I see that, but Jesus, Katie! You’re my sister. You don’t think you could have told me? Just me? Did you really think I was going to hurt you for it?”
“No, not with you. I had other reasons for not telling you.”
“Which were?”
“It wasn’t time. I had to go and I knew that you would try and stop me. And there are other things. Things you could only figure out for yourself. No matter how much I wanted to tell you those things, Chase, and you have to believe me that I wanted to more than I’ve wanted anything in my entire life, it wouldn’t work.
“It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. All I could do was leave hints so that they would be there for you when the time came.”
“The dreams. They weren’t just dreams, were they? Those were your signs.”
She smiled, took a sip of her drink and was quiet for a moment. Chase was having a difficult time holding on to whatever the reality of this situation was. There she was, his sister after all of these years. But it was like she was his sister and not his sister all at the same time. His sister, the girl under the table dreaming of fairy tales, his sister the sage, his sister the woman who would be working the pole later in the night.
She was all of those things, all mixed up together. Just as any other person, she was in no way one dimensional. Now that he was learning more about her, she was becoming a real, live person to him again.
It broke his heart a little bit, felt like a kind of a death, but it also gave him hope. It gave him something to look forward to because now there was another relationship to build if he made it through to the other side.
Now he had a piece of his sister back and that almost made all of the rest of it worth it. But there was still one question burning in his chest, screaming to be let out in the open along with all of the rest.
“You want to know why I left. That’s fair. It’s the question that makes the most sense.”
“So was that just an obvious question or does this secret dragon power of yours allow you to straight up read minds along with infiltrating people’s dreams and, oh I don’t know, seeing the future I guess?”
“Little bit of column a, little bit of column b? I don’t know. It’s all the same to me.”
“OK, so then you know my question. Why did you leave that way? Why did you leave me all alone?”
“Come on, sweet boy, you weren’t alone. You had Mom. You had Dad, too.”
“Have you talked to Dad?”
“No, can’t say that I have. Not in a long, long time.”
“He says you’re dead to him, you know. I think he means it, too.”
“I’m sure he did. That’s all right. I left because I could see that it was what I had to do. I left because things weren’t going to be safe any more and being on my own was the only way I could help.”
“But why? I don’t get it, Katie! Why couldn’t you have just talked to Mom and Dad about it, asked them for help?”
But it was clear to Chase that Katie was done talking now. It was like there had been a little door inside of her that had opened up to him, allowed him inside for a precious moment, and now that door was shut again. Aubrey seemed to sense it, too. There was a shift in the air that couldn’t be ignored. The sense of intimacy was gone. He didn’t know how long it would be before he could get it back again.
“Because I didn’t. Because being on the move was safer, OK? If I was going to stay in this country, that is, and I just haven’t felt like leaving yet. But here’s the thing. I can’t be the one to give you everything you’re looking for. That’s not my purpose in all of this. My role was to provide you with a warning, which I’ve done now. The last thing I’ll tell you is that for the final piece, you’ll need to go home.”
“Home? Where is that?”
“Right. You’ll have to visit our parents. You have to talk to Dad. You’ll understand everything then. You’ll understand why I had to leave, you’ll understand what choices you have to make. And that’s all I can tell you.”
Shit, when Katie said a thing she sure wasn’t joking. She said that she had come to the end of the things she was prepared to say and so she stood, grabbing her drink to take with her. He wanted to grab her, to make her sit back down and talk to him.
How could she be so eager to go when it had been such a terribly long time since they had seen each other last? And he wanted her to provide him with reassurance, just exactly like she had when they were young.
But as much as he would have liked them to be, they were not the same people they had once been; and maybe it was for the best. He loved Katie, still, after all of these years, but that didn’t mean that now was their time to be together again.
“Hey! Katie!”
He had let her go several steps before calling out her name and she turned back to him, rolling her eyes extravagantly as she did so.
“Were you always this annoying? Aubrey, is he this annoying to you?”
“Ha! Sometimes, but he saved my life, so I figure I can put up with it.”
“Blood bond. I know.”
“Of course you do,” Chase groaned, “and speaking of all of the things you know, how does this whole thing work out in the end? What’s going to happen to us?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t. It’s based on a decision that hasn’t been made yet. There are very few decisions that can actually be said about, but with this one it’s true. There’s a fork in the future and even I can’t see past a thing like that.”
“Did that really happen? Quick, Aubrey, smack me in the face. I need to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
“I’m not going to smack you, and you aren’t dreaming. It was real.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, wrapping his arms around her like it was the most natural thing in the world, like they were a couple and not two strangers thrown together haphazardly, “that’s what I thought.”
“You OK?”
“Shit, Aubrey, who the hell knows at this point?”
“You make a compelling point. So what do you want to do?”
“Looks like I’ve got to go
and see my parents. Feel like taking a little trip?”
THE FINAL CHAPTER
“I just can’t believe you’re here. And with such a beautiful girl, too. I could just sit here and look at you, just look at you all night long.”
“I think it would be better if you didn’t, Mom, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Oh, you hush up there, mister. With as few visits as I get from you? You’ll let me look at you for as long as I please. Only reason it isn’t longer is because I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your lady friend. Especially after how long I’ve been begging you to settle down, find a nice girl.”
Aubrey laughed, a real, full laugh that shook her whole body and left her cheeks hurting long after the laugh was done. This ordeal had very quickly taught her that it was important to find pleasure where she could get it, and this was a perfect example of a place where she could get it.
There was something so endearing about seeing Chase like this. It made him seem so normal. A man with a family, a man with a mother that reminded her in many ways of her own. It made her feel close to him, even closer than she already did.
She didn’t know if it was those warm, fuzzy feelings or the fact that she had finally gotten to take a hot shower, but she was starting to realize that she liked him. Really, really liked him. Or maybe it was the so called blood bond, or maybe it was that she was tired. Who could say?
Nothing made a whole lot of sense to her any more. She didn’t even see the point of trying to get things to resemble things that kind of made sense. For the first time in her life, Aubrey was behaving like one of those fly-by-seat-of-your-pants kind of person. It felt good, oddly freeing.
It felt good enough that she might just stay this way in whatever life she built when this was over; provided that she was given the chance to build anything at all. She didn’t really want to think about it, not now.
Now she had a belly full of a home cooked meal and a change of clothes (clothes she could only assume had belonged to Katie when she had still lived at home), she kind of just wanted a place to lay her head for the night. She was very much hoping that was in the cards, although her southern manners were ingrained in her deeply enough that she could not come right out and ask.
All she could do was fight to keep awake for as long as she could. Once she started to fail at that, she would have to just lay her head on Chase’s shoulder and sleep like that. She would make do. She had recently been through far worse.
But perhaps the lovely Mrs. Bends had some of the same ability as her daughter, because despite having just made it clear that she wanted to sit and talk to the two of them for hour upon hour, she hopped up, clapping her hands briskly and looking around the room to make sure that nothing was out of place.
“Well, I had hoped that your father would be home by this time but he’s been working so hard these days. Sometimes it feels like I hardly even see him at all! But here or not, you two kids need to head off to bed. And before you start trying to argue with me, don’t bother. I’m not going to take any kind of no from you, don’t even waste your breath.”
“I don’t think anyone is going to argue with you on this one. We’ve had a rough couple of days.”
“Say no more, follow me. I’ll show you to your room.”
Room? She was going to show them to their room? All of a sudden, Aubrey wasn’t feeling quite so tired. Scratch that. She wasn’t feeling tired at all. She felt incredibly silly for having any kind of reaction to that all, but it didn’t change the fact that she was having one. She had spent quite a bit of time alone with him over the strange, whirlwind week or so they had just spent together, but somehow being in a bedroom with him felt different.
She felt a surge of adrenaline, her skin practically on fire at the thought of the two of them alone in a bed. She was being stupid and she had zero idea where it was coming from. This was definitely not like her. She wasn’t the kind of girl who got all flustered or turned around by some guy; she never had been, anyway.
But she seemed to be having a very specific kind of reaction to Chase and even the thought of spending a night with him this way. She hardly heard another word Mrs. Bends said as they moved up the stairs. All she heard was the creak of the wood and the pull of the banister and, underneath it all, the thumping of her heart.
She kissed her hostess goodnight in a daze, watched without seeing as Chase did the same. Then, very quickly and not nearly quickly enough, she was closing the door, flipping the light as she went. There they were, just the two of them standing in the guest room in the dark. She could feel her body trembling and wondered if Chase could see it with his excellent shifter sight.
She needed to get it together, that’s what she needed to do. She shook her head quickly, desperate to keep from behaving like a crazy person. She moved quietly across the thick rug and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, pulling back the edge of the comforter and fingering its edge gently.
Never in her life had she believed that she could be this happy about the feeling of sheets beneath her skin. But they felt delicious to her now, sinful and decadent. She was so grateful to have this basic comfort given to her. There was nothing in the world that could be better than this, she was sure of that. She continued to be sure of that until she felt Chase’s weight move on the bed behind her.
The moment she felt that, well, that was the moment that she became painfully aware of the fact that there was something else that might be even better than the sheets. She just wasn’t sure whether or not that thing was off limits or not. She had no idea what Chase really thought about her, outside of the fact that they had been fighting a common enemy these last few days.
Fighting together didn’t mean anything when it came to the sort of thing she was thinking about now. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t this kind of girl! That’s all she could think, that she wasn’t the kind of girl to really want a man. She had never wanted Brent like that, not in the whole two years they had been together.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed him when they had been together, but she had never burned for him the way that she was burning for Chase now. It was a feeling so strong it felt more like a physical need than a desire and she took a deep breath, hoping that the moment would pass and she could just roll over and go to sleep.
“Aubrey?”
Oh god, even his voice was getting to her now! Could he tell? Could he feel the tension that was rapidly building in the room or was that all in her head? Maybe if she was really, really still, he would think that she had already gone to sleep.
“Aubrey. I’m going to try something. You just go ahead and tell me if you want me to stop.”
She couldn’t find the words to answer him and so she just sat there on the edge of the bed, nodding in the dark and wondering if he could see it.
She could feel his weight moving over the bed as he crawled towards her and she held her breath, waiting for the moment when she would feel his skin make contact with hers. Every single second that she spent waiting felt like torture and she thought it was more than she would be able to stand. She thought that she might scream, or just order him to put his hands on her and be done with it.
But then there it was, his strong, sure fingers moving over her shoulders, his thumb gliding over her collarbone and then sliding up her neck so that her loins began to quiver. He was teasing her, playing with her like he had all of the time in the world, and her so desperate for his body that she could practically taste it. His face bent down, his hot breath on the back of her neck, followed by light kisses down the base of her spine, her hands balling the duvet up with her clenched fists.
When his hands moved to her breasts, fondling them playfully beneath the sheer t-shirt she wore, that was the first time she cried out. She knew that his mother was somewhere in the house and she would be mortified if she heard anything going on behind their closed door, but she couldn’t help herself.
She tried to keep quiet and found that she couldn’t
manage it. Anything. He could do anything he wanted to her and she would gladly let him and then come back for seconds. All of the awful things they had been through, all of the tension and fear and stress, all of it came melting out of her beneath his sure fingers and when he pulled her down onto the bed, flipped her around so that she was flat on her back with him kneeling between her open, quivering legs, she gasped again.
The only barrier between them now was clothing that could only be described as flimsy at best. But it appeared that he had a solution for that, as well, and he stood up, right there on the mattress so that it bobbled precariously, and stripped his pajama pants off. He had nothing on underneath and even in the dark room, Aubrey could see his magnificent erection waiting for her to receive it. He got back down on his knees, took her shirt in his hands, and laughed.