Wild and Free

by Kristen Ashley

I swallowed.

  He lifted his gaze to mine.

  “I eat real food,” he stated, kindly taking the conversation out of the hot zone. “I do not fly. Nothing like that. Don’t turn into a bat, just a wolf. But as you know, I’m a fuckuva lot faster and stronger than your average man. I hear better, see better, smell better, all that shit.”

  “That’s cool, you know,” I told him softly, mostly because, it not being fresh and flipping me out, it absolutely was.

  He was back to the bacon. “It’s a burden and a boon.”

  I was again confused. “How is it a burden?”

  He looked back to me and I held my breath at what was in his eyes.

  “You live your whole life being different from everyone, Lilah, things can get shitty. They can also get ugly. People are assholes. The good ones are hard to find. There’s no one who knows what I am except Jian-Li, Xun, Wei, Chen, and now you.”

  “But…what about the women you…well, used to feed from?”

  His lips quirked at my emphasis on “used to” before he turned away and lifted a hand to grab a plate off the shelf. I lifted my own to grab the roll of paper towels and pulled some off to line the plate.

  All this was done while he spoke.

  He just didn’t say enough.

  “I take care of that.”

  I finished lining the plate and looked to him. “How?”

  He flipped the bacon again, he just didn’t speak.

  Uh-oh.

  “How, Abel?” I pressed.

  I should have known it was coming when he turned off the burner.

  Then again, I hadn’t known him for even a day so I really couldn’t have known.

  But one thing I could say for him, he gave it to me straight.

  “I can control minds.”

  I blinked, stared, then took a step away.

  Only then did I breathe, “What?”

  “I can control minds,” he repeated.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Don’t do it to Jian-Li or my brothers. Never. And won’t do it to you.”

  “But you can…you can…glamor people?”

  His brows shot together. “What?”

  “Glamor,” I snapped. “Like, you know, on True Blood.”

  His jaw got tight before he relaxed it and replied, “Told you, Lilah, nothin’ you think you know about vampires or werewolves is true.”

  “But you said you can control minds,” I shot back, sounding like I was getting panicked, probably because I was.

  “What’s this thing from this show?”

  That surprised me. “You haven’t seen True Blood?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I mean, if I were you, I’d at least be curious.”

  “Lilah, focus. What’s this thing you’re talkin’ about from this show?”

  I nodded, took in a breath, and explained, “See, the vamps look into their vic…um…well, the person’s eyes, kinda mesmerize them, and tell them what to think or say or do, or maybe tell them to forget something. Then they think or say or do that, or, you know”—I threw out a hand—“forget it.”

  He looked unsettled when his gaze went back to the bacon and he muttered, “Fuck.”

  “Oh my God, you can do that,” I whispered.

  He looked back to me. “No and yes. I can do that, all of that, but I don’t have to be lookin’ in their eyes. Don’t even have to be in the same room with them. Just gotta have laid eyes on them at one point, be able to remember what they look like, and I have to be relatively close. Then I can do it.”

  “Oh my God!” I cried, not knowing if this was awesome or terrifying. “How close do you have to be?”

  “Within a block.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  He looked to my mouth, then back to my eyes. “It will never happen with you,” he stated.

  I closed my mouth only to open it to ask, “Would I know if it did?”

  There was a brief hesitation before his “Not really, no.”

  Not really, no?

  I did not like that.

  I took another step back.

  He turned fully to me and his face got hard. “You have my word.”

  Suddenly, I glanced around frantically. “Could this…is all of this…?”

  I snapped my mouth shut and took two more steps back.

  “Fuck, Lilah,” he bit out. “I did not control your mind to be here.”

  “Dude, this, all of it…” I waved both of my hands in the air. “It’s super-sized weird.”

  “It’s also real.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “You trust me.”

  My voice pitched higher. “How do I do that?”

  “What would you never do?” he asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “What would you never do?”

  I took another step back, fairly shouting, “I’m not going to tell you that!”

  Then, suddenly, I started barking like a dog.

  I got three barks out before I heard his voice in my head saying, Stop.

  I stopped, lifted my hands, and clamped them over my mouth, retreating three more steps.

  “That’s what it feels like,” he said carefully, moving slowly my way. “I had to do it once, just this once, so you’d know how it felt and you’d know what’s happening right now isn’t that.”

  I took my hands away from my mouth and said, “But I didn’t feel anything.”

  I started barking like a dog again, two barks this time before his voice was again in my head, telling me to stop.

  “Again?” he asked.

  Was he sadistic?

  “No!” I shouted.

  Then barked.

  Then stopped.

  “Do you feel it, Lilah?”

  I hit bed, stopped moving, and lifted my hand his way. “Stay away from me.”

  “Pay attention, close attention, to everything,” he ordered.

  “Please stay away from me,” I whispered.

  Then I barked.

  And stopped.

  But I heard it then. Felt it. His voice in my head, whispering what to do, and the barely perceptible frisson it sent along the back of my neck, both of these beginning and ending in less than a heartbeat.

  He stopped two feet in front of me and spoke quietly. “The women I fed from, they know me, they remember me, they remember what we do together. They remember everything except me feeding. I free them from that block when it happens so they’ll want it, ask for it, get into it, but I put that block back up when I’m done with them. When I was younger, I did shit all the time, stupid shit, and I’ll admit, sometimes mean shit. But I learned from that. It can bite you in the ass and it isn’t nearly as satisfying as you’d think it’d be, even if they deserve it.”

  He took a step closer.

  I leaned back over the bed.

  He stopped moving but kept at me.

  “The stupid shit I did, the people I did it to, they didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing, or that I did it to them. They knew it wasn’t them, but they still did it. It was fucked what I made them do, but it was more fucked watching them react to doin’ something they knew wasn’t in them to do. The women, I erase my bite from their minds. They know they miss it, and when they get it back they think they forgot it, want it, have it, before I take it away again. They just don’t know I’m the one doing it.”

  “Right, well, don’t ever do it to me again,” I hissed.

  “You were freaking and needed to understand,” he explained.

  “You made me bark like a dog!” I shouted.

  He lifted his hands in the air and flicked them out impatiently. “Delilah, serious as fuck, would I tell you I could control minds if I intended to control your mind?”

  That made sense.

  Which sucked.

  “Don’t get rational with me when you just made me bark like a dog,” I snapped.

  “I didn’t harm you,” he returned,
dropping his hands.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “I’d never harm you.”

  My back shot straight at his tone, a tone that made the words he said burrow inside like they were writing themselves on my soul as a never-ending vow.

  “You need to know me,” he said, his voice gentling. “You need to understand what I am, what I can do, who I am. I’m giving that to you. I’m doing it honestly. Nothing held back. You need that. We need that.”

  He was right.

  That sucked too.

  “I think you might get all this is gonna take some getting used to,” I noted in my defense.

  “Yeah, I get that,” he replied.

  “It’d be freaking awesome if it wasn’t so fucking weird and didn’t come with people trying to kill us.”

  I saw his body relax and his mouth get soft before he agreed quietly, “Yeah.”

  “You want honesty, I’ll give it back to you,” I began. “All if this is totally flipping me out and I’m hanging on by a thread here.”

  “How can I help that?”

  He asked the question straight out and instantly, and after he did, my eyes fell on my purse on the table.

  Shit.

  I looked back to him. “We’re connected, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “No clue.”

  “Doesn’t it freak you?”

  “No, ’cause for the first time in my life, with you finally in it, I feel whole.”

  Oh my God, he felt like me.

  He felt like me.

  I closed my eyes and let myself feel it, something I’d never felt in my life until him.

  Whole.

  Even in all the crazy, it felt marvelous.

  I opened them again.

  “Is there more about the world I don’t know? Like, does Superman exist?” I asked.

  “Vampires and werewolves roam the earth. It’s a possibility,” he answered.

  I smiled as I asked, “Could you kick his ass?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied.

  “Cocky,” I muttered.

  He tipped his head to the side. “You want bacon and eggs?”

  “Do I have to drink the eggs raw?”

  His brows shot together. “Fuck no.”

  “Then yes.”

  His mouth still soft, he shook his head and reached his hand out to me. “You get the bacon, I’ll get the eggs. We’ll make breakfast, eat it, and you can tell me about your dad.”

  I looked into his eyes.

  Then I looked to his hand.

  Finally, I reached out my own.

  His closed around mine and he gently pulled me to the kitchen.

  He let me go to get the eggs.

  I took care of the bacon and commenced in telling him about my dad.

  Chapter Four

  Bigger than Anything You’ll Know

  Delilah

  After breakfast, Abel washed the dishes, I dried.

  I was putting the last dish away as he was walking to the milk cartons, talking.

  “I’ll go upstairs, shower at Jian-Li’s, then go out and get something to—”

  He stopped speaking and I turned to him to see his eyes to the door. He moved that way, opening it and standing in it. A couple of seconds later, his brothers, all of them, came through, one of them miraculously carrying my bags.

  Hallelujah.

  “For a biker babe, your woman does not pack light,” one of the brothers said as he came in and dumped my bags. He had blond-tipped spikes on top of his short, cropped hair, and he was wearing jeans and a tee that said, Wake up. Kick ass. Repeat. He was shorter than Abel (though, it would be difficult not to be, seeing as I reckoned Abel was at least six foot four). He was taller than Chen, but his other brother was taller than him. He was also taller than me. They all were, seeing as I was five-six.

  And he was the one who had chopped the dude’s head off last night.

  His eyes came to me. “Yo, I’m Xun.”

  “Uh, hey, Xun,” I replied.

  “I’m Wei.” I heard and my eyes went to the last one I hadn’t met. The one who might have sacrificed his bike to take out two vampires to save his brother.

  He had a faux-hawk, which looked awesome on him. He also had on jeans, but his tee indicated he liked the band Korn.

  “Hey there, Wei.”

  “Hey, Delilah,” Chen called, and I looked to him.

  Chen had a spiky ’do too, but his included ragged bangs that cut across his forehead. This morning he was in a skintight, red Under Armour shirt and black track pants.

  If I had to choose, I would pick Xun’s shirt as my favorite, though Chen’s was the hottest.

  As for the rest, they all had cut cheekbones that they definitely got from their mom. They also had downward-angled jaws that they didn’t get from Jian-Li, so I guessed they came from their dad. Xun and Chen had sharp, straight noses with flaring nostrils, which, if I was ever asked to tell you what a hot-as-shit nose looked like, it would be theirs. Wei’s was more rounded without the flare, but although his brothers’ noses were awesome, his was far from unattractive.

  “Hey, Chen,” I called back.

  “Right, the lowdown,” Abel stated, and I looked to him. “Xun’s the oldest. He’s also cocky and arrogant. Further, he’s in your face pretty much all the time, and by ‘in your face,’ I mean he’s in everyone’s face.”

  I felt my lips curve and looked to Xun, who lifted a hand to his forehead in order to salute me, apparently unoffended by these remarks.

  “Wei is number two,” Abel went on. “He’s cocky and arrogant and a daredevil in a way it’s a miracle he’s still alive.”

  I got that with the bike maneuver.

  I looked to Wei and he gave me a formal bow when I did, one arm out, the other hand to his chest.

  My lips curved bigger.

  “You know Chen,” Abel continued. “He’s the youngest. He’s the sensitive one. He’s also the comedian. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t cocky and arrogant and a pain in the ass his own way.”

  I smiled outright to Chen as he shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “It’s good you’re here,” Abel carried on. “You can drag Delilah’s shit up to Jian-Li’s so she can get cleaned up and changed. I’m gonna go out and see about finishing up the shower and toilet. I go, she stays up there and I want one of you on her at all times.”

  “You’re actually gonna make this dump partially livable?” Chen asked.

  “I’m gonna put a shower curtain up and a door on the toilet,” Abel answered.

  Chen looked at me. “Miracle.”

  I smiled at him again.

  “It’s gonna kill the mood of the dungeon,” Wei noted.

  “It’s gonna make the place more comfortable for Lilah,” Abel returned.

  That made me feel nice.

  “Finally. Been here a month and the place is still a shithole,” Xun decreed, then looked at me. But when he went on, with what he’d said, I was only half-listening. “He doesn’t even have cable and still has boxes of shit up in one of Ma’s extra bedrooms, including his stereo and CDs. Don’t know a man who can live without music, but it’s impossible for a man to live without TV.”

  “A month?” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” Wei answered, moving further in and doing it in the direction of the fridge. “Usual drill. Ma and Chen came early, set up the restaurant, got shit sorted. Then I came out. Then Xun. Abel finalized things in Daytona and got here about a month ago.”

  If I wasn’t freaked out, I would wonder about the “usual drill.”

  But I was freaked out.

  I was freaked out because a month ago I woke up with a rabid desire to go to Serpentine Bay. A rabid desire that was not about communing with my biker brethren while on holiday in a cool coastal town. It was a rabid desire for something else; I just didn’t know what it was (then).

  I’d gone straight to work and asked my boss for v
acation the minute I could get it.

  Which meant I lived a month needing to be on the road to Serpentine Bay. A month where my mother gave me shit (as per usual), my father gave me understanding (also as per usual), and I practically counted down the minutes until I could get my ass on the road.

  I’d arrived yesterday, unpacked my bags in the hotel, and went out.

  Searching.

  For what, I did not know.

  But I’d found it.

  “Lilah?”

  Abel calling my name meant my eyes moved slowly to his.

  He was studying me closely.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  We had an audience. It was clear he was tight with these guys. They were family the way I knew family, that meaning they didn’t share blood but they were family all the same.

  Still, at that moment, I didn’t feel like sharing the latest bizarre nuance of all that was happening with anyone but Abel.

  And maybe not even him.

  Yet.

  So I answered, “Nothin’.”

  Abel gave me a sharp look that would have been scary if he hadn’t vowed never to harm me in a way I believed him, as in believed him. Then I felt relief when he didn’t push it, just nodded his head and looked to his brothers.

  “Grab her bags and get her upstairs so I can get my shit done,” he ordered.

  “Roundin’ it out,” Xun stated as he moved back to the bags he’d dumped, “Abel’s the oldest. He’s cocky and arrogant and badass and should be a general, not a biker, seein’ as he likes givin’ orders so fuckin’ much.”

  “It’s that big of a pain in your ass,” Abel began. “I’ll take her shit upstairs.”

  “I’ll take it,” Xun muttered, grabbing the handles.

  “I’ll escort the lovely to Ma’s pad,” Wei said from beside me. I looked to him and saw he’d purloined a hunk of cheese from Abel’s fridge and was gnawing at it. He grabbed my hand, lifting it and curling my arm close to the side of his chest.

  That was when it happened.

  The room filled with something nasty and everyone went wired.

  “Don’t touch her.”

  This was snarled by Abel and my eyes flew to him.

  Wei let me go.

  “Brother,” he murmured.

  “You touch her only if I tell you to,” Abel growled.

  Holy fuck.

  “You know you got nothin’—” Wei started.

  “Wei.” Abel cut him off. “No reply necessary. Yeah?”