by Eve R. Hart
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
1 Cade
2 Theon
3 Cade
4 Theon
5 Cade
6 Theon
7 Cade
8 Theon
9 Cade
10 Theon
11 Cade
12 Theon
13 Cade
14 Theon
15 Cade
16 Theon
17 Cade
18 Theon
19 Cade
20 Theon
21 Cade
22 Theon
23 Cade
24 Theon
25 Cade
26 Theon
27 Cade
28 Theon
29 Cade
30 Theon
31 Cade
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Find Her
Other Works
Less
Broken
a
Project Shadow Guardian
novel
Book 1
By
Eve R. Hart
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Eve R. Hart
All right reserved.
The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof my not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writers imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is purely coincidental.
Warning: This book is intended for readers 18 years and older. This book contains violence, harsh language, and explicit sex scenes.
Cover image credit Shutterstock.com- Dean Drobot
www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/552869590
Dedication
To everyone that is a little different. So what if you’re awkward. Or clumsy. Or have trouble controlling your mouth in front of someone hot. You’re awesome just the way you are.
You’re totally not alone.
Prologue
Cade
“I need a favor,” Reed said as he walked into my dark living room without an ounce of care that I didn’t want to be bothered.
Hell, I’d locked the door and everything.
I could only blame myself, I’d given him a key, after all. That said, I didn’t think he’d use the damn thing against me like this.
Yeah, sure, I was sitting here in the dark like someone that didn’t give a fuck about their life, but that was pretty much how I felt lately.
I grunted and lifted the warm beer to my lips.
It was all I could do to swallow down the piss-tasting liquid.
How long had I been sitting here?
It was pretty damn sad that I couldn’t even answer that question.
I didn’t know what hour it was. Pretty sure I didn’t even know what day it was. Not that it fucking mattered anymore.
“I can’t help you,” I said after I noticed he had been talking for a while. I didn’t know what he’d been going on about because I hadn’t cared enough to listen.
I felt his eyes on me but I couldn’t move my gaze from the spot on my knee that had captured my focus for far too long now.
His fingers snapped and I knew it was serious.
With a raised brow that was supposed to tell him how little I cared, I looked up at him.
“I. Need. A. Favor,” he repeated. Every word came out as sharp as the glare he was shooting my way.
I dragged in a long breath and held it for a few beats of my heart.
“What?” I breathed out.
Reed was a good friend. Honestly, my best and pretty much only friend. I’d known him too long now, maybe. He was the only one I let get close to me after…
No, I wasn’t going to think about that now.
By the shape I was in, I knew he could tell I wasn’t dealing with it well. I didn’t seem to care, though.
“I think something’s going on with Theon. I need you to go down and keep an eye on him.”
His words had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat.
Theon.
His newfound half-brother.
I didn’t trust the little fucker.
Reed was a tech whiz and when he started working for his father’s company, he managed to find all the ways to do things right. Now that his father had passed, he was running the multi-million dollar company on his own. Not only that, but he was taking security to a whole other level. The zeros in his bank account weren’t something I could ever comprehend.
I’d met Reed in high school.
I had been running late because that was how my life always seemed to go, and I bumped into him as he was exiting one of the bathrooms. The halls had been empty but I was too worried about finding my way as quickly as possible to realize that he wasn’t in class when he should have been. But it was the terrified look on his face that had me stopping in my tracks. Then I noticed the dampness still around his mouth and dripping down onto his superhero tee shirt like he’d just washed his mouth out. And I felt a little pang of empathy because I understood everything he was going through.
“I just threw up,” he told me and his eyes immediately went wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses like he couldn’t believe he’d admitted that to me.
“Yeah, did that before I left my house,” I had told him right away in hopes of easing some of his nervousness and maybe even mine.
It seemed that we both shared the fear of the first day of high school.
Needless to say, we became friends as we figured out which way we were supposed to be going. And lucky for me, we had a lot of the same classes together.
Even after we graduated and he went to the college of his dreams while I headed off to the Army, we remained good friends. He was lucky enough to have a family that supported him and enough money to go anywhere his heart desired. His family had been amazing. They’d always supported me and even offered to pay for college, but I wasn’t that type of person. I couldn’t just take their money. In truth, their kindness and love had been enough for me. So, I told them what I’d done after I joined. Actually, I took the coward’s way out and informed them I’d be leaving for basic the morning before I boarded the bus that would take me to the start of my new journey.
I might have been a coward but I knew I had to do it on my own. And this was the only way that I could make something out of my life.
Reed’s mom had cried. His dad clapped me on the shoulder and simply looked at me with a gaze of understanding and pride.
Reed told me he’d always be there for me.
And that was it.
I hadn’t even told my own mother I was leaving. It wasn’t like she’d actually notice or care.
Reed’s words had been the truth. He had always been there whether I wanted him to be or not. Even now, he was here despite my shitty mood and lack of will to give a damn about anything.
I tried my best not to think about the things that had happened. Or why the dog tags hanging around my neck felt like a thousand-pound weight more than anything.
“Are you listening to me?” Reed asked.
I wasn’t. I’d been lost in my own little world and tuned him out.
I blinked and cut my eyes up to look at him.
He stood there in the middle of my living room looking nothing like the terrified nerd
I’d first met. Everything from his tailored suit to the perfectly-in-place hair hid the boy I once knew. Even the contacts felt like he was trying his hardest to hide who he really was sometimes.
“Look, can you go down there and keep an eye on him for me? Please.” There was something in his tone that had me agreeing.
He didn’t give me a chance to take it back. He started spouting off how the plane would be ready for take-off first thing in the morning. He even had the motel and car rental all lined up, which led me to believe that he had no intention of leaving my house until I’d agreed to help him out. He even assured me the motel was nice, not some sleazy place off the side of the road. Like it fucking mattered to me right now.
I wanted to hate him, but the simple fact was, I knew why he’d done all of this. Sure, maybe there was something going on with his half-brother, but mostly he wanted to give me something to do. He wanted to give me a purpose. And how could I hate him for looking out for me? How could I hate him for caring about me when I’d clearly stopped doing it for myself?
“I’ll be ready,” I mumbled, but couldn’t bring my eyes up to look at him.
All I had to do was toss some shit in a bag.
Oh, and sober up.
Shouldn’t have been a problem.
“I’ll pick you up at seven. We’ll get some coffee before I drop you off,” he said and I felt myself numbly nodding.
He could have sent a car to drive me. Hell, he could have let me drive myself. But he was showing me how much it meant to him and that he was with me every step of the way.
I should have been lucky that I had a friend like him.
But the darkness was simply too consuming.
It had oozed into every crevice of my soul.
I was breathing and walking.
But I was no longer alive.
1
Cade
Two days.
I’d been in this little hell-hole of a town for two fucking days. Nowhere, Georgia was a fuck of a lot different from Chicago. How the hell was there a university here? And what the hell would have been the appeal?
If it hadn’t been for the population of the college, I would have stuck out like a sore thumb. As it was, people constantly sent me curious side glances as if they knew I didn’t fit in here.
In truth, it wasn’t all that bad. But after living most of my life in a city that was so big that every time we moved neighborhoods I had to change schools, this was damn small. I had gone to eleven different schools by the time I graduated, I bet these people couldn’t even comprehend that, given that the population for this town was pretty much jack-squat.
The college seemed to be off in its own little world at the edge of town, having its own little road lined with shops simply for college student needs. Like this little coffee shop that I’d spent most of the last two days in.
Tucked away in the corner, I watched as people came and went. I had a picture of Theon and according to Reed, he came here a lot. I didn’t have to ask him to know that he’d somehow hacked into Theon’s bank account to get that information.
But I had yet to see Theon walk through the door.
It made me wonder if Reed wasn’t a little bit right in his suspicions that something was wrong with Theon. I was giving it twenty more minutes then I decided I’d wander onto the campus. Since I had his class schedule, I could hang around outside the building for his first class of the day. Maybe I’d be able to spot him that way and get a read on him from afar.
I knew he was alive. I knew this because I’d driven by his apartment building a few times and after figuring out which windows were his, I had sat watching for signs of life. I’d gotten them, but since he was on the second floor and I was parked across the street, I couldn’t make out much more than his general shape. I knew it was him though, just a feeling in my gut. The hair matched. So did the height.
I reached for my phone and pulled up the picture Reed had sent me. I hadn’t really looked at it because I hadn’t needed to. I knew Theon’s hair was deep red, a shade very close to Reed’s. His eyes were like Reed’s too, only a little deeper green. I studied the picture and noticed a sort of dullness in his eyes. Something I’d seen in Reed’s a few times but it never stayed long. I wondered how long that look had been there. Was it there before this picture was captured? How long did it linger after?
I shook my head and downed the last of my coffee. Four cups and I still felt like I was dragging. It could have had something to do with the fact that I hadn’t had anything to drink since Reed came to me and asked for my help. I might have been battling too many demons to count, but I knew this was important to Reed so I would take it with the kind of seriousness that I went into my missions with.
When Theon didn’t show, I collected my trash and tossed it in the bin right beside the door.
Stepping out of the little coffee shop, I took a minute to feel the sun on my face before turning and heading in the direction of the campus. I should have hated the sun, I’d spent so many days and nights out in the open, exposed to all of the elements. But something about being on home soil made it feel different. I couldn’t explain it, but I was grateful for it right now. As well as the sounds that were all around me. The rustling of the leaves. The feet calmly walking on the sidewalk all around me. The pleasant chatter between pedestrians. Even the smell of the wet grass.
It didn’t take me long to find the building I was headed for. I had the map of the campus memorized. Hell, I even had Theon’s schedule and how to get between each building committed to memory.
By the time the class had started, I hadn’t seen him.
I was half tempted to head over to his apartment, knock, and just confront him. However, there was something in the back of my brain telling me to hang around. So that was what I did, even going as far as wandering into the building to wait right outside of the room he was supposed to be in. I wanted to peek in the small window on the door but I needed to remain in the shadows for now. I had to observe from the outside because that was the only way I’d be able to truly see what was going on.
The door opened and I knew it was over. Before I could take a step back so I wasn’t out in the open, a body crashed into me as whoever it was flew out of the room in a hurry. My hands went out and wrapped around his arms to steady him. The little shock I felt in my fingertips shot all the way through my body.
“Sorry,” he mumbled but didn’t bother to look up at me.
When I didn’t release my hold on him, he finally lifted his gaze to mine.
That picture did nothing to capture the stunning color of green.
I lost my breath for a minute and just stared down at him. His cheeks tinted pink and I felt my lips twitch at the sight of it.
But it only lasted a second because I saw the ugly shade of yellow on the side of his face. I knew exactly what it was and by the color, it had been there a while.
His gaze, along with his head, dropped.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled and pulled free of my hold.
Then he was gone, walking away from me.
I turned and just watched him. His shoulders were slumped and he didn’t once look up as he exited the building.
I couldn’t explain what went through me right then. Something I didn’t even want to explain. But as my brain caught up with everything and told my feet to move, all I knew was that I had to protect Theon no matter what.
And that was the moment I knew I was royally fucked.
2
Theon
I hadn’t been looking where I was going. My first thought was to get out of the room as fast as possible. That was how things had been lately. I would arrive early and take my place at the back of the room for the last week. Like I had done for every one of my classes. I’d hoped to disappear in the back of the class and hide my head so no one would see the bruise on my face. Then I would get out of there as soon as it was over like my pants were on fire.
I still hadn’t wanted to admit that th
e bruise was even there, let alone felt like dealing with people’s looks of pity or disgust.
I certainly didn’t want to explain it to anyone.
I’d rather just forget the whole thing had happened.
If only it were that simple.
I was on the verge of cheering in my head at how I had made a quick and smooth escape when I crashed into him.
There was something about him that seemed familiar but my panicked brain couldn’t place it. I was too focused on escaping him and the strange tingle that shot through me at the feeling of his big hands on my arms. My face had gone red instantly and I knew there was no way to hide it on my pale skin. Sometimes I hated how easily my skin tinted and now, bruised. I guess it had always been that way, but I sure was cursing that fact even more so lately.
It was all I could do not to look back at the stranger. He’d said nothing to me, yet there was something I could read in his eyes. I had no idea what it was but my body had responded to it.
I tried my hardest not to think about him for the rest of the day. Only I failed horribly. So horribly that I ended up walking to the wrong class once. Luckily, I caught onto it halfway there and was able to turn around. I slid into the door just as the professor was closing it. That left me feeling vulnerable and exposed, but I did my best to brush it off and slink into an empty seat.
By the time my last class ended, I couldn’t tell you a thing I’d learned. All the information had gone in but I hadn’t paid attention to it. School had never come easy for me so I usually tried my hardest to soak up every word in hopes that something would stick. But I couldn’t even do that lately.
I tried. I really did. But every day that passed by, the realization that college was no different for me than all the other schooling I’d had in my life was becoming painfully clear. I really hated it here. I told myself to just keep going because I wanted to do something with my life. I simply wasn’t college material and I knew I could only fake it for so long.
Maybe I should have been worried about feeling like a failure, but the one thing that kept me going was the fact that I didn’t want to let my brother down.