"You know what," I laid in, "I don’t appreciate this shit. I don’t feel good. The least you can do is tell me who fucked up my room?" A pain the size of a knitting needle drove through my chest and made me gasp and grab the banister. The built-in shelf on the same wall that usually held pieces of family collectibles was empty. When the pain receded, I asked, "What’s going on? Were we robbed?" I had never sounded so little, even as a child.
No answer. The breath of the entire room was being held.
Blaire, dressed in a forest T-shirt and dark wash jeans, began moving through the room, never looking away. He could have been approaching any wild animal, but it was just me, so his precaution seemed ridiculously exaggerated.
Forcing muscles to relax to stop shaking for a moment, I faced him, asking, "What are you doing?" It didn’t work. His movement created a minuscule shift in the air current, causing a domino effect of shivers. Crossing my arms and clutching the material on each side of my neck, I spoke through gritted teeth. "Something’s wrong with me, Blaire."
I stared into his uncharacteristically empty baby blues, searching for some semblance of my Cale, and my chest jolted from fear that he really might not care anymore. I closed my eyes and threatened the pending tears with full animalistic wrath if they showed their wishy-washy asses in front of him. Then a mighty heat drew near, a wild flame that gladly crashed into the ice and rolled down my grave circumstance until a moment of peace did come. Releasing my stony grip, Blaire caught my hands in his.
Inches away, I blinked up at him and whispered, "I think I’m sick."
Peace spread from the crinkle of his brow to the outer corners of his eyes and sensual mouth. He made the barest show by shaking his head back and forth. "I think I’m very lucky."
"What happened to you?"
"You." Blaire got this expression that could scare a gladiator straight into the mouth of a beast. Just as expeditious, it was gone, replaced by a fatigued grin on a jaded face. But anytime his hair was slicked back, it hardened his overall appearance. When he didn’t use hair gel, scattered waves and curls broke the hard lines and reminded me of the boy I knew before the man I sometimes cursed for knowing. I used to lose at every sport in school because I was too busy watching Blaire. No one ever noticed, except my mother.
Darien burst through our intimate discussion. Grabbing me into his arms, he repeated, "You’re okay, you’re okay," like a mantra. Before I could protest, he blabbered, "Mom said you were strong. I should have listened. She was right. Mom’s always right."
When my hair was damp from kisses, and his rambling didn’t slow, I urged, "Let go before I walk right back up those stairs."
For some reason, everyone took that as a sign to gather round and, with the whirlwind force of a mosh pit, push me to the couch. Blaire was lost behind the bustle while Warren and Lydia flanked me on the sofa. Joshua and Darien just kind of stood back, and Gage danced from foot to foot out of habit.
Lydia brushed a casual hand through my hair repeatedly until I shot an expression reminding her that I wasn’t a mutt.
"Sorry," she smiled, biting the left side of her lip, the way she does when she’s excited. "It’s just, this is the outcome we hoped for after your cataclysmic event."
"Being?"
About to answer, Lydia was cut off when Gage sat on the coffee table in front of me and yelled, "Those motherfuckers tried to kill you!"
"With poison!" she exclaimed, not to be left out of the moment.
Joshua cozied in for the recap and Darien took off into the kitchen to cook five hundred meals. In the shuffle, Blaire disappeared into the office again.
It seemed my paranoia in Lucy’s house wasn’t totally meritless. The Dissenters played to my leopard half, luring me straight into a trap. The smell? A combination of toxic herbs to shifters, the most offensive being Zedoary, Banyan, Coriander and, for the true kiss of death, Flame of the Forest. Blood purifiers, body temp stabilizers, and anti-inflammatories. Helpful for humans, but to shifters with unique blood chemistries, high body temperatures, and larger than normal veins and capillaries to support a higher volume of blood… It incapacitates us while totally arresting our ability to change form. Otherwise, death in a vile. Well, in my case, death in a flesh bomb.
I tried not to cringe at the last sight of Lucy stamped on the backs of my eyelids as Warren and the rest nonchalantly referred to her as "the bloodsucker". It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. It wouldn’t have a week ago. A day ago. Not letting on that I actually cared, even a little, about a dead-dead vampire, I asked about the shadowshifters. That’s where the memory gap began.
"The coolest sons-a-bitches I’ve ever seen," Gage responded. Hands clasped towards the heavens, he pleaded, "Mother, in my next life, make me a ghost."
Another reason women didn’t hang around Gage long: He talked to his dead mother a little too often, and a little too public. Of course, we didn’t care. We were used to his weird shit because we had weird shit of our own. Obviously.
"That cool, huh?" I tried to smile.
"Cool enough to bring you home," Joshua chimed in.
"Well, to Blaire’s," Warren corrected.
"When the fuck was I at Blaire’s?"
The last time I remembered was Christmas. And I sure as hell wasn’t there for him. His dad, still sick, had just been ordered to permanent bed rest. No shifting allowed. No red meat, even. That in its self is a form of death, especially to an alpha male, a leader. So I snuck some deer meat and prime rib past his housekeepers, one in particular that fashions herself his primary physician in the absence of his real doctor.
"Shadowshifters rushed you there yesterday morning. They were eager to get you out of their arms before you croaked." Warren’s voice dropped off.
"I guess I’m bad company when I don’t feel good." No one took the bait. Actually, their perky mood quickly reverted to the catatonic spell I first encountered. Thankfully, Joshua picked up the story, though he remained gravely solemn.
"Blaire called Darien and, uh, when we walked in…you were convulsing on the floor in Blaire’s front hall. You started choking. This green foam bubbled from your mouth. That’s when oozy congealed blood started pouring from your eyes and ears. And your nose. At one point, blood was just coming out of your pores. It was like watching someone suffer the Stigmata. There was nothing left of you on that floor. Just a shell. Then it all quit."
"To your relief, I’m sure," I consoled, truly unable to decide how I should act.
They shook their heads in disagreement.
"We thought you were dead." Joshua’s voice was hard as stone. His skin turned the same faint hue of his gray shirt. "We thought you died…"
Lydia added, "Until you got up, a human possessed by something not even your leopard could touch. I looked into your eyes, Fray. There was no humanity in them whatsoever. You were feral. A wild thing ready to shred us." Before I could ask, she answered, "You tried. We scattered, we fought, and you finally turned your attention elsewhere."
"Oh God, what did I do?" Completely horrified, I hoped Blaire’s father was okay. The man was barely able to protect himself from a toothpick, let alone my crazy ass.
"You attacked his grandmother’s urn," she mused.
"There was nothing left," Warren added.
Lydia corrected, "Except ashes, of course."
Gage chuckled, "You killed it." He reminded me of Dennis the Menace when he laughed, except his hair was dark and shaved close to his scalp.
"I never liked that woman," I confided.
Joshua chimed, "That’s when the field trip was over."
Before Lydia could say more than, "So we brought you home," Gage interrupted.
"That was a fun car ride! I’m lucky I’ve still got my good looks and two balls."
Darien emerged from the kitchen carrying two plates piled with pork chops, au gratin potatoes, hash browns, bacon, and a few side veggies.
"I must be dead and you’re God, Darien. I’m starving."
He shooed Gage off the table. As he sat the plates down, Lydia moved to the other side of Warren, and Darien nestled into her spot to my left.
"Sister, you’re lucky to be here."
"Yeah, me and Gage’s balls." Blocking the mental image, I inhaled the food. Trying not to spit any out as I talked, I asked, "How is that possible, by the way?" Not that I was complaining.
Even with a few morsels in my stomach, the shakes had lessened, my head feeling a step up from a gong.
"Their malicious plan was flawed. When the slivers of vampire burned in your flesh, it eradicated most of the herbs before entering your bloodstream. The very vehicle of their poison is what saved you."
Again, a moment of silence passed for Lucy in my head. I ate the rest of my food without talking. Everyone else watched me eat the rest of my food. And when I finished, feeling much better, Darien told me Nash had filled them in on Rush and the Dissenters.
"Did you tail them?"
"Blaire sent Conrad." Of course, one of the few lepe I didn’t trust. "That’s all I know right now," Darien sounded deflated. His muscular frame slouched, elbows on knees. "I would have gone myself, but it took all of us to handle you."
I nodded. "I was what happened to my bedroom."
He shook his head.
"And Joshua," Gage blurted.
"What’s wrong with Joshua?" Could I be any more shattered? Joshua was one of the gentlest shifters I knew.
"He’s missing some meat off his back."
"It’s not bad," Joshua offered.
I walked over and lifted his shirt. Underneath were two large gouges, red and puss-filled, running from his right shoulder blade to his left side. Hugging him gently, I apologized.
"It’s nothing," he assured. "It’ll heal when I shift. I just haven’t had time yet."
Darien leaned into the couch cushions. "It’s been a crazy day for all of us."
"Day?" I panicked. "I’ve lost a whole day?" I ran to the window and jerked the curtain back.
"The sun will be down in an hour." Darien sounded as though the burden of the missing hadn’t escaped his attention one bit. He viewed it as a race we were losing. Not only would we lose our lepe’s children, as well as others’, but the failure would leave us open to attacks from those seeking to overthrow the weak.
"I’m gonna take a shower." I walked up the stairs to the destruction of my making. Sifting through the debris for my black pants and silver tank top, the anger grew so monumental I thought I’d become undone by its venom. It inflated like a monster scaling the basement stairs one ugly footstep at a time.
When it was too much, I picked up the broken wreckage of my room and broke it some more. I wasn’t driven by the poison in my veins this time, but by the poison in my heart. The dire treachery resting on my lepe forged a steel spear tearing into the inner makings of what I thought shaped my life.
Nothing I was touching meant a goddamn thing anymore. The sentimentalities lacing my room, and the memories they held, meant nothing without a strong future for my lepe. Those were the thoughts ruling my heart, anyway, when I ran a side table through the second story window. When the sound of shattering glass satisfied the raving lunatic I was in that moment, I heaved my iron vanity chair out the other window. It bounced off the walkway to be eaten by the multicolored rose bushes.
Gripping the sides of the empty window, torso bowing outward toward empty air, I vowed, "This will end tonight."
Chapter Ten
The showerhead sprayed in a wide umbrella, the equivalent to standing under a year-round spring rain. Moisture clung to the mirror and blue counter, creating a frosted appearance. The scene would have been soothing if not for the scalding water to nix the last of my shivers. They had almost subsided completely until a faint breeze swept past the ocean-spray checkered curtain.
Someone was in the bathroom.
"I’m feeling better. You don’t have to check on me every minute."
"Yes I do," said the man that couldn’t stay in my past.
In one swoosh, Blaire stood naked behind me and the curtain fell back into place. Water ran down his golden chest to one of his best features, if it were possible any part of him could be outdone.
"Why are you hijacking my shower?"
"We need to talk. Alone." His fingers played across the tender flesh between my shoulders and scalp.
Hawaii. Our one-year anniversary. That was the last time he touched me like that. Delicate. Sincere. Nothing to do with sex. Just us together in a moment. I remembered thinking it was so unexpected, a kind of perfect I never thought would be ours. The evening sky was beautiful, and the water ran across our bodies from one to the other like there was no divide. We stood under that showerhead on the side of our little bungalow as long as we could, until the world turned out the lights and the bugs found us too tasty. Then we went inside and the fighting started. I can’t even remember what we argued over.
Back to the present, I muttered, "What do we know?"
"I sent Conrad to the field today." Closing my eyes as he continued, his words became a beautiful sandstorm in my head. "He saw nothing unusual, but the shadows reported recent activity." I leaned until my back rested against his chest, relishing the moment. It wasn’t Hawaii. It didn’t mean anything to Blaire, and shouldn’t have registered in my heart.
"Traps have been set."
"By whom?" I asked, wistfully.
Blaire rubbed his face through my hair. "Everyone."
Nodding, I shared something I had yet to repeat to anyone. "I saw something before she… Before." The shiny flash that caught my eye before Lucy’s demise. "I’m going back."
His hands moved back and forth across my arms. "I figured as much." How solemn he sounded.
"I’m not coming back without them."
Taking a moment to rub his lips across my hot flesh as light as an angel’s wings, he whispered, "I figured that, too," in my ear.
The water sounded like tiny soldiers trying to free a great machine when I turned my ear to his chest. When I spoke, it was as if I heard my voice coming from the machine instead of myself.
"You won’t stop me?" It was a question in the guise of a fact.
Something, maybe a feeling I knew too well, drew me away from his chest.
He wrapped his right arm tightly around me, forearm lying across my breasts. Kissing a line to that sensitive spot just behind my ear, he sighed, "No one can stop you. It helps that I don’t want to this time. As acting leader, I’m also forced to remind even myself that the welfare of many cannot be sacrificed for the safety of one."
A faint smile played on my lips.
We left Hawaii early when Blaire received a call. When his father first fell ill. Immediately, the fighting stopped and we packed for home, never having to ask each other what we should do. Blaire and I were in perfect alignment. Hard decisions weren’t decisions at all for us. We know what is best for our lepe, the ones we love, no matter the personal cost. After we broke up, Blaire’s father commented that it bordered on blasphemy to waste such a natural phenomenon. From years of debating with Blaire’s mother over every lepe move, he viewed our harmony as a gift. I viewed it as a reminder of what the rest of our relationship wasn’t.
Blaire must have been reminiscing, too, because he laughed, "You would be the perfect woman if you didn’t make it a habit of eating fire before letting someone make a decision for you."
I turned, ready to dispense a snarky comment about one of his many harlots when he grabbed me. Pulling me in, his arms coiling until air couldn’t fit between us, Blaire kissed me like it was our first and last slammed into one sensational end to the universe as we knew it.
When I was jelly against the shower wall, his lips retreated. Resting his arms against the tile to the sides of my head, I stared into those blue eyes, so serious, so bare, and realized he had spent just as much time as I wishing one of us was less combative, more understanding, different enough to make us work. But we had to be true to ours
elves.
More than half of me willed him to say, "Fuck it, the world can burn as long as I get to kiss you like this again."
Instead, he said, "Leave word with the shadows and we’ll come for everyone."
"Will do, Blaire."
Flinching, he rubbed his forehead against mine. "Why won’t you call me Cale?"
Just the barest shake of my head and he gave me space. A lot of space.
"You have to earn that."
Something flashed over his expression. I expected his tough exterior to take over. The soldier. The leader. The leopard. He stepped out of the shower, and a part of him that used to soar seemed fallen somehow. Not weakened. Just…not the same.
"Do as I ask. Use the shadows. They’re our allies in this." I nodded but refused to talk. Looking me in the eyes, Blaire swore softly but with conviction, "I will come for you."
Then the bastard ripping my heartstrings out and using them as dental floss was gone, and I spent the next ten minutes washing his scent off. He had been purposely marking me the entire time. If it hadn’t felt so damn good, I would have called him out. Blaire was hoping any shifters I ran across would smell him—a dominant male—on my skin and think twice before messing with me. It annoyed me to admit it was a good idea. However, it would seriously fuck up my plan and I just couldn’t have that. Not when so many lives depended on the non-fucked-up version.
After getting dressed in the silver tank and black pants, I realized no one had said a word about Nash. If I were the last to see him when he and Lucy left her house to feed, then no one realized he was missing. Or maybe he helped set me up. Shit, shit, shit. Going to Lucy’s was on my agenda anyway, so I would look for clues. I crossed my fingers that he was as alive as, well, as alive as he gets, partly because I didn’t think I could withstand a second nearly dead-dead vampire encounter and, admittedly, because if he did betray me, I wanted a chance to give him a ‘Thank You’ stake.
Had I been forewarned, however, I would have crossed my fingers for a heart made of steel.
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